"I was born at the heart of Hamas leadership and I know them very well. They don't care for the Palestinian people. They are using the Palestinian cause only to achieve their goals, transforming the Middle East and the world into an Islamic state." pic.twitter.com/xUstyYCsf2
— Yasmine Mohammed ๐ฆ ูุงุณู ูู ู ุญู ุฏ (@YasMohammedxx) October 20, 2023
Hey @ucdavis, do you think itโs appropriate that one of your faculty advisors, @jemmaisOKeh, is publicly threatening to murder Jews at their homes and their children at their schools? pic.twitter.com/xAx97LHYbr
— Jason Bedrick ๐บ๐ธ๐๏ธ๐ฎ๐ฑ (@JasonBedrick) October 19, 2023
To the presidents of @Columbia, @nyuniversity, @Harvard and other universities who have stood SILENT as terror supporters have marched through campus and celebrated raping women, executing children and kidnapping grandmothers, you are cowards.
Great question, Lu. How many Biden supporters are willing to answer the call? You voted for Biden. You should go first. Belly up. #facts101pic.twitter.com/yiRU6RSNct
The U.S. response to Hamasโ Nazi-like massacre of Israelis, Americans, and anyone else in its murderous path has been, almost without exception, robust. But U.S. officials are largely missing the larger picture and risking being drawn into an escalation โ on the enemyโs terms.
Hamas and Hezbollah are the symptoms; Iran is the disease.
But President Bidenโs Oval Office address to the nation on Oct. 19 danced around the core issue of Iranโs financing, training, and encouragement of violent, brutal forces across the region and beyond, as well as its nuclear missile program. Thus, the gathering might of the U.S. Navy off the coast of Israel in the form of two aircraft carrier strike groups and a Marine Expeditionary Unit betrays unimaginative, linear thinking.
If used, American firepower would augment Israelโs own considerable military force. In theory, this threat helps to deter Hezbollah from unleashing its arsenal of 100,000 missiles on Israel, many of them sophisticated.
But, like Hamas, Hezbollah is expert at digging. They hide their missile launchers in an extensive network of tunnels and bunkers โ all guarded by an air defense network that is likely to get lucky enough times to raise the specter of captured American pilots.
If the incremental addition of American airpower is helpful to the pending effort to destroy Hamas while deterring a wider conflict, that role can more than adequately be filled by the U.S. Air Force. The U.S. Navy should instead be concentrating 2,000 miles to the east in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. There, the U.S. Navy would be playing to its unambiguous strength, enforcing sanctions against Iran by controlling the sea lines of communication that Iran depends on to generate the cash for its empire of terror.
Unfortunately, this would require a Biden administration that was both imaginative and strategic โ and not in the thrall of a recently revealed Iranian influence operation that managed to place several advisors friendly to the Iranian mullahs in key national security positions since the Obama administration. Chief among these, Robert Malley, a longtime friend of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and an architect of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, a deal that focused exclusively on Iranโs nuclear program, rewarding the mullahs with cash and sanctions relief while greenlighting their missile program and global support for terror.
Iranโs Nuclear Program
Instead, Bidenโs systematic appeasement of Iran, a continuation of the Obama-era policy that weirdly sought to use Iran as a counter to perceived Israeli intransigence on the Palestinian problem, has resumed. Up until the gruesome events of Oct. 7, Bidenโs national security team was willfully blind to Iranโs bloody history of sponsoring terror and its determined drive to produce nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them.
As a result, U.N. sanctions against Iranโs nuclear, missile, and drone program โ never well enforced by Biden โ expired on Oct. 18 with theย U.S. announcing its own unilateral set of sanctions. The U.S. continues to pretend these efforts are somehow slowing Iranโs drive to push its nuclear program to completion, while Russian use of Iranian combat drones in Ukraine reveals the prior sanctions regime as inadequate to the task.
Reagan-Era Lessons
The U.S. never fully grappled with the Iranian theocracy after the shah was toppled in 1979. During the Cold War, it was assumed that the Soviet Union would come to Iranโs aid and that the military cost of defeating the regime would be too high. Instead, the U.S. was content to see Iran tied down in a bloody stalemate against Iraq after the latter invaded in 1980.
As the warย started to threaten oil exports out of the Gulf, America responded by providing a U.S. Navy escort to six Kuwaiti-owned super tankers in July 1987. ย After an escorting U.S. Navy ship struck a mine on April 14, 1988, the Reagan administration responded only four days later withย Operation Praying Mantis. It was the Navyโs largest combat action since World War II, sinking an Iranian guided missile frigate, crippling a second, sinking four other boats, and destroying two militarized oil platforms at the cost of one helicopter with two crew lost.
The operation was thoroughly wargamed a year before, when it was determined that an unambiguously aggressive response to Iran would likely prevent the conflict from escalating. In other words, a disproportionate response would rob Iran of the ability to control the timing and mode of escalation, reducing U.S. casualties and preserving the peace.
Applying Force
This lesson from the Reagan era opens up a final consideration. Rather than following through on the foolish precedent of incentivizing hostage-taking via negotiation and cash payments, America should ditch the carrots and pick up the stick.
Imagine the transformative discussion over the current hostage crisis โ and the forestalling of future hostage-taking by Iran and its proxies โ if the U.S. were to announce that every hostage taken is worth $1 billion (or $1.171 billion if we wish to account for Bidenflation). That amount would be deducted from seized Iranian assets or taken from oil tankers filled with Iranian oil. The proceeds would compensate hostages and their families, with the remainder used to replenish the Pentagonโs waning stocks of armaments.
This is exactly the kind of naval power application the U.S. Navy was built for. Unfortunately, the radical cadres infesting the Biden administrationโs national security staff would never allow such an idea to reach the desk of our cognitively impaired commander-in-chief.
A lead attorney for the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was apparently present at the pro-Palestineย demonstrationsย on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. According to Townhall contributor John Hasson, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., allegedly took a photo of a protesterโs phone, which displayed a group chat titled โGlobal Intifada.โ โIntifadaโ is an Arabic term used for โuprisingโ or โrebellion.โ
Among the protester names captured on the phone is Katrina Bleckley, who shares the same name as a pro-Palestine attorney at the SPLC. The SPLC denied Bleckleyโs employment but would not respond to follow-up inquiries about whether Bleckley had ever worked for the group. On Thursday, Bleckleyโs LinkedIn profile still listed SPLC as her current employer, but as of Friday morning, her profile appears to be deactivated.
During todayโs Capitol protests, @mtgreenee allegedly took a picture of a protestorโs phone
The group chat, named โGlobal Intifadaโ features the name Katrina Bleckley
Maybe a coincidence, but a Pro-Palestine lead attorney at the SPLC shares the same name pic.twitter.com/cFsnR4Thk3
A profile for a โKatrina Bleckleyโ on X, previously known as Twitter, is now private. The online bio identifies her as an โabolitionistโ and โmigrant liberatorโ next to the hashtag โ#FreePalestine.โ The person in that profile picture appears to be the same person as on the LinkedIn account.
On Wednesday, more than 300 people were arrested after pro-Palestinian protesters took over the Rotunda in the Cannon House office building to demand a ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas. Demonstrators tore down pro-Israel signs and called on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to stand down while Hamas keeps Israeli men, women, and children as hostages. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., stood outside the Capitol with demonstrators, regurgitating terrorist propaganda that Israel launched an attack on a hospital in Gaza that killed more than 500 civilians. The false claim, contradicted by audio and visual evidence from Israeli intelligence, was similarly picked up by American outlets. On the contrary, evidence shows the blast occurred in a parking lot, came from a Hamas rocket that misfired, and killed โdozens,โ not hundreds.
The SPLC has a history of engaging in far-left extremist activism. Last week, the SPLC, which targets churches and organizations with conservative ties as โhate groups,โ refused to say whether Hamas sympathizers would similarly be placed on the SPLCโs famous list of more than 1,200 โhate groups.โ
While a lead attorney for the SPLC was seemingly present at Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the group previously provided research and testimony for the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 to prosecute pro-Trump demonstrators.
โOver the past few months, our SPLC analysts have met with Jan. 6 Select Committee staff and submitted nearly 40 pages of written testimony and research to document the involvement of extremists in the planning and preparation for the insurrection,โ Michael Lieberman, senior policy counsel on hate and extremism at the SPLC, told Politico last summer. โOur work has helped to document coordination between Trump, his allies and two extremist groups weโve tracked for years.โ
Yet in March, another lawyer for the SPLC named Thomas Webb Jurgens was arrested and charged with domestic terrorism amid protests against police in Georgia.
โAn employee at the SPLC was arrested while acting โ and identifying โ as a legal observer on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG),โ the SPLC said in a statement at the time. โThe employee is an experienced legal observer, and their arrest is no evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protestors.โ
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.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said his panel has uncovered evidence that Joe Biden, in 2018, received a “$200,000 direct payment” from his brother James Biden and sister-in-law Sara Biden, and is demanding the president answer questions about “financial arrangements” with members of his family.
Comer, R-Ky., has been leading an investigation into the Biden familyโs business dealings since January and whether President Biden was involved in those ventures or “personally benefited” from them.
Comer, in a video posted to “X,” formerly known as Twitter, detailing his committeeโs latest findings. Comer said the check was written by James Biden to President Biden as a “loan repayment,” but questioned the timing.
“Bank records obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability have revealed a $200,000 direct payment from James and Sara Biden to Joe Biden in the form of a personal check,” Comer states.
Comer explains that in 2018, James Biden “received $600,000 in loans from Americore โa financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator.”
Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.ย (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“According to bankruptcy court documents, James Biden received these loans based upon representations that his last name Biden, could open doors; and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections,” Comer said.
“On March 1, 2018, Americore wired a $200,000 loan into James and Sara Bidenโs personal bank accountโnot their business bank account,” he continued. “And then, on the very same day, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check from this same personal bank account to Joe Biden.”
Comer said James Biden “wrote this check to Joe Biden as a โloan repayment.โ”
“Americoreโa distressed companyโloaned money to James Biden who then sent it to Joe Biden,” Comer said.
But Comer said even if the payment was “a personal loan repayment, itโs still troubling that Joe Bidenโs ability to be paid back by his brother depended on the success of his familyโs shady financial dealings.”
James Biden headshot, brother of US President Joe Bidenย (AP)
“Some immediate questions President Biden must answer for the American people: Does he have documents proving he lent such a large sum of money to his brother and what were the terms of such financial arrangement?” Comer asked. “Did he have similar financial arrangements with other family members that led them to make similar large payments to him?”
Comer also demanded Biden answer whether he knew that the same day he received the $200,000 check, “James Biden had just received a loan for the exact same amount from business dealings with a company that was in financial distress and failing.”
U.S. President Joe Biden boards Air Force One for travel to Alabama from Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, U.S. March 5, 2023.ย (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
“The House Oversight Committee will soon announce our next investigative actions and continue to follow the money,” he said. “The bank records donโt end here. There is more to come.”
Comer’s findings come amid his months-long investigation. Comer, alongside House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., is leading the House impeachment inquiry against Biden.
So far, during his committee’s investigation, Comer said he has found that Biden family members, their business associates and their “related companies” received “significant payments from individuals and companies in China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania.”
Comer said the House Oversight Committee has learned throughout its investigation that the Biden family and their business associates brought in more than $24 million between 2014 and 2019 by “selling Joe Biden as โthe brandโ around the world.”
Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.
The Islamist group Hamas said Friday it had released two U.S. hostages โ woman and her daughter โ for what it called “humanitarian reasons” following Qatari mediation efforts.
Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida issued a statement announcing the release, the first since gunmen from the Islamist militant group burst into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and taking around 200 hostages. Israel’s Channel 13 News said Israel had confirmed the release of two hostages but gave no further details.
Israel leveled a northern Gaza district earlier Friday after giving families a half-hour warning to escape and hit an Orthodox Christian church where others had been sheltering. Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules Gaza, relentlessly pounding the strip with air strikes, putting the enclave’s 2.3 million people under a total siege and banning shipments of food, fuel and medical supplies.
The secretary-general of the United Nations visited the crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt, and said humanitarian aid must be allowed across as soon as possible. At least 4,137 (???????) Palestinians have been killed, including hundreds of children (?????), and 13,000 (?????) wounded in Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry said. The U.N. says more than a million have been made homeless.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday that achieving Israel’s objectives would not be quick or easy.
“We will topple the Hamas organization. We will destroy its military and governing infrastructure. It’s a phase that will not be easy. It will have a price,” he told a parliamentary committee.
He added that the subsequent phase would be more drawn out, but was aimed at achieving “a completely different security situation” with no threat to Israel from Gaza. “It’s not a day, it’s not a week, and unfortunately it’s not a month,” he said.
CHURCH HIT
The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian Christian denomination, said that overnight Israeli forces had struck the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, where hundreds of Christians and Muslims had sought sanctuary. It said targeting churches that were used as shelters for people fleeing bombing was “a war crime that cannot be ignored.”
Video from the scene showed a wounded boy being carried from rubble at night. A civil defense worker said two people on upper floors had survived; those on lower floors had been killed and their bodies were still in the rubble.
“They felt they would be safe here. They came from under the bombardment and the destruction, and they said they would be safe here but destruction chased them,” a man cried out.
Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said 18 Christian Palestinians had been killed, while the health ministry later gave a toll of 16. The Israeli military said part of the church was damaged in a strike by fighter jets on a nearby Hamas command center involved in launching rockets and mortars towards Israel, and that it was reviewing the incident.
“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) can unequivocally state that the church was not the target of the strike,” it said.
‘EVERYTHING I DREAMT OF’ DESTROYED
Israel has already told all civilians to evacuate the northern half of the Gaza Strip, which includes Gaza City. Many people have yet to leave saying they fear losing everything and have nowhere safe to go with southern areas also under attack.
In Zahra, a northern Gaza town, residents said their entire district of some 25 apartment buildings was razed.
They received Israeli warning messages on their mobile phones at breakfast, followed 10 minutes later by a small drone strike. After another 20 minutes, F-16 warplanes brought the buildings down in huge explosions and clouds of dust.
“Everything I ever dreamt of and thought that I have achieved was gone. In that apartment was my dream, my memories with my children, and my wife, was the smell of safety and love,” Ali, a resident of the district, told Reuters by phone.
The United Nations humanitarian affairs office said more than 140,000(?????) homes – nearly a third of all homes in Gaza – have been damaged, with nearly 13,000(?????) completely destroyed.
The south of the enclave has also been regularly hit. Rescue workers were combing through the wreckage of a house in the main southern city, Khan Younis, for survivors. One carried the limp body of a child.
“We donโt want to receive aid, we want the destruction and the killing of children in their sleep to stop. We are tired,” said neighbor Joumana Khreis.
AID STILL HELD UP
International attention has focused on getting aid to Gaza through the one access point not controlled by Israel, the Rafah crossing to Egypt. U.S. President Joe Biden, who visited Israel on Wednesday, emerged with a promise from Israel to allow limited shipments from Egypt provided the aid is monitored to prevent any reaching Hamas.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres toured the checkpoint on Egypt’s side and called for a meaningful number of trucks to enter Gaza every day and checks to be quick and pragmatic.
“We are actively engaging with all parties to make sure conditions for delivering aid are lifted,” he said.
Western leaders have so far mostly offered support to Israel’s campaign against Hamas, although there is mounting unease about the plight of civilians in Gaza. Many Muslim states, however, have called for an immediate ceasefire, and protests demanding an end to the bombardment were held in cities across the Islamic world on Friday.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on Israel to end “its operations amounting to genocide.”
Biden formally asked Congress on Friday for billions of dollars in U.S. military aid for Israel. But, in a televised speech the previous day, he also said: “We can’t ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have opportunity.”
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).
Clashes at the border between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement have been the deadliest since a full-blown war in 2006, with Israel ordering the evacuation of more than 20,000 residents from the border town of Kiryat Shmona on Friday.
The West Bank, where Palestinians have limited self-rule under Israeli military occupation, has experienced the deadliest clashes since the second intifada uprising ended in 2005.
The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s New York fraud trial raised the possibility of jail time for the former president over his “blatant violation of the gag order” the judge issued earlier this month, according to multiple reports.
New York state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron made the remarks from the bench after it was brought to his attention that Trump never deleted a post he shared about the judge’s principal law clerk Allison Greenfield. According to the website Meidas Touch, the offending post remained on Trump’s website Thursday night but has since been removed.
Engoron ordered it removed Oct. 3.
“I ordered him to remove the post immediately, and he said he did take it down,” Engoronย said.ย “Despite this order, last night I learned the offending post was never removed from the DonaldJTrump.com and in fact, has been on the website for the past 17 days. This is a blatant violation of the gag order. I made it clear [that] failure to comply will result in serious sanctions.”
“Incendiary untruths can and have led to serious physical harm. I will now allow the defendant to explain why this should not end up with serious sanctions or I could possibly imprison him,” Engoron went on.
Trump attorney Christopher Kise told the judge it was an oversight. Kise said the failure to remove the post falsely linking Greenfield as the girlfriend of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was “truly inadvertent.”
“The Truth Social post was taken down when the court asked,” Kise told the judge. “Truth Social was taken down and Trump never made any more comments about court staff, but it appears no one took it down on the campaign website. It is unfortunate, and I apologize on behalf of my client.”
The offending post that Trump shared was, “Why is Judge Engoron’s Principal Law Clerk, Allison R. Greenfield, palling around with Chuck Schumer?” It led to Engoron issuing a limited gag order.
“I will take this under advisement, but I want to make clear that Donald Trump is still responsible for the large machine, even if it is a large machine,”ย Engoronย said.
Special counsel Jack Smith (left), seen here Aug. 1 in Washington, D.C., sought a gag order against former President Donald Trump. Trump, seen here Nov. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida, wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “I shouldn’t have a protective order placed on me because it would impinge upon my right to FREE SPEECH.” (Photos: Saul Loeb and Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP/Getty Images)
This week, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, overseeing United States v. Donald Trump, issued a gag order prohibiting a leading presidential candidate, Donald Trump, from engaging in speech aimed at โgovernment staff,โ among others, during his trial.
Listen, I understand the disdain some conservatives feel for the former president. I share the sentiment. But if youโre cheering on a judge whoโs inhibiting political speech on rickety grounds, youโre no friend of โdemocracyโ or the Constitution.
โMr. Trump may still vigorously seek public support as a presidential candidate, debate policies and people related to that candidacy, criticize the current administration and assert his belief that this prosecution is politically motivated,โ Chutkan explained. โBut those critical First Amendment freedoms do not allow him to launch a pretrial smear campaign against participating government staff, their families, and foreseeable witnesses.โ
Who is Chutkan to dictate the contours of a presidential candidateโs political speech? What if one of the โparticipating government staffโ or a family member is compromised by partisanship? Moreover, preemptively suggesting that without gagging, Trump will engage in a โsmear campaignโ is as prejudicial to the case as any of the inflammatory things Trump has thrown around. It implies that any accusation now aimed at prosecutors is untrue.
Trump contends that he is being railroaded by special counsel Jack Smith, the longtime federal prosecutor who works on behalf of Democrats and President Joe Biden. You might believe the special counsel is a chaste defender of Lady Justice, but thereโs ample evidence that partisan considerations are in play.
Fears of aย politicized Justice Departmentย are real. As we speak, the head of the Democratic Party is being mollycoddled by the state in a very similar case involving classified documents. Whatever the case, the Justice Department now plays a big part in Trumpโs campaign for the presidencyโand probably his legal case, as well. If the stateโs accusations can be spread throughout the media before a trial, why canโt the defendant speak openly, as well?
In the name of fairness, Chutkan contends that Trump does not enjoy unfettered First Amendment rights because he might intimidate witnesses. Itโs already illegal to intimidate witnesses. Charge him if he does it. Laws already exist to cover all the other premises Smith has used to rationalize the gag order. The notion that a jury pool is going to be impartial in a trial involving a divisive former president, who is not only a leading contender for the presidency, but one of the most famous people on Earth, is absurd. And the notion a D.C. jury pool will be impartial when it comes to Trump is fantastical.
There is little that can be done about it. But further gagging the defendant only feeds, at the very minimum, the perception that this is all politically motivated.
Establishment media inform us that the gag order is just โnarrowโ and meant to โprotect the integrity of the trial and the jury pool.โ 1In her Solomonic wisdom, Chutkan cut the stateโs request in half. A โnarrowโ gag order limiting free speech is still a gag order limiting free speech. The fact thatย Smithย was seeking even broader limitations only makes Trumpโs claims more plausible.
Smith has also argued that Trump should not be afforded โspecial treatmentโ because heโs a candidate. Heโs right. No oneโs right to defend themselves or to engage in speech should be inhibited, not even during trials (though any good lawyer will tell clients, for their own good, to shut up). Still, gag orders are almost always an unconstitutional prior restraint. For years, the American Civil Liberties Union and similar groups argued the same.
Iโm sure many people simply believe Trump deserves it. Think, though, about the precedent: Administrations can now launch prosecutions against political rivalsโcalibrated to take place in favorable cities and timed to coincide with electionsโand then demand gag orders be implemented on those running for office.
If you think they wonโt do it to others, you havenโt been paying attention.
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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 โThe Washington Post.โ He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh DโSouza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
The House of Representativesโ bid to elect a new speaker ended in another stalemate on Wednesday after 22 Republicans voted against front-runner Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Wednesdayโs vote marks the second in which enough Republicans defected to kneecap Jordanโs speakership bid. On Tuesday, 20 GOPers โ including Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Don Bacon of Nebraska, and Jen Kiggans of Virginia โ voted for House members other than Jordan. These members and many others also voted against Jordan in Wednesdayโs vote.
As The Daily Caller reported, Jordan needs at least 217 votes to become speaker. Meanwhile, Democrats are casting their votes for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
BREAKING: Jim Jordan lost 22 votes on the second ballot for Speaker:
While the speakerโs gavel remains up for grabs, some moderate Republicans are reportedly floating the idea of colluding with Democrats to pass a resolution expanding the powers of the chamberโs interim speaker. According to Fox News, the effort is being spearheaded by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, and has gained support from other establishment Republicans, such as Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, and Rep. Nick LaLota of New York.
Gimenez and LaLota are among the nearly two dozen Republicans to vote against Jordanโs speakership bid.
Republicans Hate Their Base
While not perfect, Jordan as House speaker would be a major upgrade for GOP voters. Not only does he sport a more conservative voting record than former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., heโs also one of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus.
So why, despite a groundswell of support among conservative voters, have a handful of Republicans decided to tank Jordanโs speakership bid? While anonymously sourced conspiracies are likely to dominate legacy mediaโs coverage of the issue, the real answer is likely much simpler: Many of these Republicans despise their voters.
Donโt take my word for it. Bacon admitted as much when complaining to reporters earlier this week about the โpressure campaign back homeโ for him to back Jordan as speaker. The Nebraska congressman went on to say the reason he opposed Jordanโs initial speakership bid was to stick it to the few House Republicans who ousted McCarthy and prevented Scalise from becoming speaker.
โYou donโt have a process where I play by the rules and some people canโt โ and they get what they wanted, and now Iโm supposed to play by the rules,โ Bacon whined.
So, to recap: A grown man serving in the U.S. Congress is actively defying the will of his voters to spite some of his colleagues.
As petty and pathetic as his actions are, Bacon is merely a symptom of the greater cancer thatโs infected the GOP establishment for years. On the campaign trail, these Republicans make grandiose pledges to stand up for conservative values and โdrain the swamp,โ only to discard such promises once they get to Washington.
Itโs not that they forget what they promised. Itโs that they never intended to fight for their voters in the first place. Whether on religious freedom, illegal immigration, or federal spending, conservatives can always count on the Republican establishment to sell them out.
If Republicans like Bacon spent as much time fighting Democrats as they did stabbing their own voters in the back, the battle for Americaโs soul would look more like a fight between two rivals than the one-sided shellacking Democrats are dolling out on a weekly basis.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Corrupt corporate media outlets like The New York Times scrambled on Thursday to justify their role in disseminating terrorist talking points to the world without scrutiny.
NYT acknowledges that it was one of the โmany Western news organizationsโ that regurgitated the unsubstantiated lie (sourced directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip) that Israel killed hundreds by bombing a Gaza hospital.
Even though there was plenty of evidence absolving the Jewish state of the alleged war crime, the publication made no effort to issue retractions, print corrections, or even apologize for its role in the American pressโs collective amplification of the propaganda.
Instead, NYT blames its feckless participation in the rumor mill โ that incited violence against European and American embassies across the globe โ on โfast-moving eventsโ and โthe difficulty of covering the war.โ
NYTโs original coverage of the so-called blast, which was the result of a misfired jihadist rocket that landed in a parking lot near the hospital, featured a photo of a destroyed building that had nothing to do with the hospital in question.
By Thursday, the feature image on the Timesโ breaking news article pinning blame on Israel was replaced with a nondescript photo of a Middle Eastern man being transported into an intact medical facility on a gurney.
NYT further tried to absolve itself of accountability by noting that it sent out a news alert about a โmisfired Palestinian rocketโ once Israelโs internal investigations revealed it was not the perpetrator. That little news alert hours after NYT first blamed Israel did nothing, especially since dozensofcorporatemediaoutlets merely pivoted their coverage to indicate that Israel and terrorists were โtrading blameโ for the blast.
In a continued attempt to build its case, NYT quoted a former executive editor of The Associated Press, the same outlet that hired a terrorist sympathizer to be its Gaza correspondent and even shared office space with Hamas at one point. The AP veteran lamented that itโs not easy for media outlets to get โfirsthand or verified accountsโ of the war easily.
NYT used the ex-editorโs quote as a springboard to suggest that the Israel and Hamas war caused โvast amounts of misleading and false information online.โ
The tone-deaf statement came mere sentences after the outlet feigned shock that, after dozens of headlines purported Israel was in the wrong, โmuch of the Arab world united in support of Palestinians.โ
โIt takes time to independently verify the claims from all sides,โ NYT insisted, less than 24 hours after it failed to verify terroristsโ claims before publishing them as facts.
War propaganda is tough to sift through, but it takes deliberate stupidity to think that the word of the same guys who just raped and murdered 1,400 people and counting is worth splaying across breaking news banners and above-the-fold stories. Trusting the people who use women and children as human shields and stockpile weaponry and munitions near schools and hospitals was NYTโs first mistake, if you can call it that.
As Federalist Senior Editor David Harasanyi pointed out on Wednesday, the Times has a long track record of โspreading similar disinformation.โ
โThe paperโs editorial board and its op-ed pages are teeming with Hamas apologists โ as are its news pages,โ Harsanyi warned.
The NYTโs terrible track record is the product of unchecked corruption that plagues every corporate media outlet in the U.S.
Terrorists know outlets like NYT are corrupt. That is why they pitch their latest public relations campaigns to newsrooms with full confidence that their talking points will dominate front pages. A majority of Americans know the media is a corrupt threat to democracy because most outlets are run by partisans who want to divide the country.
The latest NYT article even proves that the media know they are corrupt. They simply arenโt sorry about it.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
On Oct. 18, the intrepid Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak outed a former Palestinian spokeswoman and open Hamas supporter as an employee of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security tasked with โvettingโ immigrants and asylum seekers. He followed up to report Nejwa Ali is now on administrative leave โ no word on whether that includes full pay and benefits.
UPDATE: DHS/USCIS says the former PLO spox has been placed on administrative leave from her job vetting immigrants.
PLUS NEW AUDIO: She reaffirmed her allegiance to Hamas THIS AFTERNOON, saying of hang-gliders: "I abso-fucking-lutely celebrate them, asshole, fuck you!" https://t.co/BJry1EisZepic.twitter.com/FPrQbjAPak
Of course, itโs a no-brainer that someone who supports terrorism should not be employed by any national security agency, let alone given the power to determine who enters the U.S. At the same time, suspending Ali while probably still paying her is just a symbol, while the underlying policy of ushering across our border people who hate America remains firm. Itโs tokenism.
Just consider the fact that Aliโs fellow DHS employees donated 70 percent of their 2020 political contributions to Democrats. If she does end up out of this job, the odds are another person who hates America will replace her. Democrats as a party now openly state their hatred for America by constantly smearing it as โracistโ and โoppressive.โ Their immigration policies admit similarly-minded people, starting with the reality that anyone who enters this country illegally thereby demonstrates contempt for the United States and its people.
Aliโs own history is more proof. Rosiakย writesย that Ali โis from Dearborn, Michigan, a hotbed of unassimilated immigrants where thousands reportedly took to the streets in support of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.โ Dearbornโs mayor immediately responded to Hamasโs barbaric attacks on unarmed women and children byย blamingโฆIsrael.
Dearborn is approximately half comprised of immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. Their immigration poses obvious national security concerns given the propensity of these groups to favor and excuse terrorism, as Mayor Abdullah Hammoud did. Not surprisingly, to anyone who knows politics, Dearborn is considered a โDemocrat strongholdโ in Michigan, a presidential election swing state.
Hamas is committed to eradicating Jews. Itโs rational to suspect they would send members to the United States to perpetrate atrocities here. With immigration and asylum vetters like Ali, they wouldnโt even have to avoid getting caught crossing our open southern border, as millions of border crossers have since Joe Biden took office. They can turn themselves in, get released inside the United States, and stay indefinitely. Eventually, they can even get citizenship!
This isnโt speculation. Border authorities are aware terrorists have gained access to the United States, and an open border only makes their goals easier to achieve. Terrorists here have already formed sleeper cells, and not only against Jewish targets.
As Todd Bensmanย reportedย in 2020, โIranian avengers, in the form of Quds Force-supported Hezbollah operatives of the clandestine โUnit 910,โ are stationed in cities across America, set to activate pending distant command on target lists they have painstakingly developed over time. Hezbollah operatives also are positioned throughout Latin America, where American officials and economic interests are ubiquitous.โ
A September DHS reportย notesย that, due to historic increases in illegal U.S. entrances during Bidenโs presidency, U.S. officials have โencountered a growing number of individuals in the Terrorist Screening Data Set (TSDS), also known as the โwatchlist.’โ Obviously, those are the potential terrorists border officialsย encounter. Since Biden took office, theyโve watchedย an estimated 1.2 millionย enter they havenโt been able to apprehend. Exactly who was in that group, and what were their motives? We have no idea.
HOW ABOUT ALL THE “GOT AWAYS”??????? How many of them could be these Hamas plants determined to continue their quest for America’s destruction?
Of course, we also donโt know how many people U.S. officials havenโt detected who entered the United States across its completely unenforced border. Democratsโ open border is a national security disaster, and itโs far more dangerous than one open terrorist supporter vetting immigrants.
This same tokenism dynamic also applies to Biden himself. Getting rid of him, whether through internal Democrat struggle sessions or the publicly decaying manโs nearing natural death, will not solve Americaโs problems. It will be merely a symbol change instead of an underlying reality change if heโs replaced with someone who runs similar policies.
The policies that have led to our nationโs failure on multiple fronts are the problem, not the figureheads representing them. Our national security is in danger not through random accidents but because of failing to enforce our immigration laws and politicizing the U.S. military. Those are policy choices. So are engaging in noncritical foreign wars, trying to inflate away our bankrupt welfare stateโs increasing piles of debt, and setting up moral hierarchies between Americans based on their skin color and sexual activities.
The policies are the problem, no matter who fronts them. Although itโs the right thing to do, merely getting rid of Ali and replacing her with another college-educated America-hater solves no underlying problems. Neither does getting rid of Biden and replacing him with another leftist like Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom.
The underlying problem is the systemic America hatred that fuels people like Ali and Biden and places their ideology in positions of power. Their threat to us all begins to end with prioritizing Americaโs legitimate interests over the leftโs nihilistic self-hatred.
Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her latest ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media from Fox News to Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Her several books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.
FIRST ON FOX: Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, R-Ark., is setting the record straight on femininity in Arkansas, introducing an executive order to mandate the use of gender-specific terms when describing women and “prohibit the use of woke, anti-women words for official state government business.”
“The science is clear and real; There are things only women can do, like perform the miracle of birth,” Sanders wrote in the executive order shared first with Fox News Digital. “Government should reject language that ignores, undermines, and erases women; Government should celebrate gender distinctions between men and women โ not erase them.”
Sanders’ order comes as states, workplaces and schools around the country are pushing the use of what they refer to as “culturally conscious” or “inclusive” language โ initiatives that commonly attempt to remove femininity from terms used to describe women.
In the spring, the Arkansas Department of Health issued a memo on drinking water that described how small per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) can have negative effects on “pregnant people.” Sanders’ new order will require the state to use the terms “pregnant women” or “pregnant mom” when describing someone who is expecting a child.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.ย (Thomas Metthe/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
The governor wrote that rather than refer to females as a “menstruating person” or “menstruating people,” to use the terms “woman” or “women.” Rather than “birthing person,” use “birth mom,” and rather than “chestfeeding,” use “breastfeeding.”ย And rather than “laboring person,” use “birth mom,” and “woman” instead of “birth-giver.”
Sanders has firmly stood on the side of opposition to removing femininity from terms referring to women. As the first woman to serve as Arkansas governor, Sanders has slammed President Biden as “the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that canโt tell you what a woman is.”
Iโm the first woman to lead my state. Biden is the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that canโt tell you what a woman is.
Everyday we are told that we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols. Itโs crazy, and itโs wrong.
Amid a nationwide trend to replace gender-specific terms, the city of Portland, Oregon, recently urged city staff members to adopt a more “culturally conscious” vocabulary that included not using words such as “women,” “Caucasian” or “citizen.”
An elementary school in Vermont was criticized for telling parents it would be removing “male” and “female” language from its fifth-grade science lessons covering the human body and reproduction, while a Missouri school district decided to use “they/them” pronouns in math class to help kids’ “mathematical identities.”
In several other cases, the “inclusive” push stretches beyond gender to removing religious terms from vocabulary and allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports.
Riley Gaines is a former championship swimmer who was forced to compete against a biological male.ย (Riley Gaines)
Michigan State University released an “inclusive” language guide for its students that suggested “in winter and spring, avoid references to majority religious imagery and language, such as the word โmerryโ or โChristmas trees,โ โwreaths,โ โholly,โ โbells,โ โgifts,โ โreindeer,โ โbunnies,โ โeggsโ and โchicks,โ” the style guide suggested. “Use terms like โwishing you a wonderful winter/spring breakโ or โbest wishes for the new year.โ”
Sanders will introduce the executive order Thursday “banning a number of all sorts of ridiculous words from state government documents.”
“We are all here to say enough. Enough trying to erase women and girls. Enough denying our biological differences from men. Enough of the craziness taking over our country,” the governor is expected to say at the signing on Thursday afternoon.
“Theyโre using nonsense words to erase women and girls โ and more importantly, to erase our voices and experiences. Today, weโre taking a stand against woke nonsenseโฆ Itโs the Left that decided that โwomanโ is a dirty word. Itโs the Left that decided that we needed to toss out basic biology โ and basic grammar along with it.”
Fox News’ Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
Aubrie Spady is a Freelance Production Assistant for Fox News Digital.
WASHINGTON โย Hardline conservative Jim Jordan vowed to continue his floundering bid for speaker of the House of Representatives on Thursday, after his fellow Republicans abandoned a backup plan to allow the leaderless chamber to resume business. Jordan, who has lost two votes for speaker this week, emerged from an hours-long closed door meeting with fellow Republicans to say he would press ahead with a third vote.
“I’m still running for speaker and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race,” Jordan told reporters.
Republicans told Newsmax that Jordan is pushing for a third speaker vote at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. ET.
According to lawmakers in the room, Jordan had earlier said he would pause his speaker bid and called on them to extend the authority of Representative Patrick McHenry. McHenry has been acting speaker since Oct. 3, when a small group of party members ousted Kevin McCarthy.
But many Republicans objected to that proposal.
The House’s leadership vacuum has prevented Congress from acting on urgent legislative business.
Democratic President Joe Biden is expected to ask Congress this week to approve as much as $60 billion for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel, and funding for U.S. government operations is due to expire in less than a month.
Jordan has twice failed to secure the 217 votes needed to claim the speaker’s gavel as he has faced opposition from Democrats and more than 20 of his fellow Republicans.
Republicans who have voted against him the first two times have predicted he will also fail on a third vote.
The prolonged leadership battle has laid bare divisions among Republicans who control the chamber by a narrow 221-212 margin. Investors say the turmoil on Capitol Hill is also contributing to market volatility.
Israeli airstrikes pounded locations across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including parts of the south that Israel told Palestinians to take refuge, heightening fears among more than 2 million Palestinians trapped in the territory that nowhere was safe. Israel’s defense minister told ground troops to be ready to enter Gaza, though he didn’t say when the invasion will start.
With authorities still working out logistics for a delivery of aid into Gaza from Egypt, overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for diesel generators to keep the equipment running. Doctors in darkened wards stitched wounds by mobile phone light. A doctor at the largest hospital said staff were using vinegar from the corner store to treat infected wounds.
The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for a devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel almost two weeks ago. Even after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate the north of Gaza and flee south, strikes extended across the territory and Palestinian militants continued firing rockets into Israel.
Meeting with Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border Thursday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant urged the forces to “get organized, be ready” for an order to move in. Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border.
“Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside,” he said. “I promise you.”
Israel’s consent for Egypt to let in food, water and medicine provided the first possibility for an opening in its sealing off of the territory. Many among Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are down to one meal a day and drinking dirty water.
Israel did not list fuel as a permitted item, but a senior Egyptian security official said Egypt was negotiating for the entry of fuel for hospitals. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
With the Egypt-Gaza border crossing in Rafah still closed, the already dire conditions at Gaza’s second-largest hospital deteriorated further, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel of Nasser Hospital in the southern town of Khan Younis. Power was shut off in most departments to save it for intensive care and other vital functions, and staff members were using mobile phones for light.
At least 80 wounded civilians and 12 dead flooded into the hospital Thursday morning after witnesses said a strike hit a residential building in Khan Younis. Doctors had no choice but to leave two of the incoming to die because there were no ventilators left, Qandeel said.
“We can’t save more lives if this keeps happening, meaning more children … more women will die,” he said.
The Gaza Health Ministry pleaded with gas stations to give whatever fuel they had left to hospitals. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, gave some of its little remaining fuel stores to hospitals, according to spokesperson Juliette Touma.
The agency’s donation to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, would “keep us going for another few hours,” hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia told The Associated Press.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people wereย believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.
Do I have to remind you not to believe anything coming out of Gaza? Remember, their religion says it is Allah’s will that they lie to infidels.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas’ deadly incursion on Oct. 7. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.
More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes in Gaza City and other places in the northern part of the territory since Israel told them to evacuate. Most have crowded into U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters or the homes of relatives.
The deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territory’s only connection to Egypt, remained fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians in southern Gaza and that it would “thwart” any diversions by Hamas. U.S. President Joe Biden said the deliveries “will end” if Hamas takes any aid.
Egypt must still repair the road across the border, which Israeli airstrikes cratered in a no-man’s land and on the Gaza side. No equipment had arrived to start the repair work as of Thursday afternoon, the Hamas spokesman for the crossing, Wael Abu Omar, said.
More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah, according to Khalid Zayed, the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai.
U.S. officials said the first deliveries would likely take place Friday at the earliest, with an initial group of 20 trucks. The Egyptian security official also said the first trucks were expected to go in Friday.
Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let out of Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV: “As long as the crossing is operating normally and the (crossing) facility has been repaired.”
Israel had previously said it would let nothing into Gaza until Hamas freed the hostages taken from Israel. Relatives of some of the captives reacted with fury to the aid announcement.
“Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals,” the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. But “the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.”
The Israeli military reported Thursday that it killed a top Palestinian militant in Rafah and hit hundreds of targets across Gaza, including militant tunnel shafts, intelligence infrastructure and command centers. It said it also hit dozens of mortar-launching posts, most of them immediately after they were used to fire shells at Israel. Palestinians have launched barrages of rockets at Israel since the fighting began.
Israel has said it is attacking Hamas militants wherever they may be in Gaza. It has accused the group’s leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population, leaving Palestinians feeling in constant danger.
After Thursday’s strikes in Khan Younis, sirens wailed as emergency crews rushed to rescue survivors from the crushed apartment building. Many residents were believed trapped under twisted bed frames, broken furniture and cement chunks. A small, soot-covered child, dangling in the arms of a rescue worker, was taken out of a damaged building.
Gaza’s Hamas-led government said several bakeries in the territory were hit in the overnight strikes, making it even harder for residents to get food.
Violence was also escalating in the West Bank where Israel carried out a rare airstrike Thursday, targeting militants in the Nur Shams refugee camp. Israeli troops raided the camp the previous night and were still battling Palestinian fighters inside. Six Palestinians were killed in the camp, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, and the Israeli military said the strike killed militants. Ten Israeli officers were wounded when fighters threw explosives at the troops. More than 74 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war started.
Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Thursday said it fired missiles into northern Israel, hitting a kibbutz. The Israeli military said no one was injured and responded with shelling on border areas in Lebanon. Hamas militants also fired 30 rockets from southern Lebanese toward Israeli towns. Violence on the border comes amid fears the Hamas-Israel conflict could spread across the region.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Newsmax Thursday that President Joe Bidenโs proposed $100 million aid package to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza will not โmake itโ to the people who need the help.
โWe would be very concerned that this would end up in Hamasโ hands,โ Blackburn said during โWake Up Americaโ Thursday. โWe know that even in the last week, as medical supplies, food, fuel has gone into Gaza that it has been intercepted by Hamas, and they are using it for the troops. It is not making it to people who were in need of humanitarian aid.โ
Biden announced the aid package during a trip to Israel Wednesday.
โPresident Biden announced today that the United States is providing $100 million in humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank,โ the White House said in a press release. โThis funding will help support over a million displaced and conflict-affected people with clean water, food, hygiene support, medical care, and other essential needs.
“The United States provides humanitarian assistance through trusted partners including UN agencies and international NGOs.โ
Blackburn, however, said Hamas has a record of taking humanitarian money from the Palestinians and using it to fund its military operations against Israel, such as the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,300 Israelis. She said the theft of aid money in the past from an agency of the United Nations led former President Donald Trump to curtail the aid, while Biden reinstated $730 million to the agency.
โTrump cut all the funding to the agency, but Biden put it back, full steam ahead, and has put $730 million into that agency,โ she said. โThey hire Hamas affiliated people who steal the money and then use the facilities in Gaza to store weapons and ammo. So, we know what Hamas does, and we are very concerned that the president would consider U.S. taxpayer dollars going into this type of relief.โ
Blackburn also criticized President Biden for not speaking about the 30 Americans killed in the attacks two weeks ago and the Americans among the more than 200 people held as hostages by Hamas in Gaza.
โI would have thought he would have mentioned that the Americans that have lost their lives,โ she said. โI thought he would have mentioned concern for the Americans who are being held hostage.
“I thought he would have mentioned concern for the Israelis that have died, have lost their lives. We’ve got thousands of people injured. We don’t know how many Americans are in those numbers.โ
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Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen blocked a resolution from Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley that would have condemned antisemitic student activities on college campuses. Pictured: Hawley is seen in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, May 11. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/ Getty Images)
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen blocked a resolution from Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley that would have condemned antisemitic student activities on college campuses.
Hawley introduced a Senate Resolution on Thursday condemning antisemitic student groupsโ protests against Israel, protests that often celebrate and justify the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.
โWe must stand together with Israel and against hateful, violent rhetoric that threatens the safety and security of Jewish Americans in the United States,โ Hawley wrote. โMy resolution unequivocally condemns Hamas and the hateful, antisemitic rhetoric that the recent terrorist attack has inspired on our college campuses.โ
โThis is particularly urgent,โ he added, โgiven the rise in threats against Jewish Americans across our country. I invite you to join me in standing with Israel and against hate.โ
.@HawleyMO just tried to pass a resolution condemning antisemitic student actions on college campuses across the U.S.
Sen. Van Hollen blocked it. Said it smeared students engaged in pro-Palestine/anti-Israel protests.
However, when Hawley introduced the resolution on Thursday, it was blocked by Van Hollen, who expressed concerns that the resolution โsmearedโ those students engaging in pro-Palestine protests.
โWhat this resolution does is condemn certain speech around the country,โ he said.
โWhat this resolution does is attempt to smear students, many of whomย engaged in antisemitic remarks, but many of whom did not,โ Van Hollen continued. โMy view is that when you come to the Senate floor to pass such a resolution and youโre talking about freedom of speech, itโs very important not to paint a broad brush and condemn everybody engaging in speech. This is what that resolution does. Itโs an attempt to say even those who had legitimate statements to make about war and peace, to smear them all as making antisemitic remarks.โ
Last week, Hawley had urged the Justice Department to investigate whether pro-Palestinian student groups have any potential financial ties to Hamas. Though the First Amendment protects the right to protest, he wrote, it does not protect โthe provision of material support to terrorist organizations.โ
โPublic reports indicate that several far-left student groups have lined up to effectively cheerlead Hamasโs genocidal war against the people of Israel,โ he wrote, Fox News reported.
โThese student organizations are seemingly lobbying in support of the murder of innocent people, including children and babies,โ Hawley added. โThey are menacing Jewish Americans within our cities. And they are doing so in what appears to be a coordinated fashion.โ
Organizers estimated that more than 1,000 people were in attendance at a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening. (Photo: Mary Margaret Olohan/The Daily Signal)
Hundreds ofย anti-Israel protestersย supporting Palestinians gathered outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening. Many of the protesters carried signs calling for Palestinians to take over Israel and for the U.S. to stop sending aid to the Israeli government. Organizers estimated Wednesday night that more than 1,000 people were in attendance.
โEnd the occupation now,โ they chanted. โEnd the siege on Gaza now.โ
โTear down Israelโs border wall!โ
WATCH:
The leader just repeated misinformation spread by liberal outlets about the blast at the hospital in Gaza.
Members of the U.S. Secret Service were guarding the Israeli Embassy, the front of which was lit up with blue lights showing the Jewish Star of David. At certain points through the protest, the anti-Israel demonstrators attempted to project the words โGUILTYโ onto the embassy.
No arrests were made related to the demonstrations, Secret Service spokesman Alexi Worley told The Daily Signal, noting: โThe Foreign Missions Branch of our Uniformed Division protects more than 500 foreign diplomatic missions in the Washington metropolitan area, which can include assisting with handling demonstrations at diplomatic locations.โ
Protest leaders repeated claims spread by Hamas and pushed by legacy media outlets that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds. Israeli authorities have denied responsibility and said that a rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad struck the hospital after misfiring.
WATCH:
The leader just repeated misinformation spread by liberal outlets about the blast at the hospital in Gaza.
One female leader of the protest compared inaction in the current political climate to inaction toward the Holocaust, telling the crowd: โI saw a post that said, if you were ever curious what you would have done during slavery, if you were ever curious what you would have done during the Holocaust โฆ look at what you are doing right now.โ
Wow, I think this pro-Palestine protest leader just compared those who do not stand up for Palestine to those who did not take action in the Holocaustโฆ pic.twitter.com/whFodAQ44j
Photographs of signs captured by The Daily Signal exhibited antisemitic or anti-Israel sentiment, including one sign that said: โIS (not) REAL: terrorist, racist, baby killing, evil, apartheid โstate.’โ Another read, โLAND U KILL 4 IS NOT YOURS.โ Yet others read, โISRAEL BOMBS HOSPITALS, BIDEN PAYS FOR ITโ and โISRAELโS DAYS ARE NUMBERED.โ
โNazi Israel leading the Palestinian Holocaust,โย read another.
Well, I guess we know what โFree Palestineโ means now – ๐Outside the Israeli Embassy in DC pic.twitter.com/w96ifmUdOJ
As has been the case at many pro-Palestinian protests in the D.C. area and across the U.S., many of those attending the protest covered their faces to avoid recognition and wore black-and-white checkered scarves, called keffiyehs, over their heads.
The protesters alsoย took issueย with legacy media coverage of the brutal Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, chanting, โWashington Post, you canโt hide. You encourage genocide.โ
Top Stories โข John Legend Endorses Radical Measure Allowing Abortions Up to Birth โข Kamala Harris Ignores Womanโs Death From โSafe, Legalโ Abortion โข Britney Spearsโ Abortion is a Reminder That 60% of Women Having Abortions are Pressured โข Pastor Could Go to Jail for Holding Pro-Life Sign Outside Abortion Biz
More Pro-Life News โข Waste Company That Generates Electricity by Burning Aborted Babies Pays $1.7 Million Fine โข Planned Parenthood is an Abortion Business and Taxpayers Should Not be Forced to Fund It โข This 92-Year-Old Woman Prays Every Day at an Abortion Center to Save Babies โข J.B. Pritzker Loves Killing Babies in Abortions So Much He Just Started a Pro-Abortion Group โข 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.
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 โThe Washington Post.โ He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh DโSouza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Bidenโs open-border policies have allowed innumerable criminals and terrorists into our country, leaving many Americans feeling fearful. Add to that Hamasโ barbaric invasion of Israel and pro-Palestine rallies on American turf, and citizens want to know how our leadership plans to keep the American people safe from terrorism.
Luckily, Donald Trump has a plan, and according to Pat Gray, itโs โbrilliant.โ
The plan is called โAgenda 47,โ and it will โreinstate and expand Trump travel bans on entry from terror-plagued countries, territories, and places,โ reports Pat.
โLet’s back off allowing Saudis into our country, Yemenis into our country, people from Kuwait โ you don’t know what their intent is,โ says Pat.
Jeffy agrees and adds that โall the other countries surrounding Israel and Gazaโ are certainly โ[not] opening up their gates for the Palestinians.โ
โThereโs a reason for that,โ responds Pat, adding, โThey donโt trust them either.โ
The second part of Agenda 47 involves โ[reimplementing] a full suspension of State Department Refugee resettlement that would include Gaza,โ as well as โ[implementing] strong ideological screening for all immigrants to the United States โ sympathy for jihadists, Hamas, or Hamas ideology will be automatically disqualifying.โ
โThat just makes sense,โ says Pat.
Thirdly, Agenda 47 will aim to โaggressively deport resident aliens with jihadist sympathiesโ and โrevoke the student visas of radical anti-American and anti-Semitic foreigners at colleges and universities.โ
Trumpโs plan will also โproactively send ICE to pro-jihadist demonstrations to enforce our immigration laws and remove the violators from our country, continue and expand denaturalization of criminals, terrorists, and immigration cheats โฆ and finally invoke the Alien Enemies Act to accelerate domestic deportations.โ
Agenda 47 โdoesnโt seem radical to me; it just seems like common sense,โ says Pat.
To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV โ the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
A โdisinformationโ group is out with new reports flagging online information as โmisinformationโ for corporate tech giants known for censoring such info โ even if the content is true.
VineSight, a Tel Aviv-based tech company with offices in New York, relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to scan the internet for โtoxic narrativesโ and โmisinformation.โ A thorough examination of the companyโs recent reports, however, reveals so-called โtoxic narrativesโ and โmisinformationโ are synonymous with conservative arguments and inconvenient truths.
The companyโs report on clean energy, for example, highlights a post from a โbot-likeโ account as misinformation that reads, โChina emits the most CO2.โ The statement, however, is verifiably true. China is by far the worldโs largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions on the planet and has been for almost two decades.
VineSightโs clean energy report also highlights statements from human accounts as misinformation including, โClimate advocates are hypocrites,โ and โ[electric vehicles] repeatedly catch on fire.โ Climate advocates, however, are often hypocrites when they endlessly lecture about fossil fuels while flying to glitzy conferences courtesy of private air travel. And electric vehicles, including bikes and scooters, are seeing a rise in spontaneous combustion triggered by the malfunction of lithium-ion batteries.
On Facebook, allegedly misleading viral topics include a claim from conservative radio host Glenn Beck saying an โEV battery factory needs fossil fuels to runโ and another from Breitbart that โBidenโs green policies benefit China.โ But studies have shown that electric vehicles are worse for the environment than their gas-powered counterparts โ in part because of the pollution-inducing production of lithium-ion batteries, a market China dominates. In other words, the more President Joe Biden subsidizes rich Americans buying electric vehicles, the more Beijing stands to profit.
Almost every energy-related statement VineSight flagged in its โmisinformationโ report is backed by either an outright truth or, at minimum, evidence to support the claim. For example, VineSight identified as misinformation a statement attributed to former President Donald Trump that went viral on TikTok: โThe Green New Deal is the Destruction of Our Country.โ The Green New Deal is a far-left proposal to radically reengineer the nationโs economy and power grid to prioritize climate change above all else. Residents in California are already suffering the effects of state officials implementing aspects of the Green New Deal on a local level; frequent blackouts and strict rules on water use are the new norm.
VineSightโs reports on climate change and voter fraud are not much different. Its climate change report this month flagged topics such as โclimate change is a hoaxโ and โthere is no climate crisisโ as top examples of viral misinformation. Yet earlier this year, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist became the second Nobel laureate to sign a declaration with more than 1,600 other scientists that emphatically says, โThere is no climate emergency.โ
โClimate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific,โ reads the declaration, organized by the Climate Intelligence Foundation. โScientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.โ
Another climate โtopicโ written off as disinformation by the misinformation group is, โChina opens a new coal transportation network.โ Yet hereโs a headline from National Public Radio (NPR) in March: โChina is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds.โ
A VineSight press release in May celebrated the firmโs updated disinformation technology to โnot only identify and alert organizations to disinformation attacks faster but also help mitigate, counter-message, takedown or label content before it damages a companyโs reputation and business.โ
โToday VineSightโs premier solution is used by major Fortune 500 brands including financial, manufacturing and pharmaceutical institutions, political campaigns, and other causes across the globe,โ the company wrote.
The same press release highlights how โVineSight works with the terms of service of each social platform and where possible, get [sic] messages labeled or removed, to counteract any attacks or minimize virality.โ In other words, by VineSightโs own admission, it shares its reports with major tech platforms to flag posts for censorship.
The company also admits its concerns about โdisinformationโ are related to election outcomes. โDisinformation is disrupting the legitimacy of the election process, threatening democracy, and allowing extremist views to become prevalent,โ VineSight said in its May press release.
VineSightโs โtracking reportโ on voter fraud identified conservative themes on election integrity as โviral misinformation and toxic narratives.โ
Here are a few The Federalistโs Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway highlighted on X:
The topics also included โallowing illegal immigrants to vote is an insult to Americans,โ and โMAGA movement was able to make election fraud a top voters issue.โ The group also flagged the topic: โthe 2020 election was stolen and now Democrats are trying to interfere with 2024.โ
Democrats did of course rig the 2020 election โ a conspiracy theyโve admitted to โ by way of exploiting Covid-19 to transform โElection Dayโ into election season with the radical expansion of mail-in voting, the least secure format to conduct elections. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also dumped some $350 million into the leftist nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, which funded and staffed local government election offices. These dollars flowed overwhelmingly to the blue areas of swing states, effectively making the operation a Democrat get-out-the-vote effort.
Then there was the collusion of Big Tech and the media, which openly suppressed blockbuster stories surrounding the corruption of the Democratic nominee and his involvement in his sonโs potentially criminal overseas business ventures. Hemingway wrote an entire 448-page book documenting the myriad ways Democrats rigged the 2020 contest.
As for the upcoming election, Trump, now the Republican front-runner in his third run for the White House, is faced with 91 felony indictments just over a year ahead of the next election. On Monday, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination was slapped with a gag order from an activist judge who effectively barred the former president from even campaigning against his top political opponent: the federal government. It bars Trump from publicly defending himself against attacks from potential witnesses, court personnel, or his federal prosecutors, including Special Counsel Jack Smith. According to VineSight, none of that constitutes election interference. Saying as much is amplifying โmisinformation.โ
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.
After Hamasโ violent attacks on Israel last week, Rep. Ilhan Omar finally found someone she can condemn as a โterroristโ: Ohio Republican Jim Jordan. Omarย chose this momentย in world events to resurrect and post a quote from former House Speaker John Boehnerย describingย Jordan as a โlegislative terroristโ (a description Boehner apparently used to complain about Jordanโs ability to make โBoehnerโs life miserableโ).
Thankfully, others have stepped up to disavow the heinous behavior of Hamas. A San Francisco Board of Supervisors declaration condemned the โdomestic terrorist organizationโ and blamed its sponsor states for putting โweapons in the hands of those who would harm and terrorize us.โ Rep. Jamaal Bowman called for focusing โenergyโ on fighting โthe Nazisโ before โanything else.โ The National School Boards Association wrote to the attorney general about the โimmediate threatโ posed by โactions of malice [and] violence,โ urging a response to โterrorism and hate crimes.โ Whoopi Goldberg of โThe Viewโ bravely denounced them as โterrorists.โ Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage condemned the โterroristโ at the top.
Omar, to her credit, decried the โethnic cleansingโ and โwar crimes.โ
Just kidding! None of these principled condemnations were directed at the terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians last week. Issued over the past several years, they respectively referred to the National Rifle Association, Republicans in Congress, concerned parents at school board meetings, congressional Republicans (again), and Donald Trump. Omarโs โethnic cleansingโ comment was actually about Israel urging residents and others in Gaza to evacuate before incoming airstrikes against Hamas targets, while her โwar crimesโ remark slammed Israel for turning off electricity in Hamas-controlled territory.
Meanwhile, left-wing college students, their professors, and other congressional Democrats have found themselves unable to condemn the actual terrorists who killed, raped, and kidnapped unsuspecting Israelis and their families. Student groups and Marxist outfits like Black Lives Matter have aligned themselves with the terrorists, while others have reserved harsher words for the defending Israeli forces than for their attackers.
Why is it so hard to call a terrorist โ a real one, who murders families in their homes and, yes, beheads babies โ a terrorist? For a known antisemite like Omar, the answer is easy enough to discern.
For Marxists like BLM and their drones in college classrooms, itโs only slightly more complicated. Having been taught to see everything through the lens of oppressors and oppressed, they buy into the lies about Israeli โcolonizersโ and must therefore stand with the terrorists โfreedom fighters.โ Hamas, after all, is only doing to Israeli civilians what true Marxists think should be done to all โsettlers.โ
But thereโs another hurdle to leftists admitting the terrorist acts committed by Hamas are, in fact, terrorism. To do so would invite comparison between those terrorists โ of the raping, killing, and beheading variety โ and the Republican โterroristsโ that Democrats have assured us pose the greatest threat to the republic.
It looks pretty silly to call a potential speaker of the House of Representatives a โterroristโ when thereโs so much real terrorism going on in the world. It looks equally silly to call Republicans โNazisโ while your own side cheers the deaths of hundreds of Jewish victims. No serious person could take a person like that seriously!
The Hamas attacks in Israel are inconvenient for the narrative that paints Republican congressmen, pro-life demonstrators, and concerned public school parents as terrorists who pray to Donald Trump at night, hide out in booby-trapped compounds in the Texas desert, and work to rain violent jihad on the sexually frustrated elementary school teachers exposed by Libs of TikTok. If there are terrorists actually dragging womenโs battered bodies through the streets and taking toddlers hostage, Americans might realize that โterrorismโ is a touch hysterical to describe voting for Trump or questioning the effectiveness of Covid lockdowns online. And then where would Democratsโ efforts to defend โdemocracyโ be?
Anyone who honestly opposes โterrorismโ should have no problem blasting Hamasโ crimes in the strongest possible terms. But to be honest about the term would also require not applying it to suburban soccer moms, Jim Jordan, and Trump-supporting grandmothers. (To be fair, some leftists do condemn Hamasโ terrorism as such. Draw your own conclusions, I guess, about what that means they think of you when they call you the same word.)
If I were given the choice of being stuck in a room with a Hamas jihadi or one of the Trump voters, parent protesters, or congressmen who have been described as โterrorists,โ Iโd take my chances with any of the latter three โ or heck, all of them combined! I bet most of the people who casually slander American conservatives as โterroristsโ would too.
Then again, when people tell you whose side, theyโre on, you should probably believe them.
Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.
It all happened rather quickly on Tuesday โ a matter of minutes, not hours. There was an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry immediately (and incredibly) claimed that some 500 people were killed and that the blast was caused by an Israeli missile, and every major media outlet took Hamas officials at their word and ran with that headline despite any corroborating evidence.
Before changing the headline (twice) The New York Times declared, โIsraeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.โ The Wall Street Journal alsoย calledย it a โstrike,โ without any evidence beyond the say-so of a terrorist regime that 10 days earlier had butchered more than 1,000 civilians, raping women and decapitating babies. Nearly every major news organization did something similar.ย
By nightfall in the Middle East, angry mobs assaulted the embassies and military bases of Israel, the United States, and other Western powers. The streets of Baghdad, Istanbul, Beirut, Amman, Doha, Tehran, Cairo, Rabat, and even some European cities like Berlin and Barcelona were filled with hordes of enraged Hamas sympathizers who believed (and now will always believe) that Israel struck the hospital. The fake news cycle even derailed President Bidenโs trip to the region. Jordan abruptly canceled a planned summit with the United States, Egypt, and Palestinian leaders while Biden was en route. It also placed American lives in real danger.
By Wednesday morning, it was clear that nothing the media initially reported was true. Israel didnโt fire a missile at the hospital, and hundreds of people werenโt killed. Instead, it appears that a Palestinian rocket misfired and landed in the parking lot of the hospital complex. In the light of day, video footage of the site showed no impact crater consistent with an airstrike, and most of the nearby hospital buildings intact.
So what happened here? This was an info op, a deliberate campaign to alter the narrative of the Israel-Hamas war and inflame the Muslim world. Perhaps a billion people or more are now convinced beyond all doubt that Israel bombed a hospital and killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
We have seen this kind of op before, many times. In every case, itโs designed to serve the domestic interests of the progressive left. In this case, the purpose was to constrain Israelโs response to last weekendโs horrific Hamas attacks on innocent Israeli civilians. That, by the way, is the actual purpose of Bidenโs trip to the Middle East, where heโll be โasking tough questions as a friend of Israel,โ according to the administration. Translation: Israel is to stand down now. The credible threat of unconstrained mob violence across the Middle East, directed at Western targets, will do much to advance this goal. Indeed it already has.
We saw a similar media info op in the Ukraine-Russia war last November when a missile struck a grain silo in Poland, killing two civilians. The missile strike was immediately blamed on Russia, stoking outrage across the West and bolstering calls for more military assistance to Ukraine. It wasnโt until last month that Polish experts finally confirmed that the missile was Ukrainian, not Russian.
The same thing routinely happens here in America. During the Black Lives Matter riots in the summer of 2020, hysteria and outrage preceded the collection of facts or the verification of claims. In episode after episode that summer, we saw law enforcement officers, including black officers, use justified force in the line of duty โ often amid chaotic and violent rioting. Such force was then instantly used as a pretext for more rioting. Then as now, it didnโt matter what the facts were, and no one cared or even noticed when they were corrected. The misreporting by then had served its purpose of providing cover for a fresh cycle of street violence and rioting.
Itโs important to understand that these media info ops only happen on issues where the reporting biases serve the domestic political priorities of the left. From Ukraine to Gaza to the streets of American cities, the reporting bias works in the same direction and serves the same set of interests. The connections and affinity between BLM activists and the pro-Palestinian crowd in the U.S. should be fairly obvious by now, and we should understand these media ops in that light.
In this case, the stakes of such ops are rather high. Instead of mere outrage on social media, or even mere riots in the streets, corporate media misreporting about the hospital fueled violent mobs across the entire Middle East, and the Israel-Hamas conflict now appears to be on the brink of triggering a wider regional war.
For those on the right, itโs long past time to understand and admit what corporate media are and how they operate. These outlets are not interested in reporting the news of what actually happened, or in shedding light on real events, and certainly not in exposing the truth and informing the public. By repeating Hamas propaganda, they are effectively waging war against Israel, but they are doing so as part of a larger information war to advance their agenda in the United States.
And if you think there will be a reckoning or any accountability for the lies they spread and the damage they cause, think again. There never has been, and there wonโt be this time either.
John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, to be published in March 2024. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, listens as the House of Representatives holds its second round of voting for House speaker.ย (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Conservative Jim Jordan failed in his second attempt at the top job in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday, as his fellow Republicans considered a backup option for the leaderless chamber to move forward.
Jordan, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, for a second straight day fell short of the 217 votes needed to fill the vacant speaker’s chair, as 22 Republicans and all 212 Democrats voted against him.
The House is now in its 16th day without a leader, which has left Congress unable to respond to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, or to take action to head off a partial government shutdown which will begin in less than a month without congressional action.
Jordan’s vote total of 199 was less than the 200 Republican votes he secured on Tuesday.
Republicans who control the chamber by a narrow 221-212 majority have been unable to unite behind a speaker candidate since a small faction of them ousted Kevin McCarthy on Oct. 3.
It was not immediately clear whether Jordan would mount a third attempt or clear the way for a fallback option that would give increased power to Rep. Patrick McHenry, who has been temporarily filling the speaker’s chair.
The idea has been floated by Republicans and Democrats, as well as two former Republican speakers, Newt Gingrich and John Boehner.
“We’ve got to decide today,” Jordan told reporters before the vote. “Both questions should be called. Let’s get an answer. We’ve been at this two weeks. The American people deserve to have their government functioning.”
One proposal submitted by Republican Representative Mike Kelly would name McHenry as speaker through Nov. 17 or until a permanent speaker is selected, which would remove uncertainty about his current ability to run the chamber. That temporary solution could also buy more time for Jordan to line up support for the job after that point.
Democrats, whose support would likely be crucial, have made clear they want Jordan out of the picture. “We want a bipartisan path forward. That does not involve Jim Jordan, who is a poster child for Republican extremism and a danger to our democracy,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Tuesday.
Jordan’s supporters say he would be an effective advocate for advancing conservative priorities in Washington, where Democrats control the White House and the Senate.
“I don’t think anybody in here on any issue of any substance would have to guess where Jim Jordan is going to stand. He doesn’t deceive. He doesn’t dissemble. He simply tells you straight up,” Republican Representative Tom Cole said as he nominated Jordan for speaker ahead of the vote.
But other Republicans have voted against him for a variety of reasons, including his positions on taxes, spending and disaster aid, and the strong-arm tactics of his supporters.
New Republican alternatives aside from McHenry could also emerge if Jordan does not pick up support. Potential candidates include Representative Tom Emmer, currently the No. 3 House Republican.
Jordan, a former wrestling coach, is a close ally of former President Donald Trump and a founder of the House Freedom Caucus.
President Joe Biden delivers falsehood-filled remarks at the pro-LGBTQ Human Rights Campaign’s annual national dinner at the Washington Convention Center on Saturday night. (Photo: Kent Nishimura/ Getty Images)
President Joe Bidenย spokeย Saturday at the Human Rights Campaignโs annual national dinner. Biden said it was his fourth appearance at the annual event, which isย billedย as โa national gathering forย champions of LGBTQ equality.โ
Although the 80-year-old president rarely makes public appearances before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m., he made an exception for his close allies, and he delivered a reasonably coherent address to boot. As to the truthfulness of Bidenโs remarks, the most charitable description is that the spin began before he started speaking and ran through his concluding paragraph.
From downright false testimony to invented stories, from ideological falsehoods to absurd non-sequiturs, the presidentโs speech had it all. Perhaps it would even have been comedic if the stakes werenโt so deadly serious.
Biden was introduced by his wife, Jill, and the false testimony began with her. But the president added his own false claims.
Lies About State Laws
First, the president lied about state legislatures acting to protect women and children from the harmful effects of transgender ideology. He denounced โover 600 hateful laws [actually, bills] introduced,โ of which he said โmore than 70โ became law, โdenying the existence of transgender people, silencing teachers, banning books, threatening parents with prison for getting their children health care.โ
In June, the Human Rights Campaign had declared a national state of emergency for โLGBTQ+ peopleโ in the U.S. over this wave of state legislation, and they deliberately mischaracterized the laws in ways quite similar to the president. The HRCโs move was a one-time political stunt that meant absolutely nothing, but Biden at least knew how to play to the crowd.
The bills to which Biden referred do things quite different from the things he claimed they do. A law โdenying the existence of transgender peopleโ in Bidenโs estimation is any law that defines โsexโ in verifiable waysโthat is, in biological termsโinstead of the nebulous vagueness of self-perceived feelings.
By โsilencing teachers,โ Biden referenced laws that regulate school classrooms to ensure that material being taught to children in kindergarten through 3rd grade is age-appropriate.
The policies Biden claimed were โbanning booksโ merely removed sexually inappropriate materials from school libraries, but it did not prohibit private individuals from purchasing said books, which is the traditional understanding of a โbook ban.โ
Lastly, Biden mentioned laws โthreating parents with prison for getting their children health care.โ This is a reference to SAFE Act-style bills, which protect minors from the harmful effects of gender transition drugs and surgeries. For starters, these procedures are not health care.
Additionally, only five out of 22 (four out of 19 enacted in 2023) state laws carry any criminal penalties. Of those five laws, none targets parents: Laws in Florida, North Dakota, and Oklahoma specify the felony penalties are for health care professionals, while Alabamaโs and Idahoโs laws carry felony penalties for activities only medical professionals can do.
Biden followed up on these wild accusations by claiming that families with LGBT-identifying children โnow face excruciating decision to move to a different state,โ making them feel like โrefugees inside our nation.โ His remark cheapened theย plight of millions of actual refugeesโeven from his beloved Ukraine, not to mention Israelโwho have had to flee from their homes because they lived in literal war zones.
Yet, even if we granted, for the sake of argument, the presidentโs contention that interstate migration provoked by bad governance implied a moral failure on the governing parties, what does that say about California and New York? Their strict COVID-19 lockdowns, soft-on-crime policies, and high taxation have provoked an exodus to the very states Biden condemnedโand certainly a much larger migration than however many families decided to relocate to obtain harmful gender transition procedures for their children.
Lies About Congressional Action
Having borne false witness against state legislatures, the president proceeded to do the same against Congress. โIn the United States Congress, extreme MAGA Republicans are trying to undo virtually every bit of progress weโve made,โ he argued. โTheyโre trying to wipe out federal funding to end the HIV epidemic, strip funding from community centers for seniors, reinstate the ban on transgender troops, ban the Department of Justice from enforcing civil rights laws, ban Pride flags from flying on public lands. โฆ And they threaten the legal recognition of same-sex marriages.โ
Letโs set the record straight.
โFederal funding to end the HIV epidemicโ refers to the Presidentโs Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Americaโs largest overseas aid program, devoted to preventing and treating HIV/AIDS in undeveloped countries. Itโs five-year authorization expired Sept. 30.
Pro-lifers in Congress agreed that PEPFAR was โcritical legislationโ and were concerned that the Biden administration had reimagined PEPFARโs strategic direction, turning it into a vehicle to advance abortion and the LGBT agenda overseasโmostly because thatโs what the Biden administration said they were going to do.
After including some legislative protections to prevent the administration from pulling a fast one, House Republicans reauthorized PEPFAR for another year in the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill, which now sits unpassed in the U.S. Senate. To Biden, passing a bill to fund the program amounts to โtrying to wipe out federal funding.โ
Next, Biden accused Republicans in Congress of wanting to โstrip funding from community centers for seniors.โ The factual basis for this claim is that in July the House Appropriations Committeeย struckย $3.62 million for three LGBTQ community centers from the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. Only LGBT publications such asย The Advocateย say the LGBT centers are for seniors. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont.,ย saidย appropriators removed the funds because the community centers had programming supporting communism, drag shows, and the administration of gender transition hormones to minors. Some senior centers!
The president also said that congressional Republicans wanted to โreinstate the ban on transgender troops.โ If not presented among so many other obvious untruths, this could be forgiven as careless wording more than an outright lie. But, in context, itโs clear that Bidenโs word choices were deliberate, and this one too misrepresents the facts.
The Trump-era regulation which Biden called a โbanโ would merely prevent the military from becoming a glorified clinic for people rendered undeployable by deep mental health issues, and who were seeking expensive surgeries. It did not automatically kick someone out of the military simply because they claimed to be transgender.
Biden further claimed that Republicans wanted to โban the Department of Justice from enforcing civil rights laws.โ Again, thatโs not at all what Republicans want. Republicans have taken issue with the DOJ rewriting civil rights laws to extend them to matters Congress never intended the law to cover. Specifically, the DOJ is attempting to redefine โsexual orientationโ and โgender identityโ as protected categories, extending the Supreme Courtโs Bostock decision even to laws Bostock didnโt address.
In addition, Biden accused congressional Republicans of seeking to โban Pride flags from flying on public lands.โ Like the โbook banโ Biden previously mentioned, this attempts to conflate regulations on somethingโs appropriate use with making that thing unlawful. Congressional Republicans are actually seeking to prevent government agents and agencies from flying the Pride flag with taxpayer dollars, or in a way that gives the controversial symbol the governmentโs endorsement.
But if, say, someone wants to hang a Pride flag from their camper in a national park, or if someone wants to turn it into a bumper sticker and drive down an interstate highway, congressional Republicans are not seeking to ban that.
Finally, Biden claimed that congressional Republicans โthreaten the legal recognition of same-sex marriages.โ Oh, if only that were true! Yet, just last year,ย 47 Republican representativesย andย 12 Republican senatorsย voted to affirm same-sex marriage. There is currently no pro-marriage majority to undo that vote.
Lies About โViolence Against LGBTQ Americansโ
Biden referenced โviolence against LGBTQ Americansโ to argue that โwe have to do more to keep people and their communities safe.โ He offered five examples, but he bungled nearly every single one.
First on Bidenโs list was the murder of Matthew Shepard. As Justice Sonia Sotomayorย wroteย in her dissent to 303 Creative v. Elenis, Shepard was โtargeted by two men, tortured, tied to a buck fence, and left to die for who he was.โ Much like George Floyd for BLM, Shepardโs death became a rallying cry for an entire movement against anti-LGBTQ violence.
The only problem is, he wasnโt killed โfor who he was.โย Wroteย National Review fellow Haley Strack, โShepard, who was involved in the Wyoming meth drug culture, was murdered by a bisexual who confirmed that the murder had nothing to do with Shepardโs being gay.โ
Next, Biden mentioned OโShae Sibley, who he said was โkilled while dancing and expressing joy.โ The Associated Pressย reportedย that another teen began arguing with Sibley and his friends while they danced shirtless while filling up at a gas station, but that the argument broke up. Later, said The AP, in a video, โSibley could be seen following the teen and then lunging at him. The stabbing happened out of a clear view of the cameras.โ
Biden then mentioned Laura Ann Carleton, who โhung a Pride flag outside her home,โand Colin Smith, who was โstabbed while defending a friend being harassed.โ From cursory research, these seem to be the most accurate descriptors, but they still miss key information. Carletonย hungย a flag outside her business, not her home. Smith wasย stabbedย on a bar patio in lawless Portland, Oregon. Curiously, neither Carleton nor Smith personally identified as part of any LGBTQ group.
Lastly, Biden mentioned โthe horrific shooting at Club Q [an LGBT nightclub] in Colorado Springs,โ which killed five people and wounded nearly two dozen. The shooterโwho identifies as โnonbinaryโ and uses โthey/themโ pronouns to refer to himselfโhas beenย sentencedย to serve five consecutive life sentences plus another 2,208 years in prison. But Biden said the episode highlights the need for stricter gun laws.
In summary, Bidenโs list of examples of โviolence against LGBTQ Americansโ included three examples where the perpetrator or instigator identified as LGBTQ and two examples where the victim was someone who did not identify as LGBTQ. It also ignored theย trendย of violence committed by people who identify as LGBT, such as the Covenant School shooter.
Lies About Personal Experiences
Not satisfied with unjustly slandering state and national legislators, Biden proceeded to fabricate stories about his own life. โIโve told this story before, but Iโll tell it again,โ began the 80-year-old president.
โI wanted to work in the projects as a lifeguard on the east side of Wilmington [in Delaware]. And [my dad] was dropping me off on his way to work at the City Hall to go get an application to be a lifeguard there. And as I got out of the car at the four corners at the center of town, two menโit turns out, one going to the Brandywine; one worked for the Dupont Company; the other worked for Hercules Company; this was back when I was a kidโand they leaned up and kissed one another. And Iโd never seen that before. I turned and looked at my dad. And he just looked at me and said, โJoey, itโs simple. Itโs simple, Joey. They love one another. Itโs a simple proposition.โโ
In a previous telling of this storyโwhich Biden repeats oftenโhe said the incident occurred in 1961, when he was 17 or 18. This was years before the sexual revolution launched and a full decade before the first known same-sex couple applied for a marriage license. It was one year before any state repealed its sodomy law, and 11 years before Delaware repealed its sodomy law. It was 12 years before the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.
Most problematic of all, neither building Biden referenced had been built when he said the story took place. The Brandywine Building was built in 1969, while Biden was practicing law in Wilmington. The Hercules Building opened in 1983, while Biden was serving his second term in the U.S. Senate.
Descent Into Confusing Nonsense
In fairness to Biden, not everything he said on Saturday was an outright lie. He correctly characterized Hamas as the villain in its contest with Israel:
โA week ago, we saw hate manifest in another way in the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust. More than 1,300 innocent lives lost in Israel, including at least 27 Americans. Children and grandparents alikeย kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas. A humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Innocent Palestinian familiesโand the vast majority of them have nothing to do with Hamas. Theyโre being used as human shields.โ
But Biden followed that up with a statement that wonโt hold up in many other contexts. โFolks, we have to reject hate in every form. Because history has taught us again and again anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobiaโtheyโre all connected,โ he said. โHate toward one group, left unanswered, opens the door for more hate toward more groups, more often, readily. But hereโs what, which history shows: The antidote to hate is love. The answer to twisted, dehumanizing ideologies is solidarity and standing up for everyoneโs humanity.โ
Bidenโs philosophy is clear: Everyone has a binary choice between love or hate. The LGBT movement paints the slogan โlove is loveโ on its banners. Or, as a columnistย wroteย last week in Philadelphia Gay News regarding Hamasโs intolerance of LGBT lifestyles, โhate is hate.โ
But there are many things to love or hate, and sometimes loving one thing means hating something else, or at least deprioritizing it. Hamas is the dictionary definition of antisemitism, and Biden would likely regard them as homophobic, too. But could Hamas ever succumb to Islamophobia?
Taking an example closer to home, many of the most antisemitic members of Congress are among the most rabid proponents of the LGBT agenda. One member has a Palestinian flag outside her office and refused to condemn Hamasโ terror attack. Next to it flies a Progress Pride flag.
In another illogical moment, Biden announced โan ambitious plan to end HIV,โ boasting that his administration โfinally did away with the outdated policy banning gay and bisexuals from donating blood.โ In other words, allowing the group at highest risk of contracting HIV/AIDS to donate blood, which might be contaminated with the disease, is part of his plan to end the disease by 2030.
โWeโre leading with science, not stigma,โ said Biden. Such awkward dissonance of ideasโโThe Officeโ would be proud.
But out of all of Bidenโs confusing moments, this one takes the cake: Biden delivered a message to LGBTQ-identifying youth across America, โWe see who you are, made in the image of God, deserving dignity, respect, and support. Thatโs why my administration is combating the dangerous, cruel practice of conversion therapy.โ
Here Biden does a bait-and-switch. The โdangerous, cruel practiceโ refers to quack treatments such as electric shock therapy aimed at removing a personโs LGBT feelings; such practices are everywhere discontinued and nowhere proposed. Yet LGBT activists continue to push sweeping bans on so-called โconversion therapy,โ a ban so broad that it encompasses any effortโincluding simple talk therapy, which is a widespread practiceโto help a person move out of an LGBT lifestyle.
Such therapy would simply involve affirming someone in their biological sex. Given the fluidity of sexual orientation, there would be quite a demand for such counseling, without any force involved.
Thus, a Christian counselor might tell a troubled young person seeking help to leave behind an LGBT lifestyle, โGod made you in His image as male or female. The person God made you deserves dignity, respect, and support, and you donโt need to change to feel whole.โ
Biden wants to prohibit such counseling. But the reason he gives for wanting to ban such advice is quite similar to the advice he wants to ban.
Bad Theology, Too
Biden concluded his address with some very popularโbut very badโtheology. โI see a great nation because weโre basically a good people,โ he said. But Jesus disagreed, โNo one is good except God aloneโ (Mark 10:18).
โFolks, weโre the United States of America. And there is nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together,โ said Biden. Here the biblical parallel is to the tower of Babel. โBehold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them,โ said God (Genesis 11:6).
So, God confused their language to divide them and stop their work. Confused language and division over language are widespread in America today.
A coalition that represents more than 2,500 Orthodox Jewish rabbis condemned Michigan Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s decision to blame Israel for an explosion caused by a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Pictured: Tlaib speaks at a press conference calling for the expansion of the Supreme Court on July 18, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Jemal Countess, Take Back the Court Action Fund/Getty Images)
The Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents 2,500 Orthodox Jewish rabbis in American public policy, condemned Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., for rushing to blame Israel for the Wednesday bombing of a hospital in Gaza, despite increasing evidence that a misfired missile launched by the terror group Islamic Jihad caused the blast.
โRep. Tlaib has repeatedly made it clear that she doesnโt value human rights, she merely hates Jews,โ Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday.
โIn this case, her devotion to an antisemitic lie is of a piece with blood libels spread by bigots of the past,โ Menken added. โThat a woman whose rhetoric recalls Nazi Germany is a member in good standing of the House Democratic Caucus should alarm every American, even given President Joe Bidenโs strong moral stance.โ
โIsrael just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that,โ Tlaib posted on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday night.
She tagged Biden and directed her comments to him.
โ@POTUS [President of the United States,] this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate,โย Tlaib added. โYour war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me. We will remember where you stood.โ
Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.
Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and manyโฆ https://t.co/mZYoifT7bj
Palestinian officials said an explosion at Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital killed 471 people Tuesday,ย Reuters reported. Hamas, the group the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization that runs the government of Gaza and the health ministry that reported the deaths, blamed Israel for the explosion. Yet Israel claimsย the explosion traces back to a misfired rocket sent by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Iran-backed terrorist group that took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. Palestinian Islamic Jihad has denied involvement, saying it did not have any activity in or around Gaza City at the time.
โIโm telling you this is the first time that we see a missile like this falling, and so thatโs why we are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,โ one speaker says.
โItโs from us?โ another asks.
โIt looks like it,โ the first speaker replies.
Hamas terrorists in their own voices:
Listen to the conversation between Hamas operatives as they discuss the failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital on October 17, 2023. pic.twitter.com/mz31MiePU3
The Israel Defense Forces shared footage around the area showing that the misfired rocket damaged a parking lot near the hospital, rather than the hospital itself.
A failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City.
IAF footage from the area around the hospital before and after the failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization: pic.twitter.com/AvCAkQULAf
Pictures and video of the area on Wednesday confirmed that the explosion took place at a parking lot.
So letโs walk through it.
We now have video of the scene showing the explosion is from the parking lot and the buildings are in tact. There is no crater, no building demolished. This is inconsistent with the type of bomb many were suggesting yesterday. pic.twitter.com/HFKKxS8kvrpic.twitter.com/SpgG3Ktbiy
Top Stories โข Pro-Life Group Endorses Congressman Jim Jordan for Speaker โข Justin Timberlake Pressured Britney Spears to Get Abortion Because He โDidnโt Want to Be a Fatherโ โข Donald Trump Runs Campaign Ads Celebrating Overturning Roe v. Wade โข Ohio Late-Term Abortionist Supports Issue 1 so He Can Kill Babies in Abortions Up to Birth
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A member of the Israeli security forces stands close to a car hit by a rocket fired from Gaza, in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, on October 9, 2023. Stunned by the unprecedented assault on its territory, a grieving Israel has counted over 900 dead and launched a withering barrage of strikes on Gaza that have raised the death toll there to 560, according to Palestinian officials. | JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images
Israel’s government presented graphic images of dead children and civilians said to have been killed in last weekend’s attack by Hamas after reports emerged of claims that dozens of babies were killed and some beheaded by the terrorist group.ย U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday and was shown the photographs. He spoke about the images while talking with the press at a hotel in Jerusalem that evening.ย
“It’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way,” Blinkenย told reporters. “Images are worth a thousand words. These images may be worth a million.”
“We did see photographs, videos, that the Israel Government shared with us. Some, I think, has actually already been seen in public media. Others were new to me and, I think, new to our team,” he explained.
“It’s hard to find the right words. It’s beyond what anyone would ever want to imagine, much less actually see and, God forbid, experience. A baby, an infant, riddled with bullets. Soldiers beheaded. Young people burned alive in their cars or in their hideaway rooms.”
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also released the graphic images shown to Blinken on social media.
“Horrifying photos of babies murdered and burned by the Hamas monsters,” reads a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“It almost defies comprehension, and as I’ve been saying, to me, it, in the most immediate future, hearkens back to ISIS and some of the very things we saw when it was on its rampage that, thankfully, was stopped,” Blinken added.ย
“So, I think for any human being to see this, it’s really beyond almost anything that we can comprehend, digest. And I’d just add that when you see this, you try to imagine โ maybe not try, you can’t help but imagine โ yourself, your family, your loved ones, your friends, in that situation, in that predicament. And maybe the best word for it for me is overwhelming.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant addressed his counterparts at NATO’s Brussels headquarters, showing the images from the aftermath of the attack on Israel’s southern border communities with Gaza.
“Children were tied up and shot,” Gallant said in his address, according to Reuters. “Yes, I repeat, children, tied up and shot.”
The photographs were taken by the armed forces who found “mutilated bodies” in settlements attacked by Hamas last Saturday, The Times reported.
The Hamas attack on Israeli settlements along the border with Gaza began last Saturday, resulting in over 1,200 deaths and thousands of injuries. At least 150 people were also reported to have been taken hostage. The attack drew retaliatory airstrikes from Israel into Gaza, which the Palestinian authorities say has led to the loss of over 1,400 Palestinians and over 6,000 wounded.
Israeli survivors have shared their stories of how they were fortunate to survive attacks on their homes.
Before the photos were released, there was skepticism surrounding reports ofย children being massacredย in the Israeli Kfar Aza settlement, with an on-the-ground reporter from i24Newsย reportingย that Israel’s military discovered the bodies of over 40 babies killed. Dozens of dead civilians were found in the village; some burned beyond recognition. Another kibbutz Kerem Shalom also reported the killing of children, with the Israel Defense Forces releasing photographs of a child’s bed covered in blood at the time, according toย The Telegraph.
The Israel Air Force has been conducting bombing raids on Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, since the attack, and tens of thousands of troops are amassing along the border for a possible ground invasion. Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, admitted in a speech to troops Thursday that the Israel Defense Forces failed to protect its citizens and guard the border along the Gaza Strip.
“The IDF is responsible for the security of the country and its citizens, and on Saturday morning in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip, we did not do it,” Halevi said, according to Jewish News Syndicate. “We will learn. We will investigate. But now is the time for war.”
Deputy Hamas chief, Saleh Al-Arouri, now claims that the plan was to target only military and “occupation” soldiers, according to remarks released by Hamas.
Israel’s military on Friday issued an evacuation order to over 1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza, instructing them to move to the southern part of the territory, The Associated Press reported.
“Civilians of Gaza City, evacuate south for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields,” a statement from Israel Defense Forces reads.
“In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians.”
The United Nations cautioned that such a mass exodus would be disastrous, the newswire said, adding, that Hamas dismissed the order as a tactic and urged residents to stay put. The evacuation directive, which also encompasses Gaza City, has incited widespread panic among civilians and aid workers.ย
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said Washington is not placing any conditions on its security assistance to Israel.
Britain is sending two Royal Navy ships and other military assets to the eastern Mediterranean in a show of military support for Israel and to bolster surveillance and security in the region.
“We must be unequivocal in making sure the types of horrific scenes we have seen this week will not be repeated. Alongside our allies, the deployment of our world class military will support efforts to ensure regional stability and prevent further escalation,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a statement.
“Our military and diplomatic teams across the region will also support international partners to re-establish security and ensure humanitarian aid reaches the thousands of innocent victims of this barbaric attack from Hamas terrorists.”
The White House has confirmed that 22 Americans have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel. At a press briefing Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that 17 Americans remained unaccounted for.
“We know that these numbers are likely to increase in the days ahead,” she said.
Biden administration officials including President Joe Biden warned over the weekend that Hamasโ attack on Israel has resulted in an increased threat of terrorism within U.S. borders. FBI Director Christopher Wray warned on Saturday that the โheightened environmentโ presented by the fighting in Israel and Gaza has caused โan increase in reported threats.โ
โWeโve got to be on the lookout, especially for lone actors who may take inspiration from recent events to commit violence of their own,โ Wray said during his address at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference. โIโd encourage you to stay vigilant because as the first line of defense protecting our communities, youโre often the first to see the signs that someone may be mobilizing to violence.โ
Biden similarly confirmed during a โ60 Minutesโ sit-down that Americans are at greater risk of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil after the events of the last week and a half.
โBecause of what weโre seeing in the Middle East, is the threat of terrorism in the United States increased?โ CBSโs Scott Pelley asked.
โYes,โ Biden replied. โI had a meeting this morning with the Homeland Security people, with the FBI, in the Situation Room for the better of part of an hour to discuss how we make sure that we prevent a lone wolf and or any coordinated effort to try to do what was done in synagogues before, do what was done to Jews in the street.โ
Biden claimed that his administration is โmaking a major effort to make sure that doesnโt happen,โ yet he has no concrete plans to cut off the biggest potential terrorist pipeline into the United States.
Hamaโs โglobal day of rageโ prompted terrorist attacks and anti-Israel demonstrations not just in France, China, Jordan, Iran, and Italy, but also in states like Washington and California. In addition to the Iranian spies who made their way into the Biden administration and the terrorist sleeper cells already embedded in U.S. cities, foreign incendiaries who wish ill on Americans can literally walk right into the U.S. via our compromised Southern border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection sources confirmed to Fox News on Monday that two of the Iranians caught sneaking across the Southern border in the last month were pinned as โraising red flags that they could pose a significant security threat.โ Their information was later located in the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB).
The capture is not the least bit surprising to border officials who, since October 2022, arrested nearly 160 illegal border crossers whose information was found on the TSDB. The Department of Homeland Security even admitted last week that โ[t]errorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United Statesโ via its open Southern border.
Yet, Biden has no plans to stymie the border crisis created by his commitment to undo Trump-era security policies. On the contrary, the Democrat has repeatedly reinforced that he does not care to stop the collapse of the Southern border.
When word spread that Biden, in a major reversal, sought to build part of the Trump border wall he had been โquietlyโauctioning off, the Democrat regime scrambled to assure Americans that the administration did not care to secure the nationโs borders, especially with physical barriers.
I want to address todayโs reporting relating to a border wall and be absolutely clear.
There is no new Administration policy with respect to border walls. My full statement โฌ๏ธ pic.twitter.com/ga1fEMqvN8
— Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (@SecMayorkas) October 5, 2023
Biden is not blind to the fact that nearly 7 million illegal border crossers have marched into the country detected by border officials, though likely not detained for long. Instead of addressing the border crisis that is clearly used as a pathway by potential terrorists to infiltrate the states, however, Biden is planning a trip to Israel to discuss its border issues.
If the Biden administration can waive more than two dozen laws to begrudgingly erect part of the border wall, it could easily reinstate other border security measures that would keep illegal border crossings down and free up Border Patrol to capture the several potential terrorists who inevitably make up part of the 1.5 million gotaways who made it into the U.S. under Biden.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday that there is “no question” in his mind that a female hostage who appeared in a video released by Hamas was making statements “under duress.”
Kirby made the remark on NBCโs “Today” show after the Palestinian terrorist group shared footage Monday of Mia Schem, a 21-year-old French Israeli, who, according to Reuters, asked to be returned to her family as soon as possible. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for Schemโs immediate release.
“There is no question in my mind that that woman gave that video testimony under duress, probably forced to do it,” Kirby said. “Itโs a propaganda video much more than it is proof of life or certainly proof of concept for Hamas. Itโs despicable, deplorable that they would take these hostages and then advertise how well they are treating them when they are the ones who hurt them in the first place.”
Kirby reiterated a call for Hamas to immediately release all of its hostages, estimated to include 199 Israelis and other foreign nationals.
Keren Schem, mother of Mia Schem, and family members of people being held by Hamas militants in Gaza hold a press conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday after Hamas released a video that showed Mia Schem.ย (AP / Ohad Zwigenberg)
“We know there is a small number of Americans, but all of them need to come home and be with their families,” he said.
Kirby also said Israel is a “dynamic area โ in many ways, a combat zone” as President Biden is preparing to travel there Wednesday.
“The president is well aware of that,” Kirby told NBC. “Obviously, we will take all the appropriate security precautions to make sure he can conduct this trip safely and effectively.”
Mia Schem, pictured in background posters, was among the roughly 200 people kidnapped in Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023.ย (AP / Ohad Zwigenberg)
Hamas terrorists launched anย unprecedented invasion into Israelย on Oct. 7, slaughtering more than 1,400 Israelis, including at least 260 attendees of the Tribe of Nova Trance music festival. Schem attended the festival and was among those taken captive. Miaโs mother, Keren Schem, said she was living her “worst nightmare” after learning her daughter was taken hostage by Hamas.
“I didn’t know if she was dead or alive,” she told Fox News’ Mike Tobin. “I knew nothing until yesterday when I saw this video.”
During a press conference Tuesday, Schem called for her daughterโs safe return.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday that all hostages in Israel need to be released so that they can “come home and be with their families.”ย (Celal Gunes / Anadolu via Getty Images)
“I’m begging the world to bring my baby back home. She only went to a party, to a festival party to have some fun, and now she’s in Gaza,” she said.
Fox Newsโ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
Joe Bidenโs presidency is tracking Jimmy Carterโs four years in the Oval Office so faithfully it must give his campaign team hives. Recent events in Israel create even more parallels. It was a Middle East crisis that brought down Jimmy Carterโs presidency; the current conflict in the region could prove Bidenโs undoing as well.
In 1979, more than 50 U.S. citizens were taken hostage in Iran, and Carter failed to secure their release. Worse, a U.S. military mission sent to rescue the prisoners failed, infuriating Americans. Carterโs foreign policy blunders sank his reelection bid, but they were far from his only problem. His administration was considered weak and inept, and the events in Tehran reinforced those perceptions.
Like Biden, Carter was already in trouble when the hostage crisis occurred. The Georgia peanut farmer presided over sky-high inflation: so has Biden. Carter pushed enormous and controversial increases in government spending: ditto Biden. Like Biden, Carter started with high approval numbers that went pretty much straight downhill.
As he approached reelection in 1980, Carter faced a primary battle from fellow Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy; nearing next yearโs presidential election, another Kennedy — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. โ was until recently attempting to mount a primary challenge against Biden. History may not repeat but it sure does rhyme.
Today, 30 Americans have been murdered by Hamas and more than a dozen are being held captive. Voters will hold President Biden responsible for punishing the terrorists responsible for those deaths, and for bringing both American hostages and those trapped by war home safely.
So far, the Biden White House has not impressed. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan boasted eight days before Hamasโ invasion of Israel that, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades,” displaying either incredible ignorance or unjustifiable smugness.
Elsewhere, it turns out that Robert Malley, Biden administrationโs “special envoy” to Iran, who is known to have had close contacts with Hamas, was put on leave from his State Department post several months ago. Officially, he has been accused of mishandling classified documents, but there is speculation that he has long worked on behalf not of the U.S. but of Iranian interests.
Biden and his national security team have refused to accuse Iran for complicity in Hamasโ attack on Israel, claiming repeatedly there is no evidence of Tehranโs involvement. That is untrue. There is increasing proof that the planning for the attack went on for months, discussed by senior officials of both Hamas and Hezbollah meeting with leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Beirut.
Biden is understandably loathe to implicate Iran in Hamasโ atrocities. Confronting Tehran could escalate the hostilities in the region, and would also boost oil prices, which would inevitably hurt Bidenโs approval ratings. Also, Bidenโs White House, foolishly pursuing a nuclear pact, has enriched and emboldened the mullahs, in part by loosening enforcement of sanctions; voters will not look kindly on that decision.
Wisconsin Representative Scott Fitzgerald wrote recently in an op-ed, “Relaxing sanctions has allowed Iran to generate oil revenues exceeding $80 billion annually while strengthening its relationship with China. As I warned in April 2021, using China to dodge U.S. sanctions allows Iran to funnel money to its proxy forces in the Middle East, including the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hamas, which is armed, funded, and led by the Iranian regime.”
At the same time, there has been a spike in the number of people on the terror watch list who have been apprehended at the uncontrolled southern border, through which millions of people have entered our country illegally since Biden took office. Fox News reports that four Iranians have been caught since October 1, heightening concerns.
Our State Department has been slow to help evacuate Americans from Israel, even as other countries have arranged to airlift their citizens to safety. In addition, recent news reports show U.S. citizens responding to our governmentโs advisory and arriving at the Egyptian border, only to find it blocked and being told to go home.
The Biden White House claims to be “surging additional military assistance” to our ally. Given that Biden goofed some months ago by admitting that the conflict in Ukraine has drained our stocks of munitions, it is not clear how much we can provide.
Hamas, on the other hand, appears to be well-equipped, thanks at least in part to mountains of weapons and ammunition abandoned by U.S. forces in their hasty exit from Afghanistan, which Joe Biden and his team continue to applaud as a “success.”
Meanwhile, while the world has been transfixed by the horrors taking place in Israel and Gaza, the president has carried on with his campaigning. Bidenโs support for Israel may be unwavering, but his attention span is not. As Israel declared war, Biden and his wife hosted a barbeque for White House staffers; the next day the president spoke at a Rose Garden campaign event celebrating his efforts to cut down on “junk fees.”
The very next day, Biden traveled to Philadelphia to promote his green energy agenda. An agenda, we note, that includes curbing U.S. oil production and consequently driving prices higher, helping to fund Iran-backed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The president may have received word that his campaigning was not well received; he abruptly canceled a trip to Colorado on Monday to “instead hold meetings with his national security team as Israelโs war with Hamas appears set to escalate,” as one news outlet helpfully explained.
Jimmy Carter, faced with the hostage crisis, had the decency to suspend campaigning and focus his government on the plight of the captive Americans. One of his aides at the time, Stuart Eizenstat, wrote that the Carterโs so-called “Rose Garden strategy” “personalized the crisis in the American media by focusing the responsibility on the Oval Office and showing the terrorists they could put the American presidency itself into dysfunction.” Maybe thatโs why Biden is choosing to keep up his campaigning, but his behavior is unseemly.
So far, voters back our support for Israel; if more American lives are lost, or the conflict spreads, they will not be so forgiving, and they will blame Joe Biden.
Liz Peek is a Fox News contributor and former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. A former columnist for the Fiscal Times, she writes for The Hill and contributes frequently to Fox News, the New York Sun and other publications. For more visit LizPeek.com. Follow her on Twitter @LizPeek.
Iran is warning of a possible “preemptive” strike against Israel soon. The warning, reported byย Aljazeera, came as Israel prepared for a major ground offensive in Gaza.
Tensions have flared along the Lebanon-Israel border between the Hezbollah group and Israeli military, The Associated Press reported. While shelling has been limited to towns along the border, there have been fears Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups would escalate their actions to support Hamas should Israel begin a ground operation in Gaza.
“All possible options and scenarios are there for Hezbollah โฆ Naturally, resistance leaders will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action in Gaza, and when it feels reassured about Gaza, move on to other resistance areas in the region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on state TV late on Monday, referring to his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah the previous day.
“Therefore, any preemptive measure is imaginable in the coming hours,” he added.
According to the New York Post, he further said: “The resistance front is capable of waging a long-term war with the enemy [Israel] โฆ in the coming hours, we can expect a preemptive action by the resistance front.”
The Post noted that Iran had applauded the brutal attack on Israel by Hamas, which had targeted innocent civilians.
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
Republicans rejected Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker on a first ballot Tuesday, as an unexpectedly numerous 20 holdouts denied the hard-charging ally of Donald Trump the GOP majority needed to seize the gavel. More voting is expected as Jordan works to shore up support to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy for the job but the House immediately went into recess as the firebrand leader of the GOP’s hard-right flank struggled to take a central seat of U.S. power.
After two weeks of angry Republican infighting since McCarthy was removed by hard-liners, the House vote quickly became a showdown for the gavel. Reluctant Republicans refused to give Jordan their votes, viewing the Ohio congressman as too extreme for the powerful position of House speaker, second in line to the presidency.
In all, 212 Democrats voted unanimously for their House leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, while 200 Republicans voted for Jordan and 20 for someone else. Jeffries has no chance of winning, and Jordan must pick up most of his GOP foes to win a majority.
The holdouts are a mix of pragmatists, ranging from seasoned legislators and committee chairs worried about governing to newer lawmakers from districts where their voters back home prefer President Joe Biden to Trump.
But with public pressure bearing down on lawmakers from Trump’s allies including Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, it’s unclear how long the holdouts can last. Jordan swiftly flipped dozens of detractors in a matter of days, shoring up Republicans who have few options left.
โJim Jordan will be a great speaker,โ the former president said outside the courthouse in Manhattan, where he is facing business fraud charges. “I think heโs going to have the votes soon, if not today, over the next day or two.”
The political climb has been steep for Jordan, the combative Judiciary Committee chairman and a founding member of the right-flank Freedom Caucus. He is known more as a chaos agent than a skilled legislator, raising questions about how he would lead. Congress faces daunting challenges, risking a federal shutdown if it fails to fund the government and fielding President Joe Biden’s requests for aid to help Ukraine and Israel in the wars abroad.
To seize the gavel, Jordan will need almost the full majority of his colleagues behind him in a House floor vote, as Democrats are certain to back their own nominee, Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. With the House Republican majority narrowly held at 221-212, Jordan can afford to lose only a few votes to reach the 217 majority threshold, if there are no further absences.
Jordan conferred immediately afterward with McCarthy, who fared nearly as badly in January, having lost almost as many votes on the first of what would become 15 ballots for the gavel.
As the somber roll call was underway, each lawmaker announcing their choice, the holdouts quickly surfaced. One, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a leader of the centrists, voted McCarthy, the ousted former speaker. Murmurs rippled through the chamber. Others voted for Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was the party’s first nominee to replace McCarthy before he, too, was rejected by hardliners last week.
Making the official nominating speech was another top Trump ally, GOP conference chairwoman Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who drew from the lessons of the Old Testament before declaring Jordan will be โWe the Peopleโs speaker.โ
On the other side of the aisle, Democrat caucus chairman Rep. Pete Aguilar of California nominated Jeffries and warned that handing the speakerโs gavel to a โvocal election denierโ would be โa terrible messageโ at home and abroad. Aguilar recited all the times Jordan voted against various measures — abortion access, government aid and others, Democrats chanting โHe said no!โ
Upset that a small band of hard-liners have upended the House by ousting McCarthy, Republicans have watched their majority control of the chamber descend into public infighting. All House business has ground to a halt.
After a late-evening meeting Monday at the Capitol turned into a venting session of angry Republicans, Jordan acknowledged: โWeโve got a few more people to talk to, listen to.โ
One holdout, Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, said Jordanโs role in the runup to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and his refusal to admit that Biden, a Democrat, won the 2020 election remained an issue.
โJim, at some point, if heโs going to lead this conference during the presidential election cycle and particularly in a presidential election year … is going to have to be strong and say Donald Trump didnโt win the election and we need to move forward,โ Buck said.
But Jordan can rely on Trump’s support as well as pressure on colleagues from an army of grassroots activists who recognize him from cable news and fiery performances at committee hearings. Republicans say it will be hard for rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose him in a public floor vote. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who engineered McCarthy’s ouster by a handful of hard-liners, publicly praised each lawmaker who has flipped to Jordan’s column โ and berated those who have not.
โThank you Rep. Ann Wagner!โ Gaetz posted on social media, after the Missouri Republican announced her support.
One by one, others also announced their support. Still, it could take multiple rounds during House floor voting, not unlike in January when it took McCarthy 15 ballots to win the gavel.
Democrats have decried the far-right shift, calling Jordan the leader of the chaos wing of the GOP.
Jordan has been a top Trump ally.
Now the Republican Partyโs front-runner to challenge Biden in the 2024 election, Trump backed Jordan to replace McCarthy early on and was working against the nomination of Scalise, who withdrew last week after colleagues rejected their own rules and failed to coalesce around him.use.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
From Israel and Thailand to France and America, the families of Hamas’ 199 hostages are in an aching form of limbo. Pictured: On Oct. 10, Jonathan Polin and his wife, Rachel Goldberg, recount their most recent interactions with son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, who went missing after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. At back right is daughter Leebie Goldberg-Polin, 20. (Photo: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
โI canโt describe such a moment in words, where you watch your whole family get taken away from you,โ Yoni Asher tried to explain.
Summoning the courage to keep talking, Asher looked around the room of diplomats, U.N. officials, and other suffering families, and put himself back in the moment where his world changed forever.
โMy wife was visiting her mother at one of the kibbutzim, and I stayed home,โ Asher said, then stopped, as he probably had a million times in the past week, to let his decision sink in.
โI got a phone call from my wife,โ and she was โscaredโscared,โ he repeated, โwhispering, terrif[ied], saying that sheโs hearing gunshots and people are entering the house.โ
It wasnโt until later that he saw a video of his wife and two daughters after they were forced into one of Hamasโ cars or trucks.
โI recognized them,โ Yoni said quietly, referring to his two little girls, Raz and Aviv, and his wife, Doron.
As tears fell freely down his face, Asher finally got out the words that thousands of tortured families have said since Oct. 7, when Hamas struck Israel: โI woke up to the worst nightmare of my life.โ
Others, like Yakov Argamani, pace around their houses, clutching a book of psalms. Surrounded by memories, Argaman mourns that his beautiful teenage daughterโs scent is gone from the room.
โNoa was here, there, everywhere,โ he told The New York Timesโ Jeffrey Gettleman. โAll of a sudden, itโs gone. And Iโm lost,โ the broken father laments.
Hen Avigdori is among other fathers who try to comfort the one child whoโs leftโwhile slipping away to cry for his sonโs missing sister and mom.
โIโm in this endless loop of hope and despair, hope and despair,โ Avigdori said. โI need some proof of life. I need to know where my wife and daughter are.โ
From Thailand to France and America, the families of the 199 missing hostages are in an aching form of limbo. Between television interviews and underground meetings with government officials in Tel Aviv, these relatives live hour to hour, haunted by their last conversations and the knowledge of what Hamas is capable of.
To so many, captivity is a fate worse than death. As one heartbroken father told reporters, realizing his 8-year-old little girl had been killed was better than thinking of her in the terroristsโ hands.
โItโs a blessing,โ an emotional Thomas Hend told CNN at the moment he learned Emilyโs fate.
โShe was either dead or in Gaza,โ he said, after a 48-hour search. โAnd if you know anything about what they do in Gaza, that is worse than death.โ
The number held by Hamas, which Israeli officials increased to almost 200 over the weekend, is complicating things for Israeli soldiers on the ground. While military teams search the 30-mile Gaza Strip, terrorist Abu Obeida warned that his men had scattered the hostagesโbabies, grandmothers, young women, newly orphaned children, and soldiersโin โsafe places and the tunnels of resistanceโ all throughout the area.
Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari, a top Israeli military spokesman, insisted that the militar has information on the location of the captives and sought to reassure families that troops โwill not carry out an attack that would endanger our people.โ
โI am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home,โ the Catholic priest said.
Countless parents at the makeshift headquarters of the Families of Hostages and Missing Persons Forum would almost certainly do the same.
โAll we have been told is that her phone is in Gaza,โ Meirav Gonen said helplessly.
Gonenโs daughter Romi, who was kidnapped from the music festival where Hamas massacred dozens, stayed on the line with her mom for almost 45 minutes until her phone went dead.
โI know she was shot,โ Gonen explained. โShe called me at 10:15 and I was on with her until 10:58, she was fading away and I heard shooting around her coming closer to the car and then people shouting in Arabic โฆ shouting she was alive and that they need her.โ
A photo of Romi Gonenโs face is one of many lining the wall of Tel Avivโs HaKirya government building, a horrifying reminder of the dozens of missing.
โItโs so, so lonely,โ Gonen said, choking up. โAll the thoughts and feelings that you have once you stop for a minute to listen to them.โ
Jerry Boykin, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, understands the pain of hostage crises more than most.
As commander of the Armyโs elite Delta Force, Boykin was one of the leaders on the failed mission to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980. Like so many veterans, he knows the incredible lengths America will go to bring its people home.
โI think most of what you see, other than the bombing and the shelling by the Israelis โฆ is reconnaissance to try to locate the hostages,โ he explained to guest host and former Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., on โWashington Watch.โ
โThis is a big issue for the Israelis because there are Americans being held. And I can assure that those people on the ground in [Gaza] include some Americans, our special operators that are experts at hostage rescue,โ Boykin said.
But, Boykin warned, โthe key thing to hostage rescue is good intelligence, and I think thatโs what theyโre doing [in Gaza right now]. โฆ Theyโre in there looking for the hostages.โ
โ And I pray that they will find them before the end of this campaign โฆ because ultimately,โ he added soberly, โthese people will be killed if we canโt find them in time.โ
John Kirby, spokesman for the White Houseโs National Security Council, was cagey Sunday about the involvement of U.S. special ops, saying only that the military โwonโt rule anything in or outโ about the hostage rescue effort on the ground in Gaza.
For now, Boykin insisted, the world needs to keep its eye on the ball. All of this, he argued, โis on the backs of Hamas.โ
โHamas is responsible for everything that has happened up to this point,โ Boykin said. โThere is nothing, no one killed, nothing that Hamas is not responsible for. And we have to remember that. โฆ What has happened here is a terrible, brutal, even demonic attack on the Israelis. โฆ And we stand with the Jews.โ
More than that, we pray for the Jewsโand everyone affected by this unspeakable tragedy.
For a partial list of hostages to remember in prayer, visit Pray for Israel by Name and join us in asking for Godโs continued blanket of peace and protection on the innocents who are in the grip of Hamas.
Top Stories โข Court Prohibits Killing 26-Week-Old Unborn Baby in Abortion: โWe Cannot Stop the Heartbeatโ โข Pro-Life Congressman Jim Jordan Hopes to Win Speaker Vote Tomorrow, Wants to โUnifyโ Republicans โข Celebrating Justice Clarence Thomasโ Remarkable 32 Years on the U.S. Supreme Court โข Pennsylvania March for Life Sees Thousands of Pro-Life People Stand Against Abortion
More Pro-Life News โข Pro-Life Republican Jeff Landry Flips Democrat State, Wins Louisiana Governor Race โข 40 Days for Life Campaign Saves 100 Babies From Abortion So Far โข Woman Killed Her Disabled Newborn Baby, Dumped His Body on the Side of the Road โข Ohio Debate Confirms Issue 1 Would Allow Abortions Up to Birth, Vote No โข 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.
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 โThe Washington Post.โ He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh DโSouza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Top Stories โข Pro-Life Congressman Jim Jordan Wins Republican Vote, Will be GOP Speaker Nominee โข Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Joe Bidenโs Proposed Mandate to Force Employers to Fund Abortions โข While the World Focuses on Israel, Kamala Harris is On Tour Promoting Abortion โข Nikki Haley: โI Think Thereโs Room for a Federal Lawโ Protecting Babies From Abortions
More Pro-Life News โข Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz in Gaza Destroyed as Israel Responds to Hamas Attack โข Planned Parenthood Permanently Closes Another Abortion Biz โข Pro-Life Advocate Nick Vujicic Will Open ProLife Bank This Spring as Establishment Alternative โข Pro-Life Attorneys Tell Supreme Court to Let Ruling Stand That Bans Dangerous Mail-Order Abortions โข 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.
Cities throughout the world experienced acts of alleged Islamist terrorism and anti-Israel demonstrations on Friday, following calls by the former chief of Hamas for the Islamic world to partake in a global โDay of Rage.โ
For context, Hamas is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization that launched a horrific attack against Israel earlier this week, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,200 innocent civilians. Days after the initial attack, Khaled Meshaal, Hamasโ ex-chief (2004-2017) who resides in Qatar, called for worldwide demonstrations in support of Palestinians living in Gaza and Muslim-majority Middle Eastern countries to wage war against Israel. He also claimed the day represents a โmoment for the applicationโ of jihad.
โ[We must] head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday,โ Meshaal said. โTo all scholars who teach jihad โฆ to all who teach and learn, this is a moment for the application [of jihad].โ
โThe entire planet will be under our law, there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors,โ heย added.
Several acts of violence and anti-Israel demonstrations have since been reported in cities across the world on Friday that appear to be in response to Meshaalโs call to action.
France
In Arras, a Chechnyan man was arrested by law enforcement after stabbing several adults at a local school. While no children were harmed, early reports indicate at least one adult was killed and two injured. According to France24, the suspect allegedly shouted โAllahu akbar,โ or โGod is great,โ in Arabic, at some point during the attack.
The suspect was also reportedly on a โstate watchlist of known people to be a possible security risk,โ according to Reuters.
China
An Israeli national who worked at the countryโs Beijing-based embassy was reportedly stabbed on Friday. While the attackerโs nationality remains unknown, Chinese authorities claimed the suspect is a 53-year-old โforeign nationalโ who has โoperated a small retail business in Beijing.โ According to embassy officials, the victim has been hospitalized and remains in stable condition.
A video circulating social media on Friday appears to show the suspect in question stabbing the victim before hobbling away.
Jordan
Jordanian police were forced to disperse pro-Palestinian demonstrators after the latter attempted โto reach a border zone with the Israeli-occupied West Bank.โ According to Reuters, witnesses claimed, โPolice fired tear gas to halt about 500 demonstrators who had reached a security checkpoint outside the capital Amman on a highway leading to a main border crossing.โ The nationโs government had previously declared anti-Israel demonstrations near the area off-limits.
An unprecedented number of people filled the streets of the capital of Jordan
If King Abdullah II is in Raghadan (royal palace), then an attempt to evacuate members of the Hashemite dynasty from Amman using helicopters or American special forces cannot be ruled out.
According to the New York Post, video evidence from Iran shows thousands of the nationโs residents โtaking to the streets โฆ burning not only Israelโs flag but the American flag as well.โ Demonstrators also reportedly chanted phrases such as โEnd of Israelโ and โDown with USA.โ
Other Middle Eastern Nations
In addition to Iran and Jordan, a bevy of other Middle Eastern nations also experienced pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations on Friday. This list includes Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Oman, Qatar, and Yemen, according to Bloomberg News.
Washington State
Students at the University of Washington held a demonstration in support of Hamas on Friday, in which attendees reportedly chanted for the โone solutionโ to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In praising Hamas, one attendee claimed the terrorist organization is โfighting for their people [and] fighting for their country back.โ
โWhat America is promoting is that Israel is a victim. For what? For Hamas defending their people?โ the girl said.
A Muslim woman at the @UW Palestine rally, in which protesters chanted for the โone solution,โ says Hamas are heroes defending people. Hamas is an antisemitic Islamist terror group. The rally was promoted with a flyer featuring a Hamas paraglider. pic.twitter.com/mgdU4K9dB9
Students at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) held an anti-Israel gathering, in which participants could be heard shouting โintifada, intifada,โ a term often used by Arab demonstrators invoking the memory of past Palestinian uprisings in the Jewish state.
This is @UCLA where students are screaming "intifada, intifadaโ – a call to murder Israelis and Jews.
Imagine just for a moment what itโs like to a Jewish student on this campus. pic.twitter.com/I52gh6Bqqe
This article has been updated since publication to include additional anti-Israel demonstrations and actions.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Theย militant group Hezbollahย took responsibility Friday for targetingย Israeli militaryย posts with small-arms fire along the country’s border with Lebanon, and the Israelis responded with artillery strikes.ย The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a tweet that one of its drones is “currently striking terrorist targets belonging to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”ย The back and forth comes as Hezbollah Deputy Chief Naim Kassem said at a rally near Beirut on Friday that the group is ready to jump into theย Israel-Hamas conflict.ย
“The behind-the-scenes calls with us by great powers, Arab countries, envoys of the United Nations, directly and indirectly telling us not to interfere will have no effect,” he said, according to Reuters. “Hezbollah knows its duties perfectly well. We are prepared and ready, fully ready.”
Sheik Naim Kassem, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, speaks during a protest to show solidarity with the Palestinians near Beirut on Friday.ย (AP/Hussein Malla)
“The question being asked, which everyone is waiting for, is what Hezbollah will do and what will its contribution be?” Kassem reportedly added. “We will contribute to the confrontation within our plan. … When the time comes for any action, we will carry it out.”ย
More than 1,300 Israelis were killed and thousands more wounded when Hamas launched a surprise terror attack on the Jewish state Saturday. As many as 150 people are believed to have been taken captive by terrorists and held in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israeli soldiers take positions alongside the border wall and fence with Lebanon as seen from the Lebanese side in Marwaheen, Lebanon, on Friday.ย (AP/Hassan Ammar)
Israel has called up some 360,000 military reservists to respond to the Hamas-led terror campaign. Those forces have gathered on Israel’s border with Gaza ahead of a possible full-scale invasion to reclaim the hostages and eliminate Hamas terrorists.
Israel has warned the 1.1 million people living in the north of Gaza to evacuate the area within 24 hours as a “humanitarian step in order to minimize civilian casualties” ahead of the military’s response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks.
Israeli tanks head toward the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on Thursday.ย (AP/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The IDF also told Fox News its infantry forces and tanks entered the Gaza Strip on Friday to conduct localized raids.
Fox Newsโ Trey Yingst and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
Republicans chose Rep. Jim Jordan as their new nominee for House speaker on Friday during internal voting, putting the gavel within reach of the staunch ally of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. Jordan, of Ohio, will now try to unite colleagues from the deeply divided House GOP majority around his bid ahead of a floor vote, which could push to next week.
Frustrated House Republicans have been fighting bitterly over whom they should elect to replace the speaker they ousted, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and the future direction of their party. The stalemate, now in its second week, has thrown the House into chaos, grinding all other business to a halt.
โI think Jordan would do a great job,โ McCarthy said ahead of the vote. โWe got to get this back on track.โ
Attention swiftly turned to Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman and founder of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, as the next potential candidate after Majority Leader Steve Scalise abruptly ended his bid when it became clear holdouts would refuse to back him.
But not all Republicans want to see Jordan as speaker, second in line to the presidency. Overwhelmed and exhausted, anxious GOP lawmakers worry their House majority is being frittered away to countless rounds of infighting and some don’t want to reward Jordan’s wing, which sparked the turmoil.
โIf weโre going to be the majority party, we have to act like the majority party,โ said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., who posed a last-ditch challenge to Jordan.
While the firebrand Jordan has a long list of detractors who started making their opposition known, Jordanโs supporters said voting against the Trump ally during a public vote on the House floor would be tougher since he is so popular and well known among more conservative GOP voters.
Heading into a morning meeting, Jordan said, โI feel real good.โ
Other potential speaker choices were also being floated. Some Republicans proposed simply giving Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who was appointed interim speaker pro tempore, greater authority to lead the House for some time.
The House, without a speaker, is essentially unable to function during a time of turmoil in the U.S. and wars overseas. The political pressure increasingly is on Republicans to reverse course, reassert majority control and govern in Congress.
With the House narrowly split 221-212, with two vacancies, any nominee can lose just a few Republicans before they fail to reach the 217 majority needed in the face of opposition from Democrats, who will most certainly back their own leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
Absences heading into the weekend could lower the majority threshold needed, and Republicans said they were down about a dozen lawmakers as of midday Friday. No floor votes were scheduled as attendance thinned before the weekend.
In announcing his decision to withdraw from the nomination, Scalise said late Thursday the Republican majority still has to come together and โopen up the House again. But clearly not everybody is there.โ
Asked if he would throw his support behind Jordan, Scalise said, โItโs got to be people that arenโt doing it for themselves and their own personal interest.โ
But Jordan’s allies swung into high gear at a chance for the hard-right leader to seize the gavel.
โMake him the speaker. Do it tonight,โ said Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind. โHeโs the only one who can unite our party.โ
Jordan also received an important nod Friday from the Republican partyโs campaign chairman, Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who made an attempt to unify the fighting factions.
โRemoving Speaker Kevin McCarthy was a mistake,โ Hudson wrote on social media, saying the party found itself at a crossroads also blocking Scalise. โWe must unite around one leader.โ
Earlier in the week, Jordan had nominally dropped out of the race he initially lost to Scalise, 113-99, during internal balloting.
Scalise had been laboring to peel off more than 100 votes, mostly from those who backed Jordan. But many hard-liners taking their cues from Trump have dug in for a prolonged fight to replace McCarthy after his historic ouster from the job.
The holdouts argued that as majority leader, Scalise was no better choice, that he should be focusing on his health as he battles cancer and that he was not the leader they would support.
Handfuls of Republicans announced they were sticking with Jordan, McCarthy or someone other than Scalise โ including Trump, the former president. The position as House speaker does not need to go to a member of Congress.
Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, repeatedly discussed Scaliseโs health during a radio interview that aired Thursday.
Scalise has been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer known as multiple myeloma and is being treated, but he has also said he was definitely up for the speaker’s job.
On Friday, another California Republican, Rep. Tom McClintock, had introduced a motion to reinstate McCarthy during the morning meeting, but it was shelved.
โI just told them, no, letโs not do that,โ McCarthy said afterward. โLetโs walk through this and have an election.โ
The situation is not fully different from the start of the year, when McCarthy faced a similar backlash from a different group of far-right holdouts who ultimately gave their votes to elect him speaker, then engineered his historic downfall.
But the math this time is even more daunting, and the problematic political dynamic is only worsening.
Exasperated Democrats, who have been waiting for the Republican majority to recover from McCarthyโs ouster, urged them to figure it out.
โThe House Democrats have continued to make clear that we are ready, willing and able to find a bipartisan path forward,โ Jeffries said, including doing away with the rule that allows a single lawmaker to force a vote against the speaker. โBut we need traditional Republicans to break from the extremists and partner with us.โ
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Yemenis wave Palestinian flags and shout slogans against Israel during a demonstration in support of Palestinians on Friday in Sanaa, Yemen. (Photo: Mohammed Hamoud/Anadolu/ Getty Images)
Hamas unleashed an unprovoked, surprise attack on Israel onย Oct. 7,ย during Shabbat and theย Simchat Torah holiday. The Gazaย Strip-based terrorist groupโs Pearl Harbor-styleย onslaught includedย 2,200ย rocketsย that blasted communitiesย as far north as Tel Aviv. Regardless, Israelโs critics and enemiesย point their fingers at the Israelis, as if they had bombed themselves.
The Biden administrationโs statements have improved, but itsย knee-jerk responseย was dreadful. โWe urge all sides to refrain from violence andย retaliatory attacks,โ the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs declared, soon after the mayhem erupted. Washingtonโsย initial messageย to Jerusalem: Donโt do anything. Just stand there. This wrongfully even-handed X post sparked outrage and soon disappeared.
George Achi, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.โs director of journalistic standards, instructed his newsroom colleagues: โDo not refer to militants, soldiers, or anyone else as โterrorists.โ The notion of terrorism remains heavily politicized and is part of the story.โ
โWe, the undersignedย student organizations, hold the Israeli regimeย entirely responsibleย for all unfolding violence,โ read a joint statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the situation in Palestine. โThe apartheid regime is the only one to blame.โ Members of 33 undergraduate groups signed this communique.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.,ย displayedย a Palestinian flag in front of her Capitol Hill office, beside the star-spangled banner. Other radical โSquadโ members have slammed Israel, even as Israelis hose their countrymenโsย blood from sidewalks.
Black Lives Matter of Chicago created an โI stand with Palestineโ meme, complete with a paragliding terrorist, like those who flew from Gaza into Israel, with guns blazing.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators in Times Square dressed as Hamas killers. One protester waved a swastika on his cellphone screen.
These doe-eyed dreamers and Islamofascist fifth columnists should focus on Hamasโ atrocities before they denounce Israel and defend its tormentors.
โWe saw boys and girls bound, who were shot in the head,โ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a TV address Wednesday. โMen and women burned alive. Young women who were raped and slaughtered. Soldiers who were beheaded.โ
Netanyahu declared via X: โHamas is ISIS. We will crush and eliminate it as the world crushed and eliminated ISIS.โ
โBabies with their heads cut off, thatโs what [the soldiers] said,โย i24 Newsโ Nicole Zedek reportedย from Kibbutz Kfar Aza near Sderot, just outside Gaza. โFamilies gunned down, completely gunned down in their beds.โ
CNNโs Nic Robertson said,ย โThere were so manyย murdered members of this Kibbutz. Men, women, children, hands bound, shot, executed, heads cut.โ
โThey killed babies in front of their parents, and then killed the parents,โ said Israel Defense Forces Gen. Itai Veruv. โThey killed parents, and we found babies between the dogs and the family killed before him.ย They cut headsย of the people.โ
โA pregnant woman in southern Israel was found by Hamas terrorists,โ Indiaโs TV9 Networkโs Aditya Raj Kaul explained via X. โThey dissected her body. Her stomach was cut open, and they took the fetus out with the umbilical cord. And let theย unborn child die slowlyย out of his motherโs womb. This is what inhuman savages Hamas do to people.โ
โIsraelisโyoung and oldโwereย slaughtered in their homes,โ Aviva Klompas, former head speechwriter at Israelโs U.N. Mission, wrote via X. โEntire families were butchered in cold blood. In one home, a terrorist shot the parents dead, took a childโs cellphone, and livestreamed the horrors on the childโs Facebook account.โ
โOur children suffered the most horrific experience no one could even imagineโgoing to enjoy music with friends in nature and get bombarded with hand grenades and automatic weapons, and just beingย slaughtered, one after another,โ David Abramov told CBS News. His son Laor, an aspiring DJ, vanished after Hamas swiped him in a pickup truck. โYoung, beautiful, happy people go to celebrate life and meeting monsters that come to celebrate death.โย
In a Hamas X video, its forces excavate water pipes, slice them, pack them with explosives, and convert them intoย do-it-yourself bombs, which they lobbed into Israel. โAllahu Akbar!โ (โGod is great!โ) a menโs chorus sings on the soundtrack.
And what was Hamasโ message to Gazans thirsty for running water? Go to hell.
Hamas makes the Palestine Liberation Organization look like moderates. These rats resemble 1970s-era Cambodiaโs Khmer Rouge.
All told, Hamas has killed some 1,200 Israelis. This has been the biggest orgy of Jew killing since the liberation of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
Conversely, Israel acts in self-defense. Any collateral damage that rank-and-file Palestinians suffer will not be because the Israel Defense Forces gunned them down in their living rooms, but because their jihadist leaders launched this genocidal bloodbath.
Until last weekend, Israel had been pursuing peace like never before. In conjunction with then-President Donald Trump, Israel already had signed mutual-recognition treaties with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Morocco. Atop these four Abraham Accords, Israel and Saudi Arabia lately had signaled that a separate peace was within reach.
โI believe that we are at the cusp of โฆ an historic peace with Saudi Arabia,โ Netanyahu told the United Nations last month. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Fox News: โEvery day we get closer.โ
This is what it looks like when doves fly.
But that enraged the ayatollahs, arguably the most evil, hateful, destructive, and apocalyptic humans alive. The Wall Street Journal reports that Iran and Hamas engineered this war on Israel to car-bomb any truce between Jerusalem and Riyadh.
Hamasโ ensuing carnage has killed at least 27 Americans, as of this writing. Fourteen other U.S. citizens are missing and could be kidnapped or dead.
These facts alone should quell the Far Leftโs lust for Hamas.
Alas, this catastrophe hurtsย America.ย Thus,ย too many on the Left are exactly where oneย typically findsย themโon the wrong side of the Stars and Stripes.
At a Palestine rally at @UNC, radical left students threaten a man who they perceive to be an Israel supporter. Campus police lead the man away, apparently for his own safety. The leftist rally was promoted with a flyer featuring a Hamas terrorist. pic.twitter.com/8r2iB9Pq3Z
We will not allow terrorists to prevent Floridians from going about their daily lives or exercising their freedom to worship.
FHP and FDLE will continue providing increased security, and I expect universities to fully enforce all antisemitism laws on campus. https://t.co/ezfPmkM9Ml
AOC is a sickening Marxist antisemite who hates America and Israel, and I am fed up with her BS, the media promoting her, and ashamed that this two-faced hater is anywhere near the floor of the House of Representatives. You think my words are tough? Well, go back and look atโฆ
It's noteworthy that not a single Arab country has offered to accept Gaza Palestinians. Not one. And they are silent about Egypt keeping closed the main passageway for the Gaza Palestinians to leave Gaza, because Egypt doesn't want Gaza Palestinians coming into their country.โฆ
Ep. 30 What's happening at the southern border isnโt just an invasion, but a crime. The politicians and NGOs responsible for it are criminals, who should be punished accordingly. pic.twitter.com/cbkTSUyogC
NEW: Harvard students are freaking out after a truck is driving around the school, displaying names of students who allegedly signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamasโ terror attacks.
Top Stories โข Israeli Airstrike Destroys Planned Parenthood Abortion Center โข Ron DeSantis: When it Comes to Protecting Babies From Abortion, โIโve Delivered Resultsโ โข Governor Glenn Youngkin Blasts Democrats for Supporting Abortions Up to Birth โข American Medical Association May Support Killing Patients in Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
More Pro-Life News โข Pro-Life Laws are Saving Thousands of Babies From Abortions โข Ohioโs Attorney General Confirms Issue 1 Allows Abortions Up to Birth โข Knitted Octopus Toys Help Save Premature Babies โข Pro-Abortion Vandals Attack Cross Display to Memorialize Babies Killed in Abortions โข Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories
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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 โThe Washington Post.โ He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh DโSouza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
The Biden administration is deporting a Christian family from Germany who legitimately fears persecution and should qualify for asylum, while allowing 99 percent of illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S., most of whom likely do not qualify for asylum.
Uwe and Hannelore Romeike reportedly fled Germany in 2008 because they were threatened with prosecution and $9,000 fines for homeschooling their five children. The couple and their family have lived in Tennessee and filed for asylum. The family has thrived in the U.S., including having two children who are American citizens and two other children who married American citizens. Unfortunately, the U.S. authorities denied their asylum claim in 2013. After the Obama administration intervened, the family had been able to stay in the U.S. under an โindefinite deferred action status.โ
But last month the Biden administration told the family they must return to Germany. Since Germany hasnโt changed its law regarding homeschooling, the family has legitimate concerns that if they go back to Germany, they will face the same prosecution that drove them away in the first place.
While the Biden administration is determined to deport this Christian family, it has done next to nothing to remove millions of illegal immigrants who came into the U.S. through our nationโs southern border, according to a new report from House Republicans.
The Biden administration and its Democrat allies have insisted for more than two years that the U.S.-Mexico border wasnโt open, there is no border crisis, and the administration has enforced immigration laws. But the data gathered by the House Judiciary Committee paints a very different picture: that the Biden administration has failed to deport, through immigration court proceedings, more than 99 percent of illegal immigrants between Jan. 20, 2021, and March 31, 2023.
After pressure from the committee to release basic statistics, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported more than 5 million illegal immigrant encounters in that same period (not including unknown numbers of illegal โgetawaysโ). Most of them sought to claim asylum but were disqualified under asylumโs legal definition. Yet fewer than 6,000 illegal immigrants were placed in removal proceedings before an immigration judge and actually removed from the United States during this time.
Meanwhile, nearly half of the 5 million illegal immigrants โhad no confirmed departure from the United States.โ DHS โreleased at least 2,148,738 illegal aliens into the United Statesโ during the same period, and only 6 percent of them โwere even screened for fear of prosecution for the purpose of asylum.โ
An Impeachable Offense?
According to Jeffrey H. Anderson, president of the American Main Street Initiative think tank, U.S. immigration law โrequires that those entering the U.S. without proper documentation be continuously detained until their claim can be adjudicated.โ The Biden administration has obviously failed to comply with U.S. immigration law, a failure that Anderson regards as President Biden having committed an impeachable offense.
Despite complaints from Democratic mayors, such as New York Cityโs Eric Adams, about their cities being overwhelmed with illegal immigrants, the Biden administration recently doubled down on its open border policy by granting work permits to close to half a million illegal immigrants from Venezuela without congressional authorization.
The Biden administrationโs reluctance to enforce existing laws and its willingness to offer amnesty have created an incentive for even more illegal border crossings. The GOP report estimates 1.2 million illegal migrant encounters between April and September this year. Last month, within 24 hours, more than 10,000 illegal migrants were โencounteredโ at the U.S.-Mexico border. Unsurprisingly, most came from Venezuela because they regard Bidenโs amnesty to Venezuelans as an open invitation to the United States.
Additionally, our nationโs southern border has become a gate for the illicit drug trade, directly contributing to Americaโs opioid epidemic. The United Nations calls the U.S.-Mexico border โthe deadliest land routeโ for human trafficking, especially the trafficking of children, many of whom have become enslaved workers in the U.S. Whatโs even more outrageous is that citizen journalists caught U.S. government officials facilitating child trafficking at taxpayersโ expense.
About-Face on Border Wall
In an about-face move, the Biden administration recently announced it would expedite the construction of a border wall, despite calling the wall construction under the Trump administration โjust one example of the prior administrationโs misplaced priorities and failure to manage migration in a safe, orderly, and humane way.โ White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to justify the administrationโs embarrassing policy reversal by insisting Biden hasnโt changed his opposition to a border wall. Still, his DHS โis complying by the lawโ to build a border wall because โthat appropriation came from fiscal year 2019 under the last administration, Republican leadership.โ
The Biden administrationโs claim of โcomplying with the lawโ is rich. The alarming statistics from the House GOPโs report demonstrate that the Biden administration, starting with President Biden, has surrendered one of the governmentโs most fundamental responsibilities: to enforce laws and keep America safe. Not to mention that the Biden administrationโs approach to immigration laws is so upside down and illogical that it insists on deporting a Christian family facing persecution in their home country while welcoming with open arms illegal migrants who are disqualified for asylum.
President Biden certainly believes he deserves another term. American voters, however, should remember the disastrous results of Bidenโs policies and never again elect as president someone who refuses to enforce the laws of the United States.
After the slaughter of more than a thousand Jews in Israel, among them beheaded infants and impaired elderly women burned alive, President Joe Biden delivered a righteousย speechย defending Israel and condemning the antisemitism of Hamas as โpure, unadulterated evil.โ We should expect this kind of sentiment from any leader of a nation of civilized people after the single worst act of butchery against Jews since the Holocaust. And, earnestly, the moral clarity was nice to hear after listening to the degeneracy of Hamas allies and theย fellow travelersย that infest the American left these days. ย
Democrats whoโve spent years defending the likes of Rashida Tlaib or Ben Rhodes or BLM or CAIR or whomever else are now feigning surprise that Soviet-style โanti-Zionistsโ are in their midst. And these arenโt members of some fringe groups dressing up like a bunch of Nazis in front of Disney World. Theyโre celebrated and educated and deeply embedded in left-wing intellectual circles, in major universities, in bureaucracies, in Congress, in establishment publications, and in cable news channels.
Some on the center-left have spoken out. Most leaders have not. Iโm not suggesting censoring anyone. But if youโre too much of a coward to denounce these people at this point, when will you?
So, anyway, Bidenโs speech was nice. But what are Democrats going to do? It is likely that the United States is providing Israel with intelligence assistance. One hopes weโll provide diplomatic cover rather than engage in the Obama-era machinations that treated the Jewish State as if it were barely an ally. All that is also appreciated.
When, however, will the administration rescind the $6 billion waiver it gave the Iranian mullahs, who have spent decades murdering and kidnapping American citizens, in addition to fueling war against our allies in the Middle East? There is no plausible way that Hamas could launch an attack of this scope without the logistical and monetary assistance of Iran. The Biden administration has allowed somewhere around $40 billion in waivers to flow to Iran over the past few years, not only six. Some of that was likely to keep world supplies up and prices domestically down (of course, we could drill here instead.) Sanctions exist to pressure regimes to engage in normal behavior. Will that change, or will Biden continue to employ pernicious Obama-style placation of the terror regime?
What is Biden going to do about Qatar โ where Hamas leaders are welcome to celebrate the murder of Jews and Americans while sipping spring water in upscale hotel rooms in Doha? The Department of Justice has designated Hamas as a terror organization. Qatar is ostensibly an ally. There is no reason we should not be able to extradite the architects of violence against American citizens.
What is Joe Biden doing about the hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars that continue to flow to Palestinian governments every year in direct aid and through the United Nations? Will we fund groups that divert fungible assets to launch terror attacks and pay stipends to the families of those who murder Jewish civilians? Should we be funding regimes that work to instill and propel (generational) hate and violence?
Only months ago, Fatah was in talks to form a unity government with Hamas, the organization that executed 260 young people at a music festival. (Though, to be fair, Hamas could probably win a majority support from the Congressional Progressive Caucus or the Harvard student body, as well.) For over a decade, there havenโt been elections in the โWest Bankโ because Hamas, or similarly fanatical parties, would prevail. The only group that can make Fatah look moderate is Hamas. Does that sound like the type of place deserving of U.S. aid? Or moral support? Or a state?
The president has said all the right things. Itโs appreciated. But his administration hasnโt done many of them. Not yet.
Hundreds of U.S. families are stranded in Israel without a safe way home after most major airlines canceled routes out of the country and U.S.-bound flights remain unavailable following Hamas’ vicious terrorist attack in the region.
Several thousand Americans traveled to Israel in late September to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, which spans over several days and has become a popular time for Jewish families to visit the Holy Land. For many in Jerusalem, the holiday celebrations were interrupted by air raid sirens signaling incoming missiles in the region, forcing them to take refuge in designated bomb shelters in their hotels or apartments.
Orthodox Jews there had been off electronics, including their cell phones, and had not known the extent of the bloodshed in southern Israel until Sunday evening when the holiday concluded.That’s when they learned the harrowing details of Hamas’ massacre on Israeli civilians and were informed that their flights home had been canceled indefinitely.
They spent the next several hours scrambling for alternative flights to no avail. Many of them were forced to accept the dreaded reality: They were now stuck in a region bracing for war.
Israeli firefighters extinguish fire at a site struck by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, Israel, on Monday.ย (AP/Tsafrir Abayov)
“This whole ordeal has been unimaginably stressful,” Moshe K., a resident of New Jersey who was visiting Jerusalem with 10 family members, told Fox News Digital. “I’m embarrassed of how the State Department has done nothing thus far to get us home other than collecting tens of thousands of names of stranded Americans who can’t get a flight out.”
Moshe was scheduled to return home on October 9, two days after Hamas launched its brutal attack in southern Israel, murdering over 700 civilians. He said he fears his family will be stuck in Israel for several more days if the U.S. State Department doesn’t intervene.
When he’s not frantically searching for flights home, Moshe and his family, including his children, elderly parents and young grandchildren, have been spending the past three days in and out of bomb shelters in their rented Jerusalem condo as air raid sirens continue blaring across the country.
Moshe said he was told that Switzerland, Poland, Brazil and other European countries have sent charter planes to evacuate their citizens from the war-torn territory, but Americans have received no word from the consulate about an evacuation plan. U.S. families and individuals have been instructed to fill out an online form requesting help from the State Department, but most of them have not heard back.
“While I fully understand that the State Department also has to sadly deal with killed and captured Americans, they have sufficient manpower to assign people to handle that aspect as well as the evacuation plan. The fact that 80 hours later, absolutely no word has come out as to what that plan is or concrete steps being taken to evacuate thousands who are stranded, is absolutely appalling,” Moshe said.
“Not a word about their ‘evacuation plan’, that at this point looks like it could take a week or so. They should be ashamed,” the worried father said on Monday.
Many other stranded Americans expressed a similar sentiment.
A resident of Clifton, N.J., who asked to be identified only as Rivkie, traveled to Israel with her family at eight months pregnant for the holidays. Her doctor cleared her for international travel because she was scheduled to return home before the start of her ninth month, but with no available return flights or assurances from the U.S. government, Rivkie fears she will be forced to remain in Israel and deliver her baby in a hospital already overwhelmed with wounded war victims.
“This has been so hard on my family, I’m pregnant and I’m slowly running out of days to fly home,” she said. “Why isn’t the U.S. government doing more to help us? European airlines are working to bring their citizens home.”
Rivkie said she’s worried how her young toddlers are processing the chaos, anxiety and deep sadness in the air.
“I’m worried about my kids. This has been traumatic. I took them outside today, and they asked if there will be another โboom boomโ soon. They cry every time we have to run into a shelter,” she added.
โIโm worried about my kids. This has been traumatic. They cry every time we have to run into a shelter.”โ Rivkie, Fox News Digital
Many Americans trapped in Israel have been glued to their phones and computers in the hopes of a return flight opening up. If anything does become available, they are booking several flights at a time only for them to be canceled hours later. Some Americans have managed to leave the country with flights headed to Europe and then booked a connecting flight to the U.S. from there.
Chana Rowe, a resident of Queens, N.Y., told Fox News Digital that she has been staying at a hotel in Jerusalem with her family since her flight to JFK this week was canceled. They have been advised not to leave the hotel unless necessary and have spent most of their days holed up in their rooms desperately searching for connecting European flights or private charters to bring them home.
“The past few days have been a nightmare, in so many ways,” Rowe said. “We’ve had to run into the shelter multiple times. It is scary to think that it could be several days before we can leave as the airlines continue to cancel most flights.”
“We are all changed forever. I can’t fathom going back to normal life.”โ Chana Rowe, Fox News Digital
“My family and I will never forget this time. We are all traumatized to say the least. There are young children with us who cannot fully grasp what is going on but the devastation, horror and fear in the air is palpable. We are terrified to go outside but we don’t feel completely safe in the hotel either. We are not sure where it is safest,” she added.
Rowe said her family has received no support or communication from the U.S. consulate.
“The U.S. government has not provided any means of support for the Americans that are stuck here,” she told Fox.
For some Americans stranded in the region, there is a deep sense of guilt felt by those trying to leave while their relatives, many of them residents of Israel, stay behind to face the war. The conflicting feelings among the Jewish Americans there โ a longing to remain in Israel to support the Jewish State, while fearing for their own safety โ has been weighing heavily on them.
The Albrechts were supposed to travel home from Israel this week. As war has broken out since the Hamas terrorist attack, they have endured fear but also felt pride for Israeli tenacity.
“Seeing what Hamas is doing to our fellow Jews is absolutely horrific. Anyone who doesnโt view these actions as acts of pure evil and hatred is inhumane,” Rowe said. “We are all changed forever. I canโt fathom going back to normal life once we do return to New York. I can’t stop thinking about the lives that were taken, those kidnapped, the women and teenagers that were raped, held hostage, for being Jewish. The whole world should be supporting Israel and should be helping out in any way they could.”
“We’re scared, we don’t know what to expect every time we run into a bomb shelter,” she added, “and at the same time, we are filled with deep sadness and feel sick to our stomach for our brothers and sisters just a few hours away who were brutally murdered or are grieving the loss of loved ones.”
Shai Albrecht, a personal trainer and Instagram fitness influencer from Maryland, traveled to Israel for the holidays with her husband and three children, ages five, seven and nine with a scheduled return flight on Monday. Her flight with United Airlines was canceled indefinitely. Albrecht and her children have been using their unplanned time in Israel to support the IDF soldiers who’ve been deployed, buying meals and fundraising for them when they’re not rushing into a bomb shelter.
“We have now had to go into the shelters many times. We have heard about this as American Jews, but to experience it is completely different,” Albrecht said. “There is a fear and sense of insecurity all the time, even when the sirens were not going off. I never realized that I could be so nervous using the bathroom. I keep thinking, if the siren goes off now, will I be able toโฆ grab my kids and get them all in the shelter in 30 seconds? My son seems most impacted, he constantly wants to check the Red Alert App and look outside for missiles,” she told Fox News Digital.
Like Rowe and others, Albrecht said she too has been grappling with conflicting feelings of guilt, fear and trepidation.
“This may be a war-torn country, but it is also my country as a Jew,” she told Fox. “But, Iโm also scared. I simultaneously want to run home to my quiet farm in the U.S., but also stay and support my family – literally and figuratively, in Israel. I have a lot of deeply conflicting feelings of fear, guilt, and trepidation for what may come tomorrow.”
“I simultaneously want to run home to my quiet farm in the U.S., but also stay and support my family.”โ Shai Albrecht, Fox News Digital
Albrecht said she trusts that the U.S. government will assist “if it gets to the point that our lives are in danger. Depending on how tonight and tomorrow are, I fear that this may get much worse,” she told Fox.
“Again, I am deeply conflicted, I know that I have the privilege to leave in a way my Israeli cousins do not, but also know that the kids school started today and they are missing their home, their friends, and their sense of normalcy. This has given us all a newfound sense of appreciation for the tenacity and dedication of Israelis,” she added.
Until they can return home, Albrecht said she and her family will do their “best to support the Israeli people and show our children that in times of national crisis each of us, no matter where we are located, must step up to help.”
A source familiar with the situation told Fox News that the State Department is working on arranging flights to bring stranded Americans home as soon as possible. The Department is “acutely aware of the currently limited capacity on commercial flights and the high demand from U.S. citizens wanting to depart,” a department spokesperson told Fox News.
“The State Department has teams communicating 24/7 with U.S. citizens and providing them assistance through phone calls, an online form, and the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program,” their statement reads. “Our goal is to assist U.S citizens who want to leave Israel with a safe means of doing so,” they said.
At this time, the State Department encouraged U.S. citizens to “take advantage” of commercial flights that involve transiting a third country if they are unable to book a direct flight to the United States.
“In order to meet high demand for flights, we are also exploring other contract options by air, land, and sea to nearby countries,” the department said, adding that they will continue to provide updates to U.S. citizens who have registered via their online form as information becomes available.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.ย ((Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images))
The statement comes a day afterย members of Congressย urged Secretary of State Antony Blinken to do everything possible to evacuate Americans out of Israel. Included in the request to Blinken was a push to charter flights out of Israel, as airlines have canceled most flights out of Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel.
“As the number of casualties continue to rise, our constituents who remain in Israel fear for their lives,” the letter to Blinken reads. “We ask that you consider charter flights and military options for evacuation, simultaneously. At this harrowing moment in Israelโs history, it is more important than ever that every American who is looking to return home has the opportunity to do so.”
Hamas-led forcesย poured over the Israel-Gaza border on Saturday while residents were sleeping, dragging people, including women and children into the streets, taking some hostage while beheading and brutally murdering others. More than 700 Israelis, including men, women, children and the elderly, were indiscriminately killed in one day โ the largest terror attack in a single day in Israelโs history. Two days later, Israelโs military discovered many scenes of unspeakable bloodshed perpetrated by Hamas. ย
The Hamas attack shocked Israel and the global community and has sparked a war on the Palestinian terrorist organization. More than 1,200 Israelis have been killed, and 25 Americans have been confirmed dead, with others still missing.
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem told Fox News Digital that U.S. citizens seeking to be in touch with the U.S. Embassy in Israel should visit the website cacms.state.gov/s/crisis-intake or call +1-833-890-9595 and +1-606-641-0131. Any notifications from the Embassy can be found at https://il.usembassy.gov/category/alert/.
For more Culture, Media, Education, Opinion, and channel coverage, visit foxnews.com/media.
Yael Halon is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to yael.halon@fox.com.
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American Family Association
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