Palm Desert

Mom held as sex slave for month after she and baby kidnapped from driveway, NC cops say

The man tased her, sexually assaulted her and held her at gunpoint, according to police.

It looks like the Russians are trying to hide the truth about that nuclear accident in Nyonoksa

Evidence is mounting that Russia may be covering up a tragic nuclear accident after a mysterious blast killed seven at a military-weapons testing site.

Tourists who stole sand from beach in Sardinia could face up to six years in prison

A pair of tourists face up to six years in prison after allegedly stealing a large quantity of sand from the pristine beaches of Sardinia. The French couple were found to have nearly 40kg (90lb) of fine white sand in the boot of their car. The vehicle was stopped during a routine check by border police as the tourists were preparing to board a ferry in Porto Torres, on the north coast of the island, bound for Toulon in France. The sand was found in 14 large plastic bottles and had been taken from a beach near Chia in southern Sardinia. The couple told police that they had no idea they were breaking the law, but they now face between one and six years in jail. The island has battled for years to stop tourists from pinching its sand, shells and pebbles, which are prized as souvenirs or in some cases, for indoor aquariums. WWF has run a campaign against 'beach thieves', reminding tourists that taking sand from Sardinia's shoreline is a crime To try to stop the pillaging, some locals have taken on the role of self-appointed guardians of the beaches. If they see tourists taking sand or shells, they ask them to return the material. If that does not work, they call the police or national park rangers. One of them, Pina Careddu, told an Italian newspaper on Monday that visitors sometimes become rude and aggressive when challenged. “A family of Germans were filling up some bottles with sand. I recorded them on my phone so they couldn’t deny it. The father came towards me in a threatening manner. But in the end he tipped the sand back onto the beach,” Mrs Careddu, 58, told Corriere della Sera. Dubbed “the granny sheriff” of the Sinis peninsula, on the west coast of the island, she is strict even with her grandchildren. “They say, ‘Nana, can’t we take some pebbles home to play with?’ And I say no, if everyone did that, soon there would be no beach left.”

Planned Parenthood Refuses Title X Funding in Response to Trump Administration Restrictions

Planned Parenthood will refuse all Title X funding rather than comply with the Trump administration's restrictions governing the discussion of abortion at clinics that participate in the program, the group announced Monday.Planned Parenthood decided to abandon Title X, which accounts for roughly 15 percent of its overall federal funding each year, in response to a Trump administration rule barring clinics that participate in the program from referring women to abortion providers.“When you have an unethical rule that will limit what providers can tell our patients, it becomes really important that we not agree to be in the program. But to be clear we’re doing that because we’re being forced out,” the group said in a Monday statement. “Trump’s administration is trying to force us to keep information from our patients. The gag rule is unethical, dangerous, and we will not subject our patients to it.”Prior to its withdrawal, Planned Parenthood was receiving $60 million of the $286 million allocated annually through Title X. The organization will continue to receive roughly $500 million in annual Medicaid reimbursements from the federal government.A federal appeals court ruled in July that the Trump administration's rule change could take effect while a lawsuit, brought by Planned Parenthood and other groups in February, runs its course. The Department of Health and Human Services then gave Planned Parenthood until August 19 to submit a plan demonstrating that it would make “good faith efforts” to comply with the new rule. Planned Parenthood requested a stay from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week that would have delayed the rule-implementation deadline its legal challenge was resolved, but the court rejected that request.The March for Life, a leading pro-life advocacy group, suggested that Planned Parenthood's decision confirmed the group prioritizes abortion over women's health care. Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood fired its president, Leana Wen, after less than a year, for being insufficiently zealous in her defense of abortion rights.“Planned Parenthood, our nation’s largest abortion provider, today made a choice not to separate its abortion operation from Title X services, and in doing [so] declined Title X funding, which makes up approximately four percent of their annual budget,” said March for Life president Jeanne Mancini. “Abortion is neither healthcare nor family planning and taxpayer dollars should not support abortion. Leana Wen’s recent firing and Planned Parenthood’s decision today doubles down on their ultimate goal, which is political abortion advocacy, not healthcare.”

Sudan's Bashir got $90 mn from Saudi, investigator tells court

Sudan's deposed military ruler Omar al-Bashir has admitted to receiving $90 million in cash from Saudi royals, an investigator told a Khartoum court on Monday. Police Brigadier Ahmed Ali said at the opening of Bashir's corruption trial, which an AFP correspondent attended, that the former president told him that the latest payment was "delivered by some of Mohammed bin Salman's envoys". Bashir, whose military Islamist regime ruled Sudan for 30 years, arrived at the Judicial and Legal Science Institute where the trial is taking place in a huge military convoy.

White House economic adviser: 'I sure don't see a recession'

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow dismissed fears about a possible recession after a roller-coaster week for stocks.

I've treated suicidal prisoners — Jeffrey Epstein's death is a medical, security disgrace

No matter what happened in Jeffrey Epstein's cell, medical personnel and prison authorities clearly failed in their duty to monitor and treat him.

Mountain lion attacks Colorado hunter armed with just a pocket knife, officials say

A Colorado man was scouting spots to hunt elk earlier this month when he became prey himself, according to state wildlife officials.

Florida 'stand your ground' trial begins for deadly dispute over handicapped parking spot

The manslaughter trial for Michael Drejka, the man involved in a deadly dispute over a handicapped parking spot in Florida, was set to begin Monday.

John Hickenlooper is out of the 2020 presidential race. That's good news for these 3 Democratic candidates

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper's exit from presidential race means other candidates have an opportunity to win over his supporters.

Iran tanker heads to Greece, Iran warns U.S. against seizure bid

An Iranian tanker at the center of an angry confrontation between Iran and Washington sailed for Greece on Monday after it was freed from detention off Gibraltar, as Tehran said any U.S. move to seize the vessel again would have "heavy consequences". While Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif appeared to downplay the possibility of military conflict with Washington in an interview on U.S. television, he also indicated on a visit to Finland that Washington was seeking "more escalation".

Couple who ran a home for troubled boys charged with trafficking children, forced labor

A husband and wife who ran a home for troubled boys in Texas have been arrested a year after the home was raided and eight boys were removed, reports say.

'Nightmare' as Egypt aided China to detain Uighurs

Abdulmalik Abdulaziz, an Uighur student, was arrested and handcuffed by Egyptian police and when they removed his blindfold he was surprised to see Chinese officials questioning him in custody. "They never said their names or mentioned who they were exactly," said Abdulaziz, 27, who spoke to AFP helping to uncover new details of the 2017 arrests of over 90 Uighurs from the mostly Muslim Turkic minority. Abdulaziz, like most swept up in the three-day crackdown in the first week of July 2017, was an Islamic theology student at Al-Azhar, the Sunni Muslim world's most prestigious educational institution.

Dick Cheney to appear at Trump 2020 fundraiser as Republican establishment bows to president

Former vice president Dick Cheney will appear at a fundraiser for Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, according to an invitation for the event, in a sign that the Republican establishment will publicly back his re-election bid.Mr Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 as an outsider and has often clashed with senior figures in the party, such as Mitt Romney and the late John McCain.However, an invitation to a luncheon fundraiser in Jackson, Wyoming, shows Mr Cheney will appear alongside Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, according to The Washington Post.He will attend the event with his daughter Liz Cheney, who is a Republican congresswoman for Wyoming, for the fundraising group “Trump Victory”.Mr Cheney, who was George W Bush‘s vice president, previously said Mr Trump’s 2015 call for a “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” went “against everything [America] stands for and believes in”.Earlier this year, Mr Cheney also clashed with Mike Pence, the current vice president, over the administration’s foreign policy, criticising Mr Trump’s hard-line approach towards US allies in Nato.The invitation reportedly does not list the official titles of Mr Mulvaney, Ms Trump or Mr Kushner and insists that “their participation in the event is not a solicitation of funds”.Officials for the Trump campaign confirmed the event but would not say how much tickets would cost.Trump Victory has been known to charge up to six-figure amounts for tickets to its events.“Representative Cheney is honoured to be co-hosting this event and working hard to support President Trump’s re-election,” a spokesperson for Ms Cheney said in a statement. “The president’s policies are benefiting Wyoming and the nation.”The structure of the Trump Victory committee, which raises funds for both the Trump 2020 campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC), has shown how the president has been accepted into the Republican Party’s mainstream.By merging his re-election campaign with the national party, Mr Trump has become less vulnerable to an Republican opponent challenging him in the 2020 primary.However, linking the RNC to Mr Trump’s divisive presidency may be risky in the long-term for the Republican Party.In recent weeks, billionaire Stephen Ross has faced calls for a boycott of his Equinox luxury fitness company over his plans to hold a fundraiser for Mr Trump in the Hamptons.Additional reporting by agencies

Reports of secret US-Venezuela talks to oust Maduro draw skepticism

Claims that Nicolás Maduro’s number two official is working with the US are an attempt to ‘stoke paranoia’, experts sayDiosdado Cabello and Nicolás Maduro. Photograph: ARiana Cubillos/APHe is one of the most influential and infamous figures in Venezuelan politics – a hardcore Chavista who uses his weekly talkshow to preach permanent revolution and excoriate the evil empire up north.But two reports in the American media now suggest Diosdado Cabello, Nicolás Maduro’s number two official, has been engaged in “secret communications” with United States officials designed to force Hugo Chávez’s successor from power.Observers of Venezuelan politics greeted Sunday’s reports – from the Associated Press and Axios – with skepticism.“I’m not convinced it is true,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House thinktank.“I think what the US is trying to do is some sort of psy ops thing, trying to rattle people within Maduro’s administration. They are trying to get inside Maduro’s head and stoke paranoia within the inner-circle,” Sabatini added.“But there’s a whiff of desperation here … the fact that they are talking so openly about it really doesn’t seem to be a particularly good negotiation strategy.”Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, said he did believe there had been exchanges between Cabello and Trump representatives.“But the fact that we now know about them suggests that whatever channel existed has been closed,” he added.Axios claimed that in recent months Cabello, the 56-year-old head of Venezuela’s pro-Maduro constituent assembly, had been communicating with Trump’s top Latin America adviser, Mauricio Claver-Carone. Some Trump officials considered that a positive sign suggesting Maduro’s circle was “gradually cracking”.The Associated Press claimed Cabello had met someone “in close contact with the Trump administration” in Caracas last month and that a second meeting was planned. By engaging with Cabello it said the US hoped to intensify an internal “knife fight” supposedly raging at the pinnacle of Maduro’s administration.Maduro has been fighting for his political life since January when a young opposition leader called Juan Guaidó declared himself Venezuela’s rightful president and received the backing of more than 50 governments, including the US and UK.Cabello has yet to directly address claims he was talking to Washington, although an aide told the Associated Press he would only do so with Maduro’s permission.On Monday Cabello shared a tweet mocking the allegations with his 2.3 million followers. “Diosdado met in SECRET with a gringo SECRET agent to agree a SECRET plan to topple Nicolás, who knows nothing about this, because if he did know it wouldn’t be a SECRET,” it said.Any move to involve Cabello in Venezuela’s post-Maduro political future – or offer him immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes - would be highly controversial among government opponents.“He is widely detested. He’s seen as this central hub of corruption in the regime,” said Ramsey.However, Ramsey said that with Venezuela’s crisis dragging on US officials seemed aware “bitter pills” might have to be swallowed to secure Maduro’s downfall.Sabatini said the suggestion the US was negotiating with a man accused of human rights abuses and “all sorts of illicit activities” was troubling. “Diosdado is probably not a man who should be negotiated or bargained with.”

Police: Fake cop busted pulling over real detectives on Long Island

Nassau County police say Valiery Portlock sounded a horn and flashed emergency lights Friday morning as he an attempt to pull over a van in Hicksville, Long Island.

Customs & Border Patrol agent charged with murdering her husband, deputies say

A Customs and Border patrol agent in Palm Beach County was arrested on murder charges in connection to the death of her husband, a charging affidavit shows.Palm Beach County sheriff deputies charged Marcia Thompson, 39, with second-degree murder with a firearm after authorities say she intentionally shot her husband Terry, 52, with her service weapon nine times.

Waiter shot dead by customer who waited too long for sandwich in France, witnesses say

The unidentified customer shot the waiter in the shoulder with a handgun. The restaurant is in the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Grand.

At least 13 people arrested at Portland, Oregon, protest

Police arrested at least 13 people and seized metal poles, bear spray and other weapons Saturday as hundreds of far-right protesters and anti-fascist counter-demonstrators swarmed downtown Portland, Oregon. "This was a dynamic event with demonstrators frequently moving from one part of the city to another," Mayor Ted Wheeler said at an evening news conference. As of early afternoon, most of the right-wing groups had left the area via a downtown bridge.

Serial killer who murdered SC teen featured on new season of Netflix’s ‘Mindhunter’

He has a long rap sheet of crimes throughout the South, and a controversial connection to a South Carolina murder.

Found: Placer County Sheriff’s Office locates missing Granite Bay boy in nearby car

The Sunday evening search for an 8-year-old boy who went missing for several hours ended when authorities located him inside a vehicle a block away from his Granite Bay home, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office said.

Left Behind: Homeless Crisis in Los Angeles

In the summer of 2019, Fox News embarked on an ambitious project to chronicle the toll progressive policies has had on the homeless crisis in four west coast cities: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore. In each city, we saw a lack of safety, sanitation, and civility. Residents, the homeless and advocates say they've lost faith in their elected officials' ability to solve the issue. Most of the cities have thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem only to watch it get worse. This is what we saw in Los Angeles.

Jordan summons Israel envoy over Jerusalem 'violations'

Jordan summoned Israel's ambassador on Sunday in protest over "violations" at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the foreign ministry said. It summoned envoy Amir Weissbrod to voice its "condemnation and rejection of Israeli violations" at the highly sensitive site, where Israeli security forces clashed with Palestinian worshippers last week. Jordan, the only Arab country apart from Egypt to have a peace agreement with the Jewish state, supervises Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.

TV presenter punched live on air during protest

A journalist was knocked unconscious live on air after being punched in the face while covering a feminist protest.Video footage published by TV network ADM 40 shows reporter Juan Manuel Jimenez speaking to the camera as women yell at him during a march in Mexico City.Mr Jimenez can be seen standing in the middle of the crowd as women throw glitter at him and a woman holding a young girl’s hand shouts into the reporter’s microphone.As the reporter continues speaking to the camera, a man dressed in a white T-shirt and blue baseball cap walks up to him and punches him in the face before calmly walking away.Mr Jimenez can be seen lying on the ground seemingly unconscious as protesters chase after his attacker.At the beginning of the clip, shaky footage also shows another protester with their face covered who appears to grab the journalist and hit him in a separate incident.In other footage shared on social media, news presenter Melissa del Pozo de Milenio of the Milenio Televisión network also appears to be attacked by protesters.The journalist can be seen struggling with a woman dressed in black who has her face covered.The camera then focuses on two women who appear to be stabbing a sign.Demonstrators painted the word “rapists” on the wall of a nearby police station and phrases such as “they don’t take care of us” and “rape state” on Mexico City’s Angel of Independence monument. The feminist protests were triggered by allegations that two teenage girls were raped by a group of policemen.The demonstrations have become known as the “glitter protests” after marchers doused the city’s police chief in pink glitter.Violence against women is a serious problem in Mexico. Human Rights Watch says Mexican laws “do not adequately protect women and girls against domestic and sexual violence”.A 2019 report said provisions in Mexican law, including those that make the severity of punishments for sexual offenses contingent upon the supposed chastity of the victim, “contradict international standards”.Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the first woman elected to head the city’s government, tweeted that the attorney general’s office of the metropolis will investigate and bring charges against those who attacked journalists.

A woman tries to rob Family Dollar — and the cashier responds: ‘Not today,’ cops say

Employees at the Family Dollar in the 5000 block of 14th Street West thwarted a robbery attempt just after 9 p.m. on Sunday, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

Rubio on climate change: 'We should choose adaptive solutions'

Many proposed 'fixes' for climate change have been unrealistic and dangerous. Climate change is a real problem. Real problems deserve real solutions.

China lashes out at Taiwan over Hong Kong asylum offer

China lashed out at Taiwan on Monday over its offer of political asylum to participants in Hong Kong's pro-democracy protest movement, a day after hundreds of thousands of people marched peacefully in the latest massive demonstration in the Chinese territory. The government of Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China considers its own territory, strongly supports the protests, and Hong Kong students in Taiwan held events over the weekend expressing their backing.

How the Government Creates Wealth Inequality

There are economic storm clouds on the horizon, but for now wages are rising, jobs are plentiful, and poverty is falling. Democrats running for president need an economic line of attack, so the solution has been to focus on wealth inequality. Senator Bernie Sanders claims that there has been a “massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top one percent.” Senator Elizabeth Warren lambastes America’s “extreme concentration of wealth.” Even the establishment Joe Biden laments, “This wealth gap that exists in the United States of America is so profound now.”Wealth inequality has risen in recent years, but by far less than the Democrats and many media articles imply. The scarier claims about inequality usually stem from the flawed data created by French economist Thomas Piketty and his colleagues. More careful studies by other economists and the Federal Reserve Board reveal surprisingly modest changes in wealth inequality given the huge revolutions in globalization and technology that have occurred.Are increases in wealth inequality the awful thing that Democrats claim? It depends on what causes them. Much of the recent modest rise in wealth inequality stems from innovations in our economy that are pulling everyone up. Brian Acton and Jan Koum, for example, built huge multibillion dollar fortunes by creating WhatsApp, which provides free phone service for 1.5 billion users globally.Acton and Koum’s success may have increased the wealth owned by the top 1 percent, but their product has created massive consumer value as well. Most of the wealthiest Americans are entrepreneurs who have fueled economic growth, which is clear in examining the Forbes 400 list. Wealth created this way is not the zero-sum struggle that Democrats imagine it is.That is the good news. The bad news is that the government itself generates wealth inequality in at least two ways that make us worse off. First, governments give subsidies, regulatory preferences, and other crony-capitalist benefits to wealthy insiders. In the recent Fat Leonard scandal, for example, Leonard Francis gained hundreds of millions of dollars of government contracts by cozying up to Navy officers and providing them with gifts, prostitutes, and other favors to get them to do his bidding.The other way that the government fuels wealth inequality is a deeper scandal. The expansion of social programs over the decades has undermined incentives for lower- and middle-income families to save while reducing their ability to save because of higher taxes. Government programs have displaced or “crowded out” wealth-building by all American families but the richest.Politicians complain loudly about wealth inequality, but their own policies are generating it. This issue receives too little policy attention, but it is profoundly important and reveals the hypocrisy of the political left.Many Americans have saved little for retirement because Social Security discourages them doing so, as does the heavy 12.4 percent wage tax that funds the program. Economist Martin Feldstein found that every dollar increase in Social Security benefits reduces private savings by about 50 cents.Social Security accounts for a larger share of retirement income for the non-rich than for the rich, so this crowd-out effect increases wealth inequality. In a simulation model, Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence Kotlikoff estimated that Social Security raises the share of overall wealth held by the top 1 percent of wealth holders by about 80 percent. This occurs because the program leaves the non-rich with “proportionately less to save, less reason to save, and a larger share of their old-age resources in a nonbequeathable form.”A study by Baris Kaymak and Markus Poschke built a model of the U.S. economy to estimate the causes of rising wealth inequality. They found that most of the rise in the top 1 percent share of wealth in recent decades was caused by technological changes and wage dispersion, but the expansion of Social Security and Medicare caused about one-quarter of the increase. They concluded that the “redistributive nature of transfer payments was instrumental in curbing wealth accumulation for income groups outside the top 10% and, consequently, amplified wealth concentration in the U.S.”More government benefits result in less private wealth, especially for the non-rich. It is not just Social Security and Medicare that displaces private saving, but also unemployment insurance, welfare, and other social spending. Some social programs have “asset tests” that deliberately discourage saving.Total federal and state social spending as a share of gross domestic product soared from 6.8 percent in 1970 to 14.3 percent in 2018. That increase in handouts occurred over the same period that wealth inequality appears to have increased. Generations of Americans have grown up assuming that the government will take care of them when they are sick, unemployed, and retired, so they put too little money aside for future expenses.Cross-country studies support these conclusions. A 2015 study by Pirmin Fessler and Martin Schurz examined European data and found that “inequality of wealth is higher in countries with a relatively more developed welfare state . . . given an increase of welfare state expenditure, wealth inequality measured by standard relative inequality measures, such as the Gini coefficient, will increase.”A study by Credit Suisse found: “Strong social security programs — good public pensions, free higher education or generous student loans, unemployment and health insurance — can greatly reduce the need for personal financial assets. . . . This is one explanation for the high level of wealth inequality we identify in Denmark, Norway and Sweden: the top groups continue to accumulate for business and investment purposes, while the middle and lower classes have a less pressing need for personal saving.”That is why it is absurd for politicians such as Sanders and Warren to decry wealth inequality and then turn around and demand European-style expansions in our social programs. The bigger our welfare state, the more wealth inequality we will have.The solution is to transition to savings-based social programs. Numerous countries have Social Security systems based on private savings accounts. Chile has unemployment-insurance savings accounts. Martin Feldstein proposed a savings-based approach to Medicare. The assets in such savings accounts would be inheritable, unlike the benefits from current U.S. social programs.Sanders and Warren are right to criticize crony capitalism as a cause of wealth inequality. But their big government approaches to social policy would have the opposite effect on wealth inequality than what they may believe.

Driver pins paramedic against her ambulance in Walmart parking lot, NC police say

The woman was airlifted to a hospital with serious leg injuries, officials say.

2 dead, 1 unaccounted for after plane crashes into house in New York

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the plane crashed into a house in Union Vale, near Poughkeepsie.

Bahrain to join US-led efforts to protect Gulf navigation

Bahrain said Monday it would join US-led efforts to protect shipping in the Gulf amid tensions between Washington and Tehran after a series of attacks on tankers. Bahrain's King Hamad voiced his country's appreciation of the "US role in supporting regional security and stability" during a meeting with US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief General Kenneth McKenzie, state media said. "The king confirmed the kingdom of Bahrain's participation in the joint effort to preserve the safety of international maritime navigation and secure international corridors for trade and energy," the official Bahrain News Agency reported.

'That is ridiculous': Andrew Gillum rips Rick Santorum for claiming guns aren't 'problem' in mass shootings

Former Tallahassee, Fla., Mayor Andrew Gillum slammed former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's stance on gun control as “ridiculous” for saying guns are not the “problem” in mass shootings.

7 shot after random Snapchat invites to ‘instant house party,’ Texas cops say

An “instant party” in Texas ended with a car chase and several people shot, police say.

Mexican man facing voter fraud trial in Sacramento. He’s a Trump supporter

For years, President Trump has claimed that millions of noncitizens voted in the 2016 presidential election, unfairly skewing his vote as Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College.

Ex-Gov. Kathleen Blanco dies, led Louisiana through Katrina

Even after Hurricane Katrina ended her political career and as cancer ate away her strength, former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco still described her life as "charmed." With strength in her faith and her family, the state's first elected female governor time and again refused to wallow in disappointment or disaster. Blanco called it an "honor and blessing" to lead Louisiana through the fury and destruction of Katrina. A pioneering woman in Louisiana politics, Blanco died Sunday in hospice care in Lafayette.

Israel’s Snub of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib Is a Gift for the BDS Movement

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/GettyWhen the government of Israel blocked Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) from entering the country over their support of a movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel, it may have been a public blow to the two lawmakers—but a gift for the BDS movement. The activists who support the controversial strategy to isolate the Jewish state quickly seized on the move as proof that the Israeli government is fearful their movement is gathering steam. They also held it up as further proof for their argument that Israel is a discriminatory state with undemocratic tendencies—one that just bowed to pressure from President Trump, who has openly waged war on the recently elected congresswomen.This week could prove to be a defining juncture for BDS and the broader protest movement against Israel, said Stefanie Fox, deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish-American advocacy group that favors BDS. “This is a moment that is an opportunity and an obligation to see with clear eyes what is and has been happening to Palestinians for many decades,” she told The Daily Beast.The fact that the support of two members of Congress for BDS sparked this controversy is seen as a sign of how far the movement has come. For the first time, it has vocal, high-profile advocates in federal office who are eager to challenge Capitol Hill’s long-standing, unequivocal support for the state of Israel. “It’s quite remarkable,” said Fox, “to see the wave cresting.” Among the vast majority of lawmakers, however, BDS is and has long been considered an unacceptable, fringe idea. Just last month, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a symbolic resolution opposing BDS—just 17 members voted against it. But a range of stakeholders in the debate over Israel policy are increasingly concerned that, despite its broad lack of support, BDS could become a focal point for a breakdown of U.S.-Israel ties in the wake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s move to ban the congresswomen from Israel. “The only people to gain through this campaign against the BDS movement are the BDS activists themselves,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the advocacy group J Street, which shares the goal of changing the U.S.-Israel status quo but opposes BDS.“The more you fight them and elevate their status into an existential threat to the state, the more they become a compelling outlet for people’s unhappiness over what’s going on in the West Bank,” he told The Daily Beast on Friday. Israel, he said, “played right into the hands of their critics.”BDS began in 2005, launched by Palestinian activists seeking to emulate the international pressure campaign against apartheid-era South Africa in order to force Israel to grant further human rights protections to Palestinians and to withdraw from their territories in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Since then, BDS has failed to garner popular support in the U.S., and has been mostly relegated to the most left-wing corners of the Israel protest movement. It’s been called inherently anti-Semitic by its critics and by the Anti-Defamation League, a leading watchdog group. It does not explicitly advocate for a one or two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, prompting many of its detractors to argue BDS favors the destruction of the Jewish state.Both lawmakers’ embraces of BDS have been marked by public backtracking and inconsistencies. Omar only clearly expressed support for the movement after her election to Congress in the 2018 midterm, seemingly going back on a claim she made in a Democratic primary debate that BDS was “not helpful in getting that two-state solution.” Tlaib made a similar reversal: in the lead-up to her competitive 2018 election, she earned J Street’s endorsement by affirming support for a two-state solution and current levels of aid to Israel. After she won, Tlaib said in an interview “this whole idea of a two-state solution, it doesn’t work.” The offices of Omar and Tlaib did not return comment for this story.The Israeli state has, since 2017, banned foreign supporters of BDS from entering the country. It’s the main reason authorities there gave for blocking Omar and Tlaib—even though some Israeli officials had been telling U.S. counterparts the two would be allowed to enter—and it’s also what American defenders of Israel have pointed to in justifying the move.Indeed, Omar and Tlaib’s support for BDS has provided political fodder for the Republicans and Democrats who have sustained the unequivocal support for Israel advocated by influential groups like the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Democrats Unite After Bibi Blocks Squad MembersThe GOP in particular has been eager to use Omar and Tlaib’s support of BDS as evidence that Democrats are condoning extremism in their ranks and undermining the U.S.-Israel relationship. The July vote in the House to condemn BDS came after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) successfully pushed anti-BDS legislation through the Senate and quickly raised questions over why House Democrats didn’t immediately embrace it. A House Republican leadership aide confirmed to The Daily Beast that they intend to keep BDS front-and-center on Capitol Hill when lawmakers return from the August recess. House Democrats are already bracing for that move. “I don’t think BDS, with respect to Congress, is a real movement at all,” said a Democratic aide. “But BDS has been used as a strawman by the Republicans, and by strong, pro-Israel Democrats, to create a threat that doesn’t really exist.”Some Democrats are predicting that this week’s BDS-sparked firestorm will lead to lasting fissures in the pro-Israel consensus on the Hill, particularly among Democrats. “Now we’re going to see in the weeks leading up to the [Israeli] election, as the rhetoric increases, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for Democrats to have this blank check mentality in support of the Israeli government,” said the Democratic aide. “It’s going to be a real issue on the [U.S.] presidential campaign.”Some Democratic supporters of Israel in Congress, meanwhile, are angrier at Netanyahu and his government for amplifying Omar and Tlaib’s criticisms of Israel, which they disagree with. Two Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), told The Daily Beast on Friday that their colleagues’ protest of Israel has been given a greater platform and lots of oxygen thanks to the week’s controversy.“I think time will prove that it was a decision that will ultimately be to the detriment of Israel’s reputation around the world,” said Phillips, “and has certainly compromised one of the most important relationships with an ally that the U.S. has with anybody in the world.”Why Trump’s Vile Plan to Rope Israel Into His War With the Squad Will BackfireRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

John Delaney draws 11 people to 2020 event – does he truly think he can win?

The former congressman has put $24m of his own cash into an increasingly quixotic presidential run – and he’s ploughing on despite a near total lack of supportJohn Delaney speaks at the Wing Ding fundraiser in Clear Lake, Iowa. What Delaney lacks in support, he makes up for in optimism. Photograph: Brian Cahn/Zuma/Rex/ShutterstockJohn Delaney has poured a staggering $24m of his own money into running for president. He has been campaigning for the White House for more than two years, and in that time has held more than 200 events in Iowa.On one recent Thursday morning, these efforts translated into a grand total of 11 people coming out to see Delaney, at a campaign event in the small town of Algona, in the north of the state.The former Maryland congressman, former businessman and formerly much wealthier candidate is one of a slew of long-shot candidates for the Democratic nomination. In a crowded, historically diverse field, Delaney is part of a group of white, middle-aged men who are forging ahead with their increasingly quixotic presidential campaigns in spite of a collective lack of support.Delaney strode into Miller’s Sports Bar & Grill, one of a chain of bars across Iowa, just after 10am. One of his team had taped a couple of Delaney 2020 campaign posters to a wall in the back of the bar, and a sign-up list was on a table. The crowd, all silver haired apart from a thirtysomething man who walked in late, were sitting patiently at four different tables.Clad in the off-duty politician’s uniform of open-necked shirt, blue jeans and casual brown shoes, Delaney got to work, vigorously shaking 11 hands. One member of the crowd was immediately impressed with the 56-year-old.“You actually look even better than you do on TV,” one woman said.“I think I’m just going to stay around here,” Delaney quipped.If Delaney was disappointed with the turnout, he didn’t show it. Besides, in a way, the 11-person crowd was a positive. The night before, on Delaney’s Facebook page, just two people had said they would attend, and one of those was his campaign director.Delaney, who served in Congress for six years before resigning to run for president, was joking when he said he might just stay around Iowa. But in fact, it would be hard for him to spend more time here. The 58-year-old has made 34 separate visits to the state in two years. This trip was the first of three in August. And the actual vote in Iowa – the state’s caucuses – is still six months away.It’s a grueling schedule. On Thursday alone, Delaney was scheduled to hold five different events in the space of nine and a half hours.With the pleasantries over at Miller’s Delaney dived into his pitch. The two most important questions in 2020, he said, are: “Who can beat Trump?” and: “Who is the best leader for this country at this moment in time?”Delaney gestures at the end of his speech during a visit to the Iowa state fair in Des Moines earlier this month. Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP“I believe I’m the right answer to those two questions,” he concluded.Delaney’s problem is that very few people agree. Despite a marathon campaign – he declared his candidacy in July 2017, 18 months before any other major contenders – and a big pot of cash, he is barely registering – even in Iowa. Delaney is currently polling at 1% in the state – in ninth place. Nationally, Delaney has just 0.3% of the vote.But Delaney, an electrician’s son turned millionaire, isn’t about to let a near total lack of support stop him.“I don’t want to be the president just to be the president,” Delaney said at his second event of the day. “I want to be the president to do the job.”Later, Delaney was speaking to a crowd of 15 people, at the Rustic Brew in Hampton, an hour and a half drive east of Algona. He had been allocated an area in the back, in a room with a painting of a reindeer on one wall. Delaney had almost immediately been interrupted by a man wearing a Vietnam cap.The man complained about veterans’ hospitals. Delaney, hoping to appease him, said he would allow veterans to visit a wider range of hospitals for their care. The man in the cap said that was exactly the plan he was opposed to. Delaney said he would talk to him about it later, then carried on with his speech. The man in the cap slumped in his chair, mumbling something to himself.The main part of Delaney’s pitch is that he can beat Donald Trump and actually pass legislation, whereas, in his view, people such as the leftwing senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are making “impossible promises”. After Delaney criticized the more ambitious proposals of his rivals during the recent televised Democratic debates, Warren chopped him down, telling the audience: “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.”Far from being cowed by that, Delaney told the Guardian that if he could change one thing about his campaign, he actually would have plugged his centrist credentials earlier.“The kind of sharp contrasts I’m making now, I would have made them earlier,” Delaney said.But what Delaney lacks in support, he makes up for in optimism. He brushed off concerns that he won’t make the next Democratic debates – the bar for entry is far higher for the next round, in mid-September – by insisting he could make the one after that, because he expects other candidates to drop out.As Delaney closed out at the Rustic Brew, his campaign manager abruptly announced that the rest of the day’s events were cancelled. He had only completed two out of five. The campaign manager put it down to a schedule conflict. John Delaney at the Iowa state fair in Des Moines, on 9 August. Photograph: Eric Thayer/ReutersThe Guardian chased Delaney down in Des Moines the next day, where he was appearing at the Iowa state fair. Delaney spent some time prodding pork chops on a grill – a classic state fair photo opportunity – before speaking for about 15 minutes to a crowd, again pitching his centrist vision. He drew a decent number of people, but his crowd was dwarfed by those who came out for speeches by Warren, Sanders and Biden.Delaney is probably right when he says other people will soon quit the race. The California congressman Eric Swalwell ended his campaign in July, citing a lack of money and a lack of support. Colorado ex-governor John Hickenlooper dropped out last week. Delaney doesn’t have to make that choice yet. He has loaned his campaign $24m, but according to Forbes, he is worth $200m, so he has plenty of cash left to splurge.But there will surely come a point where he has to make a decision. Given Delaney is polling within the margin of error of zero, that point might come soon.Or perhaps Delaney, ever the optimist, could bide his time. If Trump wins in 2020, then there’s always 2024. If Delaney doesn’t bankrupt himself first, maybe he could be a contender.At the very least, he will know his way around Iowa.

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