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Report: Bannon Urged Trump to Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem — Was Blocked by Jared Kushner

Report: Bannon Urged Trump to Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem — Was Blocked by Jared Kushner

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

by Aaron Klein21 Aug 20170

21 Aug, 2017
21 Aug, 2017

TEL AVIV – According to a report in Vanity Fair, while he served as White House Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon heavily lobbied President Trump to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, but the move was blocked by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser.

Citing three Bannon allies, the magazine further reported that Bannon boycotted a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, quipping, “I’m not going to breathe the same air as that terrorist.”

The magazine revealed that Bannon pushed a tougher stance against the PA, which pays salaries to terrorists imprisoned in the Jewish state for committing violent acts against Israelis and routinely incites against Israel.

Vanity Fair reported:

Bannon, they say, lobbied Trump aggressively to move America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but was blocked by Kushner. And, according to three Bannon allies, Bannon pushed a tougher line against the Palestinians than Kushner did. In May, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited the White House, Bannon stayed home. “I’m not going to breathe the same air as that terrorist,” Bannon texted a friend.

Abbas visited the White House and met with Trump last May.

Standing alongside Trump during his White House visit, Abbas attempted to whitewash decades of official PA incitement to violence and anti-Israel indoctrination that continue unabated to this day. “Mr. President, I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace,” Abbas claimed. “And we are endeavoring to bring about security, freedom and peace for our children to live like the other children in the world, along with the Israeli children in peace, freedom and security.”

Despite the PA’s repeated use of maps that erase Israel and PA propaganda calling for the dismantlement of the Jewish state, Abbas misleadingly claimed at the White House meeting that the “Palestinian people recognize the state of Israel.”

The official media and educational institutions of Abbas’s PA regularly incites against Israel.  The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a terrorist group responsible for scores of suicide bombings and deadly shooting attacks, is closely aligned with Abbas’s Fatah Party and is routinely referred to as Fatah’s so-called military wing.

Abbas has refused to end payments to convicted terrorists, defending the stipends as a “social responsibility” even though the financing is said to encourage attacks against Israel.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had repeatedly pledged to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. In July, Trump signed a waiver that delayed for six months a U.S. law requiring the embassy to be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Bannon, meanwhile, submitted his resignation letter to the White House on August 7, and officially departed the administration last Friday. Within hours, he resumed his role as executive chairman of Breitbart News.

Bannon is known for his pro-Israel views. He was the driving force behind the founding of Breitbart Jerusalem, and recruited this reporter to the news agency to defend Israel amid a constant barrage of biased news media reporting.

via Breitbart News

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Pope Francis: Rights of Migrants Trump National Security Concerns

Pope Francis: Rights of Migrants Trump National Security Concerns

Left: A mourner at the site of the terror attacks in Barcelona, Spain. Right: Pope Francis.

AP Photos / Emilio Morenatti, Gregorio Borgia

by Breitbart News21 Aug 20170

21 Aug, 2017
21 Aug, 2017

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Monday urged countries to greatly improve their welcome to migrants and stop collective expulsions, saying migrants’ dignity and right to protection trumps national security concerns.

Francis’ politically pointed message was made in view of the Catholic Church’s 2018 world refugee day, celebrated Jan. 14. It comes amid mounting anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and beyond following waves of migrant arrivals and Islamic extremist attacks.

In the message, Francis demanded governments welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants, saying Jesus’ message of love is rooted in welcoming the “rejected strangers of every age.”

He demanded a simplified process of granting humanitarian and temporary visas and rejected arbitrary and collective expulsions as “unsuitable.” He said the principle of ensuring each person’s dignity “obliges us to always prioritize personal safety over national security.”

Francis has made refugees a priority of his pontificate, making his first trip outside Rome in 2013 to the island of Lampedusa, ground zero in Europe’s migration crisis. He has repeatedly spoken out for migrants’ rights, demanded countries build “bridges not walls,” and personally brought a dozen Syrian refugees back to Rome with him when he visited a Greek refugee camp in 2016.

Ignoring critics who say his calls are unrealistic and naive, Francis insisted in the new message that border guards must be trained to protect migrants and that each new arrival, regardless of legal status, must be guaranteed access to basic services beyond health care.

That extends to guaranteeing access to consulates, the justice system and the ability to open a bank account and survive financially, he said.

Unaccompanied minors, he said, require even greater protection, including guaranteeing them citizenship and access to schooling, as well as foster programs rather than detention centers.

He called for policies that support family reunification, employment opportunities and accelerated citizenship procedures to improve migrants’ abilities to integrate.

His call was immediately rejected by the leader of Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party, which has opposed government proposals to change Italy’s law to accelerate citizenship for children born in Italy to non-Italians.

“If you want to do it in the Vatican, go ahead,” Matteo Salvini wrote on Facebook. “But as a Catholic, I don’t think Italy can welcome and support the whole world.”

via Breitbart News

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EXCLUSIVE – Michael Savage Scolds Trump, Blasts Boston Leftists: ‘Trump Has Buckled to the Mob’

Author and radio host Michael Savage scolded President Trump and left-wing “Antifa” protesters in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News Sunday  — accusing President Trump of having “buckled to the mob” in Boston and warning that if Trump keeps kowtowing to Antifa and other leftist groups, “it’s all over.”

Savage was referring to a tweet from Trump sent Saturday, in which the president said he “applauds” the Antifa counter-protesters who showed up in the thousands to protest a free speech march of a few hundred people. The left-wing protesters are reported to have thrown rocks, and Boston police requested they not throw bottles of urine at officers.

Yet Trump took a radically different tone from the one he had taken just days earlier when he had reminded a furious media that the so-called “anti-fascist” protesters were also responsible for violence:

Savage accused Trump of “catering to the left-wing mobs” and connected recent riots in Virginia and Boston to the apparent new tone in the White House, which was seen just a day after White House chief strategist Steve Bannon departed to retake his position as executive chairman of Breitbart News.

“It’s the streets of Boston that caused the events in the White House,” Savage said. “Trump has buckled to the mob. They broke him with mass hysteria about ‘all conservatives, all nationalists, are merged with neo-Nazis.’ So Trump is now catering to the left-wing mobs. He is catering to Antifa.”

Savage, who wrote Trump’s War: His Battle for America warns that Bannon’s departure could be a sign of things to come. Calling Bannon Trumps’ “field marshal,” he warns that Trump could turn moderate and kill his presidency.

“If he starts with that line, it’s all over. If he wants nothing to do with conservatives, it’s over. If Bannon is replaced by [MSNBC commentator] Rachel Maddow, it’s over,” he said:

Trump comes from a liberal background, and he saw which way wind was blowing and see what Eddie and Edith [Savage’s term for the common man and woman] wanted, and he ran with it. Now what? Now he’s hit a stone wall with his progressive friends, and so he’s got to do a 180? How far is he going to turn away from what got him elected? Is he going to become [Mitt] Romney? You know he’s going to move in another direction, but it’s anyone’s guess.

Savage added that he was unsure of the state of any of Trump’s major campaign promises: “Are we going to get a wall? I don’t know. Tax cuts, I don’t know. The day he grants amnesty to ‘dreamers’ will be the end of the presidency; he’ll lose his entire base.”

But with Trump’s future stances unclear, Savage says he is certain of what needs to be done from rank-and-file conservatives — and he says that exposing what is going on on the streets of Charlottesville and Boston is the key:

When I see these mobs in Boston,  these self-righteous Bolsheviks, I see the face of people who think they can do no wrong. So how do we defeat them? We have to name who is behind them, and unless we can uncouple the public image of Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein, for example, we’re never going to win the battle. We in American America need to do a little research on our corrupt leaders, and once the middle of the roaders see that corruption, we can get them back on our side.

He said that begins by exposing what the people who support the protesters really want from America:

The enemies in the streets today oppose trade war with Mexico, they oppose tariffs on China, the deportations of even MS-13 gang members, they oppose dismantling socialized medicine, they oppose individual gun ownership, they want to weaken the military further, promote sexual deviancy in schools, to push abortion even further, and they want a war on real religion — Christian or Jewish.

He warned against getting caught in the trap of focusing on the statues of the Confederacy over which so many on the left were protesting.

“In the debates about gay marriage, we were told, ‘What difference does it make to you?’ and it was a good argument,” he said. “Well, what the hell does a Robert E. Lee statue have a to do with a New York liberal’s life? How does it affect their goddamn lives? What does it matter? It doesn’t, at all!”

Instead, he made a comparison of modern day left vs. right to the Civil War, but not in a way many liberals would like:

 A lot of these riots are occurring through distinct planning by the new plantation owners who do not want the cheap slave labor supply cut off. I compare them to the old aristocrats of the South becasue they didn’t want to give up their slave labor, either, and were prepared to go to war over it.

As for the protesters who oppose free speech, Savage had a message for them. “We’ve gone from the Boston Tea Party to the Boston Flee Party. The left-wing mob, caught up in mass hysteria did not defeat Nazism. These self-righteous anti-nationalists defeated free speech itself,” he said. “Let me remind them, the First Amendment was not written to protect polite speech; it was written to defend offensive speech.”

He also tore into their hysteria over free speech while ignoring terror attacks from Islamic jihadists, noting that not one Islamic terror attack has occurred in the U.S. since Trump’s inauguration.

“Islamo-progressive Bolsheviks never once protested, never once said Islam was a threat, never once marched in mass hysteria during all those Obama years of numerous atrocities inflicted upon the U.S.,” he said. Not the massacre of gays in Orlando, the slaughter of fellow workers in Southern California.”

“But now, a few dozen whites stand up in Boston to express their pride in Western civilization, and the mobs of self-righteous Islamo-progressives shut them down. More threatened by speech than by bombs and bullets. Liberalism is a mental disorder,” he added.

Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter:  @AdamShawNY.

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15 Moroccan Teens Treated For Rabies After Having Sex With Donkey

Fifteen teenagers in Morocco who sexually assaulted a donkey in the small town of Sidi Kamel have been treated for rabies they contracted from the beast of burden.

Seriously.

The Morocco World News reported that “the sexually frustrated children and teenagers stayed at the Mechraa Belksiri Hospital for one week to receive rabies vaccinations after the animal transmitted the disease to them.”

The incident has put the families of these fifteen young people into distress and horror, reports the daily.

Local authorities have been alerted and search for find anyone else who has “approached” and “admired” the animal closely, in order to limit the risk of rabies spreading among the inhabitants of the region.

The occurrence became the subject of mockery and ridicule among the population of the small town.

However, it has also become a subject of fear and shame for parents who, in the utmost secrecy, hastened to have their children vaccinated in case they had approached the animal.

According to the daily, the number of infections could be much higher, as some families preferred to take their children to hospitals outside the region to avoid humiliation.

The local authorities ordered the owner of the animal to slaughter it to avoid further risk of spreading the disease.

Euro Weekly offered a few more details:

FIFTEEN young people in Morocco have caught rabies after having sex with a donkey infected with the disease.

According to reports the teenagers were taken to hospital to treat symptoms which were later found to be rabies.

When asked if they had been bitten, they confessed that they had engaged in sexual activity with the animal. The Mechra Belqasri, Morocco, residents’ story has since gone viral.

The owner of the donkey, allegedly fed up of being mocked and the talk of the town, put it to sleep.

via Daily Wire

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Way Past Time to Let Congress Enjoy Obamacare

Every presidential administration reaches a pivot point. Many observers thought Trump’s came when Anthony Scaramucci walked in the White House door. Others thought it came 10 days later when Scaramucci walked out the door.

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Dem Rep: Element on the Left Wants to ‘Leave Blue-Collar Swaths Behind’

Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle (Penn.) on Monday criticized those on the left who believe Democrats should focus solely on minority and educated white voters during an appearance on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe."

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens introduced the topic, saying the Democratic Party does not stand for anything except "hating Trump," and for expressing contempt for ordinary Americans. Stephens referred to the race in Georgia’s sixth congressional district, where Democrat Jon Ossoff lost to Republican Karen Handel. Ossoff lost despite a significant financial advantage, and Stephens said the race was indicative of Democrats’ image problem with the white working class.

"To average Americans, Democrats stand for the party of contempt. They stand for the party of contempt for ordinary Americans, for their struggles, also, for sort of traditional values," Stephens said.

"Until there is a genuine outreach to a sort of white working-class group of American voters, that’s going to be the indelible image of Democrats: a party of Harvard professors, Elizabeth Warrens, who are just hopelessly out of touch," Stephens added.

Boyle granted that writing off white working-class voters is the preference for some on the left, and expressed complete disagreement with it.

"Let me take the last thing you said because there is an element within the movement left that believes that we should just be the party of well-educated whites and racial minorities, and leave blue-collar swaths behind," Boyle said. "I fully, 100 percent reject that view."

He went on to name locations Barack Obama won that fit the demographics some on the left want to ignore.

"I think if you look at Scranton, Luzerne County, Erie in Pennsylvania, places in Michigan and Wisconsin, these are places we would be foolish to write off because Barack Obama carried them twice," Boyle added. "They went for John Kerry, they went for Al Gore."

Boyle described that attitude as both wrong and politically foolish.

"Anyone who says that we should kind of turn the page and reject those voters — first of all, I think it’s wrong to begin with, and second, not in our political interest," Boyle said.

The post Dem Rep: Element on the Left Wants to ‘Leave Blue-Collar Swaths Behind’ appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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Petition to Classify Antifa as a Terrorist Org Goes to Next Level

Politics

Petition to Classify Antifa as a Terrorist Org Goes to Next Level

By Kimberly J Smith
on August 21, 2017 at 9:38am

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A petition to classify the alt-left hate group “antifa” as a terrorist organization is gaining momentum.

The petition explained that terrorism is defined as “the use of violence and intimidation in pursuit of political aims,” adding that the group had earned the title due to its “violent actions in multiple cities and their influence in the killings of multiple police officers throughout the United States.”

The petition went up on Thursday and started steamrolling almost immediately. It easily gained more than the 100,000 signatures necessary to warrant action from the White House and, by Monday afternoon, the petition had amassed almost 170,000.

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This kind of declaration needs to happen.

Antifa has been known to attend conservative events and demonstrations with the intention to incite violence.

They were a major part of the Aug. 12 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in one woman’s death.

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In addition, on Saturday, demonstrators at a “free speech” rally in Boston were outnumbered by thousands of unruly and even violent counter-protesters who included antifa thugs.

The Daily Caller reported that the group claimed that one of its goals was to make America ungovernable for President Donald Trump, and it would appear that it’s doing its level best to do just that. However, it is also doing much more.

The group encourages hate against conservatives. An antifa website called “It’s Going Down” encourages violence against Trump supporters.

This is no joke. This group wants to destroy our country as well as terrorize a certain segment of the population.

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This group needs to be identified as what it is — a terrorist organization.

H/T Breitbart

Share this story on Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about the petition to recognize antifa as a terrorist organization.

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Baltimore’s Christopher Columbus monument vandalized (for socialism)

This morning someone posted a video showing a man with a sledgehammer vandalizing a monument to Christopher Columbus in Baltimore as he rants about “genocidal terrorists like Christopher Columbus and George Washington.” The Baltimore Brew reports the 225-year-old monument to Columbus is the oldest one still standing in the United States.

The two-minute video also features a monologue that lists capitalism among Columbus’ worst sins. “Christopher Columbus symbolizes the initial invasion of European capitalism into the Western Hemisphere,” the narrator says. He continues, “Columbus initiated a centuries-old wave of terrorism, murder, genocide, rape, slavery, ecological degradation and capitalist exploitation of labor in the Americas.”

“The culture of white supremacy preceded the United States. It’s at the foundation of U.S. culture, business, bureaucracies, and psychology. Observe how vehemently Republican and Democratic misleaders defend genocidal terrorists like Christopher Columbus and George Washington.”

Christopher Columbus has become an increasingly polarizing figure over the last two decades. Those who think his history deserves more criticism and less celebration have the right to make that case. In the past few years, a growing number of cities have renamed Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day so it’s not as if there has been no movement on this issue.

Just yesterday a handful of people in Columbus, Ohio gathered to demand the removal of a Columbus statue at city hall. That’s how this ought to work. You get like-minded people together and make your case to your elected representatives. Smashing things with a sledgehammer in the middle of the night is not what democracy looks like.

The post Baltimore’s Christopher Columbus monument vandalized (for socialism) appeared first on Hot Air.

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Anti-Israel Leaders Hosted at State Dept. Seeking to Drive Wedge in U.S.-Israel Alliance

The State Department’s recent hosting of an American Muslim organization known for its anti-Israel stance and support of boycotts of the Jewish state has sparked concern from those close to the Trump administration that these advocacy groups are seeking to drive a wedge into the United States’ relationship with Israel, which has hit speed bumps since Rex Tillerson assumed control of America’s chief diplomatic agency, according to multiple sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

The State Department hosted this month leaders from the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, which represents a number of organizations including American Muslims for Palestine, or AMP, an organization that promotes "extreme anti-Israel views" and "anti-Zionist" propaganda, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Israel hate groups.

Representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, Islamic Circle of North America, and Muslim Ummah of North America also attended the meeting.

AMP, which partnered with the terror group Hamas’s main U.S. propaganda arm until it was shuttered in 2004, and the other groups met with several State Department officials to discuss the ongoing violence on Israel’s holy Temple Mount area, which has been the site of several riots and attacks on Israelis.

The groups were there to promote anti-Israel propaganda blaming Israel for the recent violence that began after Palestinian terrorists killed two Israeli security official stationed at the site, which is home to the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques.

The meeting has prompted concern among pro-Israel leaders close to the Trump administration, who say the summit is part of larger effort by anti-Israel organizations to drive a wedge between the Trump administration and Israel at a critical juncture.

The Free Beacon first reported last month that the State Department under Secretary Rex Tillerson has been in "open war" with the White House over a range of key issues, including Israel.

Multiple sources who spoke to the Free Beacon confirmed these fears, pointing to a recent State Department-authored report that blamed Israel for terror attacks and roiled congressional leaders who accused Tillerson’s State Department of promoting anti-Israel propaganda.

The recent resignation of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was viewed as one of the administration’s most pro-Israel voices, has further stoked these fears among pro-Israel leaders.

Multiple pro-Israel insiders who spoke to the Free Beacon expressed concerns about the State Department’s willingness to host an openly anti-Israel group during a time when tensions in the Middle East are running high.

Israeli officials are said to be concerned about the Trump administration’s stance on a range of issues, including its policy in Syria and other terror hotspots.

"Everyone knows this is the group funneling money from the Middle East to finance the [Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment] movement," said one prominent pro-Israel official who would only speak on background so as not to spark further tension with the White House. "They’re being investigated by the FBI and the state of Illinois for potential illicit financing activity. I really want to believe in Secretary Tillerson but between his reluctance to confront Iran and now this, it’s hard to justify his continuation as secretary of state."

A State Department official confirmed the meeting took place, but would not specify who the American Muslim leaders met with and what exactly was discussed.

"The Department regularly hosts groups representing different constituencies in America to explain USG policy and hear their perspective," the official told the Free Beacon. "The group was interested in U.S. policy on Jerusalem given events on the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif last month, and met a cross-section of working level officials from different offices in the Department."

Asked if administration officials were aware of the group’s anti-Israel views and ties to Hamas, the official said that State Department views Hamas as a terror organization and opposes boycotts of the Jewish state.

Noah Pollak, a political consultant who works with a range of pro-Israel organizations, criticized the State Department for hosting what he described as extremists who reject Israel’s right to exist and openly endorse terrorist groups.

"AMP is a front for jihadists, and doesn’t try very hard to hide it. Some of its founders were involved with the Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas fundraising front that was the biggest terror finance case in U.S. history," Pollak said. "Its founder called for an ‘intifada’ here in America. Maybe next time there’s a flare-up of Palestinian violence the State Department can cut out the middle man and just meet directly with Hamas."

Other pro-Israel insiders expressed concern over the meeting, but cautioned against putting too much stock in efforts by these Muslim American groups to drive a wedge into the U.S.-Israel relationship.

"Presidential administrations are going to meet with constituents," said the source, a senior official at a large pro-Israel group. "That’s what they do. The question is if they believe what they hear, let alone act on it."

"Judging by the public descriptions of the meeting, no one at the White House was buying whatever AMP was selling," the source said. "That’s what we’d expect from the Trump administration, which has people who understand the value of the pro-Israel relationship like Victoria Coates in key positions to guide policy."

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