RUTHFULLY YOURS

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years.

Since 1999, Republican and Democratic secretaries of state have nearly always hosted either an iftar dinner to break the day’s fast during Ramadan or a reception marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the month, at the State Department.

Tillerson turned down a request from the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host an Eid al-Fitr reception as part of Ramadan celebrations, said two U.S. officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

According to an April 6 memo seen by Reuters, the office – which typically initiates such events – recommended that Tillerson hold an Eid al-Fitr reception.

His rejection of the request suggests there are no plans this year for any high-profile Ramadan function at the State Department. The month of fasting and prayer for Muslims gets under way in many countries on Saturday.

When asked by Reuters to comment on Tillerson declining a request to host an Eid al-Fitr event in July for Ramadan, a State Department spokesperson said:

“We are still exploring possible options for observance of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the month of Ramadan. U.S. ambassadors are encouraged to celebrate Ramadan through a variety of activities, which are held annually at missions around the world.”

Muslim activists have accused President Donald Trump’s administration of having an unfriendly attitude toward Islam, encapsulated by its attempts to ban citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

The administration says that while it strongly opposes Islamist militants, it has no quarrel with Islam. Aides point to Trump’s visit this month to Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam where he addressed the leaders of more than 50 Muslim countries, as evidence of that.

Members of Congress, Muslim civil society and community leaders, diplomats from Muslim countries and senior U.S. officials usually attend the State Department Ramadan event, a symbol of the U.S. government’s diplomatic efforts with Muslim countries and people.

If Tillerson avoids hosting one this year, that could send a message “that it is not as important to this administration to engage with Muslims,” said former U.S. diplomat Farah Pandith, who served in the Bush and Obama administrations and helped plan Ramadan events at the White House and State Department.

New revelations have surfaced that the Obama administration abused intelligence during the election by launching a massive domestic-spy campaign that included snooping on Trump officials.

The irony is mind-boggling: Targeting political opposition is long a technique of police states like Russia, which Team Obama has loudly condemned for allegedly using its own intelligence agencies to hack into our election.

The revelations, as well as testimony this week from former Obama intel officials, show the extent to which the Obama administration politicized and weaponized intelligence against Americans.

Thanks to Circa News, we now know the National Security Agency under President Barack Obama routinely violated privacy protections while snooping through foreign intercepts involving US citizens — and failed to disclose the breaches, prompting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court a month before the election to rebuke administration officials.

The story concerns what’s known as “upstream” data collection under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which the NSA looks at the content of electronic communication. Upstream refers to intel scooped up about third parties: Person A sends Person B an e-mail mentioning Person C. Though Person C isn’t a party to the e-mail, his information will be scooped up and potentially used by the NSA.

Further, the number of NSA data searches about Americans mushroomed after Obama loosened rules for protecting such identities from government officials and thus the reporters they talk to.

The FISA court called it a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue” that NSA analysts — in violation of a 2011 rule change prohibiting officials from searching Americans’ information without a warrant — “had been conducting such queries in violation of that prohibition, with much greater frequency than had been previously disclosed to the Court.”

A number of those searches were made from the White House, and included private citizens working for the Trump campaign, some of whose identities were leaked to the media. The revelations earned a stern rebuke from the ACLU and from civil-liberties champion Sen. Rand Paul.

We also learned this week that Obama intelligence officials really had no good reason attaching a summary of a dossier on Trump to a highly classified Russia briefing they gave to Obama just weeks before Trump took office.

President Trump and First Lady Melania have been tirelessly traveling for almost an entire week and are nearing the end of their first overseas presidential trip. The couple just landed in Belgium and the president will soon be attending the G7 Summit back in Italy on Friday and Saturday. However, with as busy as he’s been for days, he recently dropped everything and quietly slipped out of sight for a few hours and now we know the unbelievable reason why.

There’s been no shortage of media coverage as the Trumps travel the globe this week. Liberal news outlets wait with baited breath for the first sign of slip up on the president’s first overseas trip and will find anything to judge him for. Despite having cameras following the couple practically around the clock, there’s one outing in Israel that media “conveniently” missed and it’s clear as to why they chose not to cover it.

Practically every second of the president’s 27-hours in Israel was packed and planned out, but he still made time to fulfill a wish of a 14-year-old who heard he was coming to her country. As eager as she was to see him, Trump was reportedly eager to meet this special little girl.

The Yeshiva World reports:

“During his recent visit to Israel, President Donald Trump made a 14-year old girl’s dream come true. Emilee Imbar has been battling cancer for the last seven years, and has dreamed of meeting with the U.S. President.”

“Rachashei Lev is Israel’s national support center for pediatric cancer patients, and among their hundreds of invaluable services, they have helped thousands of pediatric cancer patients to achieve their dreams.”

Emilee’s dream was to meet the President of the United States and she got that wish fulfilled by our incredibly personable leader. Trump truly loves kids as much as the First Lady, who seems to have had a compassionate effect on him. Perhaps not surprising, was that the entire media ignored this incredible story and act of love from our president since it’s counter to their narrative.

You can bet that if Barack Obama had done something as thoughtful as this, there would have been a media entourage in tow. On the contrary, liberals accused Melania of only being interested in the “photo op” at her frequent and lengthy hospital visits, which is far from the truth with the genuine love and concern for kids this couple continually exudes.