Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) leave the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, March 15, 2023. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
Former President Donald Trump’s supporters should be able to protest “peacefully” if Trump is arrested for his involvement in possibly paying hush money during his 2016 presidential campaign, Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday.
Trump’s supporters, “have First Amendment rights, and they should be able to exercise those peacefully,” Kelly (D-Ariz.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” But law enforcement officials should be prepared to “make sure it doesn’t rise to the level of violence,” he added.
Kelly pointed out that levying charges against the former president would be “unprecedented,” acknowledging that “there’s certainly risks involved” in doing so. However, “we’re a country of laws and nobody is above the law,” Kelly said.
[ad_2]
#Trumps #supporters #protest #peacefully #Democratic #Sen #Mark #Kelly
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The current Senate Democratic discord is especially acute because the caucus had the numbers to block the 2018 effort — but under heavy pressure to cut a deal to help community banks in an election year, 17 of them supported it. The collapse of two banks with roughly $300 billion in total assets over the past week has animated those internal divisions among Democratic senators, who usually pride themselves on policy unity. And it starkly contrasts with Senate Republicans, who uniformly supported the last big banking bill.
Asked whether he regretted his vote, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) told reporters: “No. I voted for a bill that was a bipartisan compromise.”
“Sometimes members choose policy positions and wait to see if history serves them,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who opposed the legislation. “Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.”
In case it was unclear, he added: “I was on the right side of it.”
Republicans instantly ruled out passing new bank regulations on Tuesday, arguing federal regulators are already empowered to increase scrutiny of those banks. So Democrats will have to decide whether it’s worth taking their internal fight to the Senate floor again.
Several Democrats said they want to see either repeal of the 2018 legislation or other tougher laws. But at the moment there is no apparent solution that would get 51 Democratic votes, much less the 60 senators needed to vault a filibuster.
“We’re going to try,” Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told reporters. But he added that “I don’t know how we do a legislative fix.”
Exacerbating the internal fight: Democrats don’t agree whether the rollback was actually to blame for the present bank failures. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who cut that 2018 deal with Republican Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho.), said in an interview Tuesday that he stands by his vote and disagrees with those blaming his legislation: “I don’t see it the same way. If you read the bill, you’ll know that it doesn’t let them off.”
“Would I vote the same way [today]? Yes,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats and voted in favor of the 2018 legislation. “Because of the important help to smaller banks and community banks; that was my mission.”
The 2018 law peeled back parts of Dodd-Frank to exempt smaller banks from federally administered “stress tests” that weighed their ability to weather economic downturns. Its enactment meant Dodd-Frank’s stricter federal oversights only applied to a handful of bigger banks.
And the issue is already becoming a cudgel in Senate races. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who is running for the Arizona Senate seat, went after Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) for her vote in support of the 2018 law, calling the votes the “most salient example of how we’re different.” Of the most vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection next fall, Brown, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania opposed the 2018 law, while Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Tester and Sinema supported it.
“It was obviously a mistake,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), another incumbent senator, who missed the 2018 vote but criticized the bill then. “It was ill-advised, these are big banks … and they need to have some backstops.”
Asked whether he sensed a divide among Senate Democrats, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) replied: “That question answers itself. Because there were some in 2018 who thought it was a good idea … and I put myself in that category; I was listening to my community banks.”
Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, both of which qualified for the 2018 exemption, had lobbied hard for the measure by assuring lawmakers they were not big enough to pose systemic risk. Yet federal authorities cited that exact problem on Sunday when they announced they would backstop all of Silicon Valley Bank’s deposits after it collapsed thanks to a large-scale run.
“Working together, a good job — a miraculous job — has been done to stem the possibility of systemic risk,” Rep. Maxine Waters said in an interview. The Californian is the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and opposed the 2018 law.
She also warned against jumping to conclusions on whether congressional action had prompted the bank failures: “I don’t know what could be said about what has happened here with this; the collapse of Silicon Valley as it relates to Dodd-Frank.”
As it stands, the toughest regulations apply only to banks with more than $250 billion in assets. Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank held around $209 billion and $110 billion, respectively, when regulators took over. Summing up the back and forth, Warren said midsize banks were acting like “little community banks, and should be only lightly regulated. That was laughable on its face.”
It’s made a painful issue for Democrats for years now, ever since a group of party centrists went around Brown, then the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, to cut a deal with Republicans. Brown said on Bloomberg Radio on Tuesday that some Democrats “don’t fight hard enough,” but then he went into peacemaking mode.
“I think that it’s been illuminating to a lot of people,” Brown told reporters later. “I think all the Democrats [now] realize we need stronger rules.”
Even with their entrenched positions, Democratic senators are trying to avoid a replay of the backbiting five years ago when Warren called out her colleagues that supported deregulation in a fundraising email. That move prompted a contentious meeting among Democratic chiefs of staff in which Dan Geldon, then Warren’s top aide, cited nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warnings that more bank failures could result from rolling back Dodd-Frank, according to three people familiar with the meeting.
Geldon argued at the time that Warren was fighting on principle and not just to target other senators, while aides to senators that supported the bank bill blanched at her tactics and said they were merely reacting to banks back in their states, according to those three people.
Now Democrats can at least face that dispute from the majority, when they’re able to choose what comes to the floor. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been careful about how he characterizes a potential congressional response, saying Capitol Hill will “look closely” at next steps. He opposed the bank bill five years ago.
New Hampshire Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen both said they’d be willing to reexamine the 2018 law, which both supported, if investigations find that was the cause of the failures. But they evinced no regrets about their position.
“The reality is, it was very bad management at SVB. And you can’t fix that with any regulation,” Shaheen said.
[ad_2]
#Bank #failures #revive #bitter #Senate #Democratic #infighting
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“It’s been a joke that the only advice on how to raise more money online is to endorse the furthest left policy,” Karp said in an interview. “And for some candidates, that might be OK, but for many it’s not.”
They entered a crowded Democratic digital fundraising world where high-profile campaigns have seen immense fundraising success over the past few election cycles, with mixed electoral results. Amid that landscape is some reckoning with the ways in which the constant stream of fundraising texts and emails may have some negative impact on donor and voter morale, although such effects are difficult to measure.
Democratic campaigns have raised record sums online over the last few cycles. In the 10 most competitive U.S. Senate races in 2022, Democratic candidates outraised their Republican counterparts. But while the party’s donor base — which runs to the left of the Democratic party as a whole — has helped fuel campaigns across the country, the emphasis on raising money can also come at a cost if the tactics that may allow candidates to bring in big bucks are not aligned with those to help them win over voters in their state or district.
“What we’re aiming to do is raise money in a way that doesn’t pose electoral risks,” Carroll said.
The trio pointed to a need for greater integration between digital fundraising and other components of a campaign. Email lists, Carroll noted, should be treated not as a “piggy bank” but a list of committed followers, who might appreciate campaign updates and news clips. Donors, he added, are people who campaigns need to think of as potential volunteers and eventual voters as well.
Campaigns have a range of ways of getting their message out, including fundraising texts and emails, paid advertising and earned media. In some cases, those operations are run separately from one another. But voters and donors who are on the receiving end of constant communications do not necessarily distinguish between the ways they hear about a candidate, noted Hughes. And donors are more likely to donate to candidates who share a compelling story and build a brand, not just those who send the most emails or text messages.
“These people who are experiencing your email program are also experiencing what they’re seeing on MSNBC, they’re also experiencing the contact that they’re getting at the doors,” Hughes said. “And it’s important to treat them that way.”
[ad_2]
#Democratic #digital #firm #candidate #fundraising #annoying
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
To sell the new policies to voters, as well as the mental health and homelessness advocates who have overwhelmingly panned them, lawmakers have employed a strikingly similar vocabulary to the one advocates used in the 1960s and 1970s to empty psychiatric institutions across the U.S. They speak of a moral responsibility to provide a compassionate response to inhumane conditions.
“We have to stop allowing individuals to essentially kill themselves on the street,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, said last year when she was campaigning.
“It is not acceptable for us to see someone who clearly needs help and walk past,” Adams, a retired NYPD captain, said during a November press conference announcing his policy directive. “If severe mental illness is causing someone to be unsheltered and a danger to themselves, we have a moral obligation to help them get the treatment and care they need.”
Still, the anti-crime undertones are clear.
“You can’t effectively have public safety without adequate mental health care — the two go hand-in-hand,” New York City Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks III said in a statement accompanying Adams’ November announcement. “For too long, public safety personnel’s hands have been tied in getting those in need care before they hurt themselves or others,” said Banks, another former NYPD leader and close confidant of the mayor.
Critics of the new policies argue that people who are unhoused and living with serious mental illnesses are more likely to be the victims of a crime than the perpetrators. But murders and shootings surged during the worst of the pandemic, and New Yorkers became fixated on whether they could take the subway without feeling threatened, said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic political consultant.
“There’s a relationship between chaos and crime in the eyes of voters,” Sheinkopf, whose clients included Bill Clinton and Michael Bloomberg, said in an interview. “The politics are governing the response, not great social policy.”
The policy shift — and the language around it — point to the rising influence of the Treatment Advocacy Center, an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit started in 1998 to reform states’ civil commitment laws so people with severe mental health concerns receive treatment before they harm themselves or others.
Over 30 states have reformed their civil commitment laws with support from the group, according to its website. An ongoing $13.4 million federal grant program to help local mental health systems establish court-ordered outpatient treatment programs, which launched in 2016, has its roots in a Treatment Advocacy Center policy recommendation. And the group even has a three-person implementation department that has advised recipients on how to spend the grants.
The organization’s influence has been even more direct in New York City, where its former policy director, Brian Stettin, is the mayor’s senior adviser on severe mental illness. Stettin authored Adams’ recent policy directive.
Stettin said the administration recruited him after he penned a New York Daily News op-ed advising Adams to broadly interpret the state’s civil commitment laws as including “any individual whose untreated mental illness prevents them from meeting basic survival needs.” Previously, the law targeted people who posed a risk to themselves or others. Adams called him the day the piece ran, Stettin said.
“There’s a widespread view among some people who make policy in this area that recovery must always be self-directed and we have to wait for people to recognize they need treatment,” Stettin said in an interview.
“I think that if you go about mental health reform with that in mind — that it’s only a question of creating resources for people to take advantage of — you’re going to miss opportunities to help the most vulnerable people,” he added.
[ad_2]
#Democratic #mayors #lead #correction #psychiatric #commitments
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Judith Whitmer, the insurgent party chair who wrested control of the party from mainstream Democrats, is facing a challenge in her reelection campaign next month amid doubts from her own former supporters and accusations that she abandoned her progressive principles. And even key figures in Bernie world — including Sanders himself — say they are unhappy and embittered by what’s transpired.
“The senator is pretty disappointed in Judith’s chairmanship, specifically around her failure to build a strong grassroots movement in the state,” said a person familiar with Sanders’ thinking. “A lot of us feel sad about what could have been. It was a big opportunity for Bernie-aligned folks in the state to prove some of the folks in the establishment wrong. And that hasn’t happened.”
The situation has left the Sanders coalition in Nevada fragmented right at the onset of the critical 2024 election. And it has set off larger debates about what, exactly, the progressive movement should be doing during the twilight of the senator’s career. There is even talk that it might simply be a waste of time for the progressives to win control of a state party’s machinery.
“There just has been a complete lack of competence or ability to accomplish anything significant,” said Peter Koltak, a Democratic strategist and former Nevada senior adviser for Sanders’ 2020 campaign, of the current state party leadership. “Look, there’s a lot of well-meaning activists involved there, but they don’t understand the ins and outs of how you build modern campaigns.”
In an interview, Whitmer expressed surprise over Sanders’ disappointment, pointing to a meeting she had earlier this year with him: “I think he would have said to me, ‘Hey Judith, I’m disappointed in what you’re doing’ if that was actually a true statement.”
But even for the most optimistic-minded liberal in the state, the state of disarray among the progressive movement in Nevada represents a shocking turnaround from 2021.
Back then, former Sanders aides, members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and other progressives united to elect Whitmer after working on Sanders’ win in the Nevada presidential caucus a year earlier. Sanders was part of the effort, sending texts from his political committee to encourage people to run for party posts and later fundraised for the state party. At the time, Whitmer promised to make the state party “accountable to the people,” revamp its get-out-the-vote efforts, and leverage the national party to make Nevada the first-in-the-nation primary.
The state party didn’t take Whitmer’s victory lightly. Shortly before it was sealed, party staff in an apparent act of protest moved hundreds of thousands of dollars from their own coffers to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and later quit their positions. Once Whitmer took her post, the Reid machine circumvented the state party and set up a coordinated campaign out of a local party in the state’s second-biggest county. Officials insisted it was necessary because Whitmer lacked experience in winning battleground elections.
“The previous administration pretty much burnt the house down,” said Whitmer. “When we got the keys, there was a lot of reorganization that had to be done. Records were missing and money had been transferred out.”
Whitmer’s critics — including those in the progressive wing — counter that any failures were largely hers. They accused her of having poor relationships with elected officials, of being a poor fundraiser, of failing to build the grassroots organizing infrastructure she promised, and of antagonizing leaders in the party.
They’ve bashed her over the state party’s decision to back a sheriff who appeared to support chokeholds as well as a lieutenant governor candidate, Debra March, who primaried the sitting Democratic lieutenant governor, who had been appointed by then-Gov. Steve Sisolak. They also accused her of trying to rig the March 4 election for state party chair by removing members from the state central committee, which chooses the chair.
Nevada was the lone state where the incumbent governor — a Democrat — lost in 2022. Beyond Sisolak’s defeat, Whitmer’s critics note that Nevada did not get the No. 1 spot in the Democrats’ new presidential nominating calendar.
“They had to create a separate coordinated campaign, which I think created a lot of confusion for a few months. And it wasn’t as united as it could have been,” said Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, a Sanders-supporting Democrat who ran against Whitmer in 2021. “[Sisolak] lost by a very small minority. If we could have gotten our voter registration or get-out-the-vote efforts sooner, he could have won.”
The state’s Democratic senators, House members and other statewide officials have endorsed Whitmer’s opponent, Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, who is challenging her for the state chair post.
But it’s not just establishment types who have gripes. Kara Hall, a leader in the Las Vegas chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, said Whitmer also hasn’t kept up relationships on the left. “She never once after she was elected spoke out and talked to the chapter,” Hall said.
The Las Vegas DSA, which played a key role in helping elect Whitmer two years ago, announced in a scathing statement this month that it was not backing her reelection.
“This is our lesson, and we hope socialists everywhere will pay close attention: the Democratic Party is a dead end,” it read. “It is a ‘party’ in name only; truly, it is simply a tangled web of dark money and mega-donors, cynical consultants, and lapdog politicians.”
Whitmer defended her tenure to POLITICO, arguing that she was elected to make change and delivered, providing party infrastructure to rural areas, raising money through small-dollar donations, and holding legislative roundtable sessions. She also said the state party successfully ran a mailer program for federal candidates and made over 1 million direct voter contacts.
“The state party has never invested resources in rural communities,” she said. “We actually provided resources and sent computer equipment and printers to each one of our rural county parties.”
Whitmer also shot back at critics who said she is rigging the chair election, describing the removal of committee members who have not attended recent meetings as “standard practice.”
As for the state party’s backing of March for lieutenant governor, she said that initially took place at a time when the Sisolak team had told her that he would not make an appointment. (A source on the Sisolak campaign said the governor never publicly decided to not appoint someone.) Whitmer said the party supported Kevin McMahill, the sheriff candidate, as a way to “keep extremists out of office.”
As Whitmer sees it, the criticism she endured from her own progressive brethren was not because she abandoned principles but because she opted to work within political realities.
“They really did not want to do electoral politics,” she said. “They wanted to work outside of the current electoral system. As the state party chair, I can’t do that. I can’t work outside of the system itself. I represent the Democratic Party. I don’t represent the DSA.”
Hall, the DSA leader, disputed Whitmer’s contention that the group was opposed to electoral politics, pointing out that the local chapter voted to make electoral research and recruitment a priority. But she said she now views the Democratic Party as a dead end not because of Whitmer or even the breakdown of their relationship.
“It has more to do with how the establishment reacted” to Whitmer’s victory, she said. “We did it the right way. We took seats on the [state central committee]. We got elected. We voted. We out-organized them. And then they just set up shop somewhere else. What I think about it is they’ll always do that.”
While the disappointment with Whitmer has left the future of the Nevada Democratic Party in a state of deep uncertainty, it has also sparked broader questions. For veterans of the Reid machine, those questions center on how to maneuver in the critical 2024 cycle without fracturing the party further. For Bernie followers, it’s whether it’s even worthwhile to take control of state parties at all.
“I think this is a lesson learned that that’s maybe not the best use of time,” said a former Sanders staffer in Nevada, who added that the progressive movement in the state has now been set back. “It really feels like any efforts to elect progressive or left-wing candidates here is back to square one. Whereas when Judith was coming into this role, there really was a foundation that could have continued to be built upon.”
[ad_2]
#Sanders #supporters #Nevada #Democratic #Party
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Washington: As the US focuses on the Indo-Pacific, in particular the Quad, the Biden administration needs to address India’s ties with Russia and its “downward trend of democratic values and institutions”, said a report by the Democratic Party of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
The report has called for supporting a strong and democratic India.
Senate Foreign Affairs Chairman Senator Robert Menendez Thursday said the US needs to approach the Indo-Pacific with a well-resourced, whole-of-government approach that synchronizes the military-security elements with diplomatic, economic, and civil society elements to ensure the greatest chance of success.
The “Strategic Alignment: The Imperative of Resourcing the Indo-Pacific Strategy”, a Majority Staff Report, was released by Menendez on Thursday.
“I believe that President Biden’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, released one year ago, adopts this whole-of-government approach. If fully equipped with the tools that it needs to be successful, this strategy will underpin the United States’ leadership in the most consequential and dynamic region of the world in the 21st century,” he said.
The report said the Biden administration was correct not to make its Indo-Pacific strategy solely about competition with the People’s Republic of China. But to succeed, it has to grapple with the realities of this competition for the US and the challenges it poses for its regional allies and partners, it said.
In its seventh and last recommendation, the Major Staff Report calls for supporting a strong and democratic India.
“Even as the administration rightly treats India as an important security partner, it will need to address the very real complications of India’s continued ties with, and dependence on, Russia for defence equipment and its recent downward trend of democratic values and institution,” it said.
According to the report, the United States and China vie for the position of India’s largest trading partner.
India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry reported in June 2022 that trade with the US exceeded that of China, an important marker in the increasingly close ties between Washington and New Delhi, the report noted
“Indeed, the relationship between the world’s two largest democracies has been on an upward trajectory for more than two decades, overcoming Cold War antagonism and division over India’s nuclear programme and the country’s testing of a nuclear device in 1998,” it said.
Security ties have deepened dramatically in recent years as both countries are increasingly concerned about the implications of a more assertive China, the report said.
“The US and India are now major defence partners and the two countries have launched a new Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies to enhance cooperation on quantum computing, 5G and 6G networks, space, semiconductors, biotech, and artificial intelligence.”
The report follows up on Chairman Menendez’s 2014 Democratic Staff report, which underscored the importance of increasing diplomatic and development resources in the region.
It offers a comprehensive examination of US diplomatic and development agencies’ investment in the Indo-Pacific region since 2014. It also makes a series of recommendations to advance the administration’s capacity to meet the IPS’ objectives and to enhance US national and economic security.
“In the nine years, two administrations, and numerous strategies since my last report, little progress has been made to advance US diplomacy and development efforts in the Indo-Pacific, all while the PRC continues to expand its influence through aggressive impositions on states’ sovereignty, localized disinformation campaigns, and predatory economic investments,” Menendez said.
“If we are serious about advancing US interests in Asia and competing with the PRC (People’s Republic of China), we must match ambitious policy with ambitious resourcing,” he said.
The report recommends that the Biden Administration must significantly increase funding for diplomatic and development agencies across the US government and dedicate a larger portion of the Department of State operating budget and Washinton’s foreign assistance to advance priorities in the Indo-Pacific.
Congress should be made an active partner to ensure sufficient allocation of resources to the Indo-Pacific, to provide new authorities if and when needed, and to engage in effective oversight, it said.
The Indo-Pacific Strategy must include a substantive and action-oriented economic agenda that is commensurate with US interests and responsive to our allies’ and partners’ calls for increased US economic engagement, it said.
Seeking to deepen engagement with the United States’ network of allies and partners across the region, the report says that the US and its partners must strive to provide alternative financing and economic development projects to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Digital Silk Road.
New York: The US House of Representatives has ousted Ilhan Omar, a Democratic Party legislator from the influential Foreign Affairs Committee.
The House voted on Thursday mainly for her bigoted comments against Jews to remove her from the committee that she had used before to campaign against India.
The vote was on party lines, 218 to 211, in the House that was captured in last year’s election by the Republican Party.
The Democratic Party leadership and members were solidly behind her.
Fellow Democrat Pramila Jayapal, the leader of the Progressive Caucus who is also a critic of India, in a voice filled with emotion said that voting her out of the panel was an attempt to silence her “strong and necessary voice” and an act of revenge by the Republicans.
A defiant Omar said, “We didn’t come to Congress to be silent”, and added that despite the ouster, “my voice will get louder and stronger”.
Republican Mike Lawler countered that rhetoric aceleads to harm” and Omar “is being held accountable for her words and her actions”.
The US has seen a rise in attacks against and harassment of Jewish people and the Anti-Defamation League which monitors such incidents said they reached an all-time high with 2,717 incidents recorded in 2021.
Omar is a member of the left-wing wing of the Democratic Party and one of the four in the radical group called the “Squad”.
One of three Muslims in Congress, she represents a constituency in Minnesota with a large number of immigrants from Somalia like her.
Two months after a visit to Pakistan and to the part of Kashmir it occupies, she introduced in June last year a resolution in Congress to condemn India for what she termed “human rights violations and violations of international religious freedom”.
That resolution, which drew the support of 12 Democrats, failed to even come up for a vote.
During her visit to Pakistan, she had gone close to the Line of Control and complained that Kashmir was not “being talked about to the extent it needs to in Congress but also with the administration”.
She met with Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif, whose office said that he valued her “courage of convictions and her political struggle”.
Omar also voted in 2019 against a bill that would have cut for Indians the waiting time for permanent residency or Green Cards that stretches to several decades making the wait futile for many.
In one of the last bid attempts to save her from ouster, an op-ed was published in The New York Times highlighting her opposition to India in what the writer, New York City University Professor Peter Beinart, called an example of her asking “uncomfortable questions”.
In the encounter with Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman at a committee meeting cited in the article, Omar let loose a propaganda salvo likening the democratically elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who had ousted a democratically elected government in a military coup and killed thousands and tortured and detained tens of thousands.
She was critical of US policies to forge closer ties with India to counter China.
It was Omar’s record of anti-Semitism – a characteristic often shared by those who are also anti-India – that did her in when the protective mantle of the Democratic majority disappeared in the House.
Among her controversial statements, one said, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel”.
Alluding to supporters of Israel, she spoke of those with “the allegiance to a foreign country”.
She suggested that Jewish people were buying support for Israel in a tweet that said, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby”, which is a reference to $100 notes that carry the picture of Benjamin Franklin and anti-Semites the name to link it to the Biblical Jewish sacred figure.
She has also compared Israel to the Taliban in a statement with other Democrats.
The Democrats set a precedent when held the House majority by removing two Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, from House committees accusing them of promoting violence.
At that time Kevin McCarthy, who is now the speaker, warned that he would remove Omar and another Democrat, Eric Swalwell from committees when his party controlled the House.
Last week, McCarthy removed from the House Intelligence Committee Swalwell and Adam Schiff, who had been its head when the Democrats controlled the Hous — leading to Jayapal’s accusation of “revenge”.
An alleged Chinese operative Fang Fang had placed an intern in Swalwell’s office and participated in raising funds for his campaign, which was a likely reason for his removal.
McCarthy alleged that Schiff had misused his office while heading the intelligence panel and created misinformation against Trump.
Srinagar, Jan 28: Member of Parliament and General Secretary Incharge Communication, AICC, Jairam Ramesh Saturday said that the restoration of democratic process and Statehood are the utmost priority in Jammu and Kashmir.
“The Bharat Jodo Yatra is not about the alliance between the political parties. It has nothing to do with the elections and other related process. The yatra is meant to make a platform for 2024,” he said while addressing a news conference today at PCC headquarters in Srinagar.
He said that the security arrangements unlike yesterday were adequate. He further added that the restoration of democratic process and restoration of Statehood is the utmost priority at present.
Ramesh further said that of total 136 days, Rahul Gandhi led yatra marched 4080 kilometers in 116 days in which the people from different walks of the life participated and extended their support.
In J&K also, the yatra was held in five districts each in Jammu and Kashmir while a main and culmination function will be held on January 30 and flag hoisting ceremony will be done at PCC headquarters in Srinagar. He further said that the main function will be held at Sher-e-Kashmir Stadium here in Srinagar—(KNO)
