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The Foreign Ministry summoned the Irish ambassador to Israel, Alison Kelly, following the passage of a BDS bill by the Irish Senate. Ambassador Kelly will be reprimanded by the ministry. The so-called “Occupied Territories Bill” outlaws the trade of goods from Judea and Samaria and imposes prison sentences and heavy fines on those who do not comply with the law. Jerusalem is awaiting the return of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from Russia before holding a meeting on taking further steps against the Irish move. Earlier, the Foreign Ministry issued a response to the Irish decision saying that “the Irish Senate...

Technicals, a term typically applied to commercial pickup trucks or similar light wheeled vehicles with improvised weapon mounts, are common among both state security forces and non-state actors, especially in the Middle East. But few are as heavily armed as a type that Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen are employing, which packs a 20mm Vulcan cannon and looks like something one might expect to see in a new Mad Max movie. Earlier in July 2018, images emerged on one of these vehicles, which appears to be based a heavily stripped down Toyota Hilux 4x4 pickup, engaged in operations against...

Editors’ note: The following is an edited version of remarks delivered at The New Criterion’s gala on April 25, 2018 honoring Victor Davis Hanson with the sixth Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society. Populism is today seen both as a pejorative and positive noun. In fact, in the present age, there are two sorts of populism. Both strains originated in classical times and persisted in the West until today. One in antiquity was known as the base populism. It involved the unfettered urban “mob,” or what the Athenians disapprovingly dubbed the ochlos and the Romans disparagingly called...

This is a video clip. From CNBC. With yet more whining from China, about our great president. :D Donald is turning into a great, great, president. Best ever.

When The Naked Farmer came to town looking for people to get their kit off for a good cause, dairy farmer Kerry Wilson was approached to take part. He and his partner Paul Wilson agreed, though Kerry had reservations about not having the right body type. "Gee whiz, I'm 56. Does it matter?" Kerry asked. It didn't. The cause, which raises awareness about the mental health of Australian farmers, hit a personal chord with the couple. Kerry and Paul are fifth-generation farmers who live and work together near Nimbin in the northern rivers of New South Wales. "You carry a...

This is getting creepy. Michael Avenatti isn’t just your garden-variety guy on an ego trip. He’s starting to sound like some sort of cult leader with delusions of grandeur. Asked by Ari Melber on MSNBC this evening about his possible presidential ambitions, Avenatti answered: “If you’re going to go climb a mountain that you’ve never climbed before, or a mountain that’s really important for you to summit, do you want a guy, a guide, who says to you, you know, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get up the face of that mountain? “Or do you...

All-American wrestler Nick Nutter said he believes that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) did not know about allegations of sexual abuse on the Ohio State University wrestling time when he was an assistant coach there. Nutter, who wrestled at the school in the 1990s, said Jordan was a “goody two-shoes” and simply wasn’t the type of guy to whom he would bring those type of allegations. “Jim Jordan was almost intimidatingly a goody two-shoes. I never heard the man cuss. If I was near him, I would never even say the word penis because I would hate for him to judge...

Judge Brett Kavanaugh is going to be a weeks-long torment for some on the Hill—and I’m talking about red state Democrats. Senate Republican moderates Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have been very receptive to Kavanaugh’s nomination, easing pressure from the right that they could sink this SCOTUS nominee if they defect. That could be the case, but for now, pressure has ramped up on Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), and maybe Bill Nelson (D-FL). Nelson needs help. Republican Gov. Rick Scott is outworking him on Hispanic outreach, and he’s beating Nelson...

The latest line of attack from liberals against Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, is knocking the judge for his “frat boy”-sounding first name. “We'll be DAMNED if we're going to let five MEN—including some frat boy named Brett—strip us of our hard-won bodily autonomy and reproductive rights,” the influential pro-choice organization NARAL tweeted Tuesday. Comedian Stephen Colbert of CBS’ “The Late Show” also mocked Kavanaugh’s name. “Now I don’t know much about Kavanaugh, but I’m skeptical because his name is Brett,” Colbert said during the monologue on his show Tuesday. “That sounds less like a Supreme...

With North Korean and US delegates scheduled to meet Thursday to negotiate the return of US war remains from the Korean War, the focus is now on whether the two sides can make progress on the issue. During their first summit last month in Singapore, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump committed to recovering US war remains, including the “immediate repatriation of those already identified.” North Korea holds about 200 sets of remains from among the some 5,300 US military personnel believed still lost in the country, according to Department of Defense estimates. There has been...

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has asked the offices of all 93 U.S. attorneys to each provide up to three federal prosecutors to assist the Justice Department in reviewing government records of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the New York Times reports, citing a letter it obtained. Why it matters: The Times notes that this is an unusual move because department attorneys are not typically responsible for carrying out such a task. "The production of documents could slow down a confirmation hearing that has already shaped up as a sharp partisan battle. Democratic lawmakers say they want to...

Special counsel Robert Mueller is asking a federal court in Virginia for 100 blank subpoenas in the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The request was made in a filing on Wednesday. The subpoenas would require their recipients to testify in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria on July 25, when Manafort's trial in Virginia is set to begin. No further information was provided in the filing, and a spokesman for the special counsel did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment. The request comes roughly a month after Mueller filed a request for 150 blank...

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh amassed tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt in part by purchasing baseball tickets to Washington Nationals games, according to a Washington Post review of Kavanaugh’s financial disclosures and information provided by the White House. Kavanaugh has reported having up to $200,000 in credit card debt during the past 10 years, according to the Post's report. In 2006 — the year he was confirmed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — he reported having between $60,000 to $200,000 in debt.

A 48-year-old woman’s body has been found stuffed inside a trash compactor outside an upscale apartment building in New York City. The grisly discovery was made Tuesday afternoon at Zeckendorf Towers – a property that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and estranged husband Anthony Weiner used to call home, the New York Post reported, citing tenants and public records.

•Texas claims the top spot in CNBC's 2018 America’s Top States for Business rankings. •The energy sector is helping to turbocharge the $1.6 trillion Texas economy. •Texas has added more than 350,000 jobs in the past year. •Texas is home to some of America's most important public and private companies, including giants like AT&T, ExxonMobil and Dell. Riding the rising tide of energy prices—and the job growth that goes with it—Texas claims the top spot in CNBC’s 2018 America’s Top States for Business rankings. This is familiar territory for the Lone Star State, which becomes the first four-time winner in...

Now comes a whopper: much of what the American public has been told about birthright citizenship is wrong. The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) recently filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Fitisemanu v. United States, a case of birthright citizenship currently before the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. In its brief, IRLI attorneys did not take a position on the primary issue in Fitisemanu: whether American Samoa is part of the United States for purposes of citizenship. The brief instead examined the overarching matter of birthright citizenship. Namely, does the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution grant automatic citizenship...

Wednesday on Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he anticipated that Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the vacancy left by the retiring Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, would be confirmed during September. Should Kavanaugh be confirmed by mid-September, which Tillis said it was a 100 percent chance probability, it would set Kavanaugh up for the beginning of the high court’s term in October.

America is a nation obsessed with political approval ratings like no other. But the U.S. media seems ignorant to the fact that President Trump is currently one of the most popular leaders of a major Western nation in the world today. Guffaw if you like, but those who are both regarded and regard themselves as “better” leaders have lower numbers than the American president — and while his are trending up, some of theirs are in free fall. When Barack Obama left the world stage, having commanded a mid-40s average approval rating over the course of his presidency, the New...

For more than a year, some of the most powerful women in entertainment — including Amy Pascal, Kathleen Kennedy, Stacey Snider and a 'Homeland' director — have been impersonated by a cunning thief who targets insiders with promises of work, then bilks them out of thousands of dollars. The Hollywood Reporter has obtained exclusive audio recordings of the savvy imposter as victims come forward and a global investigation heats up. He was a freelance documentary photographer, 27 and eager, but not inexperienced. He'd worked in conflict zones for several prestige newspapers and magazines and shot ad campaigns for corporate clients....

So just cool is this oil pipeline that Germany wants to work with so desperately..