Blacks tend to kill each other, and they also deprive one another of legitimate opportunities . Why?
White's the same.
Is it all man's inhumanity to man?
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No wonder Biden's boy needs big bucks. (See 1 below.)
https://en.interfax.com.ua/
Photos post IDF raid:
AND:
Israeli Attorney General works faster than Schiff but seems to be as cunning and political.(See 2 below.)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Meanwhile, Gantz fails to make a decision so a third Israeli election will occur. What amazing self serving patriots
Israel's politicians seem to be. (See 2a and 2b below.)
They would fit well in our own system.
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Various, obviously biased, articles that favor Trump. How can that be?
And what about the testimony of the self serving Lt. Col? (See 3 below.)
So where's the beef or are we left with a bunch of AOC "farting?"
So where's the beef or are we left with a bunch of AOC "farting?"
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1) DNA test shows Hunter Biden fathered child
with Arkansas woman
A DNA test shows that Hunter Biden fathered a child with an Arkansas woman, according to court papers filed on Wednesday.
See also:
The test established Biden’s paternity with “scientific certainty,” the child’s mom, Lunden Alexis Roberts, said in in a motion posted online by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, has denied having had sex with Roberts and agreed to the test last month in a bid to prove he didn’t father her unidentified child.
He’s “not expected to challenge the results of the DNA test or the testing process,” according to Roberts’ filing in Arkansas’ Independence County Circuit Court.
Roberts’ child was born in August 2018, while Hunter was in a relationship with Hallie Biden, the widow of his late older brother Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.
The onetime in-laws began dating in 2017 but broke up in April, Page Six exclusively reported at the time.
Roberts filed her paternity suit in May, about two weeks after Hunter, 49, married Melissa Cohen, 33, following a whirlwind, six-day romance.
Hunter is currently embroiled in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump, based on allegations that Trump withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in part to try to force an investigation of his reported $50,000-a-month job with the Burisma natural gas company.
Republican lawmakers want him to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, but Chairman Adam Schiff (D-California) rejected that request earlier this month.
Hunter, who has three adult daughters from his first marriage, has a history of drug and alcohol problems that got him booted from the US Navy Reserve for cocaine use in 2014 and sent him to rehab several times.
In 2015, following the release of information hacked from the Ashley Madison website – which caters to people seeking to have extramarital affairs – he claimed an account with his email address was “set up by someone else without my knowledge.”
In her motion Wednesday, Roberts seeks to have her the name, date of birth and “all other identifying information” of her child – who’s called “Baby Doe” – sealed from the public when the court issues a paternity order.
Roberts’ filing notes that “members of the Biden family either are protected or eligible to be protected by the United States Secret Service as a direct result of Joe Biden’s political status” and that “Baby Doe’s paternity could put the child and those close to the child at risk of harm.”
A related motion seeks more than $11,000 in attorney’s fees and court costs from Hunter.
Hunter’s lawyers, who include former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.
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2) Report: Mandelblit wraps up Netanyahu indictments, could unveil charges Thursday
But political dead-end could hold up indictments for months until new government formed, scholar says, since it must first be submitted to Knesset speaker for immunity inquiry
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has made a final decision on charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and could unveil the indictments soon, according to a television report on Wednesday night.
According to Channel 13, Mandeblit has already made a decision on what criminal charges Netanyahu will face in three cases against him. The network said Netanyahu would be charged with fraud and breach of trust in the so-called Case 1000 gifts probe, but did not provide information on the final decision in the two other cases, saying only there had been disagreements within the prosecution.
The report, which was unsourced, indicated that Mandelblit could file the charges with the Knesset speaker as early as Thursday.
Other reports have said Mandelblit will announce the charges early next week. The Justice Ministry has not made any formal announcement on when the charges will be unsealed.
The attorney general announced earlier this year that he intended to charge Netanyahu with fraud and breach of trust in all three cases against him, and a more serious bribery charge in so-called case 4000, in which the premier is accused of trading regulatory favors for positive media coverage.
The television report came shortly after Israel sunk deeper into political chaos as Blue and White leader Benny Gantz announced his failure to form a coalition, likely heralding a third round of elections in under a year.
The political turmoil will likely affect Netanyahu’s criminal charges, since the attorney general must first submit the charge sheet to the Knesset speaker and ask whether the prime minister will seek procedural immunity, according to constitutional scholar Suzie Navot.
Procedural immunity covers alleged offenses committed by a parliamentarian that are unrelated to his parliamentary work.
With the Knesset committees dormant in the caretaker government, the process could take months, holding up the indictments at least until a new government is formed.
“He [Mandelblit] cannot file charges. He has to present the indictment to the speaker and then wait for Netanyahu’s decision whether he wants procedural immunity or not,” she told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.
“He just has to say that he wants the immunity and then only when a new government is formed and the Knesset committee starts working they’ll deal with it… months from now,” she added.
A key question that remains is whether the attorney general will seek a bribery charge against the prime minister in Case 4000. In that case, Netanyahu is suspected of pushing regulatory decisions financially benefiting the controlling shareholder of the Bezeq telecommunications group, Shaul Elovitch, in return for ongoing positive coverage from Bezeq’s Walla news site. It is the most serious of the three cases against the prime minister.
Even if the bribery charge is included in Mandelblit’s announcement it is likely to be watered down, Channel 12 news reported Tuesday, citing a senior source within the state prosecution. The report estimated that there will be a difference, possibly a significant one, between the allegations as laid out in the 57-page document Mandelblit published in February pending a hearing, and the eventual final indictment.
A composite image of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Bezeq controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch. (Flash90; Ohad Zwigenberg/POOL)
In Case 1000, Netanyahu is suspected of illicitly receiving gifts such as champagne, cigars and jewelry valued at some NIS 700,000 ($201,000) from billionaire benefactors Arnon Milchan and James Packer, and allegedly reciprocating in Milchan’s case with various forms of assistance.
In Case 2000, Netanyahu is accused of agreeing with Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper publisher Arnon Mozes to weaken a rival daily in return for more favorable coverage from Yedioth. The agreement was never implemented.
In October, prosecutors and the prime minister’s legal team held several days of hearings in which Netanyahu’s attorneys sought to refute the allegations against him.
Netanyahu denies all wrongdoing and has frequently claimed that the investigations against him are a witch hunt and a conspiracy orchestrated by the media, the left, police and the state prosecution.
2a)
ISRAEL
Here We Go Again!
Israel is likely heading for a third general election within 12 months after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief rival failed to form a new government by Wednesday’s deadline, the Associated Press reported.
Benny Gantz, leader of the centrist Blue and White party, told President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday that he was unable to form a coalition government, further prolonging the political paralysis that has gripped the nation for the past year.
Rivlin ordered Gantz to form a government after Netanyahu failed to create one last month following the inconclusive Sept. 17 elections, where both Gantz’s party and Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud failed to achieve a 61-seat majority in parliament.
Both leaders couldn’t agree on the terms of a power-sharing agreement, and political kingmaker Avigdor Lieberman refused to form a coalition with either of them, CNN reported.
Under Israeli law, the parliament now enters a 21-day period where any lawmaker can attempt to form a 61-seat majority and become prime minister.
If that fails, the country will hold another election in March with recent polls showing that results will likely be similar to those of September’s elections.
2b)
Who are the real anti-Zionists in Israel?
Avigdor Lieberman’s denunciation of Israeli-Arab parties and those of the haredim as morally equivalent misses the point about the challenges facing the Jewish state.
In a speech that sparked condemnations from the left, right and center, Avigdor Lieberman, the head of Israel’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party, ended speculation as to whether he would support a minority government that would end the country’s coalition crisis.
Had Lieberman decided to throw in his lot with Benny Gantz and the Blue and White Party, the result would have been a government that would have depended on the votes of the Joint List—the coalition of Arab political parties—to survive. He would have savored the opportunity to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has been the entire point of all the maneuvering he has been done for the past year. Aligning himself with a faction that he has always denounced as a subversive “fifth column” seeking to destroy the Jewish state, however, was too high a price to pay.
That means Israelis will likely be forced to head to the polls for the third time within a year sometime next spring. To justify his decision, Lieberman issued a statement that repeated his past denunciations of the Arab parties. But he also said his party would no longer serve with religious parties.
His answer was to claim that the haredim and their political representatives were just as anti-Zionist as the Arabs. He blasted their efforts to both exempt their young men from serving in the military and to siphon portions of the national budget into their schools and other institutions.
Lieberman is not alone in lamenting the outsized influence of the haredim.
The ultra-Orthodox domination of Israeli life infuriates Diaspora Jews, who want the State of Israel to adopt religious pluralism, as well as to give the non-Orthodox equal rights at the Western Wall.
Many serious thinkers have long considered that having a large and growing portion of the population not fully participating in the work force—as is the case with many haredi men who study in yeshivahs, whether or not they are serious scholars—as well as not serving in the army constitutes an existential threat to Israel’s future.
The rabbinate’s control over life-cycle events is also lamented by a large majority of Israelis from all walks of life. That’s why denouncing the haredim has always been political gold for Israeli politicians. Lieberman gained three Knesset seats in the September election as a result of his decision to abandon Netanyahu so as to avoid serving with his previous ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.
But the notion that these are just two sides of the same anti-Zionist coin doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Many on the Israeli left, as well as liberal Americans, are deeply angered by Netanyahu’s repeated talk of the Arabs’ Joint List as enemies of Israel, which Lieberman echoed in his remarks. They consider it to be racist.
But it’s not slander to speak of the Joint List as anti-Zionist and even to suggest that its activists sympathize with the forces trying to destroy Israel.
The Joint List is composed of four parties.
Hadash is Israel’s Communist Party. Balad is a secular pan-Arab nationalist party. The United Arab List, or Ra’am, is Islamist and endorses policies somewhat akin to those of Hamas. Ta’al is also Arab nationalist and secular. All seek the elimination of a Jewish state and oppose its measures of self-defense.
Their presence in the Knesset is testimony to the fact that Israel is a democracy where all are equal under the law, rather than the “apartheid state” slander that the BDS movement promotes. But they don’t so much represent the interests of Israeli-Arab voters as they do the hope that the one Jewish state on the planet will be eliminated.
Rhetoric from Netanyahu and Lieberman may seem over the top. Still, they are not wrong to regard these parties as having a purpose that is antithetical to the interests of the state. Including them in a government or even allowing them to decide its fate from outside the cabinet would be a mistake.
But to put the haredim—no matter how much they and the rabbinate may be rightly resented—in the same category is not accurate.
Branding all haredi Jews as being as anti-Zionist as the Arabs is wrong. Some do support Israel and its institutions. Only a small minority, such as those who back the Satmar sect or the even more extreme Neturei Karta, actively seeks the state’s end and will have nothing to do with it.
Other haredim actively oppose secular Zionism and don’t want their children to serve in the army, but also have a pragmatic point of view about Israel and seek to influence its policies by taking part in government. The Agudat Yisrael Party represents the interests of such Jews in the Knesset. But to describe their complicated feelings about the state as morally equivalent to Arabs who identify with Israel’s enemies is mistaken.
Such characterizations of the other haredi party in the Knesset are even more misleading. Shas, which depends on the support of Mizrahi Jews who trace their origins to the Arab world rather than to Eastern Europe, is officially Zionist, which befits the nationalist leanings of their voters. Like Agudat Yisrael, they support exemptions from army service and draining the treasury to fill the coffers of their own institutions. But they also support the state.
Many Israelis would welcome a government that would constrain the power of the ultra-Orthodox. But as long as security issues continue to dominate the country’s agenda, right-wing Israelis will prefer an alliance with the haredim to one with Blue and White or left-wing parties.
In a third election, Likud might lose more seats, and Lieberman might be able to form a coalition with Gantz without being dependent on anti-Zionist Arab votes. Even if you sympathize with his goal, lumping in the haredim with forces actively seeking Israel’s destruction is neither fair nor accurate.
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3) Sondland’s Unimpeachable Offenses
Witnesses are providing more detail about what we already know.
The House impeachment hearings roll on, but the most important news is how little new we are learning about President Trump and Ukraine. The witnesses from the diplomatic and national-security bureaucracy are filling in some details—many of which are unflattering about how policy is made in this Administration—but none change the fundamental narrative or suggest crimes or other impeachable offenses.
That includes Wednesday’s testimony by Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union who described what he saw and heard from May through September. His account essentially confirms that Mr. Trump had a negative view of Ukraine, was reluctant to keep supplying U.S. aid, and asked Mr. Sondland and others to work with Rudy Giuliani to press Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce that he was opening an anti-corruption probe.
“The suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false,” Mr. Sondland said.
In other words, the President was directing policy, as he has the right to do, and nearly everyone in security positions seemed to know about it. As we’ve known since Mr. Trump released the transcript of his July 25 phone call with Mr. Zelensky, this may have been the least secret foreign-policy fiasco in memory. We’re almost embarrassed as journalists that we didn’t know about it.
The impeachment press is hyperventilating that Mr. Sondland finally nailed down the elusive quid pro quo with Ukraine, but that is far from clear. “Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’” Mr. Sondland said in his opening statement. “With regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting [between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky], the answer is yes.”
But note that Mr. Sondland says nothing about aid to Ukraine being part of the quid, and under questioning later he said he merely “presumed” there were preconditions for a Trump-Zelensky meeting. He never heard that directly from Mr. Trump, and on one call with Mr. Sondland the President flatly rejected the idea. We also know that on three separate occasions, including the July 25 phone call, Mr. Trump invited Mr. Zelensky to the White House without preconditions.
Mr. Sondland also said, under questioning by Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman, that he wasn’t even sure if Mr. Giuliani cared about the result of any Ukraine investigation—only that Mr. Zelensky publicly declare that one had been opened. “I never heard, Mr. Goldman, anyone say that the investigations had to start or be completed,” Mr. Sondland said. “The only thing I heard from Mr. Giuliani or otherwise was that they had to be announced in some form.”
This isn’t a quid pro quo that comes close to meeting the definition of bribery. It’s another case of Mr. Trump’s volatile policy-making based on personal impulse or prejudice, but it’s not an impeachable offense.
On that score, readers who have lives to lead can save time by reading Senator Ron Johnson’s account. The Wisconsin Republican has taken a personal interest in Ukraine since he joined the Senate in 2011, and in a Nov. 18 letter to House Intelligence Members he explains what he saw and heard at the White House and on visits to Ukraine.
Mr. Johnson relates how he returned from Mr. Zelensky’s inaugural to brief Mr. Trump and discovered how hostile the President was to Ukraine. Mr. Johnson supported military aid and thought Mr. Zelensky, as a newly elected President, could do much to reduce corruption. The Senator spent the next months working with others, inside and outside the Administration, to change the President’s mind.
Eventually he prevailed, and the aid was released on Sept. 11. Mr. Johnson says Mr. Trump called him on Aug. 31 and told him, “Ron, I understand your position. We’re reviewing it now, and you’ll probably like my final decision.” This matters because Democrats claim Mr. Trump released the aid only because they were on the impeachment trail.
“To my knowledge, most members of the administration and Congress dealing with the issues involving Ukraine disagreed with President Trump’s attitude and approach toward Ukraine,” Mr. Johnson writes. “Many who had the opportunity and ability to influence the president attempted to change his mind. I see nothing wrong with U.S. officials working with Ukrainian officials to demonstrate Ukraine’s commitment to reform in order to change President Trump’s attitude and gain his support.”
But Mr. Johnson adds that officials cannot substitute their policy for the President’s and that impeachment is doing “a great deal of damage to our democracy”—not least by making presidential phone calls with foreign leaders open to public disclosure.
This is a political grownup talking. Like so many others since this idiosyncratic President was elected, Mr. Johnson has tried to steer Mr. Trump from his worst policy instincts. Thank goodness they have, and certainly this Trumpian behavior is ripe for debate and voter judgment in 2020.
Democrats might have advanced that cause with hearings and a censure resolution. Instead, they have unleashed the dogs of impeachment without impeachable offenses.
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