Breaking
Supperious.com
Author

admin

Browsing
World News

Concern grows for detained journalist awarded by US for exposing online scam centers

International concern is growing over the arrest of a prominent Cambodian journalist who helped expose human trafficking fueling online scam centers, with several governments and rights groups calling for his immediate release.

Mech Dara was arrested Monday by Cambodian police and charged with incitement “to provoke serious social chaos” over social media posts he made last month about operations at a rock quarry, according to a statement from the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in the country’s capital. He could face two years in prison for each count.

The award-winning reporter is renowned for his investigations exposing corruption, environmental destruction and human trafficking in a country that heavily restricts press freedom. Cambodian NGO LICADHO said he has consistently pushed for accountability and justice.

In 2023, Mech Dara won the US State Department’s TIP Hero Award for his work uncovering the multi-billion-dollar illegal scam center industry in Cambodia. Images show him standing alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who presented the award.

In a statement on X, the US Embassy in Cambodia said “we are deeply troubled by the arrest of Mech Dara and call for his release.” The embassy called the reporter a “leading voice against human trafficking and online scams” and an “advocate for freedom of expression-guaranteed in the constitution.”

The USAID Cambodia Counter Trafficking in Persons project said Mech Dara “is the embodiment of the ideals of a free society in Cambodia” and that it “stands publicly in its support for this great person and anti-trafficking hero.”

The European Union and Australia also shared concerns over his arrest. “All Cambodians should be able to exercise their right to freedom of expression without the fear of arrest and prosecution,” the Australian embassy in Cambodia said.

A group of 46 Cambodian media and civil society organizations called for Mech Dara’s immediate release, saying his arrest “is a clear attempt to intimidate and silence him and other journalists.”

Human rights groups have said charges of incitement are commonly used by Cambodian authorities against human rights defenders, activists, journalists and government critics.

Southeast Asia’s scam operations

A major focus of Mech Dara’s work is Cambodia’s role at the center of a scamming epidemic in Southeast Asia that has ensnared hundreds of thousands of victims and raised global security concerns from bodies like the US State Department and the United Nations.

Many people across Asia are duped into seemingly legitimate jobs around the region and are then trafficked into scam compounds where they face serious abuse, including forced labor, arbitrary detention, degrading treatment or torture – often with minimal or no help from local authorities.

Forming the epicenter of this network is Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, according to the US Institute of Peace and law enforcement bodies. The UN says 100,000 people could be held in compounds across Cambodia with another 120,000 people held in Myanmar in conditions that amount to modern slavery.

From these compounds, the mainly Chinese-run transnational criminal gangs run lucrative online operations ranging from illegal gambling to love scams and crypto fraud. Victims are from around the world, including the US.

In Cambodia, the industry is worth $12.8 billion annually – equivalent to half of the country’s GDP, according to the USIP.

Clampdown on press freedom in Cambodia

Rights groups say Cambodia’s once thriving media sector has been decimated in recent years by former strongman Hun Sen, who ruled the country for more than three decades before handing power to his eldest son Hun Manet in 2022.

Cambodia is ranked 151 out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ 2024 World Press Freedom Index. Since 2018, independent media outlets have been gutted or forced to close, and censorship, state surveillance, media blackouts and online harassment are rampant.

As a freelancer, Mech Dara worked for several local and international media outlets including Voice of Democracy, which was forced to close last year.

The closure of Cambodia’s last remaining independent media organization was widely condemned as the final blow to press freedom in the country.

“There are so many stories to be told about Cambodia from Cambodia and this extends to the wider region – countries like Myanmar and Vietnam,” he added. “It’s a space that’s getting narrower and narrower and voices are stifled so that the outside world can’t see in.”

In a statement on his arrest, a research director for Amnesty International, Kate Schuetze, said the charges against Mech Dara show “yet again that the Cambodian government will not hesitate to repress journalists.”

“This is the latest step in the new government’s campaign to erase press freedom,” she said.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Keep Reading
By
World News

China’s Coast Guard claims to have entered the Arctic Ocean for the first time as it ramps up security ties with Russia

China’s Coast Guard claimed it entered waters of the Arctic Ocean for the first time as part of a joint patrol with Russia – in the latest sign of enhanced coordination between the two in a region where Beijing has long wished to expand its footprint.

The statement came a day after the US Coast Guard said it spotted four vessels from the Russian Border Guard and Chinese Coast Guard in the Bering Sea – the “northernmost” location it said it had ever observed the Chinese ships.

The joint patrol “effectively expanded the scope of the coast guard’s ocean-going navigation” and tested their ability “to carry out missions in unfamiliar waters,” the China Coast Guard (CCG) said in a post on its official social media account Wednesday.

The CCG did not release the exact location of the patrol. A banner visible on one of the vessels in accompanying photos read “China Coast Guard devoting its heart to the Party; demonstrating loyalty in the Arctic Ocean,” referring to China’s ruling Communist Party.

The Russian government has not officially acknowledged the patrol, which Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said took place “a few days ago.” Russian state media TASS published a report on the patrol, citing the CCG statement.

The US Coast Guard (USCG) on Monday said it spotted the four vessels from the Russian Border Guard and Chinese Coast Guard “transiting in formation in a northeast direction” in the Bering Sea, some five miles inside Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone on Saturday.

The Bering Sea stretches between Russia and Alaska and is part of the North Pacific Ocean. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait, a narrow passage separating Asia and North America.

“This recent activity demonstrates the increased interest in the Arctic by our strategic competitors,” Rear Adm. Megan Dean, commander of the 17th Coast Guard District, said in the USCG statement.

The US has raised concerns about China’s growing role and coordination with Russia in the strategically and environmentally sensitive Arctic region, as the two countries tighten their security and economic ties more broadly.

US and Canadian forces in July intercepted Russian and Chinese bombers flying together near Alaska for the first time, while their two navies operated together in international waters off the Alaskan coast in 2022 and 2023, according to the US military.

Last year, CCG and Russia’s Federal Security Service, which operates its coast guard, agreed to strengthen their “maritime law enforcement cooperation” and China was invited to observe Russia’s “Arctic Patrol-2023” security drills.

Analysts say the new patrol is part of a broader pattern of collaboration – and designed to send a message to Washington, whose maritime activities in the South and East China Seas have longed irked Beijing.

“The significance of the (China) Coast Guard operating farther north than it has ever done implies (China) is extending its Coast Guard into areas the US has traditionally considered its own domain,” said Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

“China in particular is signaling that the US Coast Guard is not the only one that (can) operate within and near other countries’ Economic Exclusion Zones from their own home waters,” he said.

Arctic ambitions

Beijing has for years sought to increase its footprint in the Arctic, declaring itself a “near Arctic state” and beefing up its icebreaker and research capabilities in the region, where it’s also heavily invested in Russian energy projects.

Russia, as one of eight Arctic states, has historically been wary of being too welcoming to China in a region key to its own security and military power.

But observers say Moscow’s increasing reliance on China – its most important diplomatic and economic partner – in the wake of its war on Ukraine may be changing that calculus.

In its first update to its Arctic strategy in five years, the US Department of Defense in July warned that “growing cooperation” between Russia and China in the region has the “potential to alter the Arctic’s stability and threat picture.”

The recent joint activities, including the July patrol near Alaska, raise questions of whether Russia’s focus on controlling access to the Russian Arctic is “increasingly overshadowed by economic and political considerations,” said Sophie Arts, a fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the US’s Geostrategy North team.

“However, when it comes to growing Russian willingness to cater to Chinese interests, we have to take into account the location in which these activities are taking place,” she added, pointing to how the strategically peripheral patrol location suggests “Russian concerns about controlling access and maintaining its bastion (of) defense remain a priority.”

Andreas Østhagen, a senior researcher at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway, expressed skepticism that Chinese vessels had operated in the Arctic Ocean proper.

“It still links to the wider Arctic region, even if this is not the Arctic Ocean. Operating off the coast of Alaska or in the Bering Sea at large is part of an ongoing trend where China is asserting its ability to be present in the Arctic, or near the Arctic,” he said.

Economic interests

The China Coast Guard is part of the country’s People’s Armed Police, which is under the command of the Central Military Commission – and it has frequently been at the frontline of China’s efforts to assert its territorial claims in disputed waters in the South China Sea.

The Philippines, for example, has repeatedly accused the CCG of targeting its fishing and other ships with water canons and other tactics, including in what it described as a “brutal assault” with bladed weapons on Filipino forces in June.

In addition to projecting strength, Beijing has a practical interest in expanding its cooperation with Russia and presence in far north waters, where its coast guard could in the future protect its economic interests, experts say.

In its 2018 Arctic policy, Beijing described its vision for a “Polar Silk Road,” linking Asia to Europe by developing shipping routes like the Northern Sea Route across the Arctic and down to China. That route, now largely navigable only in summer and autumn, is expected to become more commercially viable for global shipping as climate change melts sea ice.

Transit along the Northern Sea Route during the summer-autumn navigation season is poised to hit record levels of transit cargo by the season’s end, according to data from the Centre for High North Logistics affiliated with Norway’s Nord University. As of September 30, about 95% of the cargo volume along the route went from Russia to China, it said in a recent report.

The coast guard collaboration “relates to Chinese interests in maritime transportation along at least parts of the Northern Sea Route,” according to Østhagen. “The fact that they have initiated these types of operations is yet another step in the ongoing practical cooperation between the two states in an Arctic or near-Arctic context.”

And when taken alongside other recent joint operations, “this is all about expanding both the Chinese footprint in this part of the Arctic and China’s abilities to operate this far north,” he said.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Keep Reading
By
Science

‘Most impressive comet of the year’ set to burn across the night sky

A comet that was last seen when Neanderthals roamed the Earth is about to make an appearance again, as it swings through orbit towards us.

The A3 comet is described as “the most impressive comet of the year” by the Royal Greenwich Observatory and should be visible to the naked eye if the conditions are right.

The comet, also known as C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas), was discovered in January 2023 and visits the inner solar system roughly every 80,000 years.

It comes from the Oort Cloud, a huge shell that surrounds our solar system.

NASA describes the Oort Cloud as a “big, thick-walled bubble made of icy pieces of space debris the size of mountains and sometimes larger”.

It’s thought that most long-period comets, like the A3 comet, come from the Oort Cloud.

It orbits the sun in an elongated path, and gets very close to our star.

That means there is a risk it falls apart as it orbits past the sun, meaning we would not see anything when it comes back around past Earth.

People in the southern hemisphere and some near the equator have already spotted the A3 comet, which shows it was in a good condition when it zipped past Earth on its way to the sun.

When it comes back around, the northern hemisphere will get a better chance to spot the comet.

The best time to spot the A3 comet here in the northern hemisphere will be between the 12 and 30 October if you look to the west just after sunset, according to the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

Although good weather conditions should make the comet visible to the naked eye, a pair of binoculars or a telescope will help get a better view.

This post appeared first on sky.com

Keep Reading
By
Politics

Walz faces backlash after defending Obama-era mandate repealed by Trump: ‘Massive tax penalty’

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz faced backlash on social media after he defended an individual healthcare mandate during a back and forth with his counterpart, Republican Sen. JD Vance, in their first and only debate on Tuesday night. 

‘The question about this of young people, whatever, that’s the individual mandate,’ Walz said during a conversation on healthcare and the Affordable Care Act at the CBS News debate in New York City. ‘And Republicans fought tooth and nail saying Americans should be free to do this.’

Vance then interjected, asking, ‘Tim do you think the individual mandate is a good idea?’

‘I think the idea of making sure the risk pool is broad enough to cover everyone — that’s the only way insurance works. When it doesn’t, it collapses. You are asking pre- ACA where we get people out. Look, people know that they need to be on health care. People expect it to be there.’

Walz went on to say that the ACA ‘works’ but we can ‘continue to do better.’

Walz’s comments defending the individual mandate drew criticism on social media, with people pointing out that it was repealed during the Trump administration.

‘We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year — forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans,’ Trump told an audience during the 2018 State of the Union Address.

‘We repealed the core of disastrous ObamaCare — the individual mandate is now gone,’ he added.

‘Tim Walz just endorsed reinstating the Obamacare mandate which was a massive tax penalty for Americans who can’t afford to buy insurance,’ GOP Sen. Tom Cotton posted on X. 

‘Oh my god, Walz defending the individual mandate,’ journalist Josh Barro posted on X. ‘Does he know there isn’t one anymore?’

‘Tim Walz doubles down on his support for Obamacare’s individual mandate tax, by far the least popular part of Obamacare,’ Americans for Tax Reform Director Mike Palicz posted on X.

‘This would violate Kamala’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400K. Trump Tax Cuts repealed the hated individual mandate tax.’

During the debate, Vance argued, ‘Donald Trump has said that if we allow states to experiment a little bit on how to cover both the chronically ill, but the non-chronically ill, it’s not just a plan. He actually implemented some of these regulations when he was president of the United States. And I think you can make a really good argument that it salvaged ObamaCare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along.’

Fox News Digital reported Monday that Walz has previously voiced his support for single-payer government-run healthcare.

‘I think that’s probably the path where we end up,’ Walz said in a 2018 debate while running for governor when asked, ‘Are you for single-payer?’

‘And I say that because, be very clear about this, there were no protections for preexisting conditions before the ACA,’ Walz continued. ‘A vote for the ACA was the first time in this nation’s history we had those protections and making sure people have that protection, making sure they were covered, and then making sure we were focused on preventative care, people were finally getting that under the ACA, we started to see health outcomes improve and that’s the real key to driving down insurance premium prices.’

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Keep Reading
By
Politics

Voters react to Gov Tim Walz dodging Tiananmen Square question: ‘I’m a knucklehead at times’

A focus group of Democrats, independents and Republicans reacted to the moment when Gov. Tim Walz called himself a ‘knucklehead’ for claiming to have been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Moderators confronted Walz on the claim during the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate Tuesday night. Walz admitted that he only traveled to Asia in August 1989, several months after the April 15 massacre. The focus group found that voters were initially skeptical of Walz’s answer, but he eventually recovered.

‘Can you explain that discrepancy?’ a moderator asked, as the focus group remained neutral.

‘Look, I grew up in small rural Nebraska, a town of 400. A town that you rode your bikes with your buddies until the streetlights come on, and I’m proud of that service. I joined the national guard at 17, worked on family farms, and then I used the GI bill to become a teacher. Passionate about it. Young teacher. My first year out, I got the opportunity in the summer of ’89 to travel to China–35 years ago, to be able to do that,’ Walz said.

‘I came back home and started a program to take young people there. We would take basketball teams, we would take baseball teams, we would take dancers, and we would go back and forth to China,’ he added.

The focus group showed support from Republicans, independents and Democrats all going down for Walz during the first portion of his response.

However, Walz recovered among independents and Democrats when he went on to admit that he can be ‘a knucklehead at times.’

‘Many times I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric,’ he said, as support from independents rose above 50% in the focus group.

Walz’s support among Republicans dipped to its lowest point – under 10% – when he said former President Donald Trump would have benefited from participating in one of his China trips, arguing Trump would never have befriended Chinese President Xi Jinping.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Keep Reading
By
Politics

Amid soaring threats from Iran, Russia against US homeland, Biden-Harris must focus on protecting us all

In his remarks during last week’s United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, claimed that Iran wants to ‘live in peace.’ He demanded ‘a world free of nuclear weapons,’ and declared that Iran ‘is ready to disarm,’ if Israel does the same.

But just two weeks prior, Iran and its fellow dictatorship Russia were slapped with new economic sanctions by the Biden-Harris administration for Tehran’s delivery of ballistic missiles to Moscow. In fact, the national security community is increasingly concerned about the growing relations between two of America’s top adversaries. However, as Team Biden-Harris is hyper-focused on the threat this unholy alliance poses elsewhere in the world – Ukraine, the Middle East – what about us? Is anyone in charge of protecting our homeland?

As a former U.S. intelligence analyst who led Red Teams during war games, my team’s job was to come up with, thinking like our adversaries, out-of-the-ordinary ideas – no matter how implausible – that Red Force (Russia, Iran, etc.) could use against Blue Force (U.S. and Allied militaries). The goal was to enable the president, the Pentagon and other decision makers to develop plans for countering our adversaries and protecting the homeland. Here are a few insights, from the intelligence perspective, that make the Iran-Russia threat even bigger than most Americans realize. 

First, neither Russian nor Iranian leaders respect the Biden-Harris administration, making them more likely to act more aggressively against the United States. As a clear sign of indifference to Washington’s ire, two days after the new sanctions went into effect, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Ali Ahmadian, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. In it, he praised the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, for fostering ‘additional momentum’ in Russian-Iranian relations and thanked Pezeshkian’s team for making the relationship a ‘priority.’ Five days later, Putin dispatched his top security official, Sergei Shoigu, to Tehran, where Shoigu held secret talks with Pezeshkian. 

Neither Russia nor Iran is afraid of economic sanctions. They’ve used loopholes in the sanctions regime to circumvent them and found alternative ways to finance their policy priorities and military programs. Despite the fact that the U.S., European Union (EU) and its Western allies banned nearly all Russian imports at the start of the war in Ukraine, Western nations purchased $2 billion worth of Russian oil indirectly through Turkey.  

In 2023, the Biden-Harris administration released $6 billion in unfrozen assets to Iran as part of the deal to release five American hostages in exchange for five Iranians held in U.S. prisons. It is almost a certainty that some of those funds were diverted by Iran toward its military programs and to train and equip its proxy terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Sanctions, therefore, are an optics instrument that politicians use to virtue signal that they are doing something in response to hostile foreign activities. They have not and will not change the behavior of our adversaries.

Second, both Putin and the ayatollahs understand that as Team Biden-Harris is focused on European and Ukrainian security, security inside the homeland isn’t taken seriously, presenting a vulnerability to be exploited. Explaining the decision for the new sanctions package, Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern that Moscow will ‘likely use… Iranian ballistic missiles… against Ukraine.’ Blinken characterized the weapons trade between Moscow and Tehran as a ‘threat to European security.’ 

The Biden-Harris administration has approved billions of dollars for Ukraine to aid its defense against Russia, even as our own Secret Service is in crisis due to staffing shortages, high levels of turnover, inadequate training and incompetence of some of its personnel.

Two failed assassination attempts on former President Trump, during which would-be assassins were able to penetrate the security perimeter of the protectee, clearly demonstrate that the level of protection the Secret Service delivers is low. If security for a former president, with all the law enforcement personnel surrounding him 24/7, can be breached by an amateur, an operative trained and resourced by a state-actor like Iran or Russia, can do so much more damage. It also means that other targets – government buildings, military installations, critical infrastructure – are likely to be equally vulnerable. Saying nothing of soft targets, such as shopping malls and other public spaces. 

Third, Russia and Iran have the capabilities and political will to conduct hostile clandestine operations inside the U.S. The recent arrest in New York of a Iranian-linked Pakistani man who plotted to kill American leaders, highly likely including Trump, is just one example of Iran’s ongoing policy of infiltrating operatives inside the U.S. for nefarious purposes.

Moreover, according to a 2024 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Iran has been developing ‘surrogate networks inside the United States’ for ‘more than a decade.’ This assessment is consistent with a warning contained in another report about Iran’s plans to attack strategic security assets and institutions in the U.S. The report, titled ‘The Unseen Threat of the Mapping Project,’ claims that Iranian elements have identified 298 American strategic security assets and institutions, as well as personnel, for attacks, kidnappings and assassinations. 

Couple this with the fact that Russia, for decades, has been running an ‘illegals’ program aimed at maintaining networks of deep-cover sleeper agents inside the United States. In 2010, the FBI had to pull the plug on a 10-year counter-intelligence operation aimed at rooting out such a spy network inside the United States because one of the female spies was moving uncomfortably close in access to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her husband Bill Clinton, and members of their inner circle. The Russians almost certainly keep this program alive, now that the Biden-Harris open border policy has made it so much easier to infiltrate foreign operatives.

The Iranian regime has been funding anti-Israel protests on university campuses across the country. These ostensibly ‘grassroots activist’ groups, which sometimes don’t know who is behind them, present a vast pool of resources that could be weaponized, with the help of foreign clandestine operatives. What Putin and the ayatollahs want is to foment social unrest inside the United States, consistent with the Russian doctrine of ‘controlled instability.’

Fourth, should Russia and Iran join forces in strategic capabilities, the threat to homeland security could be catastrophic. The U.S. government investigation in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks concluded that the government’s principal error was a failure to ‘connect the dots.’ In other words, the pieces of the puzzle were to be found in many corners of the U.S. government. Yet no one connected the dots, making it impossible to predict and preempt the attacks.

We are now living in a similar period. Our security apparatus is stretched thin, with analysts being pulled in many different directions – Ukraine, the Middle East, China. The same failure of imagination that plagued our intelligence in 2001 could prevent us from visualizing an impending threat coming from Iran-Russia cooperation. Below, I will connect the dots.

Putin spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov acknowledged that the two countries are cooperating, including on ‘the most sensitive’ areas,’ which he didn’t specify. As someone who spent my intelligence career tracking threats to our homeland, here they are – cyber attacks, space warfare and WMD. We are vulnerable in these areas due to our reliance on technology in military operations and civilian life.

Russia has the world’s most extensive nuclear know how, some of which it is likely sharing with Iran, which is already extremely close to operationalizing its atomic weapons. Russia is also sharing space launch technology with Iran, helping Tehran place its satellites into orbit. A multi-mission satellite network is a pre-requisite for missile warning, targeting, and command and control, including the employment of nuclear weapons. 

Russia has developed a comprehensive suite of counter-space weapons to target U.S. satellites during wartime and electronic warfare capabilities to disrupt the functioning of U.S. satellites in peacetime. Moscow has already used some of these capabilities during its war on Ukraine. It probably will share some of these technologies with Iran, which already has demonstrated jamming capabilities. 

U.S. airlines, which rely on GPS for flight navigation, are already concerned about becoming targets of GPS spoofing. Spoofing attacks have surged over the past six months, with most of them originating from electronic-warfare transmitters in Russia, Ukraine and Israel.

Russia already poses a chemical and biological weapons (CBW) threat and retains an undeclared chemical weapons program, having used them at least twice in recent years, according to a 2024 intelligence report. Iran continues ‘research and development of chemical and biological agents for offensive purposes.’ ‘Iranian military scientists have researched chemicals, toxins, and bioregulators, all of which have a wide range of sedation, dissociation, and amnestic incapacitating effects.’ 

Military ties between Moscow and Tehran are indeed the closest they’ve ever been, having strengthened dramatically on Biden-Harris’ watch. As we are nearing the presidential election and Team Biden-Harris continues to prioritize someone else’s security, Americans must decide which future president is more likely to place America’s security first. 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Keep Reading
By
Politics

Several questions about Walz’s record not asked about during vice presidential debate

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was not asked about several highly talked about news stories in the first and only vice presidential debate on Tuesday, including his military service, which Walz did not strongly invoke either. 

The CBS Vice Presidential Debate in New York City showcased the Republican and Democrat candidates answering questions on a variety of issues, but Walz’s military service, which he has faced sharp criticism from Republicans and some veterans for allegedly embellishing, was not asked about.

Walz only briefly mentioned his military service during the debate when he was forced to correct the record on whether he was in China for the Tiananmen Square protests.

At another point in the debate, Walz referred to himself as a ‘good soldier.’

Walz was also not asked during the debate about how many times he has visited China.

In the past, Walz has claimed he went ‘dozens of times’ and once claimed he went ‘about 30 times.’ This week, the Harris-Walz campaign walked that back and said the actual number is ‘closer to 15 times.’

Other questions Walz was not asked during the debate include his disputed claims about his wife’s IVF treatment and his claim that he carried weapons ‘in war.’

Despite CBS announcing that it would not allow live fact-checking during the debate, moderator Margaret Brennan interjected to correct Vance after he suggested that illegal immigrants are overwhelming resources in Springfield, Ohio.

‘Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status,’ Brennan said.

When Vance tried to push back on the fact-check, Brennan and her co-moderator Norah O’Donnell attempted to speak over Vance, insisting that they had to move on to the next question.

‘The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check,’ Vance reminded them. ‘And since you are fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.’

While explaining the process of obtaining legal status and tying it to a Harris-backed immigration policy, the moderators again spoke over Vance, thanking him for ‘describing the legal process’ before they cut off his microphone as Walz attempted to argue with him.

Democrats quickly came out in support of Walz’s debate performance as it was unfolding, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who said Walz was ‘laying down facts.’

‘Gov Walz dominating JD Vance on the immigration exchange with undecided voters in a western battleground state,’ David Plouffe, campaign manager and White House Senior Advisor for Barack Obama and Senior Advisor for Kamala Harris for President, posted on X. ‘Reminding these voters Donald Trump built only 2 percent of the wall and Mexico didn’t pay a dime strongest moment of the debate.’

Many top Republicans took the opposite position and expressed support for Vance’s performance. 

‘JD knocks it out of the park with first question!!! Tim Walz implodes on first question in presentation, communication, and substance,’ Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., wrote on X. 

‘Senator JD Vance spitting the cold hard TRUTH on the debate stage,’ Trump 2024 national press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X. 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Keep Reading
By
Politics

Trump says Walz ’embarrassed himself’ compared to Vance’s ‘brilliance’ at VP debate

Former President Trump said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ’embarrassed himself’ during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, while Sen. JD Vance’s steady presentation ‘reconfirmed’ his choice to make the senator from Ohio his running mate.

Trump spoke exclusively with Fox News Digital on Wednesday morning, hours after Vance, R-Ohio, and Walz faced off in the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate in New York City. The two sparred on issues like foreign policy, border security, abortion and climate change, while introducing themselves and their records to the American people. 

‘JD was fantastic last night – it just reconfirmed my choice,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘There was a brilliance to what he did.’ 

‘On the other hand, Tim Walz proved to be a man that doesn’t have it in any way shape or form for the office that he is seeking, though I would put him a large number of steps above Kamala,’ Trump said.

The former president and Republican presidential nominee said Walz ’embarrassed himself and the Democrat Party last night but was made to look even worse by JD’s brilliant performance.’ 

‘This is what the country needs; smart people, not people that can’t put two sentences together,’ Trump said. ‘We have to take our country back.’ 

Vice presidential debates are traditionally seen as second-tier, but with Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris unlikely to debate again before voters cast their ballots on Nov. 5, the stakes were raised for their running mates as they attempted to tackle the most important issues facing the nation. 

CBS News anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan moderated the debate in New York City Tuesday night, which was filled with more substantive policy discussion than personal jabs. Tuesday began with nearly 50,000 unionized dockworkers going on strike from Maine to Texas and ended with Iran launching its largest attack on Israel in history, firing nearly 250 ballistic missiles at the Jewish state. 

The first question for Walz and Vance was whether they would support a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran. 

A visibly shaky Walz had a rough start to the debate, pausing and stumbling over his words as he spoke about the need for ‘steady leadership’ from the White House. Instead of answering the question, Walz took a shot at Trump. 

‘What’s fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter,’ Walz said, pointing to Trump’s debate performance against Harris last month. ‘It’s clear, and the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago. A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment.’ 

But Vance, in his first answer, defended Trump, saying he ‘delivered stability to the world, and he did it by establishing effective deterrence.’ 

‘People were afraid of stepping out of line,’ Vance said. ‘Donald Trump recognized that for people to fear the United States, you needed peace through strength. They needed to recognize that if they got out of line, the United States’ global leadership would put stability and peace back in the world.’ 

As for a preemptive strike, Vance said, ‘It is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are, when they’re fighting the bad guys.’

Walz fired back. He slammed the Trump administration for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, saying Iran is ‘closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before because of Donald Trump’s fickle leadership,’ adding Harris is providing ‘steady leadership.’ 

‘You blame Donald Trump, but who has been the vice president for the last 3½ years? And the answer is, your running mate, not mine,’ Vance said. 

Vance, again defending Trump, saying he ‘consistently made the world more secure.’ 

‘Gov. Walz can criticize Donald Trump’s tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is how you bring stability back to a very broken world,’ Vance said. ‘Donald Trump has already done it once before.’ 

Vance also urged voters to ask themselves, ‘When was the last time that an American president didn’t have a major conflict break out?’ 

‘The only answer is during the four years that Donald Trump was president,’ Vance said. 

The debate shifted to the ongoing crisis at the southern border, a top issue for voters. 

Vance said he has already been to the border more than ‘border czar’ Kamala Harris, while touting Trump’s plan to secure the border. 

But Walz blasted Trump for his alleged efforts to get Republicans to vote against a border bill. 

‘As soon as it was getting ready to pass and actually tackle this, Donald Trump said no, told [lawmakers] to vote against it, because it gives him a campaign issue,’ Walz said. ‘What would Donald Trump talk about if we actually did some of these things?’

On the same topic, moderators asked Vance whether he and Trump would support family separation as part of Trump’s proposed ‘mass deportation’ should he be elected. 

‘We have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost,’ Vance explained. ‘Some of them have been sex trafficking. Some of them, hopefully, are at homes with their families.

‘Some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules. The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris’ wide open southern border. And I’d ask my fellow Americans to remember when she came into office, she said she was going to do this. Real leadership would be saying, ‘You know what, I screwed up. We’re going to go back to Donald Trump’s border policies.’ I wish that she would do that. It would be good for all of us.’ 

As for the issue of abortion, another top issue for voters this cycle, Walz maintained that he and Harris are pro-choice, while Vance said Republicans need to ‘do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue, where they, frankly, just don’t trust us.’ 

‘And I think that’s one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do. I want us, as a Republican Party, to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word. I want us to support fertility treatments. I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies,’ Vance said. ‘I want to make it easier for young families to afford a home so they can afford a place to raise that family. And I think there’s so much that we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options right now.’

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Keep Reading
By
Politics

Israel bans UN secretary-general over anti-Israel actions: ‘Doesn’t deserve to set foot on Israeli soil’

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) met on Wednesday following Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel, but overshadowing the meeting was Israel’s announcement that it had banned the U.N. secretary-general due to his failure to condemn Iran. 

‘Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil,’ Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said about the decision to declare U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as persona non grata. 

‘This is an anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists, rapists and murderers,’ Katz argued. ‘Guterres will be remembered as a stain on the history of the U.N. for generations to come.’

Iran on Tuesday fired over 180 ballistic missiles at Israel after the death of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and after the Israel Defense Forces began focused incursions into Lebanon to hit the terrorist group.

Guterres on Tuesday issued a brief statement following Iran’s attack, calling it the ‘latest attacks in the Middle East’ and broadly condemned the conflict as ‘escalation after escalation.’ 

He also slammed Israel for its actions in Gaza and the West Bank, claiming that Israel has ‘conducted in Gaza the most deadly and destructive military campaign in my years.’ 

‘The suffering endured by the Palestinian people in Gaza is beyond imagination,’ Guterres said. ‘At the same time, the situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continues to deteriorate, with Israeli military operations.’

‘Construction of settlements, evictions, land grabs and the intensification of settler attacks progressively undermine any possibility of a two-state solution, and simultaneously, armed Palestinian groups have also used violence,’ he said. 

Israel blasted Guterres for failing to ‘unequivocally’ condemn Iran’s attack or even name Iran while discussing the attack. Israel responded with the persona non grata declaration, effectively banning him from entering its borders.

‘Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as nearly all the countries of the world have done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil,’ Katz said. 

‘This is a secretary-general who has yet to denounce the massacre and sexual atrocities committed by Hamas murderers on Oct. 7 and has not led any resolutions to declare them a terrorist organization,’ Katz continued.

‘A secretary-general who provides support to the terrorists, rapists and murderers of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and now Iran, the mothership of global terror, will be remembered as a stain on the history of the U.N. for generations to come,’ he added. ‘Israel will continue to defend its citizens and uphold its national dignity, with or without António Guterres.’

And while it took nearly a day following the attacks to condemn Iran, Guterres seemed to get the message, telling council members: ‘As I did in relation to the Iranian attack in April – and as should have been obvious yesterday in the context of the condemnation I expressed – I again strongly condemn yesterday’s massive missile attack by Iran on Israel.’

Israel’s decision to ban Guterres prompted anger from Algeria, which first expressed ‘sincere gratitude… solidarity, admiration and support for the secretary-general.’ 

‘This decision reflects a clear disdain of the U.N. system and the entire international community,’ the representative from Algeria said. ‘For the Israeli authorities, no narrative nor truth exists except their own.’

However, some permanent members of the council expressed clear support for Israel and condemned Iran for the attack while urging Tehran to cease its support for terrorism through its proxy forces. 

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield ‘unequivocally’ condemned Iran’s attack and called for further sanctions against Tehran. She also explicitly tied Iran to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, arguing that ‘Iran was complicit… through its funding, training, capabilities and support for the military wing of Hamas.’

‘After Hamas’s horrific attack carried out nearly a year ago today, the United States sent a clear message to Iran: Don’t exploit the situation in ways that would risk propelling the region into a broader war,’ Thomas-Greenfield said. 

‘The IRGC flagrantly and repeatedly ignored this warning by encouraging and enabling the Houthis in Yemen to disrupt global shipping and launch attacks against Israel by supporting militant groups in Syria and Iraq,’ she continued. 

‘Iran’s stated intention was to avenge the deaths of two IRGC-supported terrorist leaders and an IRGC commander by inflicting significant damage and death in Israel,’ she added. ‘Thankfully, and through close coordination between the United States and Israel, Iran failed to achieve its objectives.’

‘This outcome does not diminish the fact that this attack, intended to cause significant death and destruction, marked a significant escalation by Iran,’ she stressed.

The United Kingdom also condemned Iran’s attack and expressed ‘full support’ for Israel ‘in exercising its right to defend itself against Iranian aggression.’ 

France urged Iran to ‘abstain from any action that could lead to additional destabilization,’ going further to condemn the ‘attack that targeted civilians in Jaffa.’ 

‘Civilian populations are the first victims of this horrible situation,’ the French representative said. ‘The situation is serious.’ 

Iran ultimately pleaded its case before the council, arguing that the Security Council has ‘remained paralyzed due to the United States obstruction’ and accused permanent members France and the United Kingdom of acing as ‘serious enablers’ of Israel who ‘attempt to justify Israeli heinous crimes under the guise of self-defense, shifting the blame onto Iran.’ 

Reuters contributed to this report. 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Keep Reading
By
Politics

Trump ups his ante with September fundraising haul

Former President Trump’s campaign said on Wednesday that they hauled in over $160 million in fundraising in September, in figures shared with Fox News. 

The haul by the former president’s campaign is up from the roughly $130 million that Trump’s various fundraising committees brought in during the month of August. 

Trump faces a large fundraising deficit to Vice President Kamala Harris, with just under five weeks to go until Election Day in November.

The Harris campaign announced last month that it raked in a staggering $361 million in August, nearly triple Trump’s fundraising. 

The Harris campaign has yet to report its September fundraising figures.

The Trump campaign, in revealing its fundraising numbers, said that it had $283.1 million cash-on-hand as of the end of September. That’s down slightly from the $295 million it had in its coffers a month earlier.

The Harris campaign, in its announcement last month, reported $404 million cash-on-hand.

Trump’s team, in releasing their latest figures, showcased their small-dollar grassroots fundraising, saying the average donation they received was $60 and that 96% of their contributions were less than $200.

The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee enjoyed a fundraising lead over Trump and the Republican National Committee earlier this year. But Trump and the RNC topped Biden and the DNC by $331 million to $264 million during the second quarter of 2024 fundraising.

Biden enjoyed a brief fundraising surge after his disastrous performance in his late June debate with Trump as donors briefly shelled out big bucks in a sign of support for the 81-year-old president.

But Biden’s halting and shaky debate delivery also instantly fueled questions about his physical and mental ability to serve another four years in the White House and spurred a rising chorus of calls from within his own party for the president to end his bid for a second term. The brief surge in fundraising didn’t last and, by early July, began to significantly slow down. 

Biden bowed out of the 2024 race July 21, and the party quickly consolidated around Harris, who instantly saw her fundraising soar, spurred by small-dollar donations.

When asked about the fundraising deficit, Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley told Fox News Digital last month that ‘the Democrats have a ton of money. The Democrats always have a ton of money.’

However, he emphasized that ‘we absolutely have the resources that we need to get our message out to all the voters that we’re talking to and feel very comfortable that we’re going to be able to see this campaign through, and we’re going to win on November 5.’

Fundraising, along with polling, is a key metric in campaign politics and a measure of a candidate’s popularity and their campaign’s strength. The money raised can be used – among other things – to hire staff, expand grassroots outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts, pay to produce and run ads on TV, radio, digital and mailers, and for candidate travel.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Keep Reading
By