Wednesday, November 18, 2015

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Bobby Jindal ends 2016 presidential campaign

Gov. Bobby Jindal drops out of 2016 presidential race
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Tuesday in an exclusive interview with Fox News' Bret Baier on "Special Report" he is suspending his presidential campaign.
Jindal said he was born to "believe Americans can do anything," but that he's come to the realization that "this is not my time." 
"Going forward, I believe we have to be the party of growth and we can never stop being the party that believes in opportunity," Jindal said in a statement announcing his decision. "We cannot settle for the left's view of envy and division. We have to be the party that says everyone in this country - no matter the circumstances of their birth or who their parents are - can succeed in America."
When asked by Baier why his candidacy didn't take off, Jindal said his campaign spent "a lot of time" developing policy papers, but "clearly there wasn't a lot of interest" in those papers.
The 44-year-old governor told Baier he is not endorsing another candidate right now, but will support the eventual Republican presidential nominee.
"At the end of the day I trust the American people to select our nominee for the next president," he said Tuesday. "I want someone who's got the smarts to make big changes."
The Louisiana governor touched on the recent terror attacks in Paris, saying the U.S. needs "different leadership" going forward in dealing with ISIS. 
"They hate our freedoms," Jindal told Baier. "The attack on Paris was not just an attack on the French, it was an attack on our way of life."
He also addressed the growing controversy among governors of 25 U.S. states over the Syrian refugee program. 
"We don't want these refugees in our state," Jindal said.
Jindal said that he's ordered Louisiana State Police to track the 13 Syrian refugees that have been sent to his state so far by the federal government. 
"Why would we let people in the country when ISIS has told us they are going to send terrorists with these refugees?" he said.
The nation's first elected Indian-American governor, who is term-limited and will be out of office in January, told Baier he will work with a think tank he started a few years ago called America Next.
Jindal had focused his entire campaign effort on the early voting state of Iowa and evangelical voters while attempting broaden his appeal as a candidate with conservative policy plans that others weren't offering.
But he never won much support in Iowa or elsewhere against higher-profile Republican candidates such as Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Jindal's low poll numbers kept him off the main debate stages where he could have drawn more attention, and his fundraising lagged. 
He was also facing a major cash crunch to keep the campaign going, after wrapping up the last fundraising period with $261,000 on hand, in addition to low approval ratings and criticism about his governing back in Louisiana, which followed him as he campaigned for the White House.
Some of Jindal's advisers blamed finances as well as the debate criteria that locked him out of the prime-time events for the governor's decision to exit the competition.
"He's been thinking about it for a few weeks," campaign strategist Curt Anderson told the Associated Press. "It's not easy. He's a fighter and his instinct is to never give up, but also you have to be realistic in politics."
Shane Vander Hart, author of a conservative Iowa blog who recently endorsed Jindal, also expressed disappointment, saying Jindal was getting good reaction in Iowa, though he struggled to gain traction in the polls.
"If you've done any of his events, retail politicking is one of his strengths. People as they got to know him liked him," Vander Hart told the AP.
Jindal is the third Republican contender to exit the race, all governors. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ended their campaigns earlier this year.
Timmy Teepell, Jindal's campaign manager and longtime political adviser, said the governor was heading home to Louisiana to announce his plan for closing a $490 million budget deficit before traveling the state as he wraps up his tenure in office.

Hill Republicans move to 'pause' Syrian refugee effort, with states having limited say


Most U.S. governors have made clear they don’t want Syrian refugees in their states after the deadly Paris terror attacks, but only Congress appears to have the authority to stop President Obama’s plan. 
And Capitol Hill lawmakers are moving swiftly. 
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday both called for a “pause” in the administration’s refugee plan, which includes resettling 10,000 Syrian civil war refugees through 2016.
“Right in front of us is a refugee situation that requires a pause,” Ryan, R-Wis., said on Capitol Hill. “Our nation has always been welcoming, but we cannot let terrorists take advantage. ... This is about national security.”
He gave no specific details but said a task force is working on legislation, adding: "It's better to be safe than to be sorry."
A total of 30 governors, including one Democrat, so far have expressed opposition to the plan in the wake of Friday's attacks, executed by at least one suspected Syrian refugee with ties to the Islamic State terror group and who perhaps slipped through Europe’s vetting process.
However, scholars and legal experts acknowledge that governors have little if any power to stop refugees from entering their states, citing the Refugee Act of 1980 which gives the federal government the authority.
“Immigration is a federal responsibility,” James Carafano, a national security and foreign policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday. “States cannot say, ‘You cannot come into this country.’ But they can say that they’re not going to part with state resources. They can do that.”
The White House said late Tuesday that Chief of Staff Denis McDonough hosted a call with 34 governors that included an "extensive" question and answer session among administration officials. Of the 34 governors on the call, 13 asked questions, according to the White House.
Administration officials also reiterated that President Obama's top priority is "the safety of the American people."
"Even as the United States accepts more refugees-including Syrians-we do so only after they undergo the most rigorous screening and security vetting of any category of traveler to the United States," the White House said.
Ryan’s announcement followed a flurry of similar proposals from Republican senators, including at least two presidential candidates, following the Paris attacks in which 129 people were killed and hundreds of others were injured.
On Monday, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions called on Senate appropriators to cancel the "blank check" for overall U.S. refugee-resettlement efforts that would be included in a bill to fund the federal government after Dec. 11.
Sessions argues the overall plan calls for resettling at least 85,000 more refugees worldwide and “an unlimited amount of money to be spent on lifetime welfare and benefits … without a penny of offsets.”
He cited a Heritage Foundation study that forecast the total cost of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees at roughly $6.5 billion. Sessions was joined Tuesday by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., in calling for a provision in the "omnibus" spending bill to block the funding unless and until Congress votes separately to authorize it and offset its costs.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a presidential candidate, in September expressed his concern about the Syrian refugee program. In a letter to top administration officials, he questioned whether the refugees were being properly vetted for ties to the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups.
On Monday, Cruz promised legislation to keep Muslim Syrian refugees out of the United States.
He told CNN that President Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s plan bring them into this country after what happened in Paris “is nothing short of lunacy.”
More than 2,000 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the U.S. already since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, another of the Senate’s GOP White House candidates, on Monday also announced legislation that would suspend issuing visas in countries “with a high risk of terrorism” and impose a waiting period for background checks on visas being issued in other countries until Americans can be assured terrorists cannot enter the country through the U.S. immigration and visa system.
“The time has come to stop terrorists from walking in our front door,” said Paul, who first drafted the legislation in the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, committed by two refugees.
Ryan’s announcement also came just hours after former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich told WMAL Radio that Congress should try to block the Obama refugee plan by withholding federal funding in the so-called “continuing resolution” next month.
Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, already has been trying to include a rider in the spending resolution that would keep Obama from using taxpayer money to resettle Syrian refugees until the U.S. intelligence community approves the program.

Lesbian mother asks Supreme Court to reverse Ala. custody ruling


A lesbian mother in Alabama filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, asking it to review her case after state judges ruled she has no legal parental rights over the children she says she helped raise.
The woman, known in court filings by her initials V.L, petitioned the high court to step in after the Alabama Supreme Court held that she was not the legal parent to the three children she shares with her ex-partner (who gave birth to them by artificial insemination).
The court also held that she had no visitation rights now that the two adults, who never legally married, had split after a 16-year-relationship. The pair had temporarily moved to Georgia where they believed the state would be more open to granting parental rights to both of them.
The Alabama justices said, "Georgia law makes no provision for a non-spouse to adopt a child without first terminating the parental rights of the current parents."
While the Georgia court did recognize those rights, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that Georgia essentially broke its own laws by recognizing them and that subsequently the suing partner has no legal parental rights.
Cathy Sakimura, of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, called the Alabama decision "terrifying" and said it illustrates the continued legal challenges facing gay and lesbian parents. She said the Alabama court had no legal authority to second-guess the decision of the Georgia court that had granted the adoption.
"As a result of that serious constitutional violation, the children in this case have been wrongly separated from one of their parents, and the stability of adoption judgments across the country has been called into question," Sakimura said.
Sakimura said her client helped raise the children, now ages 10 to 12, since their births, but isn't allowed to see the children because of the court decision.
Her ex-partner fought her visitation saying the couple lived in Alabama, but only rented a home in Georgia because they believed the court there to be friendlier to adoption petitions by gay couples.
The case will go to Justice Thomas, who can decide alone or refer to the full Court for a decision.  It was considered likely he’ll ask the other side to provide a response before a ruling.
The Alabama Supreme Court earlier this year directed probate judges to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples even though a federal judge ruled the state's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. The directive brought a stop to the weddings until the U.S. Supreme Court said gay and lesbian people have a fundamental right to marry.

Five terror suspects arrested, 2 dead in raid targeting Paris attack mastermind


Five terror suspects were arrested Wednesday morning and two others were killed, including a woman wearing a suicide vest who blew herself up after police launched a raid targeting the alleged mastermind of last Friday's massacre in Paris.
The Paris prosecutor's office said in a statement that three of the five were arrested by SWAT teams in an apartment in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis, while two others were detained nearby. The statement did not identify the arrested suspects or the two who died. As of 9:30 a.m. local time, at least one other person was still holed up in the apartment, more than five hours after the raid began.
Earlier Wednesday, a senior police official told the Associated Press he believed Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgian ISIS militant, was inside the apartment with five other heavily armed people. The official, who was informed routinely about the operation, said scores of police stormed the building and were met with unexpectedly violent resistance.
Another police official told AP that four police officers were injured in the confrontation. The severity of their injuries was not known.
Police vans and fire trucks rushed to the scene north of Paris, just over a mile from the Stade de France stadium, which was targeted by three suicide bombers during Friday's attacks. Riot police cleared people from the streets, pointing guns at curious residents to move them off the roads.
Residents said an initial explosion shook the neighborhood at about 4 a.m. (10 p.m. EST).
"Then there was second big explosion. Then two more explosions. There was an hour of gunfire," said Baptiste Marie, a 26-year-old independent journalist who lives in the neighborhood.
Another witness, Amine Guizani, said he heard the sound of grenades and automatic gunfire.
"They were shooting for an hour. Nonstop. There were grenades. It was going, stopping. Kalashnikovs. Starting again," Guizani said.
Sporadic bangs and explosions continued, and at 7:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. EST) at least seven explosions shook the center of Saint-Denis. Associated Press reporters at the scene could hear what sounded like grenade blasts from the direction of the standoff.
One local resident posted a 10-second video of the scene on her street near the siege. A series of bangs sounding like automatic weapons fire could be heard. The message accompanying the tweet translates to "It's an intervention by police ... street closed, officers, etc."
Investigators have identified 27-year-old Abaaoud, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the chief architect of the attacks that killed 129 and wounded at least 350 others.
 Seven attackers died in Friday's gun-and-bomb rampage through Paris. Police had said before the raids that they were hunting for two fugitives suspected of taking part as well as any accomplices. That would bring the number of attackers to at least nine.
French authorities had previously said that at least eight people were directly involved in the bloodshed: seven who died in the attacks and one who got away and slipped across the border to Belgium.
However, there have been gaps in officials' public statements, which have never fully disclosed how many attackers took part in the deadly rampage.
On Tuesday, officials said they now believe at least one other attacker was involved and they were working to identify and track down that suspect. Three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide details about the ongoing investigation.
Surveillance video obtained by the AP also indicated that a team of three attackers carried out the shootings at one of the cafes. The video was among evidence authorities used in concluding that at least one other attacker was at large, the French officials indicated.
The brief clip shows two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons calmly firing on the bar then returning toward a waiting car, whose driver was maneuvering behind them. Authorities believe the car is the same black SEAT-make vehicle that was found Saturday with three Kalashnikovs inside.
Police have identified one subject of their manhunt as Salah Abdeslam, whom French police accidentally permitted to cross into Belgium on Saturday. One of his brothers, Brahim, blew himself up in Paris.

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