[FoxNews] Sens. Baldwin and Brown said they condemn CAIR's 'blatantly antisemitic comments'.
Several Democrat members of Congress have a long history of public support for an organization whose leader recently ignited a firestorm over controversial comments regarding Hamas' deadly attacks on Israeli citizens.
Nihad Awad, the executive director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), recently said that he was "happy to see" the October 7 Hamas invasion of Israel and that the Jewish state did not have a right to self-defense because it is an "occupying power."
"The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7," Awad said at the 16th Annual Convention for Palestine in the U.S. on Nov. 24. "And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not free to walk in."
He continued, "And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense — have the right to defend themselves. And yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense."
Awad's comments forced the White House to scramble and scrub CAIR as a committed partner to fight antisemitism on its website. A White House spokesperson also strongly reprimanded his comments in a statement to Fox News Digital.
"We condemn these shocking, Antisemitic statements in the strongest terms," the White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "The horrific, brutal terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on October 7th were, as President Biden said, 'abhorrent' and represent 'unadulterated evil.'"
Meanwhile, dozens of federal lawmakers across the U.S. have previously expressed support for CAIR, as featured on the organization's website, and some remained silent when asked by Fox News Digital about the co-founder's stance on the horrific attacks that left 1,200 dead and others captured.
Sen. Krysten Sinema, I-Ariz., who is facing re-election in the 2024 cycle, previously applauded CAIR's work as "advocating for a more just society" and also accepted thousands of dollars in campaign donations from former directors and chairs of the group's Arizona chapter.
"I applaud the council’s devotion to our nation’s democratic values and your work advocating for a more just society," Sinema said in November 2019, before she changed her party affiliation from Democrat to independent.
Federal Election Commission filings show the independent senator accepted $2,500 in contributions from the former director of CAIR’s Arizona chapter, Deedra Abboud, $250 from the chapter's former vice-chair, Mannan Abdul Mohammed, and $100 from the chapter's former chair over the years.
Sinema did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment regarding Awad's statement on Israel and whether she stands by her comments praising the group.
Others quoted in this article are:
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio
Sen. Tammy Baldwin
Over 100 members of Congress, including then-Senator Vice President Kamala Harris, wrote personalized thank-you notes to CAIR in 2018 to congratulate them on over two decades of work.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Mich.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., named CAIR's "American Muslim Public Servant of 2021."
What they said about CAIR before and after the CAIR statement can be read at the link.
[NYP] A top House Republican accused special counsel David Weiss of indicting Hunter Biden to protect him from the chamber’s sprawling investigation into the first family.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the House Oversight Committee chairman who is leading the congressional probe into Hunter Biden and President Biden, said Weiss was only bringing the minimum possible charges to spare father and son from potentially more damaging revelations from his committee.
Hunter Biden had been in talks to testify before the Oversight Committee next week.
"We think that this is just the tip of the iceberg. We think there are many more crimes," Comer said on CNN Friday. "And my concern is that Weiss may have indicted Hunter Biden to protect him from having to be deposed in the House Oversight Committee."
Network anchor Jake Tapper was skeptical of the argument.
[Hot Air] Jim Jordan has an extraordinary question for the CIA. One that would make the already bad look of the 51 former intelligence officials’ letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" even worse.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is giving the CIA a week to share any information about payments to signers of the letter between January 1, 2020, and today.
We already know that CIA officers coordinated the campaign to get the letter published, violating the Hatch Act. Now, Jordan is implying that at least some signatories of the letter were getting direct payments from the CIA. There can be little doubt that they were already benefiting from their CIA connections, but direct payments would be even more damning.
#1
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is giving the CIA a week to share any information about payments to signers of the letter between January 1, 2020, and today.
Perhaps possible Klingon payments to the BCF (via foreign cutouts) can also be discussed ?
Halloween is over.
The witch is back.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Hillary Clinton held a fundraiser for Joe Biden at her Georgetown estate as the failed 2016 Democratic candidate plans to step-up her role in getting the president reelected in 2024.
Members of the Women's Leadership Forum gathered at Clinton's stately home in Washington, D.C. on November 27, according to a new NBC News report, and raised nearly $1 million for Biden's reelection campaign.
Over the next year, Clinton's role is expected to grow and former President Barack Obama is expected to jump in later in the campaign.
Clinton and Biden haven't always had the most close relationship.
In 2016, Clinton pushed the outgoing vice president of running for president. After she failed to beat Donald Trump and Biden was successful in 2020, it took her until September this year to visit him at the White House.
But Biden needs allies in the Democratic party as his age and fitness for office continues to raise concerns – and some voters are looking for alternatives in 2024.
'At the end of the day, Biden needs all the help that he can get,' a Democratic strategist told NBC. 'What he needs is both the spirit and the actual reality of unity.'
Former President Bill and former first lady Hillary Clinton purchased the Georgetown estate, named Whitehaven, in 2000.
The last Monday of November, Clinton hosted the fundraiser to help boost Biden's campaign.
Her reemergence as a Biden ally shows a larger effort to deploy high-profile allies to Biden's reelection fight, two people familiar with the campaign said.
Obama has appeared in some fundraising videos for Biden, but Democrats want a more visible role from the former president to give Biden a much-needed boost.
Over the next year, Clinton's role will only grow in order to help fill the void left by Obama before he finally jumps head-first into the 2024 election.
While Hillary Clinton was raising money for Biden in November, her husband was serving as Biden's surrogate during a lunch with Argentina's President-elect, Javier Milei, and former Sen. Chris Dodd, the president's special adviser for the Americas.
[MSN] Houston elected Democratic state Sen. John Whitmire as its next mayor on Saturday night, elevating a Texas lawmaker who has represented the city for 50 years by giving him a victory over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in a runoff.
Whitmire, 74, who is one of Texas’ most powerful Democratic legislators, will now be at the helm of America’s fourth-largest city. His campaign focused on reducing crime, improving streets and bringing people together. He heavily outspent Jackson Lee, who was running to become Houston’s first Black female mayor. without ethics or intellect
The congresswoman’s campaign also had to deal with fallout from the release in October of an unverified audio recording that purported to capture her profanely berating staff.
Whitmire built an insurmountable lead among early voters, winning among those voters by 30 percentage points.
Standing before a ballroom full of cheering supporters in the city's convention center, Whitmire said he was fired up and ready to go to work as mayor.
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
12/10/2023 02:03 ||
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Link ||
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The congresswoman’s campaign also had to deal with fallout from the release in October of an unverified audio recording that purported to capture her profanely berating staff.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/10/2023 5:56 Comments ||
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#5
S J Lee has represented the district since 1995.
Sadly, she will likely represent the district for at least several more years. She is currently 73 years old. Her only path to 'promotion' is getting a cabinet job after some vacancies open in the Biden Admin.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/10/2023 9:02 Comments ||
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#6
BLM Gamekeeper in residence, Johnson Island, the Pacific.
#12
Whitmire will have a difficult time reducing crime even with his best effort.
However, somewhat surprisingly, Houston has made considerable progress reducing homelessness. Enough success so a lot of city officials outside of Texas have made a visit to Houston to discuss it. We are not talking about solving the problem but reducing it significantly, about 10-20% depending on how you measure it.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/10/2023 16:06 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[MSN] Houston elected Democratic state Sen. 
