Trump and Republicans closer than Democrats to Muslims, head of pro-Trump Arab group claims

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Updated 22 August 2024
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Trump and Republicans closer than Democrats to Muslims, head of pro-Trump Arab group claims

Trump and Republicans closer than Democrats to Muslims, head of pro-Trump Arab group claims
  • Chair of Arab Americans for Trump argues Biden-Harris administration helped fund and fuel Israeli military campaign in Gaza but Trump would bring conflict to an end
  • Arabs and Muslims need to look past the political rhetoric and previous differences and engage with Trump, rather than boycott him, to achieve their goals, he says

CHICAGO: Despite some “differences” and “misunderstandings” in the past, Donald Trump and the Republican Party are much more closely aligned than the Democrats with the Arab and Muslim community in the US, in terms of understanding its values and needs, a leading pro-Trump Arab American advocate claimed.

During a recording of “The Ray Hanania Radio Show,” Bishara Bahbah, chairperson of Arab Americans for Trump, said the community must overcome its anger and emotion about Trump’s previous rhetoric to “take their place at the table” and recognize that the Biden-Harris administration, and Democrats in general, have “funded and fueled” the killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Bahbah said his organization — leading members of which include Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany; Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence in the Trump administration; and Alina Habba, Trump’s attorney — believes Arabs and Muslims should not only support the Republican Party but “engage” with Trump to help bring an end the carnage in Gaza and achieve peace in the Middle East that includes a two-state solution.

“They (the Democrats) have been the ones who have incessantly provided arms to Israel,” he said during the taping of the show, which will broadcast on Thursday, Aug. 22, and Monday, Aug. 26, in Michigan on radio station WNZK 690 AM. “Those arms, whether they are a bullet or a 2,000-pound bomb have killed Palestinians in Gaza, over 40,000.

 

 

“That is a crime against humanity and the United States, and primarily the Biden-Harris administration, have been complicit in that. Without those arms being provided to Israel, the war would have ended a long time ago.”

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have “broken their promises” to the Arab and Muslim community but, despite “misunderstandings,” Trump has always been “upfront and honest,” Bahbah argued. The former president “supports an end to the conflict in Gaza, an end to all violence and the achieving of a two-state solution through peaceful means,” he added.

Trump, Bahbah claimed, was moved by a letter he received from Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on July 14, the day after an attempt by a gunman to kill Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, in which the Palestinian leader expressed outrage at the attempted assassination, writing: “Acts of violence must not have a place in a world of law and order.”

Bahbah said that the fact the Palestinian president sent Trump a letter wishing him well was important because it showed that the Palestinian leadership would be willing to reengage with a Trump administration.

 

 

“It shows that going forward they will not leave a void,” he said. “They will not allow a clown like (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu to be toying around with what he thought was his playing field in the Trump administration.

“I think that is a very important point, not just for the Palestinian government but also for Arab Americans. We cannot pout at what politicians say. We have to accept the realities on the ground.

“The message has been all along, be engaged. If you are engaged and your voices are heard and your support is shown, then you will get a seat at the table and your voice will be heard. That is the message we have been conveying to the Arab and Muslim American community.”

Bahbah acknowledged that Trump’s approach to some issues had proved to be controversial but said they had been “misunderstood outside of the context of the political circumstances in which they have been made.”

He argued that criticism of Trump’s rhetoric is different from that of the genocide that has taken place in Gaza under the Biden-Harris administration’s watch.

 

 

“On one hand you’ve got Arab and Muslim Americans enraged at the Biden-Harris administration over the complicity and killing of 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and the injuring of over 105,000 thus far. On one hand, they are enraged,” he said.

“On the other hand, we are trying to tell them President Trump wants to see an end to the hostilities. President Trump wants to see an end to the killing of civilians. And he wants to see a peace process that leads to a two-state solution.”

You can hear the full interview with Bishara Bahbah on Thursday, Aug. 22 at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on WNZK AM 690 radio in Michigan, or online at ArabNews.com/RayRadioShow.


New York Mayor Adams indicted following corruption probe, New York Times reports

New York Mayor Adams indicted following corruption probe, New York Times reports
Updated 4 sec ago
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New York Mayor Adams indicted following corruption probe, New York Times reports

New York Mayor Adams indicted following corruption probe, New York Times reports
  • The probe focused on whether Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign conspired with a Brooklyn construction company to funnel foreign money into the campaign through a straw-donor scheme, according to the Times

NEW YORK: New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted after a federal corruption investigation, but the indictment is sealed and it is unclear what charges he will face, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
It was not immediately clear whether Adams would be arrested or voluntarily surrender. The charges are likely to be unsealed on Thursday, when Adams may appear in court.
The charges come after the FBI last November searched Adams’ electronic devices, and in the wake of a slew of resignations by top city officials in recent weeks as multiple federal corruption investigations entangle his administration.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan, which brought the charges, declined to comment. Adams’ lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of his lawyers has said that the mayor, a Democrat, was cooperating with an investigation but did not say what it was about.
The case is likely to complicate any Adams bid for re-election in 2025. Other Democratic politicians, including New York City comptroller Brad Lander, plan to challenge Adams — once a key ally of Democratic President Joe Biden — for the party’s nomination.
The Times, citing a search warrant, reported in early November 2023 that federal authorities were investigating the possible acceptance by Adams’ 2021 campaign of illegal donations, including by the Turkish government.
The probe, conducted by the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan, focused on whether Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign conspired with a Brooklyn construction company to funnel foreign money into the campaign through a straw-donor scheme, the Times said.
Authorities have also sought information about Adams’ interactions with Israel, China, South Korea and Uzbekistan, according to the Times.
Adams, a former police officer, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said he is cooperating with the probe. His lawyers said in a statement on Aug. 15 that they had conducted their own investigation into the matters prosecutors were probing and had not found evidence of illegal conduct by Adams.
“To the contrary, we have identified extensive evidence undermining the reported theories of federal prosecution as to the Mayor, which we have voluntarily shared with the US Attorney,” said the lawyers, Brendan McGuire and Boyd Johnson.
The largest US city has been in a state of political upheaval for the past month. Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned on Sept. 12, a week after FBI agents seized his phone. Days later, Adams’ chief legal adviser resigned, saying she could “no longer effectively serve” in the position.
On Wednesday, the city’s public schools chancellor David Banks said he would retire at the end of the year, weeks after the Times reported his phones were seized by federal agents.


Russia’s adaptability to US sanctions stymied their effectiveness, economists say

Russia’s adaptability to US sanctions stymied their effectiveness, economists say
Updated 21 min 48 sec ago
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Russia’s adaptability to US sanctions stymied their effectiveness, economists say

Russia’s adaptability to US sanctions stymied their effectiveness, economists say
  • The report says that “while the count of sanctions is high, the tangible impact on Russia’s economy is less clear,” and “global cooperation is indispensable”

WASHINGTON: Waves of sanctions imposed by the Biden administration after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine haven’t inflicted the devastating blow to Moscow’s economy that some had expected. In a new report, two researchers are offering reasons why.
Oleg Itskhoki of Harvard University and Elina Ribakova of the Peterson Institute for International Economics argue that the sanctions should have been imposed more forcefully immediately after the invasion rather than in a piecemeal manner.
“In retrospect, it is evident that there was no reason not to have imposed all possible decisive measures against Russia from the outset once Russia launched the full scale invasion in February 2022,” the authors state in the paper. Still, “the critical takeaway is that sanctions are not a silver bullet,” Ribakova said on a call with reporters this week, to preview the study.
The researchers say Russia was able to brace for the financial penalties because of the lessons learned from sanctions imposed in 2014 after it invaded Crimea. Also, the impact was weakened by the failure to get more countries to participate in sanctions, with economic powers like China and India not included.
The report says that “while the count of sanctions is high, the tangible impact on Russia’s economy is less clear,” and “global cooperation is indispensable.”
The question of what makes sanctions effective or not is important beyond the Russia-Ukraine war. Sanctions have become critical tools for the United States and other Western nations to pressure adversaries to reverse actions and change policies while stopping short of direct military conflict.
The limited impact of sanctions on Russia has been clear for some time. But the report provides a more detailed picture of how Russia adapted to the sanctions and what it could mean for US sanctions’ effectiveness in the future.
The paper will be presented at the Brookings Institution next week.
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US has sanctioned more than 4,000 people and businesses, including 80 percent of Russia’s banking sector by assets.
The Biden administration acknowledges that sanctions alone cannot stop Russia’s invasion — it has also sent roughly $56 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the 2022 invasion. And many policy experts say the sanctions are not strong enough, as evidenced by the growth of the Russian economy. US officials have said Russia has turned to China for machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in the war.
A Treasury representative pointed to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s remarks in July during the Group of 20 finance ministers meetings, where she called actions against Russia “unprecedented.”
“We continue cracking down on Russian sanctions evasion and have strengthened and expanded our ability to target foreign financial institutions and anyone else around the world supporting Russia’s war machine,” she said.
Still, Russia has been able to evade a $60 price cap on its oil exports imposed by the US and the other Group of Seven democracies supporting Ukraine. The cap is enforced by barring Western insurers and shipping companies from handling oil above the cap. Russia has been able to dodge the cap by assembling its own fleet of aging, used tankers that do not use Western services and transport 90 percent of its oil.
The US pushed for the price cap as a way of cutting into Moscow’s oil profits without knocking large amounts of Russian oil off the global market and pushing up oil prices, gasoline prices and inflation. Similar concerns kept the European Union from imposing a boycott on most Russian oil for almost a year after Russia invaded Ukraine.
G-7 leaders have agreed to engineer a $50 billion loan to help Ukraine, paid for by the interest earned on profits from Russia’s frozen central bank assets sitting mostly in Europe as collateral. However, the allies have not agreed on how to structure the loan.


Harris attacks ‘biggest loser’ Trump on US economy

Harris attacks ‘biggest loser’ Trump on US economy
Updated 24 min 12 sec ago
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Harris attacks ‘biggest loser’ Trump on US economy

Harris attacks ‘biggest loser’ Trump on US economy
  • Warns that Trump’s plans to bring back huge tariffs on foreign imports would hurt middle class Americans in their wallets
  • Vowed to “chart a new way forward” in a speech in Pittsburgh, with her rhetoric focusing on lowering prices for Americans

PITTSBURGH: Kamala Harris blasted Donald Trump as the “biggest loser” on the economy and a friend of billionaires Wednesday as the election rivals laid out competing plans on the top issue for many US voters.
In a speech on the economy and then again in her first major solo interview, the Democrat warned that Trump’s plans to bring back huge tariffs on foreign imports would hurt middle class Americans in their wallets.
Republican Trump for his part doubled down on his protectionist vision — but spent as much time on threatening to blow Iran to “smithereens” after US intelligence warned of threats from Tehran against his life.
The vice president and the former president are neck-and-neck in the polls and are both reaching out to undecided voters on key issues like the economy with less than six weeks until election day.
Harris vowed to “chart a new way forward” in a speech in Pittsburgh, an industrial city in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, with her rhetoric focusing on lowering prices for Americans.
“For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who actually build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floors,” she said.
She said nearly 200,000 factory jobs moved abroad during Trump’s time in the White House, “making Trump one of the biggest losers ever on manufacturing.”
In her interview with the left-leaning MSNBC, Harris then criticized the tariff plans that Trump has laid out over the past two days, which would be a return to the policies of the Republican’s first term in office.
“You don’t just throw around the idea of tariffs across the board,” said Harris. “He’s just not very serious.”
The interview was Harris’s first on her own since replacing US President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee in July. She gave a joint interview with running mate Tim Walz in August.

Trump’s campaign said her speech was “full of lies” and that she had already had three and a half years as part of the Biden administration to tackle problems like low prices.
The Republican is making similar pledges to boost American manufacturing, based largely on his plans to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign imports.
“You’re going to have protection from them coming in, because we’re going to put on from 50 to 200 percent tariffs,” Trump told supporters in Mint Hill, North Carolina — another crucial battleground state.
But the ex-commander-in-chief spent a good part of his speech talking about the threats to his life — from the two assassination attempts he has escaped in the space of two months to threats by Iran.
“If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens,” Trump said.
Trump meanwhile plans to return on October 5 to the Pennsylvania town of Butler where a gunman made an attempt on his life at a rally in July, his campaign said Wednesday.
A gunman accused of planning to kill Trump at his Florida golf course just over a week ago, Ryan Routh, was indicted Tuesday for the attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate.
The twin assassination attempts came amid one of the most dramatic US election campaigns in modern political history, in a dizzying chain of events since a disastrous debate in June led to Biden quitting the White House race over concerns about his age.
Biden told ABC talk show “The View” on Wednesday that he was now “at peace with my decision” — even if he insisted he could still have beaten Trump.
The outgoing president criticized Trump, saying there was “not a social redeeming value” to the Republican, and said his advice to Harris to win was to “be herself.”
 


Pope Francis expels a bishop and 9 other people from a Peru movement over ‘sadistic’ abuses

Pope Francis expels a bishop and 9 other people from a Peru movement over ‘sadistic’ abuses
Updated 39 min 16 sec ago
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Pope Francis expels a bishop and 9 other people from a Peru movement over ‘sadistic’ abuses

Pope Francis expels a bishop and 9 other people from a Peru movement over ‘sadistic’ abuses
  • Last month, the pope expelled Luis Figari, founder of the group called Sodalitium of Christian Life, after probers found that he had sodomized his recruits
  • Pedro Salinas, in the 2015 book “Half Monks, Half Soldiers” that he co-authored by with journalist Paola Ugaz, detailed the twisted practices of the Sodalitium

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis took the unusual decision Wednesday to expel 10 people – a bishop, priests and laypeople — from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality.
The move against the leadership of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, followed Francis’ decision last month to expel the group’s founder, Luis Figari, after he was found to have sodomized his recruits.
It was announced by the Peruvian Bishops Conference, which posted a statement from the Vatican embassy on its website that attributed the expulsions to a “special” decision taken by Francis.
The statement was astonishing because it listed abuses uncovered by the Vatican investigation that have rarely if ever been punished canonically — such as hacking someone’s communications — and cited the people the pope held responsible.
According to the statement, the Vatican investigators uncovered physical abuses “including with sadism and violence,” sect-like abuses of conscience, spiritual abuse, abuses of authority, economic abuses in administering church money and the “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.”
The latter was presumably aimed at a Sodalitium journalist who has attacked critics of the movement on social media.
Figari founded the SCV, as it is known, in 1971 as a lay community to recruit “soldiers for God,” one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America, starting in the 1960s. At its height, the group counted about 20,000 members across South America and the United States. It was enormously influential in Peru.
Victims of Figari’s abuses complained to the Lima archdiocese in 2011, though other claims against him reportedly date to 2000. But neither the local church nor the Holy See took concrete action until one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, wrote a book along with journalist Paola Ugaz detailing the twisted practices of the Sodalitium in 2015, entitled “Half Monks, Half Soldiers.”

Front page of the Lima-based Spanish-language newspaper Peru 21 featuring the expulsion of Solidatium founder Luis Figari from the Roman Catholic church. The main story says, "The fall of the abuser". (X: @valienteslatam)

An outside investigation ordered by Sodalitium later determined that Figari was “narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist and obsessed with sexual issues and the sexual orientation” of Sodalitium’s members.

The investigation, published in 2017, found that Figari sodomized his recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another. He liked to watch them “experience pain, discomfort and fear,” and humiliated them in front of others to enhance his control over them, the report found.
Still, the Holy See declined to expel Figari from the movement in 2017 and merely ordered him to live apart from the Sodalitium community in Rome and cease all contact with it. The Vatican was seemingly tied in knots by canon law that did not foresee such punishments for founders of religious communities who weren’t priests. Victims were outraged.
But according to the findings of the latest Vatican investigation, the abuses went beyond Figari. They included Sodalitium clergy and also involved harassing and hacking the communications of their victims, all while covering up crimes committed as part of their official duties, according to the statement.
The investigation was carried out by the Vatican’s top sex crimes investigators, Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, who traveled to Lima last year to take testimony from victims.
The highest-ranking person ordered expelled was Archbishop Jose Antonio Eguren, whom Francis already forced to resign as bishop of Piura in April over his record, after he sued Salinas and Ugaz for their reporting.
In addition to Figari’s own abuses, their reporting had exposed the alleged forced eviction of peasants on lands in Eguren’s diocese by a Sodalitium-linked real estate developer.
Ugaz, the journalist, welcomed the expulsions and said the reference to Sodalitium hacking referred to her: She said her communications had been hacked in 2023 after she reported on the Sodalitium’s off-shore holdings and other financial dealings, and said she believed the group was trying to identify her sources.
“It is a demonstration that in Peru, the survivors would never have found justice and reparation (without Bertomeo and Scicluna) because the Sodalitium is an organization with a lot of political, social and economic power,” she said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Salinas, for his part, repeated that the group should be dissolved entirely and that some key figures were not included on the list.
“It’s very good news after 24 years of impunity,” he said in a message to AP. “It is to be hoped that this historic and memorable news is only the first of more, perhaps more impactful than what we know today.”
The release of such detailed information by the Vatican was highly unusual for an institution that is known more for secrecy, opacity and turning a blind eye to even obvious church crimes.
It is unclear how exactly the expulsions can be enforced or what they will mean in practical terms, especially for the laypeople involved. But at a minimum, the very public announcement would suggest that at least for this particular group, Francis was willing to take an unorthodox approach to interpreting the church’s in-house laws to send a message.
“To take such a disciplinary decision, consideration was given to the scandal that was produced by the number and gravity of the abuses that were denounced by victims, which are particularly contrary to the balanced and liberating experience of the evangelical councils,” the Vatican embassy statement said in explaining the rationale for the punishments.
The Vatican statement said the Peruvian bishops joined Francis in “seeking the forgiveness of the victims” while calling on the troubled movement to initiate a journey of justice and reparation.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Sodalitium.


Zelensky alleges Russian plot on nuclear plants in defiant UN address

Zelensky alleges Russian plot on nuclear plants in defiant UN address
Updated 26 September 2024
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Zelensky alleges Russian plot on nuclear plants in defiant UN address

Zelensky alleges Russian plot on nuclear plants in defiant UN address
  • Russia captured the giant Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant soon after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
  • Shortly after Zlensky's remarks, Putin made his most explicit threat yet to use nuclear weapons, saying Russia would consider such a response to a “massive” air attack on its soil

UNITED NATIONS: President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia on Wednesday of plotting potentially catastrophic attacks on Ukrainian nuclear plants, in a defiant UN address ahead of US elections that could sharply shift the stance of Kyiv’s main backer.
Zelensky addressed the annual gathering of world leaders to rally support before a high-profile visit Thursday to the White House, where President Joe Biden’s administration promised new military aid.
Speaking from the UN rostrum in a black polo jacket, Zelensky said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “does seem to be planning attacks on our nuclear power plants and the infrastructure, aiming to disconnect the plants from the power grid.”
“Any critical incident in the energy system could lead to a nuclear disaster. A day like that must never come,” Zelensky said.
“Moscow needs to understand this, and this depends in part on your determination to put pressure on the aggressor,” he told the General Assembly.
Shortly after his remarks, Putin made his most explicit threat yet to use nuclear weapons, saying Russia would consider such a response to a “massive” air attack on its soil.
Ukraine has been pushing the United States and its allies to ease restrictions on weapons that can strike deeper into Russia.
Russia captured the giant Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant soon after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In recent weeks it has been pounding Ukraine’s electricity grid, in what Western and Ukrainian officials describe as an attempt to leave the country shivering during the winter.

In his UN address, Zelensky singled out China and Brazil as he questioned the “true interest” of countries that have been pressing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia.
Employing the language of the Global South, Zelensky said: “The world has already been through colonial wars and conspiracies of great powers at the expense of those who are small.”
“Ukrainians will never accept — will never accept — why anyone in the world believes that such a brutal colonial past, which suits no one today, can be imposed on Ukraine now,” Zelensky said.
In response, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday that a peace deal is the only way for Ukraine to “survive” the war.
“Only peace will guarantee that Ukraine survives as a sovereign country and Russia survives,” he said at a press conference in New York.
Zelensky last year flew to the General Assembly in a dramatic first wartime appearance. But while he still maintains star power, the political landscape has changed.
Donald Trump, running again for president in a close race against Kamala Harris, called Zelensky “probably the greatest salesman on Earth.”
“We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelensky,” the Republican candidate told a campaign rally in North Carolina.
Republicans were livid after Zelensky told The New Yorker magazine that Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance did not understand the war’s complexity.
The United States has provided around $175 billion in both military and economic assistance to Ukraine during the war. The Biden administration has ruled out sending troops.
The Biden administration announced another $375 million on Wednesday including munitions for HIMARS precision rocket launchers, cluster munitions and light tactical vehicles.
Trump in the past has voiced admiration for Putin and, during his 2017-2021 presidency, was impeached over delaying aid to Ukraine to press Zelensky to dig up dirt on Biden.
In Germany, the second-largest contributor of military aid to Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also facing pressure from parties opposed to support for Kyiv.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of Kyiv ally Britain, told the Security Council on Wednesday that Putin has been sending its citizens into a meat grinder and asked how Russia “can show its face” at the UN headquarters.

The annual UN General Assembly extravaganza marks a swansong for Biden, 81, who has passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris to face Trump in the November 5 election.
The summit comes against a backdrop of chaos in the Middle East as Israel ramps up attacks on the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, killing hundreds and prompting a mass exodus of people.
Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron met to discuss a push for a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Wednesday also saw talks at the UN on two other hotspots — Sudan and Haiti.
The United States announced millions in new assistance both for war-ravaged Sudan’s humanitarian crisis and for stabilization efforts in violence-wracked Haiti.