EPA Cartoon

Fiorina surging from also-ran to contender after debate

What a difference a week makes in presidential politics. Before the Cleveland debates, Carly Fiorina was little more than a dogged, hard-charging afterthought for most voters. On a good week, her poll numbers reached 2 percent. But after she mopped the floor with her opponents in the second-tier debate – affectionately dubbed #kidstable – the former Hewlett-Packard CEO suddenly finds herself in the top tier of presidential candidates.
“Obviously I am really gratified. I am really encouraged,” Fiorina told Fox News, having just finished a capacity-crowd town hall meeting in Alden, Iowa. A week ago, barely 40 percent of people knew who she was. Now, the left-leaning polling group PPP is blaring the headline “Fiorina On Fire.”
“You can’t get rattled when people don’t really know that you are out there,” Fiorina told Fox News. “On the other hand you can’t get rattled when all of a sudden they say you are on fire as well. This is a long haul. So none of this is going to go to our heads.”
You could forgive Fiorina for having a little more bounce in her step, though. When she walked into the Mason City, Iowa, library for a town hall Friday morning she found a standing-room-only crowd. Her campaign staff was pleasantly stunned by the newfound enthusiasm – a precious commodity for a person seeking the highest office in the land.
In Iowa, a Suffolk University poll this week showed Fiorina with 10 percent, placing her in the top five in the GOP field. A CNN/ORC poll in the state likewise showed her in the top five, with 7 percent.
Voters have found a lot to like about Fiorina, whether it’s her status as a political outsider, or that she has the toughness to stand up against seasoned political pros.
“She was one of my top picks out of the debates,” Brenda Crabb told Fox News. “I liked that she seemed really smart – she’s not a politician.”
Rich Baldwin put it a little more bluntly. “She’s not a career politician. And we have had it up to here with career politicians.”
Fiorina also says she is seeing an uptick in fundraising. Money is the key to whether she will be in it for the long haul, or may wither as quickly as she blossomed.
Never one to shrink from a fight, whether in the boardroom or the campaign trail, Fiorina is doubling down on her recent criticism of Donald Trump, questioning whether Trump is – in fact – a Republican.
“He won’t take a pledge saying he will support the Republican nominee,” Fiorina told Fox News. “He has changed his mind on some pretty important things. I would like to know where he actually stands on amnesty. Where he actually stands on universal health care. Where he actually stands on abortion. Those are things that matter to me and they matter to Republican voters.”
Fiorina’s ascent is a boon to the GOP as – at the moment at least – it gives her a far louder voice with which to go after Hillary Clinton. Fiorina has been relentless in her criticism of Clinton, saying she lied about Benghazi. Now she is going after Clinton for suggesting comments Trump made about Fox News’ Megyn Kelly prove that the Republican candidates are waging a war on women.
“I think Hillary Clinton is equally as guilty,” Fiorina told Fox News. “Anyone who paints with a broad brush in those insulting terms is as guilty as Donald Trump. It is ridiculous for Hillary Clinton to say that the Republican Party is waging a war on women.”
Fiorina also dismisses the notion – floated in a New York Times article -- that she is the GOP’s weapon to fight back against Democratic attacks that the party is waging war on women.
“I am a leader with a proven track record of problem solving.  I happen to be a woman,” she told Fox News.
Fiorina had a target on her back long before she announced her candidacy. Her newfound prominence will only make that target a more attractive one. After she told a voter Thursday night that parents have the choice whether to vaccinate their children, Slate magazine wrote that Fiorina “Comes out in favor of kids getting measles.” Fellow Republican George Pataki whacked Fiorina on Twitter, saying she rejects “accepted science that has eradicated diseases like small pox (sic) and polio.”
Fiorina told Fox News that Pataki is clearly trying to get attention and conveniently ignored the rest of what she said.
“We are talking about contagious diseases and I would certainly encourage parents to vaccinate their children,” Fiorina told Fox News. “I would respect true religious objections to those vaccinations and I support a school’s right to say if you will not vaccinate your child against these contagious diseases, then we have the right to say your child can’t attend public school.”
If Fiorina’s star continues to rise, she can expect more attacks from all corners. Whether she rises is another question. Much of her future hinges on the next debate – particularly if she makes the cut to play in the top 10. Fiorina told Fox News she has to constantly “exceed expectations.”
She raised the bar very high with her performance in the second-tier debate last week in Cleveland. The problem with mopping the floor with your opponents is that viewers will expect you to do it every time.

DoD teams surveying US military sites for potential Gitmo transfers, lawmakers vow fight

The Department of Defense notified lawmakers Friday that teams will visit two military installations in the United States — Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and the Naval Brig in Charleston, S.C. — to conduct “site surveys” looking into transferring a “limited number” of Guantanamo detainees, Pentagon and Capitol Hill sources told Fox News.
The move, coming on the same day Secretary of State John Kerry marked the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, has already triggered a backlash on Capitol Hill. But, despite existing congressional restrictions on moving the detainees to U.S. soil, the notice itself suggests officials are wasting no time exploring transfer options for those at the controversial Cuba prison camp.
One Capitol Hill source, reading from the notification, said the first Defense Department survey team was due to visit Fort Leavenworth “starting today [Friday].”
The Naval Brig in Charleston will be visited in the “next several weeks,” said another source, reading from the same notification, which went out Friday morning.
Legally, the administration is still barred from transferring Guantanamo detainees to the United States, according to laws passed by Congress starting in 2010. Building or modifying facilities to house Gitmo inmates is also prohibited in the United States.
“Perhaps DoD does not think this is part of that ‘build or modify’ section,” one source told Fox News, questioning DoD’s funding of the site survey teams visiting the two military installations.
After learning of the survey teams, lawmakers representing Kansas vowed to fight any proposed transfers to their state. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said in a statement that the move "reflects another egregious overstep by this administration."
"Congress has consistently stopped Obama by law from moving a single detainee to the U.S.," he said. "Not on my watch will any terrorist be placed in Kansas."
"Terrorists should not be living down the road from Ft. Leavenworth – home to thousands of Army soldiers and their families, as well as military personnel from across the globe who study at the Intellectual Center of the Army," Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said in a statement.
"This administration’s last-ditch effort to carry out President Obama’s reckless national security decision before he leaves office is disingenuous and flawed."
Kansas Rep. Lynn Jenkins also fired off a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter demanding he abandon any such plans.
"At a time when we face relentless threats from the Islamic State, and have yet to hear a strategy to defeat ISIL, it is absurd to hear that the Department of Defense has personnel on the ground at Fort Leavenworth conducting site surveys to advance the President's proposal that could ultimately result in the transfer of these terrorist to Kansas," she said in a statement.
She also said moving detainees stateside would violate federal law. "It is irresponsible, reckless, and to overstep the law to do so is a dangerous precedent," the congresswoman said.
Despite the congressional restrictions, President Obama still wants to fulfill his pledge to shutter the Cuba prison camp. He hasn’t yet provided a plan for achieving this to Congress. A total of 116 detainees remain at Guantanamo, 52 of whom have been approved for transfer.
The Pentagon confirmed to Fox News that DoD personnel will survey the two military sites, “as part of our broader and ongoing effort to identify locations within the United States that can [possibly] facilitate military commissions and can possibly hold detainees currently at Guantanamo Bay.”
Defense Department spokesman Cmdr. Gary Ross said in a statement that security and humane treatment are “primary concerns” but cost is also a factor. He said the costs of providing medical care at Guantanamo, for instance, are rising as the population ages.
He added: “Only those locations that can hold detainees at a maximum security level will be considered. DoD personnel will consider surveying a variety of military and civilian sites to determine their candidacy for holding law of war detainees in a humane and secure manner. There is a broad list of facilities that will be potentially considered. This list is informed by past assessment efforts."
Whether the administration can reach an agreement with Congress to approve transfers to the U.S. remains to be seen.
The notice sent out Friday -- first reported by Voice of America -- said the teams will look at logistical issues: “The assessment team will meet with facility staff to discuss engineering, force protection, troop housing, security, transportation, information security, contracting and other operational issues.”
“No facilities have been selected,” the notification added.

North Korea threatens strikes over South Korea propaganda broadcasts

North Korea threatened to attack South Korean loudspeakers that are broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda messages across their shared border on Saturday.
The warning follows Pyongyang’s denial that it had planted land mines on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone that maimed two South Korean soldiers last week. Seoul retaliated for those injuries by restarting its loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years and suggested more actions could follow.
The North is extremely sensitive about insults of Kim Jong Un and his regime, and its tries to isolate its people from any criticism or suggestions that Kim is anything other than powerful and revered.
The broadcasts are equivalent to a declaration of war, North Korea’s army said in a statement. The failure to take down the loudspeakers would result in “an all-out military action of justice to blow up all means for ‘anti-north psychological warfare.’”
South Korea’s President Park Greun-hye said that her government will firmly respond to any provocation, and urged the North to “wake up” from the delusion that it could maintain its government with provocation and threats, which park claimed would only result in isolation and destruction.
Park said that if the North opts for dialogue and cooperation, it will find opportunities to improve the lives of its people. She also urged the North to accept the South's proposals for building a "peace park" at the DMZ and for reunions of families separated by the border.
Such bombast from the North isn't unusual and this is not the first time Pyongyang has threatened to attack its enemies. Seoul is often warned that it will be reduced to a "sea of fire" if it doesn't do as the North bids, and Washington and Seoul were both threatened with nuclear annihilation in the months after Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011.
Pyongyang’s threats are rarely ever backed up, although the North did launch an artillery attack in 2010 that killed four South Koreans. Earlier that year, a Seoul-led international investigation blamed a North Korean torpedo for a warship sinking that killed 46 South Koreans.
On Friday, responding to the allegations by Seoul and the U.S.-led U.N. Command that North Korean soldiers buried the land mines, Pyongyang's powerful National Defense Commission argued that Seoul fabricated the evidence and demanded video proof to support the argument that Pyongyang was responsible. The explosions resulted in one soldier losing both legs and another soldier one leg.
Officials said the mine planting violates the armistice that stopped fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War, which still technically continues because there has never been a formal peace treaty.

Clinton dismisses controversies surrounding Benghazi, emails at event

Hillary Clinton defended her handling of the 2012 Benghazi attacks and her use of a private email server as secretary of state, dismissing the controversies as “partisan games” in a speech in Iowa on Friday.
"They'll try to tell you it's about Benghazi, but it's not," Clinton said, pointing to Republican-led congressional inquiries that she said had "debunked all the conspiracy theories."
"It's not about emails or servers either. It's about politics," she said.
"I won't get down in the mud with them. I won't play politics with national security," Clinton said at the annual Wing Ding, a Democratic fundraiser in northern Iowa that attracted three other presidential candidates.
Clinton sought to take the scandals head on while presenting herself as combative, tough and prepared to fight Republicans in an effort to ultimately succeed President Barack Obama. Her appearance comes days after she agreed to turn over to the FBI the private serve she used a secretary of state. Republican lawmakers have said she was negligent in handling classified information.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders received loud cheers when he pointed to his opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, which has been reviled by environmentalists and his vote against Iraq War in the Senate. Sanders’ campaign has gained steam with the growing Clinton controversy.
Sanders, whose recent appearance at a Seattle event was disrupted by activists with the Black Lives Matter movement, also took steps to emphasize his civil rights record.
"No one will fight harder to end racism in America," he said.
Clinton’s forceful defense started when she noted that the Supreme Court case Citizens United, started with a “hit-job film” about her.
“Now I’m in the crosshairs,” she said of Republicans.
Clinton said she would "do my part to provide transparency to Americans — that's why I'm insisting 55,000 pages of my emails be published as soon as possible" and turned over the server.
"I won't pretend that this is anything other than what it is: the same old partisan games we've seen so many times before," she said. "So I don't care how many super PACs and Republicans pile on. I've been fighting for families and underdogs my entire life and I'm not going to stop now."
Clinton also made light of the email probe on her Snapchat social media account. "I love it," she said. "Those messages disappear all by themselves."
Her speech included critiques of potential Republican rivals Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. But she saved her most pointed barbs for Donald Trump, saying the attention in the GOP race had centered on a "certain flamboyant front-runner." The country, she said, shouldn't be distracted. "Most of the other candidates are just Trump with the pizazz or the hair."
The candidates spoke before about 2,000 Democrats at the Surf Ballroom, the site of the last concert by rock pioneers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper before their fatal 1959 plane crash, later dubbed "The Day the Music Died."
Clinton and Sanders spoke first, prompting some activists to file out of the ballroom before former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and ex-Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee took the stage.
O'Malley pointed to a laundry list of progressive proposals he would pursue if elected president, saying his years as Baltimore mayor and Maryland's two-term governor were about "action, not words."
"In tougher times than these, Franklin Roosevelt told us not to be afraid. In changing times, John Kennedy told us to govern is to choose," O'Malley said. "I say to you, progress is a choice."
Chafee took aim at Bush's recent critique of Obama's handling of Iraq, telling activists, "What kind of neocon Kool-Aid is this man drinking?"
Clinton kicked off a weekend of campaigning in Dubuque on Friday by outlining proposals for more quality child care on college campuses and additional scholarships to help students who are parents. The Democratic front-runner also picked up two endorsements aimed at reinforcing her standing among liberals: former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a party luminary who served three decades in the Senate, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a union of nearly 600,000 members. Clinton was joining Harkin at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday morning.