'Our friends, the Saudis' funding Hillary's war on women and Israel
Greetings from Boston where the Sabbath doesn't start for quite a while. I was not on the ground very much yesterday, and when I was, I was trying to deal with a lost suitcase....
Nasser al-Rashid, an adviser to the Saudi royal family and one of the richest men in Saudi Arabia, has emerged as
one of the largest donors to the Clinton Foundation, and his family members have emerged as large donors to the Democratic party.
Nasser al-Rashid, one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest figures and an adviser to the country’s royal family, has donated somewhere between $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, putting him in an elite category of prominent donors.
Al-Rashid’s children—including one who pled guilty to assaulting his
estranged wife—have poured almost $600,000 into Democratic coffers
during the past several years, raising questions about influence
peddling by prominent foreign families.
The controversy has already rippled through Florida’s contentious
race for a Democratic Senate seat and threatens to further entangle
presidential contender Hillary Clinton, who has already faced questions
about her close ties to foreign governments.
“This raises a very simple question in my mind—why is this family of
one of Saudi Arabia’s richest billionaires and a key adviser to the
royal family pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into our political
system to elect and influence these Democrats?” asked Ian Prior, a
longtime Republican political operative and current spokesman for the
Senate Leadership Fund, which advocates the election of Republican
candidates.
Nasser Ibrahim al-Rashid, the family’s patriarch, is the founder and
chairman of the Riyadh-based Rashid Engineering, making him one of the
country’s top five wealthiest men.
His high-dollar donations to the Clinton Foundation put him in league with other prominent donors such as financial giant Barclays Capital and beer magnate Anheuser-Busch.
Al-Rashid's son Ibrahim might be even worse.
Al-Rashid’s three sons have followed in their father’s political
footsteps, contributing large sums to top Democrats, including Rep.
Patrick Murphy (D., Fla.), whose Senate race could help decide which
party controls the Senate in 2017.
Murphy has already returned a portion of al-Rashid’s donations due to his involvement in a domestic assault incident.
Ibrahim al-Rashid allegedly forced his way into his estranged wife’s
Pennsylvania home, where al-Rashid allegedly “grabbed her by the wrist,
struck her about the head and face with a closed fist then threw her to
the ground,” according to a copy of the police report viewed by the Free Beacon.
Following the 2014 incident, al-Rashid allegedly sent his wife a text
message stating, “I am not sorry this time I hope you die in hell,”
according to the police report.
Murphy, a longtime friend of al-Rashid, was recently forced to donate
around $16,000 in campaign funds to domestic violence groups after the
assault charge became a public liability for the campaign. Murphy also
returned all of the donations made by al-Rashid during the last three
political cycles.
However, that did not account for all of the money al-Rashid donated
in 2012 to a pro-Murphy Super PAC, prompting calls for Murphy to return
that money as well.
Al-Rashid has donated at least $490,000 mainly to Democratic campaigns,
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Democratic Super
PACs, according to funding data, raising further questions about whether
these candidates and organizations also will return the controversial
cash.
Al-Rashid's other sons have also donated significant amounts to Democrats.
Ibrahim’s brother, Salman al-Rashid, also has sunk at least $57,600 into Democratic campaigns, including the DCCC.
This includes contributions to the campaigns of Murphy and Sen. Cory
Booker (D., N.J.), as well as Rep. Ted Deutch (D., Fla.), Rep. Keith
Ellison (D., Minn.), and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), among
others, according to Federal Election Commission data.
A third son of Nasser, Mohammed al-Rashid, appears to have donated around $40,000 mainly
to Democrats, according to FEC data. This includes donations to the
DCCC, Murphy, Ellison, Booker, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.,
Fla.), among others, according to the FEC.
One veteran political operative who has been tracking the 2016 election cycle told the Free Beacon that these donations raise questions about foreign influence in U.S. politics.
“Saudi Arabia is anti-Israel, anti-woman, and anti-human rights, yet
Hillary Clinton’s Foundation takes millions from the Saudi government
and well-connected billionaires like this al-Rashid,” the source said.
“Now we have down ballot Democrats looking the other way and taking
money from al-Rashid’s sons, one of whom committed domestic violence.
This from the party that uses divisive ‘war on women’ rhetoric at every
turn.”
Booker and Deutsch both have reputations for being pro-Israel. You have to wonder how true that is if they're taking money from the al-Rashid's.
This video came from Arutz Sheva (Hat Tip:
Gershon D).
Let's go to the videotape.
Which party is pro-Israel? Which party is conducting a war on women? And why is Debbie "I wear my support for Israel to work on my sleeve every day" Wasserman Schultz taking money from the al-Rashid's?
Hmmm.
Labels: Bill Clinton, Cory Booker, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Hillary Clinton, National Democratic Party, our friends the Saudis, Ted Deutch, US presidential campaign 2016
Comedy gold: Obama's favorite reporter interviews John Kerry
It doesn't get much sillier than this. @JeffreyGoldberg interviews @JohnKerry, who describes the deal that guarantees that Iran will be a nuclear armed state as '
pro-Israel.'
Kerry rejected criticism from Israel,
and from many in the American Jewish community, that by publicly
warning Israel that it will be further isolated internationally if the
deal should be rejected, he has encouraged scapegoating of the Jewish
state: “If you’ve ever played golf, you know that you yell ‘fore’
off the tee,” he explained. “You’re not threatening somebody, you’re
warning them: ‘Look, don’t get hit by the ball, it’s coming.’”
Kerry believes that a congressional rejection of the deal will lead
to war—he explains his theory of his case in detail below—and he finds
the “visceral” and “emotional” criticism of the deal in Israel, and
among many of Israel’s supporters, flummoxing. “I’ve gone through this
backwards and forwards a hundred times and I’m telling you, this deal is
as pro-Israel, as pro-Israel’s security, as it gets,” Kerry said. “And I
believe that just saying no to this is, in fact, reckless.” When I
asked him how he interprets Israeli criticism of the deal, he said there
is a “a huge level of fear and mistrust and, frankly, there’s an
inherent sense that, given Iran’s gains and avoidance in the past, that
somehow they’re going to avoid something again. It’s a visceral feeling,
it’s very emotional and visceral and I’m very in tune with that and
very sensitive to that.”
Though he says he is in tune with this set of Israeli fears, he does
not endorse a view widely shared by Israelis—and by many Americans—that
Iran’s leaders, who have often said that they seek the destruction of Israel,
mean what they say. “I think they have a fundamental ideological
confrontation with Israel at this particular moment. Whether or not that
translates into active steps to, quote, ‘Wipe it,’ you know ...” Here I
interjected: “Wipe it off the map.”
Kerry continued: “I don’t
know the answer to that. I haven’t seen anything that says to me—they’ve
got 80,000 rockets in Hezbollah pointed at Israel, and any number of
choices could have been made. They didn’t make the bomb when they had
enough material for 10 to 12. They’ve signed on to an agreement where
they say they’ll never try and make one and we have a mechanism in place
where we can prove that. So I don’t want to get locked into that
debate. I think it’s a waste of time here.”
They didn't make the bomb when they had enough material for 10-12 (which only happened during the Obama administration by the way), because they figured why become a pariah when a little bit of patience will let you do it with the 'international community's approval.
In the meantime, three senior Jewish Democrats - including the highest ranking Jew in the House - have all come out against the deal (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
The highest-ranking Jewish Democrat in the House announced his
opposition to the nuclear accord with Iran on Tuesday, in a blow to the
Obama administration’s lobbying efforts.
"I'm going to vote
against the Iran deal," Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) — the former head of
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — told Newsday.
"I
tried very hard to get to yes. But at the end of the day, despite some
positive elements in the deal, the totality compelled me to oppose it.”
In
addition to Rep. Israel, Reps. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Ted Deutch
(D-Fla.) also came out against the deal on Tuesday, saying that the
multinational agreement did not include enough safeguards to prevent
Iran from cheating on its commitments or limit it from supporting
extremist groups such as Hezbollah.
“After a decade in public life
working to stop Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons, I cannot
support a deal giving Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief — in
return for letting it maintain an advanced nuclear program and the
infrastructure of a threshold nuclear state,” Deutch wrote in the
Broward County Sun Sentinel.
So it's not just the Israelis who are opposed.
Kerry's flippant attitude toward this really grates. In a lot of ways, he's even more irritating than Obama.
“The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that
you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them,” Kerry said.
“This”—a congressional rejection—“will be the ultimate
screwing.” He went on to argue that “the United States Congress will
prove the ayatollah’s suspicion, and there’s no way he’s ever coming
back. He will not come back to negotiate. Out of dignity, out of a
suspicion that you can’t trust America. America is not going to
negotiate in good faith. It didn’t negotiate in good faith now, would be
his point.”
Unbelievable.
Labels: American Jews, Barack Hussein Obama, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Jeffrey Goldberg, John Kerry, Nita Lowey, Steve Israel, Ted Deutch
Bipartisan House delegation visiting Israel
A bipartisan House delegation is
visiting Israel this week.
The delegation, including Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.), John Barrow (D-Ga.), Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), Ben Chandler (D-Ky.), and Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) had meetings planned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Tzipi Livni.
They also planned to tour areas in Israel subject to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
"The recent upheavals across the Middle East will pose new challenges to the mutual security interests of the United States and Israel, and I look forward to having frank discussions about Israel’s safety and security and the ever-present threat posed by Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” Deutch, who is leading the trip, said in an April 22 statement.
That's Engel at the top.
With Obama probably putting enormous pressure on Netanyahu to make huge concessions next month in his joint session speech, we need all the help we can get.
Labels: Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Eliot Engel, Ted Deutch
