Failed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tried to fan the flames of conspiracy Wednesday, tweeting out a warning that senior Trump White House advisor Jared Kushner was part of a team exploring the possibility of moving the November presidential elections, and now the White House is firing back.
Kushner responded to a question <a href="https://time.com/5835342/jared-kushner-time-100-talks-highlights/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=time-100-talks&amp;utm_term=politics_&amp;linkId=88486471">from a TIME Magazine reporter</a> Tuesday, asking whether the White House was exploring the possibility of delaying the November election out of concern over coronavirus. The White House, of course, has largely opposed Democrats&#8217; plans to create an entirely by-mail voting system, forcing Americans to cast their ballots and send them to state election officials, who have never processed millions of ballots at one time.
&#8220;When asked if there was a chance the presidential election could be postponed past November 3 due to the pandemic, Kushner said that isn’t his decision,&#8221; TIME Magazine reported.
“I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other, but right now that’s the plan,” Kushner replied, indicating that the White House had no current plans to ask Congress to move the election.
Although it went unreported, Kushner&#8217;s comments continued, making it clear the White House had no plans to ask for any future shutdowns, let alone of voting systems: “Hopefully by the time we get to September, October, November, we’ve done enough work with testing and with all the different things we’re trying to do to prevent a future outbreak of the magnitude that would make us shut down again.&#8221;
Leftists on social media took Kushner&#8217;s comments as a warning signal that the Trump administration was, in fact, exploring the possibility of delaying elections, and Hillary Clinton, who has been regularly suggesting that President Donald Trump is engaged in a conspiracy to keep the White House, even though there should be a 2020 presidential contest, zeroed in.
“I can’t believe I have to write this sentence, but the president&#8217;s son-in-law doesn&#8217;t get to decide when the election is,” Clinton wrote, linking an article about Kushner&#8217;s response.
Clinton was scalded on Twitter, by no less than Kushner&#8217;s own advisor, Avi Berkowitz, who fired back, &#8220;He literally said: &#8216;It&#8217;s not my decision to make.'&#8221;
Kushner clarified his own answer in a statement issued Tuesday night, even before Clinton&#8217;s tweet: “I have not been involved in, nor am I aware of, any discussions about trying to change the date of the presidential election.&#8221;
The White House, of course, has no power to move the election, regardless. The date of the presidential election &#8212; the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November &#8212; is set by Congressional edict and can only be changed by another Congressional edict. Even if President Trump wanted to postpone the election, both houses of Congress would have to agree, and there&#8217;s little chance Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would assent to such a plan.
That hasn&#8217;t stopped Clinton and others, including former Vice President-turned-2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, from suggesting Trump is conspiring to take dictatorial control. Biden, in an interview last month said that, “Mark my words, I think [Trump] is going to try to kick back the election somehow — come up with some rationale why it can’t be held.&#8221;
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Hillary Clinton

White House Fires Back At Hillary Clinton Over Claims Trump Admin Is Trying To Move November Election

2020 Election

Jared Kushner

On Wednesday morning, Hillary Clinton echoed presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s recent election conspiracy theory – which posits that President Donald Trump will try and delay the 2020 election – but with a new twist: White House advisor Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, could play a starring role.
The 2016 Democratic nominee promoted the election conspiracy theory in a tweet on Wednesday, and included a link to an article from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/us/politics/kushner-election-november.html">The New York Times</a> called “Kushner, Law Aside, Doesn’t Rule Out Delaying 2020 Election.”
“I can’t believe I have to write this sentence, but the president&#8217;s son-in-law doesn&#8217;t get to decide when the election is,” said Clinton.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I can’t believe I have to write this sentence, but the president&#8217;s son-in-law doesn&#8217;t get to decide when the election is. <a href="https://t.co/7CrpHny6TF">https://t.co/7CrpHny6TF</a>
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1260572655515811840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
The only problem? The New York Times article she links specifically states, twice, that white house staffers don’t decide when the general election, an event with a date determined by federal law, gets to take place.
<blockquote>The opinion of a White House staff member has no bearing on when the election is held, but his comment played into the concerns of President Trump’s detractors…
The opinion of a White House staff member has no bearing on when the election is held. Even the president himself does not have the authority to unilaterally postpone Election Day, which by law takes place the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.</blockquote>
Time Magazine reported on Tuesday evening that Kushner made the following remarks about the presidential election:
<blockquote>When asked if there was a chance the presidential election could be postponed past November 3 due to the pandemic, Kushner said that isn’t his decision. “I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other, but right now that’s the plan,” he said.
“Hopefully by the time we get to September, October, November, we’ve done enough work with testing and with all the different things we’re trying to do to prevent a future outbreak of the magnitude that would make us shut down again,” Kushner continued. “I really believe that once America opens up, it’ll be very hard for America to ever lock down again.”</blockquote>
In a statement to The New York Times, Kushner later clarified that he has “not been involved in, nor am I aware of, any discussions about trying to change the date of the presidential election.”
In late April, former Vice President Joe Biden personally predicted that Trump would try and delay the presidential election, a legal maneuver that the president has no authority to enact.
“Mark my words, I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” said Biden, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/biden-trump-2020-delay-coronavirus-206142">Politico</a>. “That’s the only way he thinks he can possibly win.”
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-says-trump-will-try-to-delay-election-wapo-columnist-over-the-line">The Daily Wire</a> previously reported, Biden was sharply criticized for the remarks, including from columnists at mainstream media sites such as The Washington Post and CNN.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

70th International Berlinale film festival in Berlin

Whoops: Hillary Clinton Tweets Kushner Election Conspiracy, Links Article That Explains Why It’s Nonsense

Joe Biden

White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner and Dr. Jeffrey Hendricks are both pushing back on a New York Times hit piece on the administration&#8217;s use of professionals who volunteered to help in its efforts to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Hendricks says that the report did not “fully reflect” the administration’s “incredible efforts” and Kushner says that the report is really not even true.
The hit piece from earlier this week centered on remarks from Dr. Hendricks, whom The New York Times quoted as saying, &#8220;When I offered [the volunteers] viable leads at viable prices from an approved vendor, they kept passing me down the line and made terrible deals instead.&#8221;
The Spectator’s Amber Athey <a href="https://spectator.us/dr-hendricks-nyt-kushner-coronavirus/">reported</a> that Hendricks said in a new statement that the way The New York Times portrayed his remarks did not “fully reflect” the administration’s “incredible efforts”:
<blockquote>I read the article in The New York Times. There were some pieces that were true and some things that did not fully reflect my experience. To be fair to the volunteers, Rachel Baitel, and others, I should clarify my experience. Most importantly, we all need to recognize we are in an unprecedented situation with a global health crisis of almost incomprehensible magnitude. My experience with the volunteers was that they were kind, responsive, and tried to assist. I believe everybody is trying to manage the best way possible and with good intentions. There will be efforts that work, and efforts that are well intended, but do not. We can assess this going forward and make new recommendations accordingly. I believe that this administration is putting forth incredible efforts to assist our health care providers and our citizens. Of course, there will be frustrating aspects of it along the way, and yes, I experienced some of this. I expressed my frustration with slow communication that seemed to have stopped altogether, but also acknowledged the vetting process could take some time. Despite what at times felt like a bureaucratic process I finally received authorization for a site inspection on April 29, 2020, although this has not taken place as of yet.</blockquote>
Kushner pushed back on the report during a Friday interview on Fox Business where he also noted that the report&#8217;s characterization of the volunteers as young and inexperienced was not true. He said that the administration sought out people who had expertise in specific private industry domains that could be beneficial in trying to seamlessly coordinate the federal government&#8217;s response with the private industry.
When asked about the report, Kushner responded, &#8220;I just think it’s just not true. I think that, you know, &#8216;The Wall Street Journal&#8217; actually had a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-rewrites-the-book-on-emergencies-11587142872">great op-ed</a> about a week and a half ago saying that Trump’s really rewritten the way, the playbook for how you respond to a global pandemic.&#8221;
&#8220;And in this time of crisis, the president used a lot of creativity and mobilized the private sector, he mobilized the federal government, and he has a lot of success to show for that in terms of accomplishing incredible things in a short amount of time,&#8221; Kushner continued. &#8220;So, a lot of these people came down to Washington to help out. They had domain expertise. None of themed had decision-making authority, we left that to the federal government employees. But the reality that they helped source over a billion pieces of PPE, they were involved in setting up project Air Bridge, the FEMA administrator and the DOD people who are working with them all found them to be quite helpful, and they did a great job.&#8221;
Kushner said that they were instrumental in the administration getting the ventilator situation figured out and &#8220;helped us get our data sets right&#8221; because &#8220;a lot of governors were asking for things that, quite frankly, were not based on data.&#8221;
&#8220;And then on the testing supply chain, we’ve had some of our people who were domain expert[s] helping us figure out how to find all the best places to get the mobilization done as quickly as possible,&#8221; Kushner added. &#8220;At the end of the day, we’ve looked at what they did. I don’t think these people should be harassed for coming down and helping their country in a time of need.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Kushner refutes the New York Times story on volunteers <a href="https://t.co/cqK4BMhDRq">pic.twitter.com/cqK4BMhDRq</a>
&mdash; Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1259180617528377344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Kushner then correctly noted that the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2013/12/17/white-house-names-replacement-for-healthcaregov-repairman-jeff-zients.html">Obama administration</a> used volunteers. California Democrat Governor <a href="https://abc7news.com/californians-for-all-newsom-press-conference-volunteer-california-coronavirus-volunteering/6119690/">Gavin Newsom</a> and New York Democrat Governor <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/amid-ongoing-covid-19-pandemic-governor-cuomo-announces-40000-health-professionals-have-signed">Andrew Cuomo</a> also utilized volunteers in their responses to the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China.
&#8220;The volunteers dropped their lives, came to Washington, and helped secure valuable PPE,&#8221; a senior administration official told The Daily Wire. &#8220;They have saved many lives. They did not have any procurement power, which was administered by the career FEMA officials. The New York Times’ hit piece is an embarrassment to journalism.&#8221;
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow And White Senior Adviser Jared Kushner Speak To The Media

Kushner, Doctor Push Back On New York Times Hit Piece On Coronavirus Volunteers

Coronavirus

COVID-19

New York Times

Delivering a much-needed dose of hope and good news, son-in-law to President Trump and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner predicted on Wednesday that the country would be back on its feet in June.
Speaking on <a href="https://video.foxnews.com/v/6152850277001#sp=show-clips" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&#8220;Fox &amp; Friends,&#8221;</a> Kushner said that as the month of May unfolds, states will slowly reopen in different phases, a process that will become more streamlined and uniform in the month of June.
&#8220;I think what you’ll see in May as the states are reopening now is May will be a transition month, you’ll see a lot of states starting to phase in the different reopening based on the safety guidelines that President Trump outlined on April 19,&#8221; Kushner said. &#8220;I think you’ll see by June that a lot of the country should be back to normal, and the hope is that by July the country’s really rocking again.&#8221;
Kushner later added that the country now has the testing capacity to start reopening the country.
&#8220;I always find that we see the leading indicators and often the media sees the lagging indicators,&#8221; said Kushner. &#8220;But the leading indicators are testing, are extraordinarily positive, and I’m very confident that we have all testing we need to start opening the country in accordance with the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/493222-trump-guidelines-reopening-economy-to-let-governors-make-final-decision" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">safety guidelines</a> that President Trump, the vice president, Dr. [Deborah] Birx and Dr. Fauci laid out on April 19.&#8221;
On Wednesday, President Trump also stated that the White House will be &#8220;fading out&#8221; the federal social distancing guidelines through the month of May in order to get the country reopened. From <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-white-house-fading-out-social-distancing-guidelines-set-to-expire-this-week">Fox News</a>:
<blockquote>
President Trump on Wednesday said the administration will be “fading out” the federal social distancing guidelines to curb the spread of coronavirus that are slated to expire Thursday.
The White House implemented the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/read-the-white-houses-new-coronavirus-guidelines-30-days-to-slow-the-spread" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“30 Days to Slow the Spread” </a>guidelines last month, extending the strategy the White House rolled out in early March that included guidance on social distancing, working from home, washing hands frequently and avoiding unnecessary travel.
The 30 days are set to expire Thursday, April 30, and are unlikely to be extended.
The president told reporters from the Oval Office Wednesday that the White House will be “fading out” the guidelines.
Vice President Pence added that those guidelines are “very much incorporated in the guidance.”
The “fading out” of the White House social distancing guidelines comes as the states across the nation begin Phase One to reopen their economies amid the coronavirus crisis.</blockquote>
In another dose of good news, on Monday, scientists at the Oxford University Jenner Institute said that testing for a COVID-19 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/oxford-university-tests-show-our-vaccine-may-be-ready-by-september">vaccine has already begun</a> and the vaccine could be available as early as September, rather than in 2021.
“Most other teams have had to start with small clinical trials of a few hundred participants to demonstrate safety,&#8221; reported the New York Times. &#8220;But scientists at the university’s <a href="https://www.jenner.ac.uk/">Jenner Institute</a> had a head start on a vaccine, having proved in previous trials that similar inoculations — including one last year against an earlier coronavirus — were harmless to humans.&#8221;
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

US-HEALTH-VIRUS-POLITICS-TRUMP-DESANTIS

Jared Kushner: The Country Will Be ‘Really Rocking Again’ In June

White House

The White House is reportedly considering building a national healthcare database to track COVID-19 cases across the country.
Trump administration officials on White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s coronavirus team have <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/07/kushner-coronavirus-surveillance-174165">contacted</a> private health care firms about the possibility of compiling their records, according to Politico. A handful of companies have sent memos back to the White House detailing plans on how to combine private and state healthcare databases into one national surveillance structure.
White House spokesman Avi Berkowitz denied Politico’s Tuesday report, saying in a statement, &#8220;This story makes no sense and is completely false. The White House gets many unsolicited random proposals on a variety of topics, but Jared has no knowledge of this proposal or the people mentioned in this article who may have submitted it.&#8221;
Juvare CEO Robert Watson said that he, along with the companies Collective Medical and PatientPing, told White House officials that the companies could give the federal government information on 80% of hospital patients in the U.S. &#8220;in short order.&#8221; Watson said the memo was sent after White House officials approached the companies about the feasibility of a national healthcare monitoring system.
&#8220;No single organization in the United States today can currently meet this request,&#8221; the memo said. &#8220;However, we believe that collectively we can.&#8221;
Kushner’s team, as the senior adviser <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-17/">explained</a> in a press conference last week, is responsible for identifying where medical supplies are most needed and getting them there. Kushner is working with Admiral John Polowczyk to ration supplies from the national stockpile to the states.
Kushner and Polowczyk could use a national database for tracking hospital patients to easier identify potential coronavirus hotspots. Some fear that the database could extend long after the pandemic is dealt with, however. The proposal echoes the expansion of federal surveillance that followed 9/11.
Other countries have already <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/technology/coronavirus-surveillance-tracking-privacy.html?auth=login-email&amp;login=email">expanded</a> surveillance structures to monitor the spread of the coronavirus, according to The New York Times. South Korea is tracing coronavirus patients contacts through security-camera footage, credit card purchases, and cell phone tracking data.
Officials in Lombardy, one of Italy’s hardest hit areas, are using residents’ cell phone data to determine how closely they are following coronavirus regulations. The officials have concluded about 40% of people are moving &#8220;too much.&#8221;
Israel has tapped into a cache of cellphone location data originally compiled for counter-terrorism operations to trace COVID-19 patients and those that may have been exposed to the pathogen.
&#8220;This is a genuine crisis — we have to work through it and do our best to protect people’s health,&#8221; said Jessica Rich, a former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection bureau.
Rich told Politico that protecting Americans’ health should not &#8220;mean we have to destroy privacy&#8221; and added that strict regulations protecting individual’s medical records should accompany any attempt to create a national database.
&#8220;We dealt with similar issues in 9/11,&#8221; Rich said. &#8220;One reason that the government doesn’t have all of this data is there’s a lot of concern about big brother maintaining large databases on every consumer on sensitive issues like health, and for good reason.&#8221;

Jared Kushner Donald Trump

White House Could Build National Surveillance System For Coronavirus ‘In Short Order,’ CEO Says

The Trump administration secured a key victory yesterday at the hostile United Nations, as Holocaust-denying, kleptocratic, jihad-subsidizing Palestinian Authority (PA) chieftain Mahmoud Abbas failed to rally sufficient support to merely force a U.N. Security Council vote on a Palestinian draft resolution that would have rejected the Trump administration&#8217;s recently unveiled <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trumps-deal-of-the-century-for-israel-palestinians-a-realistic-plan-with-arab-states-backing-it">&#8220;deal of the century&#8221; peace plan</a>.
The Security Council vote assuredly would have been vetoed by the United States, a permanent member, but the failure to even successfully garner support to stage a symbolic vote represents a monumental embarrassment for Abbas, the PA successor to unrepentant terrorist Yasser Arafat — himself a mentee of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-official-record-what-the-mufti-said-to-hitler/">Hitler ally Haj Amin al-Husseini</a>, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem. The diplomatic effort to stymie the symbolic vote, halting it dead in its tracks, thus also represents a clear win for the Trump administration&#8217;s United Nations diplomatic team. The United Nations, of course, is a body <a href="https://unwatch.org/2019-un-general-assembly-resolutions-singling-out-israel-texts-votes-analysis/">infamously hostile to the Jewish state</a> and infamously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-palestinian-frauds-unrwa-called-out-lying-josh-hammer">mollycoddling of the Palestinian-Arab cause</a>.
Abbas is speaking today at a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council. He had initially hoped to stage a Security Council vote on the &#8220;deal of the century&#8221; to follow his speech.
&#8220;This is a significant setback for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,&#8221; Barak Ravid <a href="https://www.axios.com/palestinian-mahmoud-abbas-security-council-vote-81c12553-d692-4a77-a122-10dd7cc141ff.html">opined</a> yesterday for Axios. &#8220;The postponement follows efforts from Jared Kushner and other administration officials over the last few days to dilute the text of the resolution and prevent a vote.&#8221;
&#8220;U.S., Israeli, and Palestinian officials say the text had to be softened because several Security Council members wanted to avoid a confrontation with the U.S.,&#8221; Ravid continued. &#8220;Several sentences that referred directly to the Trump plan were removed.&#8221;
According to Ravid, PA officials still hope to bring the condemnatory resolution up for a Security Council vote later this week.
&#8220;There was immediate speculation that the delay was a backhanded way of pulling the resolution because it lacked the requisite support of nine members for passage,&#8221; The Jerusalem Post <a href="https://www.jpost.com/International/US-suggests-amendments-for-UNSC-resolution-on-Trump-peace-plan-617115">reported</a>. &#8220;Otherwise, it would have been considered that the resolution had failed. The delay comes amid U.S. pressure to soften the language of the resolution towards the U.S. and Israel. A U.S. source with direct knowledge of the negotiations between the members of the Security Council told the Post earlier on Monday that if the resolution would get a vote, a number of countries are expected to abstain.&#8221;
&#8220;The softening of the language comes after U.S. special envoy Jared Kushner’s briefing with [Security Council] members last Thursday,&#8221; the Post continued. &#8220;Kushner was accompanied by Trump&#8217;s assistant and special envoy for international negotiations Avi Berkowitz, and U.S. envoy Brian Hook. The source added that &#8216;there are numerous countries who are considering abstaining&#8217; if the wording is not changed.&#8221;
The U.S. has historically often used its permanent seat the Security Council to veto anti-Israel measures — a trend <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/choosing-not-to-veto-obama-lets-anti-settlement-resolution-pass-at-un-security-council/">notably bucked in December 2016 by the outgoing anti-Israel Obama administration</a>, with respect to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2234.
&nbsp;
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-pairagraph-trumps-israel-palestinian-peace-plan-is-fair-and-just-part-1">Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 1)</a>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-pairagraph-trumps-israel-palestinian-peace-plan-is-fair-and-just-part-2">Hammer At ‘Pairagraph’: Trump’s Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan Is Fair And Just (Part 2)</a>

United Nations Building

Abbas Embarrassed: Trump Admin Secures Key Victory At Hostile United Nations

Benjamin Netanyahu

Foreign Policy

Israel

Mahmoud Abbas

Middle East

Palestinians

Trump Administration

United Nations

After a raucous campaign rally in New Hampshire, President Trump on Monday took an unannounced trip to Dover Air Force Base to take part in a somber “dignified transfer ceremony” for two 28-year-old soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
After a brief prayer inside a C-17 transport plane, the president and Vice President Mike Pence stood at attention in a light rain as two U.S. flag-draped transfer cases were carried down the plane&#8217;s ramp by six members of the military wearing white gloves. The cases contained the remains of Sgt. 1st Class Antonio R. Rodriguez, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Sgt. 1st Class Javier J. Gutierrez, of San Antonio, Texas, who both died Saturday in a firefight in Nangarhar Province.
Also attending the ceremony were people traveling with the president, including daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.
“These were fallen heroes and we were close by and the president wrapped his rally early so he could come,” O&#8217;Brien told the press on board Air Force One.
Also in attendance were James C. McConville, Chief of Staff of the Army, SGM Michael Grinston, Sergeant Major of the Army, Maj. Gen. John Brennan, commander of 1st Special Forces Command, CSM Tomas Sandoval, Command Sergeant Major, 1st Special Forces Command, and Col. Matthew Jones, 436th Airlift Wing Commander, among others.
The scene was emotional. Eli Stokols, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, was in the media pool for the event and filed this in a report to other journalists:
<blockquote>At 11:03 in a light rain, the marshaler directed the vehicle with the family members of both transfers onto the tarmac and it pulled to a stop. One family member broke away toward the C-17 carrying the two transfers and was wailing as other family members and a soldier gathered her on the bottom of the rear ramp.
A few moments later once the family members were beneath a canopy, the Army carry team emerged from our right and walked behind the transfer vehicle up the ramp into the rear of the C-17 aircraft. VPOTUS and POTUS followed.
After a prayer inside the aircraft out of our view, VPOTUS and POTUS walked out and stood at attention. When the carry team brought the first flag-draped transfer, SFC Javier J. Gutierrez, down to the tarmac, they saluted as the six white gloved members of the carry team walked past with the flag-draped remains and loaded it into the waiting vehicle.
Then, the same carry team did an about face and walked back up into the C-17. After another short prayer, they came out carrying the second flag-draped transfer, SFC Antonio R. Rodriguez, again passing VPOTUS and POTUS, who stood at attention, both saluting with their right hands.
When both transfers were loaded, the back doors of the vehicle were closed and the van drove away. As the carry team and official party walked past the family, POTUS gave a low thumbs up, pumping his right fist below his waist as they walked out of view at 11:31.</blockquote>
The White House said it was the first time since 2009 that the president and vice president have attended a dignified transfer together.
O’Brien also said dignified transfer ceremonies and Trump&#8217;s visits to wounded veterans at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland are the “toughest” duty of being president.
After the ceremony, Trump wrote on Twitter: &#8220;Just returned to White House from Dover. Very sad!&#8221;

US-AFGHANISTAN-CONFLICT-TRUMP

Trump Flies Unannounced To Dover AFB After N.H. Rally To Pay Respects To Two Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Donald Trump

Ivanka Trump

U.S. Air Force

U.S. Army

After the unveiling of President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan in the Middle East, numerous Senate Democrats took time out of their busy schedule to lecture him about Middle East politics. <a href="https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Van%20Hollen%20Letter%20MidEast%20Peace%20Plan.pdf">The letter they wrote</a> is historically ignorant and dangerous, which is compounded by the fact that it was signed by three leading current presidential candidates; Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
“Dear President Trump,” the letter begins, “We write to express our profound concern regarding your decision to release a one-sided Israeli-Palestinian plan forged without any Palestinian involvement or support.”
Right off the bat, Senate Democrats ignore the fact that the Palestinians have been invited to the negotiations on numerous occasions. The most prominent one was June 2019, when there was a U.S.-led peace conference in Bahrain that was boycotted by the Palestinians. They thought that a boycott would stop the conference, but Jared Kushner, the point-man for the Trump administration in this process, pushed forward.
Trump&#8217;s peace plan would ultimately give the Palestinians a state, as well as funds to help get that state up and running. The 1947 U.N. partition plan, which the Arab world outright rejected in choosing instead to declare all-out war on the nascent Jewish state, did not include $50 billion. In fact, the world mostly stood by and watched while the Jewish state was attacked from every direction.
Senate Democrats&#8217; letter espouses significant falsehoods, claiming that this plan “paves the way for full or partial Israeli annexation of the West Bank.” But there has never been much support for a call to fully annex Judea and Samaria, as that would include giving citizenship to millions of Palestinian-Arabs — many of whom call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
Senate Democrats also, un-ironically, claim that this plan “undermine[s] existing U.S. policy regarding the unilateral annexation of Crimea, eastern Ukraine.” In case the Democrats forgot, Russia invaded Crimea when the Obama administration withheld crucial military aid to the Ukranians. That was not a defensive war; it was an attack by Russia. Comparing that act with Israel winning territory in the 1967 Six-Day War, which was a defensive war, is patently insane. Additionally, Russia immediately annexed Crimea, whereas Israel limited its annexation to the city of Jerusalem — the eternal capital of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hill-the-jewish-nation">Jewish nation</a>. Contrast that to 1948, when Jordan took over that same territory, annexed it, and left the Palestinian people in refugee camps to linger and suffer until Israel militarily defeated Jordan in 1967&#8217;s defensive conflict.
Senate Democrats also conveniently ignore the last 73 years of history when they claim that “this proposal violates the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.” The Palestinians could have asserted their right to self-determination any time from 1947 through today. They can declare a state and nobody will mind. In fact, many Israelis would welcome it. In 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to Yasser Arafat the Gaza Strip, 95% of the West Bank, 5% of Israel, half of Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount), and Israeli citizenship for 50,000 Palestinians. Arafat walked away without a counteroffer and instead <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-vox-lies-about-israel-again">launched the Second Intifada</a>. Democrats ignore that the Palestinians could have exercised their “right to self-determination.” Instead, they are choosing to stay as they are.
The Democrats complain about the proposed borders, referring to it as a “disconnected series of Palestinian islets.&#8221; They claim that this “would betray the vision of a sovereign Palestinian state.” Again, Palestinians could have had a say in this process. They chose not to. Additionally, the only “vision” that the Palestinians have of a Palestinian state is one that encompasses all of Israel and does not include any Jews.
The Democrats then have the audacity to accuse President Trump of interfering in the upcoming Israeli election, claiming that the timing “raises disturbing questions about [Trump&#8217;s] intention to intervene in the Israeli election process.” This accusation is audacious for multiple reasons. First, the Democratic Party at-large is currently in the middle of an impeachment of President Trump that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-impeachment-manager-admits-that-impeachment-is-about-2020-election">Democrats themselves claim</a> is intended to prevent him from winning re-election. Second, this is the third Israeli election in the last year, so this wouldn’t affect much of anything. Third, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s chief political rival, endorsed this plan and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-says-hell-bring-trump-peace-plan-before-knesset-for-vote-next-week/">is bringing it up for a parliamentary vote</a>. Finally, it is ironic that Senate Democrats are accusing Trump of interfering with Israeli elections when <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/236565-netanyahu-pollster-obama-role-in-election-larger-than-reported">Obama did that</a> in 2015 — and nobody cared.
Democrats continue their letter with their old and tiresome “President Trump isn’t a normal president” routine. “Your administration has already reversed decades of bipartisan U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” it reads. “Previous presidents of both parties successfully maintained the respect of both Israelis and Palestinians for the United States’ role as a credible player in difficult negotiations.” But policies that haven’t worked for 50 years should be changed. Democrats think that if they try the same thing over and over — that &#8220;thing&#8221; being caving to terrorists — there will be different results. That is the definition of insanity. Trump’s only change from the standard “two-state solution” is that it recognizes the fact that Israel is the only actor that actually wants peace.
The Democrats are making the same mistakes with the Palestinians that they did with the Iranians: The assumption that everyone wants the same thing. They do not. Palestinian leadership wants to destroy Israel. Democrats either don’t know that, or simply don’t care.
 
Moshe Hill is a political analyst and a Chovevei Zion Fellow. His work can be found on <a href="https://www.ahillwithaview.com">aHillwithaView.com</a>, <a href="https://facebook.com/aHillwithaView">facebook.com/aHillwithaView</a>, and on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TheMoHill">@TheMoHill</a>.

President Trump Meets With Israeli PM Netanyahu At The White House

HILL: Senate Democrats’ Response To Trump’s Peace Plan Is Historically Ignorant

Amy Klobuchar

Bernie Sanders

Democratic Party

Elizabeth Warren

On Thursday night, supermodel Karlie Kloss responded to jabs made at her expense due to her relation to the Kushners.
Kloss is married to Joshua Kushner, who is the brother of Jared Kushner, prominent White House advisor and husband to eldest Trump daughter Ivanka Trump.
Joining Bravo host Andy Cohen on &#8220;Watch What Happens Live,&#8221; Kloss was asked about an apparent jab &#8220;Project Runway&#8221; contestant Tyler Neasloney made earlier this month about the supermodel&#8217;s familial connection to the Kushners. After he designed a widely panned dress, Neasloney suggested Kloss could wear it to a &#8220;dinner with the Kushners.&#8221;
The remark elicited a meme-able stunned look from Kloss, as well as gasps from fellow contestants.
Neasloney, who was sent home, later apologized for the comment. “I want you to know that I’m not a jerk; I’m professional,” he told Kloss. “What I said earlier had no hidden agenda, no meaning, no nothing like that.”
WATCH:
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“I cannot see Karlie wearing it anywhere, honestly.”
“Not even to dinner with the Kushners?”<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ProjectRunway?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ProjectRunway</a> <a href="https://t.co/O9qJbrC2ZN">pic.twitter.com/O9qJbrC2ZN</a>
&mdash; Ξvan Ross Katz (@evanrosskatz) <a href="https://twitter.com/evanrosskatz/status/1213090381665095680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“I was honored to be one of the first memes of the decade. But honestly, the real tragedy of this whole thing is that no one is talking about how terrible that dress was. That’s why he went home,&#8221; the supermodel brushed off the controversy to Cohen, according to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/01/karlie-kloss-dinner-with-the-kushners">Vanity Fair</a>. &#8220;No, I would not wear that dress to any dinner,&#8221; she added.
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However, Kloss was unable to skirt the political issue, as Cohen pressed about an inside look into her politics.
“Andy, I’m sure I’m not the only person in this country who does not necessarily agree with their family on politics,&#8221; Kloss responded. &#8220;I voted as a Democrat in 2016, and I plan to do the same in 2020.&#8221;
“It was 2012 [when we met], it was a different world,” she later added, referring to meeting her now-husband. “My man and I have been through a lot together. I’m so proud that he’s my partner. It’s not been easy, but it’s worth it. I would make that same decision a million times again.”
As noted by Vanity Fair, the supermodel opened up to British Vogue last year about the political mix within the Kushner family.
&#8220;I choose to focus on the values that I share with my husband, and those are the same liberal values that I was raised with and that have guided me throughout my life,” the 27-year-old said.
Kloss, an open liberal, has promoted abortion facility Planned Parenthood in the past. In response to passed pro-life legislation in 2019, for example, the model took to Instagram to ask her fans to support to the abortion mill.
“I want to talk to you about what’s happening in my beloved home state of Missouri and around the country,&#8221; Kloss said, according to <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/11/headlines/model_karlie_kloss_asks_fans_to_support_planned_parenthood_in_abortion_ban_fight">Democracy Now</a>. &#8220;We are in an urgent public health crisis. And for the first time since Roe v. Wade, more than 1.1 million women of reproductive age in Missouri could be left without access to a single health center in their state that provides safe abortion care. Across the country, these bans are attacking our rights to own our decisions that affect our bodies and our health.”
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On tonight&#39;s <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WWHL?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WWHL</a>, supermodel <a href="https://twitter.com/karliekloss?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KarlieKloss</a> addressed the viral Kushner moment from this season of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ProjectRunway?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ProjectRunway</a> <a href="https://t.co/Ud0pFdNxgd">pic.twitter.com/Ud0pFdNxgd</a>
&mdash; WWHL (@BravoWWHL) <a href="https://twitter.com/BravoWWHL/status/1218017600136978432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Karlie Kloss

Supermodel And Ivanka Sister-In-Law Karlie Kloss Responds To Political Jabs

Senior White House Adviser Jared Kushner has endured significant criticism from the media, Democrats, and from factions of the political Right for his presence in the Trump administration. However, many of the criticisms that Kushner has faced fall apart upon a close examination of facts and reality.
The biggest criticism that Kushner has faced from factions of the political Right during his time in the Trump administration is that he is too liberal. Many of the criticisms that he is too liberal are based off the fact that Kushner tries to work with as many parties as possible when working to solve an issue, as maximum cooperation is the easiest way to achieve success.
Those who claim that Kushner is too liberal often overlook many of the victories that he has secured for Trump which often fall directly in line with causes that conservatives champion. Those victories include:
<ul>
<li>Kushner played a decisive role in Trump&#8217;s 2016 victory: Trump, who has <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/28/trump-faster-reagan-accomplishing-conservative-age/">proven</a> to be much more conservative than beloved former Republican President Ronald Reagan, won in 2016 thanks in large part to Kushner. Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/11/22/exclusive-interview-how-jared-kushner-won-trump-the-white-house/#65bec9c73af6">reported</a> in 2016 that Kushner&#8217;s role in running the Trump campaign&#8217;s data operation &#8220;eventually tipped the states that swung the election.&#8221;</li>
<li>Kushner is among the biggest pro-Israel advocates in the White House: Any notion that Kushner is liberal is quickly dispelled by the pro-Israel agenda that he has advocated for in the White House. Kushner&#8217;s pro-Israel advocacy comes at a time when far-left extremists have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ocasio-cortez-omar-tlaib-take-democrats-anti-ryan-saavedra">normalized</a> anti-Semitism into the Democratic Party. The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/us/politics/jared-kushner-israel.html">reported</a> that Kushner&#8217;s advocacy for pro-Israel policy positions stems in part from his family surviving the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. Growing up, Kushner learned about how his family had been persecuted by Nazis and thus learned that protecting Israel was essential to the survival of the Jewish people. The Times notes that Kusher has played a key role in shaping Trump&#8217;s policy agenda with regard to Israel. Kushner also played a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/opinion/jared-kushner-trump-anti-semitism.html">key role</a> in Trump&#8217;s recent executive order that protects Jewish students from anti-Semitism.</li>
<li>Kushner has been tasked with securing Trump&#8217;s biggest campaign promise: The construction of the border wall: Securing the Southern border and building a border wall to stop the massive flow of illegal aliens into the United States was Trump&#8217;s biggest promise during 2016. However, Trump&#8217;s promise has been stalled due to large partisan opposition and Democrat-appointed far-left activist judges who have issued numerous injunctions and rulings in effort to stop the administration. Trump has since turned to Kushner and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jared-kushners-new-assignment-overseeing-the-construction-of-trumps-border-wall/2019/11/25/b175cad4-0d63-11ea-a49f-9066f51640f6_story.html">instructed</a> his son-in-law to make sure that it gets done.</li>
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Another criticism that Kushner has faced is that he does not possess enough relevant work experience to hold the position that he currently holds in the White House. However, Kushner&#8217;s business experience in real estate has helped him to secure trade deals that were central to the Trump administration, including:
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<li>Kushner was a key player in securing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA): U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-nafta-kushner-insight/how-trumps-son-in-law-helped-salvage-the-north-american-trade-zone-idUSKCN1MC04M">told</a> reporters in October 2018: “I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, this agreement would not have happened if it wasn’t for Jared.”</li>
<li>Kushner is a key player in securing new trade deals with China: After seeing how Kushner was successful in securing USMCA, Trump <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-kushner/jared-kushner-trumps-son-in-law-takes-bigger-role-in-china-trade-talks-idUSKBN1Y80IA">instructed</a> him to work on getting a new trade deal secured with China, which Kushner was <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/trump-us-china-phase-one-trade-deal-signing-january">successful</a> in achieving.</li>
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A third criticism that Kushner has faced is kind of combination of the first two criticisms. Kushner has had to deal with critics who have claimed that he does not have the political experience necessary to navigate the partisan nature of Washington, D.C., and does not understand what the Republican Party needs because he was supposedly too liberal. Again, Kushner&#8217;s track record silences his critics:
<ul>
<li>Kushner was a key player in securing Trump&#8217;s victory in 2016: As previously mentioned in this report, Kushner played a key role in Trump winning in 2016. Forbes reported in 2016: &#8220;A year ago he had zero experience in politics and about as much interest in it. Suddenly he sits at its global center. &#8230; No resources at the beginning, perhaps. Underfunded throughout, for sure. But by running the Trump campaign&#8211;notably, its secret data operation&#8211;like a Silicon Valley startup, Kushner eventually tipped the states that swung the election. And he did so in manner that will change the way future elections will be won and lost.&#8221;</li>
<li>Kushner worked with Democrats and Republicans to secure criminal justice reform, which expanded the tent of the Republican Party: The New York Times reported that Kushner was the &#8220;administration’s driving force behind the bill.&#8221; The bill&#8217;s passage has increased Trump&#8217;s approval rating among the black community, which is a key demographic for the Democrat Party. Recent polling from Emerson and Rasmussen Reports <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-approval-among-blacks-above-34-percent-emerson-polls-shows_3155737.html">shows</a> that Trump&#8217;s approval rating sits at 34%, which is up significantly from the 8% of black voters who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37922587">voted</a> for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.</li>
<li>Kusher was deemed as such an asset to the Trump campaign in 2016 that he was asked to help Trump&#8217;s re-election campaign in 2020: The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/adviser-son-in-law-and-de-facto-campaign-manager-how-kushner-is-trying-to-help-trump-win-in-2020/2019/07/26/6e8d6dd4-a1ad-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html">reported</a> last year that Kushner was Trump&#8217;s &#8220;hidden campaign hand&#8221; and that when campaign manager Brad Parscale wanted to talk fundraising strategy for the campaign that the first person he went to was Kushner. In his unofficial advisory role to the campaign, Kushner has instructed senior political advisers to the campaign to provide to him a 10-year plan for how Republicans can win over inner city voters, which demonstrates his keen political foresight in understanding where the GOP needs focus its energy to dominate the political landscape for future generations.</li>
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The other area that Kushner has dealt with criticism is in negative press over things he advised Trump on, which he was criticized over at the time but later turned out to be right on the issue.
By far the biggest criticism that Kushner has had to deal with was his support of Trump&#8217;s decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey, which eventually led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
While the decision was controversial at the time, in hindsight it was the correct move as Comey has since been found to have been an utter disgrace to the FBI with his leadership and for allowing his agency to engage in criminal conduct against Trump through its doctoring of evidence in the FISA process.
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel summarized Comey&#8217;s time at the FBI by highlighting just a few of the damaging things that had been revealed about him, including the fact that he was &#8220;fired for cause; found guilty of &#8216;insubordinate&#8217; acts (IG on Clinton case); found guilty of &#8216;dangerous&#8217; behavior (IG on memo leak); in charge of an FBI that deceived the FISA court.&#8221;
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Let&#39;s hope upcoming <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FoxNews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FoxNews</a> interview w/ <a href="https://twitter.com/Comey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@comey</a> proceeds from reality that he was: fired for cause; found guilty of &quot;insubordinate&quot; acts (IG on Clinton case); found guilty of &quot;dangerous&quot; behavior (IG on memo leak); in charge of an FBI that deceived the FISA court.
&mdash; Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) <a href="https://twitter.com/KimStrassel/status/1205160001318223872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Strassel&#8217;s tweet preempted Comey&#8217;s recent interview on Fox News where anchor Chris Wallace <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chris-wallace-shreds-disgraced-former-fbi-director-james-comey-in-devastating-interview?itm_source=parsely-api">sliced and diced</a> him on national television.
Kushner&#8217;s successes for the administration, while often ignored by the media, have been noticed by all the right people in Trump world.
One of Kushner&#8217;s biggest defenders is the president&#8217;s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who said, &#8220;Jared has defied his critics every step of the way. They attacked him on the campaign, but he never wavered and helped my dad build an innovative campaign operation unlike anything that’d ever existed before—and we won. The attacks have continued in the West Wing but he’s kept delivering for the President’s agenda, and for the American people.&#8221;
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) also championed Kushner&#8217;s work, saying, &#8220;Jared has been a consistent, principled fighter not just for the president’s agenda, but most importantly for America. Intelligent and determined, his presence in the West Wing has been critically important and effective.&#8221;
David Friedman, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, also spoke highly of Kushner, saying, &#8220;For decades the conventional wisdom was that there were limits on how much the U.S. could support Israel, notwithstanding that Israel was America’s greatest friend and ally in the Middle East. Jared broke that flawed paradigm: we worked together to properly realign and strengthen the U.S. relationship with Israel while Jared simultaneously helped to guide and strengthen our other relationships in the region.&#8221;
&#8220;Jared disproved the &#8216;zero sum game&#8217; theory that a stronger relationship with Israel meant a weaker U.S. presence in the Gulf,&#8221; Friedman added. &#8220;He showed that the U.S. can be stronger on all fronts.&#8221;
Cliff Sims, former campaign aide and former Special Assistant to the President, said, &#8220;From criminal justice reform to the USMCA to overhauling the VA, when Jared puts his focus and energy into something, his track record shows he gets it done. It’s hard to take his critics seriously when the results so easily prove his effectiveness.&#8221;
A source close to former White House strategist Steve Bannon added, &#8220;Most of the negative press that Jared got hit with after the election came from Steve Bannon and his allies. We now know that Steve was pushing lies. Steve ended up losing a lot of friends and Jared earned a whole new army of allies. I guess Steve isn’t the brilliant strategist that he fancies himself.&#8221;
Another crucial champion is Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who is close with the Trump administration and focused on making the Republican Party attractive to young voters.
&#8220;Jared has been relentless in helping fulfill the president’s agenda,&#8221; Kirk said. &#8220;He has done more for this country in three short years than the entire entrenched political class has done in the last 40 years.&#8221;

Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to the President of the United

Jared Kushner’s Successes In Trump White House Puts His Critics To Shame

&#8220;The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.&#8221; – Zvi Rex, Israeli psychiatrist
Last month, Jason Greenblatt, who is the Trump administration&#8217;s special representative for international negotiations and, along with Jared Kushner, a co-leader of the administration&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49232/fleisher-end-100-year-arab-israeli-war-yishai-fleisher">yet-to-be-unveiled comprehensive proposal</a> for Israeli-Palestinian peace, <a href="https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-at-a-un-security-council-open-debate-on-the-middle-east-9/">addressed</a> the United Nations Security Council. In a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/greenblatt-peace-plan-wont-be-based-on-fictions-of-international-consensus/">paradigm-shifting</a> speech, Greenblatt assailed the longstanding consensus of much of the morally relativistic &#8220;international community&#8221; — for which the anti-Semitic dullards of Turtle Bay serve as quintessential proxies — in no uncertain terms. Whereas the <a href="https://unwatch.org/un-general-assembly-shames-21-resolutions-israel-six-rest-world/">institutionally anti-Israel</a> U.N. Security Council has long tried its best to unilaterally impose a &#8220;two-state solution&#8221; from the outside in — based on a fundamental misunderstanding of international law with respect to <a href="https://mosaicmagazine.com/response/israel-zionism/2019/07/the-many-incoherences-and-hypocrisies-of-international-law-on-jerusalem/">eastern Jerusalem</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/11948/breaking-down-israeli-occupation-myth-elliott-hamilton">Judea and Samaria</a> — Greenblatt rebutted that &#8220;if there is to be such a solution, only the parties themselves, through direct negotiations, can work this out.&#8221;
Later in the speech, Greenblatt reiterated, &#8220;Both Israel and the Palestinians have asserted a claim to certain land. This is an unresolved dispute and it will only be through direct negotiations between the parties that we have a chance of resolving that dispute and achieving a comprehensive peace.&#8221;
Greenblatt&#8217;s speech is well worth watching in full:
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Common sense, right? Alas, perhaps not to anti-Israel, sycophantically pro-Palestinian Europeans on the U.N. Security Council.
As Reuters <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">highlighted</a>, Germany, France, and Russia did not exactly respond favorably to Greenblatt&#8217;s address. That would be the same Germany that refuses to recognize all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and is <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/03/08/caroline-glick-germanys-love-affair-with-iran-about-more-than-greed/">leading the European effort to undermine</a> President Trump&#8217;s decision to exit the catastrophic Iran nuclear deal, the same France whose insane immigration policies have led to crisis levels of Islamist-inspired anti-Semitism, and the same Russia that de facto allies itself with the genocidal Jew-hating mullahs in Tehran to prop up a murderous madman tyrant in Damascus.
&#8220;For us, international law is not menu a la carte,&#8221; <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">said</a> Germany&#8217;s U.N. ambassador, Christoph Heusgen. &#8220;Security Council resolutions are international law, they merely need to be complied with,&#8221; oh-so-helpfully <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1UI1ZQ">added</a> Russia&#8217; U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia.
Greenblatt <a href="http://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Greenblatt-hits-back-at-Germany-UN-resolutions-are-not-way-to-make-peace-598135">pushed back</a> this week against the European backlash, publishing a <a href="http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article198179335/UN-Debatte-Mit-Verlaub-Herr-Botschafter-Heusgen.html?wtrid=onsite.onsitesearch">German newspaper op-ed</a> that firmly but diplomatically rebuked Heusgen. &#8220;With respect, Ambassador [Heusgen] &#8230; we clearly stated that a solution cannot be forced upon the parties, and the only way ahead is direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,&#8221; Greenblatt wrote. &#8220;Our point was that collectively, U.N. Security Council resolutions passed with the intent of providing a framework for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed to create progress.&#8221; Greenblatt also excoriated the Europeans&#8217; insistence on the U.N. as a focal point of the peace process, coupled with their own failure to recognize the U.N.&#8217;s institutional anti-Israel bias, as &#8220;disingenuous.&#8221;
At the risk of stating the obvious: Good for Greenblatt and good for the Trump administration.
Hamas, a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">genocidal Islamist jihadist outfit</a> set not merely on eliminating Israel but also set on killing every Jew in the world, currently controls the Gaza Strip. So-called &#8220;moderate&#8221; Fatah, which directly subsidizes murderous (and <a href="http://twitter.com/MicheleChabin1/status/1159797725199831040">celebrated</a>!) jihad against Israeli Jews, is currently led by <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/how-holocaust-denial-shaped-mahmoud-abbas-worldview/">Holocaust-denying</a> kleptocratic chieftain Mahmoud Abbas. Much as Ezra Klein&#8217;s Vox would imagine it to be otherwise, there is <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/17/voxs-motto-should-be-explaining-the-news-incorrectly-repeatedly/">no bridge</a> connecting Gaza with Judea and Samaria. There is approximately zero appetite whatsoever among either the Palestinian-Arab leadership or the Palestinian-Arab populace to forfeit the so-called &#8220;right of return&#8221; — a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/43792/pro-palestinian-frauds-unrwa-called-out-lying-josh-hammer">legally risible</a> claim that would demographically destroy Zionism itself. There is approximately zero appetite whatsoever right now among either the Palestinian-Arab leadership or the Palestinian-Arab populace to recognize Israel as a Jewish and secure state within any cognizable boundaries at all.
In short, those, like the Europeans and the global pro-Palestinian/pro-&#8220;international community&#8221; Left, who insist that Israeli-Palestinian peace can be imposed from the outside in, are simply not living in the real world. There are endless unresolved issues that can truly, only be finalized via direct negotiations between the two sides. The only reasonable conclusion is that such quixotic insistence on an outside-in imposition is hardly motivated by genuine concern for the establishment of a durable, lasting peace — the facts and reality on the ground make such calls, in the present, fanatical to the point of lunacy. On the contrary, such calls for an &#8220;international community&#8221;-imposed solution are ultimately reflective of Europeans&#8217; loathing for Israel. Perhaps there is something fundamentally sinister here, too. Zvi Rex, the above-quoted Israeli psychiatrist, was likely onto something.
In any event, good for Jason Greenblatt and the Trump administration. The jury may still be out on the administration&#8217;s yet-to-be-unveiled comprehensive peace proposal, but the jury is very much in on the administration&#8217;s continued efforts to stand up for Israel and rebuke bullying Israel-haters at the U.N. The Trump administration is in the right — and the Europeans are in the wrong.

White House adviser on Israel Jason Greenblatt speaks during

HAMMER: The Trump Administration Is Right. The U.N. Can Never Dictate An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal.

Europe

Germany

“Peace to Prosperity” was the name of the economic “workshop” organized by Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and Steven Mnuchin in Bahrain. The topic was bettering the Palestinian economy with the hope of creating a more congenial atmosphere for co-existence between Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs living in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza.
The event was plush, with Gulf Arabs dressed in pristine white tunics and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-in-bahrain-air-of-israeli-arab-normalization-and-a-message-to-iran-1.7410754">where</a> “Israeli and Arab businessmen openly mingled at the non-alcoholic cocktail parties.&#8221; Fortune magazine <a href="https://fortune.com/2019/06/30/bahrain-summit-middle-east/">described</a> the global gathering: “Over 300 top delegates came from 30 countries, from Australia and Argentina; Dubai and Delhi; Nigeria and Norway; and even such unlikely pairings as Saudi Arabia and Qatar or Greece and Turkey.”
Almost all observers agreed that there was hope in the air.
Palestinians Are Not Buying What Jared Kushner Is Selling
However, while some Palestinian-Arab business leaders did come to Bahrain, the Palestinian Authority (PA) boycotted the event, and Time magazine summarized their feeling with the <a href="https://time.com/5617713/kushner-deal-century-manama-palestinians/">headline</a>: “Palestinians Are Not Buying What Jared Kushner Is Selling.”
Indeed, judging by the lack of progress in actual Israeli-Palestinian relations, the conference was an ostensible failure. But, as is often true in the Middle East, there was an unspoken agenda at the Bahrain “workshop” — and seen by that light, the gathering was a monumental success.
The Subtext of Bahrain: Normalization of Israel
While the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was the context of the Bahrain gathering, the subtext, and maybe bigger story, was the normalization of Israel among the elites of the Arab states.
First, there was the welcoming atmosphere for all participants, which should not be taken for granted since Israelis, until very recently, were barred from entering Bahrain at all.
Then, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/bahrain-fm-to-times-of-israel-israel-is-here-to-stay-and-we-want-peace-with-it/">spoke</a> with Israeli press on the sidelines of the workshop and told them: “Israel is a country in the region &#8230; and it’s there to stay, of course &#8230; we want better relations with it, and we want peace with it.”
Later, in a classic Middle East double-speak, the same Al Khalifa, when talking with the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/bahrains-khalifa-says-interviews-to-israelis-nowhere-near-normalization/">said</a>: “There are those who say this is normalization. This is not normalization. This is not even a step toward normalization.”
But it was too late: The normalization cat was out of the bag.
Tracks for Regional Peace in Abu Dhabi 
The Bahrain workshop was soon followed by yet another high-level meeting between Israeli officials and Gulf state leaders. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz took part in a U.N. climate conference in Abu Dhabi and met with an unnamed “senior U.A.E. official” to discuss “regional issues and relations between the countries” — a victory in and of itself, given that Israel and the U.A.E. do not maintain formal diplomatic ties.
The meeting focused on “the need to deal with the Iranian threat and Iran’s support for terrorism in the region.” The two officials also discussed cooperation and economic ties, and finally, Katz presented his “Tracks for Regional Peace” initiative — a proposal to link Israel’s rail network through Jordan to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
If accepted, the plan would open up the region for travel, give Arab states access to Israel’s Mediterranean ports, and grant Israel trade access to the Arab world.
The message out of Abu Dhabi was the same as the one out of Bahrain — Israel’s normalization in Arab eyes.
The End of the 100-Year War
The Arab world has been fighting against the existence of a Jewish State since the British empire in 1917 issued the famous Balfour Declaration, which stated that &#8220;His Majesty&#8217;s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.&#8221;
In the failed hopes of destroying the small Jewish State, many wars have been fought and much blood has been spilled in the last century. But today, there are three reasons why powerful Arab states are looking to bury the hatchet with the people they attempted to destroy not so long ago:
The first reason is the grudging recognition that Israel has simply been victorious. The Arabs have failed to destroy Israel, and the Jewish State is flourishing in almost every parameter, successfully settling its people on the land that it claims.
The second reason is connected to the first — “if you can&#8217;t beat &#8217;em, join &#8217;em.” Many Arabs have begun realizing that since the war against the Jews hasn&#8217;t brought any real results, except regional stagnation, they ought to shift gears out of war and into business and prosperity.
And the third — and most visceral — reason that Arabs states are looking favorably upon Israel is the Iranian threat.
Everyone knows Iran endangers Israel, but Shiite Iran is much hungrier to take over the lands of the Sunni Arabs and the holy cities Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia than it is to enter into a nuclear standoff with the Jewish State. For a long time, Gulf Arabs relied on the U.S. for defense, but now, with a sense that America is less interested in being their bodyguard, the Arab eyes are, ironically, looking to the military power of Israel for their protection. The enemy of my enemy, as it is said, is my friend.
For many Arabs, it is obvious that the century-long war against Israel has yielded nothing. So instead of the war and the resulting stagnation, regional prosperity is the new focus. Additionally, the only regional force that can contain the aggressiveness of Iran is Israel.
Therefore, regional realignment and the normalization of Israel is now in the Arab world&#8217;s collective interest.
Those Who Never Miss an Opportunity
Israel’s former representative at the U.N., Abba Eban, said years ago that “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” and Bahrain workshop was no different.
The PA boycotted the event, threatened anyone who would support it, and heartlessly refused to discuss a $50 billion plan to alleviate the suffering of its own governed people.
For the PA/PLO and Hamas, war with Israel is their raison d&#8217;etre — and a key fundraising strategy from patrons like Qatar, Iran, and some European countries who pay for the continued war on Israel in the guise of “humanitarian” assistance.
But for many Arabs states, the Palestinians have become a group who stands between them and normalization with Israel — something which would give them regional prosperity and personal security — and the end of the failed 100-year war.
Yishai Fleisher is the International Spokesman of the Jewish community of Hebron and an Israeli broadcaster.

FLEISHER: The End Of The 100-Year Arab-Israeli War

Iran

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Steve Mnuchin

Don&#8217;t fault Jared Kushner for attempting to make peace between Arabs and Israelis. To the contrary, he should be praised for the effort. But if history is a guide, his <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trumps-mideast-peace-plan-hinges-on-50b-investment-offers-palestinians-deal-of-the-century">&#8220;deal of the century&#8221;</a> is dead on arrival.
Palestinian Authority&#8217;s unelected President Mahmoud Abbas rejected out-of-hand Kushner&#8217;s proposal to use $50 billion to build a peaceful Palestinian Authority. This is not a negotiating strategy, but a conscientious decision.
The Arab/Israeli dispute is not about territory, boundaries, or finances. If the Israelis were Muslims, exercising the same policies with the same geographic divisions, there would be no dispute.
The Arab/Israeli conflict is about one thing: Jews.
When <a href="http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1948to1967_jordan_annex/">Jordan grabbed</a> the Arab part of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1948, there was no outrage. Although Jordan&#8217;s land grab was illegal, Britain and Pakistan even recognized Jordan&#8217;s sovereignty.
The rest of the world demurred. Jordan was not demonized for preventing Palestinian self-determination. There were no demonstrations on college campuses for Palestinian independence.
Jordan is a Muslim country that took over another Muslim entity.
The sole issue of the dispute is that Israel is a Jewish state. Under hardline interpretations of Islamic law, land, once Islamic, is Islamic forever. Militant nationalists and fundamentalist Muslims believe that Israel&#8217;s very existence is unacceptable, non-negotiable, and forever a mark of shame in a culture of honor.
In Western culture, our temporal orientation is forward &#8212; toward a better future. The past is nostalgic, not sacred. We might respect the Founding of our republic, but we don&#8217;t want to return to the 18th century. The Founding is celebrated, not worshiped. It is an icon of politics, not of religion.
Osama bin Laden spoke of the return of Islam to Andalusia, Muslim Spain. As he noted, &#8220;All in all, we request of Allah &#8230; that the umma should regain its honor and prestige, should raise again the unique flag of Allah on all stolen Islamic land, from Palestine to <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2007/10/dreaming-of-al-andalus">Andalus</a>.&#8221;
This what many Islamists believe.
In the late 1930s, the British Peel Commission conceived of a salamander of a Jewish state along the coast that easily could have been overtaken by the Arabs. The Arabs said no.
In 1948, in response to the initial U.N. partition plan, the Arabs not only said no &#8212; they also invaded the fledgling Jewish state and declared a war of genocide.
After the Six Day War, the Israelis offered to negotiate their conquest of the territories. The Arabs met in Khartoum and issued the infamous three &#8220;No&#8217;s&#8221;: No negotiations, no recognition, no peace.
At Camp David, Arafat shocked the assembled observers by spurning Ehud Barak&#8217;s offer of a Palestinian state. Only his subsequent apologists have managed to interpret this as anything less than a reversal of his own negotiating position.
In 2008, Israel&#8217;s then-prime minister Ehud Olmert <a href="https://www.jns.org/erekat-olmert-offered-abbas-more-than-the-entire-west-bank/">offered Abbas 110%</a> of the land he requested. Abbas said no.
The Palestinians want nothing less than the elimination of the Jewish state, either by a war of attrition that evolves into a larger conflict or by Israel being overrun by four generations of refugees who claim a &#8220;right to return&#8221; and will destroy Zionism demographically.
This situation has festered for more than 71 years. If the Palestinians do not want the $50 billion (six times the 2016 GDP) that the &#8220;deal of the century&#8221; promises, then perhaps there is another use for the money.
The Palestinians have uttered the same refrain from the beginning of the conflict. They are not going to change their position.
Arabs who are Israeli citizens could choose to remain in Israel, and the others could be resettled among the lands from which 850,000 Jews were evicted in the broader Arab world. As my Jewish Iraqi grocer in the German Colony of Jerusalem once told me, &#8220;I was dispossessed of 50 hectares in Iraq. Let them settle Palestinians on my land.&#8221;
After World War II, for her security needs, Russia changed the boundaries of Central and Eastern Europe and the nationalities of tens of millions of people.
Sometimes an intractable problem calls for a difficult solution.

Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a distinguished fellow with the news and public policy group <a href="https://salomoncenter.org">Haym Salomon Center</a>. Follow him <a href="https://twitter.com/salomoncenter">@salomoncenter</a>.

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MILLER: The ‘Deal Of The Century,’ D.O.A.

Bahrain is set to be the center of the Middle East on June 25-26 when the country&#8217;s capital, Manama, hosts an economic investment conference intended to inject wealth into the Palestinian economy and lay the foundation for President Donald Trump&#8217;s upcoming &#8220;deal of the century&#8221; proposal between Israel and the Palestinians. The Bahraini &#8220;Peace to Prosperity&#8221; economic workshop announced on May 19 is a dual effort between the U.S. and Bahrain to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/joint-statement-united-states-america-kingdom-bahrain/">&#8220;galvanize support for potential economic investments and initiatives&#8221;</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/joint-statement-united-states-america-kingdom-bahrain/ents and initiatives">&#8220;facilitate discussions on an ambitious, achievable vision and framework for a prosperous future for the Palestinian people and the region.&#8221;</a>
Participating countries include Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and a large contingent of the Gulf Cooperation Council &#8212; Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Global powers Russia and China will not partake in the conference. Israel is yet to be formally invited to the summit, with senior adviser Jared Kushner <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/two-weeks-out-from-bahrain-summit-israel-said-yet-to-receive-official-invite/">reportedly</a> delaying an official invitation until the list of Arab states in attendance is finalized.
Notably boycotting the workshop is the Palestinian Authority, which, despite being the focal point and ultimate beneficiaries of the event, rejects the legitimacy of the conference because <a href="https://www.nad.ps/en/media-room/press-releases/dr-saeb-erekat-manama-economic-meeting">&#8220;Palestine&#8217;s full economic potential can only be achieved by ending the Israeli occupation,&#8221;</a> according to Dr. Saeb Erekat, a Palestine Liberation Organization diplomat. Various Palestinian trade organizations &#8212; accounting for nearly <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/palestinian-business-groups-say-they-won-t-go-to-bahrain-summit">80% of the Palestinian GDP</a> &#8212; have likewise declined invitations to attend, similarly objecting due to the lack of promise of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/palestinian-business-groups-say-they-won-t-go-to-bahrain-summit">&#8220;freedom and sovereignty for Palestinians.&#8221;</a>
The Palestinian leadership and major trade organizations are outright refusing to even entertain an influx of wealth into their impoverished land &#8212; as though a revitalized economy is a detriment to the well-being of the Palestinian people. Given the utter impossibility of the Palestinians&#8217; demand of full control over all of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to hear out the economic plan at the summit appears to be deeply cynical.
What government would blatantly reject a plan intended to augment the country&#8217;s economic standing? None, excepting the Palestinian leadership, because to do so is possibly the most obvious disservice to Palestinian denizens and industry alike. Yet for the Palestinians, this is part of a much larger play.
The Palestinian &#8220;struggle,&#8221; which has garnered so much favor among mainstream media and international supporters, thrives exclusively on the plight of the Palestinians and the intense suffering that continues to be passed off as an outcome of alleged Israeli interventionism and discrimination. To the Palestinian leadership, a revitalized economy and regional stability would run wholly counter to the messages of despair at the hands of Israelis and would distract from their prime objective of the destruction of Israel altogether. As evidenced by their attempt to <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Palestinians-urge-Egypt-Jordan-to-reconsider-going-to-US-led-conference-592252">block</a> the summit, the Palestinian government does not strive for a better society. Instead, the Palestinian government mobilizes its populace and the international community against Israel &#8212; at Palestinians&#8217; own expense.
Due to this, terrorism in Palestinian society is incentivized instead of the promotion of beneficial public works programs. Anti-Semitism, furthermore, is a state-sponsored cause. Rather than fund secular schooling for Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority commits significant resources to the delegitimization of Israel in school settings. Only <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/the-palestinian-textbook-fiasco/">7% of photographs</a> in Palestinian textbooks recognize any Israeli claim to territory. A U.S. State Department-funded study revealed that <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/the-palestinian-textbook-fiasco/">87% of Palestinian books</a> depict Israel and Israelis in a negative characterization, and almost all &#8212; excepting a singular instance &#8212; depict Judaism in a negative light. The Palestinian education system demonstrates another facet of its over-arching hatred and incompetence: Educational advancement is sacrificed for indoctrination and hatred.
The Palestinian Authority also directly funds terrorist activities and diverts sizable quantities of funds from beneficial government activities in order to do so. In March 2018, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-authority-payments-to-terrorists">approved</a> the allocation of $360 million &#8212; 7% of the GDP of the government &#8212; towards the compensation of terrorists and families funneled through two government institutions: The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Fund for Families of Martyrs and the Injured. Since 2013, these payments have in sum <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-authority-payments-to-terrorists">exceeded $1.5 billion</a>. In 2017, these payments accounted for a whopping <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-authority-payments-to-terrorists">49.6% of the foreign humanitarian aid</a> received by the Palestinian Authority.
The persistent pattern of the Palestinian Authority to slander and physically harm Israelis has culminated in the outright rejection of the Bahrain summit. No proposal for peace or economic prosperity will satisfy the Palestinian leadership. Ideals of rejectionism and confrontation with Israelis are so firmly engrained in Palestinian society, reaching children in schools and accounting for immense amounts of the national economy. The fundamental fault for a continued conflict lies not with Israel or with any particular United States plan, but with a culture of bigotry and state-sponsored incitement adopted by the Palestinians.

PHILLIPS: Upcoming Bahrain Summit Yet Again Showcases Palestinians’ Refusal To Negotiate

Egypt

White House senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is helping the president devise and (one expects) eventually unveil his much-ballyhooed &#8220;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/jared-kushner-aims-build-support-deal-century-mideast-trip-n1011281">deal of the century</a>&#8221; for Israeli-Palestinian peace, is in the news this week for some recent comments made in an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/kushner-questions-whether-palestinians-can-govern-themselves">interview with Axios</a>. In the <a href="https://www.axios.com/jared-kushner-palestinians-governing-peace-plan-096fed18-0059-468e-9b4b-da94e559cab8.html">interview</a>, Kushner equivocated on the purported urgency of Palestinian statehood and seemed to question whether the Palestinian-Arab populace is presently deserving of an autonomous state to call its own. As <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/dossier-no-palestinians-not-ready-statehood/">summarized</a> by Jordan Schachtel of Conservative Review:
<blockquote>
&#8220;The hope is that they over time will become capable of governing,&#8221; Kushner said in an interview broadcast on HBO on Sunday.
&#8220;There are some things the current Palestinian government has done well, and there are some things that are lacking,&#8221; Kushner added. &#8220;And I do think that in order for the area to be investable, for investors to want to come in and invest in different industry and infrastructure and create jobs, you do need to have a fair judicial system, you need to have freedom of press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions.&#8221;
</blockquote>
A people that needs more &#8220;time&#8221; to &#8220;become capable of governing&#8221; is, by definition, not capable of governing in the present. And a people that is deemed incapable of governing in the present is necessarily undeserving of a state in the present.
For this bit of <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-Holds-Barred-The-10-year-klepto-dictatorship-of-Mahmoud-Abbas-386752">axiomatic</a> <a href="https://global100.adl.org/#country/west-bank-and-gaza/2014">truth-telling</a>, Kushner was lambasted by all the usual suspects. This was a &#8220;condescending slur,&#8221; <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-jared-kushner-just-killed-the-palestinian-peace-camp-1.7317109">bellowed</a> Muhammad Shehada at far-left Haaretz! &#8220;Kushner very clearly hasn&#8217;t spoken to a single Palestinian if this is what he thinks,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1135503030764429312">tweeted</a> the self-hating ignoramuses of the egregiously misnamed <a href="https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/jvp-supports-the-bds-movement/">jihadist apologists</a> at &#8220;Jewish Voice for Peace.&#8221;
But Jared Kushner is clearly correct. And it is easy to understand why.
Let&#8217;s start with irredeemable, ubiquitous, genocidal Jew-hatred. A landmark global 2014 survey from the left-leaning Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that 93% of the Palestinian-Arab population in the &#8220;West Bank&#8221; Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip harbors anti-Semitic views. That is an astonishing statistic, and makes the Palestinian-Arab population more virulently anti-Semitic than the population of any actual nation-state polled by the ADL. Of course, this makes sense, given that Palestinian-Arab media is deeply and systemically anti-Semitic: State-run Palestinian Authority television <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47808/palestinian-arab-media-teaches-kids-how-shoot-jews-josh-hammer">teaches children how to shoot Jews</a> and even <a href="http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1100">lauds Hitler</a>. Furthermore, Palestinian textbooks &#8212; even those that have been <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Palestinian-text-books-in-UNWRA-schools-reportedly-teach-of-killing-Jews-472012">blessed with legitimacy</a> by the wretched hive of Jew-hating scum and Western values-bashing villainy known as the <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2016/12/27/destroy-the-united-nations/">United Nations</a> &#8212; teach children arithmetic by invoking the number of Jews killed during the jihadist outbursts of the First and Second Intifadas.
Against this educational backdrop, it makes a good deal of sense that leading Palestinian-Arab activists, such as BDS <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46068/hammer-yes-united-states-was-right-deny-entry-bds-josh-hammer">co-founder Omar Barghouti</a>, <a href="https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/126186/">deny</a> that Jews have any right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Intifada-Resisting-Israels-Apartheid/dp/1859843778">laud</a> the sustained jihad of the Second Intifada &#8212; which killed over a thousand Israeli Jews and maimed many thousands more &#8212; as merely reflective of &#8220;the heroism and costs of the resistance.&#8221; It also ought to make a good deal of sense that the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-Holds-Barred-The-10-year-klepto-dictatorship-of-Mahmoud-Abbas-386752">venal</a> and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Mahmoud-Abbas-admits-PA-pays-terrorists-watch-581863">jihad-funding</a> troglodyte who is presently in the 15th year of his four-year term as Palestinian Authority chieftain, Mahmoud Abbas, has <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/how-holocaust-denial-shaped-mahmoud-abbas-worldview/">long trafficked in overt Holocaust denialism</a>. Comically, it is Abbas &#8212; who is a <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-Holds-Barred-The-10-year-klepto-dictatorship-of-Mahmoud-Abbas-386752">true kleptocratic thief</a> in every sense of the word &#8212; who is publicly held out by the Jew-hating &#8220;international community&#8221; as a purported Palestinian &#8220;moderate,&#8221; in contradistinction to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46714/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood-franchised</a> Sunni sharia supremacist <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">jihadist death cult</a> in the Gaza Strip known as Hamas.
The truth is that there has never existed a Palestinian-Arab leader who has shown even the faintest interest in recognizing a secure and sovereign Jewish state somewhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. On the contrary, PLO/Palestinian Authority leadership has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-admits-he-rejected-2008-peace-offer-from-olmert/">consistently rejected</a> generous peace offers from Israel and continues to insist on the so-called Palestinian <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/249247">&#8220;right of return&#8221;</a> &#8212; a farcical idea, born out of the even more farcical <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47585/trump-administration-takes-controversial-hamas-josh-hammer">UNRWA &#8220;refugee&#8221; definition</a>, that would utterly destroy Zionism itself. As for Hamas? Well. Its <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp">founding organizational charter</a> calls for the death of Israel and the murder of every Jew in the world.
What a lovely group of people the Palestinian-Arabs are.
The simple reality is that the Palestinian-Arabs are not anywhere remotely close to being deserving of their own state. They not only fail to reject jihadism &#8212; they actively embrace and inculcate it as a virtuous way of life. They not only fail to recognize Israel as a Jewish state &#8212; they seek to destroy it via both the sword and intellectually disingenuous &#8220;right of return&#8221; demographics alike. They not only do not invest in the societal building blocks of rudimentary economic and civil institutions &#8212; they actively invest, instead, in the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/think-tank-terrorists-to-be-paid-as-pa-allots-nis-1-2b-for-inmates-martyrs/">subsidization of Jew-killing jihadi</a> &#8220;martyrs.&#8221;
In truth, the restive Palestinian-Arab populace is among the least sympathetic in the entire world. There is a good reason why so many of the Arab world&#8217;s leading nations, such as Saudi Arabia, are <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-paper-urges-palestinians-to-look-at-trump-peace-plan/">increasingly unsympathetic</a> to purported Palestinian plight and are instead interested in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43632905">forging covert geopolitical ties</a> with Israel. In the grand geopolitical scheme of things, the failure of the Palestinian-Arabs to carve their own terror state out of the Jewish biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria morally ranks somewhere far below the comparably uninteresting sovereignty disputes involving Western Sahara and Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. Indeed, the legal reality is also that, under any cognizable principles of international law, Israel has the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYZBjoeeehg">unambiguously superior legal claim</a> to control of Judea and Samaria.
Good for Jared Kushner for stating the obvious. But the fact that his comments are even controversial in the slightest ought to be deeply disturbing to anyone who lives and operates in the real world.

HAMMER: Jared Kushner Is Right. Palestinians Do Not Deserve A State.

Anti-Semitism

Last Thursday, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47296/president-trump-unveil-merit-based-immigration-emily-zanotti">unveiled</a> the rough details of an incipient White House-spawned immigration initiative. Politico, citing Capitol Hill sources who had been personally lobbied by White House ombudsman Jared Kushner on the plan, had also <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/07/jared-kushner-immigration-plan-1309708">previously outlined</a> many of the same substantive talking points.
Here is how conservative policy analyst Rachel Bovard <a href="https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/19/trumps-immigration-pitch-has-real-merit/">summarizes</a> the key tenets of the Trump/Kushner immigration plan:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>
Instituting a merit-based system to address the 1.1 million people who come here legally each year, with a points system that emphasizes education, employment prospects, age, and English language ability.
</li>
<li>
Eliminating the diversity lottery, and restricting family-based immigration (a.k.a. chain migration) by limiting family members a citizen can sponsor to just the nuclear family (spouses and children under age 18).
</li>
<li>
Placing physical barriers at 33 key points along the border, which are identified as key crossing points for illegal drugs and human trafficking.
</li>
<li>
Modernizing ports of entry, and ensuring that all vehicles and people are screened.
</li>
<li>
Reforming asylum procedures and closing loopholes, as the president said Thursday, to make sure frivolous claims are not displacing legitimate ones.
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
On paper, this plan looks somewhere between good and excellent. While it does not include the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/354">RAISE </a><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/354">Act</a>&#8216;s reduction in the total number of legal immigrants or otherwise address our temporary guest worker visa program that has <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/new-immigration-bill-has-one-terrible-flaw/">societally balkanizing effects</a> via the legal codification of a distinctively second-tier labor class, there is much to be applauded in this proposed outline. Re-orienting legal immigration from chain migration to a merit-based system is not only utterly logical &#8212; it is also what effectively every other industrialized first-world nation does. The closing of asylum loopholes and cracking down on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46457/amidst-unprecedented-border-crisis-united-nations-josh-hammer">bogus &#8220;credible fear&#8221; assertions</a> at our border is also salutary and long-overdue. So while I am <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46959/hammer-be-very-skeptical-jared-kushners-new-josh-hammer">cynical enough about immigration legislation</a> to still warn conservatives to dutifully ensure that the final legislative product matches the White House&#8217;s talking points, intellectually honest immigration hawks must still be pleased, overall, with what we have thus far seen.
The problem is that the timing for this legal immigration-centric legislative policy push, coming <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46992/crisis-cbps-april-border-numbers-further-reveal-josh-hammer">amidst an unprecedented mass illegal alien infringement</a> upon our sovereignty at our porous southern border, is truly bizarre. Why is the White House using scarce political capital and lobbying resources to promote a legislatively <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/nancy-pelosi-says-trumps-immigration-plan-dead-arrival-1428461">quixotic and therefore wholly symbolic</a> piece of legal immigration policy at a time when we are facing a full-on illegal immigration <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45822/hammer-customs-and-border-protections-insane-march-josh-hammer">assault</a> the likes of which we haven&#8217;t seen in over a decade &#8212; and potentially ever? As Daniel Horowitz <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/kushner-immigration-plan-good-one-still-distraction/">wrote</a> in his analysis of the plan, &#8220;It&#8217;s like a person who has a leak in his roof, but then a river floods his basement. While the roof was certainly important to focus on the day before, it is a moot issue unless he deals with his basement first.&#8221;
It is worth re-emphasizing the dire nature of the full-on migrant crisis &#8212; with all of the accompanying gang, drug, and crime problems that inevitably accompany the cartel-centric trafficking rings that guide the largely-Central American migrants up through Mexico &#8212; currently transpiring at our southern border. As U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration">noted in its April numbers</a>, total border apprehensions between points of entry in April rose 6.62% over March&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-march-statistics-southwest-border-migration">already-record-shattering pace</a>. Astoundingly, April&#8217;s apprehension total of 98,977 was a full 94.04% higher than the monthly total from the beginning of the federal government&#8217;s fiscal year, in October 2018. In other words, apprehensions between points of entry along the border have nearly doubled in just the first seven months of the current fiscal year. While March already represented a &#8220;<a href="http://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-march-statistics-southwest-border-migration">system-wide emergency</a>,&#8221; in the words of CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert E. Perez, April represented &#8220;an unprecedented and unsustainable situation.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CBP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CBP</a> is experiencing an unprecedented and unsustainable situation at the Southwest border. In April, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 109,144 individuals along the SWB. Details here: <a href="https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb">https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb</a> <a href="https://t.co/kzfTpfPNP8">pic.twitter.com/kzfTpfPNP8</a>
&#8212; CBP (@CBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1126214086839214083?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
We live in a country where a whopping <a href="https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2018/FY18-Annual-Report-and-Sourcebook.pdf">43% of all federal offenses</a> are committed by non-citizens, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has nonetheless <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/8/feds-release-168k-illegal-immigrant-family-members/">released</a> 168,000 illegal aliens into the interior just since December, and CBP itself <a href="https://twitter.com/USBPChief/status/1126261497179574272?s=20">released</a> another 33,000 into the interior just from March through May. The more illegal aliens we let abscond into the interior, the more the message gets back to Central America that we don&#8217;t enforce our own immigration laws, the more that migrants desire to make the dangerous trek north, and the more that the cartels, criminal rings, and trafficking organizations are empowered. Through the inaction and listlessness of our political elites, our crisis metastasizes further and turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why on earth are conservatives not focusing like a laser beam on that?
This whole legal immigration-centric policy initiative therefore amounts to a misdirection, a distraction, and a misuse of political priorities. As I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46959/hammer-be-very-skeptical-jared-kushners-new-josh-hammer">wrote</a> two weeks ago:
<blockquote>
The current situation at our southern border is past the point of crisis level. We are inundated daily with largely-bogus asylum claims that are perversely goaded by the pernicious <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45997/whole-world-knows-quotation-perfect-snapshot-our-josh-hammer">dissemination of inaccurate information</a> throughout Central America&#8217;s &#8220;Northern Triangle.&#8221; Policymakers ought to be focused like a laser beam upon <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42539/hammer-border-wall-nice-interior-enforcement-nicer-josh-hammer">ramping up interior enforcement</a>, amending the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46601/hammer-why-did-dhs-abort-its-re-writing-infamous-josh-hammer">deeply flawed</a> Flores consent decree with respect to illegal alien detention policy, and, at least for now, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45394/hammer-trump-would-be-right-fully-shut-down-us-josh-hammer">fully shutting off</a> our southern border until we regain <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42306/conservative-favorite-rep-chip-roys-maiden-floor-josh-hammer">operational control</a> of it and become a sovereign and secure nation once again. To the extent the White House feels the need to touch legal immigration at all and dangle possible legislative compromises for open-borders Democrats and infamously wobbly Republicans, it ought to initially focus on cutting overall numbers and resuscitating the moribund RAISE Act.
</blockquote>
Trump should instead focus on invoking his <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182">8 U.S.C. § 1182(f)</a> power &#8212; which &#8220;exudes deference to the President in every clause,&#8221; as Chief Justice John Roberts described it in the &#8220;travel ban&#8221; case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf">Trump v. Hawaii</a> &#8212; to temporarily <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45394/hammer-trump-would-be-right-fully-shut-down-us-josh-hammer">shut off all immigration whatsoever</a> right now at our southern border. He should <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/heres-secret-trump-power-end-judicial-amnesty-today-current-law/">vow to enforce</a> the already-on-the-books provisions of the <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/ocomm/ilink/0-0-0-10948.html#0-0-0-1113">Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996</a>, which would affirmatively preclude much of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44510/hammer-judicial-arrogance-existential-threat-our-josh-hammer">judicial malfeasance</a> and mandated catch-and-release that we see ordered from our unelected black-robed masters.
Good for the White House for floating a meritorious immigration proposal. But it is the wrong time, and it is the wrong use of political capital, for such an effort. Before we care about who comes over the border, we first need to make sure we even have a border.

HAMMER: Trump’s Legal Immigration Plan Is Solid. But It Misdirects Attention From Our Illegal Immigration Crisis.

Illegal Immigration

Immigration

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Republican Party

Southern Border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

It&#8217;s not illegal to talk to someone who lives or works in Russia, but you wouldn&#8217;t know that if you were reading The New York Times last Friday.
The newspaper published an article titled &#8220;Mueller Report Shows Depth of Connections Between Trump Campaign and Russians,&#8221; and details in a massive chart all of the contacts &#8212; no matter how insignificant or one-sided &#8212; Trump campaign officials had with Russians. The lede paragraph of the Times article makes it clear they want it to look like the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, as it states: &#8220;Donald J. Trump and 18 of his associates had at least 140 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition, according to a New York Times analysis.&#8221; (Emphasis original.)
&#8220;At least 140 contacts&#8221; sounds like a lot, but the Times counted many insignificant contacts to boost its number.
The paper doesn&#8217;t note that none of these contacts were illegal, and gives no context &#8212; such as, whether they had as many contacts with the Chinese or the British, or whether the &#8220;contact&#8221; was utterly meaningless. For example, one of the &#8220;contacts&#8221; between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian happened when &#8220;a Russian social media executive&#8221; reached out to him to discuss &#8220;setting up a campaign page.&#8221; No further details are given.
Did Jr. respond? What does this mean?
Another &#8220;contact&#8221; &#8212; this one counted against President Donald Trump&#8217;s son-in-law Jared Kushner* &#8212; was an introduction to the Russian ambassador. Kushner was likely introduced to a lot of ambassadors. It&#8217;s not uncommon and it&#8217;s not illegal.
Many of the &#8220;contacts&#8221; happened during the transition period, when it&#8217;s common for officials for the incoming administration to meet with foreign leaders and ambassadors to get the lay of the land. It&#8217;s part of the continuation of government. A new administration doesn&#8217;t just come in and start figuring things out; they spend the months between the election and inauguration doing this legwork.
All of Gen. Michael Flynn&#8217;s contacts with Russians, according to the Times, happened during this period, yet they&#8217;re portrayed as seedy. Many of Roger Sone&#8217;s contacts were with WikiLeaks, which until 2016 was an outlet loved by the Democrats for their exposure of information that hurt Republicans. Now it&#8217;s an agent of the Russian government and a very bad group.
On Twitter, the Times used Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s report to bolster their conspiracy claims, explaining &#8220;We scrubbed through the Mueller report and found at least 30 new instances where Trump and his associates had contacts with Russians.&#8221;
&#8220;Pick up today&#8217;s print NYTimes for a two-page graphic that lays out all 140+ contacts,&#8221; the outlet added, with a picture of a chart that might as well be posted to a conspiracy theorist&#8217;s wall.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
We scrubbed through the Mueller report and found at least 30 new instances where Trump and his associates had contacts with Russians.
Pick up today&#8217;s print NYTimes for a two-page graphic that lays out all 140+ contacts. <a href="https://t.co/Z18L9UnVPW">pic.twitter.com/Z18L9UnVPW</a>
&#8212; NYT Graphics (@nytgraphics) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytgraphics/status/1119332817446625281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Nothing in the Times report is illegal, it&#8217;s all meant to make it look like Trump and his associates skated on the collusion narrative.
It&#8217;s likely that Hillary Clinton&#8217;s campaign had a lot of contacts with Russians as well, and both campaigns probably met with many other foreign nationals. The Times just can&#8217;t admit that the two years it spent beating the &#8220;collusion&#8221; drum were for nothing, and is now just spouting conspiracy theories.
*Jared Kushner owned the New York Observer when I was brought on as a contributor.

New York Times Tries To Keep Collusion Narrative Alive, Reports On Trump-Russia Contacts From Mueller Report

Donald Trump Jr.

Russia

On Friday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visited Auschwitz, along with Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda. Pence, who was formerly Governor of Indiana and a U.S. Congressman from Indiana, is an evangelical Christian with a long history of philo-Semitism and a consistent promotion of a pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy. This was Pence&#8217;s first trip to Auschwitz, which is perhaps the single most iconic of all the Nazis&#8217; sundry concentration camps and death camps. Over 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz &#8212; the vast majority of them Jews.
The Times of Israel <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-vice-president-mike-pence-makes-his-first-auschwitz-visit/">reports</a> on Pence&#8217;s visit:
<blockquote>
Pence toured an exhibition hall that includes human hair and personal belongings of the victims before a wreath-laying at the Death Wall in a courtyard where prisoners were executed. Many of those shot there were Poles who were part of the underground resistance against the German occupation.
The two couples walked side-by-side to the wall for the wreath laying. The Pences held hands and the vice president adjusted a banner reading &#8220;From The People of the United States of America.&#8221;
Kushner was among a second group that then approached the wall and wreaths.
The second part of the visit took them to the nearby satellite camp of Birkenau, the site of the murder of Jews from across Europe. Pence knelt and bowed his head, placing his hand on a historic red train car on the train tracks used to bring Jews to their deaths there.
The couples also placed candles at a memorial to the Holocaust victims, with Pence wearing a Jewish skullcap. Poland&#8217;s chief rabbi recited a prayer to the dead.
</blockquote>
Pence came to Auschwitz from Warsaw, where he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/world/europe/pompeo-pence-us-iran.html">appeared and spoke</a> at a U.S.-sponsored conference about the Middle East. The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43443/big-israel-netanyahu-praises-excellent-meeting-josh-hammer">reported</a> on the conference on Wednesday. Pence did not equivocate in his condemnation of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist Iranian regime</a> at the Warsaw conference, accusing the ruling mullocracy of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-vice-president-mike-pence-makes-his-first-auschwitz-visit/">openly advocating</a> &#8220;another Holocaust.&#8221; While in Warsaw, Pence visited other Holocaust-era Jewish commemoration sites, including the site of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Karen and I were deeply moved by Birkenau and Auschwitz. It was a scene of unspeakable tragedy, reminding us of what tyranny is capable of. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NeverAgain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NeverAgain</a> <a href="https://t.co/Ogp8eZEL5R">pic.twitter.com/Ogp8eZEL5R</a>
&#8212; Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) <a href="https://twitter.com/VP/status/1096504043378302981?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Pence&#8217;s visit to Auchwitz <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/15/mike-pence-auschwitz-wreath/">follows closely</a> his public <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/13/vp_mike_pence_at_minimum_rep_ilhan_omar_should_be_removed_from_foreign_afairs_committee.html">condemnation</a> of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43290/bipartisan-condemnation-erupts-over-ilhan-omars-hank-berrien">recent anti-Semitic comments</a>. &#8220;.@IlhanMN tweets were a disgrace &amp; her apology was inadequate,&#8221; Pence tweeted. &#8220;Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, much less the Foreign Affairs Committee. Those who engage in anti-Semitic tropes should not just be denounced, they should face consequences for their words.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/IlhanMN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IlhanMN</a> tweets were a disgrace &amp; her apology was inadequate. Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, much less the Foreign Affairs Committee. Those who engage in anti-Semitic tropes should not just be denounced, they should face consequences for their words.
&#8212; Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) <a href="https://twitter.com/VP/status/1095507111415607296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The Vice President <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/13/vp_mike_pence_at_minimum_rep_ilhan_omar_should_be_removed_from_foreign_afairs_committee.html">elaborated</a> in comments to MSNBC&#8217;s Andrea Mitchell:
<blockquote>
Representative Omar&#8217;s tweets were a disgrace. Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress or anywhere in our country or the free world. I think it was right for Democrat leaders to condemn those remarks but I think it&#8217;s important that people that articulate anti-Semitic views are also held accountable. The Republican leadership was right to condemn Steven King&#8217;s remarks and also to remove him from the committee. There were consequences to what he said, and unless Representative Omar resigns from Congress, at minimum Democrat leaders should remove her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I served on that committee for more than a decade Andrea, one of the things that always united that committee was strong support for our relationship with Israel and a strong condemnation of anti-Semitism. The truth is anti-Semitism is not just wrong, it&#8217;s dangerous and Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation experienced that in one of the darkest chapters in human history. I&#8217;ll be at the Warsaw ghetto tomorrow, my wife and I will pay our respects at Auschwitz on Friday. It&#8217;s important that the leaders in the Congress take a firm stand against anti-Semitism rhetoric and I think it requires consequences in this case.
</blockquote>

Vice President Pence Makes His First Visit to Auschwitz

Holocaust

Mike Pence

Poland

A new <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2019/01/30/most-voters-oppose-another-shutdown-national-emergency-for-trumps-wall/">Morning Consult poll</a> released Wednesday found that Americans aren&#8217;t looking forward to a &#8220;shutdown, part 2,&#8221; but the White House is reportedly looking for a grand, &#8220;major&#8221; compromise deal on immigration with only three weeks left until the budget deadline.
The poll found that a majority of Americans &#8212; 53% &#8212; believe a second shutdown is a mistake, even if the White House believes the threat of a second showdown is enough to motivate lawmakers to come to the bargaining table. They&#8217;re also not fans of President Donald Trump&#8217;s plan to declare an &#8220;emergency&#8221; at the United States&#8217; southern border and order the military to build a border wall without Congressional approval for funding.
<blockquote>
Fifty-three percent of respondents in the poll of 1,997 registered voters said Trump should not shut down the government or declare a national emergency if lawmakers don&#8217;t fund his wall, while about a quarter of voters (24 percent) said he should declare an emergency. Only 9 percent said Trump should shut down the government.
</blockquote>
The best hope Trump has on the issue of an &#8220;emergency order&#8221; are Republican voters, who support the measure by a plurality. Around 47% of Republicans believe illegal immigration is enough of an emergency to justify going around a Congress unwilling to part with the $5 billion it would take to start the project &#8212; even if the last shutdown cost them at least twice as much as simply funding the wall.
That isn&#8217;t stopping the Trump White House from crafting an ambitious plan to handle immigration in the three weeks between possible shutdowns. According <a href="https://www.axios.com/jared-kushner-immigration-plans-government-shutdown-f5e144d4-5342-4509-a56e-627eb1a8a9c1.html">to a report from Axios</a>, which has been closely monitoring the White House&#8217;s immigration strategy, top Trump administration officials want a &#8220;major&#8221; immigration bargain, and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is already holding meetings in anticipation of formulating that exact plan.
&#8220;They would like to try and replicate at some level a bipartisan coalition on immigration issues, something paired with border security as well,&#8221; one source, who attended a White House meeting on the issue, told Axios.
The White House is reportedly modeling the big immigration deal on its recent criminal justice reform effort, which brought both Democrats and Republicans together to begin progress on an issue that has dogged both parties for decades. The hope is that a similar coalition can build on shared goals to solve immigration &#8212; the single largest issue facing congress in recent memory.
Axios reports that Kushner will join &#8220;Vice President Mike Pence and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to negotiate immigration on behalf of the White House,&#8221; and that their team has been given a wide berth to conduct meetings and investigations and craft deals.
It won&#8217;t be easy; already many in Trump&#8217;s brain trust are telling the president, vice president, and advisers that Trump&#8217;s key constituents aren&#8217;t interested in a grand immigration bargain that subverts the president&#8217;s 2016 campaign promises &#8212; particularly the border wall. Others don&#8217;t believe putting a three-week time limit on the issue will motivate lawmakers to come to the table. Instead, they&#8217;re pushing a longer-term agreement, with short term concessions to achieve budget passage.
The White House will have to figure out its position very soon. Negotiations on the budget deal will begin in the Senate early next week.

Most Americans Don’t Want Another Shutdown, But White House Is Determined To Ink ‘Major’ Immigration Deal

Immigrants

U.S. Senate

According to Democratic House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Jackie Speier (CA), the House Democrats are going to use their newly-acquired power to begin targeting President Trump and his inner circle, starting with Donald Trump Jr.
During a panel discussion at the Woman&#8217;s National Democratic Club Tuesday night, Rep. Speier revealed who the first target of the intelligence committee&#8217;s investigation would be: Donald Trump Jr., the Washington Examiner&#8217;s <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/house-democrats-to-subpoena-donald-trump-jr-first-russia-investigation">Paul Bedard</a> reports.
&#8220;There are a number of persons that testified before the committee that I feel were not telling the truth,&#8221; she said. Among them is Trump&#8217;s son who spoke to the GOP majority intelligence committee about his much-reported meeting in Trump Tower with the Russia-connecting lawyer during the 2016 campaign.
Trump Jr. denied any &#8220;collusion&#8221; allegations and dismissed the media as a run of the mill oppo-research-type attempt to get some dirt on Hillary Clinton that turned out to be a waste of time. Trump Jr. spoke with the Republican-led committee privately on December 6, 2017. White House senior adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the committee a few months earlier, in July 2017. The committee wrapped up its collusion investigation, finding no evidence of it, but Speier told CNN that the Democrats are committed to cranking it back up.
&#8220;Those documents were never subpoenaed by the Republicans and so they were able to just produce a whitewashed report that probably was written by someone on the presidential staff,&#8221; said Speier, Bedard reports. &#8220;I think it was truly a disturbing series of events over the last two years.&#8221;
She went on to predict that the Democrats would be able to prove the ever-elusive Trump campaign &#8220;collusion&#8221; with Russia. &#8220;I think in short order we&#8217;re going to see all of the dots connected in a way that shows that there were people that were treasonous, there were people that were clearly conspiring to affect the election with the Russians, and it will go down in history as one of the real black eyes in our country,&#8221; she said.
Speier has brought up the plan to go after Trump&#8217;s son in the past, including on <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/07/politics/jackie-speier-donald-trump-jr-jared-kushner-cnntv/index.html">CNN</a> in early December, when she said that Democrats would subpoena Trump Jr. as well as Kushner once they took power if the two men didn&#8217;t agree to meet.
&#8220;We will certainly subpoena their records,&#8221; Speier told CNN&#8217;s &#8220;Right Now.&#8221; &#8220;I think they will be subpoenaed if they don&#8217;t come voluntarily. We will try to make as many hearings as possible public.&#8221;
&#8220;Rep. Adam Schiff, the likely incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN&#8217;s Wolf Blitzer in October that he wants to bring in witnesses and pursue records regarding Russian money laundering and Trump&#8217;s businesses,&#8221; CNN noted at the time.
&#8220;We want to hear from I think a number of people that we have already interviewed,&#8221; Speier said. &#8220;All of the phone bills and phone calls made and all of the direct messages and the emails that were never subpoenaed need to be subpoenaed for the primary persons that were part of the Trump orbit and campaign.&#8221;

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