Jorge Ramos Cartoon

Univision Crew Booted From Donald Trump Campaign Event

Univision crews were ordered to leave Donald Trump’s campaign event at the Trump National Doral hotel in Florida on Friday.

Univision said crews from both the network and local affiliate were asked to leave Trump’s event, according to Doral’s Local 10 News. The station was reportedly cleared to cover the event, but crew members were told upon arrival by someone who appeared to be an off-duty police officer that they were not allowed on the property, which is owned by Trump, according to Local 10 News.

The event at the Trump National Doral is being held near Univision’s South Florida headquarters. Univision has battled publicly with Trump, the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, since July when it pulled out of broadcasting the Trump-owned Miss USA beauty pageant because of Trump’s disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants.

Trump filed a $500 million lawsuit against Univision for backing out of the five-year contract to carry the Miss Universe francise. That lawsuit was the reason the Univision crews were turned away from the campaign rally, according to Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks.

“Mr. Trump is suing Univision for $500 million and until that is resolved it is a conflict of interest,” she said.

Hours before the event, pro-immigration organizations and members of the South Florida Hispanic community showed up to protest.

Friday’s incident comes after Univision anchor Jorge Ramos was thrown out of another Trump event in August when he tried to ask the presidential hopeful a question.

Ramos tweeted about Univision being booted out of Trump’s Friday event, writing, “Journalists from Univision were not allowed to cover a Donald Trump political event today in Doral, Florida.”

At the time that Univision dropped the Miss USA pageant, Univision also issued a ban on any of its employees conducting company business at Trump-owned hotels or resorts, including the National Doral, which is adjacent to Univision’s Florida headquarters.

At the time, a Univision spokeswoman said the company’s “decision to end our business relationship with Mr. Trump was influenced solely by our responsibility to speak up for the community we serve.”

Justice Department: No criminal charges for Lerner, others in IRS scandal

The Justice Department announced Friday afternoon that it will not bring criminal charges against Lois Lerner or any other IRS official involved in the targeting of Tea Party groups, in a decision Republicans ripped as a "free pass." 
In a letter to leaders of the House Judiciary Committee, the department said the investigation into the controversy will be closed -- and while they found "mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia," they found "no evidence that would support a criminal prosecution."
"What occurred is disquieting and may necessitate corrective action -- but it does not warrant criminal prosecution," Assistant Attorney General Peter J. Kadzik wrote.
Republicans, who themselves have investigated the IRS scandal for years, fumed over Friday's DOJ decision.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the move marks a "low point of accountability" for the Obama administration.
"Giving Lois Lerner a free pass only reinforces the idea that government officials are above the law and that there is no consequence for wrongdoing," Issa said in a statement.
Some Republicans had called for a special counsel to be assigned to the case, complaining that the investigation was led by a Democratic donor. Among them, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., on Friday warned that "politicization continues to go unchecked by this Administration and a Justice Department charged with pursuing wrongdoing."
Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots and leader of Citizens for Self Governance which is suing the IRS, called the DOJ letter a "whitewash and miscarriage of justice."
But Democrats held up the findings as evidence that Republicans were on a witch hunt, with Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ripping GOP colleagues for spending money on "all kinds of investigative rabbit holes."
The IRS firestorm erupted more than two years ago with an inspector general's audit that said IRS agents had improperly singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The disclosure set off investigations by the Justice Department and multiple congressional committees, which focused in large part on former official Lerner's role.
The House voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress last year after she refused to answer questions at two House Oversight hearings. She has since retired.
The investigations into Lerner featured many unusual twists and turns, including a controversy over an apparent hard drive crash that sent investigators scrambling to recover messages and the release of emails that showed Lerner making disparaging comments about Republicans.
The DOJ letter sent Friday said Lerner used "poor judgment" in using her IRS email account to send personal messages voicing "political views," but said they found no evidence that she exercised her official authority at the IRS in a "partisan manner generally" or that political views influenced her actions with regard to the tax-exempt applications.
The letter further said they found "no evidence" that any IRS official acted based on political or other motives that would support criminal prosecution.
Rather, the DOJ said they found a "disconnect" between employees at the Cincinnati office, where IRS workers vetted the applications, and those in Washington, D.C. The letter said "no one person" was responsible, pinning the blame for the "ill-advised" and "burdensome" process instead on "discrete mistakes by line-level revenue agents" and others -- whose mistakes, according to the DOJ, were "exacerbated" by leadership lapses in D.C.

Missing Money? Report questions how states spent ObamaCare funds

The federal government awarded over $5 billion to help states set up ObamaCare exchanges, with the vast majority – $4.6 billion – going to 16 states and Washington, D.C. 
But, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, much of that money has not been accounted for – and yet not returned, either.
So where did those taxpayer dollars go?
That’s the billion-dollar question.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) required the establishment of health insurance exchanges – known as marketplaces – to help small employers and consumers compare and purchase insurance plans. States opted to either develop their own state-based exchanges or hand authority to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). And between 2010 and 2014, CMS awarded federal grants mostly to states setting up their own marketplaces, to help them get started.
About $4.6 billion was given to these 17 recipients, including California, New York, Washington state and Kentucky.
But the GAO report found that so far, just $1.4 billion of that has been spent on IT projects, and a total of $3 billion has been “spent or drawn down,” though not all the spending is detailed.
That, then, leaves at least $1.6 billion unaccounted for. Yet only three states returned any portion of the money – a total of just over $1 million was given back.
“[T]he specific amount spent on marketplace-related projects was uncertain, as only a selected number of states reported to GAO that they tracked or estimated this information,” the report said.
Even though states were supposed to set up their marketplaces by the end of last year, they are not yet legally required to return unused funds.
Chuck Young, with the GAO, explained that the grants also could have covered non-IT costs not addressed in the study, and the funding devoted to IT projects will generally remain available for states’ use until December – albeit with restrictions. “CMS said that, since March 2015, states may have spent additional grant funds for IT projects, re-purposed those funds for non-IT costs, or returned funds,” he said, adding that the office expects to conduct a follow-up to this report.
But in an article on the GAO report by the American Spectator, health care adviser and contributor to the publication David Catron highlighted the monetary discrepancy and raised the question of whether Democratic officials improperly diverted or spent more than $3 billion in taxpayer grant money.
“It’s hard to know with any degree of certainty where the money went,” he told FoxNews.com. “So all we know with any confidence is how much was awarded, how much went to IT and what the difference is.”
Catron pointed out that 85 percent of federal funds went to Democrat-controlled states, and that only three states returned any money to CMS while the remaining 13 states and D.C. have yet to return any funds.
The spending is different from state to state. Oregon has withdrawn just over $293 million of its $305 million and spent almost all of the $78.5 million authorized for its IT expenses – but based on the report, has not returned any leftover funds. California was given over $1 billion and spent $709 million. GAO found that less than a half-million dollars has been returned to the federal government.
Representatives for the Department of Health in Oregon told FoxNews.com that the IT funds listed on the report were only one part of setting up the exchange, implying that remaining funding was directed elsewhere. A spokesperson for the ObamaCare marketplace Covered California said that when they released the 2015-2016 budget in June, there was approximately $100 million in federal funds left and carried it over thanks to an extension by the federal government; they now have until the end of December to draw on the funds for the program.
A representative for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services insisted that if any funds are misallocated the CMS “will work to recover the funds using remedies available under law and regulation.”
“To safeguard taxpayer funds, HHS has also put in place additional program integrity regulations and has implemented, or is in the process of implementing, the GAO’s recommendations,” said HHS senior adviser Meaghan Smith.
In examining how states have used federal funds for IT projects and CMS’s role in overseeing them, the non-partisan GAO found that marketplaces reported spending nearly 89 percent of the funds on “IT contracts,” but that the CMS is still trying to track states’ IT spending in more detail.
The GAO urged CMS to improve its existing oversight roles and responsibilities and ensure that senior executives adequately review and approve funding decisions.
And despite all the money issued to states specifically for IT use, the GAO underscored an array of problems – from poor system performance to software and hardware problems – plaguing the state-based and federally run marketplaces.
According to Dennis Santiago, risk analyst and director of the Bank Monitor Division for Total Bank Solutions, the uncertainty doesn’t necessarily mean the money was misused.
“What is missing is the proof that diversions did or did not occur, and if so where,” he said. “IT costs are only part of the process. It could be legitimate, classic pocket lining at work – or some of both.”

'Serial liar': Families of Benghazi victims blast Clinton on Benghazi

Michael Ingmire watched as Hillary Clinton was grilled for 11 hours Thursday about the 2012 attack in Benghazi that left his nephew and three other Americans dead and saw not a future president, but a "serial liar."
As a congressional panel pressed the former Secretary of State over the attack on the consulate facility in the Libyan city, Ingmire, uncle of Sean Smith, and relatives of former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty watched from their homes, hoping Clinton's testimony would yield answers about why additional security was not granted and why she initially blamed the attack on a YouTube video instead of a coordinated act of terrorism.
"The thing that was shocking – one of the pinnacle moments – was the revelation she told her family there was a terrorist attack while she told America something else," Smith's uncle, Michael Ingmire, told FoxNews.com. "Mrs. Clinton is a serial liar."

"Mrs. Clinton is a serial liar."
- Michael Ingmire, uncle of Sean Smith

Smith, an information officer, and Woods, a former Navy SEAL, died along with Doherty and U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens when Islamic militants stormed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and set it ablaze before attacking a nearby CIA compound with machine guns and rockets.
Stevens, the first U.S. Ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979, had repeatedly asked the State Department for increased security at the consulate prior to the attack but his requests were not granted.
In the hours following the attacks, the Obama administration learned they were carefully planned assaults by Al Qaeda-related militants but Clinton and others would go on to tell a different tale: an anti-Muslim YouTube video caused spontaneous protests and angry mobs were to blame for the attacks.
"So if there's no evidence for a video-inspired protest, then where did the false narrative start?" Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan asked Clinton during the hearing Thursday.
"It started with you, Madam Secretary," he said. "You could live with a protest about a video, that won't hurt you, but a terror attack would."
Clinton rejected Jordan's claim, describing the situation in the hours after the attack as "fluid" and the details unclear.
"I am sorry that it doesn't fit your narrative congressman, I can only tell you what the facts are," Clinton said.
During the marathon hours of questioning -- which Democrats claim was a partisan attack on the Democratic presidential frontrunner -- Clinton said Stevens understood the risks involved and that his requests for additional security never crossed her desk.
"Those requests for security were rightly reviewed by the security professionals," Clinton told the committee. "I did not see them. I did not approve them. I did not deny them."
Clinton also described Stevens as a friend, saying the 52-year-old ambassador "understood that most people in Libya or anywhere reject the extremists' argument that violence can ever be a path to dignity or justice."
"I knew and admired Chris Stevens," she said in her opening remarks Thursday. "He was one of our nation's most accomplished diplomats. Chris' mother liked to say he had 'sand in his shoes,' because he was always moving, always working, especially in the Middle East that he came to know so well."
But Clinton's closeness to Stevens was called into question by Rep Susan Brooks, R-Ill., who asked: "Did you ever personally speak to him after you swore him in in May? Yes or no please."
"Yes, I believe I did," Clinton replied. "I don't recall."
Ingmire described Clinton's choice of words about Stevens as jarring.
"How could she say 'Chris thought this' and 'Chris felt that' when she basically had nothing to do with him?" Ingmire said.
Tyrone Woods' father, Charles, recalled meeting Clinton when his son's body arrived at Andrews Air Force Base two days after the attacks.
"I gave Hillary a hug and shook her hand and she said, 'We are going to have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of your son," Woods said, reading the account from his journal.
"That was a complete bald-faced lie," he told FoxNews.com Friday. "The day after the attack, she was talking to the Prime Minister of Egypt and she said the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the video."
Smith's mother, Patricia, gave a similar account, saying she was told by the administration "it was a video when they knew it was not a video."
"They told me lies," she said Friday. "My son told me the night before that he has been asking for security and he hasn’t heard anything."