History made as Arab Israeli Ra’am party joins Bennett-Lapid coalition posted at 21:58:20 UTC via The Times of Israel
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image/jpeg 0d4c99c495cafa1657c68c305e16486f.jpgThe post Where Are They Now? Flynn, Other Trump Alums Keep MAGA Hopes Alive – New Hampshire Public Radio first appeared on Trumpism And Trump.
President Joe Biden ran on a platform opposing new nuclear weapons, but his first defense budget backs two controversial new projects put in motion by President Donald Trump and also doubles down on the wholesale upgrade of all three legs of the arsenal.
The decision to retain a low-yield warhead that was outfitted on submarine-launched ballistic missiles in 2019, and to initiate research into a new sea-launched cruise missile, has sparked an outcry from arms control advocates and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which is vowing a fight to reverse the momentum.
"We must instead spend money on threats that Americans are actually facing like pandemics and climate change, instead of on new destabilizing weapons when we can extend the lifespan of the ones we already have for much cheaper,” progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in a statement.
Khanna and other Democrats are spoiling for a fight over nuclear funding in the coming months, including slashing money for a new fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the new sea-launched missiles.
“The signal this budget is sending is full steam ahead: ‘We like what Trump was doing and we want to do more of it,’’ said Tom Collina, director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund, a leading disarmament group. “It is not the message Biden was sending as a candidate. What we have here is Biden essentially buying into the Trump nuclear plan, in some cases going beyond that.”
Emma Claire Foley, a researcher at Global Zero, a disarmament group, said the latest budget "essentially preserves the priorities of the Trump administration," despite the new administration's rhetoric about pursuing a more responsible nuclear posture.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden told the Council for a Livable World, an arms control group, that the current arsenal is “sufficient” and the United States does not need new nuclear weapons. In July 2019, Biden also called Trump’s move to introduce new capabilities a “bad idea.”
The Democratic Party platform in 2020 also bluntly stated that "the Trump Administration’s proposal to build new nuclear weapons is unnecessary, wasteful, and indefensible.”
The former vice president, who has a long history of pushing for less reliance on nuclear weapons, cautioned against investing in a nuclear expansion just days before he left office in 2017.
“If future budgets reverse the choices we’ve made, and pour additional money into a nuclear buildup, it harkens back to the Cold War and will do nothing to increase the day-to-day security of the United States or our allies,” Biden told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But his budget plan now reflects different priorities. In total, Biden is requesting $43.2 billion for nuclear weapons, a slight decrease from the $44.2 billion appropriated in fiscal 2021.
That includes modernizing all three legs of the nuclear triad: the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, which is the replacement for the fleet of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles; the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines; and the new B-21 stealth bomber.
The budget also proposes $609 million for the Long Range Standoff Missile, which is designed to be outfitted on bomber planes. That’s $250 million more than what was projected by the Trump administration for fiscal 2022.
Most controversially, the Pentagon’s request maintains the W76-2 low-yield warhead that is now outfitted on submarines and sets aside $5.2 million for a new sea-launched cruise missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Another $10 million is being requested for the warhead in the budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the Energy Department.
The low-yield warhead, which has less explosive power than other atomic bombs, was recommended by the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, which concluded that Russia’s growing reliance on such weapons in war planning required the United States to develop more “flexible” options to deter their use.
“Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression,” the review stated.
The weapon is a new version of an existing warhead. “The modification had already been purchased and fielding began in FY 2020 and may already be completed,” said Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association.
The Trump nuclear review also made the case for building a new version of a sea-launched cruise missile that could carry a lower yield warhead, a class of weapon that was taken offline at the end of the Cold War. Biden’s research and development budget has a provision to “design, develop, produce and deploy a Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile.”
The arms control and disarmament community is making clear its disappointment. “President Biden ran on a campaign to reverse the budget and outrageous policies put forward by the Trump administration,” the Council for a Livable World said in a statement Wednesday. “However, this budget expands nearly every nuclear program put forward by that administration. This is not acceptable.”
As “a long-time supporter of arms control and nuclear threat reduction,” the group said, Biden “can — and should — do better.”
Collina also noted the contradiction in Biden’s previous statements and the budget request. “Now Biden wants to fully fund all of Trump's nukes,” he said. “Which is the real Biden?”
A White House spokesperson deferred to DoD. A Pentagon spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision to keep the low-yield weapon is seen as particularly worrisome because it would have been relatively easy to jettison compared to some of the other major programs.
“I would say that the preservation of the low-yield weapon project is pretty disheartening,” said Foley of Global Zero, which published its own alternative Nuclear Posture Review in 2018.
“There is a number of systems, like the low-yield warhead for the submarines and the nuclear cruise missiles, that Trump began under his watch that are completely unnecessary and would have been quite easy for the Biden administration to pick off,” Collina added. “They were the low-hanging fruit.”
He also cited proposed funding increases for projects such as the Long Range Standoff Missile. “They have added to the momentum,” Collina said. “The more billions you pump into these things the harder it is to kill.”
Foley sees the budget as evidence that the new administration is embracing the view that the United States needs to match every weapon that Russia or China develop.
“We don’t need this mentality of capability matching, which is driving this low-yield weapon and is driving the ICBM conversation,” she said. “If we are thinking in terms of deterrence we need to meet the threats that are out there, which we can do with a smaller force of bombers and submarines. We don’t need to have everything everybody else has. That’s not a strategically valid thought.”
Progressive Democrats who have sought to cut a number of the programs, including the GBSD, the LRSO, the low-yield warhead and the new cruise missile, also see the current approach as “misguided.”
Khanna and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), another vocal progressive, are objecting to Biden's nuclear budget request and contend the money could be better spent on domestic programs and efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
The lawmakers are pushing legislation to bar funding for the GBSD program or the new W87-1 warhead intended for the missiles and to shift $1 billion from research efforts on the new land-based missile to coronavirus vaccine.
"Spending trillions on the Pentagon budget didn’t stop this devastating pandemic, and I’ll continue fighting for cuts to this perennially-bloated line item,” Markey said.
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, told POLITICO he also “strongly” believes “the United States needs to alter its modernization strategy from one that’s predicated on dominance to one that is based on deterrence.”
Other senior Democrats want to block funding the new nuclear cruise missile, a version of which was removed from Navy ships in the early 1990s and formally retired in 2013.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), who chairs the House Armed Services’ Seapower panel, have sponsored legislation to nix all funding for it.
Van Hollen chided the Biden administration for advancing the program, calling it "not only reckless, but costly and unnecessary.”
“I’ll be working to prevent additional funds from going to this endeavor and to ensure Navy funding goes where it's needed most,” Van Hollen said.
Some supporters of the current nuclear portfolio suggested that the Biden budget may simply be a “placeholder” until the administration completes its own Nuclear Posture Review.
Tim Morrison, who oversaw the nuclear portfolio on the Trump National Security Council and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said he believes that any major proposals to slash weapons programs will first require building a consensus across the executive branch before trying to convince Congress.
“The most dangerous place I think they can be is to cut or scale back programs before they could do these reviews,” Morrison said. “It would show such decisions were based on ideology. If they are going to kill the triad they need buy-in. The last thing they want is any of those military leaders saying they weren’t consulted on any decisions.
“This is a holding action while they run their reviews,” he added. “We’ll see next year.”
Collina sees it differently. “To me if you were going into a placeholder you would freeze or pause,” he said. “This makes me worried that the NPR is not going to be an open review but that what we are seeing is kind of the administration tipping their hand, that they are not going to spend any political time on it. They are letting themselves stay boxed in."
image/jpeg ap21153667053764-1.jpgAfter a hair-raising dash to obtain the signatures of all eight parties for a coalition government, Yair Lapid was ready
The post Lapid has just notified the president he is able to form a government appeared first on DEBKAfile.
Лапид сообщил президенту Реувену Ривлину об успешном формировании правительственной коалиции. В соответствии с договоренностями, Беннет станет премьер-министром, а Лапид – альтернативным премьером. Примерно через два года они поменяются местами, передает РИА «Новости».
Телеканал I24 сообщает, что голосование по утверждению кабмина в Кнессете (парламенте) будет назначено через 12 дней, а по информации государственного радио «Кан», это может произойти уже через неделю, 9 июня, передает ТАСС.
В правительство войдут партии «Йеш атид», «Кахоль-Лаван», «Ямина», «Авода», «Наш дом – Израиль», «Новая надежда», «Мерец» и «Раам». Однако коалиция контролирует минимальное большинство в 61 кресло в 120-местном парламенте, и отказ от голосования в поддержку коалиции одного-двух депутатов может привести к ее провалу.
It's official: just before midnight local time Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid party notified President Reuven Rivlin that he's successfully formed a power-sharing government, which means the country's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is out.
The 71-year-old Netanyahu has long been dubbed "the magician" by supporters for his history of being able to politically survive time and again against multiple near-misses. But as Axios notes, "But he's not out quite yet" - and there's still time to wreak havoc on Iran in a desperate bid to cancel the nuclear deal with world powers.
Prior Reuters file image: Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Finance Minister Yair Lapid.Lapid's coalition still has to survive a confidence vote in parliament, which would lead to Netanyahu being replaced initially by Naftali Bennet - himself a longtime Netanyahu protegee and close ally who Sunday night 'flipped' against the PM - earning him and his Yamina party condemnations of "traitor" from the right-wing
It all began with the Sunday night political shocker wherein Bennett surprised the world by announcing plans to align with Lapid to oust Netanyahu. Israeli politics have been gridlocked as Netanyahu managed to barely hold on as no unity government could be formed over no less than four elections in two years.
Axios underscores it's a "seismic event" for the region and for the world: "We are on the verge of a seismic event in Israeli politics, with Israel's longest-serving prime minister and the man who has dominated the country's politics and relations with the world for over a decade on the verge of being replaced," Barak Ravid writes.
BREAKING: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, has been ousted as Prime Minister.
— AJ+ (@ajplus) June 2, 2021
Rival parties say they have reached a coalition to name far-right nationalist Naftali Bennett, who supports illegal settlements and opposes Palestinian rights, to replace him. pic.twitter.com/mCgIIzYe4I
Also of note in the impending unity government is that "The announcement was made possible by the unprecedented decision of the Islamist Ra'am party — which would be the first Arab party to enter an Israeli government — to unite with Bennett and Lapid."
By: Paul Shindman & TJVNews.com
The Knesset voted Wednesday to elect former Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog as the country’s 11th president, the mostly ceremonial job that is currently held by President Reuven Rivlin.
The 120-member legislature voted 87-26 with seven members absent or abstaining to elect Herzog, who will serve a a single seven-year term, as Rivlin’s turn comes to an end on July 9. Herzog beat his opponent by a larger margin than any previous president, N12 noted.
He defeated Miriam Peretz, an educator and Israel Prize laureate who was vying to become Israel’s first woman president.
Following the vote, she congratulated Herzog, saying, “I competed against a worthy person. It was a great privilege. We have a great country and should not let it be covered by darkness.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Herzog on his victory, saying, “I wish him great success on behalf of all Israeli citizens. I thank Miriam Peretz for her honorable candidacy and I am convinced that she will continue to contribute.”
Herzog, 60, has a storied pedigree. His grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak HaLevi Herzog, was the second chief rabbi of Israel. His father, Chaim Herzog, was an IDF general, Israel’s ambassador to the UN and a member of Knesset before becoming Israel’s sixth president.
Although mostly pomp and ceremony, the president in Israel is also the person who selects which party will get a chance to form a government after each national election.
Herzog’s opponent, Miriam Peretz, is famous in Israel for losing two sons in battle and dedicating her life to Zionism and community work.
After failing to gain any success in the Knesset as the head of the Labor Party, Herzog left politics in 2018 and became chairman of the organization that maintains contact between Israel and Jewish communities around the world.
Herzog campaigned among the Knesset members pushing his experience in politics and diplomacy, saying that the job representing Israel at the state level required somebody with his depth of background.
Current Israeli president Reuven Rivlin said of Isaac Herzog’s election: “The title of ‘first citizen’ and the task of guarding the character of the State of Israel, particularly at this point in time, are heavy responsibilities. I have no doubt that you will bear them superbly. I am proud to pass on the baton to you in a month’s time. Long live the State of Israel! Long live the President of the State of Israel!”
To Miriam Peretz, President Rivlin said: “Dear Miriam, you have a piece of my heart, of all of our hearts. I want to thank you for setting out on this path. For your sacrifice. For the special way you chose in this campaign. For the language you taught us – the language of the heart.”
Also on Wednesday, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef spoke with President-elect Isaac Herzog and told him: “It is a great honor for the State of Israel that its President-elect is continuing the dynasty of his grandfather, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, and is proudly representing the Jewish people. I wish that your grandfather will continue to be proud of you in Heaven throughout your presidency and that you will continue to act on behalf of the Jewish people and do Heaven’s work as you have until now.” President-elect Herzog thanked Chief Rabbi Yosef and replied: “I certainly feel the burden on my shoulders and I expect to carry out my mission with pride and faith.”
Reacting to the election of Isaac Herzog as President of the State of Israel, World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder said: “On behalf of the more than 100 Jewish communities on six continents affiliated with the World Jewish Congress, I wholeheartedly congratulate my friend Isaac Herzog, whom I have known for many years and whom I greatly admire, on his election as the 11th President of the State of Israel.
“I cannot think of a better or more able representative of the State of Israel and the people of Israel – Jews and Arabs, religious and secular. A scion of an illustrious family, he brings to this new position the dignity and depth of a true statesman. None of us will ever forget the eloquence and intellect of his father, President Chaim Herzog – who was a distinguished diplomat, a lawyer, and a gallant general – or his grandfather, Yitzhak Ha-Levy Herzog, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, an outstanding Jewish scholar and leader.
“Following on his distinguished service as chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Isaac Herzog brings to the Israeli presidency a profound understanding of and appreciation for the mosaic that is world Jewry in its glory and diversity. I know that he will greatly strengthen the traditional ties that bind the Jews of Israel to their brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, and I look forward to working closely with him on behalf of the Jewish people and in the fight against resurging antisemitism around the world.”
The American Jewish Congress said in a statement that they “warmly congratulate Isaac Herzog upon his election as the 11th President of the State of Israel. President-elect Herzog and his family, particularly his father, former President Chaim Herzog, have greatly contributed to Israel’s advancement and progress. Mr. Herzog is an outstanding leader who will ably serve the State of Israel.
A long-time friend of our organization, President-elect Herzog is positioned like no other leader to lead a highly diverse Israeli society and serve as a truly unifying figure. A committed public servant with vast institutional experience, Mr. Herzog has served the State of Israel in different capacities and roles along the years, including as a legislator in the Israeli Knesset, as leader of various Government Ministries, and most recently as Chairman of the Jewish Agency.
We would like to thank outgoing President Reuven Rivlin for his service and leadership. During his mandate, President Rivlin was able to navigate the challenging international situation for Israel, as well as its complex internal political environment. He proved to be deeply committed to the U.S.-Israel relationship and to furthering Israel’s ties with the global Jewish diaspora.
In these trying times, the American Jewish Congress stands firmly with Israel. We look forward to working with President-elect Herzog in the days ahead.” (World Israel News)
Read more at: worldisraelnews.com
The post Isaac Herzog Chosen as Israel’s 11th President appeared first on The Jewish Voice.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
The head of diversity at the internet giant Google posted an anti-Semitic diatribe on his blog that was revealed Tuesday by the Washington Free Beacon.
“If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself,’ wrote Bobb, who was hired by Google in 2017 with the title of Global Lead for Diversity Strategy and Research.
The Free Beacon‘s senior investigative reporter Alana Goodman discovered the comments on Bobb’s website from a 2007 post.
The people at Google who hired Bobb apparently missed his posting entitled “If I Were A Jew” , which was still on his personal website as of June 2021.
Bobb’s post began, “If I were a Jew today, my sensibilities would be tormented. I would find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the long cycles of oppression that Jewish people have endured and the insatiable appetite for vengeful violence that Israel, my homeland, has now acquired.”
Bobb’s one-sided diatribe that had no context relating to the attacks on Israel by the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas terror groups occurring around the time he penned it.
“My greatest torment would be that I’ve misinterpreted the identity offered by my history and transposed spiritual and human compassion with self righteous impunity,” Bobb concluded.
The Free Beacon‘s expose on Bobb elicited harsh reactions.
“Google must fire this anti-Semite Kamau Bobb,” tweeted the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the human rights organization that fights racism and anti-Semitism.
“All of this begs the question whether (1) Google did due diligence when selecting Kamau Bobb for the sensitive position … and (2) whether he should remain in these positions,” tweeted Michael Dickson, Executive Director of the pro-Israel organization Stand With Us.
“‘If I Were A Jew’ … makes revolting, and anti-Semitic, comparisons between Nazi actions and that of the world’s only Jewish country. He portrays Jews as bloodthirsty,” said Dickson.
Goodman noted that the revelation of Bobb’s post “is likely to cast a new light on Google’s diversity strategy in the wake of demands from a group of employees that the company cancel its business contracts in Israel and publicly condemn Israel’s military defense operations in Gaza.”
The reporter noted that while Google has publicly supported diversity issues in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, the company has not commented on the recent spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes across America.
The post Google Diversity Chief Accused Jews of ‘Insatiable Appetite for Killing’ appeared first on The Jewish Voice.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, in March 2020, received an email from Erik Nilsen, the Co-Founder & Interim CEO at Bio-Signal Technologies, regarding likely information about the coronavirus, to which Fauci responded, saying the email was “too long for me to read.”
Bio-Signal Technologies, which Nilsen works for, is a Texas-based startup that develops sophisticated tools for neuroscience research and applications of neuroprosthetics and brain-machine interfaces (BMIs). The email contained valuable information that Fauci seemed to discount due to his lack of patience reading a long email.
Nilsen said in the email, he was a physicist and had been modeling the outbreak since January. He continued to add that he has “been communicating with quite a few people around the world including an NYU epidemiologist.” The physicist mentioned that he has “lots of information about China” because of his “business, scientific, friendship, and other ties with many there, including immunologists & virologists at top-tier institutions and laboratories.”
He explained that his WeChat account was blocked by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for 3 days, at the time, around late February or early March.
Nilsen noted that he is willing to share the information he attached in the body of the email.
Fauci responded: “Too long for me to read.”
Parts of the information he had was about the death rate in China.
I want to emphasize that I do not believe China intentionally did this to harm the world. I sincerely believe it was done for saving- face reasons. Saving face is possibly the most powerful motivating force in China. it is the key to understanding how most Chinese think and why they do what they do. China wanted the world to believe that their Herculean quarantining efforts contained the outbreak. However, I don’t think this is true, even after spraying ~billions of gallons of “Clorox” all the country. The number of body bags my contacts told me about about, even after short 15-minutes walk to/from grocery stores in one city during CCP-authorized time slots, suggest the number of deaths is several orders of magnitude larger than what China’s posted data indicates.
…
Several of my sources have told me, in coded language, that the situation in at least Wuhan is not under control at all. In my opinion, China is continues to be extremely concerned about saving face (first) and their economy (second). Their economy is already suffering terribly, and they can’t afford to lose the many large manufacturing and other business agreements with foreign countries. This is why I believe they’re trying, and succeeding to convince many, to convince most of their population that the outbreak is under control, and it will soon be ok to return to work — even though it will not be safe, because of current outbreak and outbreak # 2 that will likely start soon. Citizens are not allowed to travel beyond a few stores and, in special cases, their work office, so even people who live their have no idea what’s really going on especially in Hubei province including Wuhan.
In the newly released email was obtained by BuzzFeed News from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
BuzzFeed reported Fauci declined to comment on the story that encompasses this email.
Fauci has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984
Breitbart
The post Anthony Fauci: Email About China Covering Up Coronavirus Death Rate Was ’Too Long’ to Read appeared first on The Jewish Voice.
Here are the top stories for Wed., June 2nd: Biden touts incentives to boost vaccination rate; Biden to raise issue of cyberattacks with Russia; Hamas fighters parade in Gaza City; Legendary college coach announces retirement plans.
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A central Florida sheriff says his deputies did everything they could to de-escalate after a 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy broke into a home, found weapons and repeatedly fired at officers. (June 2)
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