[IsraelTimes] Israel President Isaac Herzog criticizes New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, saying he doesn’t hide his “contempt” for Israel and made “outrageous” comments over a protest at a Manhattan synagogue.
“Recent developments in New York City have raised a red flag,” Herzog says at a gala event in New York City for Yeshiva University, according to a statement from his office.
“Here, we see the rise of a new mayor-elect who makes no effort to conceal his contempt for the Jewish democratic State of Israel, the only nation state of the Jewish people,” Herzog charges.
Herzog also refers to an anti-Israel protest outside an event encouraging immigration to Israel at a Manhattan synagogue last month, and Mamdani’s response to it.
“The incoming mayor’s response was to suggest that Jews who consider fulfilling the ultimate Zionist dream of making Aliyah are violating international law and the sanctity of the synagogue. This rhetoric is outrageous,” Herzog says.
“Delegitimizing the Jewish people’s right to their ancient homeland and their age-old dream of Jerusalem legitimizes violence and undermines freedom of religion,” the president says. “This is both anti-Jewish and anti-American.”
The president also addresses growing antisemitism and the need for action against it.
“Here in New York, and all across America, the turbulence is unnerving, and the challenges facing our people, the Jewish people, are growing,” Herzog says.
“Institutional antisemitism, Holocaust inversion, conspiracies left and right, Jew-hatred platformed on social media, and moral bankruptcy masquerading as social justice have all disturbingly increased,” he says. “Where Jews were once ‘Yids’ in America, Zionists are now called ‘Zios.’ Jews are always the first, but never the last, to be demonized, targeted, ‘other-ized.’”
“We must use any legal means at our disposal — advocacy, education, leadership, civic engagement, media, social networks — to combat this surge of hate and antisemitism,” Herzog says.
…first female prime minister of Estonia (2021-2024), following in her father’s footsteps. Then like her father, she went to serve in the European Commission. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were sent to Siberia for a decade as enemies of the Soviet Union, they is, which no doubt made dinner conversations interesting when she was growing up …
is one year in office: time for a compilation of her 'greatest work'
Unable to make one sentence without saying 'euh' and rambling on about Russia, one year into her position as EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kajak Kallas has shown exactly what she is: an embarrassement to Europe and the laughing stock of the diplomatic world.
Her astonishing lack of strategic insights, her undiplomatic language and her inability to even get the simplest historical facts right, make her by far the worst diplomat of the modern era.
[FoxNews] Dozens of officers claimed higher-ups instructed them to downgrade DC crimes
Washington, D.C., police chief Pamela Smith is resigning her position after just two and a half years on the job, she announced Monday.
Smith has faced intense pressure from President Donald Trump's administration, which took over the Metropolitan Police Department earlier this year and deployed federal law enforcement throughout the city.
"There comes a time when you just know it's time," Smith told Axios, which first reported her resignation.
"I am deeply humbled, grateful, and deeply appreciative of my time with the District of Columbia. Serving as Chief of Police has been the greatest honor of my career, and I want to extend my sincere thanks to Mayor Muriel Bowser for appointing me to this position and to the DC Council for their steadfast support throughout my tenure," she said in a statement.
Bowser praised Smith's work as police chief in her own statement on Monday, saying she weathered "attacks on our city's autonomy."
Smith has faced criticism from some D.C. residents who claim she has allowed MPD officers to assist federal agents in immigration enforcement, a claim she denies.
"We are not aligned with ICE. We do not, and have not since the crime emergency, worked alongside ICE," Smith told Axios. "[Social media] videos lend one aspect of what you see. If they show up, they show up. They're federal officers."
Smith has also faced controversy within her own department, with many rank-and-file officers accusing higher-ups of reclassifying crimes to make the city's crime data appear more benign.
As of October, roughly three dozen rank-and-file officers and detectives had lodged complaints with the Justice Department, as the city faces an investigation into whether crime statistics were intentionally misreported under the Trump administration.
According to officers, MPD leadership had for months — and in some cases years — instructed subordinates to downgrade serious offenses. Some precinct-level reports are said to have contained as many as 150 potentially misclassified incidents in the Southeast D.C. Seventh District alone. In about half of those cases, supervisors later upgraded the charges.
"I as the chief of police never, would ever say to anyone to alter stats," Smith said Monday.
DOJ probing claims DC police altered crime data, sources sayVideo
While city leaders and Democrats point to data showing violent crime is at a 30-year low, the DOJ and House Oversight Committee are probing whether those numbers are being masked by internal manipulation.
The DOJ’s criminal probe is being run out of D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office.
#4
Usually you have to pry off ticks. Bowser is going as well. Few truly corrupt people leave positions where they the power to thwart investigations. Something odd is going on.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/09/2025 6:32 Comments ||
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#5
We do not, and have not since the crime emergency, worked alongside ICE
[FoxNews] Small Business Committee chair points to Justice Department bust involving $550M in taxpayer contracts
Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who chairs the Senate Small Business Committee, is urging 24 federal agencies to halt funding for a Biden-expanded program for "socially and economically disadvantaged" business owners now under fire for alleged fraud and corruption, Fox News Digital has learned.
"Despite concerns with the 8(a) program, Joe Biden opened the floodgates to fraud," Ernst told Fox News Digital about the program. "I have found evidence of alarming, potentially fraudulent 8(a) awards made across government that need to be investigated. The program must be halted at every agency while a thorough review is conducted to ensure taxpayers are not being ripped off by con artists. Tax dollars designed to help small businesses must actually benefit all small businesses."
The federal government's 8(a) program is an initiative under the Small Business Administration (SBA) to assist "socially and economically disadvantaged" small businesses, according to the agency's website, including training and counseling, and exclusive access to federal contracting opportunities.
Ernst sent letters to the chiefs of 24 federal agencies that have established 8(a) programs — stretching from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — calling on them to halt funding amid fraud concerns.
"The SBA’s 8(a) program is the largest set-aside program at the agency, which dished out $40+ billion in contract awards during fiscal year 2024 (FY 24) alone," Ernst wrote in the letters. "Yet decades of Government Accountability Office (GAO), SBA’s Office of Inspector General, and DOJ probes expose the same rot. Sloppy oversight and weak enforcement measures allow 8(a) participants to act as pass-through entities, snagging unlimited no-bid deals with little transparency.4 Every loophole guts public trust and rigs the system against honest competitors."
Ernst's office later clarified on Monday that there was "25+ billion" in contract awards during fiscal year 2024.
Ernst said the Biden administration tripled the initiative's contracting goals from an original aim of awarding 5% of federal contracts to 8(a) companies, up to 15% during his tenure. Ernst pointed to a recent Department of Justice bust in her push to halt funding, as well as an October guerrilla-style sting interview conducted by James O'Keefe that allegedly uncovered an 8(a) firm admitting "to Violating Federal Law, Using Minority-Owned Status as a Front to Obtain $100M+ No-Bid Government Contracts While Outsourcing 80% of the Work."
The Department of Justice in June arrested four individuals in Maryland and Florida for running an alleged decade-long bribery scheme involving at least 14 8(a) contracts worth over $550 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars. One of the four men arrested was a government contractor for the United States Agency for International Development, according to the Department of Justice. The men pleaded guilty in the scheme.
The scheme involved bribes such as cash, NBA tickets and a country club wedding, Fox News chief Washington correspondent Mike Emanuel reported in June.
SBA Chief Kelly Loeffler ordered a full audit of all government contracting officers who have exercised grant-awarding authority under the agency’s business development program over the past 15 years back in June. She said the agency’s audit would begin with high-dollar and limited competition contracts within SBA’s 8(a) business development program.
Loeffler, following O'Keefe's investigation, opened an investigation related to that contract, she reported on X in October.
The 8(a) program is facing intensifying heat after Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced "a comprehensive audit of all contracts and task orders awarded under preference-based contracting, totaling approximately $9 billion in contract value across Treasury and its bureaus" in November.
The audit is focused on the "Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program, and other initiatives that provide federal contracting preferences to certain eligible businesses," the department reported at the time.
That same month, Ernst introduced legislation, "Stop 8(a) Contracting Fraud Act," to halt funding to all new no-bid awards until a thorough audit and report of the program is conducted.
Loeffler additionally sent letters to all 4,300 8(a) contractors across the federal government, which ordered "them to produce financial records as part of a comprehensive effort to root out fraud, waste, and abuse," she posted to X Friday.
"Evidence indicates that the 8(a) Program, initially designed for ‘socially and economically disadvantaged’ businesses, has become a pass-through vehicle for rampant abuse — especially during the Biden Administration, which aggressively prioritized DEI over merit in federal contracting," Loeffler added.
"While there’s no doubt that the Biden Administration’s indifference toward 8(a) program integrity enabled swindlers and fraudsters to treat federal contracting programs like personal piggy banks, 8(a) program flaws have raised alarm bells for decades," Ernst continued in her letters.
Ernst is calling on the chiefs of the 24 agencies to pause contracting, audit current contracts, review set-aside contracts awarded by the respective agencies since fiscal year 2020 and to report to the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship with any findings by Dec. 22.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Congress is threatening Pentagon boss Pete Hegseth to release the unedited video of a September 2 US military strike, or else lost his travel budget.
Hegseth is under scrutiny over a follow-up strike on two survivors following an attack on an alleged Venezuelan 'narco-terrorist' boat in the Caribbean on September 2.
The Pentagon boss, who ordered the strikes, admits he did not watch the full operation live on video but that he fully backs the operation's commander, Admiral Frank Bradley, and his decision to order the second strike.
Bradley was on Capitol Hill last week to brief some members of Congress on the strike.
He also showed them video of the operation, which left Democratic lawmakers with further questions while Republicans claimed it vindicated Hegseth and the Pentagon.
Now, Congress is working to withhold Hegseth's travel budget until the full, unedited videos of that operation and other drug-boat strikes are handed over to lawmakers.
The final draft of the Pentagon funding bill was released on Sunday and contains a provision threatening the secretary's budget should the video remain secret.
The provision demands that the Department of War 'provides to the Committees on Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Senate unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command.'
If the video is not released, then Hegseth could see his travel budget cut by 25 percent, according to the bill's text.
The provision also requires the Pentagon to release a report on the lessons learned from the Ukraine-Russia war before releasing the full travel budget.
'Pete Hegseth is a war criminal and should be fired immediately,' Democratic Senator Ed Markey said last month.
The funding bill is expected to be passed by the House and the Senate this week.
President Donald Trump signaled his openness to releasing the operation's video last week when pressed by reporters.
At the time, Trump said he would have 'no problem' with the video being released.
However, the president seemed to backtrack on Monday, saying he would defer to Hegseth on what should and should not be released.
'Whatever Hegseth decides is ok with me,' he said.
'Every boat we knock out of the water, every boat we save 25,000 American lives. That was a boat loaded up with drugs. I saw the video. They were trying to turn the boat back to where it could float. And we didn't want to see that.'
So far, the US military has conducted over 20 operations in the Caribbean against alleged narco-terrorists that have left at least 80 dead.
Hegseth, for his part, was noncommittal when asked if he would release the video.
'We're reviewing that right now,' he said when asked at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment.
#3
His family could load out a C130. Probably do it efficiently as well.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/09/2025 6:34 Comments ||
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#4
Bullshit propaganda. Exactly who in congress, that has the authority, is saying this? Its just smoke.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/09/2025 9:19 Comments ||
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#5
Have to agree, hit job.
The provision also requires the Pentagon to release a report on the lessons learned from the Ukraine-Russia war before releasing the full travel budget.
Struggle Session...but let's talk about that; sounds like an opportunity.
#6
Since Congressional Republicans were satisfied with Secretary Hegseth’s testimony, it was a/some Democrats who submitted the provision to the bill. If the provision is put to a vote at all, I imagine it will be voted down in committee before the final bill — after the latest draft — makes it to the floor of the House for the final vote.
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.
Pursuing a Professional Wrestling career, perhaps? Or the second female Ghostbusters? 
