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Freshman Democrats in the lower chamber are expected to meet with former President Obama next week at a reception organized by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a Democratic aide confirmed Thursday. The event — which is slated to take place at former UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Esther Coopersmith’s home in Kalorama — is limited to just members, several of whom served in the 44th president’s administration, according to an invitation seen by The Hill. The invitation states that the reception is being held to “celebrate the freshman class of the 116th Congress.” Politico first reported the news. Obama played a visible role...

Former President Barack Obama will host a reception for freshman House Democrats on Monday evening at the home of Ambassador Esther Coopersmith in Washington, D.C, Jewish Insider has learned. Coopersmith, known as “one of the best at playing the Washington ‘networking’ game,” was appointed by Obama as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 2009. On Monday night, AIPAC will also hold its leadership reception, perhaps AIPAC’s most-significant annual gathering, which typically puts the vast majority of members of Congress, AIPAC’s leadership, board and national council all in one room, during the same block of time. Several progressive 2020 presidential hopefuls, including...

Multiple Democratic presidential candidates said Thursday that they won’t attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference in Washington next week. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, are among the 2020 contenders who have decided not to attend. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who is considering an independent bid for president, will also avoid the AIPAC conference. It comes as the liberal advocacy group MoveOn has called on Democratic presidential candidates to skip this year’s policy...

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are among the speakers at this year’s AIPAC conference. Pelosi, the U.S. House of Representatives speaker and McConnell, the Senate majority leader, are confirmed for the event, which takes place on March 24-26 in Washington, D.C., an American Israel Public Affairs Committee official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the House minority leader are also speaking.

In a wide-ranging interview, the country’s most powerful Democrat says Trump is unfit to be president — “ethically,” “intellectually” and “curiosity-wise” — but impeachment would be too divisive.

Linda Sarsour, co-leader of the embattled Women’s March, attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as House Democrats draft a resolution condemning antisemitism following blowback from Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) latest anti-semitic remarks. Omar became the center of controversy after suggesting last week that lawmakers are pressured by pro-Israel groups to take a pledge of “allegiance to a foreign country.” “I want to ask, ‘Why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the [National Rifle Association], or fossil fuel industries or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policy?’” the Minnesota...

Women's March leader Linda Sarsour ripped into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after House Democrats drafted a resolution condemning anti-Semitism in response to Rep. Ilhan Omar accusing pro-Israel lawmakers of pushing for "allegiance to a foreign country."

Women’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour went on a rant against Rep. Nancy Pelosi Monday night, saying she is unqualified to be a feminist or Speaker of the House. Sarsour was reacting to a planned House resolution condemning anti-Semitism, an offense that both she and her movement have been accused of. She said “this is why” she wanted Rep. Barbara Lee, another California Democrat, to be Speaker of the House. The prominent Muslim feminist went on to criticize Pelosi for being white and “doing the dirty work of powerful white men” – suggesting this disqualified her as a women’s right advocate....

Making herself Louis Farrakhan's "sweetheart" as he put it, Rep. Ilhan Omar isn't going anywhere with the apologies on her third incident of anti-semitism. Farrakhan, you recall, didn't want Omar, whom he called "sweetheart" to apologize for those, and sure enough, she's not apologizing. What I see instead in the miasma of tweets on Twitter, is a bid to deflect attention, with she and her supporters attempting to present the "narrative" of Omar as the "real victim," calling attention to a few bad actors, some anonymous, who've made threats against her and drawn a negative reaction and lawmen looking for...

In an unprecedented rebuke under the new Congress, House Democratic leaders on Monday roundly condemned Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., for statements about supporters of Israel that were widely viewed as anti-Semitic and called on her to apologize. The statement issued by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership team followed the latest in a string of controversial comments from the freshman lawmaker -- as well as pressure from Republican leaders to speak out. “Anti-Semitism must be called out, confronted and condemned whenever it is encountered, without exception," the statement said. "We are and will always be...

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) sent out an email on Thursday seeking to raise money off the anti-Semitism scandal that has engulfed the Democratic Party, claiming that a pro-Israel group was "coming after" her, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). "It's official -- AIPAC is coming after Alexandria, Ilhan, and Rashida," the email said. "Rashida, Ilhan, and Alexandria have at times dared to question our foreign policy, and the influence of money in our political system. And now, lobbying groups across the board are working to punish them for it." Ocasio-Cortez then compared the bipartisan consensus on...

Washington — This week, House Democrats will vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and bigotry. It's widely seen as a rebuke of one of their own, freshman Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar. The latest comment to land Omar in hot water was one she made at a D.C. bookstore, where she slammed congressional support for Israel. "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country," she said. In response, her own party drafted a four-page resolution "rejecting anti-Semitism." Without mentioning Omar by name, it...

Strange yet unexpectedly true: Ocasio-Cortez isn’t the single biggest pain in the ass for Pelosi and Democrats from the freshman class.In fact, if not for the obsession on all sides of political media with AOC, Ilhan Omar’s periodic tweet-farts about AIPAC and dual loyalty would be a bigger story than they already are. She’d be the “new face of the party” to righty critics instead of you-know-who.But don’t underestimate her. She’s nothing if not persistent in pushing her favorite anti-semitic canards. We can’t be more than a few weeks away from her approvingly quoting something from the Protocols of...

Earlier this month, Representative Ilhan Omar tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby!” in response to a report about AIPAC, a pro-Israel organization. Omar’s tweet echoed a longstanding anti-Semitic trope — in particular, the implication that Jewish political influence operates entirely (“all about”) through money. After wide condemnation, Omar apologized. It seemed fair to read her tweet generously: Perhaps she was not familiar with the particular vein of anti-Semitism she happened to echo. Indeed, progressives often make crudely reductive statements about the influence of money in supporting policies they oppose (to wit: everything Bernie Sanders says), so it wasn’t necessarily...

In what could be interpreted as Turkish reaction to President Trump's decision to keep US troops in Syria after saying they would be withdrawn back in December, the Turkish Interior Minister says his government will reveal the links between Kurdish groups considered terrorists by Turkeu and American generals..... Hundreds of suspected Islamic State fighters have been turned over to Iraqi authorities by Kurdish forces operating in eastern Syria...... President Trump tweeted Sunday evening that sufficient progress has been made in trade talks with China to delay tariff increases.... The talks between Afghanistan's Taliban and the United States resumed today in...

Washington (CNN)Freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is defending her controversial views on Israel as they come under scrutiny in Washington, telling CNN that "it's not surprising" her positions are generating attention and that she finds it "exciting" to be sparking debate. "It's not surprising. I think it is actually exciting because we are finally able to have conversations that we weren't really willing to," Omar told CNN on Tuesday. "It is really important for us to get a different lens about what peace in that region could look like and the kind of difficult conversations we need to...

The unfitness of Rep. Ilhan Omar for the House Foreign Affairs Committee has already been brought up based on her persistent anti-Semitism, her strange habit of repeating Russian propaganda, and her apparent abuse of U.S. immigration law. Now a new and very big reason has come up: Her cringe-inducing ignorance of actual foreign affairs.  In a hearing on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Omar got her big moment to show her foreign policy chops, and started in by misstating the actual name of the State Department's grizzled old special envoy for Venezuela, the well-known Elliott Abrams, calling him 'Adams.' Then, sneering and smiling weirdly, she brought...

The Washington Examiner’s Naomi Lim reports that yesterday the House passed an amendment to a resolution with a message to Ilhan Omar: (“In rare vote, House sends a message on anti-Semitism to Ilhan Omar.”) We have Rep. David Kustoff (R., Tenns.) to thank for this:The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a broad condemnation of anti-Semitism days after Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., received widespread criticism over her comments on Israel. The language, which does not mention Omar by name, was approved 424-0 using a legislature procedure that lets the minority party make a last-minute motion to change legislation just before it’s...

Omar will be speaking alongside a well-known Islamic Relief USA official, Yousef Abdallah, who has openly advocated for violence against Jews and has shared antisemitic sentiments on social media. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar will be a keynote speaker at an Islamic Relief USA emergency fundraising dinner for Yemen in Tampa, Florida, on February 23. Omar will be speaking alongside a well-known Islamic Relief USA official, Yousef Abdallah, who has advocated for violence against Jews and has shared antisemitic sentiments on his social media pages. The Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch blog highlighted this address, and reported several instances in which Abdallah...

Just hours after apologizing for making comments deemed anti-Semitic, Rep. Ilhan Omar retweeted a thread defending her claim that campaign contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee buy support for the group’s positions. Ms. Omar praised the writer, Ady Barkan, who told of being a staffer on a long-shot congressional campaign in 2006 when the candidate agreed to take stances on two issues in exchange for a maximum contribution from AIPAC. “Your courage can’t be matched. I am often in tears thinking about how you won’t be with us in this fight and how I am going to miss...