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Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump listens as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton answers a question from the audience during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, US, October 9, 2016. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday condemned a recent streak of "troubling" antisemitic incidents, and called for action first and foremost from US President Donald Trump.

"JCC threats, cemetery desecration & online attacks are so troubling & they need to be stopped," she wrote on Twitter. "Everyone must speak out, starting w/ @POTUS."

Also on Monday, 11 Jewish community centers across the United States were targeted with false bomb threats, the fourth such wave of harassing phone calls in five weeks.

The White House responded to a reporters query about the latest string of bomb threats called in to Jewish community centers by saying these actions are unacceptable.

Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom, read a statement, attributed to White House press secretary Sean Spicer, that was shared Monday afternoon by NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander. The President has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable.

The statement did not specify that the threats targeted Jewish institutions, although it came in reply to a query about threats to JCCs.

Alexander posted Spicers response on Twitter, adding, @PressSec responds to my request for comment about wave of threats to Jewish community centers.

Separately, Trumps daughter, Ivanka, who is Jewish, condemned the threats in a Tweet that pointed to the fact that the targets were Jewish.

America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance, she said. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. She ended the tweet with the hashtagged acronym for Jewish community center, #JCC.

Shortly afterward, various Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, urged the White House to issue an unequivocal denunciation of the bomb threats and other antisemitic acts.

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Hillary Clinton: Trump must take action against string of antisemitic acts - Jerusalem Post Israel News

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that a series of bomb threats called in to Jewish community centers around the country in the last few months "are horrible and painful."

They were his first remarks specifically addressing the threats, coming amid mounting criticism about his silence. Earlier Tuesday, Hillary Clinton called the series of threats and attacks against Jews and Jewish groups "so troubling" in a tweet that urged Trump to speak out against them.

Trump spoke over an hour later at a news conference at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

"The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil," he said.

Before that, Trump hadn't commented directly on the threats, despite being asked about them at two recent press conferences. The latest wave of threats came Monday, with 10 locations targeted. Also Monday, dozens of headstones were toppled at a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis.

"JCC threats, cemetery desecration & online attacks are so troubling & they need to be stopped. Everyone must speak out, starting w/ @POTUS," Clinton tweeted, referring to Trump, who beat her in November's election.

About an hour afterward, a threat was received at a Jewish Community Center in the San Diego area.

Also at the museum Tuesday, Trump condemned anti-Semitism as horrible in an interview with NBC News, saying "it's going to stop and it has to stop."

But the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, an anti-discrimination advocacy group, said that Trump's statement is not nearly enough to address the worst anti-Semitism its staff had ever seen in the White House

The Presidents sudden acknowledgement of Anti-Semitism is a Band-Aid on the cancer of Anti-Semitism that has infected his own Administration," the center said in a statement. "His statement today is a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting Anti-Semitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record."

There have been several sets of bomb threats against Jewish Community Center facilities since Trump was elected president, along with other incidents involving anti-Semitic symbols like swastikas.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said recently it reported an increase in U.S. hate groups in 2016 the second year in a row the number has risen.

The total number of organizations considered hate groups by the SPLC rose from 892 in 2015 to 917 in 2016. Mark Potok, an editor of the report called 2016, "an unprecedented year for hate."

While Trump has spoken out against hatred and the White House said Monday that "hate-motivated violence" is unacceptable, he had not specifically decried threats and attacks against specific groups, including Jews, even when a Jewish reporter asked him about the rise in anti-Semitic incidents around the country in a contentious news conference Thursday.

Trump told the reporter, a Hasidic Jew from an Orthodox magazine who had taken pains to preface his question by saying he knew Trump wasn't anti-Jewish, to sit down. Trump said it was not a simple or fair question before describing himself as "the least anti-Semitic person you've ever seen in your entire life."

The reporter, Jake Turx, later told The New York Times he spoke with White House staff members who assured him it would give the proper help, guidance and collaboration on anti-Semitism.

Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, called the president's response to Turx "mind-boggling." The ADL works to combat anti-Semitism and fights for civil rights protections.

Trump supporter Mort Klein, president of the hawkish Zionist Organization of America, said Trump must have been frustrated by the "relentless and outrageous allegations" of anti-Semitism against him and his White House strategist Steve Bannon.

A day earlier, Trump had another chance to respond to the rise in anti-Semitic harassment in the U.S. when asked about it by an Israeli reporter at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Trump had opened by calling Israel a symbol of "survival in the face of genocide."

But he responded to the reporter by touting the total number of Electoral College votes he won and promised "peace in this country."

Netanyahu then took up the question, saying he had known the president, his family and some of his aides for many years and "there is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than President Donald Trump. I think we should put that to rest."

But Trump's answer to that question drew criticism from the ADL, which tweeted it's "troubling that @POTUS failed to condemn real issue of anti-Semitism in US today."

Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, did specifically condemn the latest threats against JCCs on Monday.

She converted to Judaism when she married Jared Kushner, and she tweeted that "America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC."

Greenblatt, the ADL chief executive, said on Twitter he was happy to see Ivanka Trump's tweet, but added that "All Jews need to urge @POTUS to step forward & share a plan. His words carry weight. His actions will speak even louder."

Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, also responded to the attacks Monday in a tweet and used it to criticize Trump's silence.

"<2 months into 2017: JCC bomb threats, synagogue defamed, subway swastikas, Jewish cemetery desecrated. NOW will Trump condemn antisemitism?" Clinton said.

The White House released a statement Monday about "hate-motivated violence" in response to a request from NBC News about the wave of threats to JCCs.

"Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom," press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement Monday. "The president has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable."

The FBI is investigating the threats as possible civil rights violations.

Published at 8:19 AM CST on Feb 21, 2017 | Updated at 4:37 PM CST on Feb 21, 2017

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Trump Calls JCC Threats 'Horrible and Painful' After Clinton Latest to Call Him Out for Silence - NBC Chicago

Milo Yiannopoulos resigned Tuesday from Breitbart News, saying, This decision is mine alone. Juan Coles column was written before the resignation occurred.

The interview that emerged on the internet of practicing Catholic Milo Yiannopoulos expressing approval of some instances of priest pedophilia with boys has perhaps ended his career as the most flamboyant voice of the neo-KKK in suits. But those remarks are hardly the most objectionable things Yiannopoulos has said; at least he seems to have been talking in part about his own experience. What is really monstrous is the lies he told, and which he was encouraged by his boss Steve Bannon to tell, about Hillary Clinton being involved in a pedophilia ring. [Truthdig editors note: In an article Monday, The New York Times reported that Yiannopoulos denied that he had ever condoned child sexual abuse, noting that he was a victim himself. He blamed his British sarcasm and deceptive editing for leading to a misunderstanding. Also on Monday, the website Heavy posted a video and transcript of the controversial interview with Yiannopoulos.]

Steve Bannon, now sitting on our National Security Council (and perhaps in control of which of its recommendations goes to Trump), hired Yiannopoulos as an editor at his alt-NeoNazi rag, Breitbart, and helped unleash him on the United States. Bannons choice of proteges tells us everything we need to know about him and his agenda in the Trump White House. (Yiannopoulos himself has spoken about how Bannon hired and promoted him).

Newsweek reminds us that last fall,

Milo Yiannopoulos, who lost his Twitter access earlier this year after one too many online insults against women and minorities, was on the campus of Miami University in Ohio, scheduled to talk about PIZZAGATE: The deep Dish on Liberalism and Pedophilia.

Yiannopoulos pushed the fake news that Hillary Clinton, her campaign manager John Podesta, and others in her circle were involved in two scandals. One was spirit cooking or witchcraft. The other was involvement in a pedophilia ring run out of a Washington, DC, pizzeria (an establishment that has suffered reputational damage and actually was shot up by a Bannon-Trump acolyte). I dont understand why they never sued.

Yiannopoulos said he was not surprised at Secretary Clintons alleged involvement in spirit cooking because he had long been aware that witchcraft and Lesbianism go together.

Bannon cleverly used far rightwing narcissists like Yiannopoulos to spread around the most ridiculous and yet sinister charges against Secretary Clinton, which were apparently actually believed in the far right circles he cultivated.

So it is especially ironic that, having falsely charged the Democratic Establishment with pedophilia, that Yiannopoulos himself should have been revealed to be a proponent of it. Indeed, it is hard not to conclude that his charges against Clinton were form of projection, in which he transferred his real feelings incorrectly to her.

Given that Bannon hired and relentlessly promoted Yiannopoulos to spread hate speech and dark conspiracy theories, and given that his protege has been revealed to be so deeply flawed, is it really appropriate (was it ever really appropriate) to have Bannon in the White House? What kind of judge of character can we depend on Bannon to be?

Shouldnt Bannon have to tell us if he ever discussed pedophilia with his close associate Yiannopoulos?

Bannon should resign. Or he should be fired.

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Should Bannon Resign? He and Yiannopoulos Falsely Linked Hillary Clinton to Pedophilia. - Truthdig

This story about Hillary Clinton divorcing husband Bill Clinton returned via Internet posts in February 2017 after originally appearing in November 2016.

An old claim that says former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton filed paperwork to divorce her husband, former President Bill Clinton, recently resurfaced. But it is fake.

"Hilary (sic) Clinton filed for divorce In New York courts!" read a headline on a Feb. 8, 2017, post on USANewsToday.org. Facebook flagged the post as part of its initiative to eliminate fake news from its news feeds.

The story cited ChristianTimesNewspaper.com as reporting Clinton filed a divorce petition in the Supreme Court of the State of New York for Westchester County.

We know the story isnt real, because this exact same hoax has circulated online before.

The ChristianTimesNewspaper.com, which was a website that trafficked in fake news, tried to sell people the exact same story on Nov. 10, 2016, after Clinton lost the election to President Donald Trump. The website, which now appears to be offline, did not carry a disclaimer identifying its news as fabricated. It did say it "does not take responsibility for any of our readers' actions that may result from reading our stories."

Some minor details of the ChristianTimesNewspaper.com story have been changed, but USANewsToday.org and several other fake news websites, as well reproduced essentially the same story in February. USANewsToday.org is a clickbait site registered to an address in Macedonia, where fake news is a lucrative cottage industry.

This mirrors a minor trend weve seen with fake news, in which a fabricated story that originally was posted weeks or months ago is suddenly resurrected and regains popularity.

While the original version of this story came after Clintons presidential campaign loss, we can only make an educated guess as to the reason why this claim made a comeback. Valentines Day, maybe?

The statement is no more accurate now than when it was first posted months ago. We rate it Pants On Fire!

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Internet resurrects false claim that Bill and Hillary Clinton are divorcing - PolitiFact (blog)

If the FBI concludes that Americans within Trumps orbit colluded with Russian intelligence officials to disrupt the U.S. election, the evidence and prosecutions should speak for themselves. But no matter what conclusions the FBI ultimately comes to, its director, James Comey, owes the country a public accounting of what his agents foundeven if nobody ends up being indicted.

Comeys own intrusions into the election look worse and worse with each passing day of the Trump administration. At every turn, we are reminded that Comey did horrible damage to Clintons campaign, notwithstanding his unique visibility into the Trump-Russia nexus.

Comey announced in July that hed recommended no charges be filed against Hillary Clinton, despite what he called her extremely careless handling of classified information through the use of a private email server. But eleven days before the election, he told several congressmen in a letter that there might be new evidence in the email investigationor there might be nothing. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote to Comey shortly afterward, decrying the clear double-standard Comey appeared to exhibit. As soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, Reid wrote, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible.

What Comey did was unforgivable, and likely history-changing. The most generous interpretation of it is that he inappropriately prioritized the FBIs reputation and his own over his obligation not to discuss investigations. In so doing, he ended up offering a play-by-play of the Clinton-email investigation, in a way that had a clear partisan effect. Making the public statement about closing the investigation last summer put him on the hook to testify before Congress; testifying before Congress arguably compelled him to keep Congress apprised of unexpected changes in the status of the investigation, which in turn compelled him to exculpate Clinton a second time, days before the election.

Comey made a huge and unnecessary mess.

But if we are being intellectually honest ourselves, we have to hold him to the precedents he set for himself, not to ones that would make things seem more fair. Comey should have kept quiet throughout the campaign, but by his own lightsaccording to his testimony before Congress last July, and contemporaneous reportinghe broke silence for three reasons that made the Clinton inquiry so unusual:

1. Because Clinton skeptics believed Attorney General Loretta Lynchas the head of the department investigating Clintons emailshad compromised her independence when she met privately and unexpectedly with Bill Clinton on her plane in Arizona.

2. Because the public interest in transparency was extraordinaryClinton was a presidential candidate, after all.

3. Because the investigation had essentially run its course, and could thus be aired without undermining its integrity. We sometimes think differently about closed investigations, he told Senator Angus King last month, after King implied Comey applied a double standard to Clinton and Trumpan acknowledgment, perhaps, that he wont be able to sit on Trump-related inquiries forever.

The Russian hacking and conspiracy investigations already meet the first two of these standards, but wont meet the third until they come to a close.

The new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, one of Trumps main campaign surrogates, is far more compromised than Loretta Lynch ever was. Sessionswho once called on Lynch to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clintonis, in an act of astounding hypocrisy, refusing to recuse himself from the Trump/Russia investigation.

Likewise, the publics interest in knowing the FBIs findings in this case exceeds its interest in knowing the findings of the email investigation: Clinton was a candidate for the presidency, but Trump is now the president.

Comeys actions last summer and fall raised the question of whether he had committed an honest-but-profound error of judgment or an intentional act of grotesque partisanship. What, if anything, he ultimately tells us about Trumps ties to Russian election saboteurs will provide us an answer.

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James Comey Had Better Treat Donald Trump Just Like He Treated Hillary Clinton - New Republic