– The initial arrests sparked a movement on college campuses across the country, including at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
– More than 2,100 protesters have been arrested at colleges and universities in recent weeks, including students, faculty, and outside agitators.
For now, Trump has called the recent protests “antisemitic” and “far worse” than the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. Biden has similarly condemned “the antisemitic protests” and “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” (…)
Like their association of civil rights and peace demonstrators with communism throughout the Cold War, politicians on both sides of the aisle are now broadly hurling claims of antisemitism against anyone protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, many of whom are Jewish.
The purpose then, as it is now, is to intimidate administrators into a false political choice: Will they protect students’ right to demonstrate or be seen as acquiescent to antisemitism?
While the U.S. has waged war in the name of spreading democracy, it blatantly refuses to hold Israel accountable for its deeply undemocratic actions and violations of international law in Gaza and the West Bank, including its treatment of prisoners like my cousin. There are many days when I wake up and I feel like I’m in the twilight zone.
As voting continues, the Senate votes 72 to 13 in favor of advancing the package of four bills passed by the House, more than the 60 needed to pave the way for a vote on final passage as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday.
The legislation will send $17 billion in defense aid to Israel, and some $9 billion to provide humanitarian relief to people in Gaza, as well as other war-torn regions (the final decision on allocation was up to the White House, with analysts expecting roughly $2 billion would go to Gaza).
The long-stalled assistance would supply roughly $26 billion for Israel, $61 billion for Ukraine and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific. A fourth bill being voted on Saturday includes measures to ban TikTok, sanction Iran and seize Russian assets to help fund Ukraine.
The White House said it „strongly supports“ the legislation, which is expected to pass with bipartisan backing from Democrats and Republicans.
(17.02.2024)
A bill put forward by House Republicans in the US Congress would give Israel $26.38 billion in military aid, according to a text released by the House Appropriations Committee.
Congress had been up against a Friday deadline after authority for Section 702 was extended through that date as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
After its midnight deadline, the Senate voted early Saturday to reauthorize a key U.S. surveillance law after divisions over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans’ data nearly forced the statute to lapse.
The legislation approved 60-34 with bipartisan support would extend for two years the program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
(today)
On Tuesday, Republican leaders from four US House of Representatives national security committees and one subcommittee released a statement endorsing Speaker Mike Johnson‘s proposal to advance legislation this week, offering security assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
„Speaker Johnson has produced a plan that will boost US national security interests in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific,“ the leaders of the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Appropriations and Defense Appropriations panels said in a statement.
(02.04.2024)
With the onslaught of new wars, Congress added $70 billion over the last two years to an already bloated Pentagon budget, much of which is funneled directly into the coffers of defense contractors like Palatir, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. The stock values in these companies have since experienced double-digit growth – a lucrative business opportunity not overlooked by lawmakers calling the shots.
At least 25 members of Congress sitting on national security committees have simultaneously purchased stock in these very same companies. The majority of these members sit on the Senate and House Armed Services committees, the entities responsible for overseeing the Defense Department budget and contracts.
(02.11.2023)
Since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, in which more than 1,400 Israelis were killed, shares of Boeing Co, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon Technologies (RTX) have all increased in value, collectively adding roughly $23 billion in market capitalization.
In the weeks preceding the attack, Markwayne Mullin, Kevin Hern, Bill Keating, and Josh Gottheimer purchased shares of those defense companies.
(26.03.2024)
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in 2024, sat down for an interview with Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom about the ongoing military invasion — and warned that the world was growing tired of the conflict.
„You have to finish up your war. You have to finish it up. You’ve got to get it done,“ he told the newspaper.
He continued, „We’ve got to get to peace. You can’t have this going on, and I will say Israel has to be very careful because you are losing a lot of the world. You are losing a lot of support.“
The Republican presidential primary is over. Nikki Haley, the last remaining challenger to Donald Trump, plans to leave the race today, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and other outlets, clearing the way for the former president to claim the GOP nomination.
(31.01.2024)
Donald Trump called Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the “most radical left person running for office” in a late-night Truth Social post.
As noted on the Archives website: “The House of Representatives elects the President from the three (3) Presidential candidates who received the most electoral votes …”
Now, we come back to that magic number: 34.
If Kennedy were to get 34 percent of the vote, there would be a great deal of pressure on the House of Representatives to “do the right thing.”
“Impossible” yet again?
I give you Donald J. Trump being elected our 45th president in 2016 as evidence as to why such a scenario is entirely possible.
Gallup reports that in 2023 the percentage of US voters who self-identified as independent tied a record-high average of 43% — first set in 2014. Meanwhile, party identification continues to slip.
Read below for the 2024 primary election results, today‘s races, recent primary races, 2024 primary news and the 2024 primary schedule with Fox News
Biden leads Trump, by 15 points, in one of three attributes tested in the survey — being honest and trustworthy. Forty-one percent say this describes Biden, vs. 26% who say it applies to Trump. That‘s down from a high of 38% for Trump, last reached in April 2017, three months into his presidency, and it‘s a point from his low on honesty and trustworthiness.
Trump comes back, though, with advantages in two other areas. Forty-seven percent say he has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president, compared with 28% who say this of Biden.
(Updated 6:39 AM UTC, January 4, 2024)
Two bombs exploded and killed at least 84 people at a commemoration for a prominent Iranian general slain by the U.S. in a 2020 drone strike, Iranian officials said, as the Middle East remains on edge over Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for what appeared to be the deadliest militant attack to target Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, said that during his 13 years on the committee, he’d pressed multiple FBI directors about civil liberties violations associated with the surveillance program and had repeatedly been given false reassurances about the reforms being put in place.
“Every darn one of them has told me the same thing: ‘Don’t worry about it, we’ve got this taken care of, we’ve got new procedures, it’s going to be different now,’” Lee said. “It’s never different. You haven’t changed.”
(05.12.2023)
FBI Director Christopher Wray at a Tuesday hearing gave an impassioned pitch for Congress to reauthorize warrantless surveillance powers for the intelligence community without the need to secure a court’s blessing to review information on Americans swept up in the process.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is set to expire at the end of the year unless it is reauthorized by Congress, threatening to topple a program that allows the U.S. government to monitor the communications of foreign nationals located abroad.
(December 6, 2023)
The FBI director is pushing senators on reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire at the end of this year. The law enables the US government to obtain intelligence by targeting non-Americans overseas who are using US-based communications services.
(November 7, 2023)
The terror group’s three top leaders alone are worth a staggering total of $11 billion and enjoy a life of luxury in the sanctuary of the emirate of Qatar.
The emirate has long welcomed the leaders of the terror group and installed them in its luxury hotels and villas at the same time as it hosts a vast American military presence.
Now US Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) is sponsoring a bill that would strip Qatar of its status as a key US ally, The Post has learned, unless it kicks out the Hamas leadership.
„The first bill I‘m going to bring to this floor in a little while will be in support of our dear friend Israel and we are overdue in getting that done,“ Johnson said as he accepted the speakership.
A lower-ranked member of the House GOP leadership team, Johnson emerged as the fourth Republican nominee in what had become an almost absurd cycle of political infighting since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as GOP factions jockeyed for power. While not the party’s top choice for the gavel, the deeply religious and even-keeled Johnson has few foes and an important GOP backer: Donald Trump.
If Congress approves Mr. Biden’s combined approach, Ukraine would receive $61.4 billion for military and economic assistance, while Israel would get about $14.3 billion to bolster its air and missile defenses, including the Iron Dome system, which has protected the country from incoming Hamas rockets.
The request also includes more than $9 billion for humanitarian assistance in Israel, Gaza and Ukraine and $7.4 billion for security to support Taiwan and other allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Scalise won a closed-door secret ballot vote to be the House GOP’s new candidate for speaker on Wednesday afternoon. However, it quickly became clear that he did not have the 217 votes needed to win a House-wide vote.
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid for speaker of the House Friday.
In a post on Truth Social shortly after midnight, Trump said Jordan “will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
Jordan told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday evening that several colleagues have approached him about the speakership. He said he’ll talk to the House Republican Conference about the job over the next week.
“I think it’s a conference decision,” Jordan said.
JIM JORDAN
Representative Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and an ally of former President Donald Trump, was nominated by some Republican rebels to be the speaker during the election to the seat in January. He received 20 votes during one round of voting. (…)
Representative Patrick McHenry was named to step in as speaker pro tempore following McCarthy‘s ouster. Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, McHenry is a McCarthy ally who spoke in support of McCarthy prior to the vote.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was evicted from her private Capitol office by the new speaker pro-tempore.
Fox News Digital confirmed that House Speaker pro-tempore Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., gave the order to Pelosi to vacate her Capitol hideaway by Wednesday.
Next steps are highly uncertain with no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority. Action is halted in the House until next week, when Republicans try to elect a new speaker.
The mutiny, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), came days after McCarthy averted a government shutdown by putting a stopgap measure on the floor that garnered Democratic support — a move that infuriated hardline Republicans. In the final 216-210 vote, seven Republicans joined Gaetz to unseat McCarthy.
Every Democrat in the chamber also voted to boot McCarthy, refusing to help protect him from his unruly conference. McCarthy said he would give Democrats nothing if they were to vote to help him.
Das US-Repräsentantenhaus hat in einer historisch einmaligen Abstimmung seinen Vorsitzenden Kevin McCarthy abgesetzt. Nach einer Rebellion in den Reihen der Republikaner votierte am Dienstag eine knappe Mehrheit in der Kongresskammer dafür, McCarthy von seinem Posten zu entfernen.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) expressed hesitancy about whether and when it was worth it to pass a funding measure at this point in time. “Why are we talking about Ukraine supplemental when we can’t figure out how to fund our own operation of government to do what it‘s supposed to do?” he asked during a press gaggle on Monday morning.
“I want to see what claim there is for actual success in Ukraine,“ he added. „And I want to know how every dollar that $113 billion is going to be spent. Come present that to me as a member of Congress, and then talk to me about” what future funding should look like.
Scheduling this trial is particularly complicated since Trump is a defendant in three other criminal cases. In New York — where Trump faces state charges related to repayment of hush money given to an adult-film star during the 2016 presidential campaign — a judge also set the trial date for March 2024.
Trump’s federal trial in Florida is set to begin in May 2024.
That means that Trump could become the presumptive GOP nominee in the 2024 presidential election at the same time as his lawyers are in court for his trial for seeking to steal the last election. Neither political scientists nor legal scholars have really anticipated such a scenario, so no technical term exists to describe it, but I can suggest one: a huge mess.
(17.08.2023)
The report came a week after two Democratic lawmakers told The Times of Israel that they were “dumbfounded” by US President Joe Biden’s decision to pursue the normalization agreement in addition to potentially accepting Israel into the US Visa Waiver Program, in what will shore up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government at a time when they believe it is egregiously undermining the administration’s interests with its judicial overhaul and antagonizing policies toward the Palestinians.
“So our commitments have, I think, $38 billion in aid, military support, etc. going in through 2028,” he noted, referring to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two countries in 2016 pledging Israel $3.8 billion a year from 2019 through 2028. “I want to get Israel to the place where it is negotiated back into the infrastructure of the rest of the Middle East. We should not be worried about holding one nation or one region hostage over one particular question relating to Palestine,” he said.
(August 11, 2023)
“I’ve been vocal that I think that what Kushner did crossed the line of ethics,” Comer said on CNN when asked to respond to Christie’s claim. “What Christie said — it happened after he left office. Still no excuse, Jake, but it happened after he left office.
(August 9, 2023)
This month, as House and Senate conferees begin to iron out differences between the two chambers on a nearly $900 billion Pentagon spending bill for next fiscal year, both the House and Senate armed services committees want to place a new generation of nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles (known as SLCM-Ns) back on Navy vessels. That would be a mistake.
(March 19, 2023)
In general, the Saudis wish to present themselves as Iran’s equals, and if Iran can enrich uranium, say the Saudis, then so can we. In addition, the Saudis want to keep all their nuclear options open, even if they are not intending to work on the development of nuclear weapons immediately.
Recently, top Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, after stops in Riyadh and Jerusalem and voicing strong support for Saudi-Israel normalization, said that he would support the Biden administration plan to meet Saudi prerequisites, culminating in Saudi Arabia formally acknowledging Israel.
Beyond a defense pact, the Saudis also have raised requests with the US for civilian nuclear capabilities, advanced weaponry, and beyond. Israeli agreement would be crucial for these components. Historically, Israel has been wary, particularly regarding the nuclear aspect
Among its most vocal proponents on Capitol Hill is Senator Bernie Sanders, who has recently even submitted an amendment pertaining to this issue. Its chances of being passed are virtually non-existent, but Israel’s embassy in Washington and the pro-Israel lobby will tensely follow it to see whether support for this idea is growing and reaching other parts of the Democratic Party.
One of the first to release a statement was former CIA spy and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a long-shot for the nomination and a very vocal GOP Trump critic.
„Let me be crystal clear: Trump‘s presidential bid is driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills. Furthermore, his denial of the 2020 election results and actions on Jan. 6 show he‘s unfit for office,“ Hurd wrote.
(Jul 12, 2023)
Republican members of Congress and presidential contenders are amplifying their criticism of U.S. President Joe Biden‘s Israel policy, largely centered around Biden‘s decision to stop transferring funds to research institutes or scientific and technological projects in the West Bank.
This is despite the fact that Biden stopped short of reversing the majority of Donald Trump‘s doctrine on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The news comes as Republicans have used Hunter Biden to attack President Biden over the course of his administration. Hunter Biden has been under investigation for tax matters going back to 2018. The development is also sure to shake up the presidential race, putting the president on defense from Republican attacks on the matter.
The 2024 Republican presidential primary contenders were quick to respond to the news, with many of them claiming that the plea deal was evidence of a double-standard.