Polls suggest that although the presidential race will be tight, the gap against Erdoğan is widening.... [T]he CHP-led opposition bloc, with the participation of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, would win a combined 55.4% of the nationwide vote.

Reuters reported that new polls show the opposition's presidential candidate, CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leading against Erdoğan by more than 10 percentage points ahead of elections seen by many as the most consequential in Turkey's history.

Polling in Turkey can be a murky business. But with or without polls, realities spell existential danger for one of the world's most anti-Semitic and disruptive leaders.

In their summit meeting, Chinese and Russian leadership have done democracy a service of sorts. They have made their intentions clear and unmistakable. We need to have the strength, wisdom, insight, and courage to confront an alliance whose intent is to reduce America to a historic afterthought.

The newspaper Cumhuriyet reported on February 23 that a doctor from Ankara, who has been volunteering to help find missing children since the first day of the earthquake, claimed that the number of missing children was approaching 1,000.

The fatwa stated that it is not right to treat adopted children like one's own children and that "accordingly, the relationship between the adopter and the adopted child does not create a barrier to marriage."

"[I]t is reported that unaccompanied children are not handed over to authorized state institutions, but to people who say that the children are relatives, tariqats [radical Islamist groups] or organ mafia." — Association of Children and Women First, once.org.tr, February 17, 2023.

"The Ministry of Family and Social Policies must first determine the identity of the children.... It is unacceptable to deliver these children to third parties, individuals, institutions, or associations other than the Ministry. Adoption and foster family institutions should also be done lawfully in line with the Ministry's rigorous and meticulous investigations." — Hediye Gökçe Baykal, attorney at the Association of Children and Women First, to Gatestone, March 9, 2023.

"The basic rule in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is 'follow the best interests of the child.'" — Hediye Gökçe Baykal, to Gatestone, March 9, 2023.

Ignore Washington's hypocritical talk about protecting democracy. They want a weak government that won't make trouble when it comes to Iran, and they won't stop until they get one.

Washington made no secret of its efforts to directly intervene in a domestic Israeli dispute....

The people who jammed the streets... see the maintenance of an unaccountable court with virtually unlimited power as the only way to maintain the Israeli left's political power even when they lose elections....

Washington is... determined... to oust a democratically elected government by any means possible.

What the White House and State Department want is more pliable Israeli Prime Minister, who will keep quiet about the nuclear threat from Iran, and who can be intimidated into not acting too forestall that deadly threat to Israel's existence.

As for behaving like a dictator, Biden's predilection for governing by executive order... even when his diktats are obviously contrary to the constitution or existing laws makes anything Netanyahu might attempt look like child's play.

[Biden's] administration apparently thinks that when Israel's Supreme Court strikes down Netanyahu's efforts to govern – on the basis of no law, and only on the judges, subjective ideas about what is "reasonable" – it's a great idea.

[E]stablishment Jewish groups... joined the liberal groups in praising Netanyahu's surrender to the mob and then had the chutzpah to laud the protesters, who sought to sabotage the country to get their way without even any attempt at balance by treating supporters of the government and reform, who clearly outnumbered the critics at the ballot box last November, as equally praiseworthy.

[T]hey also understand that the hyperbolic claims that Netanyahu and advocates of judicial reform seek to impose a dictatorship or a Torah state is pure fiction.

What Biden and his supporters want in Jerusalem isn't so much an all-powerful Supreme Court... but anything that can help oust the prime minister.

The [Biden] administration is now willing to tolerate Iran having nuclear weapons as long as they are not going to publicly flaunt them.

This attitude isn't just unacceptable to all of Israel's major political parties. It constitutes a grave threat to the security of the Jewish state that no Israeli prime minister could reasonably be expected to tolerate.

The brazen nature of Biden's attack on Netanyahu... speaks volumes about how much the administration wants an Israeli government that won't cause trouble over Iran.

The Biden administration seems adept at launching grand schemes that make it look as if it is doing something about countering China in Latin America, but American leadership seems to be entirely absent.

This absence of US leadership in Latin America has become seriously critical: senior military commanders in the US warn that China's actions in Latin America pose increasing risks to US national security.

"What concerns me as a Combatant Commander is the myriad of ways in which the PRC is spreading its malign influence, wielding its economic might, and conducting gray zone activities to expand its military and political access and influence..." — General Laura Jane Richardson, Commander, US Southern Command, to the House Armed Services Committee, March 8, 2023.

"The PRC is investing in critical infrastructure, including deep-water ports, cyber, and space facilities which can have a potential dual use for malign commercial and military activities. In any potential global conflict, the PRC could leverage strategic regional ports to restrict U.S. naval and commercial ship access. This is a strategic risk that we can't accept or ignore." — General Laura Jane Richardson, March 8, 2023.

Unfortunately, ignoring those risks seems to be exactly what the Biden administration is doing.

What is the point of such [US] programs, however, if they are unable to stop Latin American countries from being forced to turn to China for leadership, or at least having the US try to counter yet another future Chinese takeover in Latin America?

Inviting Hamas and PIJ officials to participate in such events shows that the real aim of the so-called pro-Palestinian groups is not to help the Palestinians, but to incite and spread hate and libels against the only democracy in the Middle East: Israel.

[I]t sends a message to the Palestinians that the students and professors at the universities around the world support terrorism as a means to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

The participation of the terror leaders in the "Israel Apartheid Week" shows that the real intention of the anti-Israel groups on campus is not to criticize Israel, but to eliminate it.

If the "pro-Palestinian" groups really cared about the Palestinians, they would be speaking out against the repressive measures and human rights violations perpetrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It is hard to see how support for a mass murderer such as Soleimani and Iran's proxy terror groups – Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah – does anything good for the Palestinians. On the contrary, those who are empowering these terrorists are doing a massive disservice to the Palestinians, especially those who continue to suffer under the rule of Hamas and PIJ in the Gaza Strip.

Instead of building schools and hospitals for their people, Hamas and PIJ are investing millions of dollars in smuggling and manufacturing weapons and digging tunnels that would be used to infiltrate Israel and kill Jews. Instead of improving the living conditions of their people, Hamas and PIJ leaders are imposing new taxes and leading comfortable lives in Qatar, Lebanon and other countries. Instead of bringing democracy and freedom of speech to their people, the terror groups are arresting and intimidating journalists, human rights activists and political opponents.

All these violations are, needless to say, of no concern to the so-called "pro-Palestinian" students on the campuses. Have these students ever denounced Hamas for suppressing public freedoms and depriving its people of a good life? No. Will these students ever call out the Palestinian leadership for the financial corruption and persecution of political opponents and critics? No.

The "pro-Palestinian" individuals and groups might also understand that by siding with Hamas and PIJ, they are harming, not helping, the same people -- the Palestinians -- they claim to support.

The silence of the "pro-Palestinian" students towards these arrests actually causes harm to Palestinians: it allows Hamas to continue its brutality without having to worry about negative reactions from the international community.

The real "pro-Palestinian" advocates are those who want to see a good life for the Palestinians, not those who encourage them to embrace terror groups.

[T]he "pro-Palestinian" activists should, for example, wage campaigns to demand democracy and freedom of speech for the Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

These activists should be defending the rights of women and gays in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. That is the way to be a real "pro-Palestinian" activist. Being "pro-Palestinian" does not necessarily mean that one has to be anti-Israel.

Instead of calling for boycotts and sanctions against Israel, the "pro-Palestinian" students should invite Israelis and Palestinians to their campuses to build, not destroy, bridges between the two peoples. If these students want Palestinians to boycott Israel, they should offer the Palestinians jobs and salaries, not more messages of hate.

Just as Iran has used Ukraine's brutal war to test the effectiveness of its drone and missile technology, so China's emerging industrial-military complex is reportedly looking for opportunities to conduct a rigorous evaluation of its new weapons systems; Chinese arms manufacturers are reportedly keen to test the effectiveness of their new weapons systems in Ukraine.

Chinese drones, which reports say are due to be delivered to the Russian Defence Ministry next month, would enable the Russians to deliver warheads weighing between 35 and 50 kilograms.

China's People's Liberation Army is in the midst of a massive military build-up, outspokenly aimed at making China the world's dominant military power by the middle of the century. Global defence spending fell by 1.7 percent in 2021, and the US defence budget for 2024, with a supposed increase of 3.2 percent, after factoring in an inflation of 6 percent, is actually a net cut. Meanwhile, Chinese defence spending grew by 5.1 percent to $293 billion.

As part of its military build-up, which began in 2013, Beijing is aiming to integrate artificial intelligence in its command and control structures by 2035. In addition it is investing heavily in new fleets of warships and warplanes.

The Chinese military is said to be actively preparing to launch a military offensive to capture Taiwan, most likely before or during the US presidential election in November 2024, while the US is still under the administration of President Joe Biden, regarded worldwide as stunningly weak, and while the country is likely to be distracted.

Biden's repeated statements that he seeks "competition not conflict" with China, and that "We don't want a conflict" with Russia, can only be viewed as pleas not to escalate, rather than as a thundering deterrence.

"[T]he entire military must... concentrate all energy on fighting a war, direct all work toward warfare and speed up to build the ability to win." — Chinese President Xi Jinping, to China's armed forces' operational command center, Fox News, February 15, 2023.

Perhaps a more interesting sign has come with the purges carried among security forces with some of the more hardline officers moved aside or sent into early retirement.

If there is indeed a change of course, the most important part of the scheme is the prospect of normalization with Saudi Arabia.

Soon, however, it became clear that, flush with massive oil revenues due to high prices and rising exports, the Tehran leadership was reverting to its dream of hegemony in "West Asia."

Are we heading for a Deja-vu of the Deja-vu?

The deal grants China significant rights over the Iran's resources and help to Iran in increasing its oil and gas production. Leaked information revealed that one of the terms is that China will be investing nearly $400 billion in Iran's oil, gas and petrochemicals industries. In return, China will get priority to bid on any new project in Iran that is linked to these sectors.

China will also be able to pay in any currency it chooses.

The Biden administration's failure to lead is effectively handing the US over to China, Russia and Iran on a platter, actively creating a new world order with China at the top and the US potentially wherever China wants.

Where is our commitment to a "Manhattan Project" to strengthen our defense? Why is the requested defense budget for 2024 only 3.2% higher than the 2023 budget? This means in real terms, factoring in the current inflation of 6%, that the current defense budget is a cut. Worse, it comes in below the budget increases planned for the Environmental Protection Agency (19%), Department of the Interior (12%), and Department of Veterans Affairs (5.4%). In 2022, US defense spending as a percentage of GDP was 3.1%, compared to the 8% of GDP it was in 1970.

Thanks to the monumental serial ineptitude of the Biden Administration, China's President Xi Jinping, backed by his troika of oil suppliers -- Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran -- doubtless feels on the verge of fulfilling his fondest dream: Displacing the US as the world's leading superpower. The saddest part is that the reason is us: Why are we deliberately not protecting our Republic?

[W]hen the earthquakes struck, the Kızılay [Turkish Red Crescent] had, through a little-known business arm, sold thousands of tents to a Turkish charity, and scored a profit of $2.5 million, instead of dispatching the tents immediately to the victims free of charge.

The Turkish Union of Pharmacies was one of the quickest to respond to the earthquake. The organization wanted to set up "tent pharmacies" in the earthquake zone to distribute the most urgently needed medicines for free. It needed tents. It had none. It appealed to Kızılay for help. Kızılay helped by selling them tents -- at $7,000 each.

Turkey is a poor country, where per capita income is barely $9,000. The earthquake zone is one of the country's poorest. It was not a surprise that the Erdoğan administration pledged to build new homes for the earthquake victims. Nice? Nice. A local chamber of architects found out that the cost to build each apartment would be $40,000. The government said each apartment would be sold for $80,000.

Let us understand what the National Lawyers Guild is.

The Guild, in addition, refused to support Soviet or Cuban dissidents.

The Guild has never abandoned its Marxist-Leninist provenance. It supports Antifa, which also employs violence to disrupt speakers.

The National Lawyers Guild is not a liberal organization. It does not support civil liberties, due process or freedom of speech. It is the epitome of "free speech for me but not for thee."

Many decent people question whether hateful, offensive and even speech deemed "dangerous" by some, should be protected. The answer resides in history. Whenever governments are empowered to ban such expression, they use that power expansively, to censor speech critical of their leaders or partisans. The appetite of the censor is voracious. What are seen as legitimate opinions by dissenters are deemed by others — especially those in power — as hateful, offensive or dangerous. Freedom of speech for all is anything but free. It can be hurtful and risky. But in the end, it is worth the costs.

It deplores capitalism and the free market: "don't fund capitalism, fund the groups working to dismantle it." And it opposes due process for those with whom it disagrees, for instance, declaring of a "Mass Defense Program" that sends out "legal workers, law students, and lawyers providing legal support for protests": "We will only show up to actions and in support of movements that directly align with our values."

Since its inception, the National Lawyers Guild has relied on "useful idiots" – well-meaning left-wingers and liberals who have no idea what the Guild really represents. It disguises its most extreme positions when presenting itself to the public, but advertises them to its members. It also hides from the public the fact that despite its name, the membership Guild consists primarily of non-lawyers. When it was truly a lawyers' organization, it was slightly more centrist. And then in the 1970s, the Guild opened its membership to "jailhouse lawyers" (who are not lawyers), legal workers (who are not lawyers), law students (who are not yet lawyers) and anyone else who works with or for lawyers or law firms.

The Guild has more than 100 chapters in American law schools. Its membership includes many law professors. It apparently plans to organize nationwide disruptions of the kind we have seen at Stanford. The Guild creates the illusion that these disruptions are spontaneous reactions to conservative provocations. They are anything but.

As the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall observed: "The freedom to speak and the freedom to hear are inseparable; they are two sides of the same coin." These disrupters violated both rights.

Thus far disruptions have occurred at Yale, Stanford and Georgetown law schools. But you can be sure that they are coming to a law school near you. The NLG will not be satisfied until no conservative speaker is allowed to speak at any law school. That is its objective, and it may well succeed, because cowardly administrators — especially deans of diversity, in order to avoid the embarrassment of what happened at Stanford, Yale and Georgetown — will try to make sure that conservative speakers are not invited. They understand that it is much harder to object to the less visible non-invitation of conservative speakers than to publicly disrupting them.

We who support freedom of speech for all sides must organize as well. We cannot count on the American Civil Liberties Union anymore: its silence supports the censorship of the National Lawyers Guild. Our voices must be heard against censorship-by-disruption, by non-invitation or by any other improper means.

[E]conomic writer Charles Hugh Smith has repeatedly warned [about] the "crapification" of the U.S. economy.... customers with scant other buying options are forced to accept that few purchases will last.

Politicians seem to be heading in a similar direction.... Western governments are filled to the brim with people entirely lacking in real-world experience or specialized knowledge.

In recent decades, a noticeable trend in the West has been to elevate politicians, as young and inexperienced as possible, into offices as high as possible.... Such a system -- in which those who have proven themselves the least are given responsibilities that would test even those who have proven themselves time and again -- hardly looks ideal.

If Western politicians seem just as second-rate these days as what customers all too often find in stores, there may be a simple reason why: International financial titans make, sell, and own both... and may be planning to own you, too.

Today, China is victorious by sponsoring the historic agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, while the US has a new president who comes to destroy agreements reached by his predecessor, and even brags about it during his election campaign and his presidency." — Saeed Al-Mryti, Saudi political activist, Twitter, March 14, 2023.

"[N]o matter how hard analysts try to beautify the situation for US policy, what Saudi Arabia has done today is a direct and successful blow to the Biden administration and its policy in the Middle East." — Jubran Al-Khoury, Lebanese political analyst, annahar.com, March 12, 2023.

It is thus no surprise that Iran and its terror proxies – Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah – are expressing profound satisfaction over the Saudi-Iranian agreement. In their eyes, the agreement is an indication of the growing weakness of the US and the failed policy of the Biden administration in the Middle East. Thanks to the US administration's fragility, the Iranian-led axis of evil has been significantly emboldened as America's erstwhile Arab allies are rushing towards the open arms of the mullahs in Tehran.

[T]hose who took to the streets and protested the regime were all too aware that the most inhuman punishments and executions awaited them as retaliation for their struggle for freedom. Such courage and sacrifice for democracy and human rights must not be swept aside -- these heroic people need and deserve immediate support.

More than 19,600 Iranians have been arrested during the protests; several have been executed. The information, coming from human rights organizations, about how Iran treats political prisoners is terrifying.

In addition, more than 1,000 schoolgirls have been poisoned as "retaliation" and to shut down schools in a move to stop education for girls. As the Wall Street Journal remarked, compared to Iran, Saudi Arabia is Switzerland.

Several members of parliament in Europe and North America have become political sponsors of political prisoners in Iran. The purpose of the political sponsorship is for parliamentarians to use their status and put pressure on the regime in Iran to release the political prisoners and draw attention to their cases. It is also a way to show the regime in Iran that the world sees and condemns them and cares -- with action -- about those Iranians who are fighting every day for the same freedom that we take so for granted.

This author has chosen to become a political sponsor for Soheila Hejab, who is now in prison after being accused of "propaganda against the state", "gathering and collusion", and "disrupting public order to create chaos". Like many other prisoners in Iran, Hejab has not received medical care; her health is rapidly deteriorating.

This article is a plea for more parliamentarians in democratic countries sponsor political prisoners in Iran -- to show that their protests are not in vain and that the world has heard their cries for freedom, democracy and human rights.

If the brave individuals who stood up to the mullahs are now ignored simply because the regime in Iran has a security apparatus that has temporarily succeeded in silencing them, fewer will feel compelled in the future to stand up to oppressors -- in Iran or other dictatorships -- thus empowering the normalization of dictatorships. When fewer people stand up to oppressors, dictatorships and oppression become "normal": that is the biggest threat to democracy.

The best way, therefore, to work for democracy and human rights is to support those who today risk their lives to overthrow dictatorships such as the one in Iran. If these brave people are prepared to risk their lives and the lives of their families for democracy, the least we can do is to give them totally committed support from the West.

We need to label the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a Foreign Terrorist Organization and expel Iranian supporters of the regime from Western and European countries. In addition to that, individual parliamentarians can stand behind and "adopt" a political prisoner to draw attention to their cases, legitimize the democratic revolution and above all, delegitimize the savage, expansionist regime of Iran.

From the start of the conflict one of [Putin's] key assumptions has been that the Western powers were too weak and divided to sustain their support for the Ukrainian cause, and so it is proving.

This depressing picture will undoubtedly be interpreted by Putin as justifying his view that the West would eventually lose interest in the Ukraine conflict and that, for all the public pledges of support, the Western alliance does not want Ukraine to win after all.

There are also wider global security implications: if Putin is able to get his way. In Ukraine, he will be encouraged in the belief that he can expand his territorial ambitions into other parts of Europe. Other adversaries of the West will not fail to see a second US retreat as yet another vacuum -- a green light for their territorial expansion, as well.

For example, an investigation undertaken by the Dossier Centre, a group funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a long-standing critic of Putin, has warmed that the Kremlin plans to take over Moldova by the end of the decade, a threat also delivered in early February by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as well as a year ago by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko "standing in front of a battle map that appears to show a planned invasion of Moldova, along with Ukraine."

Moscow has also threatened to attack airfields in Poland, a NATO member state, which would require a military response from the entire NATO alliance, thereby provoking all-out war between Russia and the West. At that point, the conflict would very much become a "vital interest" for Washington.

Fortunately there are still countries such as Poland that have no intention of abandoning the Ukrainian cause. On the contrary, the plucky Poles have just reaffirmed their commitment to Kyiv by becoming the first NATO member state to send warplanes to Ukraine: Warsaw is planning to send four MIG-29 fighters.

It is a move that the Biden Administration and other allies should be encouraged to replicate. That is leadership -- and what many Americans seem starved for: a Churchill, not a Chamberlain. A reminder: it would have been so much less costly in life and treasure to have stopped Hitler before he crossed the Rhine.

In an attempt to persuade DeSantis to change his mind, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has invited the Florida Governor to visit him in Kyiv.

It is an invitation DeSantis would be well-advised to accept.