RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/01/the-rape-jihad-is-unmentionable-because-its-doctrinal/

Yet British officials knew what was happening on a rampant scale. It was impossible not to know.

In our pages, over a decade ago, I scoffed at a colleague who had suggested that ISIS — the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, which used to be the Iraqi franchise of its now rival al-Qaeda — might be concerned that Western nations were on to its rape jihad. Even if we indulged the fantasy that jihadists were possessed of the civilized sensibility that would trigger such a concern, I countered that “the shocking Rotherham rape jihad scandal” that had erupted in England would assure them that “the West is far more likely to look the other way than to mobilize against this signature sexual abuse.”

This is akin to a point so eloquently made by such fearless truth-tellers as John O’Sullivan, Douglas Murray, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Among the most heinous elements of the sudden interest in the rape jihad, catalyzed by Elon Musk’s admirable hounding of Britain’s oh-so-progressive government, is that the “grooming gangs” are a very old story. The rape jihad wasn’t hiding in plain sight; it was willfully covered up by Parliament, by Britain and its allies in Europe’s transnational progressive project, and by the American cognoscenti. Talking about it was a surer guarantee of pariah status than participating in it.

And then there’s the why. Why is it a signature sexual abuse that we’re not supposed to talk about? Well, because it’s deeply rooted in Islamic scripture. If you have the temerity to notice that, there looms the risk of admonition that the problem is not the rape jihad but your “Islamophobia.”

Back in that 2014 column, written when ISIS was conquering territory the size of Britain and reveling in the spoils, I quoted one of the jihadists who was gleefully anticipating “slave market day.” The Koran, he insisted, authorizes Muslims to sexually exploit “the (captives) whom their right hands possess.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21299/iran-nuclear-negotiation-trap

Lest anyone think that this is a genuine attempt at diplomacy, it is not. Rather, it is a maneuver aimed at deceptively buying time, avoiding sanctions and deflecting impending actions of the Trump administration.

Iran’s regime is playing a game of manipulation, apparently hoping to mislead the world and stave off serious consequences — namely losing their nuclear weapons program — which, mind-bogglingly, it denies even having, as well as, more importantly, losing their jobs…. It is a tactic known by every four-year old and absolutely should not be taken at face value.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who backed HTS, apparently now sees a neo-Ottoman Turkey finally replacing Iran as the aspiring hegemon in the region, with himself as sultan.

The regime’s goal is clear: buy time, reach a sweetheart deal similar to the one it was handed by the Obama administration, secure sanctions relief and opportunities to complete its nuclear weapons.

Unless Iran is stopped, it will continue covertly to advance its nuclear weapons program – regardless, of course, of any agreements made.

Will the incoming Trump administration let themselves be gamed and permit Iran to be capable of threatening the region again as soon as Trump’s term is up? Iran’s request for negotiations sadly seems part of a larger strategy to enable it to resume its reign of terror. The Trump administration must not allow it to succeed…. Make Persia Safe Again! — for the Iranian people and for enduring global peace.

The Iranian regime has made a sudden and calculated move to engage in talks about nuclear weapons. The UK, France, and Germany have announced that negotiations will begin on January 13.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/what-venezuelas-opposition-leader-said-about-her-personal-safety-before-maduros-forces-kidnapped-her/

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was kidnapped by her country’s dictatorship today as she left a political rally in the Chacao neighborhood of Caracas. It was the first time she had come out of hiding since Nicolás Maduro stole elections in the country last year.

In a conversation with National Review on January 3 — among Machado’s last media interviews prior to the kidnapping today — she told me that she was in a “safe place.” While other opposition politicians had sought asylum abroad, she stayed in Venezuela, biding her time until she could launch a new wave of demonstrations today.

The article I wrote about our conversation focused on her remarks about the demonstrations she launched today to coincide with the inauguration of Maduro pursuant to last July’s sham election and her relationship with the incoming Trump administration. But other comments she made in our conversation speak to her immense bravery, especially in light of the regime’s attack on her today,

Right off the bat, I had asked Machado about the fact that she had gone into hiding after the election, from which Maduro disqualified her, almost certainly because of her immense popularity (and his unpopularity). I asked if she was safe.

“I’m sure you’re aware of what happened at the end of July and just after the election. The regime unleashed a brutal wave of oppression against ordinary citizens just because they were involved in monitoring the election, but also against everyone else that was involved and had a responsibility in organizing the process,” she said.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/uk-parliament-votes-364-to-111-against-muslim-rape-gang-investigation/

The Labour government had announced that it was responding to the brutal Muslim killing of a little girl in the UK with a crackdown on homeschooling that it had dubbed the ‘Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill’.

While Labour was trying to turn that Islamic crime into an assault on homeschooling parents, Conservatives fought to include a call for an inquiry into the Pakistani Muslim ‘grooming’ rape gangs.

Labour however successfully blocked the inquiry in a 364 to 111 vote.

Not a single Labour MP voted for it. And that’s understandable.

Even assuming that the high numbers for rape victims in the UK are correct, the UK still has 4 million Muslims.

250,000 votes of rape victims vs 4 million bloc votes concentrated in key areas is really no contest.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/argentina-president-javier-milei-economy-inflation

Just over a year ago, Javier Milei, the eccentric, chainsaw-wielding libertarian economist, won the presidency in Argentina against a backdrop of soaring inflation and rising poverty. Since taking office, Milei has aggressively pursued a free-market program of fiscal austerity and deregulation. This approach contrasts strongly with Perónism, the strongly interventionist economic ideology followed by most Argentine presidents since its namesake, Juan Perón, rose to power in 1946.

Milei’s critics, including prominent economists such as Thomas Piketty, warned that his agenda would prove catastrophic. Though Argentina still faces severe economic challenges, Milei has largely proven these doubters wrong and achieved several victories worth celebrating.

Monthly inflation has fallen sharply since Milei took office. Rising prices have been a recurring problem in Argentine history, with the government frequently turning to the central bank to print money to finance its excesses. Unlike many of his predecessors, Milei has reduced federal spending (by 28 percent) and cut the number of federal ministries in half.

This fiscal discipline has been paying off. In October 2024, Argentina achieved its first budget surplus in 12 years. Since last May, monthly inflation has stayed below 5 percent; in November, it was 2.4 percent, the lowest since July 2020.

If we annualize the data since May 2024 (that is, if we express these monthly changes as if they had lasted an entire year), we find annual inflation trending down to about 33 percent. While that is extremely high by American standards, it’s a welcome change for Argentina, which has been reeling from triple-digit inflation on a year-over-year basis since the beginning of 2023.

Austerity has not been painless, as Milei himself cautioned in his inaugural address. Slashing government spending deepened the recession that began in 2023, and poverty and unemployment have both risen. But the recession ended in the third quarter of 2024, as the economy grew at a 3.9 annual rate. Economists now forecast that Argentina’s economy will expand 4.2 percent in 2025.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/justin-trudeaus-legacy-a-weakened-canada

Justin Trudeau, possibly the worst prime minister in the history of Canada, has resigned. Sort of. He has stepped down as leader of the Liberal Party and won’t run in the next election but will remain at his post until a new leader is chosen. Meantime, Parliament will be prorogued—or discontinued without being dissolved—to avoid the possibility of a successful no-confidence motion, which would surely topple the Trudeau government. The next election is scheduled for October of this year, but in all likelihood it will take place earlier, at some point this spring. So, Canadians will still have to endure another few months of Trudeau—a ham-fisted resignation if there ever was one.

Trudeau’s Liberal Party also seems bound for electoral destruction. All the polls are dire, but some suggest that the defeat will be so thorough that the Liberals may not even win enough seats to be a recognized party. This is a spectacular decline. What makes it even more striking is that Trudeau almost singlehandedly revived the old Liberal Party in 2015 after about a decade of successive defeats, turning a seemingly moribund third-place party into a government. Now the restorer has become the euthanizer. How did it happen?

Trudeau came to power after years of ever larger and increasingly stable Conservative governments under Prime Minister Stephen Harper (2006–2015). Conservatives had been in power before, if rarely, in the twentieth century, but Harper’s party had taken a more ideological and populist turn after an electoral wipe-out in 1993. The renewed Conservative Party was anchored in western Canada, far from the Liberal strongholds of Toronto and Montreal, whose elites had governed Canada for most of the twentieth century. Western Canada’s concerns—agriculture, oil and gas, and other commodities—rose to prominence as never before, and so did a new governing class.

But the old Liberal elite hated them and never saw the new Conservatives as legitimate. The reaction was often hysterical, with some partisans proclaiming that Harper was a more dangerous threat to Canada than ISIS. Trudeau himself captured the Liberal mood when he mused about the possibility of “making Quebec a country” if Canada were genuinely “Stephen Harper’s Canada,” and he insisted on the need to put Quebeckers rather than western Canadians in charge of our “community and socio-democratic agenda,” whatever that meant.