Free Republic

Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota were hailed as symbols of diversity when they were sworn in last month as the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, Ms. Tlaib in her mother’s hand-embroidered Palestinian thobe, Ms. Omar in a tradition-shattering hijab. Four weeks later, their uncompromising views on Israel have made them perhaps the most embattled new members of the Democratic House majority. Almost daily, Republicans brashly accuse Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar of anti-Semitism and bigotry, hoping to make them the Democrats’ version of Representative Steve King as they try to tar the...

It appears that the leadership of the Democratic Party has gone completely anti-Israel and is warming up to Jew-hatred. The appointment of Rep. Ilhan Omar to the House Foreign Affairs Committee – and the welcome extended to her by the chairman, (former) Israel-supporter Rep. Eliot Engel – confirms that the Democrats' big tent now extends to those who believe that Jews in Israel wield magical power to "hypnotize" non-Jews into acquiescence to their "evil." Omar was triumphant yesterday on her appointment to the plum committee: Ilhan Omar ✔@IlhanMN I finally have committee assignments and I am excited 1st choice- House...

The Democratic lawmaker — who has represented parts of the Bronx and Westchester County for three decades — added that there “wasn’t a great clamor” from lawmakers to keep the terrorism panel, which was formed after the Sept. 11th attacks. Instead, he said, his committee will focus on what Trump promised Russian President Vladimir Putin during their private meeting last year — and the president’s business ties to Russia and Middle East countries.

It was mid-May, about six weeks after Trump appointee Mari Stull began her new job as senior adviser at the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs. As senior adviser at the bureau, Stull was in charge of making sure President Trump’s agenda was represented at the many international organizations the U.S. participates in and mostly funds, such as the United Nations and its various agencies. Stull and her boss, Amb. Kevin Moley, had just left for a trip to Geneva for the World Health Assembly. Back at the State Department, Erin Barclay, a senior career diplomat at the IO...

New York City's former top cop said Sunday that the Obama administration cut funding to fight terrorism in the city to retaliate against Sen. Chuck Schumer for opposing a nuclear deal with Iran. "There's a certain amount vindictiveness on the part of Washington aimed at Sen. Chuck Schumer," Ray Kelly, New York City's police commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York. "Apparently they remember very well that Sen. Schumer did not support their Iran deal," Kelly said, arguing the proposed cut "was aimed at getting a reaction from...

Representative Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) (D-Bronx) and 91 other Democrats sent a letter to Obama this week asking him to go even further with his executive actions and ban the import of "assault weapons." Engel wrote the letter, in which he claimed "a mass shooting on average each day this year in this country." He described Obama's executive action to expand background checks as "important," then asked Obama to use the language of the Gun Control Act of 1968 to stop "assault weapons" from entering the country....

On the day after Pope Francis spoke to Congress about the dangers of violent extremism in the name of religious fundamentalism, presidential candidate Ted Cruz, appearing at a Values Voter summit, threatened to murder Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Texas senator vowed that, if elected, he would “rip to shreds” the Iranian agreement deal recently passed through Congress, and kill the country’s leader if it didn’t give up its nuclear ambitions. “If the Ayatollah doesn’t understand that, we may have to help introduce him to the 72 virgins,” Cruz said to wild cheers from the audience of conservative Christians. The...

Turkey's geo-political maneuvers may urge reconsideration of its NATO membership. While the threat from Daesh grows, Ankara is more focused on the continuing fight with the Kurds. The Erdoğan government is undermining the core values of what NATO stands for, and its anti-Kurdish policy spells problems for its role in the region. NATO has to make a statement and also work behind the scenes to engage Erdoğan to prioritize the war against Daesh. Under the pretext of an anti-Daesh (ISIS) campaign, Turkey's government since late July 2015 is harshly repressing the Kurds, playing the ‘anti-terrorism' card towards NATO. But the...

When a U.S. citizen going by the name “Abu Abdullah al-Amriki” blew himself up in a suicide attack in Baiji, Iraq, this month, he was the most recent example of a troubling trend: the roughly 200 Americans who have traveled or attempted to travel to Iraq and Syria to fight for the Islamic State.Not all of the foreigners have left for the region looking to fight for the Islamic State, however. Instead, growing numbers of Americans are heading there to fight against the extremists. The American fighters — mostly military veterans, with a strangely disproportionate share of Texans — are...

President Obama’s July 31 phone call organized by the anti-Israel group J Street and other progressive Jewish groups could be summed up in one sentence: Please help because, those rich people are helping those warmongering Jews to fight this wonderful Iran deal because they don’t like me and they want war just like they did in Iraq. In the 20 minute call Obama said that opponents of the Iran deal come from the same “array of forces that got us into the Iraq war” and that a “bunch of billionaires who happily finance super PACs” are “putting the squeeze on...

Obama administration allies lobbying in favor of a recently signed nuclear deal with Iran are smearing Jewish lawmakers and opponents of the accord with allegations of dual loyalty to Israel, rhetoric many view as anti-Semitic, according to allegations leveled by these individuals and groups.Organizations close to the White House, including the pro-Tehran lobbying shop National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the liberal fringe group J Street, and the anti-war organization MoveOn, have come out to question the motivation of Jewish individuals who oppose the nuclear deal, which will provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief and lift longstanding restrictions...

Schumer feels the wrath. Ever since the White House leaked Thursday night that Sen. Chuck Schumer would be coming out against the Iran deal, the progressive movement has foamed at the mouth with vitriol directed Schumer’s way.Much of it is just the plain old progressive vitriol of the MoveOn.org, Daily Kos and netroots types. Schumer is a warmonger, wants war, loves war, and so on.Obama set up that argument when he claimed that Republicans were making common cause with hardline Iranians — even though Obama clinched the deal with hardline Iranians who are laughing all the way to the...

A "progressive" advocacy group in the US has pledged to withhold millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Sen. Chuck Schumer as well as other Democrats should they vote in Congress against the nuclear deal with Iran. Close to 18,000 people have signed a petition on MoveOn's website, called "No money for war hawks," the group told the Huffington Post on Friday. MoveOn, which touts itself as a "community of more than 8 million Americans...lead[ing] campaigns for progressive change," has committed in this latest petition to withhold $8.3 million that it would have otherwise donated to the Democratic Party. The...

So just to be clear, Secretary of State Kerry and the Obama administration have cut a deal in which Iran will be subjected to no inspections, no disclosures, no verification and no sanctions, that will equip the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with billions of dollars, and requires that the U.S. help protect its nuclear infrastructure, among many other travesties, but Secretary of State Kerry believes that critical Israelis in particular and Jews in general are responding “emotionally,” as opposed to rationally with fear and loathing? Contrast the reaction of Jews, Christians and others who comprise the majority of...

As a young Barack Obama once said at the 2004 Democratic convention: There are no “blue states” and “red states,” there are only blue states and states that make “common cause” with anti-American fanatics.The White House should pick a smear and settle on it. Are critics of his terrible nuclear deal warmongering nutcases like the worst elements in Iran or are they treacherous Jews secretly loyal to Israel? “What I said is absolutely true factually. The truth of the matter is, inside of Iran, the people most opposed to the deal are the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds force, hard-liners...

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, said the tone was counterproductive. ‘Not Comfortable’ “Characterizing people who may be in opposition to the agreement as wanting to go to war as an alternative, I’m not comfortable with that, and I wish the White House wouldn’t do that,” Hoyer, who is leading a visit of 22 Democratic House members to Israel this week, said in an interview in Jerusalem on Thursday. “I don’t think the alternatives are going to war, and I’ve indicated that” to the White House. White House press secretary Josh Earnest dismissed complaints about...

Liberals are livid at Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) decision to oppose the White House’s nuclear deal with Iran, and have threatened to launch a full-scale war as retribution. Activists and former top officials within the Obama administration are openly contemplating whether Schumer’s stance disqualifies him from serving as the next Senate Democratic leader — which he is primed to do — and seeking to temporarily cut off money to Democrats in the upper chamber. It’s unclear whether Schumer’s announcement will have a devastating effect on the White House’s efforts to prevent Democrats from killing the deal when it comes up...

After stating that he plans to vote against the Iran nuclear deal, Sen. Chuck Schumer is receiving criticism from liberals who claim he is "unfit" to be the next Democratic leader, The Hill reports. Schumer is the first Democratic senator to go on record saying he opposes the Iran nuclear deal, but The Hill notes that, with roughly half of Senate Democrats still publicly undecided, his decision to oppose the deal could sway some colleagues who are still on the fence. "After deep study, careful thought and considerable soul-searching, I have decided I must oppose the agreement and will vote...

Obama foot soldiers Tommy Vietor, Dan Pfeiffer and Jon Favreau may have made common cause with Holocaust-denying radical Twelvers hoping to obtain nuclear weapons to threaten millions of Jews, but that doesn’t mean you should be fooled by their frustration. And you definitely shouldn’t be fooled by the theater surrounding Chuck Schumer’s opposition to the president’s Iran deal. Schumer offered a detailed, 1600-word justification for his opposition to the deal and, in the most obsequious and gentle way imaginable, pointed out an abundance of falsehoods Obama’s been peddling regarding the deal.

Following in the footsteps of New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., another Democratic Jewish member of Congress has announced he will oppose the Iran nuclear agreement. "I will vote against the Iran deal," declared California Rep. Brad Sherman in a press release on Friday. "This Agreement is the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It contains the good and the bad in the first year, and gets ugly in the years thereafter." The news of Sherman's opposition is another blow to the Obama administration. During the August recess, the administration has been working to create a...