President Biden isn’t the first incumbent to face grim polling a year out from Election Day.
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Israeli actress demands FBI probe funding, terror links of college groups ‘brainwashing’ American students
Israeli actress Noa Tishby testified before Congress on Wednesday calling on the FBI to investigate the funding behind pro-Palestinian groups at American college campuses, effectively “brainwashing” and “grooming” students into aligning with “terrorist sympathizers” amid the Jewish state’s war against Hamas.
Speaking before the House Ways and Means Committee, Tishby argued that violence and harassment against Jewish students “has been planned, engineered and incubated for decades by heavily funded, professionally orchestrated groups with close connections to terrorist organizations, like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP.”
“One of the main perpetrators of campus Jew-hate is Students for Justice in Palestine or SJP,” she said in her opening statement.
“SJP was set up and is supported by groups and individuals with well documented records of support and fundraising for terrorist organizations,” Tishby told lawmakers. “Individuals like Hatem Bazien, who founded SJP and is also the founder of American Muslims for Palestine – or AMP. Terrorist sympathizers figured out decades ago that instead of sending money to jihadist organizations, they will target the hearts and minds of young and naïve, sometimes well-meaning American students.”
The actress noted how these groups use “progressive buzzwords like ‘justice’ and ‘freedom,’ but their true intent – is destroying the world’s only Jewish state by all means necessary.”
“And after Oct. 7, we have seen that anything goes: Beheading babies and raping women is just fine. If it’s done to the Jews, they call it resistance,” she said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, SJP is a hate group. It is grooming American college students – grooming your children – to hate Israel, hate Jews and hate America. And for years, universities stood by, watched this brainwashing take place and did nothing.”
Tishby urged lawmakers, “With the amount of evidence linking SJP and AMP members with support and financing of terrorist groups including Hamas, these organizations and networks should be investigated by state police and the FBI.”
“We need to kick these hate groups off campus,” Tishby said. “How can it be that college fees and taxpayers’ dollars are funding hate groups that cheer on the burning alive of Jewish families? Every college in this country should ban SJP, and never let them back. We wouldn’t fund KKK chapters in our colleges. We shouldn’t fund SJP chapters in our colleges either. And if universities fail to remove SJP off campus; if they continue to protect and fund the ringleaders of an antisemitic mob, then this Committee should withdraw funding for them. We would not allow the mafia to teach business on campus. We should not allow terrorist supporters to teach political activism to our kids.”
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“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not just a Jewish issue; it’s an American one,” the actress added, concluding her opening remarks. “There is a direct line between brainwashed extremists who rip down posters of kidnapped Jewish children, and those who rip down the American flag ahead of Veterans Day. I urge this committee to act now, and stop this coordinated assault on Jewish students, on American values and on the future of the American dream.”
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Biden says Israel will stop fighting in Gaza when Hamas ‘no longer maintains the capacity to murder’
President Biden said Wednesday that he thinks Israel’s military operation in Gaza will stop when Hamas “no longer maintains the capacity to murder, abuse, and do horrific things to the Israelis.”
Speaking at a press conference after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden called on the Israeli military to exercise caution as they pursue Hamas military targets near civilian infrastructure. He said the Israel Defense Forces has “an obligation to use as much caution as they can in going after their targets.”
But he added, “Hamas said they plan to attack Israelis again and this is terrible dilemma.”+
Biden and his administration have remained steadfast in support for Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas. U.S. officials have strongly condemned the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel, in which Hamas terrorists infiltrated the Jewish state and massacred as many as 1,200 people, taking some 240 back to Gaza as hostages.
Other world leaders have condemned Israel’s military actions in Gaza, specifically attacks on hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, pointing to the staggering death toll figures released by the Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry. Israel has said, and the White House confirmed, that Hamas uses al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza City, as a military base to store weapons and plan terrorist attacks.
The U.S. government has rejected calls for a ceasefire in the conflict, insisting that Israel has a right to defend itself. At the same time, the Biden administration has pressured Israel to allow short-term pauses in the fighting so humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies, can be delivered to the Palestinians living in Gaza.
The president acknowledged he did not know when the Israel-Hamas war would end. However, he made clear that, in his view, the only solution to the conflict is the formation of a Palestinian state.
BIDEN AGAIN CALLS XI JINPING A ‘DICTATOR’ AS CHINA VOWS TO BE ‘UNSTOPPABLE’ IN RETAKING TAIWAN
“I’m not a fortune-teller, I can’t tell you how long it’s going to last. But I can tell you, I don’t think it ultimately ends until there’s a two-state solution,” Biden said. “I made it clear to the Israelis I think it’s a big mistake for them to think they’re going to occupy Gaza and maintain Gaza. I don’t think that works.”
“And so I think you’re going to see efforts to bring along – well, I shouldn’t go into anymore, because it’s things I have been negotiating with Arab countries and others about what the next steps are,” he added.
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Trump signals he’s out for revenge in second term
Former President Trump told his supporters earlier this year he would be their “retribution” if reelected.
He told supporters last week he would direct the Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate “every Marxist prosecutor in America.”
And Trump over the weekend vowed to “root out … the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”
Trump’s own words have made increasingly clear how fixated he is on revenge and targeting his perceived enemies if he wins a second term in the White House next November. The former president has openly mused in recent days that his own indictment has “released the genie out of the box” and would allow him to weaponize the government against his opponents.
His comments have raised alarms among critics, some of whom fear a second Trump administration will lack some of the guardrails that existed during his first four years in office.
“His policies are not centered around improving the lives of his supporters or Americans in general, it’s centered around consolidating power for Trump, and that way he can wield it to enact that revenge on anyone he deems as an enemy,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House and campaign press aide who resigned over the Jan. 6 riots.
“And that is what is scary, and I wish that was penetrating through more in the minds of voters,” Matthews added.
Trump’s own words paint a clear picture of an individual appearing increasingly fixated on targeting those he believes have wronged him if he is able to return to the White House, and he is using exceedingly incendiary rhetoric to make his point.
“I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” Trump said in March at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The former president earlier this year called for Republicans in Congress to defund the FBI and DOJ as he faced federal investigations that have since resulted in indictments in Florida and Washington, D.C.
In September, Trump suggested former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley had committed treason by reaching out to China following the 2020 election to offer reassurances in the final days of Trump’s first term.
“This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump last week delivered remarks in New Hampshire in which he likened those on the left to “vermin” that pose a threat to the country from within, drawing rebuke for using language used by dictators decades ago.
And Trump has for months spoken about plans to direct investigations into President Biden, his family and others should he retake the White House.
Trump in June wrote on social media that he would appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden, his family and “all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders, & country itself.”
The former president last month in Iowa claimed his own indictments — on federal charges in Florida and Washington, D.C., and on state charges in New York and Georgia — allows him to target Biden.
He reiterated that belief in an interview last week with Univision in which he was asked if he would weaponize the DOJ if he’s elected.
“Yeah. If they do this and they’ve already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump said. “It could certainly happen in reverse. What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box.”
Multiple reports in recent weeks from The New York Times and Washington Post have detailed how outside conservative groups and longtime Trump allies are laying the groundwork for a second Trump term, including through the appointment of attorneys and personnel who would be willing to push through controversial aspects of Trump’s agenda.
The Post reported Trump has cited individuals he wants to investigate, and his associates have drafted plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act to help quell protests against him.
The Trump campaign has pushed back on reports about the former president’s plans for a second term.
“These reports about personnel and policies that are specific to a second Trump Administration are purely speculative and theoretical. Any personnel lists, policy agendas, or government plans published anywhere are merely suggestions,” senior Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement.
“Likewise, all 2024 campaign policy announcements will be made by President Trump or members of his campaign team,” they added. “Policy recommendations from external allies are just that — recommendations.”
But Trump’s own rhetoric has in many ways set the tone.
Reinforcing the concern among experts is that Trump showed throughout his first term a willingness to use the levers of government to target those who he perceived as enemies.
He was impeached in late 2019 over a phone call in which he urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Biden family.
Multiple reports in recent years detailed how Trump wanted then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote in his memoir that Trump wanted to call retired military officials back to active duty to court-martial them after they were critical of the former president.
“I think that as far as the question of is he just blowing off steam or would he be intent on doing that, I think he would be intent on doing that. He demonstrated as president he would act on his grudges, so I think these threats are real,” said Grant Reeher, director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University.
Trump is dominating the Republican primary field, leading in national polls by an average of nearly 60 percentage points. His lead in state-level polls is smaller but still more than 20 percentage points in most cases.
Recent polls have also shown Trump leading Biden in key battleground states and in some national polls, underscoring the reality that the former president could reasonably win reelection next November.
Experts and former Trump administration officials turned critics have raised alarms that the former president could be less constrained in a second term, when the government could be filled with appointees more willing to do his bidding and less inclined to push back on his impulses.
“The constraints to the extent they existed during the first term, those constraints would be less robust and maybe far less robust. And that’s a major worry,” said Matt Dallek, a professor of political management at George Washington University.
“Trump would feel even more liberated to go after people in a second term, and there were maybe times when he backed down about something in his first term, like the family separations he was doing,” Dallek added. “I think he would feel just more emboldened to go after people, and so I think it would be a mistake to downplay any of his proposals.”
Go to Source: Administration News | The Hill
The Memo: Biden’s political problems on Israel rise along with Palestinian death toll
The death toll among Palestinians in the conflict with Israel is rising, and President Biden’s political problems at home are rising along with it.
Biden has offered close to unconditional support for Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that killed around 1,200 people.
But that position is looking increasingly out of step with many Democratic voters amid Israeli reprisals that have killed around 11,000 Palestinians, displaced more than 1 million people and left Gaza in a dire humanitarian crisis.
Almost six weeks on from the original Hamas attack, there is growing evidence that voters take a more ambivalent view of Israel’s response than the president does — and the trend is especially true for left-of-center Americans.
A new poll released Wednesday found that 56 percent of Democrats — and 38 percent of all Americans — believe Israel’s military response has been “too much.” The Democratic figure rose a startling 21 points since a poll from the same organizations — NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist — roughly a month before.
The poll also found that 34 percent of Democrats disapprove of the way Biden is handling the conflict.
To be sure, it’s possible that some of those Democrats believe Biden should be even more supportive of Israel. But the working assumption in political circles is that the dissenters are overwhelmingly those who believe Biden has given excessively free rein to the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“This is a terrible miscalculation,” Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor and the author of several acclaimed books on Palestine, told this column. “Participating to this degree with absolute support for Israel is something most Americans don’t agree with.”
There are warning signs flashing for the Biden policy in many other polls, too.
A new Economist/YouGov survey, also released Wednesday, found a plurality of Democrats — 34 percent — believe Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack has been “too harsh,” compared to 30 percent who believe it has been “about right” and 7 percent who believe it has been “not harsh enough.”
Yet, at the same time, Democrats leaned toward Israel in their overall view of the conflict.
Twenty-three percent of Democrats in the poll said their sympathies were with the Israelis, against 17 percent who favored the Palestinians. A plurality, 39 percent, said their sympathies were “about equal,” while the remainder declined to express an opinion.
Findings like that point to the arduous political terrain Biden faces on the conflict. Jewish voters are an important bloc of support for Democrats, and they tend to favor Democrats over Republicans by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.
But poll after poll has found younger Democrats tend to be more sympathetic toward the Palestinians. Other important pillars of the Democratic coalition, notably progressive votes and Black voters, also tend to lean more toward the Palestinians than their centrist and white counterparts do.
In the NPR poll, for example, 48 percent of all adults younger than 45 took the view that Israel’s actions had been excessive, whereas only 31 percent of the older-than-45s took the same view. Forty-eight percent of nonwhite adults said Israel’s actions had been too much, compared to 33 percent of white people who felt that way.
The intensity of the feeling around the conflict may end up being just as politically important as the raw numbers. The situation is literally one of life and death for thousands of people. As such, it strikes far more viscerally than many domestic political battles.
Usamah Andrabi, communications director for the Justice Democrats, a progressive group, said despite Israel reportedly killing thousands of children and striking numerous medical facilities, “the president has yet to call for a cease-fire. He refuses to even condemn those actions. And he still demands the Congress send $14 billion in military aid, in weapons, to Israel. I don’t know how anyone can accept that position.”
The Biden administration has tempered its rhetoric to some degree recently, stressing the importance of minimizing civilian casualties and protecting hospitals. The president’s aides also highlight their efforts to get some level of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
The politics of the issue are anything but simple, as well. Washington has seen huge marches in favor of both the Palestinians and Israel within the past two weeks. The overall American population is more sympathetic to Israel than is the Democratic base, and Republicans are eager to seize on any suggestion that Biden is soft on American foes, such as Hamas’s sponsor, Iran.
Some Democrats argue the president has taken just the right course.
“I think most presidents would have done the same thing,” said Democratic strategist Jerry Austin, who also noted many Republicans as well as Democrats are united in support for Israel, especially given the horror of the Hamas attacks.
“I don’t see it as a political decision. I see it as a moral decision,” Austin said. “This kind of behavior [from Hamas] has to stop. It isn’t as if they are soldiers fighting soldiers. They went in there and killed women and children.”
But voices more sympathetic to the Palestinians argue that Biden will pay a political price, given the dismay about his position from Arab-Americans, progressives, younger voters and Black voters.
Khalidi said he neither expected people to forget what had occurred nor did he anticipate a change of policy from the administration.
“There will be a lot of votes lost,” he predicted.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
Go to Source: Administration News | The Hill
Sen. Vance demands IRS halt ‘harassment’ of conservative organizations after watchdog reportedly audited
FIRST ON FOX: Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, is expected to send a letter Thursday morning to the IRS commissioner demanding a halt to “harassment” of conservative organizations.
Vance’s letter comes after the IRS informed the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) in a letter, which AAF shared with Fox News Digital, that it would launch an investigation into the watchdog group Sept. 14.
The IRS notified AAF it would inquire whether the organization “operates in accordance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code,” according to the letter.
“But, to date, the IRS has neither presented any evidence that AAF has failed to observe the requirements of section 501(c)(3) nor explained why AAF may be at risk of failing to observe those requirements,” Vance wrote in the letter.
JD VANCE CIRCULATES MEMO CALLING FOR ISRAEL AND UKRAINE AID TO BE SPLIT UP
“I do not need to remind you that the AAF audit follows on the heels of an ugly chapter in the IRS’s history, during which the agency unfairly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny on the basis of their views,” he wrote.
Vance seeks information from the IRS about potential bias in selecting audits, citing historical instances of IRS bias against conservative organizations. One example Vance cites was in 2017 when the agency subjected conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status to heightened scrutiny and significant delays.
The IRS admitted to targeting these groups based on their conservative viewpoints beginning in the 2010s, leading to a cleanup of the agency’s top leadership, the letter noted.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH TO DEFEND KAMALA HARRIS’ OFFICE, IRS IN KEY SPENDING BILL
Additionally, he inquired whether the IRS has declined to pursue audits of progressive or left-wing nonprofits and seeks explanations for those decisions.
The AAF has published exposes on several Biden nominees for senior positions, which led him to withdraw some of their candidacies. It has also published emails revealing Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., urged the IRS to audit conservative organizations, as reported last November.
BIDEN ADMIN ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR IRS DIRECT FILE SYSTEM
In June, the AAF launched an investigation into the IRS for building a government-run tax filing program that critics argue would give the agency too much power.
AAF made public records requests, first obtained by Fox News Digital, seeking communications and other documents from the IRS and the Office of Management and Budget concerning the creation of an IRS-run electronic tax filing system, commonly referred to as “direct file.”
The Inflation Reduction Act, a mammoth Democrat-backed spending bill signed into law last year, included $15 million for the IRS to look into creating a free direct tax return system. Specifically, the legislation required a study by an independent third party examining the idea’s feasibility, as well as a report by the IRS for Congress assessing the study, the cost of such a system and taxpayer opinions based on surveys.
An IRS spokesperson told Fox News Digital the IRS cannot confirm or deny current audits.
Fox News’ Aaron Kliegman contributed to this report.
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New Hampshire defies Democrats over primary date; will Biden pay a price in the key swing state next November?
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire has a warning for President Biden and Democrats.
“Skip New Hampshire at your own peril,” Sununu told Fox News Digital.
The governor spoke minutes after the date of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary was set for January 23.
The announcement by New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan on Wednesday puts the Granite State at odds with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), as their primary is now in non-compliance with the DNC’s 2024 nominating calendar. The state now faces sanctions, which could result in the loss of half of New Hampshire’s delegates to next summer’s Democratic presidential nominating convention.
Holding an unsanctioned primary has led President Biden to keep his name off the New Hampshire ballot. That triggered leading Granite State Democrats to launch a write-in campaign in an attempt to prevent an electoral embarrassment for the president as he runs for a second term in the White House.
But Sununu, a vocal critic of the move by Biden and the DNC to upend the Granite State’s cherished century-old role in holding the first presidential primary, warns that a price will be paid by the president and his party next November in New Hampshire – the only general election battleground state in New England.
“There’s no doubt that citizens all across New Hampshire, especially independents and Democrats, are taking notice that they’re being pushed aside by a national party. No one takes very kindly to that — especially in politics, being told that their voice doesn’t matter like it used to,” the governor emphasized. “I have no doubt it will have a lot of effect come November of ’24.”
And Sununu argued that “the precedent that President Biden has potentially set is no Democrat will ever dare try to skip New Hampshire again. Because I think it’s really going to hurt President Biden. It’s going to hurt his chances. It hurts the Democratic Party as a whole.”
National Democrats for years knocked both Iowa — whose caucuses for half a century led off the party’s nominating calendar — and New Hampshire as unrepresentative of the party as a whole because the states have largely White populations with few major urban areas. Nevada and South Carolina, which in recent cycles have voted third and fourth on the calendar, are much more diverse than either Iowa or New Hampshire.
While Republicans aren’t making major changes to their schedule, the DNC earlier this year overwhelmingly approved a calendar proposed late last year by Biden to move South Carolina to the lead position on Feb. 3. New Hampshire and Nevada were scheduled to hold primaries three days later, with Iowa entirely losing its early state position. The president and supporters of the new calendar argued that it would empower minority voters, upon whom Democrats have long relied but have at times taken for granted.
To comply with the DNC, New Hampshire would have needed to scrap its 50-year-old state law protecting its first-in-the-nation primary status and expand access to early voting. However, with Republicans in control of the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature, Democrats repeatedly argued that was a non-starter.
Scanlan noted that the date he set “complies with our state statute requiring our presidential primary be at least seven days before any similar event.”
New Hampshire’s Secretary of State made his announcement in front of a crowd of national and local reporters, state officials and lawmakers, the Democratic and Republican state party chairs, other political leaders and dignitaries, who were crowded into the Hall of Flags at the Statehouse in Concord.
There are plenty of Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire who see the upending of their lead-off positions as sour grapes from Biden, who finished a disappointing fourth in the 2020 Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary — before a second-place finish in Nevada and a landslide victory in South Carolina propelled him toward the nomination and eventually the White House.
Fast-forward to the 2024 cycle and the president faces long-shot primary challenges from two Democrats who will be on the ballot in New Hampshire.
Three-term Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, formally announced his presidential bid as he filed at the State House on Oct. 27 to place his name on the state’s ballot. Also on the Granite State ballot is the other challenger, bestselling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, who is making her second straight White House run.
While the president, who turns 81 next week, is the commanding front-runner for the nomination, polls indicate Biden faces mounting concerns from Democrats over his age. Those surveys also suggest that many Americans, including plenty of Democrats, don’t want the president to seek a second term in the White House.
There are concerns among Granite Staters that the move by the president and the DNC to revamp the nominating calendar, and his absence from the primary ballot, could lead to a ballot box setback for Biden in New Hampshire.
“Personally, I believe that the president is making a mistake by not putting his name on the ballot here,” Scanlan told reporters.
Looking ahead to next year’s general election, New Hampshire GOP chair Chris Ager promised that “we’re going to remind people that Joe Biden doesn’t care about New Hampshire. The Republican candidate, whoever it is, will have been here multiple times appealing to people. So reminding people of that fact will help us.”
“But whether he’s here or not campaigning, it’s his polices that are going to be his demise, because they’re just not good for the people of New Hampshire,” Ager argued.
Democrats disagree with the GOP argument that the battle over the primary date will impact them next November.
“We fully expect that once the primary is over, Joe Biden will invest and campaign here, and be even more successful than the polls have already shown. Every indication that we’re getting is that New Hampshire Democrats are going to have a very good year in 2024,” longtime state Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley told Fox News in a statement.
Biden topped Trump by nearly eight points in New Hampshire three years ago, the largest margin of victory in the swing state in a presidential contest in a dozen years.
Buckley touted that “as every poll out of New Hampshire has shown —including the latest, post-municipal election polls — Joe Biden is beating Donald Trump in the Granite State by a considerable margin. The numbers don’t lie.”
And longtime New Hampshire based Democrat consultant Jim Demers — a top Biden supporter in the Granite State who’s helping to lead the primary ballot write-in effort on behalf of the president — predicted that “once the nomination is locked up, the convention takes place, Joe Biden will be back in New Hampshire campaigning.”
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Republicans slam Tlaib over membership in secret Facebook group where Hamas was praised
Republican lawmakers criticized Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, over her membership in a secret Facebook group where individuals praised Hamas after their terrorist attack on Israel that left more than 1,000 of its citizens dead.
Tlaib has quietly been a member of the Palestinian American Congress group on Facebook for several years. The private group, which only its members can find and access, includes members who heaped praise on the terrorist group after its bloody Oct. 7 invasion, which Fox News Digital reported Wednesday after gaining entry to it.
Following the report, Republican politicians denounced Tlaib over her membership in the group.
RASHIDA TLAIB MEMBER OF SECRET FACEBOOK GROUP WHERE HAMAS TERRORISTS GLORIFIED
“This is repulsive. Every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, needs to condemn [Rashida Tlaib] for being a member of this pro-terrorist group,” Florida Republican Sen. Tim Scott wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa told Fox News Digital that he believes the Democratic Party has a worsening “antisemitism problem.”
“These reports only add to my conclusion that the Democrat Party — including in the House of Representatives — has a clear and present antisemitism problem,” Issa said. “And it looks to be getting worse.”
Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn commented that such associations for congressional members are worrisome.
“Rashida Tlaib appears to be part of a group that has glorified the horrific October 7th terrorist attacks on Israel,” Blackburn said on X. “These associations by sitting members of Congress continue to elevate concern.”
Tlaib initially joined the Palestinian American Congress group in 2018 and has been active in it in the past. Its founder, Maher Abdel-qader, has longstanding ties to Tlaib and has faced scrutiny for his antisemitic social media posts.
HOUSE VOTES TO CENSURE RASHIDA TLAIB OVER ANTI-ISRAEL COMMENTS
After the Hamas attack, several individuals took to the forum in the Palestinian American Congress group to share messages backing the terrorist group.
On Oct. 10, one of its members opined about the American media naming Hamas a terrorist organization but not mentioning “the killing of Palestinian women, children and entire families killed on a daily basses (sic) by the [peace-loving] state of Israel using American gifts of weapons and jet fighters.”
“Yesterday I didn’t see Hamas I saw the grand kids (sic) of the refugees that ethnically cleansed from their homeland attacking the grand kids (sic) of the colonists whom sent them to diaspora,” they wrote.
Days later, on Oct. 12, another member wrote, “We don’t want to throw you in the sea…we want you to ride it back from where you came.” The message contained a photo of an elderly Israeli woman and a Hamas fighter holding her captive.
Another member of the group praised the “achievements” of the “resistance in Northern occupied Palestine,” which referenced dozens of dead Israeli soldiers.
Other individuals in the private group posted pro-Hamas pictures and messages throughout the year.
Tlaib, meanwhile, has a long history of anti-Israel remarks and recently found herself in hot water over her comments after Hamas’ invasion, leading the House of Representatives to vote to censure her in a largely symbolic denunciation.
Tlaib and the founder of the secret Facebook group, Abdel-qader, also have an extensive history.
Abdel-qader has been a crucial fundraiser for Tlaib and formerly acted as chairman of her finance committee during her 2018 congressional campaign. During that time, Tlaib introduced him by the title at a campaign event and offered him a medal to show appreciation for his help with her campaign.
Abdel-qader has also faced scrutiny over his past statements and social media posts, which included his sharing of a video that called Jews “satanic” and questioned whether 6 million of them had died in the Holocaust. He later walked back those comments.
Tlaib’s congressional office and Abdel-qader have yet to respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the group and her membership in it.
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Dark money group wired millions to law firm suing Big Oil with Dem states
FIRST ON FOX: A major left-wing dark money nonprofit organization earmarked millions of dollars last year to a private law firm that’s spearheading climate litigation against the oil industry on behalf of Democrat-led cities and states, according to newly published tax filings.
New Venture Fund — which is managed by Arabella Advisors, a firm that oversees a liberal billion-dollar dark money network — wired grants worth a total of $2.5 million to the California-based Sher Edling in 2022 alone, per the tax filings reviewed by Fox News Digital. Across the country, Sher Edling has taken up novel climate litigation against major oil and gas producers, arguing the industry has misled the public about the threat posed by global warming.
“It smacks of a political operation,” Tom Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “You have this whole self-dealing scheme where progressive donors are hiding behind nonprofits and taking advantage of that from a tax perspective, then funding Democrat law firms, and also, Democrat politicians and elected officials are participating as well.”
“Across the board, it’s rotten,” Pyle continued. “This is further evidence that the green movement is no longer about protecting the environment. It’s about being a political, financial and organizational arm of the Democratic Party.”
JUDGE PRESIDING OVER BIG OIL CLIMATE CHANGE LAWSUIT REVEALS CONNECTION TO PLAINTIFF’S ECO LAWYERS
Since 2016, the year Sher Edling was founded, the firm has pursued aggressive climate-related litigation on behalf of Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, Honolulu and several local governments across the country. The first-of-their-kind lawsuits argue that oil companies are financially responsible for global warming and, therefore, weather events that impact people and communities.
On its website, the firm says its climate practice seeks to hold oil companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell accountable for their alleged “deception” about climate change. It says that the fossil fuel industry has known for decades that burning fossil fuels would cause global warming, thus making the industry responsible for mass human devastation caused by such human-induced climate change.
BIDEN NOMINEE COORDINATED DARK MONEY CLIMATE NUISANCE LAWSUITS INVOLVING LEONARDO DICAPRIO
While the entirety of Sher Edling’s funding structure is unknown, the firm has for years raised millions of dollars from nonprofits whose individual donors are obscured from public view, meaning anonymous individuals and groups are supporting its climate litigation. The arrangement, though, has attracted scrutiny from Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.
“As I’ve warned, it’s clear radical, left-wing dark money groups are footing the bill for Sher Edling’s climate crusade with the goal of bankrupting American energy employers,” Cruz told Fox News Digital in a statement. “New Venture Fund and Sher Edling’s litigious gamble is nothing but an attempt at achieving a goal lacking majority support in Congress: the eradication of fossil fuels.”
“It’s no surprise that a dark money group is funding activist litigation that seeks to bankrupt American energy companies,” Comer added in a separate statement. “The House Oversight Committee raised concerns about this exact issue in our letter to Sher Edling that was sent in partnership with Ranking Member Cruz and the Senate Commerce Committee.”
The Oversight Committee chairman noted the panel recently held a hearing on Sept. 13 about left-wing litigation funding and said it will “continue to follow the facts wherever they may lead.”
APPEALS COURT FORCES BIDEN ADMIN TO HOLD OFFSHORE OIL LEASE SALE WITHOUT ECO RESTRICTIONS
Shortly after that hearing, Cruz and Comer fired off their latest probe into Sher Edling’s finances, sparking a tense back-and-forth between the two sides, letters shared with Fox News Digital showed.
“Setting aside the namecalling, donations to Sher Edling do not finance any particular lawsuit; rather, such donations support only the firm’s general operations in this area,” counsel for Sher Edling wrote to Cruz and Comer in a letter on Oct. 6.
According to tax filings, between 2017 and 2020, the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience, and Adaptation (CAF), a secretive group fiscally sponsored by New Venture Fund, wired more than $5.2 million to Sher Edling. Then, in 2021 alone, CAF funneled another $3 million to the firm. CAF switched its fiscal sponsorship to New Venture Fund from a smaller dark money group in 2021.
Including the funding revealed this week in the 2022 tax forms, CAF has sent $10.7 million to Sher Edling since the small firm began suing oil companies.
Though CAF’s, and by extension Sher Edling’s, individual donors are unknown, a previous Fox News Digital review showed past funding has flowed through the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
And Fox News Digital previously reported that Ann Carlson — a senior Biden administration official serving as acting administrator of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — secretly coordinated to raise money for CAF and Sher Edling. She further helped recruit at least one state, Hawaii, to hire Sher Edling.
Led by Cruz, Republicans succesfully killed Carlson’s nomination to permanently lead NHTSA, in part, due to her connection to Sher Edling.
Sher Edling and New Venture Fund didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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Wray warns lone actors ‘inspired’ by foreign terrorists, radicalized online are ‘greatest threat’ to US
The “greatest threat to the homeland” is U.S.-based lone actors or small groups who are radicalized online and “inspired” by foreign terrorists, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday, warning that the United States is in a “heightened threat environment.”
Wray, alongside Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and National Counterterrorism Center Director Christine Abizaid, testified Wednesday at the House Homeland Security Committee’s hearing dedicated to worldwide threats.
Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., opened the hearing by warning that the United States is facing “one of the most dangerous times” in the country’s history.
The three officials pointed to a number of threats facing the United States, but Wray testified that lone actors radicalized online pose the greatest risk.
“When we talk about the greatest threat to the homeland, the greatest threat to the homeland is lone or small groups, typically radicalized online, using easily accessible weapons to attack soft targets,” Wray testified.
Wray said that lone actors include both “domestic violent extremists” and “homegrown violent extremists who are individuals here who are inspired by foreign terrorists.”
“That’s what we call it at the highest threat level,” he said.
As for domestic violent extremism, Wray said the “most lethal activity” has been by “racially motivated violent extremists.” He also said that some have been “anti-government, anti-authority extremists.”
When pressed by Democrat lawmakers on whether Wray was referring to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Wray said “that would be one variation on it.”
“But so would the violence that we saw in the summer of 2020,” he explained, calling those violent activities “anarchism.”
But since Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, “the number of tips and threats that are being reported to [the FBI] have gone up significantly.”
FBI DIRECTOR WRAY WARNS TERROR THREAT TO AMERICANS AT ‘WHOLE OTHER LEVEL’ AMID HAMAS-ISRAEL CONFLICT
“We were already … at an elevated threat environment even before Oct. 7,” Wray said. “And it’s gone to a whole other level since Oct. 7.”
He added that the “biggest chunk of threats that have been reported in to us by a good margin are threats to the Jewish community, synagogues … prominent things like that.”
“We also have a large number of tips and leads related specifically to Hamas and radicalization and recruitment,” Wray said, also noting that the FBI has seen “some threats” to Muslim Americans.
“We are urgently running down every tip and lead we get and trying to mitigate them,” he said.
Wray added, “I feel very strongly that we are in a heightened threat environment.”
FBI DIRECTOR WRAY SAYS BORDER GOTAWAYS A SOURCE OF ‘GREAT CONCERN’ FOR AGENCY
As for other threats, Biden administration officials warned about China on the same day when President Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California.
“I have been very consistent in saying that there is no country that presents a broader, more comprehensive threat to our economic security or national security or innovation than the Chinese government,” Wray said. “And they use nontraditional collectors, not just traditional intelligence operatives, to cause that threat.”
Wray also pointed to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is set to lapse next month, and urged Congress to reauthorize the tool.
“It would be absolutely devastating if the next time an adversary like Iran or China launches a major cyberattack, [and] we don’t see it coming because 702 was allowed to lapse, or with the fast-moving situation in the Middle East,” Wray said.
“Just imagine if some foreign terrorist organization overseas shifts its intentions and directs an operative here who’d been contingency planning to carry out an attack in our own backyard,” Wray continued. “And imagine if we’re not able to disrupt that threat because the FBI 702 authorities have been so watered down.”
FISA Section 702 is set to sunset on Dec. 31, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are proposing reforms in order to reauthorize the section with more congressional oversight.
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