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Progressive Anti-Semitism
Byron Blakely | July 19th 2019 |
WIN and agencies
While Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib recently announced they are planning to visit Israel in the near future, their entry to the Jewish state could be blocked due to their support for boycotts of it.
According to a report earlier in the week by Haaretz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has authority to block their entry.
While Israeli law dictates that entry can be denied to pro-boycott individuals, the Foreign Ministry can also recommend waivers to the Strategic Affairs Ministry and the Interior Ministry to facilitate entry when barring individuals would negatively impact Israel’s diplomatic efforts.
According to the Haaretz report, Netanyahu will be tasked with making the decision related to Omar and Tlaib based on the “possible ramifications on Israel-U.S. relations” of the congresswomen’s visit.
Meanwhile, Omar recently spoke with Al-Monitor about an anti-Israel pro-boycott resolution she plans to introduce in the House of Representatives.
“We are introducing a resolution … to really speak about the American values that support and believe in our ability to exercise our First Amendment rights in regard to boycotting. And it is an opportunity for us to explain why it is we support … the BDS movement,” said Omar.
On Wednesday Omar told Jewish Insider that she will be going to Israel in a few weeks.
“I am going in a couple of weeks and so I’ll learn more,” Omar told the outlet. “But truly, everything that I hear points to both sides feeling like there is still an occupation.”
Since entering Congress in January, Omar has made multiple remarks that have resulted in charges of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias.
In a July 17 interview with “CBS This Morning,” Omar expressed no regrets for those remarks.
“Often times there are things that you might say might not hold weight for you, but to someone else, the way that we hear and consume information is very different than how the next person might,” said Omar.
“So, you don’t regret your words either?” asked co-host Gayle King.
“I do not, but I have gotten the—I’m grateful for the opportunity to really learn how my w
ords made people feel and have taken every single opportunity I’ve gotten to make sure that people understood that I apologize for it,” replied Omar.
When asked by King if she would “like to make that clear” she isn’t anti-Semitic, Omar said, “Oh, certainly not.”
“Yes, nothing I said, at least to me, was meant for that purpose,” she added.
The Digital Age
Julien Happich | May 22nd 2019 |
EE Times
That is for fear of retaliation from the US administration, although the companies involved will inevitably suffer from impacting revenue cuts due to lost sales.
According to a recent report from Bloomberg, chipmakers such as Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom have already taken that step, while Google is to cut off the supply of some of its software services as well as hardware to the Chinese mobile phone equipment maker. Read more ..
Campus Hate
Steven Emerson | April 12th 2019 |
IPT
Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the movement to boycott and sanction Israel, a movement which many backers hope will lead to Israel's elimination, was supposed to arrive in Washington, D.C. yesterday to give two lectures and to meet with members of Congress.
Instead, he's back at his home in Israel.
The Arab American Institute, one of Barghouti's hosts, announced Thursday morning that Barghouti, "prominent Palestinian human rights activist, was denied entry into the United States at Ben Gurion Airport despite having valid travel documents. We at AAI invited him to DC to participate in a number of speaking engagements and educational programs."
The announcement came less than a half an hour before the first of those engagements started. Read more ..
The Iranian Threat
Nike Ching | March 29th 2019 |
VOA
The United States will redraw government maps consistent with Washington’s decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The move comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday officially granting U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.
VOA’s State Department correspondent Nike Ching sat down Wednesday with Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, to discuss U.S. actions affecting Israel and Iran. The following are excerpts from the interview.
Ching: How will President Trump’s executive order change the way the U.S. displays the Golan Heights on its official maps of Israel? What is the time frame that we can expect the maps to be updated? Read more ..
Race Hatred
Alex Chapman and Ben Hill | March 15th 2019 |
Daily Mail
A white Australian right-wing terrorist who livestreamed his sickening shooting spree on Facebook is one of four people arrested over dual mosque attacks which left 49 dead and 48 injured on New Zealand’s 'darkest day'.
The gunman, who identified himself as Brenton Tarrant from Grafton, NSW, Australia, stormed the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on the country's South Island about 1.30pm, opening fire with a semi-automatic shotgun and a rifle on about 100 defenceless worshippers attending Friday prayers.
A sickening 17-minute video of the unfolding horror shows the self-confessed white supremacist dressed in army fatigues firing mercilessly at people scrambling to flee, and calmly reloading when he runs out of bullets. Read more ..
Campus Hate
Paulina Dedaj and Elizabeth Llorente | March 2nd 2019 |
Fox
University of California-Berkeley officials on Friday arrested a suspect who allegedly assaulted a conservative activist on campus last month.
Zachary Greenberg, 28, was arrested by university police about 1 p.m., after a judge issued an arrest warrant in the Feb. 19 attack on Hayden Williams, the school’s public affairs department said in a statement.
Arrest records from the sheriff’s office say Greenberg was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and attempting to cause great bodily injury. Williams, 26, who is not a student but is a field representative for the conservative group The Leadership Institute, was approached by two men who, he said, reacted with antagonism to the signs. One of them is said to have punched Williams several times. Read more ..
Financing the Flames
JV Staff | February 18th 2019 |
Jewish Voice
The Israeli government’s security cabinet announced Sunday that it was implementing a law passed last year allowing the Jewish state to withhold funds that the Palestinian Authority (PA) uses to pay stipends to attackers and their families from taxes Israel collects on the PA’s behalf, according to a World Israel News report.
Get Financing the Flames and read the original Edwin Black investigation on the topic
The PA uses the payments to financially incentivize the murder and maiming of Israeli civilians. Palestinian leaders, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas, have refused to discontinue the practice, notwithstanding laws in Israel and the U.S. that penalize the PA to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars each year for continuing the practice. Read more ..
Broken Government
Katherine Gypson | January 18th 2019 |
VOA
President Trump compelled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel a planned trip to Afghanistan and Brussels on Thursday, the latest maneuver in a bitter political battle over the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
In a letter to the speaker of the House, Trump denied Pelosi and members of Congress the use of a military plane to meet with NATO allies in Brussels and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, writing “in light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.”
A spokesperson for Pelosi’s office said the trip would have provided “critical national security and intelligence briefings,” as well as serving as an opportunity for Pelosi to thank the troops. Read more ..
The Iranian Threat
Saul Roth | January 13th 2019 |
WJD
Outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot has revealed the massive scope of Israel's campaign against Iranian entrenchment in Syria.
Speaking to New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, Eizenkot said, “We struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit.”
Eizenkot conceived a concept of "the war between the wars," a tactic of limited war that slowly grinds down the enemy with minimal risk to its own forces. This strategy involved containing Hamas and concentrating on thwarting Iran, which Eizenkot saw as Israel's chief enemy.
“We operated under a certain threshold until two-and-a-half years ago,” Eisenkot said. “And then we noticed a significant change in Iran’s strategy. Their vision was to have significant influence in Syria by building a force of up to 100,000 Shiite fighters from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. They built intelligence bases and an air force base within each Syrian air base. And they brought civilians in order to indoctrinate them.” Read more ..
Iran on Edge
Ahmad Alavi | January 10th 2019 |
Radio Farda
The official unemployment rate has reached 27 percent among young Iranians and over 40 percent among university graduates, says Omid Ali Parsai, chairman of the Iranian Statistical Center.
Parsai added that some 550 thousand jobs have been created in Iran during the first nine months of the current Iranian year which started on March 21, 2018. However, the country lags behind in terms of creating employment opportunities as the projected figure for the number of jobs needed annually is 900 thousands, said the chief statistician.
The official Iranians figures seem barely convincing. Iran’s methodology in estimating the number of people with jobs is to count one hour of work per week as employment. But this is not the only reason why unemployment figures released by Iranian officials are less than reliable. Read more ..
Vote 2022
Clinton Gillespie | January 5th 2019 |
Spero
California's Democratic elected officials in Los Angeles County reluctantly agreed to remove more than 1.5 million inactive voters from their voter rolls. California's elected officials signed a settlement agreement to bring the state into alignment with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
In the agreement, signed by th U.S. District Court Judge Manuel L. Real, California agreed they would establish procedures that will make a reasonable effort to remove persons from the voter list who have become ineligible, including death or change of residence.
The state agreed to send by mail a confirmation request to those who failed to vote for at least two federal general elections. After sending voters a confirmation request, the voter will be removed by February 19, 2019 if they fail to respond or amend their voter registration record. Read more ..
Iran on Edge
Carol Monreal | December 26th 2018 |
DW and agencies
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a senior Iranian cleric and former head of the judiciary, died Monday at the age of 70.
Shahroudi had been the head of the powerful Expediency Council since last year and a member of the 12-man Guardian Council. The Expediency Council resolves differences between the parliament and the Guardian Council, which vets legislation for compliance with Iran's Islamic constitution.
Considered a close ally of 79-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a possible successor, Shahroudi was head of the judiciary between 1999 and 2009. Read more ..
The Trump Era
Martin Barillas | December 12th 2018 |
Spero
Porn actress Stormy Daniels, a.k.a. Stephanie Clifford, must pay nearly $300,000 to President Donald Trump to reimburse him for legal fees he incurred because of her unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against him. U.S. District Judge James Otero hit Daniels with a bill for $293,053 in legal fees that includes $1,000 in sanctions because she sought to “chill” the president “free speech rights.” This was according to Trump’s attorney, Charles Harder. The amount that Daniels has been ordered to pay amount to 75 percent of Trump’s legal fees.
“The court’s order, along with the court’s prior order dismissing Stormy Daniels’ defamation case against the President, together constitute a total victory for the President, and a total defeat for Stormy Daniels in this case,” Harder said. Read more ..
AirBnB on Edge
Tovah Lazaroff | November 22nd 2018 |
JPost
Four attorneys filed a class action suit against Airbnb in Jerusalem District Court on Thursday to protest the US-based company’s decision to drop listings in West Bank settlements from its vacation rental website that hosts ads from 191 countries.
“The law in Israel forbids discrimination based on the place where you live, and what Airbnb has done is by all means discrimination based on the place where you live,” said attorney Aviel Flint, a partner in the law firm Yossi Levy & Co.
This is a case of Israeli law and not antisemitism or politics, Flint told The Jerusalem Post. The case is based on a 2000 law against discrimination in products and services, which was amended in 2017 to include place of residence. Read more ..
The Trump Era
Walter Maluth | October 26th 2018 |
J Voice
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has called on the Justice Department on Thursday to launch a criminal investigation into one of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accusers and her lawyer.
The Republican lawmaker wants prosecutors to determine if Julie Swetnick and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, made false statements to Congress last month about Kavanaugh.
Swetnick said in a sworn statement disclosed by Avenatti during Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation process last month that Kavanaugh was at a party where she was gang raped. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation, which Swetnick said occurred when they were in high school in the 1980s. Read more ..
Broken Borders
Martin Barillas | October 23rd 2018 |
Spero
On the international bridge linking Mexico and Guatemala over the Suchiate River, more than 3,000 men, women and children are currently waiting to cross into Mexican territory, according to Mexican immigration authorities, the Catholic Church, and the municipal government of Ciudad Hidalgo in the Mexican state of Chiapas. All told, there are 14,000 migrants who have either crossed into Mexico or who are waiting admission.
There are also reports that among the caravan of migrants are nationals from Congo, Bangladesh, Haiti, Cameroon, Angola, and Sri Lanka. Over the last year, migrants from outside of the Americas have become more notable. Read more ..
The Race for Ethanol
Donnelle Eller | October 18th 2018 |
USA Today
After months of false starts, President Donald Trump will tell Iowans on Tuesday during a campaign rally in Council Bluffs that he's opening the door to year-round access to gasoline with higher ethanol blends.
A senior White House official said Monday that Trump directed the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rule-making that allows for year-round use of gasoline with 15 percent ethanol or E15.
The announcement sets off a review that could make E15 available to consumers as soon as next summer.
In addition, the president will seek reforms to biofuels credit trading the White House says will provide greater transparency and help reduce volatility in the market. Read more ..
Financing the Flames
Michael Wilner | October 12th 2018 |
Jpost
The State Department on Wednesday denied a $165 million transfer of aid to the Palestinian Authority over its failure to adhere to the Taylor Force Act, a law that bars the government from continuing aid to the PA unless Ramallah ceases its practice of compensating the families of murderers and terrorists convicted in Israel.
Get Financing the Flames and read the original Edwin Black investigation on the topic
“I actually signed a memo today with respect to the Taylor Force Act, denying $165m. that would have been appropriated to the Palestinian Authority,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told an American-Jewish organization Wednesday evening, to applause, questioning whether Israel would have a partner at the negotiating table with Palestinians going forward.
“That number is a rough estimate of the amount of money that was paid out on – for the various violations the Taylor Force Act was designed to enforce,” Pompeo said. “The behavior has not changed materially, and this administration has taken – much as it did with the [Jerusalem] embassy – has taken a historic approach.” Read more ..
The Trump Era
Adam Shaw | October 6th 2018 |
Fox
The Senate voted Saturday to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, marking the end to one of the most rancorous confirmation fights in modern times and securing a rightward shift on the nation’s highest court. The chamber voted 50-48 to confirm Kavanaugh, mostly along party lines, after a weeklong FBI probe helped settle concerns among most wavering senators about the sexual assault allegations that nearly derailed his nomination and led to a dramatic second hearing. Saturday’s roll call marked the tightest successful Supreme Court confirmation vote in over 100 years, closer than even that of Clarence Thomas who similarly faced sexual misconduct allegations.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was the sole Democrat to vote “yes.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was a “no,” but voted “present” as a courtesy to Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who was attending his daughter’s wedding in Montana. Read more ..
North Korea's Nukes
Carol Monreal | October 3rd 2018 |
from agencies
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has agreed to shut one of the country's main missile testing and launch sites.
He signed a pledge to permanently close the Tongchang-ri facility, after talks in Pyongyang with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in.
Both leaders also "agreed on a way to achieve denuclearisation" on the Korean peninsula, Mr Moon said.
Mr Kim said he hoped to "visit Seoul in the near future" - he would be the first North Korean leader to do so.
China has welcomed the outcome of the inter-Korean summit, saying both sides had found "new and important common ground".
The main focus of the summit was the issue of denuclearisation. While the US and North Korea agreed in broad terms earlier this year to work towards that goal, negotiations have stalled.
Pyongyang has now sought to reconfirm its commitment.
Mr Kim expressed a readiness to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear facility - where North Korea is believed to have produced the material used in its nuclear tests - if the US took some reciprocal action. The details of that were not specified. But he went further on Tongchang-ri, saying the engine missile testing and launch facility would be permanently closed "in the presence of experts from relevant nations". Read more ..
The Trump Era
Emily Goodin | September 17th 2018 |
Daily Mail
Former FBI attorney Lisa Page, in a bombshell revelation, says the agency could not prove collusion between Russland and Donald Trump's presidential campaign before Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed.
Page told a closed-door joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees in mid-July that investigators could not make the charge, according to a transcript of her deposition reviewed by Fox News.
'I think this represents that even as far as May 2017, we still couldn't answer the question,' Page said. In May 2017, Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as special counsel overseeing an ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Read more ..
The Edge of Healthcare
Jared Evan | September 14th 2018 |
JV
![nurse w/stethoscope](/web/20190823141859im_/https://thecuttingedgenews.com/uploads/cmimg_32358.jpg) |
In a page one article in the New York Times that appeared this past Sunday, it was reported that a leading physician in the field of breast cancer research had intentionally neglected to disclose the fact that he had been receiving millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies.
In the dozens of articles that leading researcher, Dr. Jose Baselga penned for such prestigious publications as The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, he had omitted that he was accepting payments from various drug and health care companies.
As a highly visible and well respected figure in the medical research community. Dr. Jose Baselga is the chief medical officer at Manhattan’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Moreover, he has served in an advisory capacity with such pharmaceutical companies at Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb, among other drug companies. As such, his involvement with the companies has led to the development of breakthrough drugs that have revolutionized breast cancer treatment options.
Since 2014, Dr. Baselga has received $3 million in consulting fees from Roche.
An analysis conducted by the New York Times and ProPublica resulted in the determination that Dr. Baselga was negligent in complying with financial disclosure rules that are mandated by the American Association for Cancer Research when he was the president of the group.
As one of the two editors for “Cancer Discovery” – the AACR’s medical journal, the paper reported that Dr. Baselga also did not include in his articles any information about the payments that he has been the recipient of from various companies that are linked to the field of cancer research.
The NYT reported that at a 2017 conference, Dr. Baselga had portrayed the results of two clinical drug trials sponsored by Roche quite favorably but had not disclosed that he had a working relationship with the company. Many of his medical contemporaries had viewed the results of the trials as disappointments.
For his part, Dr. Baselga did not deny that he had relationships with dozens of drug companies and in an interview with the New York Times, he had said that the omission of such payments was an oversight and not meant to be intentional.
About 10 years ago, information began emerging that the pharmaceutical industry was having a covert influence on drug research. This, in turn, aroused the ethics concerns of the medical community in terms of strengthening its conflict of interest requirements.
Respected figures in the medical community have posited that bias can occur if outside drug companies wield too much influence with researchers and doctors and can determine the manner in which clinical studies are designed and medications are prescribed to patients.
According to the NYT article, the AACR has instituted consequences for doctors who violate the disclosure rules. Although some consider the penalty not severe, the organization has told its journal authors that they would face a 3 year ban on publishing articles if they are found to have non-disclosed financial arrangements with drug companies.
Since 2013, Dr. Baselga has held board memberships with at least six drug companies according to the NYT report. In his role as a board member, the doctor has been required to protect the financial interests of the companies that he had worked with, yet simultaneously he oversees the operations of the cancer center.
This has led to speculation that the two arrangements cannot coincide from an ethical standpoint and would be injurious not only to patients but to the reputations of doctors and the public trust in drug companies.
The Edge of Justice
Martin Barillas | September 12th 2018 |
Spero
![law books regulations green](/web/20190823141859im_/https://thecuttingedgenews.com/uploads/cmimg_76810.jpg) |
President Donald Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, said on Monday that the International Criminal Court is "illegitimate" and "for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us." Speaking at the Federalist Society in Washington, Bolton said that the court threatens the "constitutional rights" of Americans and the sovereignty of their country.
Based in The Netherland, the ICC was founded to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC. However, President George W. Bush, renounced the signature because of fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.
On the same day, the State Department announced the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington. The State Department said that the PLO -- now controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization -- "has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel." Read more ..
Palestinians on Edge
Yonah Jeremy Bob | September 3rd 2018 |
J Post
A group of Israeli farmers traveled to The Hague on Monday and filed a war crimes complaint with the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) against top Hamas officials for what they called fire kite terror during the Gaza border crisis.
The complaint was drafted by Shurat Hadin – Israel Law Center and co-signed along with the farmers by a much larger group of 50,000 concerned individuals worldwide to try to turn the tables on the Israel-critics who have accused the IDF of war crimes for shooting around 170 Palestinians during the crisis.They called on the ICC prosecutors to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Hamas leaders Khaled Mashal, Saleh Arouri, and Zaher Jabarin.
More specifically, they requested a probe of their alleged orders to use fire kites and other terror to breach Israel’s border and murder civilians as well as torching thousands of acres of agricultural fields. Read more ..
Finaning the Flames
Gardiner Harris | August 27th 2018 |
NYT
The Trump administration announced on Friday that it would not spend more than $200 million set aside for Palestinian aid in the West Bank and Gaza, the latest in a series of measures that have infuriated the Palestinians.
The cancellation follows a similar decision last week against spending $230 million reserved by Congress to help stabilize areas in Syria devastated by the country’s seven-year war. And it comes as the administration considers canceling nearly $3 billion in foreign aid projects around the world.
As with the money for Syria, the administration intends to redirect the funds intended for Palestinians to higher-priority projects elsewhere, according to a senior State Department official. The administration has yet to identify what those projects are.
The official said the decision took into account the challenges of providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas has governing authority. The United States considers the group, which has launched multiple attacks against Israel, a terrorist organization. Read more ..
The Trump Era
Brett Hyde-Barrow | July 10th 2018 |
agencies
President Donald Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to join the US Supreme Court, setting the stage for a dramatic confirmation battle over a stalwart conservative who could shape the direction of the court for decades to come.
If confirmed, Kavanaugh would replace a frequent swing vote on the bench, retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often sided with his liberal colleagues on issues such as abortion, affirmative action and LGBT rights.
Kavanaugh, 53, is a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and Yale Law School graduate who previously served in both Bush administrations. He also worked on independent counsel Ken Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton.
"What matters is not a judge's political views, but whether they can set aside those views to do what the law and the Constitution require. I am pleased to say I have found without doubt such a person," Trump said as he announced Kavanaugh's nomination at the White House Monday evening. Read more ..
Campus Hate
Edwin Black | June 13th 2018 |
Times of Israel
Criminal complaints are now being filed by students following the belligerent disruption of a May 17, 2018 Students Supporting Israel [SSI] event at University of California Los Angeles. At least a half-dozen students announced they would visit the UCLA police department to file formal complaints reporting criminal disruption of a meeting, as well as disturbing the peace and conspiracy.
The move follows media disclosures that the UCLA was reneging on the public pledge by two chancellors in the Daily Bruin —bolstered by a statement for the record by a university spokesman — to refer the belligerent May 17 incident to prosecutors.
The disruption and nose-to-nose intimidation of the students attending the May 17 SSI event at UCLA was documented in a video, beginning at minute 41. Read more ..
North Korea and America
Francesca Chambers | June 12th 2018 |
Daily Mail
Kim Jong-un affirmed an 'unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula' in a signed document on Tuesday, President Donald Trump says.
'We're prepared to start a new history, and we're ready to write a new chapter between our two nations,' Trump said at a news conference.
The president promised 'security guarantees' for North Korea, as the two leaders met for the first time during a high-stakes Singapore summit.
The U.S. president hailed a newly forged 'special bond' with Kim following a day of historic talks, praised the dictator as a 'skilled' negotiator and said he would 'absolutely' invite him to the White House in the future. Kim said it was time to 'leave the past behind' and embark on a new era of relations with America while promising that the world will see a 'major change.'
The two men signed a joint statement at the Capella resort. The U.S. did not immediately release the document, but news photographers caught sight of the text when Trump flashed a copy to the press. Read more ..
Debbiegate
Martin Barillas | June 7th 2018 |
Spero
A former aide to congressional Democrats may soon enter into a plea deal with federal prosecutors in a case that has drawn the attention of President Donald Trump. Imran Awan, a Pakistani-American who provided IT services to more than a dozen Democrats in the House of Representatives, and wife Hina Alvi will appear before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington on July 3. The court filing did not betray any of the terms of the apparent agreement.
The Awan case has been questioned by congressional Republicans because of Awan’s involvement with prominent Democrats, such as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, and his access to sensitive data. President Trump tweeted that Awan is “the Pakistani mystery man,” and asked in 2017 “Whatever happened to this Pakistani guy who worked with the DNC?” Read more ..
The Hillary Investigation
Martin Barillas | May 18th 2018 |
Spero
The long-expected report by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice has moved into its final phase. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has found, according to the Wall Street Journal, "reasonable grounds" to believe that federal laws were broken by the FBI and DOJ it their probes of Hillary Clinton. Horowitz has referred findings of possible criminal misconduct to John Huber - Utah's top federal prosecutor who was paired with Horowitz by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Horowitz has also forwarded copies of the draft report to the FBI and DOJ for their review by the end of this week. The OIG report will then go from the Office of the Inspector General to both investigative committees of Congress and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and is expected within weeks. According to the Wall Street Journal, Horowitz will then respond within a “few days.” Read more ..
The Edge of Terrorism
Louis Nelson | May 15th 2018 |
Politico
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Tuesday that the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was not to blame for deadly violence that erupted along the Gaza border, casting blame instead on Hamas and its backers in the Iranian government.
Addressing the U.N. Security Council, Haley said Hamas, the group that controls Gaza and is labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S., was behind the clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces that left at least 60 people dead. She bemoaned the “double standard” that she said exists at the U.N. under which Israel shoulders the blame for violence she said was spurred by Hamas and Iran. Read more ..
Israel and Saudi Arabia
from agencies
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said in an interview on Monday that Israelis are entitled to live peacefully in their own land—a remarkable statement from one of the kingdom’s most powerful men.
In an interview with The Atlantic, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said he believes the Jewish people have a right to their own country in at least part of their ancestral homeland, saying “I believe the Palestinians and the Israelis have the right to have their own land. But we have to have a peace agreement to assure stability for everyone and to have normal relations.”
The crown prince, who has gained considerable influence since the ascension of his father, King Salman, to the throne in 2015 and is also heir apparent to the throne, is currently in the United States to grow business ties, as well as seeking support for efforts to halt Iranian influence in the Middle East.
“We have religious concerns about the fate of the holy [Al-Aqsa] mosque in Jerusalem and about the rights of the Palestinian people,” he said. “This is what we have. We don’t have any objection against any other people.” Read more ..
South Africa on Edge
Martin Barillas | March 16th 2018 |
Spero
![South Africa Flag](/web/20190823141859im_/https://thecuttingedgenews.com/uploads/cmimg_53537.jpg) |
Following a vote in February, South Africa passed a measure to amendment its constitution to allow land seizure without compensation. In the midst of swelling racist rhetoric against whites, Australia is proposing emergency visas for white farmers who may be in danger. Australia’s Home Minister Peter Dutton, who oversees immigration, said white South African farmers may need the visas for their "special protection." According to the New York Times, Dutton said, “I think these people deserve special attention and we’re certainly applying that special attention now.” He added, “We want people who want to come here, abide by our laws, integrate into our society, work hard, not lead a life on welfare."
South Africa’s foreign ministry disagreed with Dutton, while claiming that whites in South Africa face no danger. “There is no reason for any government anywhere in the world to suspect that any South African is in danger from their own democratically elected government,” spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya said. “That threat simply does not exist.” Read more ..
Israel and the Gulf States
Israel HaYom | March 9th 2018 |
via JNS
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman met with senior Israeli officials during his visit to Egypt this week, the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported on Wednesday. The report said the meeting focused on the normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and included the Kingdom’s commitment to the “deal of the century,” the Middle East peace plan being devised by the Trump administration.
Within that framework, Israel would take part in the unprecedented real estate venture being sponsored by the Saudis in the Gulf of Aqaba. Crown Prince Mohammed first announced plans for the 26,500-square-kilometer (10,230-square-mile) zone at an international investment conference in Riyadh last October. Read more ..
South Africa on Edge
Martin Barillas | March 2nd 2018 |
The South African parliament voted to seize lands owned by whites without compensation. A motion for “expropriation without compensation” passed by a landslide in the legislature, having been brought to the fore by leftist Julius Malema who said that white farmers are “criminals.” Following the vote on Tuesday, South Africa’s constitution will probably be amended to allow the confiscation without compensation. Passing by 241 votes in favor, 83 members of the parliament voted against the measure. The matter has been referred to the parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee, which must report back by August 30.
The proposal is now central plank in the platform of the ruling party and the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who was appointed to the post after the resignation of scandal-plagued former president Jacob Zuma. Read more ..
Financing the Flames
Ben Cohen | February 16th 2018 |
Algemeiner
The US Senate is preparing to vote on the Taylor Force Act that links US financial assistance to the Palestinians with a verifiable end to the Palestinian Authority’s policy of “martyr payments” to convicted terrorists and their families – and the final version of the bill leaves the PA with little room to maneuver if it wants to continue receiving US aid.
Named in memory of the former American army officer stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv in March 2016, the Taylor Force Act passed the House of Representatives by unanimous consent in December 2017. At the time, some supporters of the legislation expressed concern about exemptions that were introduced for certain infrastructure projects in the PA, as well as a “sunset clause” that would require the Act to be renewed six years from now. Read more ..
Israel on Edge
Gil Hoffman | February 14th 2018 |
J Post
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the police recommendations to indict him in an address to the Union of Local Authorities at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds on Wednesday. Netanyahu called the recommendation ugly, extremist and full of holes, like Swiss cheese. He said the recommendations failed to take into account his 20 years of friendship with Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan which included gifts going both ways over the years, and exaggerated the value of the gifts from Milchan.
“The police ignored the facts I gave them on how I actually acted against the interests of Milchan,” Netanyahu said. “I broke his monopoly on importing auto parts, which was worth a huge amount. I worked to close Channel 10, which would make his stock in the channel worth nothing. I work for the Israeli economy and society. I am working against Milchan, not for him.” Read more ..
The Russia Probe
Brett Samuels | January 22nd 2018 |
The Hill
![Smart phone](/web/20190823141859im_/https://thecuttingedgenews.com/uploads/cmimg_53313.jpg) |
The FBI was unable to preserve some text messages between two agents who have been accused of anti-Trump bias, including one who previously served on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, according to a letter from the bureau to lawmakers.
The FBI said it did not have a record of messages exchanged over a six-month period between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page because many of its issued mobile phones had problems related to “rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades.”
“The result was that data that should have been automatically collected and retained for long-term storage and retrieval was not collected,” the FBI explained in the letter.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) expressed concerns over the missing messages, according to a letter he sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray, obtained Sunday by The Hill.
Strzok, who also worked on the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, was removed last summer from Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia after it was discovered he had sent anti-Trump messages. Some Republicans seized on the news as an indication that Mueller’s probe was biased against President Trump.
The missing messages were sent between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017, according to Johnson’s letter. Read more ..
The Trump Era
Byron Busch | January 16th 2018 |
WINS and agencies
US President Donald Trump is expected to hire David Schenker, a director at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as the State Department’s Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, BuzzFeed News reported.
If confirmed, Schenker, who was an adviser to former Republican Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, will become the first non-career official since the 1990s to lead the State Department’s Middle East bureau. Although it’s rare for a State Department outsider to receive the nomination, BuzzFeed said, Middle East analysts, including Republicans and Democrats, expressed some relief given the urgent need for a nominee to lead the bureau since the retirement of career diplomat Anne Patterson last January as well as concerns about other potential candidates for the job. Read more ..
Iran on Edge
Bozorgmehr Sharafedin | January 4th 2018 |
Reuters
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have deployed forces to three provinces to put down anti-government unrest after six days of protests that have rattled the clerical leadership and left 21 people dead.
The protests, which began last week over economic hardships suffered by the young and working class, have evolved into a rising against the powers and privileges of a remote elite, especially supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The unrest continued to draw sharply varied responses internationally, with Europeans expressing unease at the delighted reaction by U.S. and Israeli leaders to the display of opposition to Iran’s clerical establishment.
Defying threats from the judiciary of execution if convicted of rioting, protests resumed after nightfall with hundreds hitting the streets of Malayer in Hamadan province chanting: “People are begging, the supreme leader is acting like God!” Read more ..
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