A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump’s adviser Jared Kushner has “disqualified himself” from overseeing US Middle East peace efforts because he has adopted Israel’s positions in the dispute, PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said on Thursday.

She also castigated Kushner for voicing doubts about whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved.

“Of course he’s not qualified because he disqualifies himself,” Ashrawi told The Jerusalem Post two days after a private talk Kushner gave in Washington was leaked. [ Source: Jerusalem Post (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – A bipartisan team of senators introduced a bill Thursday to protect the special counsel from meddling by President Trump, as an emboldened Congress takes more swipes at the White House.

Sens. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican, and Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat, wrote the bill to create a judicial review should a president try to remove a special counsel.

The bill would write into law current department guidelines governing who can fire a special counsel, and make them retroactive to this year’s appointment of Robert Mueller, who was named special counsel to probe Russian meddling in the 2016 election — including dealings with Trump campaign figures. [ Source:Washington Times (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Israel was reportedly considering building an underground barrier along its Egyptian border to prevent the Islamic State terror group in Sinai from digging cross-border attack tunnels into Israel.

The army was weighing up whether to extend the barrier currently being constructed around the Gaza Strip southward to protect the Israeli towns in the Eshkol region, the Ynet news website reported on Friday.

Despite having focused the vast majority of its efforts on waging a bloody insurgency against the Egyptian army in recent years, IS in Sinai has long used saber-rattling and small scale attacks against Israel to boost its credentials. Jihadists have fired rockets at Israel, and in February the Egyptian army destroyed six tunnels which ran between Gaza and Sinai. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – President Trump and the Republican Congress went their separate ways for the summer on Thursday amid an escalating GOP civil war fueled by mutual distrust and frustration.

Trump is chafing at what he views as his subordinates in Congress failing to repeal Obamacare even as they worked against him with Democrats to pass legislation limiting his ability to cut deals with Russia — a major embarrassment for the self-styled master negotiator.

Republicans are fed up with daily distractions from a chaotic White House and a president who complains but they feel won’t get his hands dirty, seemingly preferring to brag about his personal brand on Twitter than committing the full weight of his leadership to passing big legislation — like healthcare reform. [ Source (Read More…) ]