Rather than becoming more moderate — as promised by the Obama administration during its marketing of the July 2015 Iran nuclear deal — the Iranian regime is now “far more dangerous” than it was when it agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with six world powers, a former top Israeli diplomatic official said on Thursday. Recent hostile rhetoric by top Tehran regime officials — including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s call for the destruction of Israel — shows Iran is seeking “continuing conflict and escalation,” ex-Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold — currently the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs — said. On Thursday, as reported by The Algemeiner, Iranian Defense Minist...
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is “deeply implicated in BDS and other forms of political warfare” against the Jewish state, a watchdog group said on Friday, following the news that the Israeli government had rejected a HRW request for a work permit for its regional director. “For two decades, Human Rights Watch has been one of the most blatant and aggressive anti-Israel NGOs in the world,” Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of Israel-based NGO Monitor, said in a statement. “Their defenders need to ask why they systematically hire pro-BDS activists for key Israel-related ‘research’ positions, while lobbying to isolate Israel through false allegations.” In a letter explaining its decision to not grant a work permit to Omar Shakir &mda...
President Barack Obama shook hands with lawmakers as he strode down the middle aisle of the House of Representatives before his final State of the Union, breaking into a wide smile when he saw a very familiar face. “Eliot, you’re here,” Obama said. “Would I be anyplace else?” Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., replied. For nearly three decades, Engel has been on the aisle for every presidential address to Congress. For a fleeting moment, it’s just him and the president – two Republicans and two Democrats since he began the tradition in 1989 – shaking hands in a show of support for the leader of the free world. Engel could be someplace else Tuesday night, when President Donald Trump strides down the House’s center aisle to deliver his first a...
In a White House laden with competing power centers, a trio of military men has emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford have quickly formed a stabilizing alliance in an administration whose earliest days have been marked by turmoil. At working dinners and meetings with President Donald Trump, the men – all retired or current generals -have sought to guide the new leader and foreign policy novice. And they have increasingly represented Trump around the world, seeking to allay concerns about the new president and his nascent foreign policy. Their fingerprints can increasingly be seen on the president’s early national security moves, from the reworking of his controvers...
President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order taking aim at government regulations. The president says the order will direct each federal agency to establish a regulatory reform task force. The task forces will then recommend which regulations they can simplify or eliminate. The president has long argued that excessive regulations are “killing jobs, driving companies out of our country like never before.” He says the regulator burden is “an impossible situation” for big and small businesses, but says, “we’re going to solve it very quickly.” Trump signed the order in the Oval Office surrounded by top executives from major corporations. He signed a previous order that instructed agencies to identify two regulations to eliminate for ev...
New Hampshire this week passed a law allowing residents to carry a concealed handgun without a permit, joining a growing number of states that are allowing residents to carry weapons out of sight without a license. At least 11 states have passed laws allowing the concealed carry of guns without a permit, and 16 states have introduced legislation this year to do the same, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Rifle Association. Gun rights advocates see the laws as the next frontier in Second Amendment rights. But the legislation has been controversial in many places where it has been introduced, with some in law enforcement, politicians and gun proponents arguing that the bills go too far. “That’s kind of the next step in expanding law-abi...
Eric Pusey has to bite his tongue when customers at his pharmacy cough up co-payments far higher than the cost of their low-cost generic drugs, thinking their insurance is getting them a good deal. Pusey’s contracts with drug-benefit managers at his Medicap Pharmacy in Olyphant, Pennsylvania, bar him from volunteering the fact that for many cheap, generic medicines, co-pays sometimes are more expensive than if patients simply pay out of pocket and bypass insurance. The extra money — what the industry calls a clawback — ends up with the benefit companies. Pusey tells customers only if they ask. “Some of them get fired up,” he said. “Some of them get angry at the whole system. Some of them don’t even believe that what we’re telling them is ac...
J.C. Penney on Friday said it plans to close between 130 and 140 stores in the next several months, a move that makes it the latest retail stalwart to pull back from the mall amid the rise of online shopping. The department store giant’s latest quarterly results, also released Friday, illustrate its struggle to connect with shoppers: Sales were down 0.7 percent at stores open more than a year. And yet the report also demonstrated that J.C. Penney, unlike department store rivals such as Macy’s and Sears, has had improving momentum lately. The company managed to deliver a net profit in 2016, the first time it has done so since 2010. J.C. Penney’s decision to close stores comes as many industry executives and analysts say that old-school chains are “overstored,&rdquo...
Investing in politics is finally paying off for billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson. The dividends will be displayed this weekend as some of the nation’s top fundraisers assemble at his Venetian hotel in Las Vegas for the annual meeting of his signature political organization, the Republican Jewish Coalition. Among those paying their respects will be Vice President Mike Pence and Ronna Romney McDaniel, the new Republican National Committee leader. While Adelson often attracts big-name conservatives, the RJC and its mega-donor benefactor have rarely enjoyed such a strong political position as now. He had a private dinner at the White House earlier this month, just days before a visit from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu where President Donald Trump announced an abando...
The State Department legislative office prepared a four-page memo for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warning of the dangers of leaking by State Department employees. It promptly leaked, to me. That’s only the latest sign that the relationship between the Trump administration political appointees and the State Department professional workforce is still very much a work in progress. The Feb. 20 memo by State Department acting legal adviser Richard Visek to Tillerson is entitled “SBU: Protecting Privileged Information.” The SBU stands for Sensitive But Unclassified, a designation used on documents that are not technically secret but also not supposed to be shared. The memo itself is marked SBU and begins with detailed explanation of how and when Tillerson has the privileg...
The Justice Department will step up enforcement of federal law against recreational marijuana, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday, offering the Trump administration’s strongest indication to date of a looming crackdown on the drug, even as a solid majority of Americans believe it should be legal. “I do believe you’ll see greater enforcement of it,” Spicer said in response to a question during a news conference. But he offered no details about what such enforcement would entail. President Donald Trump does not oppose medical marijuana, he added, but “that’s very different than recreational use, which is something the Department of Justice will be further looking into.” A renewed focus on recreational marijuana in states that have lega...
Fox News contributor and syndicated columnist gives his take on the united front presented by Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon against the media before crowd at CPAC, saying Bannon was representation of 'Trumpism.
CNN and other news outlets were blocked Friday from an off-camera White House press briefing, raising alarm among media organizations and First Amendment watchdogs. The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Politico and BuzzFeed were also excluded from the meeting, which is known as a gaggle and is less formal than the televised Q-and-A session in the White House briefing room. The gaggle was held by White House press secretary Sean Spicer. In a brief statement defending the move, administration spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the White House "had the pool there so everyone would be represented and get an update from us today." The pool usually includes a representative from one television network and one print outlet. In this case, four of the five major television networks ...
Gov. Larry Hogan on Friday officially appointed Angela Gibson to fill state Sen. Nathaniel Oaks' old seat in the House of Delegates. Gibson was recommended by the Baltimore City Democratic Central Committee to represent District 41. Gibson is currently Mayor Catherine Pugh's legislative liaison to the City Council and spent more than 29 years in various mayor's office roles. “I am confident that Angela Gibson is prepared to serve her constituency in Baltimore City,” Hogan said in a statement. “I offer her my sincere congratulations and look forward to working with her to continue changing Maryland for the better.” Gibson was sworn in Friday morning. Oaks was appointed to the state Senate to replace Lisa Gladden, who resigned in January.
India’s Prime Minister approves $2.5 billion purchase of Israeli-made Barak 8 anti-aircraft missile system. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the $2.5 billion purchase of an advanced Israeli-made anti-aircraft missile system for his country’s army, JNS.org reported Thursday. “In a meeting of the cabinet committee on security headed by the prime minister, the proposal for procuring the MR-SAM air defense system for the army was approved and these would be deployed by the army,” a senior government source was quoted as having told India’s Mail Today newspaper. The air-defense system is known in Israel as the Barak 8 and was jointly developed by India’s Defense Research & Development Organization and Israel...
Polish conservator facing prison term for allowing the demolition of former Jewish school building in central Poland. A Polish conservator is facing a prison term for allowing the demolition of a former Jewish school building in central Poland. The Prosecutor's Office in Konin this week charged the conservator, identified as Janusz T. in Polish news reports, for abuse of power by a public official. Janusz headed up a delegation from a Regional Office for the Protection of Monuments. He reportedly could face up to three years in prison for permitting the razing of the former Talmudic school in Konin in July 2016. The building had been owned by the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, which in 2010 sold it to a private investor. Konin residents protested the proposed d...
Arts Undergraduate Society at McGill University votes not to impeach student union leader for punch a Zionist today” tweet. The Arts Undergraduate Society at McGill University in Montreal has voted not to impeach a student union leader for his “punch a Zionist today” tweet earlier this month. On Wednesday evening, the society voted 22-16 with seven abstentions on the fate of Sadikov, also a member of the student legislative council at the university, according to JTA. Since his original post on February 6, Sadikov has refused to resign from the McGill Student Society while issuing carefully worded “apologies” and calling his tweet a “misguided joke.” “Many of my constituents and fellow students, and some of my friends, ...
Noble Energy will begin developing Israel’s offshore Leviathan gas field. Texas-based Noble Energy will begin developing Israel’s offshore Leviathan gas field. The company will begin immediately with the first phase of the project, and said in a statement issued Thursday that it expects the first gas to flow in 2019. Leviathan, discovered in 2010 in the Mediterranean Sea west of Haifa, is estimated to hold 16 trillion to 18 trillion cubic feet of gas. Nobel works in partnership with the Israeli firm Delek Drilling on the Leviathan project. "Bringing Leviathan online will expand Israel's supply of natural gas, further support the State's commitment to convert coal-fired power generation facilities to cleaner burning gas, and provide affordable energy resources...
The Magen Yeladim Safety Kids program is beginning our second year in the school system.  This comprehensive child abuse prevention program is dedicated to working with schools, administrators, families and students, ensuring that children are trained in age-appropriate ways to handle situations that could be dangerous. It has been almost three years since the idea of bringing the Magen Yeladim Safety Kid program to Baltimore was planted and almost a year since the Baltimore community took a significant step by welcoming Mrs. Debbie Fox and her team to town.  Partnering with CHANA, professionals from Jewish Community Services, local mental health professionals, schools, rabbonim, and with support from the Macks Center for Jewish Education (CJE) and the Crane Foundation child abu...
Visiting Lebanon, PA chairman claims he is extending his hand for peace but Israel refuses talks. Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday blamed Israel for the impasse in the peace process, Kol Yisrael radio reported. Speaking during a visit to Lebanon, Abbas claimed the Palestinian Arabs are extending their hand for peace according to international resolutions, but Israel still insists on “holding Palestinian lands” and leaving Palestinian people “in a big prison.” "This is something we cannot accept," declared Abbas who spoke in Beirut after meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, according to Kol Yisrael. The PA chairman further said that the Palestinian Arabs oppose all forms of terrorism. Abbas arrived on Thurs...
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