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State senator won’t back down, apologize for saying he’d shoot a cop

IDIOT

LINCOLN, Neb. — State Sen. Sen. Ernie Chambers isn’t backing down.
The state lawmaker from Omaha defiantly stood Thursday on the floor of the Nebraska Legislature and rejected many of his colleagues’ calls for him to apologize — or even resign — for comparing cops to ISIS terrorists and suggesting he’d shoot a cop if he weren’t nonviolent and had a gun.
“I meant what I said and I said what I meant,” Chambers said.
He said the irony is that lawmakers were discussing freedom of expression on Wednesday, and said it was ignorant and “idle talk” to suggest taking any kind of legal action, since lawmakers are immune from civil or criminal liability in connection with anything they say in the Legislature.
“I’m not going to resign,” he said. “I’m not going to apologize. Why do you think I would apologize?”
For two hours, senators took to the microphone to talk about what they thought of Chambers’ comments, which were made last week during a legislative hearing on a gun bill that would allow people to carry concealed guns in bars.
State Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha led the charge, saying he’ll stand up every day and demand a “strong denouncement” and apology, noting Thursday morning that two police officers were killed in other states in the past 48 hours.

Senate Democratic Leader Reid announces retirement

Better Late than Never!

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announced Friday he will retire at the end of his term, closing a long and controversial career in Congress that spanned four decades.
The five-term Nevada Democratic senator announced the decision in a YouTube video message.
Appearing with bruises on his face from a recent at-home exercising accident, Reid, 75, said the injury has allowed him and his family to have a "little down-time," giving him time to think.
"We've got to be more concerned about the country, the Senate, the state of Nevada than us. And as a result of that, I’m not going to run for reelection,” the senator said in the video.
Reid, ribbing his Republican counterpart, added: "My friend, Senator McConnell, don't be too elated. I'm going to be here for twenty-two months."
Though Reid plans to serve out his term, his departure touches off a leadership shuffle among Democrats. Reid already is endorsing Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., for his position -- and other Democrats are doing the same.
"It's the caucus' decision but Senator Reid thinks Senator Schumer has earned it," a Reid spokesman told Fox News.
Schumer's most obvious competition would have been Senate Democrats' No. 2, Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. -- however, Durbin is backing Schumer, Fox News has learned.
Reid, who helped President Obama pass a series of initiatives including the health care law, has been a controversial figure -- and during his tenure as majority leader was blamed by Republicans for much of the dysfunction in the chamber. Republicans won the majority last fall.
"On the verge of losing his own election and after losing the majority, Senator Harry Reid has decided to hang up his rusty spurs," National Republican Senatorial Committee Director Ward Baker said in a statement welcoming the announcement.
Praise from fellow Democrats, meanwhile, was effusive.
Obama called him a "fighter" who stood up to special interests.
"Harry is one of the best human beings I've ever met," Schumer said. "His character and fundamental decency are at the core of why he's been such a successful and beloved leader."
First elected to the Senate in 1986, Reid previously served in the House. He has endured tough re-election battles in 1998, 2004 and most recently 2010 -- against Tea Party-backed candidate Sharron Angle.
Among other decisions, Reid will be remembered for allowing the so-called "nuclear option" in late 2013, when he unilaterally moved to change Senate rules to allow a simple majority vote to overcome filibusters for certain nominations. While procedural, the change was significant because it meant the Senate no longer needed the usual 60 votes to advance on controversial nominations.
Republicans quickly gloated that his seat would be a prime pickup opportunity in 2016. GOP figures ranging from Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval to Rep. Joe Heck and others could be interested.

NY gang boss resurfaced at Florida mosque, sending radicalized jihadists overseas, say feds

A Muslim extremist who once led a murderous New York gang dubbed “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and then resurfaced decades later as a radical imam at a Florida mosque is begging for help funding his legal defense against charges he committed tax fraud to, according to authorities, finance terror training for his followers.
Marcus Dwayne Robertson, 46, a former U.S. Marine known to his supporters at his Orlando-based Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary as “Abu Taubah,” is currently being held in a local jail on a gun conviction. He faces sentencing on April 30 on a 2014 conviction of tax fraud, but more serious charges could be coming, given that prosecutors say he used the money to send his radicalized followers to Africa to learn how to kill Americans.

“The United States believes that the defendant is still an extremist, just as he was in the early 1990s.”- Federal prosecutors

“The United States believes that the defendant is still an extremist, just as he was in the early 1990s,” prosecutors said in recent court filings. “The only differences are that the defendant is now focused on training others to commit violent acts as opposed to committing them himself and the violent acts are to occur overseas instead of inside the United States.”
Robertson, according to recent Facebook posts, will continue to proclaim his innocence to all remaining allegations against him.
“The Prosecution is attempting to characterize me as a ‘Teacher of Terrorists.’ … They are attempting to twist my statements to fit into a terrorist plot. …. In reality, they know I am not a terrorist teacher,” Robertson wrote on his web site.
In his younger life as the leader of the “Forty Thieves” gang, Robertson “murdered several individuals; participated in assassination attempts; used pipe bombs, C-4, grenades, other explosives, and automatic weapons; participated in a robbery resulting in a hostage situation; and attempted the murder of police officers,” according to federal prosecutors.
Court records and wiretap transcripts from 2011 to 2015 provide a gripping tale of Robertson’s life, and that of one student, Jonathan Paul Jimenez, who Robertson allegedly instructed to file false tax returns to obtain a tax refund to pay for travel to Mauritania, Northwest Africa, for study and violent jihadist training.

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Robertson's Orlando-based Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary is not taking students while he fights charges against him. (Screengrab)

The tax fraud case led to the prosecution of Jimenez, who reportedly knew Robertson for 11 years and, by his own admission, trained with the imam for a year in preparation for his travel to Mauritania, where he would study and learn to kill U.S. military personnel.
Robertson denies sending Jimenez overseas "to commit violent jihad,” but prosecutors produced several wiretapped conversations from 2011 that they say prove Robertson trained Jimenez “in killing, suicide bombing, and identifying and murdering United States military personnel.”
According to court records:
•      Jimenez stated he and Robertson discussed suicide bombings. Robertson told Jimenez if one could "go to a place where there’s seven top generals, it would be permissible to use a suicide bomb to kill them.”
•      Jimenez said Robertson wanted him to “fight to kill” and taught him it is obligatory to kill military officers, specifically generals, because they “can lead an army.” He said Robertson had instructed him on how to kill people “in a good manner” and how to “do it with kindness.”
•      Jimenez said he was “getting ready for that grave, baby,” and Robertson was preparing to make him a “killer” after he completed the religious aspects of his training.
FBI investigators said Robertson’s computers held documents from the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, such as “How to think like a terrorist” and the “Militant Ideology Atlas,” American military reports on interrogation, polygraphs, psychological operations; survival kits issued to Army aviators and a diagram of names connected to Global jihad.
Jimenez pleaded guilty August 28, 2012, to making a false statement to a federal agency in a matter involving international terrorism and conspiring to defraud the IRS, and was sentenced April 18, 2013, to 10 years in federal prison.
Bill Warner, a private investigator in Sarasota, Fla., and anti-Mulsim extremist activist, has been tracking Robertson since 2009. He claims that in addition to the most recent crimes, Robertson has “links to Al Qaeda going back to at least 1993 in New York City” and also previously was associated with Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called “Blind Sheik” whose Muslim extremist group is blamed for the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Rahman, convicted of seditious conspiracy with nine others, is serving a life sentence at the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina.
In early 1991, Robertson joined with other former Muslim security guards to form a robbery gang they called the ‘Forty Thieves’ with Robertson as the leader known as "Ali Baba." They robbed more than 10 banks, private homes and post offices at gun point, shot three police officers, and attacked one cop after he was injured by a homemade pipe bomb, Warner said.
Government records confirm Warner’s allegations and add that Robertson personally gave more than $300,000 of stolen funds to mosques he attended. After he was arrested in 1991, Robertson cut a deal with prosecutors, and served just four years in prison while his cronies remain behind bars to this day.
Robertson faced more jail time after he was arrested in August, 2011, for illegally possessing a firearm and was sent to the John E. Polk Correctional Facility, in Seminole County, Fla., where he is still being held.
Just after pleading guilty to the firearms conviction in Jan. 2012, federal authorities charged him in March, 2012, with conspiring to defraud the IRS.
Robertson, who said he’s lived in New York, Florida, California, Japan, Mauritania in Africa and Egypt, claims he is a professor who has lectured at universities around the world, including American universities.
Videos of his lectures show him preaching against gays, “devil worshipers,” non-Muslims and such American pop culture icons as cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, who he says is “gay.”
Robertson claims to have served in the elite counter-terrorism unit Joint Special Operations Command before leaving the military as a conscientious objector. A spokeswoman for the National Archives confirmed his service from May 16, 1986 to May 1994, in the U.S. Marine Corps 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company as a field radio operator, but records indicate he was released from active duty in March 1990, discharged in the rank of corporal. Records show he was trained in radio telegraph, scuba diving, marksmanship, parachuting, terrorism counteraction, surveillance, infantry patrolling and finance.
While Robertson is jailed in Orlando, classes at his Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary are on hold, but through friends and one of his wives, he continues to publish pleas for help.
On Wednesday, a wife named Umm Taubah, thanked supporters, but announced their fundraising efforts were hurt when, on March 24, their GOFundMe account was taken down because “administrators claimed we violated the rules by soliciting funds for a suspected terrorist.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office and attorneys for Robertson were contacted for comment, but none would comment.

Emerging details of possible Iranian nuclear deal draw bipartisan ire

Emerging details of a possible nuclear deal with Iran have drawn sharp criticism from congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who say the U.S. and its international partners may be ceding too much as a key deadline nears.
If reports are true, "then we are not inching closer to Iran’s negotiating position, but leaping toward it with both feet,” charged Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a vocal critic of the direction of the talks.
“My fear is that we are no longer guided by the principle that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal,’ but instead we are negotiating ‘any deal for a deal’s sake.’”
The deal is not done, but sources tell FoxNews.com negotiations seem to be reaching a climax at the P5+1 talks in Lausanne, Switzerland. Lawmakers, meanwhile, appear to be getting more restive about whether the demands on Iran will be tough enough.
Details of the emerging deal include a possible trade-off which would allow Iran to run several hundred centrifuges in a once-top secret, fortified bunker site at Fordo, in exchange for limits on enrichment and nuclear research and development at other sites -- in particular, Iran's main facility at Natanz.
The terms of the agreement have not been confirmed and were shared with The Associated Press by officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
According to the AP report, no centrifuges at Fordo would be used to enrich uranium, but would be fed elements like zinc, xenon and germanium for separating out isotopes for medicine, industry or science.
Initially, the P5+1 partners, which include the U.S., U.K., Russia, France, China and Germany, had wanted all centrifuges stripped away from the Fordo facility. However, under this reported deal, Iranian scientists would be prohibited from working on any nuclear research or development program there, and the number of centrifuges allowed would not be enough to produce the amount of uranium it takes to make a bomb within a year anyway, according to the officials.
The site also would be subject to international inspections.
But that did not seem to boost the confidence of detractors. In a symbolic statement underscoring the concerns of many lawmakers, the Senate also voted unanimously late Thursday for a non-binding Iran amendment -- to an unrelated budget measure. The amendment endorses the principles of separate legislation that would re-impose waived sanctions and level new ones on Iran if President Obama "cannot make a determination and certify that Iran is complying" with an interim agreement or any new one that is established in current talks.
Last Friday, 367 House lawmakers, including 129 Democrats, also wrote to Obama warning that a deal must “foreclose any pathway to a bomb” before they’ll support legislation lifting sanctions on Tehran. The letter was spearheaded by Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., and Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
It is not clear whether the recent details emerging from the talks would satisfy that.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also spoke out, calling them “disturbing.”   
“[The Iranians] have been cheating for the last 20 years, this facility [Fordo] was found out in 2009. At the end of the day it is a hardened site. To allow enrichment here would be, I think, very irresponsible,” he said in an interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News' “On the Record” on Thursday.  
“It would be delusional for any P5+1 agreement to allow [Iran] to enrich in a fortified facility,” Graham added. “The Arabs are not going to accept such a deal, and they’ll get a bomb of their own, then you’re on the road to Armageddon.”
Other observers of the agreement say the critics are rushing unnecessarily to judgment.
“We don’t know whether the reports are true – there’s been a lot of things leaked that may be true or may be a misunderstanding,” said Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, who spoke with FoxNews.com from the talks in Lausanne. “But if the reports are correct and there will be centrifuges with no uranium in it -- they can’t produce a bomb -- it’s really put the emphasis on the unreasonableness of the [critics'] objections.”
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, agreed. “I think Senator Graham and Senator Menendez need to take a step back and put this development in a broader context. The key to Fordo is that we do not want this to be a facility with industrial-scale uranium enrichment and this report suggests they are moving in that direction.”
The deal reportedly would scale back the centrifuges and uranium enrichment at Natanz and impose other restrictions on nuclear-related research and development. All of the options on the table right now are designed keep an Iranian “breakout” of a weapon at least one year away for the life of the deal, which would run for 10 years.
This is not enough, and smacks of too much compromise for too little in return, said Menendez. “An undue amount of trust and faith is being placed in a negotiating partner that has spent decades deceiving the international community.”  
That is the reason why David Albright, of Washington’s Institute for Security and International Security, is concerned about Fordo. The deal would allow the Iranians to keep their technology intact and if they please, could be repurposed to enrich uranium.
"It keeps the infrastructure in place and keeps a leg up, if they want to restart [uranium] enrichment operations," he said.
The White House said Friday that it was confident a “political agreement” will be made by the March 31 deadline, which would make space to negotiate the more complicated technical details ahead of the harder June 30 deadline.
“Important progress has been made but this president is not going to stop short,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. However, he “is not willing to accept an agreement that does not accomplish our goals which is to cut off every pathway Iran has to acquiring a nuclear weapon and secure their commitment to cooperating with a set of intrusive inspections to prove they are complying with the agreement.”

Senator’s questions over Clinton Foundation Nigerian donor spark GOP infighting

A GOP senator's questions over whether a foreign donor swayed Hillary Clinton's decisions while secretary of state have triggered a nasty -- and rather unusual -- dispute with a fellow Republican.
Last week, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., raised new conflict-of-interest concerns for Clinton regarding donations to her family's foundation, questioning whether Nigerian businessman and philanthropist Gilbert Chagoury played any role in her initial opposition to designating a major terror group.
Chagoury, a Nigerian citizen of Lebanese descent, has donated millions to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and has long ties to the family. The Louisiana senator wants to know if that history had anything to do with Clinton's reluctance to designate Boko Haram a terror group while secretary of state.
"Chagoury is a huge donor to the Clinton Foundation," Vitter told FoxNews.com. "He clearly had an interest in keeping Nigeria looking better than it was. [The designation] would have absolutely hurt his bottom line.
"It is not a difficult set of dots to connect."
Vitter sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry last week raising these questions, saying: "We need to know if Mr. Chagoury had any influence in the decision not to designate Boko Haram an FTO, or had any other influence with Sec. Clinton's foreign policy decisions."
Chagoury did not respond to a request for comment.
But a veteran Republican media strategist in Washington, Mark Corallo, did. He's calling Vitter's "intimation" that Chagoury tried to delay the Boko Haram designation "ludicrous and laughable."
"I understand David Vitter's desire to score political points against Hillary Clinton. I was in the Clinton opposition business long before anyone had heard of Senator Vitter. And by all means it should be open season on Hillary," Corallo said in a lengthy statement. "But we should be careful to base our political attacks on facts, not innuendo dressed up as a Congressional inquiry. We shouldn't treat everyone who ever associated with the Clinton's as collateral damage."
Corallo, who served as Attorney General John Ashcroft's spokesman in the Bush Justice Department from 2002-2005, counts Chagoury as a close friend. He told FoxNews.com he represents Chagoury "pro bono," calling him "family."
In his statement, he added: "His love for America and his hatred of Islamic terrorists is intense and public."
At this point, Vitter is not offering proof that Chagoury, a Maronite Catholic, had advocated against the Boko Haram designation -- or even alleging it. But he raised the question -- the kinds of questions Clinton increasingly faces about her family foundation's donations as she gears up for a likely White House bid.
"I think broadly speaking, there are real substantive, legitimate questions," Vitter said, adding that he has "not come to this lately or lightly," noting he first raised the issue when Clinton was first nominated to lead the State Department in 2009.
Vitter also drew a connection between the two major controversies looming over Clinton's expected presidential bid: over Clinton Foundation donors, and her use of personal email while secretary of state. Vitter is asking whether, because of her personal email use, messages dealing with the Boko Haram designation are missing.
Vitter's letter asked the State Department for all documents regarding Clinton's decision not to support a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation for the Nigeria-based Boko Haram.
Kerry designated Boko Haram an FTO when he became secretary in 2013. By then, its ties to Al Qaeda-affiliated groups were clearly established. Since that time, the Islamic militant group -- which has been responsible for numerous civilian attacks, rapes and kidnappings in Nigeria, including of over 200 schoolgirls in April 2014 -- has sworn fealty to the Islamic State.
Whether Chagoury indeed had any interest in staving off the terror designation is unknown.
Chagoury is listed as giving between $1 million and $5 million on Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. In 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chagoury and his family have been longtime supporters of President Bill Clinton and he has donated funds to his campaigns, as well as Mrs. Clinton's unsuccessful presidential bid in 2008.
His bio is long: Chagoury is a hugely wealthy philanthropist giving to humanitarian, educational and Christian-Catholic causes. An ambassador of St. Lucia to the Holy See, he has been received "warmly" by Pope Francis "several times," said Corallo, and has donated millions to Catholic charities. According to Corallo, he was friends with Ronald Reagan and along with family members has given generously to Republican candidates, including the Republican Party and the George W. Bush Presidential Library, over the years. His friendship with Bill Clinton, said Corallo, was sparked by their shared interest in Africa.
Chagoury, who has a residence in Los Angeles, is not without controversy, however. He made his fortune building The Chagoury Group, described as an industrial conglomerate with interests in construction, real estate, property development, IT communications, finance and hotels. Both the Wall Street Journal and Harper's Magazine reported in 2008 that Chagoury has a "controversial past," having supported and advised de facto president Sani Abacha, who seized power in Nigeria in a 1993 military coup. His reign was marked by human rights abuses and corruption. After the general died in 1998, Chagoury paid $300,000 to the new Nigerian government in exchange for immunity in a broader investigation of billions of dollars improperly taken out of the country during Abacha's tenure.
"[Chagoury] was the gatekeeper to Abacha's presidency," Philippe Vasset, editor of Africa Energy Intelligence, told PBS Frontline in 2010.
Deals he has been involved with have been the target of bribery-related investigations over the years, but he "hasn't been accused of wrongdoing" in any of them, according to the Journal.
Requests for comment by FoxNews.com to Clinton's staff were not returned. When reached for comment, a spokesperson at the State Department told FoxNews.com they had received Vitter's letter and were reviewing it.
Peter Pham, an Africa expert at the Atlantic Council, agreed that the State Department was ambivalent about designating Boko Haram until 2012, but said the hesitancy was widespread throughout much of the foreign policy and intelligence community at the time.
"There was tremendous pushback," Pham told FoxNews.com, recalling his own advocacy for the FTO on Capitol Hill as early as 2011. He noted, too, that the Nigerian government was "in denial," and felt the designation would "impair foreign investment" and other assistance to the county. The government also worried the designation would give Boko Haram additional clout.
After the group kidnapped the schoolgirls in 2014, critics began to wonder whether the Clinton State Department had erred by not designating the group earlier.
Pham said he would "caution against presuming that because someone is a Nigerian they are necessarily nefarious" -- referring to the questions revolving around Chagoury.
However, he acknowledged that for Clinton, having these foreign donors "is a complicated thing ... it does raise issues."
Corallo said Chagoury has had no contact with Hillary Clinton "for years" and that even if Vitter gets new emails, "he'll find no emails or correspondence of any kind from Ambassador Chagoury with Secretary Clinton or the Department of State."
In 2008, Clinton signed an agreement that the foundation would not take money from foreign governments while she was secretary of state. A Washington Post report in February, however, indicated donations kept coming in from several governments because of an exemption for countries that were already donating at the time the agreement was made. At the time, foundation officials said the money went to the organization's charitable works, including earthquake relief in Haiti.

US preparing to boost aid to Saudi-led coalition to fight Houthi rebels, report says

The U.S. is reportedly preparing to boost its aid to Saudi Arabia in its air assault against rebel forces in Yemen.
The Wall Street Journal, citing military officials, reports the U.S. is going to provide the Saudis with more intel, bombs and aerial refueling missions for planes that are carrying out airstrikes in the embattled Arab nation.
The development comes after the Saudi Arabia-led coalition seized full control of Yemeni airspace after two days of airstrikes targeting Houthi rebels, who have taken control of Yemen’s capital and government, a Saudi Defense Ministry official told the paper.
The campaign has raised fears that Yemen’s crisis could escalate into a regional battle putting Sunni countries against Shiite Iran and the Shiite linked Houthis.
Top Sunni clerics have voiced their support for the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen Friday, while top Iranian leaders including President Hasan Rouhani have already condemned the intervention.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon condemned the “Saudi-American attack,” saying “it is the right of Yemen’s people, who are brave and resilient, to fight and resist, and they will succeed.
U.S. officials told the paper that Saudi officials have requested air tankers to refuel planes and for more American-made bombs to continue with the strikes. The U.S. is preparing to help the Saudis once the requests are approved in Washington.
Under the plan, the U.S. would step up its role in a new military coordination center to aid the Saudi Arabia-led campaign.
Saudi Arabia joined other Gulf nations and allies in a military campaign Thursday against the Iran-backed Houths, who have completely overrun most of Yemen in the last seven months.
Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri said in a press conference that Saudi Arabia has gained complete control of Yemeni airspace after knocking out Houthi air defense and fighter jets.
Asiri said there were no plans to add ground troops to the campaign, but said that they could be deployed if necessary. The Saudis also said they were coordinating with forces in Yemen that support President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is backed by Saudi Arabia and the U.S.
The Saudis carried out the first of its airstrikes Thursday and were later joined by its ally the United Arab Emirates, Asiri said. Other coalition members include Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Egypt.
Friday’s strikes by Saudi Arabian Apache helicopters hit Houthi targets in the northern part of the country. Warplanes also assaulted the Al Anad air base as they took down other Houthi fighter jets and air defenses, Asiri said.
Violence in Yemen continues to escalate as the Houthis continue to advance throughout the nation. The rebels took the Sanaa in September forcing Hadi to flee. The Houthis continued to spread this week taking over Al Anad and threatened Aden. Hadi fled to Oman by boat and later to Saudi Arabia.
Egyptian state media reported Hadi will take part in an Arab League summit Saturday as an official delegate for Yemen. U.A.E.’s state news agency reported that Arab foreign ministers agreed to draft a resolution to create a pan-Arab military force.
U.S. officials fear the continued violence will allow militant groups to fill the security vacuum. Al Qaeda terrorist branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, calls Yemen its home and is believed to be one of the most dangerous groups in the branch.
U.S. Special Forces were cooperating with Hadi to carry out drone strikes against the AQAP from Al Anad. However, the escalating violence forced the U.S. to pull out.