Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned down an invitation to meet privately with Senate Democrats during his visit next week to Washington.
Netanyahu said that holding the meeting would “compound the misperception of partisanship” regarding his trip. The White House has accused Republican leaders in Congress with inviting Netanyahu in an attempt to undermine their negotiations with Iran.
Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Monday invited Netanyahu to meet in a closed-door session with Democrats during his visit.
“I regret that the invitation to address the special joint session of Congress has been perceived by some to be political or partisan,” Netanyahu wrote. “I can assure you that my sole intention in accepting it was to voice Israel’s grave concerns about a potential nuclear agreement with Iran that could threaten the survival of my country.”
More than a half dozen House and Senate Democrats said they will skip the joint session of Congress out of loyalty to President Obama. Vice President Biden has also said he will not attend the joint session of Congress.
The Obama administration is coming under fire from Christian leaders after President Obama refused to acknowledge that ISIS killed 21 Coptic Christians because of their faith in Christ.
President Obama called the men “Egyptian citizens.”
“ISIS made very clear in this video that this was an execution of ‘people of the cross.’ ISIS apparently has no difficulty saying ‘Christian,’ while the White House has a very difficult time,” Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said.
“Why not say to these Christians who are being killed for their faith that they’re welcome to come here and have refugee status here in the United States or safe haven here in the United States?” he asked.
Retired General Jack Keane agreed with Perkins and said that Americans and the world need to realize the truth of the video.
“Clearly, this is a global jihad right before our eyes,” Gen. Keane said.
The White House is hosting a summit on how to “counter violent extremism.”
The top counterterrorism official for the White House admitted Thursday that the overthrow of the Yemeni government by Islamic extremists had taken U.S. intelligence services by surprise.
National Counterterrorism Center Director Nick Rasmussen told the Senate Intelligence Committee the Yemeni army’s response to the advancing rebels was similar to Iraqi forces who simply laid down arms before ISIS last summer.
“As the Houthi advances toward Sanaa [Yemen’s capital] took place,” Rasmussen said, “they weren’t opposed in many places. … The situation deteriorated far more rapidly than we expected.”
The terrorists overran the government last September, deposing the U.S. backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
The terrorists are providing a safe haven in Yemen for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who carried out the terrorist attacks in Paris on magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher market.
The U.S., Britain and France have closed their embassies in the country and Britain & France have told their citizens to immediately leave Yemen.
An anonymous member of the White House has launched criticism of Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. to the New York Times.
The member of President Obama’s inner circle told the Times that Ambassador Ron Dermer is repeatedly placing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political fortunes over their relationship with the United States.
The White House took issue with Ambassador Dormer working with House Speaker John Boehner to work out the arrangements on Netanyahu addressing a joint session of Congress.
Dermer said he had no regrets advancing his country’s interests.
“My understanding was that it was the speaker’s prerogative to do, and that he would be the one to inform the administration,” Mr. Dermer said to the Times. “The prime minister feels very strongly that he has to speak on this issue. That’s why he accepted the invitation, not to wade into your political debate or make this a partisan issue, and not to be disrespectful to the president.”
The White House says that Dermer should have told Secretary of State Kerry about the invitation during a meeting held before the announcement of the speech.
A drone aircraft crashed onto the White House lawn overnight while the President was out of the country.
Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary told reporters the device was a quadcopter about two week in diameter. The unmanned aircraft was flying at a low altitude before crashing on the southeast side of the executive mansion around 3:08 a.m. Monday.
“There is a device that has been recovered by the Secret Service at the White House,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said when asked if a drone was found. “The early indications are that it does not pose any sort of ongoing threat to anybody at the White House.”
While the President and First Lady were in India, the President’s children were inside the White House because they had to stay behind to attend school.
The White House was darkened and the grounds placed on lockdown for around two hours while the Secret Service conducted their investigation. The Secret Service would not say if there were cameras on the device that were transmitting to a remote location.
The incident is the latest in a round of security breaches at the White House over the past year. Former director Julia Pierson was forced to resign last year after a Texas man with a knife was able to get inside the White House.
A vigil was held outside the White House for the 132 children and nine staff members murdered by the Taliban in an Pakistan school.
Visitors to the vigil included the deputy chief of Mission at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington who said he wanted to show his country’s leadership was supportive of those standing for the memory of those children.
“I am to be with those who are here to express solidarity and support for the victims and the families of those who were killed in Peshawar,” Asad Majeed Khan told the Christian Post.
“You can see people from all colors and creeds and people with the different religions have come together in support and solidarity,” Khan asserted. “This is a message that I take also from here this evening that this is not a fight for any country in particular, this is not a particular ethnic group or a particular religion’s fight, this is a fight in which we are all together.”
Those participating held candles and a moment of silence to honor the victims. Many also held signs and banners calling for the destruction of the Taliban.
The White House is refusing to name the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
The group, which has been labeled terrorists by many governments throughout the Middle East, has been supported in the past by the Obama administration when they were controlling Egypt.
A petition on the White House website called for the administration to join other nations in designating the group terrorists. Over 213,000 signatures were obtained in a month. When a petition reaches 100,000, the administration claims they will respond within 30 days.
“[The] Muslim Brotherhood has a long history of violent killings & terrorizing opponents. Also, MB has direct ties with most terrorist groups like Hamas,” the petition reads. “A book by one of their prominent figures, Sayyid Qutb, called Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq, is the bible for many terrorist groups.”
“The Muslim Brotherhood has shown in the past few days that it is willing to engage in violence and killing of innocent civilians in order to invoke fear in the hearts of its opponents. This is terrorism. We ask the US government to declare MB as a terrorist group for a safer future for all of us.”
The White House dismissed the petition in a short reply.
“We have not seen credible evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has renounced its decades-long commitment to non-violence,” the White House stated.
A group of supporters of Pastor Saeed Abedini set a place at the Thanksgiving table in front of the White House on Thanksgiving as a way to remind President Obama that he has done next to nothing to bring home the American wrongly imprisoned in Iran for being a Christian.
“While Americans enjoy the blessings of spending Thanksgiving Day with family and friends, it is important to remember that millions around the world are being brutalized, persecuted and attacked for their Christian faith. Thousands are in prison,” Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said in a statement to the Christian Post.
“Pastor Saeed will not be able to spend this special day with his wife and two young children but instead will be spending it in a cramped prison facing constant violence and persecution.”
Mahoney also said part of the display in front of the White House was to remind Christians that they cannot be complacent when it comes to the freedom of their brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.
This is the second Thanksgiving behind bars for Abedini.
A campaign is being waged to get President Obama to finally take firm action on the pastor of an American pastor who is wrongfully imprisoned in Iran.
A series of prepared postcards has a message telling the President that the American people want to see him demand the release of Saeed Abedini as part of the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
“A man in your position has been given great power and responsibility to represent every American, whether on domestic or foreign soil. Please hold to your own words, that no one is left behind. We, the American people, ask you to do everything within your power to bring U.S. citizen, pastor, husband & father, Saeed Abedini, home to his family from his time of incarceration in Iran,” the card reads.
The American Center for Law and Justice, who is representing Pastor Abedini and his family, says that the President and his administration ignored the opportunity to work for Abedini’s release in previous negotiations.
At least 80,000 postcards have already been requested by those who will send them to the White House.
President Obama acknowledged the administration completely misjudged ISIS and the strength and will of the Islamic terrorist group.
However, the President put the blame on the former Iraqi government and U.S. intelligence services rather than accepting any of the blame himself. In January, the President called ISIS a Junior Varsity terrorist outfit.
“Our head of the intelligence community Jim Clapper has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” the president said.
Intelligence service officials say the President has been receiving daily briefings on ISIS and their rise for the last 18 months. The White House refused to act on those intelligence reports.
Sen. John McCain said he was “puzzled” by the President’s claim and underestimating the threat of Islamic terrorists.
“The intelligence comments — intelligence people are pushing back hard,” McCain said. “We predicted this and watched it. It was like watching a train wreck and warning every step of the way that this was happening … It is a direct result of our failure to leave a residual force behind.”
