ВИБОРЧА ГАЗЕТА

Omar Rejects Netanyahu’s Claims About Itinerary

U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar has rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertions that she and fellow lawmaker Rashida Tlaib had no intention of meeting with Israeli officials before Netanyahu barred them from visiting Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank next week.

Omar posted her Israeli itinerary on Twitter Friday, which included meeting with Jewish and Arab members of Israel’s parliament and Israeli security officials.

Let’s be clear: the goal of our trip was to witness firsthand what is happening on the ground in Palestine and hear from stakeholders —our job as Members of Congress.

But since we were unable to fulfill our role as legislators, I am sharing what we would have seen. (THREAD)

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) August 16, 2019

Israeli military veterans had planned to give the lawmakers a tour of Hebron where “settlement expansion has resulted in a two-tiered city, with Palestinians under military occupation forced to walk on the opposite side of the street from Israelis.” She said Israeli military veterans would have conducted the tour and talked about “their experiences with the occupation.”

The U.S. lawmaker said her delegation had also scheduled a briefing on the Bedouin community in East Jerusalem, while the United Nations was set to deliver a briefing on the effects of humanitarian aid cuts on Palestinians.

A video conference with Gazan youth was planned. Omar noted that Israeli officials do not allow members of Congress to visit Gaza.

Tlaib decides not to go

Earlier Friday, Tlaib had reversed her decision to travel to the West Bank, just hours after the Israeli Interior Ministry said it would allow the U.S. lawmaker to see her Palestinian grandmother on “humanitarian grounds.”

In a Tweet Friday morning, Tlaib said, “It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in — fighting against racism, oppression & injustice.”

Tlaib had written a letter to the Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri on Thursday, requesting admittance to see her grandmother, saying it could be the last opportunity to see her. In the letter, Tlaib said she would “respect any restrictions and not promote boycotts against Israel.”

Deri said in a tweet he had approved Tlaib’s request as a gesture of goodwill “but it was just a provocative request, aimed at bashing the state of Israel. Apparently her hate for Israel overcomes her love for her grandmother.”

Congresswomen denied entry

Israel had said Thursday it would deny both Tlaib and Omar entry, setting off a new round of controversy in the debate over U.S. support for its ally in the Middle East.

The two Democratic lawmakers have been vocal critics of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. They were set to visit Israel and several cities in the West Bank.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told public broadcaster Kan on Thursday, “We won’t allow those who deny our right to exist in this world to enter Israel. In principle, this is a very justified decision.”

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted shortly before Thursday’s announcement, writing, “It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds.”

It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2019

Later in the day, Trump defended the Israeli decision. “I can’t imagine why Israel would let them in,” he said, repeating that the two lawmakers were “very anti-Jewish and very anti Israel.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the president’s comments “are a sign of ignorance and disrespect, and beneath the dignity of the Office of the President.” Pelosi reaffirmed her love of Israel but said the move to deny entry to Omar and Tlaib “is a sign of weakness, and beneath the dignity of the great state of Israel.”

Omar and Tlaib’s frequent criticism of Israel has drawn accusations of anti-Semitism for months. Omar was condemned by the congressional leadership in her own party for invoking an offensive trope about Jews and money in social media postings earlier this year.

Omar said the Israeli government’s ban on her entry into the country prevented her from fulfilling her duties as a member of the U.S. Congress.

Tlaib tweeted a photograph of her Palestinian grandmother, who she said “deserves to live in peace & with human dignity.”

This woman right here is my sity. She deserves to live in peace & with human dignity. I am who I am because of her. The decision by Israel to bar her granddaughter, a U.S. Congresswoman, is a sign of weakness b/c the truth of what is happening to Palestinians is frightening. pic.twitter.com/GGcFLiH9N3

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) August 15, 2019

Omar and the Palestinian-American Tlaib are supporters of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), a nonviolent movement that seeks to economically pressure Israel into ending its occupation of the West Bank, among other goals. Some advocates of BDS support a single-state solution that critics say would lead to the destruction of the Jewish state.

The freshman members of Congress have repeatedly presented a challenge for the House Democratic leadership, as their outspoken statements on U.S. policy in the Middle East have drawn Trump’s attention.

Omar and Tlaib were two of four House Democratic freshman members of color whom the president has said should “go back” to their home countries. Omar, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, is the only one of the four who was born outside the United States. The president’s supporters chanted, “Send her back” after Trump mentioned the congresswoman at a rally earlier this year. The president later said he did not like those chants.

The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution in July condemning the BDS movement. Both Omar and Tlaib voted against that resolution.
 

…

Trump Warns of Economic Downturn if He Loses Next Year

President Donald Trump is warning U.S. voters that the economy could crash if he is turned out of office next year. His warning came this week as he sought to reassure supporters in New Hampshire about the state of economy amid signs of a possible recession on the horizon, something analysts say could cripple his re-election hopes next year. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
 

…

O’Rourke Visits Town Targeted by ‘Terrifying’ ICE Raids

Beto O’Rourke on Friday became the first Democratic presidential candidate to visit one of the Mississippi towns where federal immigration agents raided chicken processing plants and arrested nearly 700 people, kicking off a new phase of his campaign he says will focus on President Donald Trump’s damaging policies.

It was the former Texas congressman’s first campaign stop since he suspended his White House bid for nearly two weeks to stay in his hometown of El Paso, where a mass shooting killed 22 people Aug. 3. 

The gunman drove more than 600 miles to open fire near the U.S.-Mexico border after posting an anti-immigrant screed online. O’Rourke argues that Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric helped inspire the attack.

He still plans to visit Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, which kick off presidential primary voting, but has now vowed also to travel the country to highlight the stories of some of those people who, in his view, have been most hurt by Trump administration policies.

Food for out-of-work migrants

That brought O’Rourke, a fluent Spanish-speaker, to Canton, home to a plant owned by Peco Foods Inc., which was among those raided Aug. 7. He met privately with several immigrants in a grocery store in a neighborhood where many people come from Honduras and Guatemala. His campaign also distributed containers of eggs and bags of rice, cornmeal and black beans to immigrants who walked from a mobile home park where they live down the road from the chicken processing plant.

O’Rourke later told reporters that several immigrants said both they and their spouses work at the plant, one on day shift and one on night shift so someone is always home to take care of their children because their pay is too low to afford child care.

Asked why he thinks the workplace raids took place in Mississippi, O’Rourke said: “I don’t know, other than to strike terror into the heart of this community.”

“And if that were the goal, and I think it is from Donald Trump — we’re seeing a tenfold increase in these kinds of ICE raids in his administration versus the last administration — if that is his goal, he’s getting it done,” he said. “He’s terrifying this community, people who have done nothing to anybody else, pose no threat to America. So, there’s no other reason to raid this community, other than to terrify this community.”

Largest raids of Trump term

Last week’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at seven plants in six Mississippi communities were the largest conducted at workplaces during Trump’s presidency, with 680 people arrested for being in the country illegally. Images of children weeping as they pleaded for their parents to be released became national news and shook many of the affected communities to the core, touching people beyond those who worked in the poultry industry.

Still, after Trump took office, then-acting Director Thomas Homan said ICE would try to increase all worksite enforcement actions by 400%, part of a larger effort to enforce immigration law.

Worried workers, worried town

Agusto Lopez Coronado, 42, is from Honduras and said he has lived in the United States for 19 years, working for 10 of those years at the chicken processing plant. He said his wife, who is also from Honduras and had worked at the plant for five years, was arrested during the raid and is now jailed in Louisiana.

“We need permission to work so we won’t be afraid,” Coronado said in Spanish. “We’ve got kids who are growing up and, if we’re not going to work, how are we going to live?”

Canton resident Giwada “Gi Gi” Williams, said Friday she worries about the immigrants and their families.

“Who wants to work at the stinking chicken plants? These people — they get up and go to work,” Williams said. “And then this happens to them?”

O’Rourke policy statement

Also, Friday, O’Rourke released a plan to combat “hate, white nationalism and gun violence” that would institute a voluntary program under which the federal government would buy handguns from owners and a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons. He said that, as president, he’d declare violence associated with white supremacists as organized crime and create domestic terrorism offices within the FBI and other federal agencies to help combat it.

O’Rourke’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, noted that the campaign halted virtually all fundraising while O’Rourke was in El Paso out of respect for the shooting victims, saying in an email to supporters, “We’ve just suffered several of our lowest fundraising days of the campaign.”

“Moving forward, we’re going to be working with a fire under us,” O’Malley Dillon wrote. “We are going to be as clear and as strong as possible in drawing our contrasts with Donald Trump.”

…

Florida Leaders Move to Condemn White Nationalism 

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA – Florida legislators are moving to officially condemn white nationalism, with Democrats and Republicans alike drafting resolutions against hate-spurred violence, but the unity could be short-lived as elected officials plunge into debates over how the government should intervene to prevent more mass killings and rein in white supremacists. 
 
The condemnations come amid an outcry over a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in which authorities believe the gunman posted a racist screed online shortly before the attack.  
  
Following the shooting, Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, a Republican, called the violence a “reminder that we have more work to do,” and he called on a legislative committee to review what can be done to address white nationalism.    

Earlier this week, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, a Democratic presidential hopeful, called for a federal “red flag” law that would allow law enforcement to take away guns from white nationalists, if a judge agrees if a person poses an imminent danger. 
 
While Galvano says he’s open to possibly expanding the Florida’s “red flag” laws, he told the Associated Press on Thursday that the two issues should be addressed separately. 
 
“Do both issues need to be considered and talked about? The answer is yes, but I don’t know if you can just merge them,” Galvano said. 
 
Since Florida’s “red flag” law went into effect in March 2018, there have been 2,434 risk protection orders reported to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which prompted the agency to suspend 595 concealed weapons licenses. The protection orders give law enforcement the authority to temporarily confiscate guns. 

Rubio’s call
 
Following the 2018 mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio called on Congress to follow his state’s lead in enacting a federal “red flag” law — a call that  he again made following the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio that killed 31 people. 
 
In the wake of those shootings, Florida Republicans have focused their condemnation on hate groups and their attention on keeping guns away from those with mental illness. 
 
A trio of Republican state senators began circulating a resolution on Thursday that rejects white nationalism as “hateful, dangerous and morally corrupt.” 
 
That followed a move earlier in the week by Democrats in the Florida House, who introduced legislation spurning white supremacy as “hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of Florida and the United States.” 
 
But while both parties were united in their condemnation of race-based hate, it remains to be seen what policy changes will be enacted.  

“We can have lots of discussions about hate as it relates to white supremacy and white nationalism, but it does not get us to the solution of dealing with guns — and that’s the bottom line for any discussion that should be done,” said Sen. Audrey Gibson, the Democratic leader in the Republican-controlled state Senate. 
 
In a letter sent to Galvano on Wednesday, she said it was still too easy to access a gun in Florida. 
 
Gun-control activists are trying to place a measure on the 2020 ballot that would ban assault weapons. 

Common thread
 
“Whether the massacre unfolded in El Paso, Dayton or Las Vegas, Newtown, Parkland or Pulse, the one inescapable common thread that has bound each and every one of these horrific mass shootings is the presence of an assault weapon,” Gibson said. She said the state could do better in controlling access to guns, strengthening background checks for private gun sales and expanding the state’s “red flag” laws to allow relatives, not just law enforcement, to seek a court order when they think a family member might pose a risk. 
 
Galvano said “everything would be on the table” as his chamber begins work on strengthening laws to curb mass violence and to expand the laws enacted in response to the Parkland shootings. But when pressed, Galvano said he would leave it to legislative committees to come up with specific legislation. 
 
“In the best-case scenario, the most effective way to begin to approach the state’s role in these things is to look comprehensively — everything from law enforcement and how we’re doing it, and policy changes in funding, mental health screenings, red flags and gun safety.” 

…

Hickenlooper Ends White House Bid, Weighs 2020 Senate Run

DENVER — Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday ended his longshot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination and said he might run for the Senate in 2020 against a Republican considered one of the most politically vulnerable incumbents. 
 
In a video message, Hickenlooper said many in his state had urged him to enter the Senate race. “They remind me how much is at stake for our country. And our state. I intend to give that some serious thought,” he said.  
  
Colorado’s shift to the left could put GOP Sen. Cory Gardner in jeopardy, and at least 10 Democrats have launched campaigns, setting up a competitive primary even before Hickenlooper, 67, decides. 
 
Hickenlooper became a political giant in Colorado for his quirky, consensus-driven and unscripted approach to politics. He once jumped out of a plane to promote a ballot measure to increase state spending and he won two statewide elections during years of Republican waves. He also was Denver’s mayor. 

‘Worthwhile’ effort
 
He began his White House campaign in March, promising to unite the country. Instead, he quickly became a political punch line. While this campaign didn't have the outcome we were hoping for, every moment has been worthwhile,'' he tweeted on Thursday. <br />
 <br />
Founding a series of brewpubs made Hickenlooper a multimillionaire. But shortly before taking his first trip to Iowa as a presidential candidate, he balked on national television at calling himself a capitalist. Then, at a CNN town hall, he recounted how he once took his mother to see a pornographic movie.  <br />
  <br />
With the campaign struggling to raise money, his staff urged Hickenlooper to instead challenge Gardner. But Hickenlooper stayed in and hired another group of aides in a last-ditch effort to turn around his campaign.  <br />
  <br />
He positioned himself as a common-sense candidate who couldn't be labeled asocialist” by Republicans. But Hickenlooper couldn’t make his voice heard in the crowded Democratic field of about two dozen candidates.  

Not much of a speaker
  
It didn’t help that, by Hickenlooper’s own admission, he was a mediocre debater and an erratic public speaker. In the end, he could not scrape together enough money for many of his trademark quirky ads, only launching one in which avid beer drinkers toast Hickenlooper by comparing him to favorite brews.  
  
Hickenlooper softened his denials of interest in the Senate in recent weeks as his campaign finances dwindled and pressure increased from other Democrats. He started telling people he’d decide by the end of this week.  
  
He even met with Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, who was mulling a run against Gardner. Griswold last week announced she would not challenge Gardner, and that helped to spark speculation among Colorado Democrats that Hickenlooper would eventually jump in.  
  
If he entered the Democratic primary, Hickenlooper would be “the absolute favorite,” said Mike Stratton, a veteran Democratic strategist in Denver.  
  
But some of Gardner’s challengers have said they don’t intend to step aside even if the former governor runs.  
  
“What I heard Gov. Hickenlooper tell everybody who asked is he wasn’t cut out to be a senator and didn’t want the job,” former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, one of the primary contenders, said in a radio interview. 
 
Hickenlooper isn’t the first Democratic hopeful to end his 2020 presidential bid. U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell of California announced his departure in July. 

…