Tucker Carlson reveals that Bank of America was flagging the purchasing history of its customers and sending it to the federal government in order to find out if they were involved in the Capitol riot.
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 5, 2021
The feds later interrogated a customer who was cleared of wrongdoing. pic.twitter.com/QtwNv8EaWQ
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| Yiddish theater members, from right, Jacob Adler, Zigmund Feinman, Zigmund Mogulesko, Rudolf Marx, Mr. Krastoshinsky and David Kessler in 1888. |
Former President Trump’s impeachment defense team intends to argue that his infamous Jan. 6 speech, in which he exhorted his followers to “fight like hell” and march “to the Capitol,” was permitted by his First Amendment rights to free speech. Political opponents are already calling reference to the well-known Supreme Court decision (Schenck v. United States, 1919) that limits free speech to exclude harmful expressions — such as, most famously, falsely yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater.
Democrats like Pelosi and Schumer have encouraged incitement as well.
The phrase is not theoretical: It was drawn from a tragedy that occurred on a cold night in January 1887 at the Hebrew Dramatic Club of London and took the lives of 17 people.
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Under normal circumstances, Sol Werdiger, founder and CEO of Outerstuff — the popular youth sports apparel manufacturer — is a gregarious presence on Super Bowl weekends. He has attended every championship game of the National Football League for more than two decades — and he has always used the occasion to connect with local Jewish community members who can look forward to a festive Shabbat meal as much as the rowdy big game on Sunday.
“We try to take advantage of it and turn it into a full Shabbat experience,” Werdiger, the chairman of Agudath Israel’s board of trustees, said in an interview with Jewish Insider on Thursday. “We’re a frum family and we’re in the sports business — and we’ve been going to the Super Bowl now for almost 25 years.”
But as Werdiger headed down to Tampa on Friday for what will be the 55th Super Bowl — a highly anticipated matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — he has no plans for any such revelry due to the pandemic. “This year we’re not going to make our own minyan,” he said. “I’m going to walk to the local Chabad.”
“Instead of having a full kosher catered event at the arena itself, I’m sure we’ll be eating in our hotel rooms before we go and when we get back,” Werdiger added, noting that his sons and some grandchildren will be flying in only for the game. His wife, who normally tags along to help, is staying home. “Most of the people that I normally go with are not going,” Werdiger said. “It’s going to be a little bit different this year.”
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Asked in an interview with CBS News what he feared if Trump continued to receive the briefings, Biden said he did not want to “speculate out loud” but made clear he did not want Trump to continue getting them.
“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Biden said. “What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this week that the issue of granting Trump intelligence briefings was “something that is under review.”
Some Democratic lawmakers, and even some former Trump administration officials, have questioned the wisdom of allowing Trump to continue to be briefed.
Susan Gordon, who served as the principal deputy director of national intelligence during the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019, in a Washington Post op-ed last month urged Biden to cut off Trump.
“His post-White House ‘security profile,’ as the professionals like to call it, is daunting,” Gordon wrote days after a pro-Trump mob laid siege to the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers sought to certify his defeat in last November’s election. “Any former president is by definition a target and presents some risks. But a former president Trump, even before the events of last week, might be unusually vulnerable to bad actors with ill intent.”
Whether to give a past president intelligence briefings is solely the current officeholder’s prerogative. Biden voiced his opposition to giving Trump access to briefings as the former president’s second impeachment trial is set to begin next week.
Biden, however, said Friday that his hesitance to allow Trump access to the briefing was due to the former president’s “erratic behavior unrelated to the insurrection.”
Gordon also raised concerns about Trump’s business entanglements. The real estate tycoon saw his business founder during his four years in Washington and is weighed down by significant debt, reportedly about $400 million. Trump during the campaign called his debt load a “peanut” and said he did not owe any money to Russia.
“Trump has significant business entanglements that involve foreign entities,” Gordon wrote. “Many of these current business relationships are in parts of the world that are vulnerable to intelligence services from other nation-states.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also urged Biden to cut off briefings for Trump.
“There’s no circumstance in which this president should get another intelligence briefing,” Schiff said shortly before Trump ended his term last month. “I don’t think he can be trusted with it now, and in the future.”
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THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
Fox News has canceled the show of Lou Dobbs, a right-wing presenter with a history of airing baseless conspiracy theories and one of the most ardent supporters of former president Donald Trump among US broadcasters.
The decision on Friday came a day after Fox News and Dobbs were sued for defamation by voting technology firm Smartmatic, which is claiming $2.7 billion in losses from the network for promoting false claims that the company was involved in fraud in November’s presidential election.
“As we said in October, Fox News Media regularly considers programming changes and plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate post-election, including on Fox Business,” a Fox News spokesperson told AFP.
The cancellation of Lou Dobbs Tonight “is part of those planned changes,” the spokesperson said. “A new 5pm program will be announced in the near future.”
Dobbs’ show had the highest viewership on Fox News’ affiliate channel, averaging more than 300,000 viewers every night.
After the presidential election won by Joe Biden, the presenter tirelessly relayed the accusations of massive election fraud made by the Trump camp, including claims of “corruption” and “irregularities” without any supporting evidence.
He notably invited lawyer Sidney Powell to guest on his show, a member of Donald Trump’s legal team who has falsely claimed that voting machines had flipped votes for Trump to Biden.
The right-wing presenter was also an early backer of the “birther” conspiracy theory that claimed former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States, making him ineligible for the job.
The 75-year-old had been presenting for almost four decades, including 10 years on the Lou Dobbs Tonight show.
“Lou Dobbs is and was great,” said former president Trump in a statement.
“Nobody loves America more than Lou. He had a large and loyal following that will be watching closely for his next move, and that following includes me,” he said.
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The Russian military began searches in a cemetery near a Palestinian refugee camp outside Damascus, in attempts to locate remains of two Israeli soldiers missing since 1982, Syrian media reported this week.
Tzvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz went missing in the 1982 First Lebanon War’s battle of Sultan Yacoub, along with Zachary Baumel, whose remains were recovered and returned to Israel in 2019.
The Yarmouk refugee camp, home to one of the largest Palestinian refugee communities in Syria and the site of the remains of Baumel, was once again being searched for remains by the Russian military, the Syrian Capital Voice site reported Thursday. The unverified report said the search would include DNA testing.
The cemetery area was designated a closed military zone as Russian forces conducted the search operations, the report stated.
Reports of the activity were picked up on Saturday by Hebrew media, which speculated that if the remains of Feldman and Katz are located, they would be returned to Israel, by virtue of Russia’s relationship with the Jewish state.
The battle of Sultan Yacoub, 39 years ago, was a skirmish between the IDF and Syrian army in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. It claimed the lives of 21 Israeli servicemen, and more than 30 were injured during it.
While Feldman and Katz were generally believed to have been killed in the battle, there has also been speculation and reports that they were captured by the Syrian military in Sultan Yacoub and brought to Damascus.
In 2019, Baumel’s body was returned together with the remains of at least 10 other unidentified people after a complex IDF intelligence operation and with Russian assistance. Medical examiners at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute concluded that none of them were Feldman or Katz. Baumel was laid to rest in Jerusalem.
In 2016, an Israeli tank lost in the battle was returned to Israel by Russia.
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Recently, the Anti-Defamation League came out with a strong statement in regards to the “Otzma Yehudit” political party that is participating in the upcoming elections in Israel. These are the words of their statement:
"We're disturbed by reports that efforts have been made to assist radical parties to make it into the Knesset. Helping them become part of the mainstream in Israel sets a dangerous precedent that may allow racism to become an everyday aspect of in the Knesset and Israeli society as a whole."
While I regret that they are disturbed by a political party in a sovereign state exercising their democratic rights in running for political office, I am curious to understand the logical underpinnings of their argument. Lets consider where they are coming from.
Perhaps the ADL believes that democracy needs to be limited. If a country is a pure democracy, any individual or party, regardless of their political views should be allowed to run for office. In a pure democracy, majority rules regardless of how cruel, primitive, racist or anti-democratic that majority is. A democratic system has allowed for both a Hitler and Hamas to come to power. Given that is the case, its doubtful that the ADL would support a pure democracy. My guess is that they are in favor of a limited form of democracy.
Perhaps they believe that in an ideal form of limited democracy, any citizen or group can run for public office, but only on the condition that this group or individual does not embrace hateful or threatening views. If that is the case, would the ADL encourage disqualifying members of “The Squad” from running for public office because of their widely known racist, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish views?
I have not heard any calls from the ADL to disqualify members of “the squad” from Congress or preventing them from running. While the ADL can be commended for calling out squad member Ilhan Omar as anti-Semitic in the past, there was never any discussion of barring her or any of her squad members from Congress- in contrast to their recent statement against Otzma Yehudit.
Furthermore, only a few weeks ago an openly anti-Semitic Pastor from Georgia was elected to the Senate. Given the ADL’s strong stance against racist politicians and political parties, I was curious to see how the ADL responded to Raphael Warnocks campaign for Senate. I assumed that they would condemn or at least bring to light some of the horrific anti-Semitic and anti-Israel tropes that this Senator had made as recently as last year (in which he compared Israel to Nazi’s and accused the Jewish state of apartheid.)
When I googled the ADL and Raphael Warnock, the only public statement I found from the ADL in regards to this anti-Semite was actually a letter of apology from the ADL to the pastor in 2015 for an incident in which confederate flags were placed in front of his church. No condemnation of the Pastor’s anti-Semitic statements- only an apology to the anti-Semite for the hurtful actions taken by anonymous vandals against him.
If the ADL’s choice of interfering in politics is purely reserved for the extreme cases in which a candidate or party is known for racist views, they do not seem to be upholding their policy consistently and across political party lines. It sounds like the ADL believes that in a proper limited democracy, any citizen has the right to run for public office- with one caveat- that their political views align with those of the Anti-Defamation League.
As a non profit organization, the ADL should stick to the spirit of the law and refrain from participating in politics through opposition to individual politicians and political parties, at least until they can formulate a way to do so in a way that demonstrates that their condemnation of racism is unequivocal and not tainted by political ideology.
Avraham Shusteris is an accountant in Ramat Beit Shemesh. He made aliyah from Monsey with his family in 2018.
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Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday responded to the International Criminal Court's (ICC) decision to investigate Israel for alleged "war crimes."
In a statement, Netanyahu said: "When the ICC investigates Israel for fake war crimes – this is pure anti-Semitism. The court established to prevent atrocities like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people is now targeting the one state of the Jewish people."
"First, the ICC outrageously claims that when Jews live in our homeland, this is a war crime. Second, it claims that when democratic Israel defends itself against terrorists who murder our children and rocket our cities - we are committing another war crime.
"Yet the ICC refuses to investigate brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria, who commit horrific atrocities almost daily.
"As Prime Minister of Israel, I can assure you this: We will fight this perversion of justice with all our might!" he concluded.
The US on Friday expressed concern over the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) ruling that it that it has jurisdiction over Judea, Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem, paving the way for a war crimes probe against Israel.
“We are reviewing the ICC decision on Palestine and we have concerns about the ICC taking steps against Israeli personnel,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
“We share the goals of the ICC but we always believed its jurisdiction should only apply for countries who agree for it or as a result of a UN Security Council decision,” he added.
Earlier, a three-panel judge at the ICC ruled that Judea, Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem are within the jurisdiction of the court.
In a press release, the ICC said that the judges ruled that "the Court's territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine, a State party to the ICC Rome Statute, extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, announced in late 2019 that she intends to open a full investigation into alleged Israeli “war crimes”, but before opening a full probe, asked the ICC to rule on the territory over which it has jurisdiction because of the "unique and highly contested legal and factual issues attaching to this situation."
She subsequently ruled that “Palestine” is a state and the ICC has jurisdiction involving its cases.
The Trump administration slapped sanctions on ICC officials and had cited both their probe into US military personnel in Afghanistan as well as their efforts investigate Israel.
The Biden administration, however, has already announced plans to “thoroughly review” the sanctions that were imposed on the ICC by Trump.
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President Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are pressing ahead with their strictly partisan, $1.9 trillion “relief” bill — chasing Democrats’ agenda at the nation’s risk.
So far, it’s working: The Senate, with Veep Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote, passed a budget resolution early Friday morning that will allow the Biden bill to pass that chamber with a similar 51-50 majority, no filibuster allowed.
Moderate senators got a few near-meaningless amendments included: one to prevent imposing a nationwide $15 minimum wage as long as the pandemic continues; one expressing displeasure with the president’s killing of the Keystone XL pipeline; a (sigh) non-binding one to prevent $1,400 relief checks going to “upper-income taxpayers.”
But danger signs abound. Most notably, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has been caustically critical of Biden & Co.’s refusal to seek meaningful compromise. Coming from the least Biden-friendly state in the last election, he’s awfully hard to pressure, should he decide to oppose the actual relief bill.
And that measure is sure to include all manner of controversial stuff: That’s why Democrats are trying this gambit, after all.
All of which puts the widely supported parts of Biden’s plan at risk — that is, the roughly $600 billion that has plenty of Republican support. If the president proves to have overplayed his hand, and his bill ends up failing, that genuine relief will be at least delayed.
As important, the new president has signaled that his talk of “unity” simply means that he expects Republicans to bend to his will, which means swallowing the agenda of the hard left of the Democratic Party. Way to unify . . . the GOP, Joe.
Biden had a chance to truly change the tone in Washington. Shame on him for passing on it.
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