Conway says Trump will have a 'much stronger relationship with Israel'

President-elect Donald Trump's incoming counselor said Thursday that Trump “does believe it’s time to move on and look forward to the next administration.”
In an interview on Fox News' "Hannity," Kellyanne Conway discussed the US sanctions imposed on Russia. Russia has responded to the sanctions by threatening to retaliate and has said the move was done to hurt the incoming administration.
“We have complicated relations with Russia. We have for decades as the United States,” Conway said. “President-elect has made it clear that he is willing to work with countries who want to work on big solutions together.”
Conway also discussed the relationship between the US and Israel saying, “You will see President Trump having much stronger relationship with Israel.”
Conway said Israel is America’s greatest friend and that “we want our friends in Israel to know that help is on the way.”
“You see this flurry of activity by a tough President Obama as he exits the office,” Conway said. “You can’t put daylight between the US and Israel.”
“We do wonder about the rush to do all these things the next couple of weeks by the Obama administration,” Conway added.
“January 20th will be here quickly and it’s very important to all of us,” Conway said of the Trump administration taking office. “I think it’s important to America that you see that peaceful transition of power from administration to administration. “

Trump responds to sanctions against Russia, says it's time to 'move on'

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday “it’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things” after the Obama administration issued sanctions against Russia for its alleged 2016 election hacking.
“It's time for our country to move on to bigger and better things,” Trump said in a written response released four hours after the announcement. “Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation."
The Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia’s intelligence services, while ejecting dozens of intelligence operatives from the U.S. as part of a response to what it says are efforts by Moscow to influence the election.
Using an executive order, President Obama sanctioned the GRU and the FSB -- two of Russia's intelligence services as well as other entities and individuals associated with the GRU. The cybersecurity firm hired by the Democratic National Committee to investigate the hack of its emails earlier this year concluded the hacking came from the Fancy Bear group, believed to be affiliated with the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency.
In addition to the sanctions, the State Department has declared 35 Russian intelligence operatives "persona non grata" in the U.S., giving them 72 hours to leave, and is shutting down two Russian compounds in Maryland and New York.
The Maryland property is a 45-acre property at Pioneer Point, and was purchased by the Soviet government in 1972.
The New York property is on Long Island and is 14 acres and was purchased by the Soviet government in 1954.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said in response to the announcement that Moscow will consider retaliatory measures.
 "We think that such steps by a U.S. administration that has three weeks left to work are aimed at two things: to further harm Russian-American ties, which are at a low point as it is, as well as, obviously, to deal a blow to the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect," Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
The Russian Embassy in the UK took a different approach, tweeting out a picture of a lame duck and blasting what it called "Cold War deja vu."
The Treasury Secretary meanwhile has named two individuals -- Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev and Aleksey Alekseyevich Belan -- it says were involved in "malicious cyber-enabled activities."
"These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm U.S. interests in violation of established international norms of behavior," Obama said in a statement.
Obama also announced that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI will release declassified information on Russian cyberactivity to help "identify, detect and Russia's global campaign of malicious cyber activities."
Obama also said that the administration will be providing a report to Congress "in the coming days" about Russian attempts to interfere in the election, as well as previous election cycles.
The president also hinted that his administration intends to do more to hold Russia accountable.
"These actions are not the sum total of our response to Russia's aggressive activities," Obama said. "We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized."
U.S. intelligence services have concluded that the Russians interfered in the election to try and help President-elect Donald Trump win. Trump has dismissed the conclusions.
However, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. welcomed the move in a statement.
"Russia does not share America's interests. In fact, it has consistently sought to undermine them, sowing dangerous instability around the world. While today's action by the administration is overdue, it is an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with Russia," Ryan said.
Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY., also praised the move in a statement late Thursday.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-TX., called Obama's actions "long overdue," while House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes said he's been "urging" Obama for years to take action and that this "indecision and delay" explains why "American's influence has collapsed."

Putin spokesman says Russia weighs retaliation after sanctions

The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday Moscow will consider retaliatory measures following the new round of U.S. sanctions put in place by President Obama.
Russia also continued to deny accusations by the U.S. that it hacked and stole emails in order to aide in Trump’s win. Trump commented on the matter saying the U.S. should move on. Trump is planning on meeting with U.S. intelligence leaders next week to learn more.

Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow that the measures signal Obama’s “unpredictable” and “aggressive foreign policy.”
The spokesman added that Putin would order “appropriate” retaliation for the sanctions.
"We think that such steps by a U.S. administration that has three weeks left to work are aimed at two things: to further harm Russian-American ties, which are at a low point as it is, as well as, obviously, to deal a blow to the foreign policy plans of the incoming administration of the president-elect," Peskov said.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev took to Twitter to call out the new round of U.S. sanctions against his country, saying the Obama administration is “ending its term in an anti-Russia agony.”
The Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia’s intelligence services, while ejecting dozens of intelligence operatives from the U.S., as part of a response to what it says are efforts by Moscow to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Obama Throw Israel under the bus Cartoons

Trump assures Israel, blasts Obama over 'roadblocks'

President-elect Donald Trump blasted President Obama on Wednesday over his administration’s treatment of Israel, accusing him of making “inflammatory” statements and putting up “roadblocks” that are hampering the transition.
The incoming president took to Twitter to assure Israel that his administration will bring a new approach, in advance of a speech on the Middle East peace process by Secretary of State John Kerry. The already-turbulent relationship between the Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu governments has lurched into its rockiest stretch yet in the final days of the Obama administration, after the U.S. abstained on an anti-settlement resolution before the U.N. Security Council, allowing it to pass.
Trump tweeted: “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect.”
And in a swipe at the outgoing president after a period of relative peace between the two, he wrote, “Thought it was going to be a smooth transition - NOT!”
The Israeli government has turned to President-elect Trump’s team for support in recent days, openly saying they look forward to working with the next president amid fraying ties with the outgoing administration.
Netanyahu has described the U.S. abstention that allowed the U.N. resolution to pass as an “ambush,” and his government has gone on to accuse the U.S. of playing a hand in orchestrating the vote.
In the hours before Kerry’s speech, the Netanyahu government took another shot at the U.S., with Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan calling Kerry’s speech a “pathetic step.”
He told Israel Army Radio that “Kerry's intention is to chain President-elect Trump."
The White House has pushed back on claims that the Obama administration helped craft and push the resolution – and on Wednesday morning, denied another report in Egyptian media claiming Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice discussed the U.N. resolution with a top Palestinian official nearly two weeks before Friday’s Security Council vote.
Ned Price, spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, called the reports a “fabrication” and said the “meeting never occurred.”
The State Department’s own website reflects that Kerry was scheduled for a meeting with the Palestinian official at the State Department on Dec. 12, around the time of the reported discussions. The official website, however, offers no details on what was discussed.

Hispanic affairs adviser to 3 presidents has high hopes for Trump

As Donald Trump’s campaign sought to court minority voters amid accusations from the left that his base lacked diversity, little did he know one of the earliest minority trailblazers in the White House was firmly in his corner.
Decades removed from West Wing meetings, private jets and consultations with Latin American politicians, Fernando De Baca, 78, plastered his hometown of Albuquerque with Trump signs and helped publicize rallies in the Democratic stronghold of New Mexico.
Once someone who walked the halls of the White House as a Hispanic Affairs adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, De Baca is excited these days just to snag tickets to Trump’s inauguration -- and view it from the outside.
“Trump reminds me of Ronald Reagan,” De Baca told FoxNews.com. “[My wife and I] supported Trump from the day he announced. … We believed in him, believed that he had the right message.”
De Baca, who led the newly created Office of Hispanic Affairs under Gerald Ford and served in multiple Republican administrations, offers a unique perspective. Looking forward, in an interview with FoxNews.com, he cut against the narrative that Trump’s election is a step backward for minorities and voiced optimism for the future – while lamenting the state of race relations under President Obama.
He suggested part of the problem has been identity politics.
“It’s a totally different world we live in today compared to when I was advocating,” De Baca said. “People were stable, hard-working and were Americans first and Hispanics second.”
A time capsule of sorts, De Baca is part of a dwindling group of Cold War White House advisers who worked directly with American presidents – in his case, at a time when the country was working to alleviate racial strife and launch some of the first government programs to help blacks and Hispanics in the workforce.
But De Baca said years of leftist policies promoting victimization and entitlement over positive messages of equality have caused America to regress.
Road to Washington
It was 1968 and De Baca had just returned from serving in the Vietnam War as a major in Army special intelligence. He was tapped to head New Mexico’s Department of Motor Vehicles. After two years on the job, he met Nixon advisers who recruited him for the president’s new “16 Point Program for Spanish Speaking Americans” – an effort to identify and recruit more Hispanics for federal jobs.
“I was introduced as the head of the program and I met President Nixon for the first time,” De Baca said. “He said, ‘Well, I’ve announced this program and you’ve been selected to head it up and I’m serious about bringing in more Hispanics to the federal government. They must be qualified.’”

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Hispanic leaders meet with President Ford; De Baca is seated next to Ford. (Courtesy of Fernando De Baca)

De Baca flew across the nation and to Puerto Rico, setting up satellite offices in big cities to aid in the hiring process. Soon, he had recruited thousands of Hispanics to fill civil service jobs. Nixon noticed and promoted De Baca to Western regional chairman of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
De Baca was later promoted again to special assistant to the president for Domestic Policy. The day he was to report: Aug. 9, 1974, which later became the day Nixon resigned and left office.
“I report in the morning only to be ushered over to the south lawn where Nixon was departing and I saw him board the Air Force One helicopter,” De Baca said. “I had been following the news and knew his departure was imminent. I felt really bad about it, just as a human being, because he got embroiled in Watergate and the cover-up.”
De Baca continued on under Ford, working with some of the most famous figures in political history.
“The minute I reported in, I had to meet with the chief of staff Alexander Haig – he was pretty domineering figure. He ran a real tight ship,” De Baca recalled. He also remembered sharing an office with Alan Greenspan, who was writing speeches and worked as an economic adviser, and meeting Secretary of State Henry Kissinger “who was very nice and a bit reserved.”
Soon, De Baca was handling any issue that arose with the Hispanic community. One of his biggest tasks was traveling to military bases around the world ensuring Hispanics were properly represented.
When the Ford presidency ended and Jimmy Carter entered the White House, De Baca returned to New Mexico. He had just married another New Mexico native who was in Washington D.C. working at Jobs for Progress, a Hispanic nonprofit advocacy group.
De Baca had long and strenuous hours, so his wife Cecilia did not regret leaving Washington.
“He would come home at 11 at night and was always up and out by 7:30,” she said. “He lived it. In that era, it was public service. You give your life. You believe in it. It’s a calling.”
But when Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981, De Baca once again was called upon as a senior adviser. The tone had switched from big government to pumping up the private sector and Reagan wanted De Baca to ensure the role of Hispanics in manufacturing.

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Fernando De Baca, center, is shown meeting with Ford's Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld and civil rights leaders. (Courtesy of Fernando De Baca)

The job would soon turn somber. De Baca attended a meeting with the president on March 30, hours before he was shot in an assassination attempt. De Baca was about 10 feet behind Reagan and witnessed the entire event.
He offers one critique of the late president, in hindsight -- over his decision to grant amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. What was meant as a one-time solution that would culminate with strong border control has instead become a license for millions more to enter the country illegally with little repercussion, De Baca said.
“He probably should never have done what he did,” De Baca said. “I think [Reagan] was dreaming. There was no enforcement. Then you have Obama coming in with protecting them instead of stopping them at the border. ... He has turned out to be a real sad state of affairs.”
‘Fortitude and Strength’
After his decades of working to advance fellow Hispanics in the workforce, De Baca looks upon current racial strife in America and says his former bosses would be disappointed. Years of leftist policies, he said, have fostered a type of anti-patriotism with millions of school children being taught an abbreviated version of history that leaves out core values.
He voiced concern that welfare policies are becoming the draw for immigrants to America, rather than a desire to “work” and “assimilate” here.
The De Bacas voiced optimism, though, for the Trump administration.
While critics have described the incoming president’s calls for deporting criminal illegal immigrants and building a border wall as intolerant, and his rhetoric as xenophobic, Mr. De Baca said Trump has the “fortitude and strength to face this [immigration] issue head on.”
“We are a country, we’ve got to have borders,” he said. “The law is the law. I fought for that flag in actual combat. … And it’s worth it because our flag is still standing for our country.”

TX Rep Drafting Bill to Defund UN: 'They Don't Need Our Money to Be Anti-Semitic'

Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (R) told Kimberly Guilfoyle he is drafting a bill that will halt all US funds to the United Nations until they rescind a resolution condemning Israeli settlements.
Gohmert said his bill will also prevent American money from assisting any foreign government that recognizes Palestine as an independent state.
People have questioned Gohmert as to whether the UN would ever consider nullifying the resolution, he said.
"Fine. They don't need our help to be anti-Semitic," Gohmert said.
He added that a trend within the Obama administration is to support "bullies over victims", citing their reaction to the resolution and eagerness to make a deal with Iran.
Israel is "the only place Muslims have complete freedom in the Middle East," he remarked.

Huckabee: Defund UN; Use Money to Help US Veterans

Mike Huckabee suggested, in the aftermath of the United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements, that the United States pull its portion of the international body's funding.
He said the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars could be better allocated to serve American veterans.
Eric Bolling reported that United States funds account for 22 percent or about $600 million of the UN's operating budget, while we have spent as much as multiple billions of dollars on peacekeeping and other UN initiatives.
"We should eliminate it," Huckabee said of the UN's presence in the federal budget.
We get "zero benefits" and are often "embarrassed by its actions," he said.
Bolling remarked that the land the UN's complex sits along First Avenue in Manhattan's Murray Hill neighborhood would be prime real estate for the government to sell.