White House Threatens to Veto Standalone Israel Aid Package

(Headline USA) The White House threatened this week to veto a standalone Israel funding bill proposed by House Republicans, demanding that Congress pass an emergency funding package that includes billions for Ukraine as well.

Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., led the effort to separate an aid package for Israel from additional funding for Ukraine, arguing continued aid to Ukraine needs further debate and more robust oversight.

Johnson later appeared to clarify, however, that he did not oppose Ukraine aid outright, only the way the package was structured to be a prerequisit for aid to Israel, Politico reported.

In response, to the initial resistance, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget blasted House Republicans’ proposal in a statement as “bad for Israel, for the Middle East region, and for our own national security.” 

The House bill would provide at least $14.3 billion in aid to support Israel.

President Joe Biden, however, is demanding a $106 billion bill that includes not only the $14.3 billion in Israel aid, but also $61.4 billion for Ukraine and $100 million in humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.

“Humanitarian aid is critically needed to alleviate the suffering of civilians in Gaza, but it is also crucial support for innocent Ukrainians facing the brutality of Putin’s war,” the OMB claimed, arguing that “conflict and extremism will be much more likely to spread” without humanitarian aid, which “will only benefit Hamas and other malign actors.”

Much of the so-called humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians is likely to wind up in the hands of the Hamas terrorist organization since it controls the government.

Questions likewise exist about where the money in Ukraine has been going and how well spent it is, with some intelligence sources suggesting that the war has, in fact, been over for months with Ukraine having effectively lost to Russia, but that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy refuses to negotiate any sort of peace agreement.

The illusion of war has been a lucrative proposition for him, funneling money from American taxpayers to cover Ukrainian pensions and salaries, as well as the super-yachts of Ukrainian oligarchs, by some accounts.

Zelenskyy also has asserted wartime powers, including the suspension of democratically run elections, pending a decisive victory in the conflict.

The White House also took issue with the fact that House Republicans’ bill would offset some of the cost of the Israel aid package by defunding parts of the Internal Revenue Service.

The OMB’s statement went on to say that if “the president were presented with this bill, he would veto it.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also dismissed the House’s standalone bill was dead on arrival.

“It’s not going anywhere. As I said, it’s dead almost before it’s born,” Schumer said.

“Speaker Johnson and House Republicans released a totally unserious and woefully inadequate package that omitted aid to Ukraine, omitted humanitarian assistance to Gaza, no funding for the Indo-Pacific, and made funding for Israel conditional on hard-right, never-going-to-pass proposals,” he added. “What a joke.”

Blinken Dresses Son as Zelenskyy, Daughter as Mother Ukraine for Halloween

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) While Israel’s war with Hamas may be getting all the headlines recently, the endless quagmire in Ukraine appears to remain No. 1 in the heart of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his family.

Despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy having been rocked this week by serious allegations of corruption from government whistleblowers with knowledge of his administration’s inner workings, Blinken showed his solidarity by dressing his children up to honor diminutive leader and his war-torn nation, the New Voice of Ukraine reported.

While visiting the White House for a Halloween party, Blinken’s 3-year-old daughter, Lila, wore a blue-and-yellow ensemble appearing to represent the symbolic embodiment of “Mother Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, his 4-year-old son, John, was dressed in olive-colored military garb as none other than Zelenskyy himself.

Naturally, some wondered if the tyke were not, in fact, the 5-foot-7 Zelenskyy coming to receive a handout of his own.

The Biden administration is currently locked in negotiations with fiscal hawks in Congress over a new spending package for Ukraine, which already has received at least $88 billion in 2023 alone on top of an estimated $100 billion the year prior.

It is now seeking another $60 billion—despite the fact that some experts believe Ukraine may already have lost the war and that Zelenskyy is only extending it to keep the money flowing.

That price tag is more thatn four times the amount Biden proposes spending on support for Israel—whose war effort is also saddled with numerous conditions, unlike Zelenskyy’s.

During Tuesday’s Halloween festivities, the youngsters greeted gleefuly by President Joe Biden, who exercised remarkable restraint in not sniffing either of them, while giving out what appeared—according to some Twitter users—to be candy cigarettes.

First lady Jill Biden, a self-described reading specialist, used the occasion to emphasize her academic credentials, dressing up as Willow the First Cat.

She told reporters later that she hoped to inspire families to read books together to celebrate the holiday.

“From famous literary tales and ghost stories to the spooktacular thrill of reading, we hope families and children pick out their favorite Halloween book, grab a flashlight, and take a moment to enjoy storytime together,” she said.

Earlier in the evening, Dr. Jill had read a book, Ten Spooky Pumpkins, to the children in attendance.

Fauci-Funded Lab in Montana Experimented with Infected Bats a Year before COVID-19

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A Montana lab funded by the National Institutes of Health experimented on bats infected with coronaviruses in 2018, a year before the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to a new report from the White Coat Waste Project.

WCW said Monday that online sleuths recently discovered a research paper from 2018 written by multiple NIH researchers, including  Ralph Baric, the epidemiology professor at the University of North Carolina, who has been described in legal disputes as a “close collaborator with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

According to the academic paper, the NIH-funded Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana was where the experiments took place.

Bats infected with coronaviruses were shipped there from a “roadside zoo” in Maryland, the paper said. WCW noted that the Maryland zoo, the Catoctin Wildlife Preserve, is directed by Laurie Hahn, who was an NIH official from 2003 to 2012, according to her LinkedIn account.

The strand used to infect the bats, WIV1, was reportedly shipped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Twelve male adult Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) were obtained from the Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Thurmont, Maryland,” the paper said.

The researchers were apparently interested in whether the Egyptian fruit bats would be infected with the same COVID strand originally detected in Chinese rufous horseshoe bats.

“We were unable to detect efficient replication of WIV1-CoV in Egyptian fruit bats,” the study concluded.

WCW’s findings sparked an uproar amongst GOP lawmakers, who accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of further duplicity with his role in possibly creating the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

“Tony Fauci and his team reportedly experimented with the Wuhan virus in Montana a year before the COVID emergency began,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. “They must be held accountable for these actions.”

“Fauci needs to be held accountable NOW,” added Rep. Tom Tiffany.

“I don’t recall Fauci mentioning this to Congress,” noted scientist Steve Milloy, who was a member of Donald Trump’s transition team.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Businessman Patrick Byrne Says He Facilitated $18M Bribe for Hillary Clinton

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Patrick Byrne—the founder of Overstock.com who has gained new fame as a conservative media personality—claimed in a video posted on Twitter Tuesday to have helped the FBI facilitate a sting operation against failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

According to Byrne, in January 2016 he helped lure Clinton into accepting an $18 million bribe, which she believed came from a foreign government.

“I bribed Hillary Clinton $18 million,” he said. “I facilitated a bribe for Hillary Clinton on January 14, 2016, right here in this town.”

Byrne said that he was approached by the FBI to help facilitate the deal with Clinton leading up to the 2016 Democratic primaries.

A group of New York FBI agents “asked me to facilitate a bribe for her, an 18 million dollar bribe from another government,” he said. “The bag man from that other government was, I was to befriend and I was to get that person ten minutes alone in a room with Hillary Clinton. I did.”

After 10 minutes with Clinton, “she accepted an 18 million dollar bribe,” Byrne said—having allegedly already accepted $20 million that she believed was from Turkey.

However, despite the trouble it undertook in setting up the scheme, the FBI soon decided to dial it back in order to prevent it from undermining the predetermined outcome of that year’s election.

After realizing that Clinton would almost certainly be the Democratic nominee, the FBI told him “to forget about it and forget that it ever happened” because “Hillary’s going to win and it’s been decided upstairs nothing’s going to be able to stop that now,” Byrne said.

In the past several years, Byrne has made a splash trying to uncover deep-state corruption.

For instance, in 2021, he claimed that former CIA director John Brennan—an Obama era public official—was behind a great deal of the corruption currently which had taken root in America.

“Someone signed a piece of paper directing three federal agents to turn a blind eye to rape and murder to keep cooking a Russian collusion delusion,” Byrne explained at the time.

“There’s a piece of paper… in the federal files, where someone signed off telling three federal agents to turn a blind eye to rape and murder,” he added, implying that Brennan was behind it.

Berkeley Law Dean Shocked by Anti-Semitism, but Embraced Anti-Conservative Hate

(Karen Freeman, Headline USA) The Jewish dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley—considered to be one of the wokest college campuses in the nation—was the latest high-profile liberal to express shock over the growing wave of anti-Semitism on the radical Left.

In an op-ed Sunday for the Los Angeles Times, Erwin Chemerinsky—a constitutional law scholar who previously worked as an attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division—voiced his dismay over the many student rallies celebrating Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

“I am a 70-year-old Jewish man, but never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks,” the Chicago native began.

He noted there had been at least one personal attack on him after a member of the Berkeley community reportedly posted a photo on Instagram with the caption, “Erwin Chemerinsky has taken an indefinite sabbatical from Berkeley Law to join the I.D.F.,” referencing the Israeli army.

Celebrations of the Hamas attack and rallies protesting Israel’s retaliation sprang up all over the world—from college campuses to the streets of New York City, London and Paris. The student organization Students for Justice in Palestine proclaimed the massacre as an “historic win.”

College professors from such prestigious Ivy League universities as Yale and Columbia also celebrated the attack and condemned Israel striking back.

Chemerinsky said that while he understoond the initial hesitancy of campus administrators to speak out, it was no longer acceptable to remain silent.

“Students have the right to say very offensive and even hateful things, but school administrators—deans, presidents and chancellors—have free speech rights too,” he wrote. “They must exercise them and take a stand even if it will offend some and subject them to criticism.”

It remains to be seen whether the growing rift between liberal Jews and their anti-Semitic counterparts will impact Democrat party politics in the upcoming election cycle.

Chemerinsky, for one, made a point of sniping at conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even while bemoaning the attacks on other Jews.

“Of course, criticism of the Israeli government is not antisemitism, any more than criticizing the policies of the United States government is anti-American,” he insisted.

“I strongly oppose the policies of the Netanyahu government, favor full rights for Palestinians, and believe that there must be a two-state solution,” he continued. “But if you listen to what is being said on college campuses now, some of the loudest voices are not advocating for a change in Israeli policies, but are calling for an end to Israel.”

His reticence notwithstanding, some proponents of intellectual freedom were hopeful that the shock of seeing how leftist rhetoric had radicalized students into Nazis might be the catalyst for much needed change in academia, where a dangerous degree of groupthink has taken root since the 1960s.

“Virtually every law school has courses of critical racial studies. Query how much of that curriculum focuses on anti-semitism?” wrote Josh Blackman, a Jewish constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston and scholar at the Cato Institute, reacting to Chemerinsky’s op-ed in an essay for Reason magazine.

“Every law school has a DEI department. Query how much of that programming focuses on anti-semitism?” Blackman continued. “I suspect the answer to both questions is very little.”

Blackman said he witnessed the Left’s mob mentality firsthand in 2018 when attempting to give a speech for the Federalist Society at the City University of New York.

Despite having had grandparents who were Holocaust survivors, he was accused of being both a white supremacist and a Nazi because he had written dissenting legal opinions concerning the Obama administration’s controversial immigration and health-care policies.

“Those at the top of the oppression pyramid can dictate the terms of engagement for those at the bottom of the pyramid,” he said of the Left’s warped intersectional taxonomy.

“I was inserted somewhere in the middle of that pyramid, but still, my role was constrained,” he added. “Anti-semitism simply does not matter enough when other, more oppressed people, are being victimized.”

Even the White House has refused to specifically condemn pro-Hamas protestors as “extremists,” despite Jewish students being harassed and made to feel unsafe on college campuses.

Yet, conservatives on college campuses have long voiced their own alarm over the growing level of intolerance for ideological diversity. That often has entailed disruptive or even violent protests of visiting guest speakers, with the tacit approval—or, sometimes, overt participation—of faculty and administrators.

In 2017, hundreds protested and nine were arrested during a visit to Berkeley by Jewish conservative personality Ben Shapiro.

Chemerinsky, who had been appointed the law-school dean four months prior, wrote an ambivalent op-ed piece that struck a somewhat familiar refrain, calling on campus officials to condemn as “hate speech” the thing with which he happened to disagree at the time.

“Although speakers have a right to express hateful messages on campus, that does not mean that campus officials should silently tolerate such speech,” he wrote. “It is important that campus officials denounce hate when it occurs and explain why it is inconsistent with the type of community we desire.”

Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.

Tucker Carlson Blasts New Speaker for Putting Israel First

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) When Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., won the House speakership two weeks ago, he quickly announced that his first move would be to introduce legislation to provide foreign aid to Israel.

That didn’t sit too well with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, who blasted Johnson for seemingly abandoning his America-first principles.

“The new Speaker of the House comes in and the first thing he does is issues a statement on behalf of a foreign country. That’s the most important thing—and I’m not even against the statement—but I’m just saying, ‘What bigger statement does that make?’” Carlson said on a podcast with comedian Theo Von, which was released Tuesday.

“If you think the welfare of another country is the most important thing for you as one of the leaders of our country—third in line for the presidency—you have lost the thread, son. Because it’s not. Nothing is more important to the leaders of our country than our country and how its 350 million people are doing,” Carlson continued. “So I was enraged by that.”

Carlson then defended himself from the knee-jerk criticism he’s received from people such as neocon Ben Shapiro, who have painted anyone skeptical of aiding Israel’s war as being pro-Hamas.

“People are like, ‘Oh you’re for Hamas?’ Of course I’m not for Hamas, at all. I’m for America, actually. I shouldn’t even have to answer that question,” he said. “Obviously I’m for Israel over Hamas, but that’s irrelevant. I’m for America. And no one even asks that, and I feel deep resentment over that.”

Other members of the MAGA wing of the GOP have come to Johnson’s defense. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for instance, pointed out that Johnson is leading the charge to separate Israel aid from Ukraine aid—though Johnson has also flip-flopped on that issue, now saying that he supports aiding Biden’s proxy war against Russia.

“McCarthy wanted to lash Ukraine and Israel money together. Johnson says we will do them separate (that’s not what Ukraine wanted!),” Gaetz said on Twitter last week.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s $14 billion aid proposal for Israel is receiving pushback due to his desire to offset the spending with cuts to the Internal Revenue Service. Johnson’s proposal runs against the White House’s desired $105 billion demand, which would bundle military aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwain.

According to The Hill, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who is Jewish, railed against Johnson’s proposal, saying she was “deeply disturbed” and describing it as an “unprecedented offset.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Records Detail How Joe Biden Received ‘Laundered’ Money from China

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The House Oversight Committee released more damning Biden family financial records on Wednesday, accusing Joe Biden of receiving $40,000 in “laundered China money.”

According to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., the payment to the President stems from the infamous message Hunter Biden sent a Chinese associate when his father was sitting in the same room.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter said in that July 2017 message to Henry Zhao, an executive of the Chinese firm CEFC. “Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight.”

Days later, Hunter received $5 million from CEFC. On Wednesday, Comer detailed the series of financial transactions that led to Joe receiving his $40,000 payment.

According to Comer, the CEFC first sent the $5 million to Northern International Capital, which then forwarded the payment to Hudson West III—a joint venture between a Hunter Biden and a CEFC associate.

Then, Hudson West sent $400,000 to Hunter’s law firm, Owasco PC. From there, $150,000 was sent to the Lion Hall Group, which was owned by James Biden and his wife, Sara Biden.

Sara then withdrew $50,000 from Lion Hall and deposited it in her personal account.

Finally, a few days later, Sara cut a check in September 2017 to Joe for $40,000—calling it a “loan repayment.”

“Even if this $40,000 was a loan repayment from James Biden, it still shows how Joe benefited from his family cashing in on his name—with money from China, no less,” Comer said of this latest revelation.

“Without his family peddling his name and his son threatening a CEFC associate with consequences that he said Joe Biden knew about, James wouldn’t have had the money to write the $40,000 to his brother, Joe,” Comer said.

“It’s also worth remembering that the Biden family efforts to secure money from CEFC began when Joe was still vice president,” he added.

The information about Joe Biden receiving “laundered” China money comes on the heels of the Oversight Committee revealing last week that a Democratic donor assuming a $250,000 “loan” from a Chinese business associate just months after Joe Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign.

“After Joe Biden became president, the records show, Hunter Biden transferred the debt to Kevin Morris, a Hollywood lawyer whom he befriended after they met at a November 2019 Joe Biden campaign fundraiser in Los Angeles,” Just the News reported last week.

“The debt was ‘assumed’ by Morris on Nov. 17, 2021 when the lawyer acquired Hunter Biden’s stake in the BHR partnership and a separate company called Skaneateles, LLC … Biden ‘is no longer the primary obligor’ as a result of the transaction with Morris.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Mayorkas Unsure If Hamas in U.S., Enraged when Grilled on Rogue Asylum Agent

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faced rigorous questioning during a recent Homeland Security Committee hearing, where he failed to provide a concrete answer regarding the potential presence of individuals tied to Gaza-based Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah within the U.S. 

In a tense exchange with Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Mayorkas failed to give a specific number when asked about the existence of illegal aliens with direct ties to terrorist organizations.

“Approximately how many illegal aliens in this country or here on asylum have direct ties to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to the Islamic Jihad or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran?” Marshall asked.

Responding to the question, Mayorkas said, “Senator Marshall, let me assure you that individuals that pose a risk to our national security are our highest enforcement priority, the safety and security of the American public.” 

Despite persistent questioning, Mayorkas continued to evade providing a direct response, leading to a heated moment with Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who also pressed about the specific number of terrorist-linked individuals present in the U.S. 

“Can you say that Hamas, Hezbollah, or other Iran-backed terrorists are not in the U.S. currently after possibly illegally crossing our southern border?” Pressed Scott, to which Mayorkas responded by resuscitating his earlier response.

The hearing escalated further when Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., drew attention to a damning report alleging that DHS employee Nejwa Ali, who served as a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization, had allegedly posted a disturbing social media post in defense of Hamas. 

“What’s going on here? Is this typical of people who work at DHS?” Hawley asked. “This is an asylum and immigration officer who is posting these frankly pro-genocidal slogans and images on the day Israelis are being slaughtered in their beds. What have you done about this?”

A visibly enraged Mayorkas responded, “Four things I’d like to say to you, number one, your question, to suggest that that is emblematic of the men and women of DHS is despicable.” 

Governors Ask NCAA to Reconsider Transgender Athlete Policy

() Nine U.S. governors are asking the National Collegiate Athletics Association to rewrite its policy on transgender participation in sports, saying it is unfair to female athletes.

The NCAA updated a 2010 policy last year that requires transgender females to show they have undergone a year of testosterone suppression treatment. Testosterone levels are also checked before competitions.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and eight other governors cited University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines as an example of why the policy is unfair.

Gaines tied with transgender athlete Lia Thomas for the top trophy at the NCAA Division I national championship in 2022. The NCAA gave Thomas the first-place trophy.

“The decade of hard work and the countless hours spent in the pool were suddenly wasted,” the governors said in a letter to the NCAA. “Riley’s lifetime of achievement was ripped away from her by someone who shouldn’t have even been in the race—all for a photo op.”

NCAA has an opportunity to “create a fair environment for women’s sports,” the governors said..

“But if you continue the NCAA’s misguided policies, stories like Riley Gaines’ will only become more common,” they added. “Policies that allow men and women to compete against one another validate an average male athlete stealing the recognition from a truly remarkable female athlete.”

Noem spearheaded a bill during the 2022 legislative session that requires South Dakota students to compete in sports based on their sex at birth. Twenty-two other states passed similar laws, according to ESPN.

The governors said they intervened because the federal government has not.

“As governors of our states, it is our responsibility to care for our constituents, and we are doing all we can to protect the fairness of athletics in our states,” the governors said in the letter. “Now, it is time for the NCAA to do the same and make the best decision for all of your athletes.”

The governors also quoted a study that said biological males have an advantage over females.

“Science proves that it is fundamentally unfair for a biological male to compete against a biological female—that does not change when someone declares themselves as being of a different gender,” they said.

“The National Institutes for Health found that there is on average a 10% difference between the top performing males and females in athletic competition,” they continued. “In high-level athletic competition, a 10% difference is massive—and can even be insurmountable.”

A majority of respondents to a poll by the Center Square said they oppose biological males competing in female sports. Fifty-two percent of the 2,500 questioned said they strongly opposed, while 15% said they somewhat supported the issue.

DEA Agents Allegedly Conducting Illegal Bag Searches at Atlanta Airport

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency task-force officers may have been conducting illegal bag searches at the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, NBC 12 reported.

Specifically, the DEA has allegedly been using plainclothes agents to search passengers’ bags at the terminal gates shortly after they scan their boarding passes.

Film director Tabari Sturdivant was one of the alleged victims of such an arbitrary search.

“He just approached me, and he asked me for my ID,” Sturdivant told NBC.

“He didn’t state who he was,” Sturdivant continued. “He just asked me for ID, and I thought he was a Delta agent. He had airport credentials on, and so I gave it to him immediately.”

The DEA officials reportedly then asked him an insulting series of questions: “Are you high? Have you smoked? Do you have any drugs in this bag? Do you have any money?”

While agents conducting the searches do not often find drugs, they do often confiscate money from people, and the agency makes it extraordinarily difficult for citizens to recover their cash.

According to the report, millions of dollars have been confiscated at the Atlanta airport alone, most of which has gone unrecovered by airplane passengers.

If passengers do not file a claim within 45 days, they automatically surrender the confiscated money.

Dan Alban, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, a nonpartisan civil liberties watchdog, claimed that the system was set up to reward those who confiscate cash.

“Task force officers, unlike actual DEA agents, are employees of some local or state law enforcement agencies,” Alban said, noting that this legal status allows them to “share” in the profits of the program.

“The fact that they are a TFO means they are part of a task force they are cross-sworn as DEA agents,” he added. “By virtue of that, they’re participating in the federal equitable sharing program, and a portion of the money that they seize goes back to their agency.”