December 2019 Townhall Cartoons

Woman charged with hate crime amid NYC anti-Semitic attacks

FILE - In this Dec. 11, 2019 file photo, Orthodox Jewish men pass New York City police guarding a Brooklyn synagogue prior to a funeral for Mosche Deutsch in New York. Deutsch, a rabbinical student from Brooklyn, was killed in the shooting inside a Jersey City, N.J. market. New York City is increasing its police presence in some Brooklyn neighborhoods with large Jewish populations after a number of possibly anti-Semitic attacks during the Hanukkah holiday. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

 

Tiffany Harris

NEW YORK (AP) — A woman accused of slapping three people in one of a series of apparently anti-Semitic attacks reported throughout New York during Hanukkah was charged Saturday with attempted assault as a hate crime, court records show.

Tiffany Harris, 30, was released without bail after her arraignment on the attempted assault charge and misdemeanor and lower-level charges , according to the records.

Her lawyer, Iris Ying, declined to comment, and the New York Post reported that Harris rebuffed questions as she left a Brooklyn court.

Police said Harris slapped three women, ages 22 to 31, in the face and head after encountering them on a corner in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights area. The victims suffered minor pain, police said.

Around the city, police have gotten at least six reports this week — and eight since Dec. 13 — of attacks possibly propelled by anti-Jewish bias.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday that police presence would increase in Crown Heights and two other Brooklyn neighborhoods with large Jewish populations.

Ukraine, eastern rebels swap prisoners in move to end war

MAIORSK CHECKPOINT, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine began exchanging prisoners Sunday in a move aimed at ending their 5-year-long war.

The move was part of an agreement brokered earlier this month at a summit of the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France.

A rebel government official and the Ukrainian president’s office confirmed that the swap has started.

In total, 142 prisoners were expected to be exchanged at a checkpoint near Horlivka in eastern Ukraine — 55 released by the rebels and 87 by Ukraine.

The last major prisoner swap between separatist rebels and Ukrainian forces took place in December 2017, with 233 rebels exchanged for 73 Ukrainians.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014 has killed more than 14,000 people. The conflict began about two months after Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president fled the country amid massive protests in Kyiv. Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula soon followed.

Hopes for ending the conflict have risen since the spring election of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has been more amenable to negotiations with Russia on ending the war.

But prospects for peace are still troubled by questions over allowing local elections that would ensure the rebel regions more autonomy and about Ukraine regaining control of its border with Russia in the rebel areas.

Biden leaves it unclear if he would honor Senate subpoena

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden sought Saturday to clarify his assertion that if the Senate subpoenas him to testify in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, he will defy the order. But he did not clear up what he would do.

A day earlier, the Democratic presidential contender told The Des Moines Register he stood by his position that he would defy the Republican-controlled Senate if it ordered him to be a witness in the proceedings.

“Correct,” he said when asked if that was still his intent. “And the reason I wouldn’t (testify) is because it’s all designed to deal with Trump doing what he’s done his whole life — trying to take the focus off of him.”

In a tweet Saturday, Biden said: “I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests.”

Yet he followed with another tweet suggesting that he would consider any subpoena from the Senate Republicans for the impeachment trial to be illegitimate.

“I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial,” he tweeted. “That is the point I was making yesterday and I reiterate: this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine.”

It has not been established that any witnesses will testify when the Senate takes up the articles of impeachment passed by the House, accusing Trump of abusing office and obstructing Congress.

Democrats want to hear from certain officials close to Trump who did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry. Trump and some of his allies have threatened in response to seek testimony from Biden, his son Hunter, and the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint about Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s leader set off the impeachment inquiry.

On the call, Trump asked the Ukrainian president to open an investigation into the Bidens while holding up military aid for Ukraine. A Ukrainian gas company had hired Hunter Biden when his father was vice president and the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine.

Trump retweets post naming alleged whistleblower

President Donald Trump speaks to attorney Alan Dershowitz, right, as he arrives for Christmas Eve dinner at Mar-a-lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump retweeted a post that included the alleged name of the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment by the House.

Just before midnight Friday, Trump retweeted a message from Twitter user @Surfermom77, an account that claims to be a woman named Sophia who lives in California. The account shows some indications of automation, including an unusually high amount of activity and profile pictures featuring stock images from the internet.

By Saturday morning, the post seemed to have disappeared on many users’ feeds, suggesting Trump had deleted it, though it could still be found in other ways, including on a website that logs every presidential tweet.

The retweet then reappeared Saturday night. Twitter told The Associated Press that an outage with one of its systems caused tweets on some accounts, including Trump’s, to be visible to some but not others.

Trump has repeatedly backed efforts to unmask the whistleblower. But his Friday night retweet marks the first time he has directly sent the alleged name into the Twitter feed of his 68 million followers.

Unmasking the whistleblower, who works in the intelligence field, could violate federal protection laws that have historically been supported by both parties.

The whistleblower filed a complaint in August about one of Trump’s telephone conversations with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other dealings with the Eastern European nation. The complaint prompted House Democrats to launch a probe that ended with Trump’s impeachment earlier this month. The matter now heads to the Senate, where the Republican majority is expected to acquit the president.

The central points from the whistleblower’s complaint were confirmed during the House impeachment hearings by a string of diplomats and other career officials, many of whom testified in public. The White House also released a transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy, in which he asks for help investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee.

Speculation about the whistleblower’s identity has been circulating in conservative media and on social media for months.

U.S. whistleblower laws exist to protect the identity and careers of people who bring forward accusations of wrongdoing by government officials. The Associated Press typically does not reveal the identity of whistleblowers.

Trump insists he did nothing wrong in his dealings with Ukraine and has asserted that the whistleblower made up the complaint, despite its corroboration by other officials. Trump also argues that he has a right to face his accuser and has called on the whistleblower to step forward.

For months, an array of right-wing personalities, amateur pro-Trump internet sleuths and some conservative news outlets have published what they claim to be details about the whistleblower, including name and career history. The president himself has also been inching closer to outing the individual; earlier this week, Trump shared a tweet linking to a Washington Examiner article that included the alleged name.

Surfermom77, the Twitter handle on the post Trump retweeted, describes herself as a “100%Trump Supporter” and California resident. The account had nearly 79,000 followers as of Saturday afternoon. Some of its previous posts have denounced Islam and sharply criticized former President Barack Obama and other Democrats.

Surfermom77 has displayed some hallmarks of a Twitter bot, an automated account. A recent profile picture on the account, for instance, is a stock photo of a woman in business attire that is available for use online.

That photo was removed Saturday and replaced with an image of Trump.

A deeper look at Surfermom77’s account shows the user previously used two other stock photos as profile pictures, including one of a model wearing an orange hat used by a hat retailer.

Surfermom77 has also tweeted far more than typical users, more than 170,000 times since the account was activated in 2013. Surfermom77 has posted, on average, 72 tweets a day, according to Nir Hauser, chief technology officer at VineSight, a technology firm that tracks online misinformation.

“That’s not something most humans are doing,” Hauser said.

While many bots only repost benign information like cat photos, others have been used to spread disinformation or polarizing claims, as Russian bots did in the lead up to the 2016 election.

In past years, Surfermom77 has described herself as a teacher, historian, documentary author and model. Attempts to reach the person behind the account by telephone on Saturday were unsuccessful. An email address could not be found.

Facebook has a policy banning posts that name the alleged whistleblower. But Twitter, which doesn’t have such a rule, has not removed the tweet from Supermom77 or tweets from others who have named the alleged whistleblower.

“The Tweet you referenced is not a violation of the Twitter Rules,” the company wrote in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.

Some details about the whistleblower that have been published online by Trump’s supporters have been inaccurate or misrepresented.

For example, a photo shared widely on social media last month was circulated by Facebook, Reddit and Twitter users who wrongly claimed it showed the whistleblower with Obama’s staffers outside the White House as Trump moved in.

The individual in the photo actually was R. David Edelman, a former special assistant to Obama on economic and tech policy. Edelman debunked the claim on his Twitter account and told the AP he received threats online as a result of the false claims.

Michael German, an FBI whistleblower who left the agency after reporting allegations of mismanagement in counterterrorism cases, said outing government whistleblowers not only puts them at personal risk but also discourages other government officials from stepping forward to expose possible wrongdoing.

German, now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, said the ease with which the alleged whistleblower’s identity has been spread online shows the need for greater legal protections for whistleblowers.

Hunter Biden Ukraine Gas Co. Cartoons

Hunter Biden, wife missing from Biden family Christmas photo posted on Twitter

Hunter Biden and his wife, Melissa, were conspicuously absent from a family Christmas photo posted by former Vice President Joe Biden on Christmas Day.
“May your time with loved ones be full of peace, laughter, and joy. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. With love, from my family to yours,” Biden captioned the photo on Twitter.
The photo includes Joe Biden, his wife, Jill, their daughter Ashley and some of their grandchildren, including Hunter’s three daughters Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy, according to The New York Post.
The photo prompted many on Twitter to ask why Hunter wasn't included.
It's not clear where Hunter and Melissa were on Christmas Day. The couple were seen in Los Angeles the day after Christmas, according to The Post.
Biden later sent out a video that showed his dogs Champ and Major running around the house playing with chew toys and eating Christmas cookies.
"When we say Merry Christmas from the entire Biden family, that means even the dogs," Biden posted on his Twitter page.
Hunter Biden has become a controversial part of his father’s presidential campaign since his work on the board of Ukrainian oil company Burisma while his father was involved diplomatically with the country during the Obama administration came to light.
No evidence of wrongdoing has been found by either Joe or Hunter Biden in the matter.
Hunter's involvement with Burisma was a catalyst to President Trump's impeachment after a whistleblower reported a July phone call with Ukraine's president in which Trump asked Ukraine to investigate Hunter's work there.
Hunter, who got married earlier this year, is reportedly now expecting a child with his new bride. Last month, he was found by a court in Arkansas to also be the father of another woman’s child who he denies having sex with following a DNA test, according to court documents.

Tim Scott: Pelosi not taking Trump impeachment battle 'seriously': 'The wacky House process is just a joke'

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., ripped House Democrats for their impeachment process and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for holding on to the articles of impeachment rather than sending them to the Republican-controlled Senate for trial, saying the speaker isn't taking the issue "seriously."
"Well, the wacky House process is just a joke. And unfortunately, for one of the most important and consequential decisions the House could have made, to impeach the president, you would expect an expeditious process for the Senate to start the process," Scott said on "The Ingraham Angle." "But it's not happened. That's not happened because Pelosi is not taking this seriously."
Republican and Democrats continue to spar over the two articles of impeachment passed by the Democrat-controlled House, which the president and Republicans criticized as unfair and Democrats including Pelosi contend they want a fair Senate trial.
Scott said Pelosi is "concerned" that the House impeachment will be invalidated.
"She's now concerned that this terrible, terrible process in the House will be invalidated by the Senate, because without any question, having watched that process is hard to understand why we were even in the impeachment process at all," Scott told guest host Jason Chaffetz.
The senator called for McConnell to hold strong and Republicans to continue focusing on bolstering the economy and improving the nation's judicial system.
"I hope that Mitch McConnell sticks to his guns and she has no influence in the Senate. We should keep it that way," Scott said. "And we will just continue putting more judges on benches throughout this country and working on what is a really good economy."