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People walk outside the humanitarian relief center at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens on Aug. 16, 2023. The center has capacity to shelter up to 1,000 single adult male migrants.
The little-noticed move raises questions about the transparency and effectiveness of the city’s handling of the migrant crisis. [ more › ]
College Point Boulevard and 41st Avenue in Flushing
Kevin Gomez, 20, was charged with leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in death and driving alone without a license, police said. [ more › ]
Washington — The House on Friday voted to expel embattled Republican Rep. George Santos from Congress, bringing an end to a tumultuous tenure in Washington that was defined by scandal from the start.
In their third attempt to oust him since May, House lawmakers voted 311 to 114 in favor of the expulsion resolution. Two members voted present, and eight members did not vote. The resolution required a two-thirds majority to pass.
“The clerk will notify the governor of the state of New York of the action of the House,” Speaker Mike Johnson announced from the House dais. “The chair announces that in light of the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, the whole number of the House is 434.”
Dozens of Santos’ colleagues were apparently swayed by a damning report from the House Ethics Committee released two weeks ago that found there was “substantial evidence” that Santos repeatedly broke the law. Santos brazenly embellished his biography to win his seat in Congress last year and now faces nearly two dozen federal charges related to alleged fraud and illegal use of campaign funds.
The bipartisan vote makes Santos just the sixth House member in U.S. history to be expelled and the first in more than 20 years. Rep. James Traficant was removed from office in 2002 after being convicted of 10 corruption-related felonies.
Ahead of Friday’s vote, the House GOP leadership, including Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, said they opposed removing Santos. Johnson said earlier this week he has “reservations” about the precedent expelling Santos may set without a criminal conviction, but said members should vote their conscience.
The expulsion takes effect immediately, and narrows Republicans’ already thin majority in the House.
Santos has said he would wear his expulsion “like a badge of honor.”
Rep. George Santos holds a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
“We live in times where political expedience is more important than process,” he said last week. “Due process is dead. Due process has evaporated.”
Santos’ surprise victory in the 2022 midterm elections helped Republicans capture control of the House, but he quickly became an embarrassment for the party when he was found to have fabricated or exaggerated large portions of his biography.
He also attracted the attention of federal investigators, who charged him with fraud, money laundering and other crimes in May. The scope of the case expanded in October, when he was hit with more charges accusing him of stealing his campaign donors’ identities and racking up thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on their credit cards, falsifying campaign finance reports, money laundering and more. He has pleaded not guilty to all 23 federal charges he now faces.
The Ethics Committee began its own investigation in the spring, and on Nov. 16 released a scathing 56-page report that detailed a broad array of alleged misconduct. According to investigators, Santos allegedly stole money from his campaign, reported fictitious loans, deceived donors and engaged in fraudulent business dealings.
The situation, the report said, “is unprecedented in many respects.”
“While it is not uncommon for Committee investigations to involve multiple allegations and a pattern of misconduct, the sheer scope of the violations at issue here is highly unusual and damning,” it said.
According to the report, Santos funneled large sums of money through his campaign and businesses to pay for his personal expenses. Investigators said he used the funds to pay for Botox injections and make purchases at high-end stores like Hermès and Ferragamo. They said he used campaign money to make payments on the adult website OnlyFans, and for meals, parking, travel and rent. He also allegedly diverted money to pay down his personal credit cards.
Santos “sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience,” the report said, adding that “his misrepresentations and lack of transparency have continued during his tenure in Congress.”
Noting the slew of embellishments that Santos repeatedly made about his education, career, family history and even the death of his mother, investigators said his “own campaign staff viewed him as a ‘fabulist,’ whose penchant for telling lies was so concerning that he was encouraged to seek treatment.”
Investigators also alleged Santos repeatedly ignored his staffers’ warnings about issues with his campaign’s bookkeeping. His campaign’s ex-treasurer, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty in October to a scheme to embellish his campaign finance reports. While Santos has blamed Marks for the campaign finance violations, investigators said Santos “was aware of how she was reporting personal loans” and “he was actively involved in the campaign’s day-to-day finances.”
The third attempt to expel Santos came just weeks after he survived a second effort to oust him from Congress.
In May, Santos withstood his first expulsion attempt, when Democrats sought to remove him from Congress after he was first charged. Republicans blocked that effort and instead referred the matter to the Ethics Committee.
Five GOP lawmakers from the Empire State — all facing competitive races next year — renewed the effort to expel him in October after he was hit with more charges, calling it a “moral” issue that transcended short-term political considerations. But the vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed under the Constitution to oust a member, since most Republicans and 31 Democrats withheld support for punishing him while the Ethics Committee investigation and his criminal trial proceeded.
The release of the Ethics Committee report opened the floodgates for lawmakers to embrace expelling Santos. Republican Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, the chairman of the Ethics Committee, introduced a resolution to oust him before lawmakers left Washington for Thanksgiving. Once the House returned, Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, introduced a separate resolution as “privileged,” meaning the House would be required to vote on it within two days.
“This forces a vote this week,” Garcia told reporters Tuesday, saying he had doubts that Republicans would actually move forward with a vote on Guest’s resolution.
But Republicans did move forward. GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of New York brought up Guest’s resolution as privileged, and a vote was scheduled for Friday.
“This is bullying,” Santos said Thursday of Guest’s measure.
Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the Ethics Committee, said later Thursday that Santos “is not a victim.”
“He is a perpetrator of a massive fraud on his constituents and the American people,” she said.
Santos had long rebuffed calls to resign. Doing so before the vote, he said, would amount to him admitting to the allegations detailed in the Ethics Committee’s report while also giving his colleagues an out.
“I hear a lot the line, ‘I encourage Rep. Santos to resign. Do the right thing, which is resign.’ What I hear is people don’t want to take this vote,” Santos said Thursday.
One day after the report’s release, he said he would not run for reelection in 2024 after all.
His criminal trial is set to begin Sept. 9.
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at cbsnews.com and is based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.
The post AP Headline News – Nov 30 2023 16:00 (EST) first appeared on The Ocean Avenue News – The News And Times.
“On Saturday morning I was at my house in Modi’in,” said the former head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen. “There was no siren, but the phone started going off, and people reached out to me, and that’s how I learned the magnitude of the horror. A year in the civil service, but you will never be sufficiently prepared for such a shocking event.”
“The first thing I did was to try to understand what happened. I started piecing together testimonies alongside all of Israel. I haven’t been in the formal update thread for two and a half years. Slowly the magnitude of the horror, which is difficult to describe, became clear to me as well.”
“In every transaction of this type, there are trade-offs that we unfortunately have to pay. This is a negotiation with the devil who demands heavy prices from us that we must pay. The fighting will not stop beyond what is agreed upon, and I hope that the Israeli government will not hesitate from here on out, and will continue to eliminate the military capabilities of Hamas.”
“I am convinced that while we are completing the transaction in question, negotiations are underway for additional transactions for the release of all the abductees with the aid and support of the American government and intermediaries from the Middle East.”
“It’s impossible. We all know, including the military and the intelligence community and heads of other organizations, that Hamas has been building such an operation for a long time. I appreciate that an operation on such a large scale, with such a precise level of execution, with trained teams holding in their hands schematic diagrams of an operation as we have seen its result, in which there is a trained, competent force, well equipped both in the military and in intelligence – this is not something that is prepared from moment to moment, it’s unequivocally clear. In my estimation, this is about long months of preparation, so the intelligence failure is unimaginable.”
“This is something that will have to be investigated, and in the most in-depth way, and I am not reinventing anything. Also the head of the Israeli Defense Forces, the chief of staff, and the heads of other organizations – we will have to investigate all of them. How did this happen that a proper security system was not provided to the citizens of Israel?”
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“As the head of the Mossad during my time, the division of labor between me and the heads of the other organizations was that we take Hamas abroad and the Shin Bet responsible for Hamas in Israel. The IDF, the Mossad and the Shin Bet cooperate in an unusual way, in a complete and in-depth intelligence structure.
The Mossad can see all the updates of the other bodies, and other organizations can see what is received by the Mossad. We closely observe the intelligence assessments.
“But the practical work of who does what? Every organization does what it does so that we don’t step on each other’s toes, and a group called the ‘Committee of the Chiefs of Services’, which has the head of the Mossad, the head of the Shin Bet, the head of the Security Service, and the military secretary of the prime minister, who serves as an observer, makes the decisions of who does what. That’s where issues come up that we need to agree on in order to reach a correct national result.”
“The heads of the organizations admitted failure. Everyone who takes responsibility knows why he is taking responsibility. Those who do not take responsibility know why they are not taking responsibility.”
“I suggest that you address the question to the Prime Minister’s office.”
“In the dimension of responsibility, as I perceive it all my life, as soon as you get a position, you are responsible for everything that happens.”
“I served as the head of the Mossad from 2016 to June 2021. I am responsible for everything that happened during my shift at the Mossad, for better or for worse. I cannot take responsibility for things that were done before or after my time, unless I saw things that happened and did not correct them, then I am responsible for not correcting them”.
“It’s their personal decision.”
Since his retirement from the Mossad about two and a half years ago and the cooling off period he took, Cohen disappeared, except for one well-publicized glimpse last July.
“I haven’t been interviewed for two and a half years, since my exit from the Mossad,” he said now. “The judicial reform is not correct, but I first of all asked the political level to stop the process, because this process, as I experienced in conversations with the members of the security systems, is an experience that definitely weakens the security forces. Whether they are right or not, we will discuss it separately.
“And I said: dear friends, all of you, stop everything, nothing will happen to democracy, let’s sit down, talk, think, and strengthen the army. I remember saying that I fear for our security resilience from the response to the legislation, that I fear that our ability to defend ourselves will be compromised. Think about my personal position, a national security advisor, a decent and dedicated citizen, a great democrat and a liberal, coming out and saying: dear friends, this hurts our security edge. Stop.”
After the October 7 massacre and the news that Hamas was holding kidnapped civilians and soldiers, it was reported in the media that Cohen went to Qatar to assist in negotiations for their release. “I did not go to Qatar on this matter, despite the publications,” he said now.
At the end of last month, the Prime Minister’s Office reported that Netanyahu had appointed Cohen as an emissary “for special missions.”
Demonstration by the families of the abductees (credit: AVSHALOM SHOSHANI)
“I have no official position, and I never had an official position regarding the negotiations for the return of the hostages. There are other jobs I have done. One is according to the report of the Prime Minister’s Office, the other is in front of Gal Hirsch, to assist him when he received the position of supervisor of the POWs and Missing Persons.
I volunteered to be the link between the civil headquarters of the families of the abductees and his body, and that was the case for a certain period of time. Today it is no more, and I am left only at the civilian headquarters of the hostages, helping the families, explaining what is needed. But no longer alongside Gal Hirsch.”
“The people of Israel are a little confused, I know. According to Netanyahu’s announcement from last week, those who are doing the negotiations are Dedi Barnea, the head of the Mossad, and Nitzan Alon, the commander of Central Command for locating the kidnapped and missing persons, they are responsible for this.”
“Because he decided to appoint someone else, that’s fine. This is the prerogative of a prime minister, to appoint to state positions whoever he thinks is the most correct and suitable to bring about a national result, and I accept the decision.”
“A deal with Hamas also includes a deal with Jihad. We have no direct contact with the Islamic Jihad, but from what I understand, Hamas takes responsibility for all the abductees. We know that there are also people kidnapped by civilians, I can’t say if they are alive. We started the war with thousands of question marks that were reduced to dozens.”
Yossi Cohen and Benjamin Netanyahu (credit: KOBI GIDEON/LAAM)
“As far as I’m concerned, nothing happened. I am still standing right and ready for any assistance that is required and for any national mission. At the moment my relationship with him is professional and to the point.”
“The consultations, if necessary, I hold over the phone.”
“I don’t know, it’s hard for me to estimate.”
“Only a state commission of inquiry. I don’t know or think there is anyone who thinks otherwise.”
“It’s not my business to decide on the issue.”
“There is no country that faces such a situation. There are countries that have unpleasant conflicts with their surroundings, but this is something related to the world of old. The Russia-Ukraine war is perhaps an opportunity to show that small countries can be threatened by large countries, whether or not they have the ability to fight and defend themselves. But the State of Israel is in a different situation, it is not in an existential threat and we are not in a communist war.”
“No. The State of Israel will certainly exist. There is no doubt that the Jewish people are going through a shake-up. Antisemitism that was probably hidden under the surface is now coming out with great force. It is a demon now out of the bottle. We know that antisemitism is a present and existing thing, which does not necessarily have a reason. All the researchers of global antisemitism claim that it happens for no reason.”
“It is difficult to assess. Certainly not immediately. Antisemitism is present, perhaps today it can be called anti-Israelism. Hamas is an antisemitic and anti-Israel organization, it does not accept our presence. Those abroad do not accept our existence, even as Jews.”
The post Former Mossad head gives candid interview, talks Netanyahu, Hamas first appeared on The Ocean Avenue News – The News And Times.
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RIGA, Latvia — Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday banned the “international LGBT public movement” as an extremist organization — even though the alleged movement has no organizational structure, leaders, membership, website or address.
While seemingly preposterous — given that there is no such organized movement — the Russian ban nonetheless could have sweeping implications for LGBTQ+ people in Russia. It could be used to prosecute any LGBTQ+ organization, activity, communication or mutual support initiative, including those online.
While critics called the ruling legal nonsense, the Kremlin appears to be banking on global homophobia as a unifying ideology that will align intolerant countries — particularly in the Middle East and Africa — against the liberal West.
In many Middle Eastern and African nations, homosexuality is illegal. Anti-LGBTQ+ polices have long been a populist cause, for example in Uganda, which criminalized same-sex relationships earlier this year, including imposing a potential death penalty for “aggravated” homosexuality.
The ruling, which was delivered in a closed hearing, shocked liberal Russians, and prominent independent Russian media organizations on Thursday displayed the rainbow flag on their social media pages in solidarity with LGBTQ+ people.
Judge Oleg Nefedov ordered that the ban, which followed a motion to the court from the Justice Ministry, come into effect immediately.
The ban will probably force LGBTQ+ groups to operate in secret and could be used against LGBTQ+ people, although the legal implications remain far from clear.
Activists said Russian authorities were using the court system to criminalize and persecute LGBTQ+ people.
A striking element of the ban is its sweeping, amorphous nature, raising uncertainty about what actions and organizations may be targeted as extremist. It is a form of legal obscurantism often used by the regime of President Vladimir Putin, sowing confusion and fear about how to avoid arrest and, potentially, prison.
Renat Davletgildeev, an LGBTQ+ activist, journalist and author of the Russian Telegram channel Gay Dynamite, called the ruling “absurd, extrajudicial, illegal.”
Davletgildeev said the case resembled the absurdist writings of Franz Kafka, Eugène Ionesco or Samuel Beckett. “But this is not the reality in which we exist,” he said. “I can’t fit it in my mind.”
“The illegality of this whole process was observed from the first days,” Davletgildeev said. “We sent both individuals and legal entities a petition to the Supreme Court asking to be made interested parties. We have all been denied.”
A ban could force the disbanding of rights groups such as Delo LGBT+, which provides legal advocacy for queer people in court; Center T, a group representing transgender people; the Russian LGBT Network; and others. Activists who try to support LGBTQ+ people could be charged and imprisoned for 10 years. Individual participants in the movement could face six-year terms.
The wording of the Justice Ministry motion implied that LGBTQ+ people are part of a shadowy global organization with extremist goals set on harming Russia.
The Kremlin has long asserted that the West, particularly the United States and its European allies, are enemies of so-called traditional family values and are responsible for promoting “decadent” lifestyles.
None of the arguments or evidence presented to the court by the Justice Ministry were public, nor was any legal representative of LGBTQ+ organizations permitted to appear to argue against a ban. The court denied an application by representatives of the Russian LGBT Network and others to appear as interested parties.
The secrecy around the court hearing reinforced fear and anger in Russia’s LGBTQ+ communities that authorities are using the judicial system to sow hatred against them, and to smear them as representing “decadent” Western values.
One Russian LGBTQ+ Telegram channel, Guys+, called the judgment a “parody” and an “attempt by the state to humiliate LGBTQ+ people and recognize them as second-class citizens.”
“The trial of all of us is taking place without us,” the group said on Telegram.
A Russian cultural magazine, Discourse, announced its solidarity with LGBTQ+ people and said it plans to publish underground material in support of them.
The ban comes after two previous repressive Russian laws against LGBTQ+ people: a ban on “LGBT propaganda,” which criminalized the spread of any information about LGBTQ+ identities, and a ban on gender transition — both changing a person’s sex in official documents, as well as the use of surgery or hormones.
It comes as Putin is pressing a regressive agenda of “traditional” values, with growing restrictions on abortion and officials urging women’s careers and education to be put aside in favor of having many babies at a young age.
Putin has frequently attacked transgender people and parental or marital rights for LGBTQ+ people as alien to what he calls the “Russian world.”
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that the Kremlin was not tracking the controversial court case.
Davletgildeev, the activist and journalist, said that because the hearing was conducted in secret, it was not clear what might constitute extremist behavior. “A gay-okay T-shirt, or a rainbow keychain, or an LGBT Instagram account or a social media post — we don’t know.”
Russian LGBTQ+ organizations were scrambling to publish advice on how people can protect themselves in an environment where the legal implications were murky. Davletgildeev advised LGBTQ+ Russians to flee the country, and called on international rights organizations to help people from those groups find refuge outside Russia.
Pro-Kremlin analyst Yevgeny Minchenko raised doubts about the Justice Ministry motion in comments posted on Telegram before the Supreme Court endorsed the motion to ban the international LGBTQ+ movement: “Is there such an organization? Is it possible to join it? Is there a charter, a program, a leadership and so on? It seems to me that if we are talking about an extremist organization, it must have the characteristics of such an organization,” he wrote.
Minchenko said the legal implications of the ruling were unclear: “Will its nonexistent offices be shut down? There are more questions than answers to the situation.”
Russia’s Supreme Court last year recognized an online movement praising the 1999 Columbine shooting as a terrorist organization, and in 2020 it recognized a Russian youth gang movement, AUE, as extremist.
