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McCormick responds to Squad member who claims ‘white supremacy and xenophobia’ are the right’s ‘true religion’

McCormick responds to Squad member who claims ‘white supremacy and xenophobia’ are the right’s ‘true religion’

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., claimed in a post on X that “white supremacy and xenophobia” are the political right’s “true religion” and that the values of those on the right do not stem from Christ’s life and instruction. “It’s long been known that the true religion of the right is white supremacy and xenophobia. None of their real values are from the life and teachings of the Christ of the Christian Bible…” she wrote in a post on her @SummerForPA account. Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., fired back at the congresswoman. SEN. DAVE MCCORMICK ‘OPTIMISTIC’ ABOUT WORKING WITH SEN. FETTERMAN TO FIND ‘COMMON GROUND’: ‘EMBRACING’ CHANGE “None of us should take lectures from someone who has repeatedly demonstrated antisemitic behavior and is now condemning millions of her fellow citizens who simply want freedom, opportunity and secure borders,” he declared in a tweet. Lee swiftly fired right back at him. “Senator, I’m condemning those who profess to follow the teachings of Christ but do not love their neighbor or do right unto the least of these. Is that you? When he’s hungry, will you feed him or cut SNAP benefits? When he’s a stranger, will you invite him in or build a wall?” she replied. ‘SQUAD’ MEMBER SURVIVES CHALLENGE FROM CENTRIST DEMOCRAT AFTER ANTI-ISRAEL RHETORIC THREATENED RE-ELECTION Lee has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since early 2023.  McCormick was just sworn in as a senator earlier this month. Lee has criticized newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump’s executive orders. WHITE HOUSE OPM ORDERS ALL DEI OFFICES TO BEGIN CLOSING BY END OF DAY WEDNESDAY “Trump’s executive orders scapegoat Black + brown communities while his billionaire donors profit off the polluted air, overcrowded detention centers, and prison labor these EOs create. Immigrants aren’t why your wages are low and costs are high—it’s the billionaires,” she declared in a post on her @RepSummerLee X account.

Trump’s latest hires and fires rankle Iran hawks as new president suggests nuclear deal

Trump’s latest hires and fires rankle Iran hawks as new president suggests nuclear deal

If President Donald Trump’s personnel moves are any tell, he may come out of the gate toward Iran with a tone that is more diplomatic than combative.  And Trump on Thursday evening suggested he was open to a nuclear deal with Iran. Asked if he would support Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump told reporters, “We’ll have to see. I’m going to be meeting with various people over the next couple of days. We’ll see, but hopefully that could be worked out without having to worry about it.” “Iran hopefully will make a deal. I mean, they don’t make a deal, I guess that’s OK, too.” Iran, at least, is hoping for just that. The Tehran Times, a regime-linked English language newspaper, questioned in a recent article whether the firing of Brian Hook, the architect of the “maximum pressure” policy on Iran during Trump’s first term, could “signal a change in [Trump’s] Iran policy.” In November, news outlets reported that Hook was running the transition at the State Department. But Hook was relieved from the transition team shortly after in December, sources familiar with the move confirmed to Fox News Digital.  UN URGES DIPLOMACY AS IRAN HITS NUCLEAR ‘GAS PEDAL,’ CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR TELLS TRUMP ‘DO NOT APPEASE’ This week, Trump knocked Hook back a step further by posting on social media that he’d be removed from his position at a U.S. government-owned think tank. “Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars… YOU’RE FIRED!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. And after taking office, Trump removed the government-sponsored security details of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a source familiar confirmed to Fox News Digital.  Former National Security Advisor John Bolton told CNN his detail was also pulled, as was Hook’s. “You can’t have [protection] for the rest of your life. Do you want to have a large deal of people guarding people for the rest of their lives? I mean, there’s risks to everything,” Trump said. Trump recently put his Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff, in charge of addressing U.S. concerns about Iran, according to a Financial Times report. Witkoff most recently helped seal negotiations on a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, suggesting he may test Iran’s willingness to engage at the negotiating table on nuclear issues before ramping up pressure, sources told the Financial Times.  Experts warn that Iran is enriching hundreds of pounds of uranium to the 60% purity threshold, shy of the 90% purity levels needed to develop a nuclear bomb. At the same time, the president hired Michael Dimino as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, a foreign policy expert who has said the Middle East doesn’t “really matter” to U.S. interests any longer.  IRAN’S WEAKENED POSITION COULD LEAD IT TO PURSUE NUCLEAR WEAPON, BIDEN NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER WARNS Dimino is cut from the same cloth as undersecretary of defense for policy Elbridge Colby, who has argued for the U.S. to focus military resources on countering China and devote fewer resources to other regions.  Dimino, a former expert at the Koch-funded restraint advocacy think tank Defense Priorities, has strongly advocated for pulling U.S. resources out of the Middle East. “The core question is: Does the Middle East still matter?” Dimino said during a panel last February. “The answer is: not really, not really for U.S. interests. What I would say is that vital or existential U.S. interests in the Middle East are best characterized as minimal to non-existent.” “We are really there to counter Iran and that is really at the behest of the Israelis and Saudis,” he added. “Iranian power remains both exaggerated and misunderstood. Its economy continues to underperform, and its conventional military is antiquated and untested. Tehran simply doesn’t have the financial capital or hard power capabilities to dominate the Middle East or directly threaten core U.S. interests,” he wrote in a 2023 article. Dimino has also argued the U.S. does not need to focus resources on an offensive campaign against the Houthis amid attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea.  “Put simply, there are no existential or vital U.S. national interests at stake in Yemen and very little is at stake for the U.S. economically in the Red Sea.” Instead, he argued in a 2023 op-ed that working to increase aid into Gaza would rid the Houthis of their stated reason for their attacks in the Red Sea, which they’ve said are a means of fighting on behalf of Gaza. “Working to increase aid shipments to Gaza would not just help to alleviate the humanitarian crisis there but would deprive the Houthis of their claimed justification for attacks in the Red Sea and provide the group with an off-ramp for de-escalation that would also serve to prevent indefinite U.S. participation in a broader regional war.” Others in Trump’s foreign policy orbit historically have struck a more hawkish tone toward Iran, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Israel Ambassador Mike Huckabee.  Rubio has already said he will work to bring back the snapback sanctions that were suspended in the 2015 Iran deal, as indicated by written responses he provided to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.  “A policy of maximum pressure must be reinstated, and it must be reinstated with the help of the rest of the globe, and that includes standing with the Iranian people and their aspirations for democracy,” Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy to Russia and Ukraine, recently said.  The Dimino hiring – along with other recent personnel moves – has caused rumblings from prominent Iran hawks.  Mark Levin, a radio host who has the ear of Trump, has posted on X multiple times in opposition to Dimino: “How’d this creep get a top DoD position?” he asked in one post.  “While Dimino and Witkoff are very different issues, Witkoff is Trump’s best friend, [it] seems difficult to detangle, very concerning,” said one Iran expert. “Dimino is a mystery and does not align with Hegseth or Trump values on Iran

‘On notice’: Ex-Venezuelan military official applauds Trump’s ‘first good step’ targeting bloodthirsty gang

‘On notice’: Ex-Venezuelan military official applauds Trump’s ‘first good step’ targeting bloodthirsty gang

In one of the first moves of his administration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order taking drastic steps to crack down on the violent Venezuelan migrant gang “Tren de Aragua,” which has been terrorizing American cities in recent months. Also known as “TdA,” Tren de Aragua is a Venezuelan criminal group present in over a dozen U.S. cities. The group has ties to the socialist Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and according to experts, is being used as a tool of asymmetric warfare to sow chaos and discord in the U.S. Jose Gustavo Arocha, a former high-ranking Venezuelan military official and senior fellow at the U.S.-based Center for a Secure Free Society, told Fox News Digital that Trump’s order was an “extraordinary move” that is the “first good step in the route to neutralize TdA.” The order – which is titled “Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists” – instructs newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to move to designate Tren de Aragua, as well as Mexican gang MS-13 and other migrant gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations.” WHO IS TREN DE ARAGUA? VICIOUS VENEZUELAN GANG ‘FOLLOWING IN THE PATH OF MS-13’ IN AMERICA A foreign terrorist designation expands the government’s ability to crack down on criminal groups operating in the U.S., allowing all government agencies, including the Department of the Treasury, to target that group from every angle.   The order states that these groups “present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” and invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEP) to declare a national emergency to “deal with those threats.” “It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States,” reads the order. The order gives Rubio 14 days to make policy recommendations – in consultation with the secretaries of the Treasury and Homeland Security as well as the U.S. attorney general and director of National Intelligence – to make a recommendation regarding the designation of TdA, MS-13 and any other group as a foreign terrorist organization. TEXAS GOV. ABBOTT DESIGNATES VENEZUELAN GANG, TREN DE ARAGUA, AS A FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION According to Arocha, this move could spell the beginning of the end for TdA’s reign of terror in the United States. “This executive order that Trump signed is perfect to neutralize unconventional tools that were made by the Venezuela regime,” he said. “The TdA is an asymmetrical and unconventional tool to harm the United States, [and] not only the United States, all the region … [so] you have to use unconventional tools, too.” Joseph Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society who in 2024 authored a report on how to dismantle TdA, explained to Fox News Digital that designating these groups as foreign terrorist organizations places them “at the highest level” of U.S. national security interest, meaning their funding and any organizations enabling them can be targeted as well. “Trump just put all of them on notice,” said Humire. “This said: ‘We know you’re here; we know you’re up to no good and we’re going to come after you.’” TREN DE ARAGUA BELIEVED TO BE BEHIND MURDER OF IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL NEAR BORDER “Now critics may say, well, he’s going to create a war on terror or drugs, and it’s really a reaction of fear. They say: ‘Oh, you know, these guys are so dangerous.’ And what you know about criminality, whether it’s terrorism or any kind of criminality, is that they only respond to strength. They prey on fear. If they think you’re scared to attack you more,” he said. “So, by showing this strength, it’s the first action of deterrence.” In addition to sending a message of strength, Humire said the executive order signals that there will be “meaningful action taking place really, really soon to start to arrest and dismantle” TdA’s presence in the U.S. Andrew Arthur, a law and policy expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Fox News Digital that one of the most important aspects of designating TdA a foreign terrorist organization is enabling the U.S. government to target TdA’s funding, which he said can essentially “bleed them dry.” CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE “Money is the lifeblood of these organizations,” he said. “It’s really the funding element of all this that is crucial to going after a terrorist organization, because if you cut them off from the money, they’re not going to be able to pay people. They’re not going to be able to pay bribes to corrupt officials, they are not going to be able to pay their foot soldiers, are not going to be able to buy the big guns and the things that they used to operate.” “It’s not just the guy with the AK-47 or the guy with the IED that’s a terrorist. It’s all those people that helped to make that possible,” he went on. “So, when you designate them as terrorist organizations, in addition to going after the keepers or the kingpins of these organizations and the various foot soldiers that they employ, you can also go after the individuals who provide material support.”

Thousands flock to smell plant that reeks of dead rat, rotting rubbish

Thousands flock to smell plant that reeks of dead rat, rotting rubbish

Huge crowds queued in Sydney to catch a whiff of the flower that smells like ‘hot rubbish’ She may smell like rotting flesh but “Putricia”, the internet-famous corpse flower, has been the centre of attention at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney over the last two days. The rare plant – scientific name amorphophallus titanum, but also known as “Titan Arum” or “bunga bangkai” in Indonesia where it grows wild – began to bloom on Thursday, giving off an odour described as having the aromatic profile of “dead rat”. With 11 corpse flowers in the collection, staff at the gardens traditionally give each a nickname and this time they settled on “Putricia” – a combination of “putrid” and “Patricia”. Putricia the corpse flower prior to blooming at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens [Handout / Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens] Putricia has also become something of an influencer over the last 18 days, as thousands monitored a livestream created by the institution to document her growth from a mere bud to a 1.6-metre-tall flower in real time. With more than 1.5 million views and a very active Discord community, John Siemon, director of horticulture and living collections at the gardens, says staff have been “shell shocked” by Putricia’s sudden popularity. Siemon said at least 20,000 excited onlookers have since passed through the doors to catch a whiff of Putricia over the last week. Advertisement Sydney Botanic Gardens chief scientist Professor Brett Summerell said Putricia had taken time to ramp up production of her unique perfume but was at her height on Thursday evening when the smell could be detected from 20 metres away, outside her pavilion. “It’s a little bit of a build-up,” he said. “Over a period of time, as the flower starts to unfurl, it starts to generate heat and that heat starts to generate chemical reactions. “What the plant is trying to do is produce maximum amounts of that smell so it attracts insects, flies and beetles from all across the jungle so they can come and pollinate it.” The oversize flower features fluted crimson petals and can measure more than a metre (3 ft) across with a pointed centre stalk that can top 3 metres (10 ft). The flower’s disgusting smell and reddish-purple structure is designed to lure pollinators so it can reproduce. The plant typically does not bloom more than once every few years and lasts only about a day. A specimen has not bloomed in Sydney since 2010, making Putricia the fifth corpse flower to bloom at the gardens. Staff at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens up close and personal while in the process of propagating “Putricia” the corpse flower [Handout / Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney] After about 48 hours, the yellow stalk at the centre of the corpse flower collapses and it will be a minimum of three to five years before the plant can bloom again. Sydney resident Rebecca McGee-Collett, who waited 90 minutes to see the flower on Thursday evening, said the flower was beautiful but the smell was “like hot garbage”. Advertisement The plant is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra and is listed as endangered due to habitat loss and poaching, with 300-500 specimens of Titan Arum thought to be left in the wild. Adblock test (Why?)