Neera Tanden’s nomination to head the Office of Management and Budget appears to be in jeopardy. After Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he wouldn’t support her confirmation, “behind-the-scenes jockeying began for those seeking to be the fallback option,” Politico reported on Feb. 20.
“I have carefully reviewed Neera Tanden’s public statements and tweets that were personally directed towards my colleagues on both sides of the aisle from Senator [Bernie] Sanders to Senator [Mitch] McConnell and others,” Manchin said in a statement on Friday.
“I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget. For this reason, I cannot support her nomination,” he said.
Tanden, president and CEO of the far-left think tank Center for American Progress and a longtime Clinton confidante, has the dubious distinction of out-tweeting former President Donald Trump (over 1.5 times more to be exact), according to Newsweek.
Her sharply worded social media posts attacked Democrats and Republicans alike. She said “vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz,” the Republican senator for Texas. Of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), she said “Russia did a lot more to help Bernie than the DNC’s random internal emails did to help Hillary.”
On Feb. 10, Sanders said “Your attacks were not just made against Republicans. There were vicious attacks against progressives, people who I have worked with — me personally.”
Tanden apologized for her online rhetoric. “I deeply regret and apologize for my language, some of my past language,” she said. “I recognize that this role is a bipartisan role, and I recognize I have to earn the trust of senators across the board.”
Although it was not a factor in Manchin’s decision, Tanden has a shaky history on Israel matters.
In March 2019, Tanden opposed Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights “a blatant political move to boost the chances of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israeli elections and earn political points here at home.”
She said, “Unfortunately, it could actually destabilize the region, isolate the United States and diminish the chances of Arab-Israeli peace even further.”
Also, under her tenure, CAP in 2012 came under fire from Jewish groups for language its staffers used that was considered anti-Israel and borderline anti-Semitic. In one personal Twitter post, a CAP writer referred to “Israel-firsters,” which the Jewish groups said borrowed from anti-Semitic tropes questioning Jews’ loyalty.
CAP defended itself by saying the “inappropriate” language appeared in personal tweets, and not on CAP’s website or official blogs.
CAP sought to distance itself from the anti-Israel and anti-Semitism charge and at one point hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak in 2015.
The No. 2 Republican in the House said after a private meeting last week with former President Donald Trump that the now-Florida resident still cares a lot about America.
“He still cares a lot about this country and the direction of our country,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said. “But it was a conversation more about how he’s doing now and what he’s planning on doing and how his family is doing.”
Scalise met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 16, a spokesperson for the congressman previously told The Epoch Times. The spokesperson had declined to provide details on the meeting other than to say the pair had “touched base.”
On Feb. 21, Scalise said he was fundraising in various parts of Florida when Trump reached out.
“I hadn’t seen him since he had left the White House. And it was actually good to catch up with him. I noticed he was a lot more relaxed than his four years in the White House,” he added.
The show’s host asked the Louisiana congressman whether he thought Trump should take responsibility for the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Scalise noted that Trump denounced the breach.
“And I think everybody should have been unequivocal in their denouncing of what happened, not only on January 6th but during the summer, when they were burning down cities, shooting cops, beating people in the streets,” he said.
“You saw the left denouncing January 6th, as we did. They didn’t denounce what happened during the summer. So let’s be across the board and say anybody who resorts to violence to settle political disputes, there’s no place for that in America and it should be disputed unequivocally.”
Trump was impeached on Jan. 13 for alleged incitement of insurrection, as a majority of lawmakers in the lower chamber said he incited the Capitol breach; he was acquitted earlier this month by the Senate.
Scalise met with Trump several weeks after the top House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), had traveled to Mar-a-Lago.
Republican leaders in the Senate, though, have condemned Trump in recent days.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted to acquit the former president but then took to the Senate floor to blame him for the Capitol breach.
Trump responded in a strongly worded statement saying the GOP won’t win with McConnell at the party’s helm and vowing to support primary candidates he believes will promote his “America first” agenda.
A flood of politicians and other public figures have come forward to accuse New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) of gangster-like behavior, including multiple threats ranging from ‘watch your back’ to ‘bullying, mistreatment and intimidation,’ according to a newly released article from Forbes.
Nate McMurray, a two-time House candidate in Western New York, told Forbes that after criticizing Cuomo for plans to attend a Buffalo Bills game, he received a call from a Cuomo aide on New Years Eve that began “you motherf***er,” before devolving into threats like “you’re done in politics.”
McMurray said he took down his tweet after the call because he was “scared” and looking for a job after his run, adding that he’s heard from people in both Cuomo’s staff and the New York legislature about a “pervasive culture of fear that has trickled down from his office.”
“We’ve all been yelled at by someone in that administration,” Marc Molinaro, a Republican county executive in upstate New York who ran against Cuomo in 2018, told Forbes, adding, “It’s unacceptable but how they operate.”
Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, tweeted that she was “flooded” with stories from people who said they were “bullied, mistreated, or intimidated” by Cuomo, a statement echoed by former Cuomo aide Lindsey Boylan, who has previously accused him of harassment.
Alessandra Biaggi, a Democratic state senator, told the New YorkerCuomo once asked her to “tell me again how your grandfather’s career ended,” which she perceived as a threat given that her grandfather, Mario Biaggi, resigned over a corruption scandal – though a Cuomo spokesperson told the New Yorker it was about the “importance of integrity in government.”
Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean tweeted that she was told by someone close to the Cuomo family to “‘Watch my back,’” when she began speaking out against him prolifically over the coronavirus-related deaths of her parents, who were both nursing home residents.
Former Vice President Mike Pence declined the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) invitation to speak at the event, a source familiar with the development confirmed to Breitbart News.
A source familiar with Pence’s thinking told Breitbart News not to read too much into this decision, noting he is spending the immediate timeframe after his term in office focused on family and getting pieces into place–like accepting senior positions at the Heritage Foundation and Young America’s Foundation, as Breitbart News reported. Expect Pence to be very vocal in the coming months ahead, this source said.
In the meantime, former President Donald Trump will be making his first post-presidential appearance at the conservative gathering in Florida next weekend, according to reports.
Trump has been keeping a relatively low profile since he retired from the White House to Palm Beach, Florida, in January, but reemerged last week to conduct a series of phone-in interviews to commemorate the death of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.
Trump has a long history with CPAC, which played a key role in his emergence as a political force.
New York City has fewer than 1,000 COVID-19 doses on hand because of shipment delays caused by snowstorms and freezing temperatures across the country, its website showed Sunday.
The alarming shortage from the winter storm that has killed an estimated 70 people has stalled vaccination efforts, authorities warned.
The White House said Friday two major vaccine shipping locations in Memphis, Tenn., and Louisville, Ky., experienced an operational slowdown, triggering the backlog and affecting every state.
In New York City, more than 2,000 vaccination sites were in areas without power and couldn’t accept doses, the New York Times reported.
In Texas, 30,824 people were still without power as of Sunday morning, according to the website poweroutage.com.
The newest employee for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is a former gang member who remains on parole in New York, according to state records.
Dyjuan Tatro, a former “triggerman” for an upstate New York gang, started this week as the campaign committee’s senior adviser for diversity and inclusion. Tatro, who earned a bachelor’s degree while behind bars, was released from federal prison in October 2017—but he is on parole in New York for drug and assault convictions that preceded his federal convictions, according to a database by the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
Tatro was already in jail for the New York crimes in 2009 when a multi-agency federal RICO taskforce brought down Tatro’s gang, the Original Gangsta Killas. Court records indicate the scale of his criminal enterprise is much wider than previously reported.
In a December 2010 plea agreement, Tatro admitted to attempted murder, assault, running guns for fellow gang members from out-of-state sources, and distributing crack. The quantity of crack the Killas distributed was so large that Tatro was eligible for a life sentence, according to court records. A 2009 sentencing memo further reveals that Tatro remained in touch with members of the gang while he was incarcerated, raising questions as to when his gang association ended.
The DCCC did not respond to inquiries regarding Tatro’s parole status and whether he will receive paid time off to meet with his parole officer.
While the exact terms of Tatro’s parole agreement are unknown, New York parole guidelines provide that parolees shall not leave the state without permission from their parole officers. The guidelines also allow parole officers to conduct unaccounted spot checks at their place of employment. State documents also indicate that parolees with known gang affiliations such as Tatro are put in a “high-risk” category with further travel restrictions.
The DCCC defended its decision to hire Tatro after initial reports on his prior gang affiliation and support for the movement to defund the police.
“He has served his time for the crimes he committed and is now a national leader in the bipartisan movement to reform our criminal justice system and bring meaningful improvements to the education system in American prisons,” a spokesman told the New York Post.
Tatro has drawn criticism for his extreme attacks on law enforcement in the past year. He has compared cops in the United States to Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Tatro has lashed out at Starbucks for asking employees to serve cops, calling it an effort to “indoctrinate employees with pro-police nonsense.”
In a now-deleted post following the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, D.C., Tatro attacked efforts to support the U.S. Capitol Police because he said they were “white supremacists.”
“The answer to white supremacists storming the Capitol is not to give more money to a different group of white supremacists who’s job it is to uphold white supremacy,” Tatro wrote in a post first reported by Fox News.
Tatro also defended looting during anti-police protests last summer, writing on Twitter that “LOOTING [was] a VITAL form of social PROTEST.”
A review of Tatro’s social media accounts also indicates he has traveled to Mexico in recent weeks, an apparent violation of his parole. A Feb. 8 picture posted by Tatro on Facebook shows him on the beach in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It is unclear when the trip occurred.
New York records show Tatro’s parole is based on convictions for drug possession and second-degree assault, both felonies.
Tatro’s hiring comes as some Democrats try to distance themselves from calls to defund the police, which proved to be disastrous for Democrats at the ballot box last November. In party meetings after the elections, Democrats in swing-districts complained that the embrace of anti-police protests gave their opponents unlimited ammunition.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D., N.Y.), the DCCC’s new chairman, pitched himself to colleagues as a moderate who could compete in districts won by Trump that Democrats will need to win to maintain their narrow majority.
Maloney did not return a request for comment on Tatro.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki avoided responding to questions about whether President Biden still believed Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) is the “gold standard” in leadership during the coronavirus pandemic during an appearance on Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s “This Week.”
Anchor Jonathan Karl said, “OK, I want to turn to another controversy that raged this week. Andrew Cuomo under fire for allegedly not being transparent and misleading on the number of nursing home deaths in New York. Last spring, President Biden cited Andrew Cuomo as the gold standard for leadership during the pandemic. Take a listen.”
In a video clip Biden said, “Your governor of New York has done one hell of a job. I think he’s sort of the gold standard.”
Karl said, “So, now, we’ve seen that Governor Cuomo has allegedly undercounted nursing home deaths, misled legislators in New York and he called the New York Assemblyman Ron Kim, raising questions basically threatening to destroy him, I think was his actual words. So does President Biden still consider Andrew Cuomo the gold standard when it comes to leadership on the pandemic?”
Psaki said, “Well, Jon, we work with Governor Cuomo just like we work with governors across the country. He’s also the chair of the NGA, so he plays an important role in ensuring that we are coordinating closely and getting assistance out to people of his state and states across the country. We’ll continue to do that. Of course, there will be a process, an investigations, we’ll leave that to others to determine how that path is going to move as we look forward. But we’ll continue to work with a range of governors, including of course Governor Cuomo, because we believe the people of New York, states across the country, need assistance not only to get through the pandemic but to get through this difficult economic time and that’s where our focus remains.”
Karl pressed, “Jen, my question was, does President Biden still believe that Andrew Cuomo represents the gold standard on leadership during this pandemic? Just a yes or no.”
Psaki said, “Well, it doesn’t always have to be a yes or no answer, Jon. I think the president is focused on his goal, his objectives as president of the United States. I’m not here to give new labels or names from the president, I’m here to communicate with you about what our focuses are and what his objectives are as president of the United States. He’ll continue to work with Governor Cuomo as well as other governors across the country. I’m not here to give new labels and names from the president. I’m here to communicate with our focuses are.”
The entire interview is below, the Cuomo questions begin at around & minutes 40 seconds
(TJVNEWS.COM) A whole school board in northern California resigned after a video of them during a meeting leaked showing them mocking parents for wanting schools to reopen.
The president and three other members of the Oakley Union Elementary School Board of Trustees resigned Friday after a video showed them attacking parents during a Zoom meeting which they didn’t know was open to the public.
“The comments made were not in alignment with our vision and are definitely not what any of us stand for as leaders,” Hetrick told Fox News. “I know that we lost trust with the community. I will not make excuses for what happened or why it happened.”
“I have been and continue to be committed to working together for the betterment of the Oakley Union Elementary School District students, staff and entire school community,” he added.
The return of indoor dining in New York City couldn’t come soon enough for struggling Big Apple restaurants, as a new survey by the NYC Hospitality Alliance reveals 92 percent of more than 400 respondents couldn’t afford to pay December rent, a number that has steadily increased since the start of the pandemic. In June, 80 percent of restaurants could not afford to pay rent; July 83 percent; August 87 percent; and October 88 percent.
The year-end figures are dismal for the future of the “Restaurant Capital of the World.” Before Covid-19, New York City was home to over 25,000 restaurants, bars and nightclubs that employed 325,000 people. Thousands of eating and drinking establishments have already permanently closed as a result of the pandemic and accompanying restrictions, and the industry shed more than 140,000 jobs in the last year.
According to more than 400 respondents representing New York City’s restaurants, bars, and nightlife establishments, only 40 percent of tenants’ landlords reduced rent in relation to Covid-19; only 36 percent of tenants’ landlords deferred rent in relation to Covid-19; and only 14 percent of businesses have been able to successfully renegotiate leases (61 percent have not, 24 percent are in “good faith” negotiations).
These results come after New York City’s restaurants and bars were restricted to outdoor dining during some of winter’s coldest temperatures, while restaurants outside of the five boroughs continued highly regulated indoor dining at 50 percent occupancy, as they’ve done safely and effectively since June.
A return to indoor dining at 25 percent occupancy offers a glimmer of hope for New York City’s struggling restaurants, but business owners and industry leaders insist a path to reopening at 50 percent occupancy is necessary to continue treading water, and that only robust and compressive federal stimulus can truly save the industry, which nationwide has lost some 110,000 restaurants and 2.5 million jobs, 372,000 jobs of which were lost in December alone.
“We’re nearly a year into the public health and economic crisis that has decimated New York City’s restaurants, bars, and nightlife venues,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance. “While the reopening of highly regulated indoor dining is welcome news, we need to safely increase occupancy to 50% as soon as possible, and we urgently need robust and comprehensive financial relief from the federal government. We will continue to work with Senator and Majority Leader Schumer to ensure that the $25 billion restaurant industry recovery fund is passed as part of the Biden administration’s emergency relief plan, and advocate for the enactment of the RESTAURANTS Act to save as many local eating and drinking spots and jobs as possible.”
For full survey results, a link to the results are available here.
When Gov. Andrew Cuomo went on a tirade Wednesday against a critic who’d demanded a criminal investigation of his handling of nursing home fatalities during the pandemic, the name was unfamiliar to most outside politics and a corner of northeast Queens.
But Assemblymember Ron Kim (D-Queens), once little known beyond his Flushing and Murray Hill district, has rapidly emerged as the elected official who dared take on Cuomo — and reportedly suffered personal threats in return.
“The thing that really pisses me off the most is that he took away our ability to legislate by not sharing that data in real time,” Kim said of Cuomo’s withholding of information about the COVID-19 deaths of New York nursing home patients.
Those who’ve come up with him in Democratic politics say Kim — whose uncle died of COVID-19 in a nursing home last year — has made an unusual journey from party insider to barbed critic of the establishment.
And Kim, first elected eight years ago, would not disagree. It’s been a while since he’s been part of the Democratic Party “inner circle,” he told THE CITY.
“I was part of the team, part of the Democratic machine,” said Kim, 41. “I got elected with the establishment, all the institutional support, and I just fell in.”
‘Always Willing to Grow’
More recently, though, he has reinvented himself as a progressive who campaigned for former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and has embraced Socialist policies like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
Kim’s peers called him a changed politician, after years of jobs as an aide to the likes of former City Councilmember John Liu, Assemblymember Mark Weprin and Govs. Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson.
Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou (D-Manhattan), who previously worked as Kim’s chief of staff, describes him as flexible and dynamic.
“Ron has always been someone who is super open-minded and somebody who is always willing to give a listen even when he disagrees. He is somebody who is always growing and always willing to grow,” she added.
But he has also been pushed by the hard knocks of political combat
“The county leaders refused to meet with her unless I was there because she was challenging an incumbent,” Kim said. “This is about control and exchanging words like loyalty, teamwork, waiting for your turn.”
It was then that he got the courage to “break away from them,” he said.
Amazon Turned the Tide
Then, there was the Amazon Long Island City development deal — which surfaced shortly after the shocker 2018 election of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens, The Bronx) upended Queens politics, toppling Democratic boss Joe Crowley.
Kim described the tech giant’s proposed arrival as a wake-up call opening up “a whole progressive side to my policies,” spurring him to learn more about corporate interests and what he calls the city’s “broken economy.”
He said he began to align himself with progressive groups like the Queens DSA, and his stances took a leftward turn.
Kim endorsed and rallied for Democratic Socialist candidate Tiffany Cabán, who calls him a “ride or die” force. In addition to decrying Amazon’s Queens plans, he called for canceling student debt, advocated for the decriminalization of sex work and supported defunding the police.
Two Queens political insiders described Kim as a one-time back-bench Assembly member — decidedly not the case anymore.
Critics have questioned whether Kim’s molded his political stances to fit the changing tides in Queens after Ocasio-Cortez’s game-changing victory.
Kim represents a district that remains more conservative than his ideals, but one that last November elected him resoundingly to a third term. It’s a position he feels emboldened by.
“When I was kind of waking up to these new ideas, these more progressive ideas, I was already a second-, a third-term incumbent,” Kim said. “Even though I’ve gotten more progressive, I still retain the trust and respect from my constituency.”
Friend of the Left
Some in these circles now consider him a genuine ally.
Miriam Bensman, a spokesperson and member of the Queens United Independent Progressives group, said the group opted to endorse Kim for his reelection bid last year after noticing his shift to the left.
“We know people that remember him when he was more of a regular guy, a regular pol,” Bensman said. “He had quite a few years of being an outspoken advocate for progressive causes as an Assemblyman. We saw what he was doing right then — cosponsoring the sex work bill with [Brooklyn State Sen.] Julia Salazar, the fight around the budget, the Flushing waterfront development.”
The Queens DSA has never endorsed Kim, but members acknowledge his advocacy, especially during Cabán’s campaign and the fight against Amazon.
The current cold war with Cuomo only further builds his credibility with the left, said one Queens DSA member who campaigned for Cabán.
Nursing Home Watchdog
But it was in the COVID-19 crisis that Kim finally found a cause that defined him. As the chair of the Assembly’s Committee on Aging, he began monitoring how patients were faring in nursing homes in his district and beyond, as panicked families pleaded for information.
One of those patients was his uncle, who ultimately died of the virus.
From the start, Kim railed against Cuomo and the state Department of Health for obscuring the true toll of the virus in nursing homes — first by failing to disclose any details about deaths in each nursing home and then only counting those who died on premises, not after being taken to hospitals.
“They knew this was happening and they didn’t do anything,” Kim told THE CITY in April, at the height of the spring death wave. “Heads should roll.”
Nearly a year later, Kim says it would be “missing the point” if he were to focus his energies on Cuomo, a fellow son of Queens, and “taking him down.”
‘This is unethical and I will speak out.’
Kim, joined by eight peers in the Assembly — including Niou, Zohran Mamadani and Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas — have formally called to revoke Cuomo’s emergency powers.
For Kim, it was a moment to step up into combat.
“At any other time in my life, I probably would have folded,” he said.
“But I think the combination of experiences, the support around me, the inspiration around other people I know who are courageous in the legislative body, all those things I think gave me the courage in that moment to say, ‘No, this is unethical and I will speak out because I don’t want to be implicated to your world of corruption.’”
THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.
Saturday Night Live is being criticized for a joke by Michael Che during the show’s most recent broadcast that suggested the State of Israel is only offering the coronavirus vaccine to Jews.
The joke came in the “Weekend Update” segment, when Che announced: “Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half their population. And I’m gonna guess: it’s the Jewish half.”
“Fake news” reports that Israel is not providing vaccines to Palestinians or Arabs have become the newest staple of anti-Israel propaganda.
Jewish leaders have pointed out that the false accusation repeats themes of antisemitic blood libels dating to the medieval era, when Jews were falsely accused of poisoning the surrounding populations.
Israel is, in fact, providing vaccines to its Arab citizens, who form roughly 20% of the total — though some are reluctant to take them.
Israel has also offered vaccines to Palestinians, and has been lauded by the United Nations — hardly a pro-Israel organization — for working with the Palestinian Authority to fight the pandemic.
Israel has prioritized its own citizens in vaccination, noting that the Palestinian Authority has authority for the health care of its own residents, and that the Palestinian government chose to purchase Russian vaccines instead of the American-made Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called false claims about Israel’s coronavirus vaccination program a “blood libel,” according to the Jerusalem Post:
Erdan told the Security Council that “according to the international agreements, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the healthcare of its own population – just as it is responsible for their education system.”
The PA, he explained, “informed Israel they intend to purchase vaccines from the Russian government and Israel has announced it will facilitate their transfer. These are the facts.”
…
“Anyone who joins the Palestinian campaign of lies either doesn’t know the facts or is motivated by politics or antisemitism,” the ambassador said.
David Harris, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, accused Che of spreading an “antisemitic lie”: Harris called on Che to apologize.
New York attorney general Letitia James (D.) asked a federal bankruptcy judge to dismiss the NRA’s case in a bid to prevent the gun-rights group from relocating to Texas.
James said the gun group is acting in “bad faith” and using bankruptcy mainly to avoid prosecution over accusations the group’s leaders, including CEO Wayne LaPierre, inappropriately spent tens of millions of dollars of NRA money on personal expenses.
“The National Rifle Association of America, Inc. (‘NRA’) seeks bankruptcy protection while claiming to be solvent and ‘in its strongest financial condition in years,'” James’s office said in a Feb. 12 filing, which was made public this week. “It invokes the jurisdiction of this court while publicly proclaiming that it filed its petition because it is ‘dumping New York,’ ‘utilizing the protection of the bankruptcy court,’ and ‘organizing its legal and regulatory matters in an efficient forum,’ essentially fleeing or seeking an end run around a pending regulatory enforcement action in New York.”
Throwing out the case would upend the NRA’s plan to counter James’s attempt to dissolve the group. The NRA believes the bankruptcy filing would require James to petition the bankruptcy court—in addition to the New York state court she is suing the group in—if she wants to seize the group’s assets. The removal of bankruptcy protection would likely require the group to rethink its entire legal strategy.
NRA lawyer William Brewer said the move by James was “another transparent move in a partisan crusade to shut down the NRA.” He pointed to James calling the NRA a “terrorist organization” during her campaign for office as evidence of her bias against the group.
“It is no surprise she now objects to the NRA’s plan to avail itself of the benefits of Chapter 11—for its members and all who support its Second Amendment advocacy,” Brewer said.
James called the NRA’s attempt to move to Texas “extraordinary” in her filing and said the group “has decided that it can cross state borders with its assets and open up in a different jurisdiction to evade law enforcement action” in New York. She noted the group, which reported its assets were more than double its liabilities in a filing on Monday, claims to be solvent and accused it of using bankruptcy simply “to avoid regulation in the state where [it] is chartered and subject to oversight.”
Brewer disputed her claims and said the group looks forward to its day in court.
“Attorney General James claims that Chapter 11 is an attempt to ‘end run’ litigation between her office and the NRA. That is false,” Brewer said. “As the Association has said repeatedly, it welcomes the opportunity to litigate these contrived claims and the motives which led to their filing.”
If the case is not thrown out, James asked the court to remove the NRA’s leadership and appoint a trustee to oversee the group during bankruptcy. She said there was cause to do so “based upon the demonstration of fraud, dishonesty, and gross mismanagement by the current management.” Disgruntled NRA donors involved in a class-action suit against the group have said they will also request a trustee.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 24.
(AP) — The U.S. airline industry is pledging to expand the practice of asking passengers on flights to the United States for information that public health officials could use for contact tracing during the pandemic.
An industry trade group said Friday that the carriers would turn over the information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which could use it to contact passengers who might be exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.Delta and United have been doing that since December. On Friday, an industry trade group said that American, Southwest, Alaska, JetBlue and Hawaiian will also ask passengers to make their names, phone numbers, email and physical addresses available to the CDC.
The airlines had long resisted government efforts to require them to gather passenger information and provide it to health agencies. They said they don’t have the information on passengers who buy tickets from other sellers such as online travel agencies. They also argued that gathering the information and making it immediately available to the government would be time-consuming and require costly upgrades to computer systems.
The CEO of trade group Airlines for America, Nicholas Calio, said carriers hope that their offer of voluntary information gathering, along with testing of passengers entering the U.S., will lead the government to lift restrictions on international travel.
Although the requests are only voluntary, United Airlines said Friday that since December most of its international customers have provided contact details.
(AP) — Hundreds of volunteers took part Saturday in a cleanup operation of the Israeli shoreline as investigations are underway to determine the cause of an oil spill that threatens the beach and wildlife.
Israeli media reported that several volunteers were hospitalized after inhaling fumes. Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority urged people to stay away from the beach at 16 of the communities that are most polluted.
At a news conference Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the incident was being investigated and he was preparing a report for the Israeli Cabinet. “The circumstances that led to this incident are still unknown,” he said, adding that the government was in touch with leaders of affected local communities.
From as north as Haifa and down south to Ashkelon near Gaza, black strips could be seen along the Mediterranean coastline. At Gador Nature Reserve near the northern city of Hadera, the tar smeared fish, turtles, and other sea creatures.
The reason and timing of the spill are yet to be determined, but stormy weather earlier this week is believed to have pushed the pollutants ashore. On Thursday, a baby whale washed up dead on a beach near Tel Aviv, and authorities are investigating whether the two incidents are linked
(AP) — A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was deported from the United States and arrived Saturday in his native Germany where he was being held by police for questioning, authorities said.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said in a statement that Friedrich Karl Berger, a German citizen, was sent back to Germany for serving as a guard of a Neuengamme concentration camp subcamp in 1945. The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice.
German authorities confirmed Berger arrived Saturday at Frankfurt and was handed over to Hesse state investigators for questioning, the dpa news agency reported.
Berger was ordered expelled by a Memphis, Tennessee court in February 2020.
German prosecutors in the city of Celle investigated the possibility of bringing charges against him, but said in December that they had shelved the probe because they had been unable to refute his own account of his service at Neuengamme.
Berger admitted to U.S. authorities that he served as a guard at a camp in northwestern Germany, which was a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, for a few weeks near the end of the war but said he did not observe any abuse or killings, Celle prosecutors said.
Celle prosecutors asked for him to be questioned again upon his return to Germany, however, to determine whether accessory to murder charges could be brought, police said.
In recent years, German prosecutors have successfully argued that by helping a death camp or concentration camp function, guards can be found guilty of accessory to murder even if there is no evidence of them participating in a specific killing.
According to an ICE statement, Berger served at the subcamp near Meppen, Germany, where prisoners – Russian, Polish, Dutch, Jewish and others – were held in “atrocious” conditions and were worked “to the point of exhaustion and death.”
Berger admitted that he guarded prisoners to prevent them from escaping. He also accompanied prisoners on the forced evacuation of the camp that resulted in the deaths of 70 prisoners.
(AP) — In honor of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday announced he would order flags in Florida to be flown at half-staff when Limbaugh’s body is laid to rest.
Limbaugh, a Florida resident, died Wednesday after battling lung cancer. DeSantis called him a friend. It’s not clear when the flags will be lowered, since the funeral plans for Limbaugh have not been announced yet.
“When there’s things of this magnitude, once the date of interment for Rush is announced, we’re going to be lowering the flags to half staff,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Palm Beach County.
Limbaugh’s death has been widely mourned by conservatives, although critics have highlighted past comments by him that they allege were bigoted and blatantly racist.
The governor has previously ordered flags to be at half-staff to honor the deaths of law enforcement officers killed on duty, members of the Navy killed in a mass shooting in Pensacola and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, among others.