By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – U.S. Senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-California), interviewed by Univision 34’s Oswaldo Borraez, said the Trump campaign’s “demonization of immigrants and migrants” was “loathsome, and I think people voted for him not because of that kind of hate and divisiveness, but despite it, because they wanted to help with the economy.”
He added, “I’m going to continue to champion a comprehensive immigration reform that, yes, secures our border, makes it orderly at the border, but also provides a pathway to citizenship for our Dreamers, for our farm workers and for others, that treats people trying to immigrate and migrate here as human beings. Some will be entitled to stay because they’re fleeing persecution. Some won’t because they’re economic migrants.”
Distinguishing between economic migrants and refugees requires a “rational, responsible system” in a reasonable period of time. “I will continue to fight any efforts to demonize people or put people in cages, or have an immigration system that’s at odds with our values.”
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Amos Hochstein, an Israel-born American who now serves as a senior advisor to President Joe Biden, seeks clarification of Lebanon’s position before traveling to that country as an American envoy tasked with arranging a 60-day ceasefire with Israel that might lead to a more permanent agreement to curb hostilities. One tenet of the agreement is expected to require that in return for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory, Hezbollah forces will vacate the area between the border with Israel and the Litani River, with only regular Lebanese Army forces authorized to patrol there. Meanwhile, Lebanon and Israel have been bombing each other’s towns and cities.
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U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont) is expected to try to force a vote in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday to block more than $20 billion in U.S. aid to Israel. Although the measure is expected to fail in the Senate, Sanders reportedly wants to demonstrate that anti-Israel sentiment is growing in Congress. His commentary: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government has not simply waged war against Hamas. It has also waged all-out war against the Palestinian people. Within Gaza’s population of just 2.2 million, more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 103,000 injured — probably 60 percent of whom are women, children or elderly people. A recent U.N. assessment of satellite imagery found that two-thirds of all structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. That includes 87 percent of housing, 84 percent of health facilities, and about 70 percent of water and sanitation plants. Every one of Gaza’s 12 universities has been bombed, as have hundreds of schools.”
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A lively competition to win President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination to serve as U.S. Treasury Secretary is shaping up among Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald financial services firm and co-chair of Trump’s transition team; Scott Bessent, founder of Key Square Capital Management, and Kevin Warsh, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and son-in-law of Ronald Lauder, president of the Jewish World Congress. Multi-billionaire Elon Musk, who has been named by Trump as co-chair with Vivek Ramaswamy of an effort to slash the federal budget while improving government efficiency, is said to favor Lutnick. Meanwhile, Trump’s aide and confidant Boris Epshteyn, who reportedly advanced Matt Gaetz’s nomination for U.S. attorney general, reportedly is broigus with Musk, who has questioned Gaetz’s suitability for the job as the nation’s top lawyer, Axios has reported.
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The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was blamed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) for Democratic losses this past election. She posted on the X social media platform, “If people want to talk about members of Congress being overly influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats then they should be discussing AIPAC.”
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Rahm Emanuel, the current U.S. Ambassador to Japan, has been testing the waters for a campaign to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, succeeding Jaime Harrison, who is not expected to run following the party’s debacle this past Nov. 5th. Emanuel was Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff and later served as the mayor of Chicago. Another aspirant for DNC chair is Martin O’Malley, the head of the U.S. Social Security Administration and a former governor of Maryland.
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A member of CodePink, a women’s anti-war group, confronted CNN anchor Dana Bash at a synagogue on Friday night, telling her that to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism was itself antisemitic. Bash responded that people can be pro-Palestine without being anti-Israel, but suggested that the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in essence calls for the elimination of Israel. When demonstrators shout from outside her home that she is “Zionist trash,” that is also antisemitic.
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Congresswoman Susan Wild (D-Pennsylvania) is still ranking member of the House Ethics Committee, even though she was defeated Nov. 5 and won’t be back in January. She said that the committee should release its report on Matt Gaetz to the public and most definitely to the Senate, which needs to exercise its constitutional mandate of “advise and consent” for Cabinet appointments. President-elect Trump has nominated Gaetz to succeed Merrick Garland as U.S. attorney general.
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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has agreed with the Republican National Committee and a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that mail-in ballots without signatures or dates should not be counted in the yet-to-be decided U.S. Senate contest between incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick. “The rule of law matters in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said. “It is critical for counties in both parties to respect it with both their rhetoric and their actions,”
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The incoming first transgender member of Congress, Delaware Democrat Sarah McBride, may be barred from women’s bathrooms in the Capitol after she takes the oath of office in January. Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced a resolution prohibiting members of Congress and staff from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” Democratic Congresswoman Becca Balint of Vermont, co-chair of the Equality Caucus, denounced Mace’s proposed resolution as “cruel.”
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INTERNATIONAL
Irwin Cotler, founding International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, has been under the protection of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police following credible threats that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has sought his assassination, according to The Globe and Mail.
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Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have a friend in incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, who says if the International Criminal Court pursues war crimes charges against these leaders, he will sponsor a resolution to impose U.S. sanctions on the ICC.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World