The House Republican Conference has drafted a bill that would provide military aid to Israel funded by redistributed funds from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
On Oct. 19, President Joe Biden delivered a speech from the Oval Office calling on Americans to support his administration’s proposed legislation that sends $100 billion of military aid to both Ukraine in its war against Russia and Israel in its conflict against Hamas, with some money being appropriated for border security and immigration processing. Amid widespread opposition among Republicans regarding aid to Ukraine, the House Republican Conference unveiled a bill that would allocate $14.3 billion for military aid only to Israel, offsetting the cost with repurposed funds from a portion of the $80 billion to the IRS enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act. (RELATED: ‘The Worst Thing For Israel’: House Republicans Quickly Dismiss Biden’s Latest Aid Package For Israel And Ukraine)
The bill, known as the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, calls for the spending of money to procure weapons, ammunition and missiles, according to its text. It also allocates $1.2 billion to support Israel’s efforts to develop a laser-based missile defense system against rocket attacks from Hamas in Gaza, known as the “Iron Dome” program, which is also a priority that the administration’s proposed legislation would fund.
The bill was reportedly introduced by Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas’ 12th District, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, according to the New York Post. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate by Republican Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas and J.D. Vance of Ohio.
The bill would also allocate $100 million to increase security for U.S. diplomatic missions in Israel and the surrounding region that have faced threats following the United States’ declaration of support for Israel after the attacks. It would further allocate $5o million to evacuate U.S. citizens from the country during hostilities.
The demand for a single bill regarding Israel, aid to which enjoys bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, has been a refrain of Republican members of Congress since Biden announced his package. However, the reduction of funds from the IRS, which has been a target of House Republicans during the 118th Congress, is likely to be opposed by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The White House and the office of the speaker of the House of Representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iran-backed forces across the Middle East have attacked American positions and allies at least 23 times in the last two weeks, the Pentagon said Monday, adding that a U.S. military response will occur “at a time and place of our choosing, and we’re going to continue to do so.”
Since October 17, in the wake of Hamas’s war on Israel, Iranian terror forces have launched 14 attacks on American assets in Iraq and nine in Syria “through a mix of one-way attack drones and rockets,” a senior Defense Department official told reporters during a press briefing. The U.S. military responded last Thursday to these strikes by bombing Iranian positions in Syria, and American forces will continue to target Tehran’s proxy groups at will, the official said. Iran, the Pentagon assesses, is targeting American forces, threatening to drag the United States into a larger regional war.
“It’s about Iran and the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], who use infrastructure, militants, and proxies on the ground across the Middle East to include both Iraq and Syria,” the Defense Department official said, speaking only on background. “We reserve the right to respond at a time and place of our choosing, and we’re going to continue to do so.”
“Let me be clear,” the official added: “We’re going to continue to respond when the president decides that’s necessary for U.S. force protection.”
In the weeks since the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing more than 1,400, Tehran’s allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have stepped up their terrorism activities. These activities include rocket fire and shelling on Israel from areas in both Syria and Lebanon, where Hezbollah forces are stationed.
Iran’s assets in Iraq have also increased their strikes on American forces in the country, resulting in last week’s military response by the United States. The Pentagon also said that Hamas militants are using hospitals and other civilian structures to conduct their terrorism operations against Israel.
The Israeli military’s foray into civilian areas of the Gaza Strip has fueled accusations that the country is intentionally targeting innocents, claims that have been amplified by anti-Israel U.S. lawmakers such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.). The Pentagon, however, says it has seen evidence that Hamas is using civilian structures as command centers.
“What I would say about Hamas is [its] use of civilian structures for command-and-control facilities and to hide weapons,” the official said. “There is an abundance of public reporting about the ways in which Hamas uses civilians as human shields and civilian structures to hide and obfuscate tunnels, as well as weapons.”
This includes “Hamas’s use of hospitals to emplace command-and-control infrastructure or other weapons that can be used against Israeli civilians.”
As of Monday afternoon, the Pentagon said it has no plans to facilitate “military-assisted departures” for American citizens stuck in the region.
A felon with a history of blowing things up attacked a churchgoer and led police on an explosive chase through San Francisco Sunday night, according to the San Francisco Police Department. When captured, the suspect allegedly asked his arresting officer how many points he had racked up on Grand Theft Auto.
The SFPD indicated that officers responded just before 6 p.m. on Sunday to a report of a man brandishing a knife and assaulting a parishioner at Saints Peter and Paul Church across from Washington Square Park in the North Beach neighborhood. KPIX-TV reported that the suspect waltzed into the church and demanded money from a parishioner whom he did not know.
“The parishioner continued to pray and ignored him, at which point the suspect then violently assaulted this parishioner, punching him in the head,” said SFPD Assistant Chief David Lazar. “We believe the parishioner went unconscious temporarily.”
Other parishioners rushed to the victim’s rescue and called 911 while the suspect continued demanding money with a folding knife in hand. Officers arrived on the scene within minutes of the incident and spotted the suspect stealing into a vehicle and preparing to flee the scene. They called for medical aid for the victim, then gave chase.
The SFPD noted that the suspect, who has been identified as 42-year-old Concord resident Daniel Garcia, failed to yield to pursuing officers. Instead, police said Garcia threw two improvised explosive devices at pursuing officers. The first went off in the 1500 block of Jones Street.
“The officers described not only seeing the flames of the device that hit the ground, but when the bomb detonated, they could feel the blowback of that in their vehicles,” said Lazar. “They believe the suspect intentionally tried to seriously injure or kill them.”
Garcia threw the second IED at police near 8th and Mission, according to Lazar. The San Francisco Standard noted that a police officer can be heard on scanner audio recordings reporting, “He threw another bomb. … It blew up on Mission,” at 6:04 p.m..
One of the IEDs was reportedly a pipe bomb, and the other was a Molotov cocktail.
PRELIMINARY REPORT: Assault at Saints Peter and Paul Church in North Beach. Responding officers encountered a suspect with an improvised device. A pursuit occurred. Suspect apprehended by SFPD in another county. If you are a witness or have video, contact SFPD at 415-575-4444. pic.twitter.com/POzUsftpwW
Garcia allegedly attempted to lose police on the freeway, taking I-80 eastbound, where California Highway Patrol joined the chase. It appears that Garcia gave up on allegedly attempting to murder police officers while on the freeway, as a CHP spokesman told KGO-TV, “No incendiaries were thrown during our portion of the pursuit, however, items were located in the vehicle at the termination point.”
Roughly 30 minutes later, he wrecked his vehicle in Martinez and was captured by police.
Garcia was booked into the San Francisco County Jail and charged with second-degree robbery; assault with a deadly weapon; threatening an officer; three counts of attempted murder; three counts of possession of an explosive; evading an officer with willful disregard; two counts of explosion of destructive device with intent to murder; two counts of explosion of destructive device with intent to injure; three counts of carrying an explosive in a passenger vehicle for hire; resisting, obstructing, and/or delaying of a peace officer or EMT; and various traffic infractions.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin of North Beach indicated that upon his arrest, Garcia asked an officer “how many points he got in his Grand Theft Auto game” — a video game series featuring a star system corresponding to the level of attention the player’s murder and mayhem has warranted from the in-game police.
“In 23 years of doing this stuff, this is probably the most bizarre,” said Peskin.
On Monday, heavily armed police and a bomb disposal robot checked out Garcia’s property. Officers reportedly left the residence with loaded brown paper bags and a box of what appeared to be glass bottles. His neighbor, Stephen Salbato, said, “He’s someone who never smiled.”
This is not Garcia’s first run-in with the law. Garcia was convicted and sentenced in 2012 to 35 years in a federal prison for “malicious use of explosives, possession of a destructive device in relation to a crime of violence, and two counts of possession of unregistered destructive devices.”
He planted a bomb underneath an SUV belonging to his former tenant beside an apartment building in Fairfield. The bomb went off, sending shrapnel into both the vehicle and the neighboring building, where children and others were sleeping. Garcia had apparently targeted the former tenant because he had left behind trash when moving out.
The U.S. attorney at the time said, “The defendant’s attempt to resolve a minor private dispute by detonating a bomb endangered the lives of all those who were sleeping in the apartment building in Fairfield that night. While it is fortunate that no one was harmed, the defendant’s actions, together with his possession of a second bomb in the residential neighborhood where he lived, merit a long prison sentence.”
Evidently, Garcia did not serve the entirety of his prison sentence. The Standard reported that the bomber was released in February 2019 after he successfully challenged his conviction on one of his charges.
Garcia was also arrested in May on domestic violence charges and for illegally owning a firearm. KPIX indicated he was scheduled to appear in a Contra Costa courtroom to face those charges on Tuesday.
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As the carnage in the Middle East persists, an America’s New Majority Project poll recently found that more than 75 percent of Americans are closely following the news about the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East. While a majority of voters agree that Israel must do what is necessary to destroy Hamas, and that Hamas is responsible for Palestinian civilian casualties, the outlandish defense of Hamas’s atrocities across the United States– particularly on university campuses – raises great concern.
American universities ought to be centers where ideas, debates, and opinions are freely exchanged, but many, instead, have fostered hateful, antisemitic ideology among the student population. A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that 48 percent of voters between 18-24 support Hamas in the current conflict. According to Steven Davidoff Solomon, a corporate law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “Universities have been engaging for far too long in moral equivocation, and terrorist attacks against innocents should be condemned and not justified.”
Amidst escalating tensions on college campuses, 20-year old Melanie Schwartz, a junior at Cornell, told The Washington Post, “Jewish students are fearful and isolated.”
To help students facing hostility on college campuses, Franciscan University of Steubenville, a private Catholic university in Ohio, has created an expedited transfer process.
“[W]ith too many universities preaching tolerance but practicing prejudice, we feel compelled to do more. We are witnessing a very troubling spike in antisemitism and serious threats against Jewish students. We want to offer them the chance to transfer immediately to Franciscan,” Father Dave Pivonka, president of Franciscan University, said.
Although Franciscan achieved record-high enrollment this academic year, university administrators are committed to accommodating and creating a safe haven for Jewish transfer students.
“Our community will welcome them with generosity and respect,” Father Pivonka said. “Our religious differences will not cause any conflict. On the contrary, at Franciscan, our radical fidelity to Christ and the Catholic faith demands of us fraternal charity toward our Jewish brothers and sisters, as it does toward all people.”
In recognition of the need to combat antisemitism in the U.S., Franciscan University recently partnered with The Philos Project, a community of Christians who seek to promote positive Christian engagement in the Near East, to cosponsor a joint conference, Nostra Aetate and the Future of Catholic-Jewish Relations at a Time of Rising Antisemitism. The conference focused on addressing antisemitism, “one of the biggest social problems that we’re facing,” according to President of The Philos Project Robert Nicholson.
Additionally, the conference discussed the significance of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Catholic Church to Non-Christian Religions, promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1965. The Declaration marked a turning point in relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism by emphasizing the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and the condemnation of antisemitism.
In the aftermath of World War II, the Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII faced criticism that not enough was done to support our Jewish brethren. In March 2020, Pope Francis opened the Vatican Archives and made the documents of Pope Pius XII’s wartime pontificate accessible for study. Recent discoveries prove, according to German historian Dr. Michael Hesemann, that Pope Pius XII’s efforts “did more to save Jews and to stop the killings, than any politician or religious leader of his time.”
According to Dr. Hesemann, “What has to be rewritten is the ‘black legend’ of the silent and disinterested Pope… Today, we know that Pius XII not only mentioned the horrible fate of the Jews in three public speeches but also tried to save as many as possible.”
An anti-Israel protester in Cambridge on Monday shouted slurs at the pro-Israel counter-protesters, calling them “pigs” and “Nazis.” (Kassy Dillon/Fox News Digital)
As Dr. Hesemann explained to Vatican News, “[I]n 235 monasteries and convents, 4,205 Jews were hidden, plus 160 in Vatican City. Of 3,200, we know the names, thanks to the newly discovered list. Eventually, about 6,400 of the Roman Jews, or 80 percent survived the Holocaust, more than anywhere else where a SS-razzia happened.”
Today, we see this same fervor among the faithful to bring peace and aid to those affected by the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Amid the current war in the Middle East, Pope Francis has ardently called for an end to the violence and noted that “terrorism and war bring no solutions, but only to the death and suffering of many innocent lives. … Let us pray for peace.”
As the brutality of the Israel-Hamas war wages on, we must eradicate antisemitism and offer our prayers for peace in the Middle East.
The attack by Hamas on Israel will inspire the most significant terror threat to the U.S. since the rise of ISIS nearly a decade ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a congressional hearing Tuesday. Wray said that since the start of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza earlier this month, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West, significantly raising the threat posed by homegrown U.S. violent extremists.
“The actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” Wray said.
The remarks came during a hearing before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee focused on threats to the United States. The U.S. government has seen an increase in threats against Jews, Muslims and Arab Americans since fighting broke out in Gaza, officials have said. The number of attacks on U.S. military bases overseas by Iran-backed militia groups have risen this month, Wray said. Cyber attacks against the U.S. by Iran and non-state actors will likely worsen if the conflict expands, he said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During the hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that hate directed at Jewish students in the U.S. following the start of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza has added to an increase in antisemitism. The White House expressed alarm this week at reports of anti-Jewish incidents at U.S. universities as tensions have prompted university officials to tighten security.
At a ransomware summit organized by the White House on Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said he had directed the U.S. Justice Department to assist Israeli investigators probing financial flows to Hamas, including those involving cryptocurrency. (Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)
The United States is sending an additional 300 troops to the Middle East with a focus on providing support in areas like explosive ordnance disposal and communications, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said the troops would be going from the United States but would not be in Israel.
“They are intended to support regional deterrence efforts and further bolster us force protection capabilities,” Ryder said.
He added that this month there have been 27 attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., speaks at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, “Threats to the Homeland,” on Tuesday. Johnson was highly critical of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. (Photo: Tom Williams/ CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
During a Senate committee hearing Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas couldn’t answer a question about how many illegal immigrants federal authorities have released into the U.S. interior under the Biden administration.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., pressed Mayorkas on the issue, but the DHS secretary couldn’t provide a number at Tuesday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing. Illegal immigration at the southern border of the U.S. has surged past 2 million in both fiscal year 2022, the highest year on record, and 2023, according to federal data.
An Inspector General report in September found that DHS lacks the ability to track all illegal immigrants released from their custody into the U.S. interior, partially because of the overwhelming surge at U.S. borders.
“I’ve asked you this in the past, what numbers are represented here? How many people has this administration let in by encountering, processing, dispersing or that come in as a known or an unknown got-away? Approximately, I don’t need an exact number, so what do we got?” Johnson asked Mayorkas.
“Senator, let me say,” Mayorkas responded before being interrupted by Johnson.
“I need numbers. Don’t filibuster me. How many people has this administration let into the country?” Johnson continued.
Mayorkas began speaking before Johnson again interrupted him for not providing a clear number.
“Let me say at the outset that our job would be a lot easier if the broken immigration system … ” Mayorkas responded.
“Mr. Secretary, I want a number. How many people will have you let into this country? I’ll give you the number, it’s about 6 million, about 1.7 million as known got-aways. Now, again, we don’t know who these people are. We just know that they’ve come to this country and that they’re residing somewhere. Where are all these people residing? Where did the 6 million people go?” Johnson asked.
Border Patrol doesn’t have the ability to always collect migrants’ addresses, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn’t always validate the addresses before they’re released into the country, the inspector general previously found. Between March 2021 and August 2022, Border Patrol collected 981,671 migrant records, but more than 177,000 migrant records “were either missing, invalid for delivery, or not legitimate residential locations.”
Mayorkas began to attempt to answer Johnson again, but still could not provide a direct response.
“Senator, you speak of encounters, and let me share,” Mayorkas said before Johnson interrupted.
“Would you answer my questions? Where did these 6 million people go? Are you keeping track of them? To what extent [do] we have a handle on where are these 6 million people are in America?” Johnson asked.
Mayorkas continued to attempt to answer Johnson’s questions.
“As you well know, when an individual is indeed released, they are released into immigration enforcement proceedings and are subject to removal if they do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States,” the DHS chief said.
“You’re not answering that question. Where do these people reside?” Johnson asked.
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We are living in scary times, especially with a Democrat at your door taking away your rights, gas stoves, plastic straws, Guns, gas cars, secure borders, energy independence, 401Ks, the worth of the dollar, excellent economy, education, etc. and they’re not “Trick or Treating” in the traditional sense—more like Trick No Treat.
Democrat policies, both foreign and domestic, are responsible for all that’s going wrong in America. What could be scarier than that? Not to mention the threat of horrific terrorist attacks on our homeland due to the thousands of military-age males coming across the border from places that hate the U.S.
Has a single member of the White House staff ever held a dying American soldier in his arms as he bled out, calling for his mother? Have any of them ever loaded the blood-soaked bodies of his wounded and killed onto a medivac helicopter and then endured sleepless nights thinking about the visits their families are about to get and the ensuing destruction of their lives and dreams?
These were the first questions that popped into my mind when I saw the report from Politico that the Biden administration is promoting the war in Ukraine because it is good for American business. I think the members of the administration could not have experienced these things because, if they had, and if they had one ounce of humanity in them, they could not possibly have promoted war on the “it’s good for business” rationale.
Apparently, multiple White House aides have been involved in this abomination because Politico is quite specific:
The White House has been quietly urging lawmakers in both parties to sell the war efforts abroad as a potential economic boom at home.
Aides have been distributing talking points to Democrats and Republicans who have been supportive of continued efforts to fund Ukraine’s resistance to make the case that doing so is good for American jobs, according to five White House aides and lawmakers familiar with the effort and granted anonymity to speak freely.
The Biden administration is fearful that it cannot sell its most recent aid package on the merits and on national security grounds, because “The talking points are an implicit recognition that the administration has work to do in selling its $106 billion foreign aid supplemental request — and that talking about it squarely under the umbrella of national security interests hasn’t done the trick,” Politico states.
The reprehensibility of these comments cannot be overstated. Biden’s administration is peopled with a number of “elites” who probably are familiar, at least in a theoretical, intellectual sense, with John Stuart Mill’s dictum, “War is an ugly thing.” But, hey, if it’s good for business, particularly in electoral swing states, let’s go for it.
I am old enough to remember how the left tarred George Bush, Dick Cheney, and others in the GOP with the argument that they wanted war because it was good for their supporters in big business. I never put any stock in these arguments because I thought no American could be so evil as to support war as a sop to big business. The Biden administration has changed my mind.
My contempt and revulsion for these people knows no bounds.
John Lucas is a retired attorney who has tried and argued a variety of cases, including before the U. S. Supreme Court. Before entering law school at the University of Texas, he served in the Army Special Forces as an enlisted man, later graduating from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969. He is an Army Ranger who fought in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader. He is married with five children. He and his wife now live in Virginia. John also is published at johnalucas6.substack.com.
There’s a simple pattern that the media follow when covering each new crisis that pops up during Joe Biden’s catastrophic presidency: A calamity occurs either domestically or abroad, and rather than examining the cause, the media instantly frame Biden as a hero at battle.
War in Ukraine? “Joe Biden Marshals U.S. Allies Against Russia” (Newsweek).
Obscene gas prices? “Biden’s frustration with soaring prices” (Washington Post).
War in Israel? “Why this Israel-Gaza conflict is so complicated for Biden” (CNN).
Folks! He’s frustrated, folks. It’s complicated for Biden, folks.
The New York Times’ David French offered up that same spa treatment for the president this week under the headline “Joe Biden knows what he’s doing.” In the piece, French implored his readers to “consider” all it is that Biden “confronts”: a war in Ukraine, another one in the Middle East, plus the ever-present threat from China. “And keep in mind,” he said, “Biden is managing these conflicts all while trying to make sure that the nation emerges from a pandemic with inflation in retreat and its economy intact.”
Folks! Keep it in mind, folks. Biden is trying, folks. He’s managing lots of complicated problems, folks. It’s frustrating to the president, too, folks.
Honestly, I felt the same way under President Trump when he was confronted by two hot wars, record inflation, and impossible energy prices. He did the best he could to manage the challenges he faced — the struggles he endured.
Wait, that’s not right. There were neither wars nor inflation during Trump’s term. The U.S. was energy independent, and gas was cheap precisely because he flooded the market with oil for the taking. My mistake!
Actually, now that I think about it, I recall that despite a remarkable period of global calm and even a historic peace deal reached between Israel and the Arab world, the Trump era was marked by nonstop hysterics from the media about our supposedly shaken allies and emboldened foes. (i.e., Trump demanded that Western Europe live up to his part of the NATO bargain and made it known that the U.S. cannot solve all of the world’s problems, especially when large parts of the world don’t see them as such.)
But back to Biden. He’s not confronting or managing a series of events that happened to him. He and his party actively created them. Or, at minimum, they created an environment that anyone could have predicted would lead to them.
Russia has long insisted that NATO stop expanding along its border. The second Biden got into office, he pushed for Ukraine’s membership. Israel had its country under relative control for years right up until Biden’s team gifted Iran, the Jewish state’s greatest threat, $6 billion worth of goodies. We were energy independent until Biden said we couldn’t be. The economy was working itself out until Biden and his party thought it would be a good idea to pump hundreds of billions of dollars more into Covid-era welfare (“childcare” and “living assistance”). And let’s not start on the electric vehicle scheme, wherein car companies grabbed another round of multi-billion-dollar taxpayer funds, courtesy of Biden, for a product that barely works (and for which manufacturers are now rolling back their production of).
Biden isn’t a knight of the kingdom off to slay a dragon. He’s a dunce screwing up everything. He doesn’t get to turn the economy and international stability into ruins and then get credit for saying he takes it all very seriously.
He’s not “struggling” or “managing,” and it’s not “complicated.” Biden is the struggle. He is the thing to manage. He is the complication.
A federal judge on Monday ordered the Biden administration to stop cutting razor wire on fences along the southern border in Texas meant to stop illegal migrant crossings.
Judge Alia Moses of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas on Monday ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop “disassembling, degrading, tampering” miles of razor wire running along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. The temporary order is a result of a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, arguing that federal officials said they had the authority to destroy state property “to allow [illegal] aliens to enter & be processed.”
Paxton asked the court for an immediate injunction last week, noting in his request to the court that “federal agents escalated matters, trading bolt cutters for an industrial-strength telehandler forklift to dismantle [Texas’] border fence.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in the lawsuit that “federal agents used hydraulic-powered pallet forks to rip [Texas’] fence … out of the ground, holding it suspended in the air in order to wave more than 300 migrants illegally into Texas.” (Benjamin Lowy for Fox News Digital)
“Federal agents used hydraulic-powered pallet forks to rip [Texas’] fence – concertina wire, fencing posts, clamps, and all – out of the ground, holding it suspended in the air in order to wave more than 300 migrants illegally into Texas,” the motion for a temporary injunction reads.
Last week, DHS released a statement that said border agents “have a responsibility under federal law” to protect migrants from being injured regardless of their legal status.
A federal judge on Monday ordered the Biden administration to stop cutting razor wire on fences along the southern border in Texas meant to stop illegal migrant crossings. (Benjamin Lowy for Fox News Digital)
In an 11-page document filed in with the federal court in Del Rio, Moses found that the state of Texas had met the required four-part test needed to be granted a temporary halt to the federal government’s action, but the judge noted one exception.
Federal agents used a forklift to lift Texas’ razor wire fence. (The State of Texas v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security)
“The Court shall grant the temporary relief requested, with one important exception for any medical emergency that mostly likely results in serious bodily injury or death to a person, absent any boats or other life-saving apparatus available to avoid such medical emergencies prior to reaching the concertina wire barrier,” the judge wrote in the court filing.
The temporary restraining order will remain in place until the parties have an opportunity to present evidence at a preliminary injunction hearing before the court, which is scheduled for Nov. 7.
The Department of Justice, which is handling the litigation, declined to comment.
Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds told Newsmax Monday that recent testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee proves officials from both the Department of Justice and FBI “blocked” federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania from investigating President Joe Biden and his family.
“What we’ve learned now from the Judiciary Committee in the testimony it received last week, was that there were at least 10 times when special federal prosecutors in the Pennsylvania district were stopped from looking into issues of the Biden family business dealings,” Donalds said during “Newsline” Monday. “They were stopped by people at the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and at [the] main [Department of] Justice.”
Donalds also pointed to the recent discovery of a check from President Joe Biden’s brother James to Joe repaying a $200,000 loan, which Donalds said is a direct link between the president and the business deals carried out by James and his son Hunter with foreign entities.
“We now see a check paying Joe Biden directly from his brother, James Biden,” Donalds said. “Most people are focused on Hunter Biden, and they should, but James Biden has been involved in the Biden family scheme this entire time, so the check that was actually released last week demonstrates the flow of $200,000 from James Biden to Joe Biden referencing a loan repayment.”
Donalds said that the money, absent any written loan agreements between the president and his brother, could demonstrate tax evasion.
“One of the key ways that wandering money actually occurs, or evading taxes occurs, is when you treat them as loan repayments and not just as payments,” he said. “So, the key questions now are, what were the loan documents from Joe Biden to his brother, Jim, to demonstrate the need for $200,000 repayment. Our investigation is going to continue. We’re going to get to the bottom of this and hold this administration accountable.”
The White House has been striking back at the committee, particularly since Attorney General Merrick Garland testified in September.
“Extreme House Republicans are running a not-so-sophisticated distraction campaign to try to cover up their own actions that are hurtling America to a dangerous and costly government shutdown,” CNN reported the White House saying in September. “They cannot even pass a military funding bill … so they cranked up a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation with the sole goal of baselessly attacking President Biden and his family. Don’t be fooled: they want to distract from the reality that their own chaos and inability to govern is going to shut down the government in a matter of days. … These sideshows won’t spare House Republicans from bearing responsibility for inflicting serious damage on the country.”
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Shani Louk, a German-Israeli woman who was thought to have been kidnapped by Hamas during the attack on a music festival on Oct. 7, was killed at some point during that attack and possibly beheaded, according to Israel’s president.
Louk, 22, came to international attention after she was seen being paraded half-naked and apparently unconscious in the back of a pickup truck in Gaza after Hamas attacked a music festival in Re’im on Oct. 7. Louk was initially believed to be kidnapped, but Israeli officials recently informed her family that human remains were matched to her DNA.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog told the German newspaper Bild that Louk’s “skull was found,” and added, “This means that these barbaric, sadistic animals simply chopped off her head as they attacked, tortured and killed Israelis.” Though Israeli officials have not publicly revealed Louk’s cause of death or confirmed many details, some reports state that she was shot in the head and that her head was later found but not the rest of her body.
German and Israeli mediareport that the Israeli Defense Forces and Zika, an organization of volunteer emergency responders, informed Louk’s family that a bone from the base of her skull had been located and matched to her DNA and that medical experts determined a person could not live without this bone, and therefore there is no possibility that Louk is still alive.
“For me, this news is terrible,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters while on an official trip to Africa. “This shows all the barbarism that lies behind Hamas.”
Migrants take part in a caravan towards the border with the United States in Tapachula, Chiapas State, Mexico, on Monday. (Getty Images)
A large migrant caravan comprising many Central Americans and Venezuelans left southern Mexico on Monday for the United States, organizers and officials said, as Washington grapples with renewed pressure on its southern border.
Officials in the southern state of Chiapas said some 3,500 people set off on foot from the city of Tapachula near the Guatemalan border, while one of the caravan’s organizers, Irineo Mujica, said there were around 5,000 in the group.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection next year, is under pressure to curb the number of people crossing illegally into the United States from Mexico. Most of the latest caravan are from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Venezuela, according to Mujica. Escorted by civil protection officials and ambulances, the migrants were walking on a coastal highway around midday, planning to spend the night in the municipality of Huehuetan, about 16 miles (25 km) north of where they started.
Mujica said the migrants opted to leave Tapachula due to frustration about not being able to obtain humanitarian visas. Some migrants even offered to help recovery efforts in the port of Acapulco, which was devastated by a hurricane last week, but did not get a response from the authorities, he added.
The government’s National Migration Institute did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Many migrants are fleeing poverty and political instability in their homelands, and this year has seen record numbers crossing the Darien Gap region connecting Panama and Colombia. Millions of Venezuelans have left home due to the economic crisis plaguing the once-prosperous oil producing country.
“In Venezuela things are very tough, we can’t live with the money we get, it’s not enough for us, and that’s why we’re going to the United States,” said Oscar Gutierrez, a Venezuelan migrant traveling with his wife and two daughters.
Tropical storm Pilar formed off Central America in the Pacific on Monday, and threatens to dump heavy rain on the region and parts of southern Mexico.
An engineer turns off the vent of a natural gas pump. Republicans in Congress want to turn off a Biden tax on natural gas, which they say will increase consumers’ energy bills. (Photo: Olga Rolenko/Moment/Getty Images)
Numerous Republican lawmakers have written to the newly elected speaker of the House asking him to repeal an emissions-reduction program from the Inflation Reduction Act, according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, wrote the letter, which urges House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act’s Methane Emissions Reduction Program natural gas tax before the year’s end by including its repeal in a possibly forthcoming legislative package.
Pfluger and other prominent Republican signatories, such as Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Byron Donalds of Florida, and Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, slammed the Methane Emissions Reduction Program as an excessive and unwieldy regulation that would stymie innovation and drive up costs for the American energy industry.
“The [Methane Emissions Reduction Program] is an inappropriate and highly unworkable tax on methane emissions,” the letter states.
“If implemented, the ill-conceived naturalgas tax will handicap technological innovation, reduce supplies of affordable energy, and increase both costs and emissions,” the letter continues, adding that “in order to lower costs for American families, we must repeal burdensome regulation, secure supply chains and unleash American energy.”
The Methane Emissions Reduction Program imposes a tax on emissions beyond 25,000 annual tons of carbon dioxide or an equivalent amount of pollution, according to the letter. Companies will be forced to collect the relevant data and pay a fee of $900 for every metric ton above 25,000 starting in 2024, which increases to $1,200 per extra metric ton in 2025 and then $1,500 per extra ton in 2026 and beyond.
The tax is a “statutory codification” of the forced collection of emissions data under a specific sub-section of the Clean Air Act, according to the letter. The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to overhaul that particular section of the Clean Air Act such that the agency can increase the scope and costs of the Methane Emissions Reduction Program.
New fees or taxes on energy companies will raise costs for consumers, creating a burden that will fall most heavily on lower-income Americans,” the letter states. “In fact, this tax alone will drive up the cost of household energy bills for the 180 million Americans and 5.5 million businesses that rely on natural gas. At a time of persistent inflation and record energy prices, this increase is unthinkable for consumers.”
The EPA and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Democrats appear to be sticking by Joe Biden as their only presidential candidate for 2024 and don’t seem interested in any debates involving Robert F Kennedy or Dean Phillips of Minnesota. How’s that for upholding democracy? Shouldn’t voters have the ability to hear the opposition in order to make an informed choice within their own party?
There’s a lot of rigorous debating going on within the Republican Party that more closely resembles what democracy actually looks like, as opposed to the Democrats running their party like a communist politburo out of the former Soviet Union or Communist China. Democrats always seem to be in lockstep with each other, especially when it comes to policies that hurt Americans and their constitutional freedoms at large.
Israel is totally surrounded by the Muslim world and is constantly threatened with genocidal rhetoric, along with rockets being constantly fired on their innocent citizens every day from Gaza. The threat is instigated primarily by the Islamic Republic of Iran, a well-funded state sponsoring terrorism across the globe with the help of their branches, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Sadly, whenever Israel acts to defend their population against this barbarism surrounding them, the left in America and much of the world defend Hamas and these bloody acts of Terrorism. Many of the LGBTQ-XYZ groups are also protesting against Israel and defending the Hamas attacks against innocent civilians without any understanding that they themselves would be killed for being gay, lesbian, or trans in Gaza or in much of the Muslim world.
The 1978 blizzard put the kibosh on “global warming,” so the climate scammers came up with “climate change.” That way, whatever way the wind blows, they’re always right! It’s like when the vax fanatics all started getting COVID: “Well, it would’ve been worse without the vaccine!” https://t.co/Mjjs8cxDXK
"Mom, this was $70 and you didn't even get anything"
"Before Covid my grocery bill was $350 per month, now it's $600 per month"
🔊 … 🤨
"They are inflating all of the prices and paying us poverty wages" "We cannot even afford to live in this country. We cannot even afford to… pic.twitter.com/ProA3yJEsq
Democrats have slowly changed what we consider normal in America. They have allowed for those that would need mental help to roam free under the disguise of being ‘bold’ and ‘different’ Democrats created the ideology that being different is independence. There is power in having… pic.twitter.com/Gok6Hk35qK
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) October 26, 2023
Thank you Sydney, Australia for this beautiful tribute to bring our hostages home 💔 pic.twitter.com/27OEpzBBfs
JUST IN: Hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman thinks college students have “s**t for brains” and is done donating to Columbia University after the school failed to fire a professor who called the Hamas attacks “awesome”
A woman in England was interrogated before being issued a penalty for praying silently outside an abortion clinic. Thought crimes will now get you punished in England pic.twitter.com/szq6ehephM
This is a great list.If the democrats dislike him, I am for him. America First Candidate! Thanks, Matt, for the information! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/uNRiLBmVRy
Why children can’t consent to puberty blockers in under 30 seconds!
Kids that choose 2 Oreos over $10,000 and still believe in the tooth fairy are being told they are able to make the lifelong decision to take chemical castration drugs.
Megan Rapinoe is gay & married to a Jewish woman. Yet she’s raising money for Palestine after the Hamas terror attack. Does she realize the people in Gaza would murder her for being gay and married to a Jew? Next level athlete stupidity: pic.twitter.com/tohhxWE4cB
🚨NEWS ALERT: An internal memo from federal officials warns that members of terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are likely crossing into the U.S. through Biden’s wide-open southern border ⚠️
Biden paid for his $3 million beach house in CASH. No mortgage. No loan. Cash. How did the poorest man in Washington get so rich? pic.twitter.com/yHmDYs4ZQ4
⚡️THE PEACE MAKER A President with the People, for the People. ▪️No Wars ▪️Booming Economy He EXPOSED them all, now they are coming after him and We the People!#TrumpGirlOnFire 🔥 pic.twitter.com/R8i8W0JPvo
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More Pro-Life News • WATCH: Pro-Life Woman Fined for Silently Praying Outside Abortion Center • Pro-Life Leader Says Speaker Mike Johnson is a “Faithful Christian” Who is Solidly Pro-Life • Warren Buffet Funds Fake “Catholic” Group Promoting Abortions Up to Birth • Science Confirms Human Life Begins at Conception Despite What the Media Thinks • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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The Pittsburgh-based U.S. attorney charged with screening evidence of Ukrainian corruption before the 2020 election testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Monday about the bureaucratic obstruction his team faced. The roadblocks detailed by former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady over the course of the six-hour hearing were so outrageous that at one point a lawyer for the minority party asked whether he was speaking in hyperbole. He wasn’t.
The situation Brady faced was also much worse than the media have reported to date, as the full transcript of the interview, reviewed by The Federalist, establishes. Here are the seven most shocking details revealed during Monday’s hearing.
1. FBI Drags Its Feet While Tying Brady’s Hands
Monday’s closed-door hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the DOJ and FBI’s handling of the probe into Biden family corruption, opened with Brady explaining that in early January 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr tapped him to vet evidence related to Ukrainian corruption. While he immediately moved to open a matter in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Brady testified that he didn’t believe the FBI opened its assessment until late March. Part of the problem, Brady explained, was that the FBI maintained it had to operate under the framework of the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG) and that there was no procedure for handling a vetting assignment such as Barr assigned to the Pittsburgh office.
So, as Brady explained, he had a discussion with the Pittsburgh FBI agents about “how, in their administrative process, it should be characterized.”
“I said, ‘Well let’s all sit together around a table and talk this out; could you please share with me your DIOG,’” Brady testified, explaining the DIOG “is the FBI’s bible for their processes and procedures.”
The local FBI agents told Brady that someone from FBI headquarters directed the local agents not to share the DIOG with the U.S. attorney’s office. Brady’s response, as he relayed to the committee, perfectly crystalized the madness: “I’m a presidentially appointed United States attorney. We’re on the same team, part of the Department of Justice. What do you mean you can’t share your DIOG with me?”
“That’s what we were told, so we can’t, sir,” the local Pittsburgh FBI team replied, in his telling.
And they never did share the DIOG with him, the former federal prosecutor testified, explaining he instead resorted to finding an older redacted version online, and then referenced those standards when discussing with the FBI team how to open the investigation.
2. 17 Approvals Needed — and That’s Not Hyperbole
The FBI eventually opted to open an “assessment” for the material on Ukraine provided by the Pittsburgh-based U.S. attorney’s office. Under the DIOG, an “assessment” could only last for 30 days, after which it would need to be reauthorized. That meant every 30 days, the Pittsburgh FBI office needed to re-up the assessment, which normally wouldn’t be an issue, Brady testified, because a special agent’s immediate supervisor, a supervisory special agent (SSA) at the local field office could reauthorize an assessment.
But not in the case of the Ukrainian corruption vetting.
“In this case,” Brady testified, “it required 17 different people, including mostly at the headquarters level to sign off on it before the assessment could be extended.” Consequently, Brady explained, at times the FBI agents “had to go pens down sometimes for 2 or 3 weeks at a time … because they were still waiting on, again, on someone within the 17-chain signoff to approve.”
The ridiculousness of a 17-person approval was clear to even the Democrat attorney questioning Brady. After noting he had made reference to “17 layers of approval,” she asked: “Was that an actual number, or was that just hyperbole? Were there 17 boxes to check?”
“So it was our understanding, related by someone on the FBI team in Pittsburgh, that that was an actual number, that there were 17 approvals that were required to extend the assessment an additional 30 days.”
3. FBI Headquarters Had To Sign-Off on Everything.
Not only did more than a dozen individuals need to approve the renewal of the assessment, including many out of FBI headquarters, but Brady testified that FBI headquarters was required to “signoff for any investigative steps that FBI Pittsburgh was asked to take by” the Pittsburgh U.S. attorney’s office.
Brady reiterated this point, testifying: “It was my understanding that they could not take any steps absent the approval, the review and approval of FBI headquarters, not just the leadership of FBI Pittsburgh.” And later, when asked to elaborate on challenges with the FBI, Brady noted: “It was my understanding that FBI headquarters had to sign off on every assignment, no matter how small or routine, before they could take action.”
This level of signoff by headquarters was not normal, Brady confirmed, noting that in his experience, even in a sensitive investigation, the investigation is usually contained within the field office, with an SSA approving requests, or maybe an assistant special agent in charge or on occasion even the special agent in charge. But never in his career had Brady seen anything like this.
4. FBI Reluctance in Investigating
The former U.S. attorney’s testimony also made clear the FBI was reluctant to assist their investigation.
“It was a challenging working relationship,” Brady noted, saying he believed “there was reluctance on the part of the FBI to really do any tasking related to our assignment … and looking into allegations of Ukrainian corruption broadly and then specifically anything that intersected with Hunter Biden and his role in Burisma.”
When pushed on where the problems originated, Brady said, “It was somewhere at FBI headquarters,” but he “had no visibility into where that choke point was.” But it was somewhere below the deputy director and principal assistant deputy attorney general because whenever the FBI refused to cooperate, forcing Brady to elevate the issue to FBI headquarters or the DOJ, the issues were resolved by the various high-level officials.
Unbeknownst to Brady, that also proved to be the case when it came to his office briefing the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office on the results of his assessment. Brady testified that he had been trying for some time to arrange a briefing with the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, only to learn later that Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf had not wanted to take the briefing. IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley recently revealed that the meeting only came about after Main Justice ordered Delaware to meet with Brady’s team to be briefed on the results of their vetting.
5. FBI Headquarters Tells Pittsburgh Agents to Play Coy
“Reluctance” appears to be an understatement, though, as Brady further testified that a member of the Pittsburgh FBI team relayed that FBI headquarters had directed them “not to affirmatively share information” but rather “only to share information with [Pittsburgh] if we asked them a direct question relating to that information…”
That “is not typically how the investigative process goes,” Brady added.
That the FBI agents had directions only to share information with the U.S. attorney’s office if asked a direct question seems to explain Brady’s later testimony. The former U.S. attorney later testified that when the Washington field office discovered an older FD-1023 report that included a discreet statement mentioning Hunter Biden’s service on the Burisma Board, the Pittsburgh office requested to see the FD-1023. Apparently, relying on the FBI to convey relevant information to the prosecutors was not an option. In this case, that FD-1023 led to the confidential human source providing extensive additional information about the Bidens’ involvement and alleged bribe-taking from Burisma, so it is a good thing Pittsburgh asked to see the actual document.
When it came to the Hunter Biden laptop, however, Brady and his team of prosecutors didn’t know what they didn’t know, so they never asked whether the FBI had seized any of Hunter Biden’s electronic devices. With “don’t ask, don’t tell” being Delaware’s protect-Biden policy, the Delaware office opted against informing the Pittsburgh U.S. attorney’s office of the existence of the laptop. Rather, Brady testified that he first learned of the laptop’s existence when the New York Post broke the story in mid-October.
6. Delaware Refuses to Play Nice
Not only did Brady testify about the challenges of working with the FBI, but he also faced issues with the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office.
“[I]t was regularly a challenge to interact with the investigative team from Delaware,” Brady testified. “There was no information sharing” or “very limited” information sharing, from Delaware. In fact, “at one point, the communication between our offices was so constricted that we had to provide written questions to the investigative team in Delaware, almost in the form of interrogatories, and receive written answers back,” Brady testified.
“This was very unusual,” Brady continued, noting that “typical U.S. attorney to U.S. attorney office communications, even on sensitive matters, is fairly clear and transparent.” “We’re all professionals,” Brady explained.
Yet, with Delaware, the Pittsburgh U.S. attorney’s office had to resort to submitting a list of written questions to U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s team, which the Delaware prosecutors then responded to in writing, much as interrogatories are served on opposing parties in litigation.
Jim Jordan, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, asked Brady if he had ever seen anything like this during his time as an assistant U.S. attorney or U.S. attorney.
“Not where an office had to submit written interrogatories to another office for permission,” Brady said.
7. Lying About Brady
Another challenge he faced, Brady explained, was false representations being made to senior FBI leadership about what the U.S. attorney’s team was or wasn’t doing. “There was information that was being shared up that chain at the FBI that was incorrect,” Brady explained, and it rose all the way up to AG Barr.
Brady noted that while they resolved the issue, it presented an unnecessary challenge to handling the vetting process.
Of course, some of the same people likely used that same tactic by lying about the Pittsburgh vetting process to the press. And more recently, Democrats such as Jamie Raskin resorted to peddling falsehoods, such as that Barr’s handpicked prosecutor, Brady, had closed the assessment into the FD-1023.
During his Monday testimony, Brady also confirmed that Barr had accurately described the true scenario — that the FD-1023 had been passed on to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office for further investigation — and that Raskin was lying, at I reported here in The Federalist.
But what else could a Biden apologist do but lie — after whistleblowers exposed the DOJ and FBI’s obstruction and the evidence of the president’s corruption?
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
Investigators Find Suicide Note Suspect Wrote to Son
Friday, 27 October 2023 02:21 PM EDT
Authorities scoured the woods and hundreds of acres of family-owned property, sent dive teams with sonar to the bottom of a river and scrutinized a possible suicide note Friday in the second day of their intensive search for an Army reservist accused of fatally shooting 18 people and wounding 13 at a bowling alley and a bar in Maine.
Nearly two days after the shooting, law enforcement officials gave no indication that they have any leads on Robert Card’s whereabouts. During a lengthy news conference absent of any major developments, Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck would only say that authorities are leaving all their options open.
“We’re going to be all over the place,” Sauschuck said. “That’s not saying that we know that the individual is in this house, you know, in that house or they’re in that swath of land, this acreage.”
Previously, police had said that Card had left his car at a boat ramp in the town of Lisbon shortly after the shootings Wednesday evening. A gun was found in the car and federal agents were testing it to determine if it was used in the shooting, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. Authorities have not publicly said how many guns were used in Wednesday’s shootings or how they were obtained.
Authorities found an apparent suicide note at a home associated with Card on Thursday that was addressed to his son, the law enforcement officials said. They said it didn’t provide any specific motive for the shooting. Authorities also recovered Card’s cellphone in the home, making a search more complicated because authorities routinely use phones to track suspects, the officials said.
The Cards have lived in Bowdoin for generations, neighbors said, and various members of the family own hundreds of acres in the area. The family owned the local sawmill and years ago donated the land for a local church.
“This is his stomping ground,” Richard Goddard, who lives on the road where a search took place on Thursday, said of the suspect. “He knows every ledge to hide behind, every thicket.”
Authorities say Card, 40, who has firearms training, opened fire with at least one rifle at a bar and a bowling alley Wednesday in Lewiston, Maine’s second-largest city about 15 miles from Bowdoin.
Family members of Card told federal investigators that he had recently discussed hearing voices and became more focused on the bowling alley and bar, according to the law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. When he was hospitalized in July in New York, Card had told military officials he had been hearing voices and said he wanted to harm other soldiers, the officials said.
A neighbor, Dave Letarte, said Card’s family let them deer hunt on their property and were kind, although Letarte said he noticed Card appeared to have mental problems for a while.
“People have problems, but you don’t expect them to go off the deep end like that,” Letarte said. “When we saw it on the news last night, I was shocked.”
A telephone number listed for Card in public records was not in service. A woman who answered a phone number for one of Card’s relatives on Thursday afternoon said the family was helping the FBI. She didn’t give her name or additional details.
Wednesday’s shootings left 18 people dead and 13 wounded, three of whom were hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said. Card will be charged with 18 counts of murder once all the victims are identified, authorities said.
The victims of the shootings include Bob Violette, 76, a retiree who was coaching a youth bowling league and was described as devoted, approachable and kind. Auburn City Councilor Leroy Walker told news outlets that his son, Joe, a manager at the bar and grill, died going after the shooter with a butcher knife. Peyton Brewer-Ross was a dedicated pipefitter at Bath Iron Works whose death leaves a gaping void in the lives of his partner, young daughter and friends, members of his union said.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The United States is not trying to dictate limits for Israel, the White House said on Friday, as the Israelis expanded their military operation in Gaza against Hamas militants. The fresh military onslaught by Israel comes as the United States scrambles to arrange a humanitarian pause for deliveries of fuel and relief aid to Gaza civilians. How the expanded ground operation will impact efforts toward a pause was unclear.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, at a news briefing, would not comment on the Israeli expanded ground operation. But he said Washington supported Israel’s right to defend itself after Hamas militants killed 1,400 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. “We’re not drawing red lines for Israel,” he said. He said the United States continued to discuss with Israel the aims of its operation, the need to protect civilians in Gaza, the effort to gain the safe return of Israeli hostages and the need to consider what comes after ground operations in Gaza.
“Since the very beginning, we have had and will continue to have conversations with them about the manner in which they’re doing this. And we have not been shy about expressing our concerns over civilian casualties, collateral damage, and the approach that they might choose to take. That’s what friends can do, and we’re friends,” he said.
The West is grappling with radical Muslims it voluntarily imported who march in the streets praising Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre as “liberation” of “stolen land.” Polling shows 57% of U.S. Muslims believe Hamas’ attack was at least “somewhat justified.” Pictured: Supporters of Israel rally in Times Square on Oct 19. (Photo: Ed Jones/Getty Images)
The weeks since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel—in which the most Jews were slaughtered in a single day than at any time since World War II—have seen an astonishing rise in global Jew-hatred. One might have thought that the mass carnage and unspeakable barbarism of the Hamas Holocaust would instead galvanize a concerted pushback against Islamic jihadism, but it is the ancient scourge of antisemitism—and not so-called Islamophobia—that is once again the world’s most politically correct and fashionable form of bigotry.
“In every generation, they rise up to destroy us,” Jews read in the Haggadah text every Passover, “but the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands.”
Now, less than 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany, today’s Nazis, an Islamist Reich hellbent anew on Jewish genocide, rises up to try to finish what Hitler could not. Like their brownshirt forebears, the jihadists will fail.
Our comfort in the Lord does not necessarily ameliorate the profound pain of the last few weeks, though. For many Jews, the appalling and disgusting mass demonstrations of support for the Hamas terrorists have been just as devastating as the Oct. 7 pogrom itself.
In Berlin—yes, Berlin—a synagogue was firebombed.
In Vienna, a one-time hub of Nazism, a synagogue was attacked and vandalized.
In Paris, a Jewish couple’s apartment door was doused with gasoline and set on fire.
In Los Angeles, a knife-wielding madman trespassed into a Jewish home while shouting, “Free Palestine.”
At George Washington University in the nation’s capital, student jihadists projected “Glory To Our Martyrs” onto the side of a school library.
At Cooper Union, Jewish students were locked in a library by pro-Hamas student demonstrators banging on the doors; the NYPD had to evacuate the students via underground tunnel.
In the heavily Muslim town of Dearborn, Michigan, Islamists thronged the streets while waving today’s swastika, the so-called Palestinian flag, and shouting for extermination of the Jews of Israel “from the river to the sea.”
Other examples abound.
There are many reasons for this dire state of affairs.
First, the chickens of once-fringe, leftist ivory tower piffle—such as critical theory and intersectionality—have come home to roost in a very menacing way. The avant-garde leftism of a half-century ago has led many to now justify, or outright cheer on, genocide perpetrated against the most genocide-d people in world history.
As this column observed in May 2021 during the last major Israel-Hamas conflict: “The American Left and the media organs it controls are exporting their paroxysms of ‘1619 Project‘ rage onto a foreign stage, expiating their ‘white guilt’ sins and armchair-quarterbacking a foreign conflict on a cosplayed chess board.”
It’s all just fun and games—no matter how many “eggs” are broken to make the “omelet,” to paraphrase Stalin-apologist New York Times bureau chief Walter Duranty.
But there is a second lesson from the past few weeks in addition to the harrowing real-world consequences of obscure leftist academic theories: the complete and total failure of mass migration.
For years, liberals and globalists have pushed for open-ended migration of people across borders, as if borders are entirely arbitrary (if not outright atavistic) and all cultures and ways of life are interchangeable.
As the West grapples with the very radical Muslims it voluntarily imported—hundreds of thousands of whom march in the streets of metropolises such as London and Chicago calling for Jewish genocide and thousands of others who lead vile “Students for Justice in Palestine” statements praising the Hamas massacre as a “liberation” of “stolen land”—it has become obvious that assimilation of huge numbers of non-Western immigrants into Western society is simply not working.
A shocking new poll found that 57.5% of American Muslims believe that the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7 was at least “somewhat justified.” That is simply disgusting. Jewish day schools are canceling classes due to fear; the security needed at synagogues is now unprecedented. Jews all across America and Europe have not been this terrified since World War II. And the open-borders dolts who have peddled the insane notion that “all cultures are equal” bear much of the blame.
Many leading Islamists, such as the infamous “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel-Rahman, long counseled immigration to the West as one of the most effective ways of spreading the global jihad. For decades, Western liberals have been all too eager to assist.
Mass migration was always delusional; all cultures are obviously not equal, let alone interchangeable. Now, given the emboldened forces of jihadism the world over, it has never been more important to turn off the spigot. And for those subversive, fifth column actors already here, deportation and denaturalization must be on the table as the law permits.
There are monsters in our midst. They must be dealt with accordingly.
Josh Hammer, a syndicated columnist, is opinion editor of Newsweek and a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation. He also is counsel and policy adviser for the Internet Accountability Project and contributing editor for Anchoring Truths.
Top Stories • Speaker Mike Johnson Was an Attorney for a Pro-Life Group, Has a “Rock Solid Record on Life” • Christian Leaders: Vote No on Issue 1, Ohio Should Reject Abortions Up to Birth • Tim Scott Would Sign 15-Week Abortion Ban: “We Can’t Have States With Abortion Until Birth” • ACLU, George Soros and Planned Parenthood Pour Millions Into Ohio for Issue 1
More Pro-Life News • Pro-Life Attorneys Ask Court to Dismiss Criminal Case Against Woman Who Exposed Planned Parenthood Selling Aborted Baby Parts • Premature Baby Born at 25 Weeks Proves Unborn Babies are Not Clumps of Cells • 16 Democrat AGs Sign Letter Attacking Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers • New Maine Law Democrats Approved Allows Killing Babies in Abortions Up to Birth • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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We all know that Biden isn’t running the show, and more than likely, it is Obama and hardcore left-wing zealots who are using Biden as nothing more than a meat puppet that can barely read their teleprompter. So, given the Obama administration in the past to institute weak red-lines, will the Obama-run Biden administration do the same?
The Biden administration has already shown to be weak when dealing with our adversaries like China, Iran, etc., so it’s a good bet he’ll be using the same old flimsy red-line rhetoric that Obama has used In the past.
After all many blame Obama and Biden for loading Iran with plenty of cash to institute terrorism around the globe.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Tenth-graders at a Missouri high school last week had to watch a slideshow on “oppression and privilege” that may violate state law by using information from a Planned Parenthood affiliate that lists abortion clinics on its website.
The class of sophomores at Webster Groves High School near St. Louis watched a slideshow titled “Being an Ally,” which lists so-called oppression categories as “racial,” “class,” “gender,” “sexual orientation,” “religion,” and “immigration status.”
“It’s wrong to teach that different categories of human beings are either inherently oppressive or oppressed,” said the mother of one student, who provided a video of the presentation to The Daily Signal.
“This rhetoric is divisive in nature and creates undeserved mentalities of guilt or victimhood,” said the mother, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her child’s privacy.
In an apparent violation of Missouri state law by the Webster Groves School District, the end of the Oct. 18 slideshow included a barcode and link to the website for Teen Health Source, a subsidiary of Planned Parenthood Toronto.
Teen Health Source calls itself a “sexual health information service run for and by youth.” Categories listed on its website include “Birth Control,” “Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation,” “Pleasure,” “Pregnancy,” “Puberty & The Body,” “Sex,” and “STIs” [sexually transmitted infections].
The presentation to 10th-graders isn’t out of the ordinary for Webster Groves School District, which enrolls almost 4,500 students in the suburbs of St. Louis. Last September, a parent read the transgender-promoting children’s book “I Am Jazz” to a second-grade class without the school’s first informing other parents. Starting in kindergarten, students in the school district learn to “examine issues of social justice and equity within an anti-bias framework.”
Two school employees, counselor Carrie Aschinger and social worker Anne Gibbs, presented the “privilege and oppression” slideshow to the 10th-graders, a video of which later was uploaded to an online learning platform.
“Being an ally means using your privilege to help support people who are facing oppression that you might not experience yourself,” Aschinger told the 16- and 17-year-old students, according to the video.
The presentation included tips on listening to those who are oppressed by navigating factors such as “gender pronouns.” Gibbs told the students that “allies” need to go through “unlearning,” which “involves questioning and rejecting oppressive beliefs you might have held for a long time.”
“As you learn about your privilege as a non-oppressed person, try to be honest with yourself about how that privilege has affected your life and who you are,” Gibbs told students, according to the video posted below.
This is a direct attack on Christian homes. Jesus said (John 3:19-21) that human beings love the darkness, instead of the light, because they know their believe system, philosophy, theology, sociology, et., al., is wrong. Their real aim is to take young Christian students away from God and their parents upbringing.
Aschinger and Gibbs didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment for this report. The Webster Groves School District also didn’t respond.
The mother who leaked the video of the slideshow to The Daily Signal said a public school shouldn’t ask children to evaluate their privilege.
“The district knows that many parents disapprove and continues to push these lessons anyway,” she said.
The “About” page for Teen Health Source, linked in the presentation to the 10th-graders, says it is “non-judgmental, sex-positive, pro-choice, and inclusive.”
Missouri law requires school districts to notify parents of the “basic content of the district’s or school’s human sexuality instruction to be provided to the student.” It also specifies a “parent’s right to remove the student from any part of the district’s or school’s human sexuality instruction.” However, the school mom who saw and leaked the video of the slideshow said she wasn’t informed in advance.
In a letter to the state association of school boards, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey promoted a model resolution with which school districts could pledge to “uphold Missouri law on human sexuality instruction in public schools.”
Bailey’s draft resolution for the Missouri School Board Association notes that “issues of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression are inextricably intertwined with human sexuality.”
To enforce the laws as written and protect children across the state, I directed a letter to the Missouri School Board Association, urging them to call on their members to adopt a model resolution pledging to uphold Missouri law on human sexuality instruction in public schools. pic.twitter.com/kg5pzfotOO
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) January 31, 2023
On its website, Teen Health Source defines abortion on its website as “a safe medical procedure that ends a pregnancy.” The website also says medical abortions “use medication to stop the growth of a pregnancy and then expel the pregnancy tissue from the uterus” and a surgical abortion “remove[s] the pregnancy tissue from the uterus.”
“Pregnancy tissue” apparently is a euphemism for “unborn baby” or “fetus,” words that don’t appear there in regard to abortion.
The Teen Health Source website has descriptions and links to abortion clinics in the Toronto area. It doesn’t list any pro-life pregnancy resource centers.
Teen Health Source also suggests “trangender care” clinics that offer minors sterilizing hormone therapy and referrals for transgender surgery. Other services listed include support for teenagers who want help “coming out” or are “questioning gender identity and/or sexual orientation.”
Some clinics recommended to Teen Health Source’s audience, which encompasses ages 13 through 19, provide HIV testing, birth control prescriptions, and abortion pills.
A section of the website, called “Navigating sex and gender dysphoria,” defines gender dysphoria as “a term for stress, conflict, or negative feelings people can feel in relation to their bodies, gender or how others perceive their gender.” It defines gender euphoria” as “a term for the joy, comfort or connection people can feel in relation to their bodies, gender or how others perceive their gender.”
A page on gender dysphoria advises teens who are questioning their gender on how to have “affirming sex” and remind themselves that their “body and gender is awesome and is the gender and sex that you say it is” [sic].
A post on “porn literacy” tells teenagers: “Porn can be good for inspiration.”
“Lots of people use and enjoy porn,” Teen Health Source’s post reads. “Some people are concerned about how they use it. They may worry that they’re using porn too much or that they’re addicted to it, but there’s no one ‘normal’ or ‘right’ amount to use porn.”
“Linking students to any website that publishes articles about gender identity, sexual pleasure, ‘porn literacy,’ and abortion should not occur without notifying parents,” the anonymous mother of a sophomore told The Daily Signal in an email. “They are sneaking in sexual education when some families may have opted out.”
A post on “Sex, Gender, and Sexuality” says: “Some people are transgender, which means their gender identity doesn’t align with their biological sex.”
“Your gender identity may be fluid and can change throughout your life,” the post reads.
Teen Health Source’s webpage titled “Hookups” describes what it calls “casual sex encounters.”
“Sex is not something that happens only when people are in committed relationships,” the post reads. “There are many different kinds of sexual relationships and sometimes it can be confusing to sort them all out.”
The slideshow presentation that refers to Teen Health Source makes her want to remove her child from the school district, the concerned mother told The Daily Signal.
“The decision-making by district administration and the Board of Education have become increasingly predictable and politically-driven,” she said in an email. “How can parents feel comfortable sending their children to school where they are fed a constant stream of one-sided political propaganda?”
The mother said she believes the Missouri school district violated state law by encouraging students to visit a website associated with Planned Parenthood that contains materials on sex education.
“I would really like to see Webster Groves School District drop the politics from their decision making and curriculum,” she said. “But unfortunately, I don’t see that happening, as they’ve been accelerating in the opposite direction.”
A Missouri law, passed in March, will allow students to transfer from their school district to eligible schools starting with the 2024-2025 school year.
“School choice is just around the corner in Missouri, and I think people will be shocked at the number of families who pull their children from the district, given that opportunity,” the mother said.
Newly elected Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks in the House chamber after his election at the U.S. Capitol on October 25, 2023, in Washington, D.C. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives following three weeks of infighting among GOP members. He delivered his first speech as speaker Wednesday, stressing that God raises up those in authority.
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: “I believe that scripture and the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raised up each of you and God has allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment in time.” pic.twitter.com/IHAkeZb6hg
Johnson, 51, was elected in a 220-209 vote held Wednesday afternoon, in which all present Democrats voted for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and all Republicans present voted for Johnson.
The following features highlights of Johnson’s speech in the House chamber after his election.
A devout Baptist, Johnson said that he does not “believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this,” saying that “the Bible is very clear that God is the One that raises up those in authority.”
“He raised up each of you, all of us,” Johnson said to his Republican and Democrat colleagues. “I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this time.”
“This is my belief. I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today to use the gifts that God has given us to serve the extraordinary people of this great country and they deserve it.”
Johnson said God called Congress to help “ensure that our Republic remains standing as the great beacon of light and hope and freedom in a world that desperately needs it.”
Johnson spoke about the national motto “In God We Trust” and how the words were placed in the House chamber as a conscious rejection of communism during the Cold War.
He stressed the value of the Declaration of Independence and its statement that “all men are created equal” by God, quoting Christian writer and apologist G.K. Chesterton, who once said that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.”
Johnson said that while he believes that right now is “a very dangerous time” and “the world is in turmoil,” he declared that “a strong America is good for the entire world.”
“We are the beacon of freedom, and we must preserve this grand experiment in self-governance,” he said. “We’re only 247 years into this grand experiment; we don’t know how long it will last.”
“We’re in a time of extraordinary crisis right now, and the world needs us to be strong; they need us to remember our creed and our admonition.”
Johnson touched on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, vowing that “the first bill that I’m going to bring to this floor in just a little while will be in support of our dear friend, Israel.”
“We’re going to show not only Israel, but the entire world that the barbarism of Hamas that we have all seen play out in our television screens is wretched and wrong,” he said. “We are going to stand for the good in that conflict.”
He also spoke of the dangers presented by the wave of illegal immigration and the ongoing fentanyl crisis, declaring that “we must come together and address the broken border.”
Johnson acknowledged that Americans “live in a time of bitter partisanship” and “it has been on display here today” in the House of Representatives.
“When our people are losing their faith in government, when they are losing sight of the principles that made us the greatest nation in the history of the world, I think we got to be mindful of that,” Johnson said.
“We’re going to fight; we’re going to fight vigorously over our core principles because they are at odds a lot of times now in this modern era. We have to sacrifice, sometimes, our preferences because that’s what’s necessary in a legislative body.”
Johnson noted that while “we will defend our core principles to the end,” noting that he considered the “core principles of American conservatism” to actually be “the core principles of our nation.”
“I boil them down to individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, and human dignity,” Johnson listed.
“Those are the foundations that made us the extraordinary nation that we are, and you and I today are the stewards of those principles.”
During his speech, Johnson spoke about his father, who served as a firefighter in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, and how he had suffered a severe injury in 1984 that left him with a permanent disability.
“After the explosion on that fateful day, he nearly died, and it was a long road back. It changed all of our life trajectories,” said Johnson. “My dad, he lived with pain all the rest of his life.”
Johnson said his father died from cancer three days before he was elected to Congress in 2016, noting that “he wanted to be there at my election night so badly.”
“This was a big deal to him,” the new speaker explained, who added that in 2017, while he was serving as speaker pro-tempore, he felt that “somehow” his late father “knew” what he was doing.
“I just knew in that moment that my father would be proud of me, and I felt that he was. And I think all of our parents are proud of what we’re called to do here.”
Top Stories • Pro-Life Congressman Mike Johnson Elected Speaker of the House • Pro-Life Groups Praise New Pro-Life Speaker Mike Johnson • Babies Have Been Killed in Abortions at VA Clinics Under New Biden Policy • Liberal Media Trashes Speaker Mike Johnson’s Christian Faith, Devotion to Marriage
More Pro-Life News • Pro-Life Laws are Saving Babies From Abortion, Texas Law Saves Over 1,000 Babies Every Month • 13,241 People Were Euthanized in Canada in 2022, Setting New Record • Joe Biden’s NIH Nominee Monica Bertagnolli Supports Research With Aborted Baby Parts • Restaurant Owner Overcomes Losing Staff, Customers for Being Pro-Life, Says Abortion is “Evil” • Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.
Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com. Copyright 2003-2023 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved. For information on advertising or reprinting news from LifeNews.com, email us.
Most people now realize that Iran is directly involved with Hamas and the recent attacks on Israel through the funding they have received from Biden, the $6 billion, and $58 billion through oil revenue when Biden ignored the embargo placed on their production by Trump.
This can even be traced back to when Obama was president, giving Iran pallets full of millions of dollars. Most of the money from Biden and Obama has most likely ended up in the hands of terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah that have killed Jews and Americans.
Obama has long been suspected of favoring Iran over the people of Israel and their welfare and having strong Muslim sympathies that may have been instrumental in his Middle East policies.
We have a New Speaker, Mike Johnson. Will he be the anti-RINO we all have been hoping for?
House Republicans came to their collective senses on Oct. 25 and elected U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as the new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, ushering in new leadership three weeks after former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted when 208 House Democrats joined a coalition of 8 House Republicans on Oct. 3 in removing his via motion to vacate the chair.
The vote among Republicans for once was unanimous on the House floor, with Johnson getting even more support than did McCarthy when he was finally elected in January. What remains to be seen is if Republicans will be able to keep the conference united when the House proceeds to imminent appropriations bills Johnson has promised to put onto the floor in the coming days and weeks.
In an Oct. 23 dear colleague letter to House Republicans prior to winning the internal conference election for the Speaker nomination, Johnson laid out the legislative calendar for appropriations for the next 18 months. Per the calendar, four appropriations bills will come up immediately in the next week: Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, Interior and Environment and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
Four more would follow in the week after that, in time for the Nov. 17 when the current continuing resolution comes due. Johnson acknowledged that his proposed, expedited schedule for passage of appropriations was “ambitious,” and afforded that there might not be time to work out differences with the Senate.
If so, Johnson also offered another continuing resolution as a fallback: “if another stopgap measure is needed to extend government funding beyond the November 17 deadline, I would propose a measure that expires on January 15 or April 15… to ensure the Senate cannot jam the House with a Christmas omnibus.”
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
United States Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was elected House speaker with 220 votes on Wednesday afternoon.
Earlier this month, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) led an effort to remove Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from speakership. McCarthy was elected House speaker earlier this year, but only after 15 rounds of voting. On October 3, for the first time in the nation’s history, lawmakers voted to remove a speaker. The following day, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) announced his plans to run for the position, but he failed to accumulate enough votes on Friday to secure a win.
Nine Republican lawmakers joined the race on Monday, including Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Byron Donalds of Florida, and Tom Emmer of Minnesota. Gaetz voiced support for Johnson, calling him a “good, godly man who’s going to advance Republicans.”
On Wednesday, three weeks after McCarthy was ousted, Johnson was elected House speaker with 220 votes.
“It is the honor of a lifetime to have been elected the 56th Speaker of the House,” Johnson wrote on X following the vote. “It has been an arduous few weeks, and a reminder that the House is as complicated and diverse as the people we represent. The urgency of this moment demands bold, decisive action to restore trust, advance our legislative priorities, and demonstrate good governance. Our House Republican Conference is united, and eager to work.”
“As Speaker, I will ensure the House delivers results and inspires change for the American people,” Johnson continued. “We will restore trust in this body. We will advance a comprehensive conservative policy agenda, combat the harmful policies of the Biden Administration, and support our allies abroad. And we will restore sanity to a government desperately in need of it. Let’s get back to work.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken contendsthat Hamas would gain no “greater” victory “than allowing its brutality to send us down a path of terrorism and nihilism. We must not let it.”
You can hear echoes of Barack Obama’s insufferable moral equivalencies imbued in that statement.
The contention is a not-so-subtle warning to Israel, who will almost surely enter Gaza and try to dismantle the Hamas terror state — which has been indirectly and directly funded not only by Iran, the European Union, and the United Nations but also by the Obama and Biden administrations.
The insinuation, of course, is that Israel needs to temper its inclination to engage in “terrorism and nihilism.” It is a blood libel.
It is not “terrorism” to seek justice for the pregnant woman who had her baby cut from her body or the elderly couple who was burned alive. And eliminating those who committed Nazi-like atrocities against your citizens is no more nihilistic than tracking down Eichmann or demanding Emperor Hirohito unconditionally surrender.
Yet, only days after the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Biden was already lecturing Benjamin Netanyahu on how “democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.” The insinuation, again, is that there is something nefarious about winning a war against those who massacre your citizens.
Israel doesn’t target civilians, as Blinken, busy placating the progressives who now infest Washington and academia, knows well. Many Israeli soldiers have died because the nation avoids civilian casualties – even as Hamas diligently places their weapons and themselves behind women and children.
Then again, the idea Hamas’s greatest victory would be Israelis exacting revenge is itself the kind of self-satisfying gibberish that might impress a crowd at the Aspen Ideas Festival or readers of Tom Friedman columns.
Hamas’ greatest victory is killing and terrorizing as many Jews as possible. We know this because Islamists tell us this all the time. Why is this confusing? “There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad” are the words literally written into the group’s charter. And Hamas is quite popular in both Gaza and the West Bank. Islamic fundamentalism is popular.
“Look, what happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people,” Joe Biden said the other day. This is the “religion of peace” canard, begun by George W. Bush and widely promulgated by Obama all over again.
When our former president declared that the “future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” he wasn’t joking. Every time Islamists committed acts of terror, the Obama administration would turn the conversation towards “Islamophobia,” a neologism that conflates tolerance of individuals and groups (Muslims) with tolerance of a belief system (Islam). This rhetoric is not only meant to cloud reality but to chill speech and create immunity for the many progressive “anti-Zionists” on the left.
The modern Democrats have taken up this dishonest framing with gusto. When a reporter asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre this week if the president was concerned about rising anti-Semitism — you know, because of the Jew-hating protests that have broken out across the country — she responded by saying there were no “credible threats” and then pivoted the claims that “Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks.”
She did this twice. Not only is it a gross deflection, but it is also a lie. According to the FBI, hate crimes against Jews represent over 50 percent of all religion-related hate crimes, while hate crimes against Muslims are under 10 percent.
But Obama’s most corrosive legacy is foreign policy. Democrats have become obsessed with turning Iran into a regional counterweight to Israel while also restarting a “peace process” that would surely create a Muslim Brotherhood-led terror state on Israel’s borders.
Before Israel could even identify all the bodies of their citizens, Biden was already yammering on about the “dignity” and “self-determination” in places where “self-determination” manifested in the creation of a Jihadist terror state.
Donald Trump nixed this strategy, punishing Iran and circumventing Hamas/PLO in peace negotiations with Gulf states. That success was shattered when the Obama retreads entered the White House again and began opening up billions to Iran and sending Hamas and Fatah hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Biden administration is teeming with Obama-era Iran and Muslim Brotherhood fans. Not only did someone like Rob Malley — rehired by Biden after leading Obama’s giveaway — surround himself with real-life Iranian assets, but he’d met at least twice with Hamas, once with Obama’s blessing.
“This administration is different from the previous administration,” Hamas’s deputy foreign minister and New York Times columnist, Ahmed Yussuf, said at the time. “We believe Hamas’s message is reaching its destination.”
Definitely.
Even now, despite overwhelming evidence of its involvement in the killing of not only 1,300 Jews, 30 of them Americans, the administration does everything it can to deny Iran provided logistical and financial help that killed 30 Americans.
Like Obama, Biden offers just enough lip service about Israel’s right to defend itself to placate Jewish donors and voters. Every action of the president – even his supposed morale-lifting trip to the country–is meant to inhibit Israel from winning. Democrats are open to helping Israel defend itself but unopened to the prospect of destroying those who seek its end.
Let me amend that. There are plenty of Democrats who want Israel destroyed and more every day.
When Obama finally deigned to wade in on the killing of Jews and Americans, he offered his usual perfunctory throat-clearing about Israel’s right to exist before hitting the “but.” The “but” can be summed up as so: the more Jews die, the more Jews have a responsibility to placate the Islamic world and give their enemies a state.
And apparently, in many ways, the Biden administration concurs.
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday added his name to the list of people congratulating newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who secured the gavel through a unanimous party-line vote, ending the weekslong impasse to pick a new speaker after the ouster earlier this month of Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the seat.
“Congratulations to Rep. Mike Johnson,” Trump posted on his Truth Social page, shortly after the House vote. “He will be a GREAT “SPEAKER.” MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
“My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!” Trump wrote in a post.
Johnson’s nomination came Tuesday, marking the fourth person to be nominated for the leadership seat. Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., was nominated earlier in the day but dropped his bid, leaving the candidacy open for Johnson.
Trump, though, said he would not make an endorsement in the speakership race after offering his congratulations to other candidates, including “Reps. Byron Donalds (Florida), Charles J. ‘Chuck’ Fleischmann (Tennessee), Mark Green (Tennessee), & Roger Williams (Texas), & the ultimate winner of yesterday’s vote, by a significant margin, Mike Johnson (Louisiana).”
He said all of them had supported him “in both mind and spirit, from the very beginning of our GREAT 2016 Victory and commented that “In 2024, we will have an even bigger, & more important, WIN!”
President Joe Biden on Wednesday spoke out against retaliatory attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. He also said he was redoubling his commitment to working on a two-state solution to end the decades-long Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Biden said the attacks by “extremist settlers” amounted to “pouring gasoline” on the already burning fires in the Middle East since the Hamas attack.
“It has to stop. They have to be held accountable. It has to stop now,” Biden said at the start of a news conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was being honored with a state visit to Washington.
Settler violence against Palestinians has intensified since the Hamas attack, and Palestinians have been killed by settlers, according to Palestinian authorities. Rights groups say settlers have torched cars and attacked several small Bedouin communities, forcing them to evacuate to other areas.
The West Bank Protection Consortium, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations and donor countries, including the European Union, says hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in the West Bank due to settler violence since Oct. 7. That’s in addition to over 1,100 displaced since 2022.
Deadly violence has been surging in the West Bank as the Israeli military pursues Palestinian militants in the aftermath of the Hamas attack from Gaza.
The violence threatens to open another front in the 2-week-old war, and puts pressure on the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank and is deeply unpopular among Palestinians, in large part because it cooperates with Israel on security matters.
Biden again condemned the brutality of the Hamas attack that killed 1,400 Israelis and said that he was convinced that Hamas was driven in part by a desire undo U.S.-led efforts to normalize Israeli relations with some of its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia.
The president also said that after the Israel-Hamas conflict comes to an end, Israeli, Palestinians and their partners must work toward a two-state solution.
“Two State solution”. That is NOT a solution. The land the so-called Palestinians occupy was given them by Great Britton after Saudi Arabia kicked them out of the country. It is not their land. Naver have been their land, and God will demonstrate soon whose land it really belongs to.
“Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live side by side in safety, dignity and peace,” Biden said, adding, “When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution.”
The Hamas-run Health Ministry says more than 6,500 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in retaliatory strikes. Biden said that it was critical for Israel to move carefully in its response to minimize civilian deaths.
“Israel should be incredibly careful to be sure that they’re focusing on going after the folks that are propagating this war,” Biden said.
Biden also that he has not directly sought assurances from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel will hold off on an expected ground invasion into Gaza before hostages can be released.
“What I have indicated to him is that if that’s possible, to get these folks out safely, that’s what he should do. It’s their decision,” Biden said at news conference at the White House. “But I did not demand it. I pointed out to him, if it’s real, it should be done.” About 10 Americans remain unaccounted for amid the Israel-Hamas war, according to the White House.
___
Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
President Joe Biden conducts a joint press conference Wednesday outside the White House with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden voiced support Wednesday for Israel’s defense and warned against believing Palestinian estimates of casualties as the Jewish state continues to pound the Gaza Strip in retaliation for terrorist attacks committed by Hamas, which governs Gaza. During a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the Rose Garden of the White House, Biden also talked briefly about newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., China’s aggression against the Philippines, climate change, and the Russia-Ukraine war.
A PBS reporter asked Biden about Johnson, saying that after the 2020 election, the Louisiana congressman objected to certifying Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. On the House floor Wednesday, Democrats also attacked Johnson as an election denier.
The PBS reporter asked: “If you win reelection in 2024, are you concerned that Speaker Johnson would again attempt to overturn the election?”
Biden responded, “No.”
“Just like I wasn’t worried that the last guy would overturn the election,” Biden added, referring to his predecessor, President Donald Trump. “He had about 60 lawsuits. Every time, they lost. I understand the Constitution.”
During his opening remarks at the press conference, Biden asserted that Israel has the right and responsibility to defend itself after Hamas’ surprise attack Oct. 7 on Israel, massacring 1,400 and taking about 200 others hostage. The same PBS reporter told the president that the “Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed over 6,000 Palestinians, including 2,700 children.”
But Biden appeared skeptical of those numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry.
“What that says to me is that I have no notion the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people were killed,” Biden said. “I’m sure innocents have been killed … but I think we should be incredibly careful. I think the Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure they are going after the folks that are propagating this war against Israel. It is against their interest when that doesn’t happen. But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are giving.”
A reporter from the Australian press shouted, “Are they lying?”
What an incredibly stupid question. Gee. Do you think this reporter has an agenda?
On Monday, Chinese ships blocked and collided with two Filipino vessels in the South China Sea. The United States has a mutual defense agreement with the Philippines going back to a 1951 treaty.
“Just this past week, the PRC vessels acted dangerously and unlawfully as our Philippine friends conducted a routine resupply mission within their own inclusive economic zone in the South China Sea,” Biden said of China’s actions.
“I want to be clear. I want to be very clear. The United States’ defense commitment to the Philippines is ironclad. The United States’ defense commitment to the Philippines is ironclad,” Biden said, repeating himself. “Any attack on a Filipino aircraft, vessels, or armed forces will invoke our mutual defense treaty with the Philippines.”
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Biden has been having a lot of problems with his dogs biting people at the White House. It seems as though Iran has a couple of dogs that are even more ferocious, but it seems as though they’re well-trained. Their names are Hezbollah and Hamas.
It appears these dogs, Hezbollah and Hamas, have been well fed by Iran with money paid to them by the US… Biden and the US gave Iran $6 billion or more and paid Hamas $6 million, not to mention the $58 billion Iran made from oil production unleashed by Biden’s policies. President Trump had put restrictions on Iran’s selling of oil that Biden canceled as soon as he came into office.
Bottom line, you could say for sure that it was Obama and Biden who funded the terror and genocidal attack on Israel on October 7th due to their weak and ignorant Middle East policies in a desperate attempt to secure a nuclear deal with Iran and their appeasement of evil dictatorships.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
At least 33 Americans killed in Israel-Hamas war, secretary of state tells UN
Israeli forces have escalated their bombardment of the Gaza Strip as the war with Hamas enters its 18th day. The war is now the deadliest war in Gaza for both sides. The Hamas-run Health Ministry claims at least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed and 15,270 wounded. More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed since the Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas, in which 222 people including foreigners were taken captive into Gaza. Four people have been released so far.
2 hour(s) ago
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American troops attacked repeatedly in Middle East as war between Israel and Hamas continues
The Pentagon is seen from a flight taking off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on November 29, 2022 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
U.S. officials announced on Tuesday that American troops in the Middle East have been attacked 14 times in the last week.
The attacks were carried out with rockets and one-way drones. U.S. Department of Defense spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder explained that, between October 17 and 24, American troops in Iraq were attacked 10 times.
During the same time frame, U.S. troops in Syria were attacked three times.
At a Monday briefing, a senior defense official said that they expected to see a “significant escalation” of attacks against American troops due to the war.
“I think it’s fair to say when you see this uptick in activity in attacks by many of these groups, there’s Iranian fingerprints all over it,” the defense official explained.
Two U.S. defense officials confirmed later on Tuesday that Iran proxy forces fired a rocket at Iraq’s Ain al-Asad air base, which houses American troops.
No injuries or damages or reported from the rocket, which was intercepted.
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner and Liz Friden contributed to this report.
Israel-Hamas war: IDF stops Hamas terrorists’ attempt to invade by sea
Israel continues to deploy soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles near the Gaza border in Sderot, Israel on October 24, 2023.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported early Wednesday morning that Hamas terrorists attempted to invade Israel by sea on Tuesday.
“Hamas terrorists attempting to infiltrate Israeli territory by sea were identified by naval forces in southern Israel earlier today,” the IDF explained in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The terrorists were thwarted and the tunnel was struck, in addition to a weapons warehouse used by the terrorists in Gaza,” the post added.
The IDF previously released footage of a naval squad stopping Hamas fighters from reaching Israel’s coastline on October 7, when the terrorist attacks began.
The soldiers took down Hamas speedboats, which ignited, and shot the terrorists who were swimming away.
Hundreds of pro-Israel demonstrators gathered in Boston Common on Monday evening amid the war between Hamas and Israel.
Many of the protestors objected to the New York Times’ coverage of an airstrike at a Gaza hospital on October 17. The report claimed that hundreds were killed by an Israeli airstrike, based off of information from Hamas officials.
Israeli and American intelligence later found that Israel was not responsible for the incident. A rocket fired by Iran-backed terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad misfired and crashed.
A protestor named Lia, who hails from Israel, told Fox News that the article made Jews less safe.
“It’s anywhere from adults to kids in schools who later take this false information and use it to attack innocent Israelis just because they read some fake article,” she said. “People are being harassed and abused because of it.”
Another Israeli named Tamir said that the reports endangers Jews across the world.
“I can feel people being hostile towards us,” he said.
Fox News Digital’s Kassy Dillon contributed to this report.
Israel-Hamas war: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cracking down on pro-Hamas sentiment on campuses
Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the 2023 First in the Nation Leadership Summit on October 13, 2023 in Nashua, New Hampshire. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is working with the chancellor of the Sunshine State’s university system to crack down on pro-Hamas sentiment at universities.
Ray Rodrigues, chancellor of the State University System of Florida, recently wrote a letter to Florida state universities condemning the terrorist attacks against Israel, which began on October 7.
“During a holy Jewish holiday, the recognized terrorist organization, Hamas, launched an unprovoked attack on Israel – among those killed were babies, women, and elderly,” Rodrigues wrote. “To date, approximately 1,400 Israelis have been killed, including 31 American citizens. Governor DeSantis, our State University System and the Florida College System have condemned these attacks.”
The letter added that it would be a “felony under Florida law to knowingly provide material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization.” Rodrigues referenced that at least two universities in the Florida system had students tied to National Students for Justice in Palestine, which called the Hamas attacks “the resistance.”
“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” the letter said. “These two student chapters may form another organization that complies with Florida state statutes and university policies.”
“The two institutions should grant these two chapters a waiver for the fall deadlines, should reapplication take place,” Rodrigues added.
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
Israel-Hamas war: Biden speaks with Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia about conflict
U.S. President Joe Biden arrives at a ceremony for recipients of the National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation in the East Room of the White House on October 24, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
President Biden discussed the Israel-Hamas war over the phone with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday, as the leaders agreed to try to prevent the escalation of the conflict.
“The two leaders agreed on pursuing broader diplomatic efforts to maintain stability across the region and prevent the conflict from expanding,” a statement from the White House read. “They welcomed the delivery of humanitarian assistance from Egypt into Gaza and recognized that much more is needed for civilians to have sustained access to food, water, and medical assistance.”
The statement also acknowledged the $100 million donation to support humanitarian efforts on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is headquartered in Saudi Arabia.
Biden and the Crown Prince also advocated for the immediate release of hostages that were taken by Hamas into Gaza.
“They also affirmed the importance of working towards a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians as soon as the crisis subsides, building on the work that was already underway between Saudi Arabia and the United States over recent months,” the statement added. “They agreed to remain in close coordination directly and through their teams over the coming period.”
Several Hamas terrorists attempted to infiltrate Israel from the Gaza Strip by sea and were killed by Israeli Navy forces, the IDF said.
At least six Hamas terrorists were killed when Israeli fighter jets responded to a diver squad attempted to enter Israel by Zekim beach, sources tell Fox News.
Israeli forces have struck more than 400 terrorist targets in the past 24 hours, the military said Tuesday.
As part of its “wide-scale operation” to dismantle Hamas’ capabilities, the IDF said the targets struck include: Hamas gunmen setting up to fire rockets in Israel’s direction, an operational tunnel shaft allowing Israel to be infiltrated through the sea, and Hamas command centers and staging armaments in Mosques.
The focus continues to be on eliminating Hamas operatives and “weapons storage sites, underground terrorist tunnels, command centers, observation posts and more,” the IDF said in its daily recap.
The force also said it will continue operating with the safety of innocent civilians in mind.
Fox News’ Elizabeth Pritchett and Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this update.
People gather outside United Nations headquarters to demand the release of hostages taken by Hamas held in Gaza and to show support to some of their family members on Oct. 24, 2023, in New York City. (Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
With one exception, nothing about Oct. 7 surprised me.
The one exception was Israel’s unpreparedness. That also surprised nearly every Israeli. My guess is that a combination of Iranian technology and Israeli complacency and incompetence led to the greatest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Nothing else surprised me. Not the butchery; not the sadism; not the Jew-hatred; not the theology that made the slaughter possible; not the support, even glee, in Gaza and among an untold number of Muslims around the world; not the reactions in our universities; and not the support of the Left (not of liberals).
The Middle East Dispute
Since the 1970s, when I was a graduate student at the Middle East Institute of Columbia’s School of International Affairs, I knew what the Middle East conflict was about: Muslim rejection of a Jewish state in the middle of the Muslim world. To the best of my recollection, my professors—most of them fluent in Arabic and all experts on the Middle East—had it wrong. Being secular themselves and usually having a sympathetic view of the Arab world, they believed and taught that the issue was about land.
They were wrong. It was always about Muslim rejection of a Jewish state in their midst and a religious desire to destroy it.
In 2014, I presented a video for PragerU titled “The Middle East Problem.” It explains the Middle East problem in five minutes.
This is how It begins:
“When I did my graduate studies at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University … semester after semester, we studied the Middle East conflict as if it was the most complex conflict in the world when, in fact, it is probably the easiest conflict in the world to explain. It may be the hardest to solve, but it is the easiest to explain.
“In a nutshell, it’s this: One side wants the other side dead.”
Fifty years ago, I knew it. Muslims know it. Israel’s Jews know it. And now, unless you are a leftist, you know it.
I ended the video with another truism:
“Finally, think about these two questions: If, tomorrow, Israel laid down its arms and announced, ‘We will fight no more,’ what would happen? And if the Arab countries around Israel laid down their arms and announced, ‘We will fight no more,’ what would happen?
“In the first case, there would be an immediate destruction of the state of Israel and the mass murder of its Jewish population. In the second case, there would be peace the next day.”
As of Oct. 7, you know that too.
Why Jews Are Hated
There is no hatred like Jew-hatred. It is the longest ongoing hatred in history. It is the most universal. And it is the one exterminationist hatred: Those who hate the Jews want them destroyed. There is a Hebrew statement that is probably 2,000 years old, and which is recited during the Passover Seder service: “In every generation, they arise to annihilate us.”
Note that the sentence does not say “to persecute us” or “to enslave us,” but “to annihilate us.”
The question is why?
I wrote an entire book—“Why the Jews?”—40 years ago explaining antisemitism. But I can sum it up in a few sentences: Jew-hatred is largely a result of the Jews being The Chosen People. You can laugh at the idea if you are secular and inclined to do so. But those who hate the Jews have not laughed at the idea; they have hated the Jews because of it—because they believed it and/or because it is true.
The Jews introduced to humanity the God in which most of the world believes; brought into existence the Bible that is the basis of the New Testament and the Quran; gave the Christian world its Messiah; and gave much of the world its morality through the Torah, the Prophets, and the Ten Commandments.
Those who hate that moral code hate the Jews. The two groups who have tried to exterminate the Jews in the last hundred years, the Nazis and the Islamists (not all Muslims), hate that moral code. And they hate the Jews for embodying it—compared to the Nazis and compared to Islamic regime of Iran, Hezbollah, ISIS, and Hamas, Israel is composed of saints.
So, when I read about the horrors inflicted by Hamas on young Jews, old Jews, and Jewish babies, I was horrified, but not at all surprised. That is what the most evil of any generation do to Jews. And that is why non-Jews who dismiss Iran, Hamas, or Hezbollah as the Jews’ problem are fools. Tens of millions of non-Jews were killed because most people dismissed Hitler and the Nazis as the Jews’ problem.
In fact, aside from increased loathing of Hamas and its Muslim and left-wing supporters, the only effect the events of Oct. 7 had on me was to reinforce my faith in the chosenness of the Jews.
Oregon has removed reading and writing proficiency requirements for graduation. Had the Oregon Board of Education done 15 minutes of research, it would have found that relaxing academic performance standards has had drastic adverse consequences. (Photo: Boy Anupong/Getty Images)
The Oregon Board of Education on Thursday voted unanimously to remove requirements for students to be proficient in reading and writing in order to graduate—joining the long line of ill-advised moves to cut academic expectations for American students.
The Oregon Department of Education released a statement calling the reading and writing proficiency standards “burdensome to teachers and students.” Dan Farley, Oregon’s assistant superintendent of research, assessment, and data with the Education Department, said the standards simply “did not work.”
There’s no evidence that suspending those standards is going to improve the academic performance of any student—quite the contrary. Had the Oregon Board of Education done 15 minutes of research, it would have found that relaxing academic performance standards has had drastic adverse consequences.
Ohio tried the same strategy in 2020—and the results are already looking grim. Then-state Superintendent Paolo DeMaria reformed graduation requirements, abandoning “competency” in math and English. Since that decision, Ohio’s math proficiency has dropped.
An Ohio State University report on Ohio’s proficiencies in math and English describe middle- and high-school grades’ math performance decline as “substantial.” Since 2020, math performance in grades 3 through 10 has fallen between 1% and 4%—and shows no signs of improving.
Why would it? If math proficiency is no longer a requirement for graduation, why would schools devote the time to making sure students are proficient in it?
Public school districts in California, Michigan, New York, and South Carolina have tried similar approaches—lowering academic standards and expectations in the name of “racial equity.” The results are as you might expect: No district that has sought to cut academic standards has seen an improvement in academic performance.
Why would Oregon be any different?
Oregon’s Board of Education has not provided an alternative to the literacy graduation standards; therefore, we can and should expect the same results, ranging from mediocrity to abject failure, that other states and districts have suffered due to the embarrassingly poor decisions made by individuals who won’t suffer the consequences of illiteracy.
American education is rapidly becoming a toxic system of promoting the “good enough” benchmark to bolster self-esteem by pretending students’ failure is either nonexistent or not their responsibility.
As Daniel Buck, a former educator and fellow at the Fordham Institute, points out, grade point averages in the United States have risen considerably since 2010—while ACT testing scores have remained constant. Students’ performance, as measured by standardized testing, isn’t increasing—but their grades are still improving. How?
Standards are in sharp decline, and performance will follow.
Thankfully, some states are bucking this trend. Tennessee has begun requiring third grade students who don’t meet performance requirements on the annual state math test to take summer classes in an effort to close gaps.
Florida—which not only kept students in classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic, but has also increased expectations for students in both math and English—has seen dividends in student performance. Florida’s reading and math average scores for grades 4, 8 and 12 have climbed year-over-year since 2020.
The lack of academic expectations has driven many parents to seek alternative education options for their children in the past decade—with STEM and classical education seeing the largest increases.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics charter and private schools have become a common sight in cities across the country—promising a rigorous environment for students to stretch their academic muscles and prepare for challenging careers by carrying a hefty workload with intensive assessments.
Classical education, which throws pre-K through 12th grade students into classic works of literature, history, sciences, philosophy and theology, has also become quite popular—with organizations such as Classical Learning Test creating an alternative to the SAT and ACT, which many universities are beginning to prefer.
As for Oregon’s decision to abandon reading proficiency, the jury isn’t out; to the contrary, it’s quite in. Other states and schools have consistently proven that leaving standards and expectations behind for any reason will result in diminished returns in performance—and students will end up paying the price for the rest of their lives.
Regrettably, Oregon isn’t the first state, and it likely won’t be the last. Every department, board, administrator, and policymaker that withholds expectations from students is depriving them of the possibility of growth and achievement.
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Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com. Copyright 2003-2023 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved. For information on advertising or reprinting news from LifeNews.com, email us.
The mother, and immediate family of Valentin (Eli) Ghnassia, 23, who was killed in a battle with Hamas militants at kibbutz Be’eeri near the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, grieve during his funeral on October 12, 2023 at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel. Israel has sealed off Gaza and launched sustained retaliatory air strikes, which have killed at least 1,200 people with more than 300,000 displaced, after a large-scale attack by Hamas. On October 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza by land, sea and air, killing over 1,200 people and wounding around 2800. Israeli soldiers and civilians have also been taken hostage by Hamas and moved into Gaza. The attack prompted a declaration of war by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the announcement of an emergency wartime government. | Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Hamas terrorists subjected civilian women, grandmothers and children to extreme sexual violence, a Rabbinate corps member of the Israel Defense Forces responsible for preparing victims’ bodies for burial has told media, calling the acts “worse than the Holocaust.”
“We wash the bodies and prepare them for burial. We try to bring them dignity in death,” the Rabbinate corps member, a woman named Shari, who did not give her last name to protect her family, told the Daily Mail and other media outlets. “I heard stories about Auschwitz as a child growing up in New Jersey. But what I have seen here with my own eyes is worse than the Holocaust.”
The woman, who moved from New Jersey to Israel 20 years ago, said what Hamas did to Israeli civilians is “beyond words.”
“There is evidence of mass rape so brutal that they broke their victims’ pelvis — women, grandmothers, children,” Shari said, adding that it’s difficult to break someone’s pelvis.
Shari said she saw “people whose heads have been cut off,” and women in their night dresses “woken up and shot.” She also witnessed “faces blasted off … heads smashed and their brains spilling out.”
She also described a baby “cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded and then the mother was beheaded.”
“Women and children burned to charcoal. Bodies murdered with their hands tied behind their backs.”
The Daily Wire said reports also suggest that many of the Hamas terrorists were under the influence of Captagon, a drug linked to heightened aggression and commonly referred to as the “ISIS drug.”
The Wire quoted Colonel Rabbi Haim Weisberg as saying there is evidence of “torture and savagery,” agreeing with the Rabbinate corps member.
On Oct. 7, Hamas launched attacks in southern Israel, killing over 1,400 civilians, including 30 Americans. Israel has been carrying out retaliatory airstrikes since Hamas’ attacks.
Hamas has claimed that over 4,100 people in Gaza have been killed since the airstrikes began, with over 13,000 injured.
As civilians are fleeing airstrikes, the Egypt-Gaza border opened Saturday, allowing 20 trucks of aid into Gaza for the first time since Israel’s blockade and airstrikes began two weeks ago, The Associated Press reported.
Aid workers say this is far from enough; 200 trucks with 3,000 tons of aid have been waiting to get in, the newswire said, explaining that Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are facing a dire humanitarian situation — half have left their homes, hospitals are low on supplies, and there’s a territory-wide power blackout.
Five hospitals have ceased operations due to fuel shortages and bombing damage, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, it added.
Image via US Military Patriot / YouTube (screenshot)
The United States Navy shot down three cruise missiles and a set of drones stemming from a faction in Yemen who launched them over the Red Sea. These weapons could have “potentially” been heading towards Israeli targets.
The USS Carney took down the missiles and drones after they were launched from the Arabian Peninsula, the Pentagon stated in a press conference briefing.
“The crew of the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney, operating in the northern Red Sea earlier today, shot down three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces in Yemen,” Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said.
“We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially toward targets in Israel,” he added.
According to the Epoch Times, Ryder declined to acknowledge who authorized the missiles or whether the government knew if the missiles were targeting Israeli or American forces.
Ryder boasted about U.S. defenses and said it was a typical move for forces in the region.
“This action was a demonstration of the integrated air and missile-defense architecture that we have built in the Middle East and that we are prepared to utilize whenever necessary to protect our partners and our interests in this important region.”
“Our defensive response is one that we would have taken for any similar threat in the region,” Ryder added. “The decision was made that it posed a potential threat based on its flight profile, and so the decision was made to take it down.”
BREAKING: Brigadier Gen. Patrick Ryder confirms the shoot down of 3 missiles launched by Houthi terrorists by the USS Carney. pic.twitter.com/dNgDi1mF1a
The missiles were reportedly fired by the Houthis, a Yemeni group that has been historically backed by Hezbollah and Iran, according to Brookings.
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Houthis allegedly adopted the slogan “God is great, death to the U.S., death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.”
The USS Carney, an American Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, uses the Aegis missile defense system developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, YouTube channel US Military Patriot described. The system is used in combination with standard missile interceptors to track and destroy ballistic missiles.
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While American physical education programs demonstrably fail the nation’s K-12 students, Christian homeschoolers have found an alternative that’s proven far more effective. The result is that homeschooling is now a driving force behind one of the fastest-growing sports in America: Ninja Warrior.
Since 2009, NBC has broadcast a U.S. version of the Japanese sports reality show “Sasuke” as “American Ninja Warrior.” The dynamic obstacles require a level of skilled athleticism far beyond the basic programming of K-12 gymnasiums. The courses’ difficulties have made both the triumphs and the wipeouts award-winning television with 22 nominations to boast while inspiring a new generation of competitive athletes. Eighteen-year-old Elijah Browning of Tennessee is among them.
A three-time contestant on NBC’s program who nearly made it to the million-dollar rope climb in round four, Browning has been competing in obstacle courses since he was 10.
“I’d always grown up watching the show ever since I was 5, 6, 7 years old,” Browning said in a sitdown interview with The Federalist before another competition just south of Denver, Colorado. Then, “me and my mom started finding competitions all over the country for the leagues outside of Ninja Warrior.”
Browning started experimenting with ninja games when his grandfather constructed obstacles at a family farm. A builder for more than 40 years, his grandfather reconstructed common hurdles from the show that have become staples in the sport both on and off the airwaves — from the salmon ladder to the cliffhanger.
“Lucky for me,” said Browning with a smile between sips of coffee. “We started at his house because he had already built these like elaborate tree houses for me, so we were like, adding all these obstacles to the tree houses.”
Also lucky for Browning was his mom’s decision to choose homeschooling over public school, which allowed Browning and his 14-year-old brother, Julian, to take the sport seriously. Browning has now trained and competed in 136 ninja gyms across 35 states and three different countries.
“Most of those [contestants] that are really competitive and serious are homeschooled because you have to travel so much to compete,” Browning said. “You have to travel to stay relevant and compete, and you really can’t take a season off.”
The televised program films from March through May. But beyond the show are dozens of other leagues holding competitions throughout the year. Browning maintains a rigorous training schedule of two- to three-hour workouts six days a week. It’s a workout regimen that sets Browning far apart from the less than 1 in 4 U.S. high school students who are physically active for at least 60 minutes on a daily basis. It’s also a grueling regimen that Leila Smith’s two homeschooled Illinois teens are intimately familiar with.
Tyler Smith, 17, has been on the podium for ninja games at least 110 times, and his 14-year-old sister, Sydney, at least 62. To the family’s frustration, however, Tyler has yet to be on the show, and Sydney is still too young. NBC’s eligibility cutoff begins at 15. Sydney, their mother says, has a much better chance by virtue of her sex.
While Tyler has applied for the televised league twice, the reality is that NBC is still producing reality TV. Guests are featured with generous introductions, put together by producers, before they tackle the obstacles in front of millions watching at home. As a white, midwestern male in a male-dominated sport, Tyler has struggled to grab casting producers’ attention despite his record as one of the best teenage athletes in the sport. Ethan Swanson, a nine-time NBC contestant who now coaches other athletes on the outskirts of Chicago, says Tyler is “one of the most acclaimed” teenage ninjas in the country.
Tyler’s tough luck has led the family to prioritize outside leagues over legacy TV. At 17, Tyler was able to buy his first car outright after having made $20,000 from competitions. He bought an Audi A7 entirely with his prize cash. While it might seem like a large sum for a 17-year-old kid, Tyler’s $20,000 winnings reflect a sport that’s still growing. Obstacle course competitions are not yet commercialized with the support of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), so there are no six-figure scholarships to dish out to high-performing high schoolers. Tyler’s financial success, Swanson said, is by far the “high-water mark.” Even then, it’s no full-time salary after graduation.
Ninjas on a Mission
Christian homeschoolers are trailblazing the growth of competitive ninja leagues in the meantime. Browning’s mom, Renee, called the sport’s expansion “exponential.”
“The Christian homeschool community is always looking for outlets for their kids that are unique and uplifting and encouraging, and that is 100 percent what this sport is,” Renee said. “It’s not cutthroat and mean, like it’s all a bunch of incredible families, and I think that’s appealing to the Christian homeschooling world.”
Leila Smith offered a similar assessment about the sport’s popularity among Christian homeschoolers, calling the community “tight-knit” with a camaraderie of “ninja moms.”
“Knowing that there were Christian families kept us in the sport more,” she said.
Christian ninjas have congregated in Colorado Springs for the past two years to participate in “Warriors on a Mission.” The annual conference features a worship service, book signings, and speakers on how faith has guided athletes’ journey through obstacle courses.
The event is put on by Suzanne Himka, a 53-year-old grandmother who herself still trains and competes in obstacle races. Earlier this month, Himka captured the gold medal in the Mammoth Lakes Obstacle Course Racing World Championships in California. In Colorado Springs, she operates a faith-based gym called Lost Island Warrior where she coaches a team of about 50 competitive athletes and another team of exclusively homeschoolers. The annual conference is her way to “spread the gospel through ninja,” she told The Federalist.
“It’s more than ninja, it’s ministry,” Himka said.
Both Tyler Smith and Elijah Browning were speakers at this year’s conference in June. Next year, Himka plans to hold the conference in Anaheim, California, to coincide with the Ultimate Ninja Athlete Association World Championships so more athletes can attend.
“So many want to come out,” she said, but “it is a big cost.” Himka has spent upwards of $10,000 to help families cover flights and accommodations, but “it’s hard because I’m the only one doing it by myself.”
Himka said 50-85 kids have made professions of Christian faith at the camp every year, and she hopes to keep it running on an annual basis. She speaks regularly to her everyday students and those who come to camp about the analogies between the Bible and overcoming the sport’s obstacles.
“There’s so many analogies,” she said. For example, if kids spend their life looking downward and at a screen instead of upward and outward, “then you’re going to miss a lot of stuff.”
Ninja Inc.
Professional ninjas don’t make a living competing, but the proliferation of the sport has still led prior show contestants to open gyms of their own. The physical demands of the obstacle courses require a unique versatility that leads athletes to peak even earlier than in more popular sports, such as baseball and basketball.
Swanson opened his own gym, Big Time Ninja, in a Chicago suburb with Chris DiGangi, a 12-time contestant on NBC. The facility opened in February after the pair had already hit two dozen buzzers between them and have now chosen to coach the next generation of athletes.
Swanson told The Federalist the top athletes in the sport right now are between ages 16 and 22.
“I think that’s going to increase in the next five years,” he added, crediting advanced facilities such as Big Time Ninja “that offer way more to these kids coming up in the sport.” Swanson estimates the peak age range will shift upward to 17-25.
“All these kids that are learning have better coaches,” he said. “When I was training, I didn’t have a coach.”
But now, even the top teen athletes have begun their careers in coaching. Elijah Browning coaches other ninjas at a gym he launched in Tennessee called Overcome The World. He said about half of his students are homeschooled. Tyler Smith also coaches a team in Illinois on Wednesdays. In Colorado, however, the career of one full-time coach serves as inspiration for athletes who might think competing is beyond their reach.
Just east of Boulder, Nate Hansen, a five-time contestant on NBC, began working at “Ninja Nation” two years before his first invitation for the televised obstacle-course competition. Now known as “Gnarly Nate,” Hansen worked his way from birthday party host in 2018 to head coach at the facility today.
In 2020, Hansen smashed the buzzer on his first run through the course, fulfilling a lifelong mission.
“I was like, ‘This could be the peak of my life,’” Hansen recalled. Despite falling on the fourth obstacle the next day, “that season was definitely like one of the peak moments in my life because it was the time that I got to first execute my dream.”
AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR | National Finals 3 | Episode 1412 | Pictured: Nate HansenIMAGE CREDITELIZABETH MORRIS/NBC
Yet by every measure, biology was stacked against him becoming a professional athlete. Hansen was born with growth hormone deficiency. Also known as dwarfism or pituitary dwarfism, GHD is a rare condition in which affected individuals develop shorter limbs and stature because the body fails to produce enough growth hormones.
“I’m at a severe disadvantage at times being only five-two,” Hansen explained. “I can’t jump as far as, you know, a six-foot-tall athlete.” At the same time, he added, “I honestly appreciate that I weigh less than most athletes.”
The wide variety of obstacles compel athletes to train for an entire range of possibilities on the course and often require just as much climbing as they do reaching. The variation in hurdles means a tall, heavy, athletic body-builder might find it easier to run up the warped wall but more difficult to hurl himself over. An athlete with a lighter stature, on the other hand, probably has an easier time lifting himself through the course.
Yet for all of the disadvantages handed to him by GHD, Hansen defied the odds “by the grace of God” to “show the talent that I’ve been gifted.”
Hansen was among the speakers at this year’s Christian ninja conference in Colorado Springs and credits his faith for carrying him through his athletic career.
“There’s been times where I’m on the Ninja Warrior course that I don’t feel the best or I feel sick, but I just ask that God carry me through and He does,” Hansen said. “Sometimes you fall and there’s lessons to be learned in that too. Sometimes God uses our faults and failures to teach us the most valuable lessons.”
Now Hansen coaches kids on obstacle courses north of Denver, including a handful of homeschoolers. He also has students who similarly struggle with GHD.
“That’s really cool because, you know, I wish I had a role model and a hero with what I had when I was growing up,” Hansen said. “I can kind of motivate and inspire them as young little kids, you know, and say, ‘Hey it’s OK. You’re going to get bullied. You’re going to get pushed down. But you can still do anything.’”
On to the Olympics
Kids who compete in ninja leagues today might even participate in the Olympics.
The 2028 summer games in Los Angeles are on track to feature the first-ever obstacle-course competition in the international series of tournaments.
Terry England, an obstacle-course coach based in New Orleans, told The Federalist the sport will likely be tested in Los Angeles as a replacement for equestrian in the modern pentathlon. The Paris games next summer will be the final year the modern pentathlon will be a five-event sport that includes fencing, swimming, horseback riding, pistol shooting, and running, which were selected to reflect the skills of 19th-century cavalry.
According to NBC, athletes will compete in 10 obstacles up to 100 meters long. Potential hurdles include a rope swing, monkey bars, a rings rig, and a balance beam.
England, which serves on the USA Ninjas Association, is on a committee trying to elevate the sport to Olympic status.
“What does that mean for teen ninjas?” England said. An 8-year-old who has a very good ninja background, he explained, might have a chance to compete on the world stage. “If this 8-year-old can run and swim, then they already have three of the disciplines that are learned to become a pentathlete.”
Exactly why equestrian will be replaced remains unclear, England said. But for ninja, “future Olympics can add events so that there can be longer races, different styles, and team relays in such that would branch out.”
The sport’s addition to the Olympic lineup might also open the door to the league being adopted by American universities. If viewership is good enough, obstacle-course racing may transform from a minor-league hobby with its own television show to a global sport backed by the NCAA. With that would come an even greater flood of interest and money into the sport, including the six-figure scholarships today’s top-tier ninja athletes currently miss out on.
The Olympics may help further popularize Ninja Warrior, but until then, Tyler Smith says he’s ready to compete for “as long as I can.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
A startling poll was released last week showing that a majority of voters not only view the opposing party as a threat to the nation but justifying violence to combat their agenda. The poll captures a crisis of faith that I have been writing about for over a decade as an academic and a commentator. Many now question democracy as a sustainable system of government. It represents the single greatest threat to this nation: a citizenry that has lost faith not just with our system of government but with each other.
The polls by the University of Virginia Center for Politics shows a nation at war with itself. Fifty-two percent of Biden supporters say Republicans are now a threat to American life while 47 percent of Trump supporters say the same about Democrats.
Among Biden supporters, 41 percent now believe violence is justified “to stop [Republicans] from achieving their goals.” An almost identical percentage, 38 percent, of Trump supporters now embrace violence to stop Democrats.
Not surprisingly, many of these people have lost faith in democracy. Some 31 percent of Trump supporters believe that the nation should explore alternative forms of government. Roughly a quarter (24 percent) of Biden supporters also question the viability of democracy.
Faith is the one thing that no system of government can do without. Without faith in the underlying values of a constitutional system, authority rests on a mix of coercion and capitulation.
For years, I have written about this growing loss of faith and how it has been fueled by our intellectual and political elites. In the echo chamber of news and social media, citizens constantly hear how the opposing party is composed of “traitors” and how the constitutional system works to protect enemies of the people.
Viewers now get a steady diet of figures like MSNBC commentator Elie Mystal who called the U.S. Constitution “trash” and argued that we should simply just dump it.
In a New York Times column, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the Constitution to be “radically altered” to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Georgetown University Law School Professor Rosa Brooks went on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” to lash out at Americans becoming “slaves” to the U.S. Constitution and that the Constitution itself is now the problem for the country.
They are part of the radical chic that has become the norm in academia — and widely embraced by the media.
According to these law professors the problem is not just our Constitution, but constitutionalism in general.
Others have argued that key protections or institutions should just be ignored. In a recent open letter, Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet and San Francisco State University political scientist Aaron Belkin called upon President Joe Biden to defy rulings of the Supreme Court that he considers “mistaken” in the name of “popular constitutionalism.”
“Popular constitutionalism” appears a form of discretionary or ad hoc compliance with constituitional law. If only “popular” constitutional rules are followed, the Constitution itself becomes a mere pretense for whatever the shifting majority or forming mob demands.
Politicians have also contributed to this crisis of faith in challenging constitutional values or core institutions. Members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have questioned the need for a Supreme Court.
Others like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have called for the packing of the Supreme Court to simply create an immediate liberal majority.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., thrilled his base by going to the steps of the Supreme Court to declare “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
It is little surprise that one man showed up at the home of Justice Kavanaugh to kill him for his “awful decisions.”
Conversely, former President Donald Trump has regularly denounced his political opponents as “traitors” and “enemies of the people.” He recently declared “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”
With leaders engaging in such reckless rhetoric, it is hardly surprising that the Constitution itself is now viewed as a threat to our nation rather than the very thing that defines us. It is designed to restrain the majority and protect those who are the least popular in our society.
In the end, a constitution remains a covenant not between citizens and their government but between each other as citizens. It demands a leap of faith; a commitment that despite our differences we will defend the rights of our neighbors.
If nothing else, the Constitution has one thing to recommend it: we are still here. It is a Constitution that has survived economic and political upheavals. It survived a Civil War in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
It is not a particularly poetic document. It was written by the ultimate wonk, James Madison. If you want truly inspirational prose, try any of the French constitutions. Of course, they had more practice since they regularly failed. Other countries based their constitutions on aspirational statements of the values that we shared. The Madisonian system spent as much time on what divided us; it not only recognized the danger of factions but created a system to bring such divisions to the surface where they could be addressed.
The danger of other systems was realized when these divisions were left below the surface where they would fester and explode in the streets of Paris. The American Constitution allowed for a type of controlled implosion toward the center of the system; these factional interests would be expressed and vented in the legislative branch. The Madisonian system does not hide our divisions; it invites their expression.
The question is whether we have reached a time when the things that divide us will now overcome what unites us. This is not our first age of rage. Indeed, at the start of our Republic, rivaling parties were not just figuratively trying to kill each other; they were actually trying to kill each other through laws like the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson would refer to the term of his predecessor John Adams as “the reign of the witches.”
Yet, that history is no guarantee that it can survive our current age of rage. The relentless attacks on the constitution from the political, media, and academic elite has turned many into constitutional atheists. Yet, the future of our constitutional system may rest with the rising number of constitutional agnostics — those citizens who are simply disconnected or disinterested in the defense of our founding principles.
Philosopher John Stuart Mill warned in 1867 that all it takes for evil to prevail is for “good men [to] look on and do nothing.” We are now in an existential struggle to preserve the values that founded the most successful constitutional system in the history of the world. It is our legacy that now can be either boldly defended by a grateful people or lost in the whimper of a disinterested generation.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and a practicing criminal defense attorney. He is a Fox News contributor.
For House Republicans to unite and move forward, reason must prevail over faction. Some refer to factions within the political parties as “tribalism.” The goal is really to diminish the merits of alternative policy perspectives. The reality is that both Republicans and Democrats form diverse coalitions in an attempt to contain America’s diverse political views within two political parties. By definition, each party is effectively its own form of coalition government.
Now, Republicans confront the reality of having far more government than we can afford as we debate the role of Speaker of the House. Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrestled for years to build the coalitions necessary to govern the narrow majority. Nevertheless, there were fatal flaws in his coalition, and it collapsed once a small group became convinced that the commitment to break the status quo on appropriations was either insincere or no longer on a path to being achieved. While their motion to vacate was foolish in my opinion, saying their action was purely personal or without merit willfully avoids the principled objection to failure.
As I and many others cautioned, the motion to vacate without a plan for what would happen next has in fact been disastrous. Frankly, the idea that their risky action to vacate the chair could somehow result in a more conservative coalition that would address the broken appropriations process, prevented Jim Jordan from restoring unity with a similar coalition to Speaker McCarthy’s. This, of course, exposed other factions who had other objectives with this crisis.
Now, my friend and colleague, Rep. Mike Flood from Nebraska, has a new proposal to restore unity to the Republican Party’s narrow majority in Congress. He is a good man, whose intentions in my estimation are pure. However, as I began, reason must prevail over faction. Unfortunately, Flood’s proposal formalizes the alternative outcome.
After violating this pledge to stop a threat to the status quo (Jim Jordan as Speaker with a plan), the system would insulate itself from the risk of further disruption. Regardless of intent, I anticipate this submission pledge will be coercive in the hands of the largest and most powerful faction in order to protect internal power for those who already have it.
Frankly, pledges typically fail or have significant drawbacks, but since there is one floating around, I’d like to offer an alternative proposal. We should agree that the next speaker be someone who commits to:
1. Never bringing an Omnibus bill to the floor. If an omnibus comes via discharge petition, I will remove the Appropriations chairman and resign as speaker.
2. No continuing resolution (CR) except the one envisioned by the Fiscal Responsibility Act that would extend well into the first quarter of 2024 and apply pressure to actually pass appropriations bills rather than another omnibus. If any alternative comes via discharge petition, I will remove the Appropriations Chair and resign as Speaker.
3. In a given fiscal year, if the primary appropriations bill for their jurisdiction ultimately never passes the House as standalone legislation, I will remove the respective cardinal as chair.
4. If a presidential or Senate supplemental funding request is even considered by the House, I will separate all supplemental funding requests by topic rather than accept the binary false premise of “this or nothing.”
Responsibility and authority must be aligned in order to provide accountability. Otherwise, there will simply be more excuses for the broken status quo.
As we debate the next speaker, everyone remains focused on the person, yet the focus must be on the plan to create change. Unfortunately, the current selection process is designed to focus on the person, rather than their plans.
My pledge seeks a commitment to a shared mission. It empowers a new speaker and provides accountability.
Republicans must resolve the agenda that unites the conference and provide accountability for results in order to ensure everyone is motivated to achieve it. This is the ongoing debate that seeks resolution.
Fortunately, reason can prevail. Getting everyone to trust a single person will be significantly harder than getting everyone to trust a shared mission. Whoever leads the mission should emerge as the next speaker and restore unity in our conference.
Republican Warren Davidson represents Ohio’s 8th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. He spent 15 years starting, acquiring and growing manufacturing companies before replacing former Speaker John Boehner in the United States House. Davidson is a former Army Ranger. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and received an MBA from the University of Notre Dame.
A report that the IDF discovered a USB key with instructions on how to make a “cyanide dispersion device” on the body of a Hamas infiltrator who took part in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Oct. 7 in which 1,400 Israelis were massacred has been confirmed by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, according to Axios. Herzog told Sky News that “this is how shocking the situation is where we’re looking at the instructions that are given on how to operate and how to create a kind of non-professional chemical weapon with cyanide.”
Herzog’s comments were part of a broader Israeli diplomatic attempt to build up backing in the West for the Israeli military campaign against Hamas, according to Axios. Axios reported over the weekend that the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s weapons of mass destruction nonproliferation department sent a classified cable to its embassies in dozens of capitals across the globe, including Washington, late last week under the headline: “Hamas intention of using chemical weapons.”
The authenticity of the Hamas file could not be independently verified by Axios. It is unclear from the file whether Hamas had any operational plan for producing makeshift chemical weapons or whether the terrorist organization had tried to do so.
Speaking to Sky News, Herzog showed printouts of the digital files that he said were recovered by the IDF from the USB key. The Israeli president said that the instructions were part of an al-Qaida manual and presented a drawing of the makeshift cyanide dispersion device that was on the files. Herzog said that the manual, dating to 2003, cements the connective ideology between the al-Qaida and Hamas terror organizations, The Jerusalem Post reported.
A Hamas spokesperson did not respond to an Axios request for comment.
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll determined that 2 out of 3 U.S. voters want Congress to quickly elect a new speaker of the House to prevent a government shutdown and provide aid to Israel and Ukraine. According to the survey, 67.1% of voters want a new speaker elected “as soon as possible” to ensure immediate funding needs are met, with 24.7% saying they didn’t care. Another 8.2% said they were undecided on the issue. According to Suffolk University, the poll was conducted with 1,000 registered voters in the United States from Oct. 17-20 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
“We got to have a speaker, [but] I don’t think we’re going to have anybody soon,” George Ramge, 72, of San Diego, a building contractor and political independent told USA Today in the survey. “There’s a lot of Hollywood politicians out there getting their time on TV, and I don’t think they’re really serving the people’s purpose.”
Maryland Democrat Carl Hickey, 85, agreed with Ramge.
“They need to be functioning, and that’s the only way they’re going to function,” the retired Methodist minister said in the report.
Despite political differences, large majorities favored a quick resolution to the speaker dilemma with 86% of Democrats, 57% of Republicans and 59% of independents saying they want a speaker elected quickly.
“How often do you see Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree on anything in D.C.?” said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center. “Look at every demographic: gender, geography, age, race, education level, income, political philosophy, even those who trust CNN vs. Fox News. They are all speaking the same seven words in unison: ‘Elect a speaker and do your job.’ “
Former Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was voted out of the seat earlier this month 216-210 with all Democrats joining eight Republicans to oust him. Potential successors House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, could not gather the 217-vote majority required to win the position during several rounds of balloting, the report said.
The poll also found 61% of voters want Congress to reach a deal and not cause the government to shut down after a Nov. 17 deadline.
“I mean, don’t we live in a bipartisan world?” said Desiree Whitney, 64, of Boerne, Texas, an independent who voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020. “Why should it stop, you know, at our government, or does it begin there? I mean, it’s all about negotiations.”
In a letter to President Joe Biden, four House Republicans say they are “deeply opposed to any potential attempts to parole into the U.S. Palestinians en masse.” Pictured: Palestinians carry belongings as they seek refuge Oct. 9 in schools operated by a U.N. agency in the Al-Fakhoura area of the northern Gaza Strip. (Photo: Mohammed Zaanoun/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images)
Republican lawmakers led by Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., are trying to discourage the Biden administration from taking in Palestinian refugees and resettling them in the U.S., according to a letter dated Monday and obtained first by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., had requested that the U.S. take in Palestinian refugees after Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7, and killed, kidnapped, and raped hundreds of civilians. Now, House Republicans request that President Joe Biden ask Egypt to take in Palestinian refugees and not abuse his authority to bring in foreign populations, according to Brecheen’s letter, also signed by Reps. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, and Clay Higgins of Louisiana.
Enough is enough! Denmark took in 321 Palestinian refugees in 1992.
By 2019, 64% had been convicted of a crime (including 34% of their children too).
“In light of recent news that members of your party are encouraging Palestinians to be paroled into the United States following Hamas’ attack on innocent Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, we write to you to remind the administration that no authority exists to grant categorical parole and we are deeply opposed to any potential attempts to parole into the U.S. Palestinians en masse following Israel’s counteroffensive against Hamas in Gaza,” the four GOP lawmakers say in their letter to Biden.
They then refer to a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General.
“Given concerns of terror attacks in our homeland, it is important as ever that matters are not made worse by attempting to parole Palestinians into our country. This should be obvious considering the DHS OIG report of Operation Allies Refuge, which found your claim false that Afghans paroled by your administration ‘already completed extensive background checks,’ and that information from many Afghan refugees like name, date of birth, identification number, and travel document data, was inaccurate, incomplete or missing,” the lawmakers wrote.
Two former senior homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Mark Morgan, recently told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the U.S. doesn’t have sufficient intelligence sharing with Hamas to vet refugees for terrorism ties.
Approximately 57% of those who live in the Gaza Strip maintain an opinion of Hamas that is at least “somewhat positive,” according to a recent poll from the Washington Institute.
“At this critical time, our nation must remain committed to defending our homeland,” the letter to Biden from the four House Republicans says. “We remind you that you do not have the authority to grant parole en masse as specified under existing U.S. law. We oppose any efforts to parole into the U.S. any Palestinians from Gaza.”
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
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