Feed aggregator

Sen. Bill Cassidy on Sunday accused Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of failing to honor assurances made during his confirmation process that the childhood vaccination schedule would not be altered, pointing to President Donald Trump’s new executive order reducing the number of recommended vaccines.

Appearing on ABC News’s “This Week,” the Louisiana Republican discussed commitments he said Kennedy and the White House made to secure his support for Kennedy’s confirmation as HHS secretary last year. Cassidy, a physician, indicated that maintaining the existing childhood vaccination schedule was one of those commitments.

“As I’ve mentioned multiple times in the past, there are guarantees that were given to me and guarantees that were supposedly going to be enforced by the White House,” Cassidy told host Martha Raddatz, adding that keeping the childhood vaccine schedule was “among those” pledges.

Cassidy suggested that Kennedy could argue that the latest changes were ordered by Trump rather than by the HHS secretary himself, but said that distinction did not change his broader concern.

“So, people can draw their own conclusions, but it’s pretty evident that … was the White House and the RFK pledge,” added the Louisiana Republican, who is also a physician. “RFK may say, technically, this is the president, not him, and technically, he’s right. But the point is, the American people have been poorly served.”

Trump signed an executive order on Monday seeking to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children to 11.

The new guidance also calls for separating the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three individual shots. Under the previous recommendations, children received two doses of the combined MMR vaccine, with the first administered between 12 and 15 months and the second between ages 4 and 6.

Trump’s action came months after a federal judge blocked an earlier attempt to scale back the childhood immunization schedule. Those changes had been advanced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, known as ACIP.

Kennedy had moved aggressively to reshape the influential vaccine advisory panel after taking control of HHS, replacing all 17 of its sitting members with a new group of appointees.

The reconstituted committee subsequently voted to change several longstanding childhood vaccination recommendations. Among the changes was a decision to delay the recommended age for children to receive the MMR vaccine together with the chickenpox vaccine.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, later invalidated the votes taken by ACIP after Kennedy replaced the committee’s membership, effectively blocking those recommendations from taking effect.

Despite the sweeping changes Kennedy has pursued at HHS and Trump’s latest executive order, Cassidy said Sunday that he does not regret casting the pivotal vote that helped confirm Kennedy as health secretary.

Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said that when Kennedy’s nomination was being considered, he also heard from Americans who strongly supported Kennedy, including because of his promise to target ultra-processed foods.

“The point is that when you’re making the decision process, you’re taking in everything at once, and you just make the best decision that presents at … the time,” Cassidy told Raddatz.

{Matzav.com}

Iran’s parliament speaker declared Sunday that Tehran has defeated the United States and Israel both militarily and politically, escalating a war of words after President Donald Trump announced plans for the United States to take control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and Tehran’s chief diplomatic representative, argued that the US and Israel had entered the conflict with a series of clearly defined goals but had failed to accomplish any of them.

“I say with complete conviction that we won this war, both militarily and politically,” Ghalibaf stated. “The United States and Israel attacked us with nine specific objectives, but they failed to achieve any of them.”

Ghalibaf said his declaration of victory was not intended to suggest that Iran had physically destroyed the US military. Rather, he maintained that victory should be measured by whether Washington and Israel succeeded in accomplishing the objectives they had set for the conflict.

“The United States and Israel failed to achieve any of their nine stated objectives, and that was their greatest defeat,” Ghalibaf claimed.

Ghalibaf, who has served as Iran’s leading representative in diplomatic contacts with Washington, also portrayed a memorandum of understanding reached between Iran and the United States as a significant diplomatic achievement for Tehran, calling it “a document of pride and of our victory on the diplomatic front.”

The Iranian official conceded that the country’s population has yet to fully appreciate what he described as the scale of Tehran’s success, saying Iranians should take pride in what he called a “glorious victory.”

Ghalibaf’s comments came after Trump delivered a dramatically different assessment of the conflict during a rally on Long Island on Friday, where he said Iran was being badly defeated and announced that he intends to place the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz under American control.

“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon, I will be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump told the crowd.

Trump also described Iran’s leadership structure as having been devastated during the conflict, saying the destruction has made it increasingly difficult for Washington to find anyone with whom it can negotiate.

Iran has “no leadership. Their leadership is gone. Their second tier is gone. The third tier is half gone. That’s one of my problems, that there is nobody to negotiate with. It’s a problem. It’s the only country in the world where nobody wants to be president.”

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi responded to Trump’s declaration by insisting that Tehran alone determines passage through the Strait of Hormuz. He said Iran would continue its naval blockade until the United States recognizes what he called its “strategic defeat”.

Gharibabadi directly challenged Trump in a social media post, declaring that the strategic waterway belongs to Iran and will remain under Iranian control.

“Once and for all, accept the reality: up to this point, you have suffered strategic and heavy defeats; the Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian.”

He went on to insist that only Tehran has the authority to determine whether the strait remains open or closed and said the blockade would continue as long as Washington refuses to acknowledge defeat.

“This strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command, and as long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and cease your fanciful delusions, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade.”

Another senior Iranian official took aim at Trump on Shabbos, invoking a recent security measure in which the president was transported between aircraft inside a catering vehicle amid security concerns.

Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Commission, mocked Trump while warning him to focus on his own safety rather than threatening to take control of the Strait of Hormuz.

“The US President ought to worry about his own security rather than his endless bluffing regarding the Strait of Hormuz; before he ends up hiding in a food truck,” Azizi wrote on social media.

LISTEN:

​​For more info, email bitachon4life@gmail.com.

LISTEN:

Hamas called on the U.S.-led Board of Peace on Sunday to pressure Israel into carrying out what the terror group says are its obligations under President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, issuing the demand following high-level talks in Egypt with White House envoy Jared Kushner.

In a public statement released after the discussions, Hamas said it had urged the countries mediating the agreement and the Board of Peace to “compel the occupation to implement all its obligations under the first phase, end all violations, halt killings and incursions, [and] approve the roadmap for the second phase” of the Washington-brokered ceasefire framework.

The statement followed reports earlier Sunday detailing Kushner’s meeting in Cairo with senior Hamas officials, where the White House adviser pushed the terror organization to begin translating its commitment to disarm into action.

The Cairo meeting represented Kushner’s first direct talks with Hamas leaders since the agreement aimed at ending the Gaza war was signed last October. The Trump administration and its Board of Peace are currently seeking to move Israel and Hamas from the initial stage of Trump’s 20-point Gaza framework into its second phase.

Kushner was joined at the meeting by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, an executive member of the Board of Peace, and Nickolay Mladenov, the Board’s high representative.

Hamas was represented by its political leader Khalil al-Hayya. Also participating in the discussions were Qatari diplomat Ali al-Thawadi, Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad and a senior Turkish official.

A source familiar with the negotiations said one of the central purposes of the Cairo talks was to move beyond Hamas’s stated promises regarding the demilitarization of Gaza and establish concrete steps that could be independently verified.

Kushner is expected to travel to Israel on Monday to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. According to a source who spoke to Axios, those discussions will focus on the “corresponding steps” Israel would be expected to implement as the process advances.

Officials familiar with the diplomatic effort said the message being delivered to Israel now differs from previous rounds of negotiations. According to the White House approach, the existing framework is no longer up for renegotiation or revision; instead, the focus has shifted toward implementing commitments that have already been made.

One official familiar with the negotiations said the objective is to “translate the roadmap commitments into concrete and verifiable steps.”

The Trump administration is reportedly seeking measurable progress in several areas, including an end to Israeli military strikes in Gaza, an IDF withdrawal toward the Yellow Line, a major expansion of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, and progress toward establishing new governing institutions and beginning civilian reconstruction.

{Matzav.com}

[Video below.] House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday that Democratic Socialists who win their congressional races will be welcomed into the House Democratic caucus, even as he distanced himself from the agenda promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America.

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker pressed the New York Democrat on whether Democratic Socialists belong within the Democratic Party.

Welker asked, “Do Democratic Socialists belong in the Democratic Party?”

Jeffries responded by emphasizing several progressive positions that he does not support and argued that congressional Democrats are instead concentrating on economic concerns facing Americans.

“Well, what I can say is that I do not support defunding the police. I do not support open borders. I do not support abolishing the Senate. We’re focused on actually solving problems that hardworking American taxpayers want us to solve, which is to lower the high cost of living in a situation where life is far too expensive in this country. That’s the democratic agenda. That’s what House Democrats are fighting to achieve.”

Welker followed up, seeking a more direct answer about whether the Democratic Party’s political coalition is broad enough to include members who identify as Democratic Socialists.

“Do you think, though, that there is room in the Democratic Party, under the tent of the Democratic Party, for Democratic Socialists, is it big enough?”

Jeffries said that while he personally rejects the DSA’s platform, candidates who prevail in Democratic primaries and subsequently win their general elections will become members of the Democratic congressional coalition.

“Well, listen, I don’t support the DSA agenda, as has been articulated, by the DSA itself. Now you’re going to have individual members, who have been elected in Democratic primaries and if they are elected in the general in November, will be part of the House Democratic caucus. It’s going to be a broad caucus.”

{Matzav.com}

Sen. John Fetterman is warning that the Democratic Party is moving increasingly toward socialism after a new poll found that a majority of Democrats view socialism favorably while half hold a negative opinion of capitalism.

The Pennsylvania Democrat reacted to the findings in a post on X, declaring that his party is “becoming the party of socialism” and making clear that he remains firmly committed to free-market capitalism.

Fetterman shared a screenshot of a Mediaite report about a CBS News/YouGov survey showing that 58 percent of Democratic respondents held a positive view of socialism, compared with just 32 percent who viewed capitalism positively.

The divide was also evident among those expressing negative opinions. Among Democrats surveyed, only 18 percent said they viewed socialism negatively, while 50 percent reported having a negative view of capitalism.

“The Democratic Party is becoming the party of socialism,” Fetterman wrote, adding that 58 percent “view socialism positively” while 50 percent have a negative view of capitalism. “I’m a proud free market capitalist. This is lunacy.”

The CBS News/YouGov poll was conducted from August 12 through August 14 and included 2,287 adults across the United States.

The results among Americans overall were considerably different from those among Democrats. Across all respondents, 35 percent expressed a positive opinion of socialism, while 46 percent viewed capitalism positively. Meanwhile, 42 percent had an unfavorable view of socialism, compared with 33 percent who viewed capitalism negatively.

Fetterman’s criticism quickly drew a response from Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, who publicly invited his Democratic colleague to switch parties.

“John, please join us,” Lee wrote. “We’re not socialist. And we don’t bite.”

Fetterman has increasingly voiced concern about the ideological direction of the Democratic Party. In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, he described the party’s trajectory as “troubling” and said he “would never try to elevate” a communist.

“I would never try to elevate… a communist just because [Piker] has followers on some, on Twitch, whatever that is,” Fetterman told the outlet. “But overall, if you identify with a communist who praises Mao and Cuba and for these places, that should be foreign to any Democrat.”

{Matzav.com}