House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy on Sunday night pressed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take action against Rep. Maxine Waters (R-CA) for “inciting violence” in remarks she made in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, this weekend.
McCarthy said that if Pelosi does not act, he intends to take action of his own against Waters for her remarks encouraging violence in Minnesota if a jury does not find former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty in his trial in the death of George Floyd.
Waters, in her remarks to reporters at a protest in Brooklyn Center where thousands have been protesting the death of Daunte Wright, encouraged people to “take to the streets” if Chauvin is not found guilty of murder — one of the several charges he faces in his trial in Floyd’s death, which is expected to conclude this coming week.
“We’re looking for a guilty verdict,” Waters said. “And we’re looking to see if all of the talk that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd, if nothing does not happen, then we know that we’ve got to not only stay in the street, but we’ve got to fight for justice. But I am very hopeful, and I hope we are going to get a verdict that says ‘guilty, guilty, guilty.’ If we don’t, we cannot go away.”
Asked in a follow-up question what protesters should do if Chauvin is not convicted of murder, Waters said, “we’ve got to stay on the street and we’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure they know we mean business.”
Waters has a history of advocating extreme measures for political purposes. During former President Donald Trump’s administration, Waters advocated that people “harass” Trump administration officials in their daily lives.
“I have no sympathy for these people that are in this administration who know it’s wrong for what they’re doing on so many fronts,” Waters said when Trump was president. “They tend to not want to confront this president or even leave, but they know what they’re doing is wrong. I want to tell you, these members of his cabinet who remain and try to defend him, they won’t be able to go to a restaurant, they won’t be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store. The people are going to turn on them. They’re going to protest. They’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president, ‘No, I can’t hang with you.’ This is wrong. This is unconscionable. We can’t keep doing this to children.”
It is unclear if Pelosi will do anything about this latest iteration of Waters advocating extreme measures for political purposes, but if she resists holding Waters — who is the chairwoman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee — accountable, it remains to be seen what McCarthy can do from the minority to hold Waters accountable.
(TJVNEWS.COM) Hours after Sen. Maxine Waters (D-CA) urged protesters to ‘get more confrontational,’ a Minnesota National Guard and Minneapolis police team were targeted in a Saturday morning drive-by shooting, according to a press release by the National Guard.
“A @MNNationalGuard and @MinneapolisPD neighborhood security team was fired upon early Sunday morning in a drive-by shooting near Penn Avenue and Broadway in Minneapolis,” the guard tweeted just before 11:00 A.M
In another post, the guard said the incident occurred around 4:19 a.m. “as a light-colored SUV fired several shots at an @MinnesotaOSN security team providing neighborhood security,” adding no one was seriously injured.
The guard shared details about the members who were hurt, noting two of them sustained minor injuries.
“One Guardsman sustained an injury from shattered glass requiring additional care and was taken to a local hospital to receive treatment. The other Guardsman received only superficial injuries”.
California Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) flew to Minnesota this weekend, where she joined protesters in Brooklyn Center past curfew and urged them to ‘get more confrontational’ just one day after peaceful demonstrations devolved into violence, Zero Hedge reported.
“[Protestors] got to stay on the street and get more active, more confrontational. They’ve got to know that we mean business,” said Waters.
“I am not happy that we have talked about police reform for so long,” she continued, adding “We’re looking for a guilty verdict” in regards to former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is on trial for the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while in police custody last year. “And we’re looking to see if all of the talk that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd, if nothing does not happen, then we know that we’ve got to not only stay in the street, but we’ve got to fight for justice.”
“If we don’t,” Waters added, “we cannot go away.”
“We gotta stay on the street” Waters was recorded saying, according to the Daily Mail.
Several protesters were arrested late Saturday following Waters’ comments, after what the Washington Post described as a “volatile skirmish between police and protesters” involving around 100 people.
Meanwhile more from the Daily Mail.
Waters is planning on staying in town until Monday.
According to CBS Minnesota, officials stated that there was a brief altercation between reporters and proresters as Waters was leaving on Saturday, the first reports of any skirmishes.
The Pioneer Press reports demonstrators gathered Saturday afternoon at the home of Washington County Attorney Pete Orput, responsible for the second-degree manslaughter charges against Kimberly Potter.
The protesters stood outside of Orput’s home before marching through is neighborhood in Stillwater.
Black Lives Matter activist Nekima Levy Armstrong relayed that Orput left his home briefly to engage in a conversation with protesters. -Daily Mail
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
By Sandy Fitzgerald(NEWSMAX)
Plans for a conservative “America First Caucus” have been scrapped following blowback from leadership within the Republican Party, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney.
Nick Dyer, spokesperson for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who was reportedly setting up the caucus, along with Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., told CNN in an email Saturday afternoon that the congresswoman is not “launching anything.”
“The Congresswoman wants to make clear that she is not launching anything. This was an early planning proposal and nothing was agreed to or approved,” Dyer said, adding that “she didn’t approve that language and has no plans to launch anything.”
Greene, in a follow-up statement, distanced herself even further from the platform after considerable backlash, calling it a “staff-level draft proposal from an outside group that I hadn’t read,” adding that she “plans to drive President Trump’s America First agenda with my Congressional colleagues.”
Friday night’s news about the caucus, reported by the congressional newsletter Punchbowl News, featured a seven-page document that appeared to be the platform for an America First Caucus.
Key House Republicans, including McCarthy and Cheney, strongly condemned the plans, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., called on Republicans to kick out any conference member joining the group and to strip away their committee assignments.
“America is built on the idea that we are all created equal and success is earned through honest, hard work. It isn’t built on identity, race, or religion,” McCarthy, R-Calif., tweeted in response to the news. “The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln & the party of more opportunity for all Americans—not nativist dog whistles.”
Cheney, R-Wyo., posted on Twitter that “Republicans believe in equal opportunity, freedom, and justice for all. We teach our children the values of tolerance, decency and moral courage. Racism, nativism, and anti-Semitism are evil. History teaches we all have an obligation to confront & reject such malicious hate.”
Kinzinger, R-Ill., tweeted that the GOP should denounce anyone joining the caucus.
“I believe anyone that joins this caucus should have their committees stripped, and the Republican conference should expel them from conference participation,” he said. “While we can’t prevent someone from calling themselves Republican, we can loudly say they don’t belong to us.
It was quickly slammed by several key members of the House Freedom Caucus, to which Kosar and Green also belong, reports Forbes, quoting a source with knowledge of the group’s discussions who said other members of the strongly conservative existing caucus met the news with “fury.”
“The hatefulness of this statement is only surpassed by its ignorance of American history and values,” Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said, posting a copy of the Punchbowl News report that said the new group would promote “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and that it would return to a style that would “benefit the progeny of European architecture.
Buck’s spokesperson, Lindsey Curnutte told Forbes the lawmaker had no plans to join the now-scrapped new caucus.
Several other Freedom Caucus members that Punchbowl had initially reported had agreed to join the new caucus, including Reps. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Barry Moore, R-Ala., told Forbes they hadn’t yet decided to join the group.
Democrats also widely panned the America First Caucus announcement, with Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif, commenting that the supporters should “take your nativist crap and shove it” and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., tweeting that the plans were “blatantly racist.”
“As an immigrant, I served on active duty in the US military to defend your right to say stupid stuff,” Lieu said. “What makes America great is that we don’t judge you based on bloodline, we look at your character.”
In the aftermath of the vicious attack on two NYPD officers in Brooklyn on Saturday morning in which Lionel Virgile, 44, threw a Molotov cocktail and bleach at them from his car. it has now been reported by the New York Post that the ex-wife of the driver has claimed that he suffers from bipolar disorder and has been off his medication for two years.
The East Flatbush attack was caught on one of the officers body camera. The Post reported that following his arrest, Virgile was transferred to federal law enforcement .
As of early Sunday, Virgile remained under investigation and he was initially charged with the possession of a destructive device, according to the Post report
When approached by officers while in his 2000 Lincoln Town car at Clarendon Road and East 45th Street in Brooklyn, Virgile allegedly threw the contents of a cup holding a “caustic liquid substance” at an office, as was reported by the NY Post. As a result of the attack the officer was brought to a local hospital where he was treated for burns.
Speaking to the New York Post, Virgile’s ex-wife, Marie Theodate told them that her ex is in desperate need of help due to his alleged psychological illness.
Theodate told the Post that, “He’s not a violent person,” normally, but “when he’s off his meds, that’s it. He’s been off his meds for almost two years now.”
The Post reported that police officers then pulled Virgile over at Snyder Avenue hear Kings Highway, according to the Post, At that juncture, Virgile allegedly got out of the car and threw a lit Molotov cocktail at the police car, according to a spokesman for the NYPD.
When responding cops next pulled Virgile over at Snyder Avenue near Kings Highway, the suspect stopped the car, got out, and threw a lit Molotov cocktail at the police car, an NYPD spokesman said. Police also said that the Molotov cocktail was made from a vodka bottle and harmlessly bounced off the car. The officers escaped injury, as was reported by the NY Post.
When speaking to the Post on Sunday morning, Theodate issued an apology for the actions of her ex. “I’m really sorry about that because that’s a really bad thing that he did,” she told The Post. “You cannot attack an officer because they are the ones that protect us. I’m really, really sorry about that.”
After 15 years of marriage, the union ended in 2008 when Virgile became ill, she said. According to the Post report, Theodate said that the couple lived in Connecticut and when her now ex-husband got into any trouble that the police there would bring him to a psychiatric facility so he could get help, as was reported by the Post.
Theodate also told the Post that, “a month ago they called the cops on him because somebody saw him sleeping in his car, and they take him in the emergency room in New York. We asked them to give him his meds or keep him there but doctors said no, we cannot force him. They let him go the same day.”
She said when she lived with Virgile in Connecticut, and he got into any trouble, police there would bring him to a psychiatric facility so he could get help.
But in New York, where he has apparently been living in his car, he has not had treatment, she believes.
Theodate added that she and her ex share a daughter who she claims he barely speaks to or even remembers. She told the Post that the family wants him to get help desperately He has not worked in five years as well.
“Every time we try to call cops on him they come get him and they let him go. They take him to the ER and they let him go after. They refuse to keep him there. I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t have health insurance. I don’t know why they don’t keep him there,” Theodate told the Post.
Jonathan Pollard, the former US Navy Intelligence analyst who had been jailed for 30 years for providing Israel with Israel with information is seen here in a restaurant in Jerusalem. Pollard and his wife Esther finally arrived in Israel in late December. He is viewed as a hero amongst his people for having sacrificed his life for the Jewish state.
A COVID-19 test at Ben-Gurion International Airport. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
By World Israel News Staff and AP
On Friday, Health Ministry officials announced that the Indian coronavirus variant was detected in Israel for the first time.
The variant was discovered in seven unvaccinated travelers returning to Israel, said the ministry, without detailing the travelers’ points of origin. Testers used genome sequencing to identify the corona variant.
The Indian COVID variant has two key mutations that could cause the virus to proliferate with greater ease, while evading the body’s immune response.
News of the Indian variant’s presence arrived days after Israel announced it will reopen the country to vaccinated foreign tourists in May, more than a year after closing its borders to most international visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Tourism Ministry said a limited number of tourist groups will be allowed to enter the country starting May 23, with individual visitors allowed at a later stage. All foreign tourists entering the country will be tested for coronavirus before boarding flights to Israel and must present a serological test to prove they have received a COVID-19 vaccine.
Israel has carried out highly successful vaccination program that has allowed it to reopen most sectors of the economy. But the tourism industry, limited only to serving Israelis, remains blighted.
“After opening the economy, it is time to allow tourism in a careful and calculated manner,” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said in a joint statement with the Tourism Ministry.
Yossi Fattal, head of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association, an industry trade group, welcome the decision but said “the speed and way it is being handled are worrying.”
He said the group doesn’t understand why it is so much easier for a vaccinated Israeli than a tourist who has received the same vaccine to enter the country. He called on Israel to adopt international standards for recognizing vaccinations and not rely on serological tests, which he said raise privacy concerns.
Israel has recorded over 836,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 6,304 deaths since the start of the pandemic. But in the months since the launch of its vaccination campaign in December, serious cases and deaths have fallen precipitously and the economy has fully reopened.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) joined demonstrators Saturday evening outside the police station in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and told Americans to take to the streets unless Derek Chauvin is convicted for murder in the death of George Floyd.
Waters joined protesters who are angry over the shooting of Daunte Wright, 20, as he fled arrest after a traffic stop earlier this month. Officers discovered that there was a warrant for Wright’s arrest over accusations of attempted aggravated robbery and a gun violation. Police officer Kim Potter threatened to use her Taser against Wright, but shot him instead; he later died.
Maxine Waters is marching in Brooklyn Center tonight and told people to take to the streets if Chauvin is acquitted pic.twitter.com/RemfvCCLAn
The incident was followed by protests and riots, just as the Chauvin trial was taking place several miles away.
“We’re looking for a guilty verdict,” Waters said. “And we’re looking to see if all of the talk that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd, if nothing does not happen, then we know that we’ve got to not only stay in the street, but we’ve got to fight for justice,” she said.
Chauvin, a former Minneapolis Department Oficer, faces three charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
But a conviction for manslaughter would not be enough, Waters said. The guilty verdict had to be for murder — which, she added, ought to have been first-degree murder.
Waters said that Democrats would pass a police reform bill over the objections of “the right-wing, the racists.” She had harsh words for Republicans, whom she blamed for the Capitol riot on January 6:
The Chauvin trial will conclude with closing arguments and jury instructions on Monday.
(AP) — New York’s governor gained national attention last spring and won an International Emmy, for daily, televised news briefings at which he answered barrages of questions from journalists about the COVID-19 pandemic.
But lately, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has shied away from coming face to face with reporters as sexual harassment allegations against him have mounted.
The Democrat hasn’t had an in-person news conference since December, when he switched to interacting with the media only via telephone and Zoom conference calls, saying it was a needed pandemic safety precaution.
To be clear, Cuomo hasn’t been ducking questions entirely. On Friday he took questions, via Zoom, from six reporters for about 25 minutes at an event in Buffalo that reporters from had been barred from attending in person.
But his conference calls with reporters have grown less frequent this spring, with six held in March, down from 10 in February and 17 in January.
And with reporters forced to dial in remotely, his office can control which reporters get to ask questions. The few who are picked often don’t get follow-up questions.
That’s a huge change from last spring, when Cuomo met daily with reporters who shouted questions from seats in the State Capitol’s Red Room.
Since February, when women began coming forward with stories about inappropriate comments or touching by Cuomo, the governor has attended numerous events featuring him speaking in front of small groups — but with no journalists allowed.
Asked on a recent conference call why he couldn’t have journalists in the room, Cuomo said that it was safer to speak to reporters remotely, and that doing it by conference call didn’t stop reporters from asking tough questions.
“We try to keep the number of people down, and we try to keep social distancing mandates,” Cuomo said of his in-person events. “Answering questions with the press, I can do through other means, like this.”
It’s in part a return to practice for Cuomo, who, before the coronavirus pandemic, rarely held regular news conferences.
But after months of easy access, the governor’s sudden refusal to allow reporters to freely question him has rankled media outlets.
His withdrawal from view comes as the state attorney general’s office, federal prosecutors and the state Assembly’s judiciary committee investigate allegations that Cuomo abused his power to sexually harass women and withhold data about COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents.
Leaders of the judiciary committee have said its investigation will include a review of a recent book deal and whether Cuomo’s family got access to quicker test results than other New Yorkers. The probe is reviewing whether there are grounds to impeach the governor.
The leaders of the Journalists Association of New York is demanding that Cuomo reopen his news conferences to journalists and this week called his avoidance of the media “an affront to the public.”
“These restricted-access events are a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars in an attempt to bolster the governor’s image while at the same time attacking the public’s right to know about the activities of government, a right that is exercised by the news media when covering the governor’s public events in person,” Jeremy Boyer, executive editor of the The Citizen and Auburnpub.com, wrote in a letter on the association’s behalf. “No governor should refuse to provide this basic level of access and transparency.”
Cuomo’s sudden reversal is striking because he seemed to have prided himself on taking on reporters’ questions last spring, said Skidmore College political science professor Christopher Mann said. At one June briefing, Cuomo praised journalists for asking “the really probative, pointed, direct questions that got information that people needed.”
Now, Mann said, “he’s entirely pulled back, which has implications for how the state is governed.”
Governors of many other states have been allowing journalists to attend indoors and outdoors news conferences.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, allows journalists to attend as many as three in-person news conferences a week and often devotes 15 to 20 minutes to questions. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, holds twice-a-week in-person news conferences with 20 to 40 minutes of time devoted to questions from reporters.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, both Republicans, have spent around 10 minutes on average taking questions from reporters at recent news conferences. Abbott speaks once a week, while Desantis has been holding in-person briefings open to the media at least twice a week.
DeSantis, however, at times walks away from news conferences without taking questions from reporters, particularly when he faces the Capitol press corps in Tallahassee.
A few governors are still holding virtual-only news conferences. Democrat Gretchen Whitmer has been holding once-a-week conferences this spring as cases surge in Michigan.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio hasn’t been allowing journalists into his news briefings for months, either, for safety reasons, but has been allowing reporters to ask questions four times a week during question-and-answer sessions that can go for an hour or more.
(AP) — Safety regulators warned people with kids and pets Saturday to immediately stop using a treadmill made by Peloton after one child died and others were injured.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said children and at least one pet were pulled, pinned and entrapped under the rear roller of the Tread+ treadmill, leading to fractures, scrapes and the death of one child.
The safety commission said in a news release and in emails that it knows of 39 “incidents” with the treadmill, involving “multiple” or “dozens” of children, but it did not specify the number of children. It said the majority of the incidents resulted in injuries, including the one death.
The commission posted a video on its YouTube page of a child being pulled under the treadmill.
Of the 39 incidents, 23 involved children, according to New York-based Pelotron Interactive Inc.; 15 included objects like medicine balls, and one included a pet, it said.
Peloton said in a news release that the warning from the safety commission was “inaccurate and misleading.” It said there’s no reason to stop using the treadmill as long as children and pets are kept away from it at all times, it is turned off when not in use, and a safety key is removed.
But the safety commission said that in at least one episode, a child was pulled under the treadmill while a parent was running on it, suggesting it can be dangerous to children even while a parent is present.
If adults want to keep using the treadmill, the commission said, they should use it only in a locked room so children and pets can’t come near it. When not in use, the treadmill should be unplugged and the safety key taken out and hidden away. The commission also said to keep exercise balls and other objects away from it, because those have been pulled under the treadmill, too.
Peloton is best known for its stationary bikes, but it introduced the treadmill about three years ago and now calls it the Tread+. It costs more than $4,000.
Sales of Peloton equipment have soared during the pandemic as virus-weary people avoid gyms and workout at home instead. The company brought in $1 billion in revenue in the last three months of 2020, more than double its revenue from the same period a year before.
The commission did not say how many of the Peloton treadmills have been sold.
City Council candidate David Aronov wants to be the first Bukharian-American to hold office in New York. Background: A Bukharian supermarket in the Rego Park section of Queens. (davidforqueens.com; Lauren Hakimi. Jewish Week montage by Janice Hwang)
(JNS) – In the 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism inspired Central Asian Jews to move to Queens, the Bukharian community of Forest Hills and Rego Park has never been represented in local government by one of its own.
City Council candidate David Aronov is looking to change that. But as a Democrat seeking to represent a community that has largely voted Republican — at least in national elections — he says he’s gotten pushback from some community members.
“The community is very conservative,” the 24-year-old said in an interview on Queens Boulevard and 63rd Drive, where kosher Middle Eastern restaurants, Chinese restaurants and chain coffee shops operate side by side.
But Aronov also says he has plenty of support from his community, which he describes as “very tribal” and “very tight knit.” While he may support liberal policies like universal child care and no new jails, he thinks conservative voters will put that aside in order to finally have someone in government who literally speaks their language.
Besides, Aronov points out, “even if I don’t win, there will still be a Democrat in the seat.” In many districts in New York City, the winner is effectively determined in the Democratic primary.
In 2016, using Board of Elections data, DNAinfo found that while most voters in Forest Hills voted for the Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, more than half of voters in Bukharian neighborhoods voted Republican for Donald Trump.
“I know a number of my relatives who voted for Trump who live in the Forest Hills-Rego Park area,” said Forest Hills resident Lilianna Zulunova, a consultant to the Aronov campaign who ran for the New York State Assembly in 2010. “On a national level, they’re very conservative because of the pro-Israel type of mentality that they have. But on a local level, they still vote for the Democratic candidates.”
Joshua Nektalov, 19, an accounting major at Queens College who also lives in Forest Hills, says that even though he’s a registered Republican, he’s glad Aronov is running and agrees with some of his ideas.
“It’s pretty cool that a Bukharian is running,” he said. “Even though he’s a Democrat, a lot of people will want to talk to him knowing that they have some common beliefs and share the same heritage.”
Nektalov says the issue he cares about most is strengthening the community, and he likes that Aronov supports building and improving community spaces other than synagogues, like the Bukharian Teen Lounge, an afterschool program that shut down in 2016. It’s an issue the candidate mentioned on a podcast with Queens College’s Bukharian Cultural Club, of which Nektalov is a part.
“He wants people within his community to converse and talk about issues, about themselves, besides from just being in a temple,” Nektalov said. The synagogue is an integral place to socialize for members of the largely Orthodox community.
Zulunova was a child when her family immigrated to the United States from Uzbekistan in 1992. She says that 10 or 15 years ago, her parents didn’t vote at all.
“They were more focused on getting food on the table, putting a roof over our head,” she said. “They weren’t necessarily thinking about wanting to go out and vote.”
Aronov says that political indifference is common in the Bukharian community. He told the Bukharian Cultural Club that even his own parents, who immigrated from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, aren’t really involved in politics.
“Every now and again, my mom still says, ‘it’s not too late to be a doctor, it’s not too late to be a lawyer,’ and I’m like ‘Mom, I know what I’m doing. Thank you,’” said Aronov, who has a master’s degree in public administration from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Aronov says that some Bukharians don’t bother going to the polls because they think the vote is pre-decided — a carryover from their experience in the former Soviet Union.
“I hear that on the campaign trail,” he said. “Some people think oh, my vote doesn’t matter, the election’s already fixed, whoever the institution wants to win is going to win. And I’m like, that’s not true. That’s not how this works. People win by a handful of votes in these local elections.”
Queens College Jewish studies professor Manashe Khaimov, who specializes in Bukharian history and culture, says there are three reasons why Bukharians are hesitant to get involved in American politics: differences in language and culture, government corruption under the Soviets, and a bad experience with political parties in the FSU.
“There was a huge mistrust in the electoral system,” Khaimov said. “And not because the American system did it to them — it’s not because of that. It’s because of the perception that came from the Soviet Union.”
Khaimov says that under the Soviets, Bukharian Jews — the name derives from the emirate that controlled the Central Asian region until the 1920s — mostly practiced religion in private. While many wanted to get out, leaving was illegal for them until the 1970s and ’80s. At that point, some moved to Israel and the United States, but most remained. Following the Soviet Union’s collapse, a civil war in Tajikistan also raised tensions in neighboring Uzbekistan. That combined with economic problems and concerns about anti-Semitism spurred the remaining Bukharians to depart.
In an unhinged, irresponsible, and racist rant, CNN host Chris Cuomo says that there won’t be police reform or gun control until “your kids start getting killed. White people’s kids start getting killed.”
“Shootings, gun laws, access to weapons. Oh, I know when they’ll change,” said Cuomo during a monologue on his show Cuomo Prime Time. “[When] your kids start getting killed. White people’s kids start getting killed.”.
In an opinion-based rant, which should not even be on a network that still markets itself as a “news authority”, Cuomo was talking about recent police shootings, which have been in the news, and pivoted for a moment to gun control.
There have been many, many white victims of shootings and also victims of police shootings. The Sandy Hook shootings, Parkland shootings, are the first that comes to mind in which “white people’s kids” got killed.
As far as police killing “white people’s kids”-, a few of the more widely reported victims include Jeremy Mardis(who was 6 years old ) Ciara Meyer( 12 years old), Logan Simpson(16 years old), and only last week in Maryland, Peyton Ham, who was a 16-year-old honor student. There are hundreds of other cases of white people of all ages being killed by cops, but the irony is unbelievable considering only last week a 16-year-old “white kid” was killed by police, and a news anchor on “CNN- the most trusted name in news” was either unaware of this case or ignored it on purpose.
Chris Cuomo and the entire crew at CNN are dangerous race-baiters, who contribute nothing positive, enlightening, or truthful on their alleged news network. They are sowing hatred and disseminating a dangerously false narrative. CNN’s viewers are victims, as this network continues to market itself as “news”, the casual victim is misinformed, dumbed down, and deprived of factual reporting.
Here is Mr.Cuomo’s racist and intellectually dishonest rant.
Mayoral Candidate Shaun Donovan gathers signatures in Downtown Brooklyn to get on the ballot, March 2, 2021. | Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Democratic mayoral hopeful Shaun Donovan took a double hit on some key numbers Thursday as the primary campaign headed into its final 10 weeks.
The former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development didn’t get any matching funds from the city — at least not yet. And he ended up in the second-to-last ballot position out of the 12 Democratic mayoral candidates to make the cut.
The city Campaign Finance Board on Thursday rained more than $10 million in matching funds on six of the Democratic mayoral candidates. But the board opted to wait on giving any to Donovan until taking a closer look at whether the New Start NYC political committee, backed with $2 million of his father’s money, violates campaign finance rules.
“The Board is deferring its decision on whether to pay public funds to the Donovan campaign today, but it has not made a determination on public funds payments nor on whether there has been a violation,” Frederick Schaffer, chair of the city’s Campaign Finance Board said in a statement. “The board will seek further information in this matter from the Donovan campaign and from New Start NYC and will review that information promptly.”
Under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of candidates but are not allowed to coordinate with campaigns. What coordination means — and how it applies to a candidate’s relationship with a deep-pocketed dad — is unclear.
If the board finds evidence of coordination, contributions to the Donovan-backing PAC may actually be considered to be in-kind donations to his campaign. If that’s the case, Donovan may not be eligible for public matching funds due to individual donation limits.
“We are confident that this will be resolved quickly. We look forward to working with the Campaign Finance Board, because we believe that New York City’s campaign finance laws are a model for the nation,” Brendan McPhillips, Donovan’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “We are grateful to the thousands of New Yorkers who donated to us knowing that their hard-earned dollars would be a part of this system. We believe that in short order our matching funds will be released.”
A Matching Funds Boost
The city provides $8 for every $1 qualifying candidates raise, which can boost campaigns and keep spending on a more even playing field. While Donovan hasn’t seen any matching funds from the city, six other candidates benefitted.
Andrew Yang received the most in this round: $3,724,112. Former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia got $2,265,561, while former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales notched $2,247,681. None of the three had qualified for matching funds in the first round.
Via the city Campaign Finance BoardPayments approved on April 15, 2021, by the city Campaign Finance Board
In a statement, Morales said the funds “will expand the reach of our organizing power and help fuel this movement … to transform our city into one of dignity, care and solidarity.”
Garcia’s campaign manager, Monika Hansen, touted the funds as proof of “the energized, people-driven campaign.”
Maya Wiley, former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, received $906,437 this round, adding to the more than $1.9 million in public funds she’d already reaped. City Comptroller Scott Stringer got $589,230 this time, adding to nearly $4.7 million in public funds he’d acquired earlier. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams got $317,295 to put on top of the $5.2 million in previous public funds.
Getting into Position
The candidates also found out where they would appear on the ballot, a factor that may hold some sway over undecided voters faced with a list of a dozen Democratic mayoral candidates and ranked choice voting, which will get its first citywide test in the June 22 primary.
The candidates’ ballot positions were determined by a lottery conducted Thursday by the city Board of Elections. The dozen were whittled down from nearly 50 City Hall hopefuls based on preliminarily meeting the threshold for ballot petition signatures.
Morales won the second spot on the list.
“Regardless of the ballot order’s impact, we’re excited for New Yorkers to quickly find Dianne’s name in the No. 2 spot when ranking her No. 1 on their ballot,” said Lauren Liles, a spokesperson for her campaign.
Yang, who found himself last, tweeted that it felt “like grade school where I was always last alphabetically.”
Via the New York City Board of ElectionsThe city Board of Elections held a lottery Thursday to determine the order candidates will appear on the ballot in the June 22 primary.
Jeremy Edwards, a spokesperson for Donovan, said the campaign is “looking forward to giving Andrew Yang some company at the bottom of the ballot, while understanding that wherever we are doesn’t change our plans to continue communicating Shaun’s plans for NYC to voters in every borough.”
The top line of the ballot will go to Aaron Foldenauer, an attorney who is “still working” on securing endorsements — and has not qualified for matching funds after raising just $16,360 in private funds as of mid-March, according to the Campaign Finance Board.
In contrast, Councilmember Carlos Menchaca, who dropped out of the race in March, had raised more than $87,000 and enjoyed broader name recognition.
But Foldenauer — willing to test the limited influence of the coveted premiere spot on the ballot — is not about to follow suit.
“I’m in this race to win it and I’m not dropping out of the race. I’m on the ballot. I’m not going anywhere,” Foldenauer told THE CITY. “The list of candidates in the Democratic primary reads like a veritable phonebook and thus winning top ballot position is a huge deal.”
THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.
The Palestinian film hoping to beat out its Israeli competitor at the Oscars got a boost when it won in the Best Short Film category at the annual British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards in London on Sunday.
British-Palestinian film director Farah Nabulsi accepted the award for her film, “The Present,” about the trials and tribulations of a father and his young daughter trying to buy an anniversary present of a new refrigerator and stock it with some groceries.
“Absolutely blown away!!! A BAFTA!!!,” Nabulsi tweeted after winning the award.
Done entirely from the Palestinian perspective of having to go through an IDF checkpoint to get to and from a shopping trip, the film review website Indie Film describes it as “heartbreaking without laying it on too thick,” although acknowledging that Nabulsi “employed guerrilla filmmaking tactics.”
The IDF soldiers in the film appear to have been Hebrew-speaking Palestinian actors, as their identities are omitted from the credits. The Israelis are portrayed as brutal and heartless. As with other Palestinian films, the context of why there are checkpoints is entirely left out of the film, with no mention of suicide bombers, weapons smuggling by terrorists at checkpoints, or any other background to the conflict.
“The Present” will compete against an Israeli short film and three others at the Academy Awards that take place on April 25.
The Israeli short film “White Eye” by director Tomer Shushan deals with an Eritrean migrant in Tel Aviv who is accused by an Israeli of stealing his bicycle.
Shushan’s is the third Israeli film to be nominated in the category. The film “Aya” by Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis was a runner-up in 2014, and in 2018 Israeli director Guy Nattiv won an Oscar for his short film “Skin.”
Other Israeli Oscar winners include Jerusalem-born actress Natalie Portman for her performance in the 2010 film “Black Swan” and sound engineer Niv Adiri, who won the Oscar in 2013 for Best Sound for the movie “Gravity.”
Over the years, Israelis and Israeli films have been nominated 21 times for Oscars
Egyptian activist Albert Arie, who was born Jewish and known for his opposition to Israel and the Zionist movement, died on Thursday at age 91.
He was born into a Jewish family in Egypt but converted to Islam in the 1960s to marry a Muslim woman.
Arie was one of the last members of Egypt’s Jewish community to remain in the country and the oldest Jew in Cairo, according to Arutz Sheva.
Part of a group of anti-Zionist Jews who joined the Egyptian nationalist movement, he was “celebrated by Egyptians for his refusal to move to Israel,” according to the Jewish blog Elder of Ziyon. In the 1950s, Arie reportedly fought for communist causes and was imprisoned for 11 years for his involvement in the communist Party.
Ahram Online wrote in 2015 that Arie resided in the same downtown apartment where his parents married and lived since the early 1930s.
Insistent on Jewish heritage being preserved in Cairo and the country at large, he told the publication at the time: “Today, there are only a few elderly and a couple of middle-aged people, and this will all be gone in a matter of a very few decades. The thing to do now is to make sure that the history of Egyptian Jews, which is basically part of the history of Egypt, should be well-documented and their monuments should be preserved so that maybe one day the full story will be accurately told, away from the purposes of political propaganda or commercial gains.”
Arie’s granddaughter, Magda Haroun, is the current president of the Egyptian Jewish community. She said the remaining Jewish community is so small it doesn’t even have enough men for a minyan.
A year after they last saw one another, Prince William and his brother Prince Harry put their fraught relationship aside as they said farewell to their grandfather at his funeral on Saturday.
The brothers were somber and silent as they walked together in a procession behind Prince Philip’s coffin before his funeral at Windsor Castle along with their father, Prince Charles, and other close relatives. They were seen chatting and walking together after the service concluded.
It was the first time the brothers had been together in public since Harry stood down from royal duties and moved to the U.S. with his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their son Archie in early 2020.
Tensions between Harry, 36, and William, 38, came to the fore after Harry and Meghan gave a revealing interview to U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey last month. The couple portrayed the royal family as indifferent to Meghan’s mental health struggles, and Harry described his relationship with William as “space at the moment.”
On Saturday, William and Harry walked in silence on either side of their cousin, Peter Phillips, as they joined other senior royals in Philip’s funeral procession. At one point Phillips fell behind slightly to allow the brothers to walk side by side — a visual echo of the moment the pair, as boys in 1997, walked behind the coffin of their mother Princess Diana in another royal funeral televised around the world.
The brothers sat opposite each other in St. George’s Chapel for the funeral, which was attended by only 30 people because of coronavirus restrictions. While William sat next to his wife Kate, Harry was on his own because Meghan is pregnant with their second child and was advised by her doctor not to make the long trip.
Afterwards, Harry, William and Kate strolled together outside the chapel. Moments later, the brothers walked together alone while Kate spoke to Zara Tindall, another of Queen Elizabeth II’s eight grandchildren who is William and Harry’s cousin.
Rumors of a rift between the brothers — William, the heir, and Harry, the “spare” — have rumbled at least since 2019. That’s when Harry and Meghan separated from the Royal Foundation, originally set up as the brothers’ joint charitable venture, to set up their own platform. That year, Harry said he loved his brother dearly but they were “on different paths” and have “good days” and “bad days.”
Many believe that William was angered and hurt by Harry’s decision to speak so publicly about the royal family’s issues during the Winfrey interview. In one explosive allegation, they said a family member — not the queen or Philip — had expressed “concerns” about Archie’s possible skin color before he was born. Meghan has a Black mother and a white father.
Days after the interview aired, William insisted “we are very much not a racist family,” and said he had not spoken to Harry since the broadcast.
It’s unclear whether the passing of their grandfather will help the brothers heal their rift. It wasn’t immediately clear how long Harry, who has been self-isolating in line with the U.K.’s coronavirus restrictions since arriving from California early this week, will stay in his home country.
Saturday’s funeral was limited to only 30 people, who all had to wear masks, sit in family bubbles and remain socially distanced in the same church that had hosted hundreds of people for Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding in 2018. And Britain’s continued coronavirus restrictions may limit how much opportunity the brothers will get to smooth over their differences.
“Because of the restrictions of COVID, it’s difficult to get down to decent conservations,” said royal biographer Penny Junor. “It’s probably quite difficult to sit down as they normally would over a beer and discuss things.” (AP)
The United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency is promoting violence against Israel and using educational materials that call for the Jewish state’s destruction, according to video evidence and copies of lesson plans being taught to children before and during the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is in charge of providing education to scores of Palestinian children, has done little to root out anti-Semitism and the glorification of terrorism from its official lesson plans, although it has repeatedly pledged to do so.
The Biden administration moved almost immediately to restart U.S. funding for UNRWA despite underlying concerns about the agency’s radical educational materials—fears that have been raised by U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in recent years. After aid was resumed earlier this month, UNRWA promised the Biden administration it will root out violence and anti-Semitism, though officials could not explain precisely how the agency would do this after decades of using anti-Israel materials.
A State Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon that UNRWA uses the Palestinian Authority’s curriculum and works “to address the problematic content and provides instructions for its staff to educate students about why the content is problematic.” UNRWA, the official said, “must respect neutrality, exclude anti-Semitism, and oppose violence.”
“The United States is completely committed to working with UNRWA to ensure that any inappropriate material is identified and removed,” the spokesman said. ”Our resumption of assistance will allow us to serve as a partner to UNRWA to uphold the highest level of neutrality and commitment to tolerance in its educational materials.”
The State Department spokesman did not address UNRWA’s decades-long failure to better police its content despite the organization’s repeated promises to do so.
Undercover videos taken at several UNRWA facilities during the past year show children participating in militant displays and calling for Israel’s destruction. Teachers have also been documented over Zoom, which replaced in-classroom learning in the wake of the pandemic, using lesson plans that deem Israel illegitimate and brand Jews as “foreign settlers” who must be violently removed from the region.
The latest evidence, unearthed by the Center for Near East Policy Research, an Israeli watchdog group that has investigated UNRWA for years, was presented late last month to a bipartisan group of congressional staffers just before the Biden administration moved forward with a controversial plan to send $150 million in U.S. aid to UNRWA. Funding to the organization had been frozen since 2018 after the Trump administration determined UNRWA’s anti-Semitic and anti-Israel agenda was too toxic to support.
Sen. Jim Risch (R., Idaho) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), lead Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively, blasted the administration for ignoring longstanding congressional concerns by resuming “funding for UNRWA without securing any reforms from the organization,” according to a joint statement from the lawmakers. They also have placed what is known as a hold on the money, essentially stopping it from being allocated to UNRWA in the short term.
The latest UNRWA curriculums are “based on Jihad, martyrdom and the ‘right of return by force of arms,’” said David Bedein, the Center for Near East Policy Research’s director. The U.S. government, he said, must demand the aid agency “cease paramilitary training in all UNRWA schools” and “insist that UNRWA dismiss employees affiliated with Hamas”—calls that have been ignored for years as UNRWA continues to take U.S. and European funding.
UNRWA lesson plans captured during the past year also present maps of “Palestine” that depict the fictional country as existing across all of the territory that comprises modern day Israel.
Images obtained by the Center for Near East Policy Research
The term “Zionist occupation” is consistently used instead of “Israel” in UNRWA schoolbooks, according to Arabic language passages from a 2020 10th-grade textbook obtained by the Center for Near East Policy Research and shared with Congress and the Free Beacon. Judaism’s connection to the biblical land of Israel also is whitewashed in these textbooks in order to forward the idea that Jews are interlopers in the region.
UNRWA curriculum materials obtained by the Center for Near East Policy Research
Jews are also presented as perpetrators of genocide. “The Zionists have founded their entity on terror, extermination and colonialism,” states another 10th-grade textbook from 2020.
UNRWA facilities in the Gaza Strip also have been used by the Hamas terrorist group to stash weapons and missiles.
The Biden administration’s decision to resume UNRWA funding without any strings attached drew a scathing and rare public rebuke from the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., and Jewish groups typically aligned with the Democratic White House.
“Israel is strongly opposed to the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity happening in UNRWA’s facilities,” said Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. “In conversations with the U.S. State Department, I have expressed my disappointment and objection to the decision to renew UNRWA’s funding without first ensuring that certain reforms, including stopping the incitement and removing anti-Semitic content from its educational curriculum, are carried out.”
Pro-Israel groups from across the ideological spectrum also have begun petitioning lawmakers on Capitol Hill to force the administration to take a tougher line on UNRWA and its anti-Israel bias. They say UNRWA is fundamentally broken and only fosters hatred among Palestinian youths, according to a letter recently blasted across Capitol Hill.
“It is critical that we stand together to demand systemic reform to educational materials used by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) before one more child is taught from textbooks riddled with hateful lessons,” wrote several leading Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including Hadassah, the Anti-Defamation League, Christians United for Israel, the Zionist Organization of America, and B’nai B’rith International.
The groups are asking Congress to pressure U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres into forcing UNRWA to undertake significant reforms, including a total revamp of its educational materials.
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