Congress Must Stop Trump From Blundering Into America’s Most Dangerous War in Decades

http://time.com/5590697/trump-bolton-iran-war/

It’s time for the American people to become fully alert to a dreadful possibility. The United States, led by an erratic chief executive who is frequently ignored even by his closest advisers, may find itself stumbling into its worst war in more than a generation — in spite of publicly-expressed reservations from the president himself and without the Congressional authorization that the Constitution requires. The result could be a perfect storm of danger and distrust, culminating not just in a military emergency abroad but also a simultaneous and serious political crisis at home.

SHOULD TRUMP ADMINISTRATION BE TRUSTED ON IRAN? ISRAEL GAVE U.S. MISSILE REPORTS AND EXPERTS ARE WARY

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-iran-israel-reports-1428048

As The New York Times previously reported Thursday and confirmed by Newsweek, the Trump administration’s recent escalation was rooted in intelligence suggesting Iran was arming its fast attack fleet with missiles, an apparent sign of potential attacks to come in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the world’s top oil traffic chokepoint. Newsweek has further learned from one Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, that this evidence was based on satellite imagery provided to U.S. officials by Israel, an avowed foe of the Islamic Republic.

Much of the information regarding alleged Iranian threats has also been streamed from the National Security Council (NSC), whose hawkish chief—John Bolton—has similarly hyped up the threat posed by Tehran for years. A second source, a U.S. military official who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that the council’s warnings of heightened threats posed by Iran-aligned Iraqi militias such as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) did not appear to match the Pentagon’s own observations.

“The threat stream I’ve seen doesn’t line up with what the NSC is leaking, let me put it that way,” the second official told Newsweek. “The PMF is no more or less a threat than before all this bullshit began.”

With Bolton leading the charge against Iran at home and Israel feeding information from abroad, concerns have been raised that the U.S. was once again on its way to war against a Middle Eastern adversary based on a questionable pretext, as it did in 2003 against Iraq.

“Be on the lookout for Iraq 2.0 justifications. I’m not even kidding,” the second official told Newsweek. “Think about the intel indicators prior to the Iraq invasion. Compare. Then get really uneasy.”

Trump's irritation with top aides grows over Iran strategy

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/16/politics/donald-trump-iran-john-bolton-mike-pompeo/index.html

President Donald Trump has become irritated at an emerging impression his hawkish national security advisers are marching him closer to war with Iran despite his isolationist tendencies, according to people familiar with the matter.

Instead, Trump is signaling his intent to speak with the Iranians as tensions rise in the Persian Gulf, and his national security team has taken steps they hope could facilitate a new diplomatic opening.

IRAN THREAT IS ACTUALLY MISSILES ON SMALL BOATS, AND AMERICA'S ALLIES THINK TRUMP IS OVERREACTING: REPORT

https://www.newsweek.com/iran-threat-missiles-intelligence-warning-donald-trump-overreacting-allies-1426979

According to The New York Times, multiple unnamed U.S. officials told the newspaper that the U.S.’s dire warnings of devastating retaliation against Iran were based on photographs of paramilitaries loading up small boats with missiles, threats against commercial shipping and indications of possible attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.

The Times report said overhead imagery had captured Iranian paramilitaries arming small boats in the Persian Gulf with fully assembled missiles, prompting fears they might be used to attack American ships in the region. Images showed the boats—believed to be under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—being armed at several ports, raising concerns of imminent attack or that the weapons would be transferred to regional Iranian proxies for use in more deniable operations.

Iran’s low-tech navy is no match for the world-leading American vessels, but asymmetric tactics using small boats for conventional missile and even suicide attacks could still inflict significant casualties on a U.S. naval formation and could shut down commercial shipping in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz.

As well as freshly armed vessels, American officials told The Times the U.S. had picked up threats against commercial shipping in the region. Last weekend’s sabotage attacks on oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates showed the impact such operations could have. Iran claimed innocence, and the U.S. said it did not yet have conclusive proof of Tehran’s involvement. The U.S. Maritime Administration warned all ships to exercise caution when traveling past the area.

Other intelligence reportedly indicated Iran might try to use pro-Tehran militias in Iraq to attack U.S. troops or facilities there. This convinced the State Department on Wednesday to withdraw all nonemergency staff from its embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil.

https://www.newsweek.com/us-iran-trump-little-support-war-1426578

U.S.-IRAN CRISIS: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS LITTLE INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT FOR WAR

With the U.S. drawing up military options against Iran and pulling diplomatic staff Wednesday from neighboring Iraq amid alleged Tehran-tied threats to U.S. interests in the region, temperatures were running even higher than usual in the Persian Gulf. The U.S., traditionally a nation of robust international alliances, has managed to gradually erode its partnerships since Trump took office in 2017, however, and Washington has found itself largely alone in its approach to the current crisis.

Having unilaterally walked away from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal also signed by China, the E.U., France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom and having threatened the world with sanctions for trading with Tehran, a hawkish White House's "maximum pressure" campaign has been met with deep skepticism by friends and foes alike.

"The administration’s policy has clearly been to portray Iran as the bad guy here. Iran isn't the bad guy here for a change," Dina Esfandiary, a fellow at The Century Foundation think tank and the Belfer Center at Harvard University's Kennedy School. "It's important to highlight that, on this issue, America is really isolated; Europe, Russia, China, no one is really buying into this push against Iran."

https://www.kikar.co.il/317089.html

בני הזוג ה"חרדים" התגלו כצמד מיסיונרים

דוד ורבקה וובר, הוא עובד בחנות מכולת כשרה והיא כמטפלת - אורח חייהם לא עורר כל חשד בקהילה החרדית של שיקגו • כעת הם נחשפו כמיסיונרים - והרבנים מזהירים מפניהם (חרדים)

http://crownheights.info/photo-galleries/641075/missionaries-exposed-in-chicago-hiding-in-the-chicago-frum-community/

A missionary couple has been exposed hiding as a Frum couple in the Chicago Jewish community. The couple was exposed by a visiting Sofer who recognized them.

by CrownHeights.info

A couple who called themselves Dovid and Rivkah Weber were exposed in the Chicago Frum community as missionaries.

The couple, who look and act like Frum Jews, had moved to Chicago only two months ago, and had already integrated with the frum community.

David, whose real name is Dovid Costello, was working in a local kosher store, while Rivkah had a job as a babysitter for members of the community.

FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYST SAYS TRUMP VIOLATED CONSTITUTION'S 'SEPARATION OF POWERS' THREE TIMES IN PAST WEEK

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-violated-constitution-separation-powers-three-times-1427253

Napolitano outlined the three directives from Trump and explained how they violated the Constitution. The first was the president’s order to acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan to not purchase a missile defense system approved by Congress and instead use the funds to construct a wall on the southern border of the U.S. with Mexico. Second, the former judge cited Trump’s order to send troops to secure the border and said it “violates the separation of powers,” as the president’s oath does not allow military forces to be deployed to deal with domestic issues. Napolitano also argued that Trump’s decision to implement 25 percent tariffs on Chinese goods was akin to levying a “national federal sales tax” on American consumers, which the president does not have power to do under the Constitution.

“It is dangerous when presidents write their own laws, impose their own taxes, spend money how they want and Congress looks the other way,” he asserted. “It’s dangerous because its too much of an accumulation of power in the presidency, and it imbalances that delicate balance that the separation of powers created.”

Hundreds of haredim attend anti-vaccine symposium in Monsey

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/263231

Jews are being persecuted as disease carriers amid the outbreak of measles, a New York haredi Orthodox rabbi said at a symposium with leaders of the anti-vaccination movement attended by hundreds of haredim.

“We Hasidim have been chosen as the target,” said Rabbi Hillel Handler, a Holocaust survivor from Monsey, a Rockland County town with a large haredi population, according to The New York Times. “The campaign against us has been successful.”

Top Anti-Vaxxer Says He Learned All He Needs to Know From Being a Producer on ‘Dr. Phil’ and ‘The Doctors’

the daily beast

Last month, Del Bigtree stood behind a podium at a Texas rally, his flowing gray hair blowing in the wind, to talk about the supposed perils of government-mandated vaccines—a speech he has given all over the country.

This time, he had a prop: Near the end of his speech, he affixed a yellow Star of David to his coat. It was a symbol, he said, of solidarity with New York’s Orthodox Jewish community, which is in the throes of a measles outbreak.

Bigtree is one of the most visible members of the growing anti-vaxxer movement. He produced the headline-grabbing film Vaxxed, and his nonprofit raked in more than a million bucks in 2017. He has 13,000 Twitter followers and 114,000 likes on the Facebook page for his streamed show.

What he doesn’t have is a medical degree or scientific training, though he does say he read a lot of medical material while working as a producer on the TV talk show The Doctors.

Andrew Wakefield, others hold anti-vaccine rally amid raging measles outbreaks

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/andrew-wakefield-others-hold-anti-vaccine-rally-amid-raging-measles-outbreaks/

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Andrew Wakefield, Del Bigtree, and other prominent anti-vaccine advocates unleashed fear and toxic misinformation last night at a well-attended symposium in New York’s Rockland County. The area is currently grappling with one of the largest and longest-standing measles outbreaks in the country, mainly in its tight-knit, ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cake-coffee-and-misinformation-inside-an-anti-vaxxer-meeting

Rocking babies and munching on cake, hundreds of people—many of them members of New York’s Orthodox Jewish community—gathered late Monday night at an anti-vaxxers rally in the Atrium, a ballroom in Monsey, about an hour north of New York City.

The event, advertised on WhatsApp and robocalls as a “Vaccines Symposium” and “a night of science, discussion, and truth,” featured mainly secular speakers, including anti-vax YouTuber Del Bigtree, “holistic pediatrician” Lawrence Palevsky, and Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced gastroenterologist and author of a now-retracted 1998 study linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.

“Your news anchors and the media outside this building just want to talk about measles,” Bigtree told the rapt crowd. “I want to talk about autism. I want to talk about the greatest epidemic of our lifetime.” The audience burst into applause.

Measles is galloping through New York’s Orthodox community at a rate not seen in years, with nearly 500 cases reported so far. The outbreak has led to yeshiva closures and spread fear among parents of infants who are too young to be immunized and are at risk of infection.

Although study after study has shown childhood vaccinations to be safe and effective, there are still parents who refuse to get the shots for their kids.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/nyregion/measles-vaccine-orthodox-jews.html
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2019/05/14/measles-rockland-speaks-out-against-anti-vaccine-forum-monsey/3664266002/

Rabbi Asher Weiss: Jewish law obligates vaccination

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/263137

Rabbi Asher Weiss, one of the leading halakhik authorities of the generation, participated in the biennial convention of the Conference of European Rabbis in Antwerp, Belgium this week.

Rabbi Weiss addressed many medical issues and presented how Jewish law views the many technological developments made in medicine and genetics.

In his remarks, Rabbi Weiss spoke clearly and decisively on the phenomenon of people choosing not to receive vaccinations or to vaccinate their children. The rabbi emphasized that this is a severe halakhic prohibition and that according to all rules of halakha (Jewish Law), a parent must ensure that his children are vaccinated.

"It's a halakhic obligation to vaccinate our children," Rabbi Weiss said.

Sorry, Rashida Tlaib: Israel was not a consolation prize for Jews

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23870

Recent assertions made by Rep. Rashida Tlaib regarding the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel have no foundation in the historical record.

In this imagined version of history, after the Holocaust, the Jews were awarded a consolation prize — the establishment of Israel — at the expense of those already living there.

Asserting that Israel’s creation was a direct response to the Holocaust overlooks the ancient and ceaseless connection of the Jewish people to Israel, as well as the modern Zionist enterprise that returned an exiled and oppressed people to their ancestral home. It also ignores the existence of a vibrant pre-World War II Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine, whose population was severely circumscribed because of the virulent opposition by local Arabs to the very idea of Jews returning to the Land of Israel.

Throughout Europe following the Nazi rise to power, a great many Zionists were deeply frustrated by the quotas set for aliyah by the British, and they later became victims of the Holocaust, having never had the opportunity to realize their dreams of reaching the Land of Israel. It is impossible to even begin to divine what their contribution could have been to Israel, the Jewish people and to the world.

Fox 2 Vaccine Debate | Let it Rip | April 11, 2019

MK to Rashida Tlaib: Palestinians gave Jews nothing but death

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/263039

An Israeli lawmaker blasted Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Sunday, over the freshman Democrat’s remarks regarding Palestinian Arab treatment of Jews following the Holocaust.

Newly-minted Likud MK Michal Shir responded to Tlaib’s claim that Palestinian Arabs had “provided” a “safe haven” for Jews after the Holocaust, saying the congresswoman should “open up a” book and study the history of the Middle East.

“I suggest Congresswoman Tlaib open up a history book once in a while,” said MK Shir. “The Arabs never provided the Jews with anything after the Holocaust besides more war and death. The Jews who survived the worst of it and immigrated to Israel to join their brothers and sisters in the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel were forced to deal with terrorists, and the continued and repeated refusal of the Arabs to live in peace and coexistence, leaving [the Jews] with no choice but to defend themselves.”

“The Arabs refused to recognize the right of the Jews to this state, and the Palestinians certainly aren’t willing to recognize it today. Yet in the State of Israel today, there are some 1.8 million Muslims, who live in the safest, most democratic state in the Middle East, which offers full equality for Muslims and Jews, men and women. The state defends its Muslims citizens from ISIS, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, which are just waiting for the opportunity to strike. I think Ms. Tlaib should thank the IDF.”

US Jewish leaders concerned over Tlaib's remarks

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/263164

Arthur Stark, Chairman and Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, on Tuesday expressed concerns over remarks by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Israel and the Holocaust.

Tlaib, one of two Muslim women who were recently elected to Congress, came under fire after she claimed in an interview that Palestinian Arabs living in the British Mandate prior to the establishment of the State of Israel “provided” a safe haven to Jews after the Holocaust.

“We are once again highly concerned by remarks made by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, in which she engaged in historical revisionism and distortion,” Stark and Hoenlein said in a statement.

“Rep. Tlaib stated that, ‘There's always kind of a calming feeling I tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people's passports. I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time, and I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right, and it was forced on them.’”

“As tens of thousands of Jews in Germany sought refuge from the infamous Nuremberg Laws and Nazi persecutions, including after the November 9th, 1938, Kristallnacht pogroms, Arab militias and mobs in Mandatory Palestine were attacking Jewish settlements and farms and killing Jewish residents,” the Jewish leaders noted.

“The 1939 White Paper, which limited Jewish immigration to Palestine at the very moment when escape from Europe became an existential priority, was instituted to placate the Mandate’s Arab population, and led to the trapping of millions of Jews in Hitler’s Europe. Furthermore, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a key leader of the Arab population in Palestine, supported and collaborated with Hitler and assisted in recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. The Arabs in Palestine during the Holocaust did not provide a safe haven for Jews, in fact they sided with the Axis powers. According to many experts, they expecting that the eventual arrival of the Nazis and their allies would eliminate the Jewish presence.”

“The authenticity of history is vital, not only in ensuring a proper understanding of the past, as it provides guidance to the future,” concluded Stark and Hoenlein.