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Senator Cory Booker launched a blistering attack on President Donald Trump during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC’s “The Briefing,” accusing the president of unprecedented corruption and warning that Republicans who continue supporting him will eventually be judged harshly by history.

Booker made the remarks while discussing Trump’s leadership and the response from Republicans in Congress, arguing that many privately oppose the president but refuse to criticize him publicly.

“What President Trump is doing is a moral outrage from his corruption, his crypto schemes, his ballroom, the monuments to his ego, to all the kleptocracy he’s doing and many of the incompetent people he’s putting in very important places,” Booker said.

The New Jersey Democrat claimed that dissatisfaction with Trump extends beyond Democratic circles and suggested many Republicans quietly share similar concerns.

“Now, it’s not just a democratic thing that believes that many of us have private conversations with folks who will express their disdain, their outrage in private, but do nothing in public,” he added.

Booker then escalated his criticism further, predicting that Trump’s presidency would ultimately be remembered as historically corrupt.

“We know five years from now, ten years from now, when people look back at the most corrupt president in American history that torched our democracy and did outrageous things, the question is going to be, who were the people so complicit that they allowed these things to happen?”

He also argued that Republicans understand they may eventually face political consequences for remaining aligned with Trump.

“And Republicans know they’re going to be held accountable. They’re going to be on the record.”

Booker went on to claim that cracks are beginning to emerge within Republican ranks as Trump continues to dominate the political landscape.

“So I’m starting to see more people as Donald Trump continues to strain our democracy and push every sense of decency. I’m starting to see some wobbly knees amongst Republicans who for too long have been doing that advanced form of yoga and bending over backwards, contorting themselves to do what Donald Trump wants. We’re starting to see weakening in that.”

A third consecutive night of unrest unfolded Tuesday night in Shaar Binyamin and Kiryat Ata following the arrests of three yeshiva bochurim who were transferred to military police custody amid Israel’s intensified crackdown on draft evaders.

The arrests sparked confrontations between protesters and police, with officers deploying stun grenades in an effort to disperse crowds that gathered outside police facilities.

Emergency alert systems operated by activist organizations — including networks known as “The Captors Have Arrived” and “Black Alert,” which monitor arrests of draft evaders — issued overnight warnings about attempts to transfer two bochurim being held at the Binyamin police station in the Shaar Binyamin industrial zone and at a community police center in Geva Binyamin.

Dozens of demonstrators rushed to the scene to protest the detentions.

During the clashes, police used stun grenades to break up the crowds, but the two bochurim — Yaakov Esban and Yaakov Eliasaf of Yeshivas Mishkan Dovid — were ultimately transferred to military police custody.

According to the “Black Alert” system, activists were unable to prevent the transfer because emergency reports reached protest organizers too late.

Meanwhile, Kol Barama radio reported that another bochur, Reuven Lamenatzeiach of Yeshivas Kibbutz Givat Zev, was also transferred to military police after being detained at a police station in Beit Shemesh.

At the same time, activists affiliated with the Peleg Yerushalmi faction traveled to Kiryat Ata and demonstrated outside the home of Chai Deri, the security officer at Military Prison 10, protesting the arrests of yeshiva bochurim and chareidi draft evaders.

The latest incidents mark the third straight night in which yeshiva students and chareidi draft evaders have reportedly been arrested and transferred to military authorities.

The organization Am Kadosh, which assists detainees, sharply condemned the arrests in a statement issued overnight.

“The authorities are perfecting their methods of hunting and persecuting yeshiva students with extraordinary diligence. It is becoming increasingly clear to all that according to the State of Israel, Torah study and adherence to the chareidi Jewish way of life are considered the greatest crimes. Israel is becoming the only country in the world persecuting Torah learners and faithful Jews and throwing them into prison like common criminals!”

The tensions follow an arrest Monday night in which a yeshiva bochur was detained during a police checkpoint inspection on Highway 383 and transferred to military police after authorities determined he was classified as a draft evader.

Following that arrest, leaders within the Peleg Yerushalmi warned that additional protests and demonstrations are expected in the coming days.

The bochur arrested Monday was identified as Meir Sabag, a talmid at Yeshivas Darchei Ish in Moshav Tirosh.

According to reports, Sabag arrived late at night at a police checkpoint set up on Highway 383 between the Shaar Avraham interchange and the Masmiya junction.

Three yeshiva bochurim were turned over overnight Tuesday to Israel’s military police and transferred to a military prison after being detained by Israeli police under a newly announced enforcement policy targeting draft evaders.

The arrests took place as part of a directive issued this week by Police Commissioner Dani Levy ordering officers to detain any individual classified as a draft evader and immediately transfer them to military authorities.

One of the arrests occurred in Beit Shemesh, where a bochur from Yeshivas Kibbutz Givat Zev was detained at the local police station.

The bochur, who had been designated a draft evader for failing to report to the military draft office, was later handed directly to military police for further proceedings.

At the same time, two additional bochurim from Yeshivas Mishkan Dovid were arrested by officers from the Shaar Binyamin police district and likewise transferred to military custody.

All three were reportedly detained because they had ignored draft notices and failed to appear at military induction offices.

Representatives of the organization Nosnim Gav, which assists detained yeshiva bochurim, said emergency alerts regarding the arrests arrived too late for activists to intervene effectively.

“As a result, public activists did not manage to arrive in time and prevent the transfer,” the organization stated.

The group added that the bochurim and their families are receiving legal assistance and full support.

The arrests come amid mounting tension surrounding the new policy announced this week by Commissioner Dani Levy.

According to the directive issued to senior police commanders, “every draft evader encountered will be detained, military police will be notified, and the individual will be transferred to military police for further handling.”

The policy marks a sharp reversal from previous police practice.

Until now, Israeli police had generally refrained from actively arresting draft evaders and in many cases reportedly instructed local districts not to involve themselves in such matters.

The new approach has sparked fierce backlash throughout the Torah world and among chareidi public officials.

MK Michael Malkieli of Shas sharply attacked Commissioner Levy on Tuesday, accusing him of targeting Torah learners for political reasons.

“Instead of dealing with rising crime and murderers roaming freely, you are sending Israel Police officers to harass Torah learners,” Malkieli wrote.

He added: “Commissioner Dani Levy — a hero against the weak! Suddenly before elections you decided to join forces with the attorney general in hopes of flattering her so they won’t remove you after the elections.”

{Matzav.com}

A growing dispute has erupted between the Pentagon and SpaceX after Elon Musk’s satellite company reportedly raised Starlink connection fees fivefold for U.S. military drone operations during the war with Iran, underscoring concerns inside Washington over the company’s expanding control over critical defense systems.

According to a Reuters report, tensions escalated after American kamikaze drones operating against Iran relied heavily on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network for communications and targeting.

As the military campaign intensified, SpaceX informed Pentagon officials that the pricing structure being used for the drone operations no longer reflected the level of service being consumed.

Sources familiar with the negotiations and Pentagon documents said SpaceX executives argued that the military had been paying approximately $5,000 per terminal while effectively utilizing a service tier valued closer to $25,000.

The disagreement centered largely around the use of Starlink aboard LUCAS suicide drones, low-cost American unmanned aircraft designed similarly to Iran’s Shahed drones.

The drones are capable of loitering above target zones before crashing into their targets and detonating.

SpaceX maintained that the drones’ operational profile more closely resembled the company’s aviation-level subscription service rather than its cheaper land-based or mobility plans.

Pentagon officials pushed back, arguing that the $25,000 monthly aviation pricing was intended for traditional aircraft and not kamikaze drones that may only remain connected to the network for short periods of time.

Despite those objections, the Pentagon ultimately accepted the higher pricing arrangement.

The increase reportedly nearly doubled the total cost of each LUCAS drone, which had originally been priced at roughly $30,000 per unit.

The pricing battle is only one part of a broader series of disagreements between the Pentagon and SpaceX.

Defense officials have also reportedly clashed with the company over proposals to provide civilians inside Iran with direct-to-cell Starlink communications access similar to 5G service, allowing users to bypass internet and communications shutdowns imposed by the Iranian regime.

The disputes have highlighted how increasingly dependent the U.S. military has become on SpaceX infrastructure, giving Musk and his company growing leverage over major national security operations.

The issue comes as SpaceX reportedly prepares for a possible initial public offering next month that could become one of the largest IPOs ever.

Unlike consumer-facing Starlink systems, the Pentagon operates a military-specific platform known as Starshield under a 2023 agreement with SpaceX.

Starshield terminals are capable of connecting both to the commercial Starlink network and to a separate secure satellite constellation also known as Starshield.

Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said SpaceX’s leverage stems partly from the fact that it is not solely dependent on government contracts.

In addition to its military work, the company maintains major commercial operations involving satellite internet, rocket launches, and artificial intelligence technologies.

According to SEC filings, approximately 20 percent of SpaceX’s total revenue comes from the U.S. government.

“SpaceX certainly has the U.S. government over the barrel,” Swope said.

Frictions reportedly surfaced almost immediately after military operations against Iran began on February 28.

On March 1, Elon Musk responded on X to an image showing a LUCAS drone apparently equipped with a Starlink terminal.

“It is a violation of commercial Starlink terms of service to use the terminal for weapon systems. This applies to all users and is shut down when discovered,” Musk posted. “There is a separate network called Starshield, which is operated by the US government.”

{Matzav.com}

A new federal watchdog report has revealed that during the height of the Biden administration’s border policies, nearly 90 percent of migrants encountered at the southern border were released into the United States through the use of parole authority.

The report, issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), details how the Department of Homeland Security under then-Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas dramatically expanded the use of humanitarian parole between early 2021 and January 20, 2025, as part of what critics described as a sweeping catch-and-release strategy.

According to the GAO findings, parole authority had historically been used only sparingly by previous administrations prior to 2021.

The report states that the Biden administration’s broad interpretation of so-called humanitarian parole fundamentally transformed the scale of migrant releases into the country.

“Specifically, our analysis showed that OFO and Border Patrol granted relatively few paroles during fiscal years 2019 and 2020,” the GAO report states:

“During this time period the proportion of southwest border encounters resulting in parole ranged from about 3 percent to 28 percent. The number of paroles granted increased beginning in the summer of 2021 and peaked in December 2022, when 89 percent of encounters resulted in parole. Paroles granted declined substantially after December 2022 and again after January 2025.”

The GAO report also warned that the massive volume of parole releases strained federal immigration enforcement systems to the point that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are now struggling to properly track many migrants who were released.

“… without readily accessible information about noncitizens’ parole status, ICE does not have the information it needs to identify and monitor these noncitizens, or to take enforcement action, as appropriate,” the GAO report states.

Although the Biden administration is no longer in office, several officials connected to its immigration policies are reportedly lobbying Democrats to revive similar border strategies if the party regains congressional majorities and wins back the White House in 2028.

Among them is Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former DHS official who served under Biden and also worked during the Obama administration as well as briefly during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Trickler-McNulty recently received favorable coverage in The Seattle Times tied to a new podcast project.

During her time at DHS, she reportedly pushed for a system in which millions of illegal immigrants would simply check in annually with ICE, creating what critics described as a European-style border monitoring system.

Many of those check-ins, according to the proposal, would occur electronically rather than through in-person reporting.

In 2023, former acting ICE Director Tom Homan accused Trickler-McNulty of working within DHS to eliminate detention centers and move large numbers of illegal immigrants into Alternatives to Detention programs instead of keeping them in federal custody.

“Trickler-McNulty is the epitome of an ideological, corrupt bureaucrat,” Homan wrote.

The issue of amnesty for illegal immigrants also remains central to Trickler-McNulty’s broader immigration proposals.

“What I’m proposing is what I’m calling ‘immigration probation,” Trickler-McNulty told The Seattle Times. “That is the ability for an adjudicator — like USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) or an immigration judge — to place somebody in a two-year program. If they pay taxes, they comply, they report in, they show they’re basically willing to interface with the government, they can ameliorate their immigration violations. That would allow them to move into a lawful status.”

Senator Lindsey Graham sharply criticized Pakistan on Tuesday after the country’s defense minister rejected normalization with Israel, arguing that recognizing the Jewish state would contradict Pakistan’s “fundamental ideologies.”

In a social media post, Graham questioned Pakistan’s role as a mediator in ongoing U.S.-Iran negotiations, pointing to Islamabad’s close ties with Tehran and longstanding hostility toward Israel.

“It has been apparent to me for quite a while that Pakistan as a mediator is more than problematic. Their animosity towards Israel is long standing,” Graham wrote.

He continued by raising concerns about military cooperation between Pakistan and Iran.

“It is undeniable that Iranian military aircraft are being housed on Pakistani air bases and past rhetoric from the highest Pakistani officials against Israel is disturbing.”

Graham also pressed Pakistan to respond publicly to President Donald Trump’s push for additional countries to join the Abraham Accords.

“it is imperative that Pakistan give an answer now to President Trump’s call to join the Abraham Accords.”

The senator’s comments came one day after Trump disclosed on Truth Social that discussions surrounding the Abraham Accords had become part of broader negotiations connected to Iran.

Trump said he had urged several nations to join the diplomatic agreements originally brokered during his first term in office.

According to the report, the countries involved in discussions with the United States include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain.

Pakistan’s defense minister has previously issued harsh attacks against Israel, at one point calling the Jewish state “evil and a curse for humanity” while accusing it of committing genocide in Lebanon.

Pakistan officially supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has maintained for decades that it will not formally recognize Israel until an independent Palestinian state is established.

At the same time, Israel and Pakistan are believed to share several strategic interests behind the scenes, and speculation about a possible diplomatic breakthrough between the two countries has circulated for years.

In 2022, reports surfaced that an unofficial delegation of Pakistani citizens had visited Israel, fueling additional rumors about quiet contacts between the two nations.

A tense radio interview on Kan Reshet Bet turned awkward for Yesh Atid MK Merav Ben Ari after Religious Zionist Party MK Tzvi Sukkot confronted her with evidence that she had previously submitted legislation nearly identical to the very bill she was attacking on air.

The clash broke out during a joint interview focused on political maneuvering ahead of Israel’s upcoming elections.

During the discussion, Ben Ari criticized a proposed law granting tax benefits to residents of Judea and Samaria, arguing that the legislation was simply part of the Religious Zionist Party’s election strategy.

“Why should someone living in Judea and Samaria receive a tax benefit?” Ben Ari asked during the debate.

Sukkot, who is promoting the current bill, then asked whether she would support the legislation.

After Ben Ari repeatedly insisted she opposed the proposal, Sukkot stunned her by revealing live on air that the wording of his bill was virtually identical to legislation she herself had submitted earlier in the current Knesset term.

Sukkot further noted that Ben Ari’s original version had itself been based on legislation initially introduced by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Ben Ari attempted to defend herself by arguing that the current bill contained changes and differences from the version she had filed.

As she struggled to explain those distinctions during the interview, Sukkot pressed the issue further and proposed an unusual compromise.

He suggested live on air that he would simply bring Ben Ari’s original version of the bill up for a vote instead — while demanding that Yesh Atid publicly support it.

{Matzav.com}

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A fierce Democratic primary battle in Houston’s 18th Congressional District ended Tuesday with a major generational shakeup, as Congressman Christian Menefee defeated longtime incumbent Al Green in a hard-fought runoff election.

According to projections from Decision Desk HQ, the 37-year-old Menefee emerged victorious over Green, bringing an end to the veteran lawmaker’s decades-long dominance in the district.

Menefee first arrived in Congress earlier this year after winning a January special election to complete the unfinished term of the late Congressman Sylvester Turner.

With Tuesday’s runoff victory, Menefee is now heavily favored to secure a full congressional term in the general election later this year.

Al Green is removed pic.twitter.com/JP4DFfay0P

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2025

The unusual contest between two sitting Democratic lawmakers became necessary after neither candidate received the outright majority needed during the March 3 primary.

Green, now 78 years old, has served on Capitol Hill for more than two decades but found himself forced into a political collision with Menefee after Texas Republicans approved a dramatically redrawn congressional map.

The redistricting overhaul, crafted by Republicans in hopes of creating additional pickup opportunities ahead of the midterm elections, triggered a nationwide political battle over mid-cycle map changes.

In response, Democrats launched efforts in California aimed at offsetting potential Republican gains in Texas.

Over the course of his lengthy congressional career, Green became one of President Donald Trump’s fiercest and most outspoken critics in Congress.

His confrontational style repeatedly sparked clashes on the House floor, culminating last year in a formal censure after he repeatedly interrupted the president during an address to Congress.

The tensions escalated further this year when Green was escorted out by security personnel during Trump’s State of the Union speech.

Green also repeatedly pursued impeachment efforts against Trump following the president’s return to office.

In February 2025, Green announced plans to seek Trump’s impeachment after the president unveiled a proposal involving the relocation of Gazans and American control over the Gaza Strip.

Several months later, in June 2025, Green introduced another round of impeachment articles accusing Trump of bypassing Congress in military operations involving Iran, which he characterized as an abuse of executive authority.

The House ultimately voted to table the measure.

Throughout the impeachment battles, Green consistently portrayed Trump as a danger to the country, repeatedly describing the president as reckless, ruthless, lawless, and increasingly dictatorial.

{Matzav.com}

A bitter and deeply divisive Democratic primary battle in Texas came to an end Tuesday as party-backed candidate Johnny Garcia defeated controversial challenger Maureen Galindo, whose inflammatory antisemitic rhetoric triggered widespread outrage across the political spectrum.

According to projections from Decision Desk HQ, Garcia emerged victorious in the Democratic runoff election, defeating Galindo after weeks of escalating controversy surrounding her comments about Israel supporters and former ICE agents.

Garcia, a public information officer with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, became the preferred choice of Democratic Party leaders after Galindo faced fierce bipartisan condemnation over a series of incendiary social media remarks.

The backlash centered largely around an Instagram post in which Galindo described what she hoped to do with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Karnes County if elected.

“Into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking,” Galindo had written while discussing plans for the detention center.

Galindo had originally finished first in the March primary election, but the controversy surrounding her remarks quickly engulfed the race.

In an interview with The New York Times, she attempted to defend herself by arguing that “everything is based off a local journalist twisting words” and insisting that she has “always called for all detention centers to be closed.”

Her explanation failed to calm criticism from within her own party.

According to The Hill, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico immediately distanced himself from Galindo and refused to appear alongside her at campaign events following the social media controversy.

The backlash soon spread nationally, including among Jewish lawmakers in Congress.

Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Jared Moskowitz warned that if Galindo somehow won election to Congress, they would “force a vote to expel her.”

Opposition to Galindo ultimately united both establishment Democrats and prominent progressive figures.

Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — a member of “The Squad” who has frequently faced criticism herself over anti-Israel rhetoric — sharply denounced Galindo’s remarks.

Ocasio-Cortez described the Instagram comments as “bigoted garbage” before publicly endorsing Garcia in the runoff contest.

{Matzav.com}