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White House pushes back on GOP attacks on Muslim judicial nominee

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7 months ago

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WASHINGTON — The White House is slamming three Republican senators for leveling what it deems to be “cruel and Islamophobic attacks” at a Biden judicial nominee as part of a larger “smear effort” to discredit the man, who would be the first Muslim American judge to serve on the federal appeals court if he is confirmed.

GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Tom Cotton of Arkansas are being called out specifically for a “malicious” line of questioning about circuit court nominee Adeel Mangi’s views on Hamas militants’ terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7 at his December confirmation hearing. That led to a broader attack from the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative judicial advocacy organization.

“While Mangi served on its board of advisors, the [Rutgers Law School Center for Security, Race, and Rights] taught students to hate Israel and America and to support global terrorism, blaming America for the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and most recently blaming Israel for the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7th,” the group wrote in a statement released Monday.

The White House said conservatives’ criticisms were driven by Islamophobia.

“Mr. Mangi has been subjected to uniquely hostile attacks, in a way other nominees have not — precisely because of his Muslim faith,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement first shared with NBC News. “Senators Cruz, Hawley, and Cotton owe Mr. Mangi an apology.”

“He represents the best of America, and when confirmed, Mr. Mangi will not only make history — he will make an outstanding judge,” Bates added.

The senators told NBC News they remain opposed to Mangi’s candidacy, with a Cotton spokesperson accusing him in a message of “ties to antiSemites,” a Cruz spokesperson saying the White House “can’t defend Adeel Mangi’s record” and a Hawley spokesperson saying of Mangi that “people who advise pro-terrorist campus groups have no place on the federal bench.”

All three cited Mangi’s involvement in the Rutgers Law School Center for Security, Race, and Rights and condemned its decision to host an event on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which featured as a speaker Sami Al-Arian, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The Biden administration is under pressure to improve its standing with Muslim and Arab American communities following its vocal support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

President Joe Biden nominated Mangi to serve as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Philadelphia, last fall.

The Anti-Defamation League, which battles antisemitism, said Mangi was “subjected to aggressive questioning unrelated to his professional expertise or qualifications,” and it criticized the Republican senators for “berating” Mangi “with endless questions that appear to have been motivated by bias towards his religion.”

“This was an attempt to create controversy where one did not exist,” the ADL said last month.

Weeks later, the Judicial Crisis Network launched a digital ad campaign against Mangi, alleging he is antisemitic and “radical.”

Bates, the White House spokesman, wrote, “Mr. Mangi has forcefully and repeatedly condemned Antisemitism, terrorism, and the October 7th terrorist attacks.”

At the hearing, Cruz repeatedly asked Mangi whether he condemned the atrocities of the Hamas terrorists and whether there was “any justification for those atrocities.”

“I have no patience ― none ― for any attempts to justify or defend those events,” Mangi said in December in reference to the Oct. 7 attacks.

Nonprofit groups dedicated to combating Islamophobia in the U.S. have spoken out in Mangi’s defense, as well.

“The deplorable smear campaign against him is steeped in Islamophobic tropes that have no place in our country,” Arsalan Suleman, the CEO of America Indivisible, told NBC News in a statement. “The Senate should confirm Mr. Mangi as soon as possible and condemn these malicious and spurious attacks.”

So far, 177 of Biden’s nominees to be federal judges have been confirmed. More than 65% are women and 65% are people of color, according to the White House.

Biden has nominated and Congress has confirmed more Black women to life-tenured federal judgeships than during any previous administration, according to the White House, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.

While Mangi has cleared the Judiciary Committee process in the Democratic-led Senate, it’s unclear when his nomination will be brought up for a vote in the next procedural step before a confirmation vote.

If he is confirmed, Mangi would be only the third Muslim American federal judge ever.

Mangi has served on the board of directors of the Muslim Bar Association of New York, the Legal Aid Society of New York and Muslims for Progressive Values and as an ally board member for the National LGBT Bar Association, according to his biographical page at the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, where he is a partner.

Culled from the NBC

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Middle East Crisis

3 Israelis killed in attack at West Bank-Jordan border crossing, Israeli military says

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September 8, 2024

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JERUSALEM — Three people were shot and killed Sunday at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Israeli officials said, in what appeared to be an attack linked to the 11-month-old war in Gaza.

The military said the gunman approached the Allenby Bridge Crossing from the Jordanian side in a truck and opened fire at Israeli security forces, who killed the assailant in a shootout. It said the three people killed were Israeli civilians. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said they were all men in their 50s.

Jordan is investigating the shooting, its state-run Petra News Agency reported. The Western-allied Arab country made peace with Israel in 1994 but is deeply critical of its policies toward the Palestinians. Jordan has a large Palestinian population and has seen mass protests against Israel over the war in Gaza.

The Allenby crossing over the Jordan River is mainly used by Israelis, Palestinians and international tourists.

The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge of violence since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Israel has launched near-daily military arrest raids into dense Palestinian residential areas, and there has also been a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

In Gaza, meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike early Sunday killed five people, including two women, two children and a senior official in the Civil Defense — first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government.

The Civil Defense said the strike targeted the home of its deputy director for north Gaza, Mohammed Morsi, in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The army says it tries to avoid harming civilians and only targets militants.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. They abducted another 250, and are still holding around 100 of them after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages inside Gaza are believed to be dead.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker a cease-fire and the return of the hostages, but the negotiations have repeatedly bogged down.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — territories the Palestinians want for a future state — in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but maintained control over its airspace, coastline and most of its land crossings. Along with Egypt, it imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.

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Mother of mass shooting suspect called Apalachee High School with warning

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3 hours ago

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September 8, 2024

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The mother of the teenager suspected of killing four people during a Georgia school shooting called to warn a school counselor prior to the shooting, the suspect’s aunt and grandfather said Saturday.

Colt Gray, 14, apologized to his mother Marcee Gray on the morning of the mass shooting at Apalachee High School — sending an alarming early-morning text that prompted the mother to warn the school, his grandfather told the New York Post.

Marcee Gray’s father, Charles Polhamus, told the New York Post his daughter was at his home in Georgia on Wednesday morning when Colt texted her to say: “I’m sorry, mom.”

Colt has been charged with four counts of murder after committing a mass shooting earlier this week at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, prosecutors said. He will be tried as an adult.

Marcee Gray broke her silence Saturday, apologizing for the “absolutely horrific” shooting.

“I am so, so sorry and can not fathom the pain and suffering they are going through right now,” she told the Washington Post in a text.

The mother called the school about an unspecified “extreme emergency” involving Colt sometime before the shooting began, Gray’s sister Annie Brown told the Washington Post and later confirmed to CNN.

A 10-minute call was placed from Marcee Gray’s phone to the school at 9:50 a.m., the Washington Post reported. Police were notified of the shooting around 10:20 that morning, CNN previously reported.

Marcee Gray later confirmed the call to the Washington Post, which reported Gray “declined to elaborate on what had prompted her to call in the warning to the school, but said she had shared that information with law enforcement.”

According to the Post, Brown has a shared phone plan with the family which allowed her to see a log of the calls made by her sister.

The Barrow County School District did not return CNN’s request for comment. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation referred CNN’s request for comment to the Piedmont Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office.

CNN has reached out to the Piedmont Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office Saturday evening. CNN has also reached out to Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith, who previously said he had no knowledge of any phone call to the school prior to the shooting.

The 14-year-old suspect is expected to face additional charges accounting for the injured victims, officials said Friday.

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Africa

Sudan: Major cholera outbreak as heavy rains hit displacement camps and no end to fighting

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September 8, 2024

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Thousands of children in eastern Sudan are at risk of cholera following a major outbreak caused by widespread flooding, contaminated water and with a decimated health system after 16 months of conflict, Save the Children said.

Nearly 2900 cases of cholera and 112 deaths have been reported between July 22 and the beginning of September with Sudan’s Ministry of Health officially declared the outbreak on August 12. However, the actual numbers may be higher as limited access to health facilities and delayed community referrals are leading to a significant underreporting, according to the latest report from Sudan’s Health Cluster— a partnership including the UN, the Federal Ministry of Health, and NGOs including Save the Children.

In El Damer in River Nile State and in Gedarif in Gedarif State, Save the Children teams are reporting a huge spike in cholera cases among children under five, who account for nearly 15% of the confirmed cases and deaths across the country.

The spike in cholera comes with no end to the fighting that started in April last year and has devastated the country’s health and sanitation systems. Cholera spreads rapidly due to inadequate sewage treatment, flooding, and unsafe drinking water—conditions worsened by relentless heavy rains that have battered much of the country for the past three months.

The flooding has already claimed at least 173 lives and injured 505 people since June, according to the National Council for Civil Defence. The downpour has also caused the collapse of the Arbaat Dam in Red Sea state on 24 August, which is the main source of drinking water for the coastal city of Port Sudan, a vital humanitarian hub.

Heavy rains and flooding have also displaced 4,300 people from displacement camps in North Darfur State, including the Zamzam camp, where famine was recently declared. The flooding has destroyed around 900 tents and washed away latrines within these camps, severely disrupting humanitarian aid efforts.

With more than 25.6 million people across the country in need of aid, the crisis has escalated food scarcity, putting children at heightened risk of malnutrition.

Mohamed Abdiladif, Interim Country Director for Save the Children in Sudan, said:

“Children in Sudan have gone from horror to horror. Even before the conflict erupted last year the country was home to one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises, with existing localised conflicts, natural disasters, disease outbreaks and economic degradation leaving 15.8 million people in need. That figure has now escalated to 25.6 million people, and diseases like cholera will only trigger a greater increase. Conflict is not just about immediate violence but is also a slow but deadly drip-feed of other grave threats to children’s lives, such as malnutrition and disease.

“We are working to ensure access to clean water, sanitation facilities, and hygiene promotion activities to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases such as a cholera in conflict-affected areas. However, we urgently need a huge injection of funds to deliver the treatment needed for cholera.”

Save the Children is conducting daily water quality testing, monitoring and chlorination at 35 water sources within the Sawakin locality, Red Sea state, and has disposed of 125 tons of solid waste at designated dumping sites.

In Gedaref state, Save the Children is supporting with treatment and management of cholera cases and providing safe drinking water to cholera treatment centres. The aid agency is also providing cash assistance to vulnerable families to enable them buy basics such as food, water, and afford health care.

Save the Children has worked in Sudan since 1983 and is currently supporting children and their families across Sudan providing health, nutrition, education, child protection and food security and livelihoods support. Save the Children is also supporting refugees from Sudan in Egypt and South Sudan.

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