Commentary Culture Investigations

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American ThinkerBy M. WalterIn Ohio, the current standard is that your friends can come over to party without a permit but not to pray. That can’t be right.

Photo Credit:Image: hendricjabs via Pixabay, Pixabay License.

hendricjabsBy Ramsey CouttaThe most dangerous antisemite is not necessarily the person whose political label Jews have been taught to fear.

Left-wing Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed headlined a series of luxury yacht fundraisers for an Islamic nonprofit organization linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, a Washington Free Beacon review found. One of the events—which took place on “one of New York Harbor’s most impressive private charter yachts”—featured a speaker who has urged Muslims to “stand with” Hamas and Hezbollah and stop “condemning antisemitism and condemning terrorism.”
El-Sayed headlined four Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) “Cruise for a Cause” events in Washington, D.C., Miami, Chicago, and New York City between March 23 and April 6, 2019, promotional flyers posted to social media show. The New York City soirée took place aboard the Nautical Empress, a “tri-level yacht” that hosts “high-end corporate event[s]” and features “space for up to 600 guests, full-service bars, elegant dining areas, and an open-air rooftop deck.”
“Cruising past landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Manhattan skyline, this tri-level yacht offers the perfect blend of luxury and iconic scenery,” the boat’s booking company boasts. “Make your next occasion a standout moment aboard one of New York Harbor’s most impressive private charter yachts.”

El-Sayed promoted the $100-a-head events on his Facebook page, writing that he was “proud to be joining Islamic Relief USA” for a “cruise” to “celebrate and help support their work.” He spoke at the New York City and Washington, D.C., cruises alongside the Dearborn-based activist Amer Zahr, who expressed solidarity with Hamas and Hezbollah during a 2017 rally, telling residents of Dearborn, Mich., “whether it’s called Hamas, whether it’s called Hezbollah, we stand with everybody who stands against the Israeli occupation.” Four years later, in a social media video, Zahr took aim at “all the activists and leaders out there that are condemning antisemitism and condemning terrorism right now,” saying, “Stop it! Stop! You are not helping.”

Former IRUSA East Coast operations manager Yousef Abdallah also promoted the New York City fundraiser on Facebook, writing, “Come enjoy a good company on a heated boat.” In a since-deleted 2014 Facebook post, Abdallah said then-New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R.) “kneels down on his knees before the jewish lords and says ‘I am sorry.’ Only money makes stuff like this happen. … Muslims should remember this very well.”

El-Sayed’s participation in the cruises raises fresh questions about his ties to extremists as he faces off against Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens in Michigan’s August 4 primary.
The Israeli government sanctioned IRUSA’s parent organization, Islamic Relief Worldwide, in 2014 over alleged support for Hamas. In 2024, the House Ways & Means Committee opened an investigation into both organizations’ finances, noting that IRUSA supplies nearly one-third of Islamic Relief Worldwide’s annual revenues, which it allegedly funnels to Hamas. In 2018, the House Oversight Committee dubbed IRUSA a “prime example” of the influence that the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Islamist sect that formed Hamas in Gaza in 1988, has in the United States.
Though IRUSA has denied funding terrorist groups, its leaders’ antisemitic rhetoric has fueled concerns about its extremism.
In addition to Abdallah, IRUSA CEO Ahmed Shehata—who contributed $500 to El-Sayed’s Senate campaign on March 10—has faced criticism for his participation in what the George Washington University Program on Extremism described as “Brotherhood-aligned activism.” Shehata was photographed at a pro-Brotherhood event in Seattle speaking in front of a banner with the group’s trademark “Rabia” symbol, which depicts a hand holding up four fingers, according to the Program on Extremism.
IRUSA director Esam Omeish, meanwhile, has donated $4,350 to El-Sayed’s Senate campaign. A former president of the Muslim American Society—which the House Oversight Committee describes as an “overt arm in the U.S. of the global Muslim Brotherhood”—Omeish urged Muslims in the early-2000s to embrace “the jihad way.”
El-Sayed is no stranger to Brotherhood-tied groups. His father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, is a founding member of the Islamic Society of North America, an Islamist group created by the Muslim Brotherhood and linked to Hamas financing, the Free Beacon reported. Jukaku has donated $300,000 to the largest PAC backing El-Sayed’s Senate campaign.
El-Sayed also defended the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in a 2011 essay during the Arab Spring, touting its willingness to “compromise” with sectarian leaders after the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. He dismissed concerns that the Brotherhood would mimic Hamas’s control of Gaza. The Trump administration designated the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization earlier this year for coordinating “possible terrorist activities” with Hamas.
El-Sayed, whom supporters praise for his masterful public speaking skills, has used those talents to raise money for other radical causes. He headlined a fundraiser in October 2019 with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) for the Detroit chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, where he posed in front of a pamphlet of a DSA fist choking a snake labeled “CAPITALISM,” the Free Beacon reported. The event raised $10,000 for the socialist group.
It’s unclear how much money the El-Sayed luxury cruise events raised for IRUSA. Neither the organization nor El-Sayed’s campaign responded to requests for comment.
The events highlight El-Sayed’s close relationship with Zahr, the activist who said he stands with Hezbollah and Hamas. Zahr is a “very good friend” of El-Sayed and one of “the top surrogates for him in Dearborn,” according to former El-Sayed campaign aide Jordan Domingue.
Zahr also campaigned for El-Sayed in his 2018 gubernatorial run, and the duo served as surrogates for Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign. They appeared on stage together at a May 2021 protest in Dearborn against President Joe Biden and were featured speakers at ArabCon in Dearborn last September, where Zahr mockingly asked professor Rabab Abdulhadi during a panel discussion whether she condemned Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. “I will never condemn Palestinian resistance,” Abdulhadi told Zahr, who replied, “That’s right.”
Zahr also posted a photo last year in front of a memorial to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, referring to him as a “hero.”
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A charity that opposes nuclear weapons is paying for the CNN reporter who covers nuclear issues.
The Outrider Foundation, a Madison, Wisconsin-based charity funded by Democratic donor Frank Burgess, describes itself as a “non-political, nonpartisan 501c3 organization that educates the public about nuclear security threats and climate issues.” Its website claims “it is possible to dismantle our nuclear weapons” and urges readers to act.
“The more people participate, the stronger and louder the movement will be. Think about getting involved as a volunteer, or consider donating money,” the Outrider Foundation website says. “Contact your representatives in Congress. Write them, call them, email them, fax them, tweet them… there are many ways to be heard. Many U.S. representatives receive donation money from powerful companies that make nuclear weapons, like Northrop Grumman and Boeing. Tell your official to represent your best interests, not those of nuclear lobbyists.”
A June 26, 2026, press release from CNN announced, “Davis Winkie has joined CNN as a Reporter and Senior Fellow covering national security and nuclear threats … Winkie’s work at CNN is supported by a partnership between the Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners … CNN retains full editorial control of all reporting.”
The news business has been financially challenging in recent years, so news organizations have taken to schnorring from charities to support news and editorial content. The New York Times is publishing anti-Israel content subsidized by a far-left nonprofit called the Pulitzer Center. The Associated Press’s climate coverage is paid for by left-wing foundations opposed to fossil fuels.
The situation shows the double standard when it comes to press bias. When Larry and David Ellison and Bari Weiss take over CBS News or try to buy CNN, the left-wing watchdogs whip themselves up into a frenzy over the possibility that they might exercise some editorial influence, or, worse yet, discover some cost efficiencies. Yet under the current management, CNN is cutting a variety of deals—with Qatar, with Turkey, with the Outrider Foundation, with the Rockefeller Foundation—that could erode whatever remains of the network’s reputation for impartiality.
A profile of Winkie on CNN’s website describes him as a current part‑time officer in the Air National Guard and as having played football and studied European history and classics at Vanderbilt University. The articles he writes for CNN are also being promoted on the Outrider Foundation website. A second left-wing nonprofit, Journalism Funding Partners, is also involved with the CNN fellowship. The Outrider tax return for 2025 shows a grant of $170,000 to Journalism Funding Partners for a journalism fellowship. The vice chair of Journalism Funding Partners is Sheila Solomon, a former consultant to the Democracy Fund, a far-left charity funded by anti-Israel billionaire Pierre Omidyar. The Democracy Fund gave Journalism Funding Partners $220,000 in 2024, tax records show.
Before joining CNN, Winkie and Outrider had a similar deal with USA Today, where he covered the White House and the Pentagon.
Winkie referred an inquiry to a CNN spokeswoman. The CNN spokeswoman referred to the disclaimer that CNN retains full editorial control of all reporting. An official of the Outrider Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Washington Free Beacon.
A July 24, 2026 piece by Winkie and colleagues for CNN, headlined, “How Trump upended the Saudi nuclear deal less than 24 hours after its signing,” blamed “conservative media,” citing “skeptical coverage on his preferred channel, Fox News, and on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.” It attributed the failure of Biden administration efforts to reach a Saudi-Israel normalization deal to “Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel” and “Israel’s response, widely perceived as disproportionate in the Arab world.”
It’s highly situational, and illuminating, which nonprofit organizations are able to get away with these sorts of deals without generating an uproar from what remains of the journalistic “ethics” priesthood. If a low-tax nonprofit wanted to sponsor CNN’s tax reporter, or a pro-Israel nonprofit wanted to sponsor CNN’s Gaza reporting, it’d almost certainly be a nonstarter. But so many of the people running these news organizations are so left-wing that they either don’t perceive, or don’t care, that positions such as banning nuclear weapons or abolishing fossil fuels might make it harder than ever to maintain the pretense that the organizations are covering the news rather than engaging in left-wing activism.
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Two major stories dropped tonight and as is often the case with the Elitist Media, they failed to make the broadcast network evening news. In both cases, only CBS carried these items.Watch the brief on the Biden Tapes in its entirety, as aired on the CBS Evening News on Monday, July 27th, 2026: WATCH: As with the Fauci Diaries, @CBSEveningNews breaks the ice on the Biden Tapes. The brief covers the classified stuff but misses the cognitive decline that made it to the ghostwriter interview.MATT GUTMAN: Now breaking news tonight about Former President Joe Biden. Today… pic.twitter.com/zLGFn2v8MV— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 28, 2026 MATT GUTMAN: Now breaking news tonight about Former President Joe Biden. Today roughly 70 hours of recordings of an interview he did with a ghostwriter in 2017 before he was President were released over Biden’s objections. Senior White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang joins me. Weijia, what do these tapes tell us?WEIJIA JIANG: Well Matt, the newly released audio shows that in 2017 when Former President Biden was writing a memoir he told his ghostwriter on several occasions that he had classified documents in his possession. Biden can be heard saying “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” in reference to volumes of notes Biden kept in his home. He also said “some of this may be classified so be careful.” Biden, who fought for years to keep these recordings private, would later publicly criticize President Trump for his handling of classified documents. We asked a spokesman for Biden for a comment about the new tapes, but he said they don’t have one. Matt.GUTMAN: Weijia, thank you.It bears repeating that it was a brief. Weijia Jiang emphasized the classified documents portion of the story on the Biden Tapes, but not the cognitive decline aspects, which also resonated during the ghostwriter interview: When trying to recall a past meeting to Zwonitzer, Biden lost track of what he was talking about, said “it’s confusing me,” and needed his assistant to get him back on track. pic.twitter.com/DWFyo2sbAr— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) July 27, 2026 As Fox News notes:The interview recordings show instances where Biden takes long pauses, forgets names, and can’t recall specific days. Biden warned Zwonitzer while discussing a 2014 Situation Room meeting, “Some of this may be classified, so be careful,” and added, “I’m not sure. It isn’t marked classified, but….”In one instance, on April 24, 2017, Biden struggled to recall two economic advisers. “I’ll think of his name,” said Biden, and then, “I should write the names down because I keep forgetting them.” A long pause follows before Zwonitzer says Alan Krueger’s name.On the same day, Biden fails to recall where he was on a certain date, later remembering he was at a memorial for a fallen service member – and forgot his name.Biden’s cognitive decline was why Special Counsel Robert Hur ultimately made the decision not to prosecute, believing juries would not find that a “sympathetic, well-meaning man with a poor memory” willfully mishandled classified material…by stacking it next to his Corvette and other places in his garage. Recall that the Elitist Media raged at this characterization, but it has aged well.Moving on to the Fauci Tapes, it is also CBS who broke the seal. Here is that brief in its entirety as aired on the CBS Evening News on Monday, July 26th, 2026: WATCH: @CBSEveningNews is the first major network evening newscast to address the Fauci Diaries. A tiny brief that misses a lot, but still infinity more than what ABC, NBC, PBS did.MATT GUTMAN: Newly released diary entries by Dr. Anthony Fauci are shedding light on his soaring… pic.twitter.com/p4YnKemZT5— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 28, 2026 MATT GUTMAN: Newly released diary entries by Dr. Anthony Fauci are shedding light on his soaring notoriety during the Covid epidemic. The documents released by Republican Senator Rand Paul include Fauci’s reflections about being invited to A-list parties, calls with Barbra Streisand, but also some uncertainty about the origin of Covid, whether it started in a wet market in China or leaked from a Wuhan lab.As one astute observer on X put it: “That’s like me telling my kid this bedtime story: ‘Once Upon a Time there lived a princess in a far away land. The End.’” Our own Curtis Houck chronicled the Elitist Media’s early omission of the Dear Fauci Diary, and it’s easy to see why. The brief doesn’t go into Fauci’s narcissistic pursuit of celebrity status, or his efforts to shape media coverage of both the pandemic and his role in the administration’s response to it. And there really wasn’t “uncertainty” on Fauci’s end as to the origin of the virus. He knew.This is a tiny brief but, again, infinity more than was offered on ABC, NBC or PBS. PBS chose instead to cover the resignation of Cracker Barrel’s CEO after their disastrous rebrand. ABC went with Punch the Monkey’s birthday, and NBC went with a nonlethal aviation mishap. As is often the case, what the news doesn’t report is often far more important than what makes it on air.