Rep. Tlaib: My Views on Israel Have Been ‘Misinterpreted’

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Rep. Tlaib: My Views on Israel Have Been ‘Misinterpreted’

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., insisted this week that she is not anti-Israel, despite multiple anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist comments she’s made in the past.

In an interview with the Detroit Jewish News, Tlaib claimed her position on Israel has been “misinterpreted or not fully understood.”

She also argued that she should have “complete freedom” to speak up about Palestinian rights “without being targeted as being anti-Jewish.”

However, there’s nothing subtle about Tlaib’s anti-Semitism. Just this month, she tweeted her support for a Palestinian terrorist who rammed his car into an Israeli police checkpoint in an attempt to kill several officers. Tlaib retweeted several users claiming the driver had been “murdered” by Israeli officers who were just trying to defend themselves. 

In January, Tlaib falsely blamed Israelis for the death of a Palestinian child, disseminating a blood libel spread by Palestinian propagandists. Tlaib eventually deleted her tweet, but did not apologize for spreading blatant falsehoods about Israel.

And this week, Tlaib reiterated her support for the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel. She told the Jewish News that the boycott is “part of our American fabric,” arguing that there is nothing racist or anti-Semitic about it.

“People want to taint the freedom to boycott. It’s a peaceful way to speak up and say: ‘I’m against these human rights violations or these policies and this racism.’ And I am absolutely, very much adamant that people need the right to boycott,” she said. “So absolutely, people need to stop saying that the BDS movement is somehow anti-Semitic — there are Jews who support the BDS movement. There are folks who truly believe in stopping racism of all forms, and they use the boycott as a form of speech.”

The BDS movement is sponsored by a number of Palestinian terrorist groups that regularly target Israeli citizens. Its ultimate goal is to cut off Israel from the rest of the world financially, thereby forcing it to surrender its government over to Palestine. Several BDS leaders have even admitted that they’d like to see Israel wiped off the map completely.

Tlaib has refused to address these facts about BDS, though, and instead told the Jewish News that criticism of her support for the movement is in bad faith.

“I think some of it is anti-Arab. It’s anti-Palestinian…. My mere existence created this tension of, ‘She must be this way. This is who she is. This is how all Palestinians are,’” she said. “Before I even opened my mouth, as soon as I won, it was just complete attack. And it was anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab movement. Not as much Muslim. The white supremacists, those folks came after.”

She then doubled down on her call for a one-state solution, claiming that the current conditions in Israel make a peaceful two-state solution “impossible.”

“The two-state [solution] is almost impossible now around the racist policies of [Israeli Prime MInister Benjamin] Netanyahu — that [a] two-state would be impossible without actually hurting Israelis,” she said. “If you think about some of the Israeli families [who] have been in those communities for almost five decades, is the solution to push them out and recreate that kind of hurt? I just don’t know how you uproot people yet again.”

Assassin Kills Son, Shoots Husband of Judge Linked to Epstein

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Assassin Kills Son, Shoots Husband of Judge Linked to Epstein

(Associated Press) A gunman shot and killed the 20-year-old son of a federal judge as he answered the door of the family home Sunday in New Jersey and shot and wounded the judge’s husband before fleeing, according to judiciary officials.

The shootings occurred at the North Brunswick home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, and killed her son, Daniel, Chief District Judge Freda Wolfson told The Associated Press. Her husband, defense lawyer Mark Anderl, was injured in the attack, Wolfson said.

Salas was in the basement at the time and wasn’t injured, according to a judiciary official who wasn’t authorized to comment and spoke anonymously to the AP.

The perpetrator, believed to be a lone gunman posing as a FedEx delivery person, was not in custody, the official said. The FBI tweeted Sunday night that it’s looking for one suspect in the shootings.

Daniel Anderl, a college student, was the judge’s only child, the official said.

Salas, seated in Newark, was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed in 2011. Prior to that she served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in New Jersey, after working as an assistant public defender for several years.

Her highest-profile case in recent years was the financial fraud case involving husband-and-wife “Real Housewives of New Jersey” reality TV stars Teresa and Joe Giudice, whom Salas sentenced to prison for crimes including bankruptcy fraud and tax evasion. Salas staggered their sentences so that one of them could be available to take care of their four children.

In 2017, she barred federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against an alleged gang leader charged in several Newark slayings, ruling the man’s intellectual disability made him ineligible for capital punishment. Salas later sentenced the man to 45 years in prison.

More recently, Salas has presided over an ongoing lawsuit brought by Deutsche Bank investors who claim the company made false and misleading statements about its anti-money laundering policies and failed to monitor “high-risk” customers including convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, who backed Salas’s nomination to the federal bench, said in a statement Sunday night, “My prayers are with Judge Salas and her family, and that those responsible for this horrendous act are swiftly apprehended and brought to justice.”

In an emailed statement, Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called the shooting “a senseless act” and said “this tragedy is our latest reminder that gun violence remains a crisis in our country and that our work to make every community safer isn’t done.”

Kanye West Criticizes Harriet Tubman at His Political Rally

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Kanye West Criticizes Harriet Tubman at His Political Rally

(Associated Press) Rapper Kanye West, in his first event since declaring himself a presidential candidate, ranted against historical figure Harriet Tubman on Sunday, saying the Underground Railroad conductor “never actually freed the slaves, she just had them work for other white people,” comments that drew shouts of opposition from some in the crowd.

West delivered a lengthy monologue, touching on topics from abortion and religion to international trade and licensing deals, before a crowd in North Charleston, South Carolina. Whether he is actually seeking the nation’s highest office remains a question.

Tubman is one of the most respected figures of 19th century America. An African American who escaped slavery, she helped enslaved Black men and women travel north to freedom and fought for the Union during the Civil War. She later became a supporter of women’s suffrage.

On abortion, West said that while he believes it should be legal, financial incentives to help struggling mothers could be a way to discourage the practice.

“Everybody that has a baby gets a million dollars,” he said as an example.

Wearing a protective vest and with “2020” shaved into his head, the entertainer appeared on a livestream of the event. Several hundred people gathered in a venue, where gospel music played before West’s appearance.

The event was reportedly for registered guests only, although a campaign website had no registration or RSVP information.

Speaking without a microphone, West became tearful at one point while talking about his mother, who died following plastic surgery complications in 2007.

West missed the deadline to qualify for the ballot in several states, and it was unclear if he was willing or able to collect enough signatures required to qualify in others. Last week, he qualified to appear on Oklahoma’s presidential ballot, the first state where he met the requirements before the filing deadline.

West needed to collect 10,000 signatures by noon Monday to appear on the South Carolina ballot, according to state law. The entertainer tweeted out a list of locations around the Charleston area where petitions could be signed. Email to an address purportedly associated with the campaign was not returned Sunday afternoon.

West, who is married to reality television star Kim Kardashian West, initially announced his candidacy on July 4.

MURDOCK: NSA Chief O’Brien has Bon Voyage as Trump’s Bastille Day Stand-In

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MURDOCK: NSA Chief O’Brien has Bon Voyage as Trump’s Bastille Day Stand-In
Deroy Murdock
Deroy Murdock

(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) PARIS — President Donald J. Trump cannot be everywhere at once.

This week, the president was represented in the French capital by the man they call APNSA: Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Robert C. O’Brien.

Trump and the American people should be proud: The NSC chief, on the job since Sept. 18, rekindled old friendships, asserted American interests, and made life increasingly miserable for an emerging adversary.

He did so with an intriguing combination of rhetorical intensity and an almost infectious sense of personal calm.

Accompanied by stoic Secret Service agents and a surprisingly youthful support staff, O’Brien flew Sunday night in a C-32 that often serves as Air Force Two.

It descended Monday morning through sapphire skies and across a jigsaw puzzle of small farms along the Normandy coast. Their haphazard property lines likely were scribbled a thousand years ago.

Upon landing at Le Bourget Airport—where Charles Lindbergh, AKA “Lucky Lindy,” touched down after his historic trans-Atlantic solo flight in 1927—O’Brien’s party headed into town via motorcade for three action-packed days of diplomacy.

O’Brien accomplished his five chief objectives:

  • First, he stood in for President Trump at the July 14 festivities, marking the 231st anniversary of the French Revolution.

    “It was an honor to attend the Bastille Day Celebration,” O’Brien said. “When the anthem was played and sung by the choir at the end of the ceremony, and the healthcare professionals came out, it was really something to behold.”
  • Second, refuting critics’ lies that President Trump gleefully disses U.S. allies, O’Brien reinvigorated America’s relationship with France.

    He met with numerous French officials throughout his visit, culminating with a Wednesday evening tete-a-tete with President Emanuel Macron at his Elysée Palace.

    “France holds a very special place in the hearts of Americans,” O’Brien said.

    “If it hadn’t been for the French Fleet at Chesapeake Bay in Yorktown, we may not have been a country,” he added. “So, France is our oldest ally. It’s a very special ally, and we want to stand by France whenever we can.”
  • Third, O’Brien conferred with his counterparts from France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

    “Overall, the meetings have been extraordinarily constructive, and my belief is that the Atlantic Alliance and the relationship between North America and specifically the United States and our partners in Western Europe are strong,” O’Brien observed. “It remains strong, even if there are family squabbles over trade or economic issues.”
  • Fourth, O’Brien repeatedly sledgehammered red-hot wedges between America’s European friends and the increasingly menacing People’s Republic of China.With an almost Buddhist serenity, the Mormon O’Brien listed multifarious outrages that have earned Beijing the West’s collective cold shoulder.

    “The Chinese take advantage of the COVID crisis in an effort to replace our way of life,” O’Brien said.

    He cited “the effective annexation of Hong Kong…The fact that the Chinese ambushed the Indians and clubbed over 20 Indian soldiers to death in a really horrific fashion…the debt traps that they’ve created in many Third World countries…forced sterilizations, forced birth control, children being put into state-run orphanages, the continued use of reeducation camps, the mass surveillance of mosques,” all of which terrorize China’s Muslim Uighur population.

    O’Brien also applauded Great Britain’s decision to abandon Huawei’s 5G technology, which he believed would have exposed the UK to Beijing’s “dangerous manipulations.”
  • Fifth, O’Brien practiced public diplomacy with an easygoing roundtable of nine Paris-based journalists.He fielded questions for 45 minutes on a wide array of issues.

    He displayed deep knowledge on everything from increased defense spending by most NATO allies to mysterious fires in Iran’s nuclear-research facilities and even offered negotiating advice to Libya’s competing factions.

After bidding the press adieu, O’Brien huddled with France’s president and then jetted home Wednesday evening on the modified 757 whose fuselage bears in bold letters the name of the nation that he so adroitly represented for three dizzying days in Paris: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research. Murdock has known Robert C. O’Brien since they won college scholarships from the Washington Crossing Foundation in the early 1980s.

MORE ILL. DEM CORRUPTION: Gov. Says Speaker Must Resign if Charges are True

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MORE ILL. DEM CORRUPTION: Gov. Says Speaker Must Resign if Charges are True

(Associated Press) Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Friday that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan “must resign” if allegations of corruption are true against the fellow Democrat long considered the state’s most powerful lawmaker.

Madigan, who also serves as chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois, denied wrongdoing through a party spokeswoman, who said he received subpoenas for documents Friday morning.

“He will cooperate and respond to those requests for documents, which he believes will clearly demonstrate that he has done nothing criminal or improper,” spokeswoman Maura Possley said in a statement.

Federal prosecutors said electric utility ComEd has agreed to pay $200 million to resolve a federal criminal investigation into a long-running bribery scheme that implicates Madigan. They say the company has admitted that from 2011 to 2019 it arranged for jobs and vendor subcontracts “for various associates of a high-level elected official for the state of Illinois.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office identified the high-level elected official as “Public Official A” in a news release. A deferred prosecution agreement for ComEd filed in federal court states that “Public Official A” is the Illinois House speaker, but Madigan — who is the longest-serving state House speaker in modern American history — is not mentioned by name.

“The speaker has a lot that he needs to answer for, to authorities, to investigators, and most importantly, to the people of Illinois,” Pritzker said during a stop in suburban Chicago. “If these allegations of wrongdoing by the speaker are true, there is no question that he will have betrayed the public trust and he must resign.”

U.S. Attorney John Lausch said at a news conference that the agreement with ComEd “speaks for itself.”

“It also speaks volumes about the nature of the very stubborn public corruption problem we have here in Illinois,” he said.

Lausch wouldn’t comment on the identity of Public Official A, saying his office doesn’t identify people if they have not been charged. But he said the investigation is “vibrant” and will continue, and he asked for people with information to contact the FBI.

Former federal prosecutor Phil Turner, now a Chicago defense attorney, said it’s likely the government has pursued Madigan for years and with the ComEd allegations, found “something really solid” to reach him.

“To put it bluntly, they’re coming for him,” Turner said. “They’ll have some people who are very credible. With bribes, there’s a money trail, good documentation, and witness testimony corroborated by documents can make the case extremely strong.”

In the news release, prosecutors said Public Official A controlled what measures were called for a vote in the Illinois House of Representatives and exerted substantial influence over lawmakers concerning legislation affecting ComEd.” During the time of the scheme, the Illinois Legislature considered legislation that affected the company’s profitability, including regulatory processes used to determine rates the state’s largest electric utility charged customers, they said.

The alleged bribery scheme was orchestrated “to influence and reward the official’s efforts to assist ComEd with respect to legislation concerning ComEd and its business,” prosecutors said. That included arranging jobs and vendor contracts for Madigan allies and workers, including for people from his political operation, who performed little or no work, appointing a person to the company’s board at Madigan’s request and giving internships to students from his Chicago ward.

In October, Chicago radio station WBEZ reported that Anne Pramaggiore, CEO of ComEd parent company Exelon, had abruptly left her job as the company’s ties to a federal investigation seemed to be deepening. The Chicago Tribune reported in December that Madigan was the subject of inquiries in the corruption probe that had already entangled several top Illinois Democrats.

More than half a dozen Illinois Democrats — including some former Madigan confidants and allies — have been charged with crimes or had agents raid their offices and homes.

Madigan, 78, who came up under the political machine of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley and considered him a mentor, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1970. He took over as speaker in 1983 and has held the gavel for all but two years since, building a reputation for canny strategizing, patience and outwitting his political rivals. In 2017 he bested the 32 ½-year record held by a midcentury South Carolina Democrat to become the nation’s longest-serving state House speaker.

Madigan also controls four campaign funds and millions in contributions, allowing him to wield considerable power at the ballot box as well as the state Capitol. But Possley said he has done nothing improper.

“The Speaker has never helped someone find a job with the expectation that the person would not be asked to perform work by their employer, nor did he ever expect to provide anything to a prospective employer if it should choose to hire a person he recommended,” she said in the statement. “He has never made a legislative decision with improper motives and has engaged in no wrongdoing here. Any claim to the contrary is unfounded.”

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the subpoenas issued Friday sought records from Madigan’s office regarding AT&T Services Inc, Walgreens and Rush University Medical Center, as well as records including several Madigan political operatives. The newspaper, which obtained a copy of the subpeona, said the operatives included one current and two former Chicago aldermen, as well as close Madigan ally Michael McClain, a former state lawmaker-turned-lobbyist.

Walgreens declined to comment, while AT&T Services and Rush offered no immediate comment, the Sun-Times reported.

The ComEd investigation, which charges the company with one count of bribery, is the latest public corruption probe in a state where four of the last 11 governors have been sent to prison and several state lawmakers and Chicago City Council members have faced charges, been convicted, or cooperated with law enforcement investigations.

“Even for a state with a history of corruption, this is unprecedented,” Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider said.

Under the deferred prosecution agreement, which still must be approved by a judge, the government will defer prosecution on the charge for three years and then seek to dismiss it if the utility “abides by certain conditions, including continuing to cooperate with ongoing investigations of individuals or other entities related to the conduct described in the bribery charge.”

Lausch said that ComEd has provided “substantial” cooperation in the investigation. Under the terms of its agreement the company will continue to cooperate until all investigations and prosecutions are complete.

Exelon CEO Christopher Crane said the company “acted swiftly to investigate” when it learned of inappropriate conduct and concluded “a small number of senior ComEd employees and outside contractors” who no longer work for the company orchestrated the misconduct.

“We apologize for the past conduct that didn’t live up to our own values, and we will ensure this cannot happen again,” he said.

Trump Tells Chris Wallace He May Not Accept Election Results

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Trump Tells Chris Wallace He May Not Accept Election Results

(Liberty Headlines) President Donald Trump is refusing to publicly commit to accepting the results of the upcoming White House election due to fears of widespread voter fraud.

“I have to see. Look … I have to see,” Trump told moderator Chris Wallace during a wide-ranging interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either.”

Joe Biden‘s campaign responded: “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

Trump also hammered Pentagon bureaucrats for favoring renaming bases that honor Confederate military leaders.

“I don’t care what the military says,” the commander in chief said.

The president described the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as a “a little bit of an alarmist” about the coronavirus pandemic, and Trump stuck to what he had said back in February — that the virus is “going to disappear.”

On Fox, he said, “I’ll be right eventually.”

Pressed during an October 2016 debate about whether he would abide by the voters’ will, Trump responded that he would “keep you in suspense.”

Trump said that a series of polls that show his popularity eroding and Biden holding an advantage are faulty based on evidence that voters are underrepresented in such surveys.

“First of all, I’m not losing, because those are fake polls,” Trump said in the taped interview, which aired Sunday. “They were fake in 2016 and now they’re even more fake. The polls were much worse in 2016.”

Among the issues discussed was the push to transform America into a Marxist utopia, in which free markets, families, and Christianity are dismantled.

Trump said he could understand why Black Americans are upset about how police use force disproportionately against them.

“Of course I do. Of course I do,” the president said, adding that “whites are also killed, too.”

He said he was “not offended either by Black Lives Matter,” but at the same time defended the Confederate flag, and said those who “proudly have their Confederate flags, they’re not talking about racism.”

“They love their flag, it represents the South, they like the South. That’s freedom of speech. And you know, the whole thing with ‘cancel culture,’ we can’t cancel our whole history. We can’t forget that the North and the South fought. We have to remember that, otherwise we’ll end up fighting again. You can’t just cancel all,” Trump said.

Trump continues to insist that Biden “signed a charter” with one of his primary rivals on the left, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Trump stood behind his pledge to veto a $740 billion defense bill over a requirement that the Defense Department change the names of bases named for Confederate military leaders. That list includes Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Benning in Georgia.

The president argued there were no viable alternatives if the government ever tried. “We’re going to name it after the Reverend Al Sharpton?” Trump asked, referring to a radical Marxist and former civil rights leader. “What are you going to name it?”

Trump, 74, stuck to a campaign charge that Biden, 77, is unable to handle the rigors of the White House because of his age.

As for polls showing the incumbent is trailing, Trump noted he was thought to be behind for much of the 2016 contest.

“I won’t lose,” he predicted.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

FDA Approves Process to Run ‘Pooled’ COVID Tests

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FDA Approves Process to Run ‘Pooled’ COVID Tests

(Liberty Headlines) The Food and Drug Administration has given emergency approval to a new approach to coronavirus testing that combines test samples in batches instead of running them one by one, speeding up the process.

The FDA said Saturday that it reissued an emergency use authorization to Quest Diagnostics to use its COVID-19 test with pooled samples. It is the first test to be authorized to be used in this way.

With pooling, instead of running each person’s test individually, laboratories would combine parts of samples from several people and test them together.

A negative result would clear everyone in the batch. A positive result would require each sample to be individually retested.

Pooling works best with lab-run tests, which take hours — not the much quicker individual tests used in clinics or doctor’s offices.

The potential benefits of sample pooling include stretching laboratory supplies further, reducing costs and expanding testing to millions more Americans who may unknowingly be spreading the virus.

“It’s a really good tool. It can be used in any of a number of circumstances, including at the community level or even in schools,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, told a Senate hearing last month.

Pooling is not always be the best option. It won’t save time or resources when used in a COVID-19 hot spot such as a nursing home outbreak.

That’s because the logistical and financial benefits of pooling only add up when a small number of pools test positive.

Experts generally recommend the technique when fewer than 10% of people are expected to test positive.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Rights Activists, Political Leaders Mourn Rep. John Lewis

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Rights Activists, Political Leaders Mourn Rep. John Lewis

(Associated Press) Rights activists, politicians from both parties and many other people touched by the legacy of John Lewis mourned the congressman and pillar of the civil rights movement Saturday, lauding the strength, courage and kindness of a man whose lifelong struggle against racial discrimination took him from a bridge in Selma to the nation’s Capitol.

“As a young man marching for equality in Selma, Alabama, John answered brutal violence with courageous hope,” said former President George W. Bush. “And throughout his career as a civil rights leader and public servant, he worked to make our country a more perfect union.”

Former President Barack Obama, America’s first Black president, recalled being sworn in for his first term: “I hugged him on the inauguration stand before I was sworn in and told him I was only there because of the sacrifices he made.”

Lewis died Friday, several months after the Georgia Democrat announced that he had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Lewis, 80, often recalled his upbringing in the segregated South, including how he was denied a library card because the library was for “whites only.” He was determined to destroy segregation, joining with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to help plan the 1963 March on Washington.

Two years later, Lewis helped lead the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights march intended to go from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. White police, state troopers and thugs blocked their way on the bridge out of Selma, attacking the peaceful marchers with clubs, bullwhips and tear gas. Lewis suffered a cracked skull.

He went on to make a career in politics, representing Atlanta in Congress for more than 30 years, and all the while imploring people to press for justice — to make what he came to call “good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms described that call as “a generational rallying cry for nonviolent activism in the pursuit of social justice and human rights.”

“He fought harder and longer than anyone in our nation’s continuing battle for civil rights and equal justice,” the NAACP said in a written statement.

He also scrapped with President Donald Trump, refusing to attend his inauguration and calling him a racist. Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff to honor Lewis — as required by law for sitting members of Congress. More than 14 hours after his death, following an array of unrelated retweets and a golf outing, he offered condolences.

“Saddened to hear the news of civil rights hero John Lewis passing,” Trump tweeted. “Melania and I send our prayers to he and his family.”

Those mourning included baseball legend Hank Aaron, who said he and Lewis “connected to the roots.”

“By that I mean we were born and grew up in the highly racist and segregated south, in the state of Alabama,” Aaron said. “He committed his life to the struggle for justice and equality for all people.”

Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California noted that Lewis stood not just for an end to racial discrimination, but for gay rights, such as when he opposed the federal ban on gay marriage, and for immigrant rights, such as an end to family-separation policies.

There was no immediate announcement on funeral plans, which could be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. In an order, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said flags on state buildings would be lowered through sunset on the day of Lewis’ interment.

Kemp praised Lewis as “a Civil Rights hero, freedom fighter, devoted public servant, and beloved Georgian who changed our world in a profound way.”

State law says Kemp must schedule a special election to fill the current term of Lewis, who was first elected to represent Georgia’s majority Black 5th District in 1986, said Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs. A vote would have to be held within 30 days.

Separately, Democrats can appoint a replacement candidate to fill Lewis’s slot on the November ballot since he already had won the nomination for another term, said Fuchs.

Given a Chance, Trump, Senate Would Push Court Pick Before Election

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Given a Chance, Trump, Senate Would Push Court Pick Before Election

(Associated Press) President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have tried to make it clear: Given the chance, they would push through a Supreme Court nominee should a vacancy occur before Election Day.

The issue has taken on new immediacy with the disclosure Friday that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer after four earlier bouts with the disease. The 87-year-old liberal, who apologized in 2016 for her pointed public criticism of Trump during his first campaign, says she has no plans to retire.

The development has focused even more on what’s at stake this election, with the winner in position to help shape the trajectory of the court for years to come.

Trump administration officials have underscored that Trump would not hesitate to fill an opening before voters have their say Nov. 3, less than four months away, on whether to give him a second term.

Four years ago, also in a presidential election year, the GOP-controlled Senate refused to hold a hearing or vote when President Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated federal judge Merrick Garland to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia after his death in February. Nine months before that year’s election, McConnell said voters should determine who would nominate the person to fill that seat.

Fast forward to this past week. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told reporters: “I can’t imagine that if he had a vacancy on the Supreme Court that he would not very quickly make the appointment and look for the Senate to take quick action.”

Meadows spoke shortly after the court said Ginsburg was briefly hospitalized, but before the justice announced she had a recurrence of cancer and has been treated with chemotherapy since May 19.

Ginsburg is the oldest justice, followed by Stephen Breyer, 81, Clarence Thomas, 72, and Samuel Alito, 70.

Trump sees his efforts at reshaping the judiciary as a signature achievement of his presidency. Last month he marked his 200th judicial appointment. Earlier in his term, he won confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the high court.

The president has sought to remind fellow Republicans that should he win a second term, he would have the chance to push the Supreme Court and lower courts further to the right.

Last month, after the court rejected his administration’s attempt to end an Obama-era program that provided legal protections to roughly 650,000 immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children, Trump said more needed to be done to push the court to the right.

He said he would release a “new list of Conservative Supreme Court Justice nominees” by Sept. 1. “Based on decisions being rendered now, this list is more important than ever before (Second Amendment, Right to Life, Religous Liberty, etc.) – VOTE 2020!” he tweeted.

Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law school professor, said Republicans “have shown no consistency” between their refusal to give Garland a hearing and their insistence it would be proper to move forward on a vacancy during the waning days of a potentially lame-duck presidency.

Tobias said Trump and Republicans are calculating that playing up their commitment to adding another conservative justice is such an attractive pitch to base voters that it’s worth risking being labeled hypocrites by their opponents.

Leading Republicans, including the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, now say it’s OK to consider an election-year appointment when the Senate and the White House are held by the same party.

“Merrick Garland was a different situation,” Graham said in May. “You had the president of one party nominating, and you had the Senate in the hands of the other party. A situation where you’ve got them both would be different.”

McConnell was even more blunt. “Yeah, we’d fill it,” he said in a February interview.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a member of the Judiciary panel who is facing reelection, told Iowa PBS on Friday that she would also be supportive of holding hearings and a vote on a Trump nominee this year, even if the president lost reelection.

“There’s likely not to be a lot of disagreement” between the Senate and the White House on the selection of a nominee, unlike in 2016, Ernst said.

At least one key Republican has expressed reservations.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the former chairman of the Judiciary panel who blocked Garland’s nomination in 2016, said two years ago that he would not take up a new nomination if he were still the committee chairman in 2020 and there were a Supreme Court vacancy. But Grassley, who now heads the Senate Finance Committee, said if there were a different chairman that person would have to make the call.

Grassley told Fox News in 2018 that the wouldn’t take up the nomination because “I pledged that in 2016 … That’s a decision I made a long time ago.”

Federal Court Restores DACA After Supreme Court Ruling

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Federal Court Restores DACA After Supreme Court Ruling

(Associated Press) A federal court in Maryland on Friday ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program must be restored fully, meaning it must open up to new applicants for the first time in three years.

The program allows immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children but who lack legal status to legally work and protects them from deportation.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump didn’t properly end the program in 2017.

Immigration attorneys argued that meant the Trump administration had to start accepting new applications, but it doesn’t appear to have done so yet.

Trump can still end the program.

Roughly 650,000 people are enrolled in DACA, but only those who were already in the program when it ended have been able to renew.

The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates an additional 66,000 young immigrants now meet the minimum age requirement of 15 years to apply for DACA and would be eligible under the restored program.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it is reviewing the ruling.

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