France Begins lts Renewal

 

Marine Le Pen and her National Front party are surging, and have become the biggest party in France. The latest polling data puts the National Front on 29 per cent and rising, well ahead of the centrist UMP at 25% and far ahead of the Socialists with 21 per cent in the upcoming county elections this month.

In the last presidential election Le Pen got 18 percent of the vote, the party got 25 percent in the Euro elections and now are expected get as much as between 30 and 33 percent of the vote in the départemental (state or provincial) elections.

The rise of Marine Le Pen and the National Front (FN) is due to a number of factors; the utter economic failure of the Socialists, growing disgust with the EU and the euro, and the growing violence and discord associated with the unlimited Muslim and African migration in France.

Unemployment in France is over 10%, and the punitive taxation and regulations pushed through by the Socialists has strangled economic growth and forced many entrepreneurs and skilled professionals abroad. The French increasingly see the EU as generating higher taxes and interfering with French sovereignty, and the euro as hurting France's exports by keeping prices high. And the backlash against crime and violence in 'la zones' the no go areas in France as well as the high social welfare costs involved is increasing.

Marine Le Pen represents an increasing French population that feels like aliens in their own country. And her cleanup of the old antisemitic tinge to the FN since taking it over from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen can be seen in the increasing support the FN is getting from French Jews...for obvious reasons.

The 46-year-old Le Pen is seen as a reformer and as outside the political establishment. And like UKip in Britain, The FN is seen as a populist conservative party, a replacement for the establishment UMP just as UKip is seen as a replacement for David Cameron's sadly misnamed Conservatives.

What do Le Pen and the FN stand for? An exit from the EU and then euro, lower taxes and smaller government. She wants a zero-tolerance policy towards attacks on French secularism, enforcement of French-speaking preachers in mosques and stripping dual-nationality jihadis who fight abroad of their French citizenship.

"Anarchic mass immigration over the past 25 years has created places where the [French] Republic has retrenched at the benefit of religious laws imposed by a few . . . There’s a link between immigration and radicalization,” she says.

In fact, the FN is strongly anti-jihadi, and Le Pen wants a review of French policy when it comes to Qatar and Turkey, whom she sees as supporting Islamist terrorism. For that mater, she also sees American policy towards jihadism under Obama as being totally counterproductive, saying that, the US is “the most discredited power in the [Middle East] region” and says it cannot be seen as a partner in the global struggle against jihadis.

She and the FN are staunchly anti-globalism, which has made her popular among France's farmers and agricultural sector as well as its manufacturers.

In short, she sees a vision of a more nationalist and independent France, one where the economy is unshackled and what she sees as the secular values and freedoms of the French Republic are reaffirmed.

The next presidential election is in 2017. The rise of Le Pen and the FN may be the beginning of France's renewal.

North Carolina Passes Anti-Sharia Law

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory has signed a new bill into law that prohibits judges in the state from considering sharia in their rulings.

The bill, which easily passed both houses of the legislature uses language that targets any foreign laws, without specifically mentioning Sharia and thus will probably avoid what happened in Oklahoma, where a Democrat appointed Federal judge ruled the Oklahoma law unconstitutional on th egrounds it was discriminatory.

There are similar laws now in Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Tennessee with several other states pending, including Alabama, where the legislature approved a constitutional amendment for the state's voters to approve in 2014.

Muslim brotherhood front CAIR was in the forefront of a campaign to get Governor McCrory to veto the bill.They called a 'national action alert' urging Muslims to e-mail the governor:

This “foreign law” bill is a thinly-veiled attack on the state’s Muslim population, that only serves to marginalize Muslims and to deny them equal rights and equal access to the courts enjoyed by other religious groups.

To anyone whom knows anything about sharia law, this is ridiculous. Under sharia, women are essentially property. There is no age limit for a girl to be married off, wife beating is acceptable, a woman's testimony is worth half of a man's and in some cases like rape inadmissible unless there are two male Muslim witnesses. Women have no custody rights to their children in the case of divorce ( which can be done on any pretext by a husband even using three text messages), marital rape is legal, non-Muslims are not allowed to testify in court, and homosexual behavior calls for the death sentence. Far from denying Muslims equal rights and access to the courts, banning sharia from consideration in America's courts ensures it.

It's also necessary to codify this because a number of judges have taken it into their heads to acquit Muslims of crimes like marital rape,child abduction and wife beating because they have ruled that the perpetrators cannot be convicted due to 'cultural norms' and their religious principles.

Another aspect of this has to do with Islam itself. In Britain, where sharia is mandatory for family matters and has the same force as British common law, Muslim women have not only seen their legal rights eroded steadily by the use of sharia courts but it has contributed to the UK's Muslim communities becoming almost a state within a state.

If CAIR and anyone else want to live under sharia, well and good. There are a number of countries where where sharia is the basis of law and the time I checked,our pots and our airports were still functioning.

But this is America, where our laws and Constitution ensure protections that are incompatible with sharia law. To live here in America is to accept that.

"Yes We Can" - Al-Qaeda's English Mag Publishes Wanted Dead or Alive List

Memri, the Middle East Media Research Institute has the latest edition of Inspire, al-Qaeda's English language magazine. This edition features a 'Wanted Dead or Alive' hit list of targets for 'crimes against Islam' , with the heading 'Yes We Can' and 'A Bullet A Day Keeps the Infidel Away'.

(h/t, The Weekly Standard)

The list includes Molly Norris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Flemming Rose, Morris Swadiq, Salman Rushdie, Girt Wilders [sic], Lars Vilks, Stephane Charbonnier, Carsten Luste, Terry Jones, and Kurt Westergaard.

Geert Wilder, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, Terry Jones and Kurt Westergaard are likely familiar to you. Wilders, Ali, and Jones are noted critics of Islamism and sharia, Rushdie is still under a fatwa by the Iranian mullahs for writing The Satanic Verses, and Westergaard is one of the cartoonists who drew the famous MoToons.

Molly Norris' huge crime was to initiate a project called 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day' after the fracas ( which included a suspected terrorist attack) over a South Park episode that didn’t actually depict Mohamed, but made fun of the Islamo-seethe over the subject.

A fatwa was subsequently issued by a number of adherents of the Religion of Peace, and our own FBI claimed they couldn't protect her and advised her to go into hiding. Molly is an American citizen whose rights are presumably protected by our Constitution. That apparently counts for nothing next to appeasing Islam in today's America. She'll be hiding and living in fear the rest of her life.

Fleming Rose was the editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that originally published the MoToon cartoons. He's already had a couple of close calls, as has Kurt Westergaard.

Lars Vilks is a noted Swedish artist who did a series of drawings of Mohammed. Swedish art galleries who planned to exhibit them were hit with numerous threats of violence and backed out, but the drawings were published in a couple of Swedish newspapers. While Swedish authorities refused to comply with demands from Swedish Muslim organizations that he be arrested and jailed, fatwas were issued, including one from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq which has offered a bounty of $150,000 for his murder. There have been several attempts to earn it. While our FBI told Molly Norris to fend for herself, the Swedes at least defended his rights as a citizen and put Vilks under police protection. He will need it for the rest of his life.

I have no clue whom Morris Swadiq or Carsten Luste are, but I do know whom Stéphane Charbonnier is. He's a cartoonist and editor of Charlie Hebdo, a French humor magazine a bit like America's National Lampoon that published a satirical edition of the magazine guest edited by Mohammed - 'a hundred lashes if you don't die laughing'!

Apparently the Muslim sense of humor agrees more with the Ayatollah Khomeni's famous quote about there being no laughter in Islam. A number of France's Muslim organizations went berserk, calling for Charbonnier to be prosecuted and jailed. The magazine's offices were firebombed, its websites were hacked, several staffers were assaulted and Charbonnier is likewise under a death fatwa.

The magazine's offices now have a permanent police guard, and Charbonnier will also need security protection for life.

I can already hear your response...after all these are just fanatics, most Muslim are non-violent, et cetera, et cetera. We've been telling ourselves that for awhile now.

But the 'fanatics' are surprisingly numerous, energetic, and mainstream, and in some of these cases have the active support of governments in Muslim states.And most of the Muslim organizations in the western countries involved have taken a firm stand that this or anything else they deem 'critical' of Islam ought to be criminalized, so they're essentially legitimizing what's going on. While they've almost all made grudging, pro forma statements condemning violence, were it left to them everyone of these people would be punished harshly. Even if they're sincere about condemning violence, all they really disagree with is the penalty involved.

And more to the point, prominent Muslim voices disagreeing with these sentiments and standing up for the very freedoms they enjoy in western socities are few and far between.

I have a feeling that the very opposite would be true if Muslim writers, artists and publications were being threatened and attacked in this way by non-Muslims. Non-Muslim liberals of both the political and classic variety would be absolutely vociferous in standing up for the freedom of Muslims to express themselves.

In fact, we can already see it in the Leftist frenzy over 'Islamophobia'.

Do most Muslims believe in a free society, not only for themselves but for others? Is Islam compatible with a free society, especially when the population of Muslims increases to a significant degree? Can a free society survive once that happens?

Western governments, including our own are bending over backwards to avoid even thinking about those questions, let alone answering them. But eventually, they're going to have to be answered...and let's not forget that not answering them is also an answer. Molly Norris, Geert Wilders and some of the others on this list would undoubtedly have something to say about that.

Kansas Passes Anti-Sharia Legislation

The Kansas State Legislature has approved a bill preventing the state courts or government agencies from basing rulings on any foreign law or legal system that would not grant the parties the same rights guaranteed by state and U.S. constitutions.

While the law is broadly written, it is obviously aimed at sharia, Islamic law.

Needless to say Muslim Brotherhood front group CAIR is seething.

"It is an effort to demonize Islam," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based council. "As Muslims are seen participating in a positive way in society, that really irritates some people."

Of course, someone could quite legitimately ask whether sharia law has any place in American jurisprudence, since it expressly denies equal rights to women, homosexuals and non-Muslims, legitimizes domestic violence and goes against the entire letter and spirit of our Constitution, and presumably that of Kansas.

In fact, there was a case in Sedgewick County that very much weighed on Kansas legislator's minds, where Hussein Hamdeh, a Wichita State University physics professor, filed for a sharia-style divorce in November 2010 from his wife, Hala.

According to their Lebanese Islamic marriage contract, all she was entitled to was a $5,000 payment, and Hamdeh's attorney told the courts that Islamic law limits spousal maintenance payments to her to three months. Her attorney told the court that following Islamic law would leave her "destitute."

The Kansas legislature was a little sharper than their neighbors in Oklahoma, who passed similar legislation in 2010 but had it blocked by a Democrat appointed judge and the appeals court because it specifically mentioned sharia, which could be considered discriminatory. The Kansas bill doesn't, and it's going to be a lot harder to attack, although I'd be surprised if CAIR, aided by the Obama Justice Department didn't try.

There are a number of other states considering this type of legislation, and Kansas will hopefully prove a model.There's some things that ought to be 'demionized' or at least beyond the pale in a free society.

If people like Mr. Hooper prefer living under sharia, the last time I checked you could still buy airplane tickets to countries that base their laws on it. And there's nothing stopping them following their principles, voting with their feet and leaving.

Pakistani Actress Defies Mullahs Who Accuse Her of 'Immorality'

This is an amazing video that's in the process of going viral.

Pakistani actress Veena Malik committed a grave sin, apparently..she appeared on an Indian TV show dressed like a modern 21st century woman and actually behaved with love, decency and tolerance towards the Hindus in the cast.

Because of that, she's being roundly condemned in Pakistan and is under a death fatwa from the Taliban.

But that hasn't affected her raw courage at all, as she lays into an obscene, hypocritical Muslim cleric who denounces her for her 'crime'...appearing on the Indian “Big Brother” show to show the Indian public across the border that not every Pakistani is a savage, hate-filled monster and that there are Pakistanis like her that 'who believe in love, entertainment and fun.'

Unfortunately, there are a lot more Pakistanis like the cleric than there are like Veena Malik. I hope she's taking adequate precautions.

(hat tip, Allah)

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