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August 2019

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Gabbard Calls Harris’s Flailing Response to Attacks ‘Pathetic’ By Stephen Kruiser

By on August 1st, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/gabbard-calls-harriss-flailing-response-to-attacks-pathetic/

By almost every measure, and in every wrap-up, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) had a rough second debate. One of the biggest thorns in her side was Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who stayed focused on kicking Harris while she was down the day after the debate.

As I mentioned in my wrap-up of the debate last night, the whole thing was set up for Harris to have a huge, breakout performance. Instead, her voice was shaky and she was on the defensive all night, even though the majority of the attacks were aimed at former Vice President Joe Biden (D-Del.).

For most of the evening, Harris came off as a snooty, popular high school girl who had never been criticized to her face before.

Combat veteran Gabbard went straight for Harris’s greatest weaknesses: her record as San Francisco’s district attorney and then as California’s attorney general, both of which have been attacked by progressives.

The best Harris has been able to come up with to defend herself thus far is to note that she is polling better than Gabbard. That is obviously true but, as a GOP strategist told the Washington Post, it shows “that when cornered, she doesn’t perform very well.”

Seizing what may be her only moment in the primary spotlight, Gabbard was far less charitable.

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The Big Loser Was Barack Obama The former president so closely tied to front runner Joe Biden saw much of his legacy thrown under the bus. By David Marcus

By on August 1st, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/01/the-big-loser-in-last-nights-debate-was-barack-obama/

The biggest loser in the Democratic presidential primary debate was not on the stage. It was former president Barack Obama. Throughout the night, as rivals challenged Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president and current frontrunner, it took the form of blistering attacks on the Obama administration over immigration, criminal justice, and even his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

Part of this is simply the inevitable consequence of Biden, with a big lead in the polls, being everyone’s most natural target. While it’s true he has decades of political life to take aim at, his last significant political position was serving as Obama’s number two for eight years. Conceding that he and his boss did a bang-up job in the White House goes a long way towards conceding this current race to him. But last night we saw that won’t happen without a fight.

The issue is actually far deeper than electoral calculations. In the just more than a decade since Obama first sat in the Oval Office, the Democratic Party has careened to the left like a sports car with a blown tire making a pass on the Autobahn. Last night’s debates saw defenses of socialism, calls to essentially open the borders, free money for everyone, and plans for government-controlled health care with a price tag longer than a CVS receipt.

On immigration, Biden was slammed by both Cory Booker and Bill de Blasio over Obama’s extremely high number of deportations and Biden’s argument that the United States should be selective about who it lets into the country. Biden struggled to defend the so called “deporter in chief,” arguing basically that Obama made a good start with the now defunct DREAM Act allowing younger people brought here illegally a path to citizenship, but beyond that was stymied by GOP control of the House.

On criminal justice reform, it was also Booker trying to take aim at the former vice president, who argued that since 2007, which includes his entire term as vice president, he had work to eliminate discrepancies in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine, among other things.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Baltimore’s Homicide Rate Is So High, Residents Could Claim U.S. Asylum If They Weren’t Americans By Ellie Bufkin

By on August 1st, 2019

People have long misunderstood and misrepresented Baltimore, my cherished hometown, but much of what President Donald Trump said this past weekend about Charm City was right on the nose. The president categorized Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” which sparked ire among his always-vocal choir of critics but offered no untrue information.

The president was responding to longtime Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, whose district includes Baltimore, who had issued an incendiary attack on acting Department of Homeland Security head Kevin McAleenan for conditions on the U.S. southern border. Cummings yelled at McAleenan during a House Oversight hearing, claiming he possessed an “empathy deficit” about migrant families at the border.

An Unfiltered Look

Disparaging remarks about Baltimore are not new. Politicians, celebrities, and even residents of the city have easily mocked the soaring crime rate, rodent infestation, and never-ending parade of local government scandals. The three most recently departed mayors have left in disgrace. One was convicted of fraud that involved stealing gift cards from needy families, and another is under active investigation for embezzling government funds.

A local Baltimore Fox affiliate even attempted to shine a light on their own problem in 2018 using an “unfiltered” look at the city with recently ousted Mayor Catherine Pugh. “Whoa, you can smell the rats,” Pugh said during the program as a camera crew followed her around the streets of the decaying city.

Trump critics, of course, called him a “racist” for shifting the spotlight from the southern border to the troubled, predominantly black city only 40 miles away from the nation’s capital.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Report: DOJ IG Referred James Comey For Criminal Prosecution For Leaking Classified Information By Madeline Osburn

By on August 1st, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/01/doj-ig-referred-james-comey-criminal-prosecution-leaking-classified-information/

The Department of Justice’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz is preparing a report recommending a criminal referral for FBI Director James Comey, concluding that he leaked classified memos and showed a lack of candor with investigators, according to a new report from The Hill.

Attorney General William Barr and DOJ prosecutors have reportedly found the IG report compelling but declined to follow through with charges because of a lack certainty surrounding Comey’s intent to break the law.

Investigative journalist John Solomon reported that the DOJ did not want to “make its first case against the Russia investigators with such thin margins and look petty and vindictive.”

The report shows that Comey transmitted classified information via an insecure email account and gave memos, some of which were classified up to the “secret” level, to his private lawyers.

One memo in question includes classified information Comey leaked to a friend, with the intention that it would be leaked to the media. Indeed, the New York Times reported information from the “confidential” memo, which said President Trump asked Comey to drop an investigation into then-national security adviser Michael Flynn.

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James Comey’s next reckoning is imminent — this time for leaking By John Solomon

By on August 1st, 2019

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/455616-james-comeys-next-reckoning-is-imminent-this-time-for-leaking

The Justice Department’s chief watchdog is preparing a damning report on James Comey’s conduct in his final days as FBI director that likely will conclude he leaked classified information and showed a lack of candor after his own agency began looking into his feud with President Trump over the Russia probe.

Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz’s team referred Comey for possible prosecution under the classified information protection laws, but Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors working for Attorney General William Barr reportedly have decided to decline prosecution — a decision that’s likely to upset Comey’s conservative critics.

Prosecutors found the IG’s findings compelling but decided not to bring charges because they did not believe they had enough evidence of Comey’s intent to violate the law, according to multiple sources. 

The concerns stem from the fact that one memo that Comey leaked to a friend specifically to be published by the media — as he admitted in congressional testimony — contained information classified at the lowest level of “confidential,” and that classification was made by the FBI after Comey had transmitted the information, the sources said.

Although a technical violation, the DOJ did not want to “make its first case against the Russia investigators with such thin margins and look petty and vindictive,” a source told me, explaining the DOJ’s rationale.

But Comey and others inside the FBI and the DOJ during his tenure still face legal jeopardy in ongoing probes by the IG and Barr-appointed special prosecutor John Durham. Those investigations are focused on the origins of the Russia investigation that included a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign at the end of the 2016 election, the source said.

“There are significant issues emerging with how the FISA was handled and other conduct in the investigation, and everyone involved remains under scrutiny,” a second source said.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Liz Peek: Second Democratic debate – A Trump supporter’s top takeaways

By on August 1st, 2019

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/liz-peek-democratic-debate-joe-biden-kamala-harris-cnn-trump

“Here’s where all the candidates agree: President Trump poses an existential threat to the soul of the nation, as Biden put it, and must be evicted from the White House in the 2020 election.”

Here’s a word that was not once uttered by any of the 10 Democratic presidential candidates who gathered for the second night of the debates held in Detroit Wednesday: growth.

Not a single person on the stage at the CNN debate discussed how he or she might increase the incomes of Americans or how to create jobs. Instead, inspired by the fleeting success of Sen. Kamala  Harris of California in the first round of debates, they all came armed to take down frontrunner former Vice President Joe Biden.

What a sorry spectacle it was. Poor Biden, tripping over his garbled defense of his 1994 crime bill support, his vote in favor of the Iraq war, his op-ed opposing tax breaks for childcare, and so much more. Biden was attacked by nearly every rival, each one hoping that the next day’s headlines would show that he or she had successfully skewered the former vice president.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio – polling at less than 1 percent – clearly hoped that going after Biden was his ticket to the next round of debates in September (it won’t be). De Blasio attacked Biden for the former vice president’s prior enthusiasm for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill and for the large number of deportations of illegal immigrants carried out by the Obama administration.

Harris followed up on her earlier confrontations with Biden by challenging him on his past support of the Hyde Amendment, which outlawed the use of federal funds for most abortions.

But at the end of the debate, de Blasio smugly assured Biden that “we believe in redemption,” as if he had the authority or stature to judge Obama’s veep, or Harris’s demand to know why it took Biden so long to change his opinion on Hyde.

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ISRAEL, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Jennifer Lopez accused of ignoring ‘the suffering of Palestinians’ by performing in Tel Aviv Erin Donnelly

By on August 1st, 2019

According to the Jewish Journal, activists from the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement have urged Lopez to cancel the Tel Aviv show, sending the star a letter on July 5. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, her manager, Benny Medina, insisted that the show would go on.“There was nothing that was gonna stop us from being in Israel,” he said. “It’s really simple: Tel Aviv and Israel deserve Jennifer Lopez, and Jennifer Lopez deserves Israel.”

Just days after celebrating her 50th birthday, Jennifer Lopez has more festivities in store: the international leg of her “It’s My Party” tour.

The singer will kick off her 6-city tour in Tel Aviv, Israel on Thursday before moving on to venues in Russia, Spain, Turkey and Egypt. But while Lopez got plenty of love — particularly from her Israeli fans, who posted their flag emojis — when she hyped up the Tel Aviv show, some have accused her of playing favorites in Middle Eastern politics.

“Everybody knows it’s occupied Palestine,” a commenter scolded Lopez. “Big chunk of the people in the comments should really learn history, this is embarrassing.”

That remark — which references Tel Aviv’s designation as part of the British-administered Mandatory Palestine until 1948, the same year Israel became independent following civil war between Jewish and Arab settlements — kicked off a fierce debate in the comments, with many Israelis taking offense.

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Reasons Why Peaceful Resolutions for the Arab-Israeli Conflict Always Fail by Tawfik Hamid

By on August 1st, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14634/arab-israeli-conflict-reasons

The cause of the problem is NOT the land. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, several Arab nations were created by fiat. The Arab world accepted this without any problem, as these were Muslim-majority countries. Rejecting the state of Israel was related to the fact that it is a Jewish rather than a Muslim country.

In this manner, despite the clear discrimination against non-Muslim minorities in most of the Arab and Muslim world (denying equal rights in church construction, for example), many in the Arab world point the finger only at Israel when they talk about discrimination.

The European Union is currently funding a study into Palestinians textbooks, brought about by the findings of the non-governmental organization IMPACT-se, which found in May that “the new Palestinian school [material] for the 2018–19 academic year… was ‘more radical than those previously published.'” … Meanwhile, no one is being educated for peace.

When we add onto all that the sad reality that Palestinian politicians are using the conflict to get billions of dollars in donations, we can understand why this conflict has so far not been solved.

We must salute Jared Kushner’s attempt to bring a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That said, the Palestinians’ unsurprising rejection of the peace offer requires some scrutiny, especially the true causes of the perennial failure to achieve lasting peace.

Without understanding them, every attempt to solve this conflict, every attempt to make true peace in the Middle East, will always fail.

As an insider with a background as both a Muslim and an Arab, please allow me share with you some insight into the problem.

1. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not about borders. It is about the existence of the state of Israel.

In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan — Resolution 181 — gave the Palestinians and Arabs control over most of the Holy Land. The rejection of the plan by the Arab nations, and their declaration of war against Israel rather than their acceptance of peace, was the first clear indication that the Arabs’ desire was never to provide a state for the Palestinian people, but rather has been from the beginning to erase Israel from the map. This destructive intent is memorialized in the Hamas Charter, which unashamedly asks for the eradication of the State of Israel. This intent is also aligned with the Iranian leaders’ continuous entreaties to destroy Israel. An evaluation of relevant social media commentary in the Arab world demonstrates a genuine desire by many — if not most — of the Arab population to see the destruction of Israel and the killing not just of all Israeli Jews but of all Jews:

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HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Middle Eastern Terrorism Coming to the US through Its Mexican Border by Raymond Ibrahim

By on August 1st, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14632/terrorism-mexico-border

In May, Abu Henricki, a Canadian citizen of Trinidadian origin, told researchers with the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism that ISIS sought to recruit him and others to penetrate the US-Mexican border through routes originating in various Central American locations…. Other Trinidadians, he said, were also being approached to “do the same thing.”

The idea that Islamic terror groups are operating in Mexico and eyeing—and exploiting—the porous US-Mexico border is not a hypothetical; unfortunately, it appears to be a fact. At least 15—though likely many more—suspected terrorists have already been apprehended crossing the border since 2001. One suspected terrorist who crossed the border, an ISIS supporter, already launched a terrorist attack in Canada that nearly killed five people.

The only question left is how much more evidence, and how many more attacks—and with what greater severity—are needed before this problem is addressed?

A captured Islamic State fighter recently related how, in an effort to terrorize America on its own soil, the Islamic terror group is committed to exploiting the porous US-Mexico border, including through the aid of ISIS-sympathizers living in the United States.

“Whatever one thinks of President Donald Trump’s heightened rhetoric about the US-Mexico border and his many claims that it is vulnerable to terrorists, ISIS apparently also thought so,” according to the Government Technology and Services Coalition.

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2020 Dems Attack Biden for Deportations Under Obama: ‘You Can’t Have it Both Ways’ By Mairead McArdle

By on August 1st, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/democratic-debate-candidates-attack-joe-biden-deportations-obama-administration/

Democratic presidential candidates had stern words for frontrunner Joe Biden during Wednesday night’s primary debate, calling on the former vice president to explain the deportations of undocumented immigrants that occurred under President Obama.

“If you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. It’s a crime,” Biden said, disagreeing with several other candidates who said the matter should be a civil rather than a criminal issue.

President Obama, who was nicknamed the “deporter-in-chief” in 2012 by immigration rights advocates, deported or removed over 5 million undocumented immigrants, fewer than the Clinton and Bush administrations did but more than the Trump administration has.

Julian Castro, who also served in the Obama administration as Housing and Urban Development Secretary, shot back at Biden that, “open borders is a right-wing talking point, and frankly I’m disappointed that some folks, including some folks on the stage, have taken the bait.”

“It looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn’t,” Castro told Biden. “We need someone who actually has guts on this issue.”

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