Obama Cartoon

India's new prime minister Modi attends White House dinner despite fast

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off a two-day visit with President Obama Monday with a private dinner but there was a slight issue: the new leader of the world's largest democracy couldn't eat.
Modi was fasting to honor the Hindu goddess Durga and was only permitted to consume water or lemon-flavored water. The White House previously said Modi's dietary needs would be accommodated, but offered no details as to what was served at the dinner.
Obama and Modi broke the ice amid widespread concerns that U.S.-Indian ties have frayed in recent years. Joining them in the Blue Room was Vice President Biden, who also attended a State Department lunch with Modi and Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday.
Obama's courtship of Modi, who is on his first official visit to the U.S. since being elected in May, will continue Tuesday. The leaders will have a meeting in the Oval Office, marking a rare second day of attention from Obama.
During their talks, Obama and Modi will focus on economic growth and cooperation on security, clean energy, climate change and other issues, the White House said. They will also address regional concerns, including Afghanistan, where the U.S. is wrapping up its 13-year military involvement, and Syria and Iraq, where the U.S. is ramping up its military engagement as Obama builds an international coalition to target Islamic State militants operating in the both countries.
Obama visited India in 2010 and held up the U.S.-India relationship as the "defining partnership" of the 21st century. But the relationship has been lukewarm at best.
While military cooperation and U.S. defense sales have grown, the economic relationship has been rockier, with Washington frustrated by India's failure to open its economy to more foreign investment and address complaints over intellectual property violations.
A landmark civil nuclear agreement exists between the two countries, but Indian liability legislation has kept U.S. companies from capitalizing on the deal. Further fraying relations was the arrest and strip search last year in New York of an Indian diplomat on visa fraud charges.
A major aspect of this week's visit is the chance for Obama and Modi to begin building rapport, administration officials said. Obama was among the first Western leaders to telephone Modi with congratulations after his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party swept into power after May's landslide vote.
The visit also is a victory lap of sorts for Modi, a former tea seller who was once shunned by the U.S.
When Modi requested a visa to visit the United States nearly a decade ago, Washington said no. That rejection came three years after religious riots killed more than 1,000 Muslims in the state of Gujarat, where Modi was the top elected official.
"He's gone in just a matter of a few months from persona non grata to person of honor to be received warmly in the Oval Office," said Milan Vaishnav, who studies South Asia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.
Another potential wrinkle in Modi's visit: A human rights group is offering $10,000 to anyone who can serve Modi with a summons issued by a federal court in New York to respond to a lawsuit the group filed accusing him of serious abuses. The lawsuit is on behalf of two unnamed survivors of the violence.
Modi has denied involvement in the violence and India's Supreme Court has said there was no case to bring against him. As a head of state, Modi has immunity from lawsuits in U.S. courts. And White House officials said they doubted the issue would cloud the visit.
"Whether it's security and counterterrorism or strengthening the economy or a host of other regional issues, there is a broad framework where India and the U.S. work closely together to advance our shared interests," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

Tax breaks worth billions set to expire unless Congress acts

Time is running out for Congress to extend more than 50 tax breaks worth nearly $85 billion, including popular ones for college expenses and energy-efficient appliances. 
Democrats and Republicans have shown a willingness to extend the tax breaks -- including some that expired in 2013. But the midterm elections largely have brought to a standstill votes on such major issues as taxes and immigration and even military action against the Islamic State. 
Among the expiring breaks is a benefit enjoyed in the seven states that do not have an income tax. Taxpayers in those states have been allowed by Congress for years to deduct state and local sales tax instead. According to the Dallas Morning News, more than 2 million filers in Texas -- one such state with no income tax -- used the deduction in 2012, for an average benefit of $1,906. 
But if Congress doesn't extend it, the deduction goes away. 
This spring, the Senate Finance Committee passed a bill to extend through 2015 nine tax credits, deductions or exemptions that expired in 2013 -- and 26 more that will expire at the end of year.
The legislation has widespread bipartisan support, but Republicans kept it from getting a final vote when denied the opportunity to have their amendments considered.
“I support the tax extenders legislation. I want to see it passed,” Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the finance committee, said afterward. “I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I suspect that the majority of Senate Republicans feel the same way.” 
It remains to be seen whether lawmakers would be more amenable to extending at least some of the breaks after the election, and before a new Congress is sworn in. A Senate staffer told FoxNews.com on Monday the fate of the bill during the lame-duck session rests on the shoulders of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. 
In the Republican-controlled House, the Ways and Means Committee has voted in favor of extending 14 of the 50-plus tax breaks, making 12 of them permanent.
But nothing appears headed for a full floor vote yet, in large part because the so-called “breaks” result in less revenue for the Treasury Department and an increase to the deficit -- like the projected $84.1 billion the Senate bill would add if passed in full. 
A House staffer said Monday a vote that in effect increases the deficit would be especially difficult in that chamber because every member is up for re-election, and especially hard for Republicans running as hardline fiscal conservatives.
The chamber’s Joint Committee on Taxation has identified 79 expired or expiring federal tax provisions from 2013 to 2023.  
Beyond the ones for college tuition and energy efficiency, the list includes the popular deductions for expenses for school teachers, mass transit, mortgage-insurance premiums and for the use of alternative fuels and the vehicles that run on them.
Congress has talked for years about comprehensive tax reform, essentially by implementing a major overhaul to simplify the U.S. tax code. But such a task is complicated and politically perilous. 
In March, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., produced a sweeping tax-reform plan that would create just two tax brackets and lower the corporate tax rate by 25 percent without increasing the deficit, a plan lawmakers call “revenue neutral.”
However, the plan went nowhere with Republican leaders in part because it covered the lost tax revenue by capping or eliminating tax credits and deductions.
House Speaker John Boehner, when asked about the details of the Camp plan at the time, responded in part by saying “blah, blah, blah.”
Still, supporters of tax reform hope the desire to make changes is being stoked by the recent debate over U.S. corporations establishing overseas headquarters to avoid taxes. The Treasury Department imposed new regulations earlier this month to make it harder for corporations to pull off the so-called “inversions.”

House committee to scrutinize Secret Service after White House breach details revealed

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson will face questions about how an armed intruder jumped the White House fence and made it as far as the East Room when she testifies before a House committee Tuesday. 
Sources told Fox News Monday that 42-year-old Omar Gonzalez, overpowered a Secret Service officer in the Sept. 19 incident before a struggle and "wrestling" inside the executive mansion ensued. Gonzalez was eventually tackled by a counter-assault agent in the East Room after he reached the doorway to the Green Room, a parlor overlooking the South Lawn. 
The revelation came on the eve of a scheduled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing that will address the breach, as well as lawmakers' "concerns" about the Secret Service's security protocols. 
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who chairs a House subcommittee on national security oversight, also confirmed to CNN that whistleblowers had informed his panel of the breach.
A series of what one source called "catastrophic" security failures apparently allowed the intruder to get deep into the White House. 
The Secret Service did not follow basic protocols during the incident to protect the White House, the president and the first family and the agency still does not know why, a source intimately familiar with details of the investigation told Fox News. 
For example, the Secret Service didn't lock down certain areas of the property and did not elevate the threat level at the White House so that other uniformed officers and agents would know what was happening, which is a standard response.
“This was a catastrophic failure when the President was NOT there. What if the president WAS there?” the source, a longtime Secret Service insider, added. "It turns out that basic functions in place to avoid this were never initiated."
Additionally, an alarm box near the front entrance of the White House that is designed to alert guards to an intruder had been muted at what officers believed was a request of the usher's office, an official told The Washington Post.
An officer posted inside the front door also appeared to be delayed in learning that Gonzalez was about to burst through, according to the Post. Officers are trained to immediately lock the front door once an intruder is spotted on the grounds.
A Secret Service Uniformed Division officer then “misreported” how far the intruder got into the White House to management in order to downplay the impact of the initial failure. 
The officer in question told management that the intruder “never got through the vestibule” of the North Portico, which turned out to be false, the source said.
Secret Service spokeswoman Nicole Mainor told Fox News that the agency would not comment on the revelations, citing the ongoing investigation.
The Secret Service has been having high-level meetings to address the breach, the latest in a series of embarrassing scandals for the agency since a 2012 prostitution scandal erupted during a presidential visit to Colombia.
The Post reported over the weekend that the Secret Service did not immediately respond to shots fired at the White House in 2011, amid what the agency describes as uncertainty about where the shots originated. Four days later, it was discovered that at least one of the shots broke the glass of a window on the third level of the mansion, the Secret Service said.
At the time of the 2011 breach, the president and first lady Michelle Obama were away, but their daughters were in Washington — one home and the other due to return that night.
Oscar R. Ortega-Hernandez of Idaho has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 2011 incident.
"The president and the first lady, like all parents, are concerned about the safety of their children, but the president and first lady also have confidence in the men and women of the Secret Service to do a very important job, which is to protect the first family, to protect the White House, but also protect the ability of tourists and members of the public to conduct their business or even tour the White House," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday.
After the most recent breach, Pierson ordered a review of the incident and possible changes to security measures at and around the White House. She briefed the president on Thursday.
"The president is interested in the review that they are conducting, and I would anticipate that he'll review whatever it is they — whatever reforms and recommendations they settle upon," Earnest said of the Secret Service's internal review.
Secret Service officers who spotted Gonzalez scaling the fence quickly assessed that he didn't have any weapons in his hands and wasn't wearing clothing that could conceal substantial quantities of explosives, a primary reason agents did not fire their weapons, according to a U.S. official briefed on the investigation.
Gonzalez was on the Secret Service radar as early as July when state troopers arrested him during a traffic stop in southwest Virginia. State troopers there said Gonzalez had an illegal sawed-off shotgun and a map of Washington tucked inside a Bible with a circle around the White House, other monuments and campgrounds. The troopers seized a stash of other weapons and ammunition found during a search of Gonzalez's car after his arrest.
The Secret Service interviewed Gonzalez in July, but had nothing with which to hold him. Gonzalez was released on bail. Then, on Aug. 25, Gonzalez was stopped and questioned again while he was walking along the south fence of the White House. He had a hatchet, but no firearms. His car was searched, but he was not arrested.
"There's a misperception out there that we have some broad detention powers," Ed Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman, said. The Secret Service, like other law enforcement agencies, must have evidence of criminal behavior in order to file charges against someone. "Just because we have a concern about someone doesn't mean we can interview or arrest them or put them in a mental health facility," Donovan said.

Brown Cartoon

California bill requiring college students to give consent before sex becomes law

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Sunday that he has signed a bill that makes California the first in the nation to define when "yes means yes" and adopt requirements for colleges to follow when investigating sexual assault reports.
State lawmakers last month approved SB967 by Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, as states and universities across the U.S. are under pressure to change how they handle rape allegations. Campus sexual assault victims and women's advocacy groups delivered petitions to Brown's office on Sept. 16 urging him to sign the bill.
De Leon has said the legislation will begin a paradigm shift in how college campuses in California prevent and investigate sexual assaults. Rather than using the refrain "no means no," the definition of consent under the bill requires "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity."
"With one in five women on college campuses experiencing sexual assault, it is high time the conversation regarding sexual assault be shifted to one of prevention, justice, and healing," de Leon said in lobbying Brown for his signature.
The legislation says silence or lack of resistance does not constitute consent. Under the bill, someone who is drunk, drugged, unconscious or asleep cannot grant consent.
Lawmakers say consent can be nonverbal, and universities with similar policies have outlined examples as a nod of the head or moving in closer to the person.
Advocates for victims of sexual assault supported the change as one that will provide consistency across campuses and challenge the notion that victims must have resisted assault to have valid complaints.
The bill requires training for faculty reviewing complaints so that victims are not asked inappropriate questions when filing complaints. The bill also requires access to counseling, health care services and other resources.
When lawmakers were considering the bill, critics said it was overreaching and sends universities into murky legal waters. Some Republicans in the Assembly questioned whether statewide legislation is an appropriate venue to define sexual consent between two people.
There was no opposition from Republicans in the state Senate.
Gordon Finley, an adviser to the National Coalition for Men, wrote an editorial asking Brown not to sign the bill. He argued that "this campus rape crusade bill" presumes the guilt of the accused.
SB967 applies to all California post-secondary schools, public and private, that receive state money for student financial aid. The California State University and University of California systems are backing the legislation after adopting similar consent standards this year.
UC President Janet Napolitano recently announced that the system will voluntarily establish an independent advocate to support sexual assault victims on every campus. An advocacy office also is a provision of the federal Survivor Outreach and Support Campus Act proposed by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Susan Davis of San Diego, both Democrats.

Top Senate Republican Barrasso warns against lame duck Holder replacement

The simmering bipartisan battle over whether the Senate will try to swiftly replace retiring Attorney General Eric Holder heated up Sunday, with a top Senate Republican saying such a move would show the “desperation” Democrats feel about possibly losing control next month of the upper chamber.
“It does need to wait,” Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, chairman of the Senate’s Republican Policy Committee, told “Fox News Sunday." “I am opposed to any successor during the lame-duck session.”
Political analysts essentially give Republicans a slightly more than 50 percent chance of winning a net total of six seats on Nov. 4 to take control of the Senate. However, the GOP would not officially take over the chamber until January.
Barrasso said if the Democrat-controlled Senate appoints a President Obama nominee it will mark the first time since the Civil War that an attorney general has been appointed in a so-called “lame duck” session -- the period between when new senators are elected and the other party takes control of the chamber.
Though Republicans are no fans of Holder, Barrasso said any attempt by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to swiftly replace him would be the “final act” is his failed leadership of the chamber.
Holder, who resigned on Thursday, is the country’s first black attorney general and is considered an unflinching champion of civil rights in enforcing the nation's laws.
He led the Justice Department since the first days of Obama's presidency and is the fourth-longest serving attorney general in U.S. history.
However, he has faced strong criticism during his tenure -- at times bipartisan -- for a succession of controversies including a failed plan to try terrorism suspects in New York City, the botched gun-running probe along the Southwest border that prompted Republican calls for his resignation, and what was seen as a failure to hold Wall Street accountable for the financial system's near-meltdown.
The Republican-controlled House voted two years ago to make Holder the first sitting Cabinet member to be held in contempt of Congress -- for refusing to turn over documents in the gun-running operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. The administration is still fighting in court to keep the documents confidential.
Barrasso called Holder “a presidential protector and a puppet of the administration.”
“We need an attorney general for the people,” he said.
Independent Maine Sen. Angus King told Fox News that he thought Holder was a “good man” but that he was “bothered” by him failing to go after Wall Street after the crisis.
“Not a single prosecution,” King said.
He also said he hasn’t heard of a potential nominee, and that he wants to see whether Obama puts forward a name and if that person might in fact garner immediate bipartisan support.
“So, I'm going to wait and see,” said King, pointing out members of this Congress are on the payroll until January and have a duty to vote.
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest seemed to call for a quick confirmation, pointing out that Bush administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates was confirmed by Senate Republicans in December 2006, a month after they lost control of the chamber.
White House officials said Obama had not made a final decision on a replacement for Holder.
Some possible candidates that have been mentioned among administration officials include Solicitor General Don Verrilli; Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole; former White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler; Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York; Jenny Durkan, a former U.S. attorney in Washington state, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a former Rhode Island attorney general.
Holder also aggressively enforced the Voting Rights Act, addressed drug-sentencing guidelines that led to disparities between white and black convicts, extended legal benefits to same-sex couples and refused to defend a law that allowed states to disregard gay marriages. He oversaw the decision to prosecute terror suspects in U.S. civilian courts instead of at Guantanamo Bay and helped establish a legal rationale for lethal drone strikes on suspects overseas.
Only three other attorneys general in U.S. history have served longer than the 63-year-old Holder: William Wirt in the administrations of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams, Janet Reno in the Bill Clinton administration and Homer Cummings for Franklin Roosevelt.
Holder also is one of the longest-serving of Obama's original Cabinet members. Two others remain: Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Obama says US 'underestimated' rise of ISIS, admits 'contradictory' Syria policy

President Obama acknowledged Sunday that U.S. intelligence officials "underestimated" the threat posed by the Islamic State and overestimated the Iraqi army’s capacity to defeat the militant group.
The president said in an wide-ranging interview on CBS' “60 Minutes” that the Islamic State militants went "underground" after being squashed in Iraq and regrouped under the cover of the Syrian civil war.
"During the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos," Obama said.
The president said his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has acknowledged that the U.S. "underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.” He also said it was "absolutely true" that the U.S. overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi army.
However, Obama also acknowledged that the U.S. is dealing with a conundrum in Syria, as the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State is helping Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom the U.N. has accused of war crimes. 
"I recognize the contradiction in a contradictory land and a contradictory circumstance," Obama said. "We are not going to stabilize Syria under the rule of Assad," whose government has committed "terrible atrocities."
However, Obama called the threat from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and other terror groups a more "immediate concern that has to be dealt with."
"On the other hand, in terms of immediate threats to the United States, ISIL, Khorasan Group -- those folks could kill Americans," he said. 
The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has taken control of large sections of Iraq and Syria. The Khorasan Group is a cell of militants that the U.S. says is plotting attacks against the West in cooperation with the Nusra front, Syria's Al Qaeda affiliate.
Both groups have been targeted by U.S. airstrikes in recent days; together they constitute the most significant military opposition to Assad. Obama said his first priority is degrading the extremists who are threatening Iraq and the West.  To defeat them, he acknowledged, would require a competent local ground force, something no analyst predicts will surface any time soon in Syria, despite U.S. plans to arm and train "moderate" rebels.
"Right now, we've got a campaign plan that has a strong chance for success in Iraq," the president said. "Syria is a more challenging situation."
In discussing Iraq, Obama said the U.S. left the country after the war with “a democracy that was intact, a military that was well-equipped and the ability then (for Iraqis) to chart their own course.”
However, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki “squandered” that opportunity over roughly five years because he was “much more interested in consolidating his Shia base and very suspicious of the Sunnis and the Kurds, who make up the other two thirds of the country,” the president said.
Obama said military force is necessary to shrink the Islamic State’s capacity, cut off financing and eliminate the flow of foreign fighters. He said political solutions are also needed that accommodate both Sunnis and Shiites, adding that conflicts between the two sects are the biggest cause of conflict throughout the world.
 Earlier Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner questioned Obama's strategy to destroy the Islamic State group. Boehner said on ABC's "This Week" that the U.S. may have "no choice" but to send in American troops if the mix of U.S.-led airstrikes and a ground campaign reliant on Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and moderate Syrian rebels fails to achieve that goal.
"These are barbarians. They intend to kill us," Boehner said. "And if we don't destroy them first, we're going to pay the price."
However, Obama again made clear he has no interest in a major U.S. ground presence beyond the 1,600 American advisers and special operations troops he already has ordered to Iraq. When asked if the current conflict was not really a war, Obama said there are clear distinctions between this campaign and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We are assisting Iraq in a very real battle that's taking place on their soil, with their troops," the president said. "This is not America against ISIL. This is America leading the international community to assist a country with whom we have a security partnership."
"That's always the case," Obama added. "We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world. And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don't call Beijing. They don't call Moscow. They call us."

Latte Salute Cartoon

Source: Secret probe on Wisconsin conservative groups tied to Walker sparked by prosecutor’s 'hyper partisan' bias

The anonymous source who helped exposed the Milwaukee District Attorney's secret probes on GOP Gov. Scott Walker and his political supporters is purportedly a former employee and self-proclaimed friend of the prosecutor upset over the prosecutor's "hyper-partisan" bias, according to several published accounts.
The source in the so-called "John Doe" probes that have loomed over Wisconsin politics for roughly four years has been identified as Michael Lutz -- who after retiring as a police officer was an unpaid employee in Democratic District Attorney John Chisholm's office and later opened a law practice.
Chisholm revealed in a 2011 conversation that he started the investigation because he wanted to "stop" Walker's successes in reducing a budget shortfall by scaling back collective-bargaining agreements for state employees. And Walker's efforts made Chisholm's wife, a teachers-union boss, weepy, Lutz told a reporter hired by the conservative group America Media Institute, which first published a story Sept. 19.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel political columnist Dan Bice told FoxNews.com on Wednesday that he also spoke to Lutz, who did not deny he was the key source named in the institute’s story.
"When I heard he was the source, I was interested in his story," said Bice, adding Lutz has been a long-time tipster in the Wisconsin political scene.
The John Doe probe is in fact the second of two related to Walker.
The first started in 2010 and focused on Walker aides and associates when he was Milwaukee County executive.
That probe has been closed, but the work was in large part the starting point for the second, ongoing probe that started in 2012.
The new probe largely centers on the type of political activity being done by the conservative groups and whether that work required them to follow state laws that bar coordination with candidates, requires disclosure of political donations and places limits on what can be collected.
The secret probes purportedly included armed law-enforcement officials conducting pre-dawn searches on the investigation targets.
Under Wisconsin law, third-party political groups are allowed to work together on campaign activity and engage in issue advocacy, but they are barred from coordinating that work with actual candidates.
Prosecutors have said in court filings that Walker and his top aides illegally raised money and coordinated campaign advertising and other activity with Wisconsin Club for Growth, the state Chamber of Commerce and more than two dozen other conservative groups during the failed 2011 and 2012 efforts to recall Walker for his dealings with the union contracts.
Prosecutors argued the groups’ efforts should have made them subject to state campaign finance laws.
Also on Wednesday, a federal court overturned a lower court's ruling halting the second investigation.
The ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago is a defeat for Walker and conservatives who argued the investigation is a partisan witch hunt designed to chill political speech.
Walker is running for re-election this fall against Democrat Mary Burke and is considering a 2016 run for president.
The investigation has purportedly hurt fundraising efforts for Walker’s re-election bid, with top target Wisconsin Club for Growth neither raising nor spending a single dollar on the race.
The race is essentially deadlocked with about six weeks remaining, according to an averaging of polls by the nonpartisan website RealClearPolitics.
A source told FoxNew.com on Thursday that the investigations have at least achieved their goal of putting a chilling effect of political speech, calling the effort “pure genius.”
He also confirmed that Lutz was the source for the story, which now appears to be part of a counter effort to discredit Chisholm and thwart a potential 2016 re-election effort.
Lutz went to law school after retiring and works in private practice. He purportedly worked for about a year in Chisholm’s office as an unpaid employee while in law school.
Even with the ruling Wednesday, the investigation won't be able to resume immediately.
A state judge overseeing the probe also effectively stopped it in January when he issued a ruling quashing requested subpoenas, saying he did not believe anything illegal had transpired. That ruling is under appeal.
The 7th Circuit said that state courts are the proper venue to resolve legal issues with the case.
In February, Wisconsin Club for Growth and Director Eric O'Keefe filed a federal civil rights lawsuit to halt the latest investigation, which is called a John Doe probe because it is being done in secret.
They argued it was a violation of their First Amendment rights and an attempt to criminalize political speech.
No one has been charged in the latest probe, and prosecutors have said Walker is not a target.
A federal judge in May sided with the group and issued a temporary injunction blocking the investigation. The appeals court overturned that ruling, calling it an abuse of discretion.
The Wisconsin Club for Growth argues that coordinating with candidates on issue advocacy -- communications that don't expressly ask a voter to elect or defeat a candidate -- is legal and not subject to regulation by the government.

Obama decries 'gulf of mistrust' between minorities, police

This guy stirs up more problems than he solves!

WASHINGTON –  President Barack Obama on Saturday said the widespread mistrust of law enforcement that was exposed by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo. is corroding America, not just its black communities, and that the wariness flows from significant racial disparities in the administration of justice.
Speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual awards dinner, Obama said these suspicions only harm communities that need law enforcement the most.
"It makes folks who are victimized by crime and need strong policing reluctant to go to the police because they may not trust them," he said. "And the worst part of it is it scars the hearts of our children," leading some youngsters to unnecessarily fear people who do not look like them while leading others to constantly feel under suspicion no matter what they do.
"That is not the society we want," Obama said. "It's not the society that our children deserve."
The fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in August sparked days of violent protests and racial unrest in predominantly black Ferguson. The police officer who shot Brown was white.
Obama addressed the matter carefully but firmly, saying the young man's death and the raw emotion that sprang from it had reawakened the country to the fact that "a gulf of mistrust" exists between local residents and law enforcement in too many communities.
"Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement -- guilty of walking while black or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness," he said.
He said significant racial disparities remain in the enforcement of law, from drug sentencing to applying the death penalty, and that a majority of Americans think the justice system treats people of different races unequally.
Obama opened his remarks by singling out Attorney General Eric Holder for praise. Obama announced Holder's resignation days earlier after nearly six years as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. Holder, who attended the dinner and received a standing ovation, will stay on the job until the Senate confirms a successor.
Holder visited Ferguson after the shooting to help ease tensions, and the Justice Department is investigating whether Brown's civil rights were violated.
Obama also announced that he is expanding My Brother's Keeper, a public-private partnership he launched earlier this year to help make young minority men's lives better. He said a new "community challenge" will task every community to put in place strategies to ensure that young people can succeed from the cradle through college and career.
Businesses, foundations and community groups help coordinate investments to develop or support programs geared toward young men of color. Educators and professional athletes also participate.
Obama said government cannot play the primary role in the lives of children but it "can bring folks together" to make a difference for the young.
Helping girls of color deal with inequality is also important, he said, and part of the continuing mission of the White House Council on Women and Girls, an effort that has involved his wife, Michelle, mother of their two teenage daughters.
"African American girls are more likely than their white peers also to be suspended, incarcerated, physically harassed," Obama said. "Black women struggle every day with biases that perpetuate oppressive standards for how they're supposed to look and how they're supposed to act. Too often, they're either left under the hard light of scrutiny, or cloaked in a kind of invisibility. "

Ferguson police officer wounded in shooting, authorities hunt 2 suspects

Authorities said a Ferguson (Mo.) police officer was shot and wounded while on patrol Saturday evening.
St. Louis County Police Sgt. Brian Schellman said the shooting took place at approximately 9:30 p.m. local time. KTVI reported that the officer was shot in the arm and sustained non-life-threatening injuries. At least a dozen law enforcement agencies responded to the shooting, and police helicopters canvassed the area, but no arrests were immediately reported.
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told reporters early Sunday that the officer was shot after approaching two men at the Ferguson Community Center, which was closed at the time. As the officer approached, the men ran away. When the officer gave chase, "one of the men turned and shot," Belmar said.
Belmar did not give further details about the officer's condition. He said the officer returned fire but said police have "no indication" that either suspect was shot.
The shooting comes amid a fresh flare-up of unrest following the deadly August 9 shooting of a black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. The shooting sparked days of violent protests and racial unrest in the predominantly black community. Some residents and civil rights activists have said responding police officers were overly aggressive, noting their use of tear gas and surplus military vehicles and gear. 
Belmar said he did not think the officer's shooting was related to two separate protests about Michael Brown's shooting that were going on Saturday night around the same time. Saturday's shooting occurred approximately two miles from where Brown died near his grandmother's apartment building. KTVI reported that dozens of protesters initially showed up at the scene in the mistaken belief that the officer had shot someone. 
By midnight, approximately two dozen officers stood near a group of about 100 protesters who mingled on a street corner across from the police department, occasionally shouting, "No justice; no peace."
On Thursday night, Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson attempted to march with protesters hours after releasing a videotaped apology to Brown's family. In it, Jackson acknowledged Brown's body should have been removed from the street much sooner than the four hours it was there as police collected evidence.
He insisted officers meant no disrespect to the community or the family. "I'm truly sorry for the loss of your son," Jackson said.
Witnesses said Jackson agreed to join marchers Thursday but failed to tell officers monitoring his safety to stand down. They said that led to some officers forcing their way into the gathering, then pushing and shoving marchers. Several protesters were arrested.
"If (the officers) had just not come in, everything would be all right," protester Steven Wash, 26, of Ferguson, said Friday.
"Jackson decided to come out and broker some peace and pretty much asked what he could do to build a new level of trust, and police continued to come, come, come," Wade added. "The olive branch he tried to extend was great, and it showed he wasn't a robot. But police forced him out like he was a diplomat in a war zone."
The unrest Thursday occurred two days after many in the St. Louis suburb complained police did little to douse a fire that destroyed a makeshift Brown memorial. 
The Justice Department, which is investigating whether Brown's civil rights were violated, is conducting a broader probe into Ferguson police. On Friday, it urged Jackson to ban his officers from wearing bracelets supporting Wilson while on duty and from covering up their name plates with black tape.
Ferguson residents complained about the bracelets, which are black with "I am Darren Wilson" in white lettering, at a meeting with federal officials this week.
Brown's shooting has also focused attention on the lack of diversity in many police departments across the country. In Ferguson, of 53 officers in a community that is two-thirds black, only three are African-American.
Also early Sunday, not far from Ferguson, an off-duty St. Louis city police officer was injured on Interstate 70 when three suspects fired shots into his personal vehicle, a police spokeswoman said.
Schron Jackson said the officer, who has nearly 20 years of experience, was being treated at a hospital for a minor injury to his arm from broken glass. She said there is no reason to believe the two shootings were related.

More than 30 people believed dead at Japanese volcano

The bodies of more than 30 people believed to be dead have reportedly been discovered near the summit of an erupting volcano in central Japan. 
A police official from Nagano prefecture told the Associated Press that the victims were not breathing and their hearts had stopped, which is the the customary way for Japanese authorities to describe a body until police doctors can examine it. The official added that the exact location where the bodies were found and the identities of the victims were not immediately known. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Nagano prefecture posted on its website that about 30 people had "heart and lung failure."  Keita Ushimaru, an official in nearby Kiso town, said that Nagano crisis management officials had informed local authorities that at least four people with heart and lung failure were being brought down to the town, and that there were others in the same condition. The journey was expected to take about three hours.
Mount Ontake in central Japan erupted shortly before noon local time Saturday, spewing large white plumes of gas and ash high into the sky and blanketing the surrounding area in ash. About 250 people were initially trapped on the slopes, but most made their way down by Saturday night.
Volcanic eruptions without warning are rare in Japan, which monitors seismic activity closely. Typically, any volcanic mountains that show signs of activity are closed to hikers, but that did not appear to have happened this time. The BBC reported that Mount Ontake is a popular place to view autumn foliage. 
Earlier Sunday, military helicopters had plucked seven people from the mountainside Sunday. Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said that 45 people had been reported missing and at least 34 climbers had been injured. The tally was lower than reported by local officials earlier, but the disaster agency warned that the numbers could still change.
Japanese television footage showed a soldier descending from a helicopter to an ash-covered slope, helping latch on a man and then the two of them being pulled up.
Defense Ministry official Toshihiko Muraki said that all seven people rescued Sunday were conscious and could walk, though he did not have specific details of their conditions. 
The Self-Defense Force, as Japan's military is called, has deployed seven helicopters and 250 troops. Police and fire departments are also taking part in the rescue effort.
An estimated 40 people were stranded at mountain lodges overnight, many injured and unable or unwilling to risk descending the 10,062-foot mountain on their own. Rescue workers are also trying to reach the area on foot.
A large plume, a mixture of white and gray, continued to rise from the ash-covered summit of the volcano Sunday morning, visible from the nearby village of Otaki. A convoy of red fire trucks, sirens blaring, and rescue workers on foot headed past barriers into the restricted zone around the mountain.
Shinichi Shimohara, who works at a shrine at the foot of the mountain, said he was on his way up Saturday morning when he heard a loud noise that sounded like strong winds followed by "thunder" as the volcano erupted.
"For a while I heard thunder pounding a number of times," he said. "Soon after, some climbers started descending. They were all covered with ash, completely white. I thought to myself, this must be really serious."
Mount Ontake, about 130 miles west of Tokyo, sits on the border of Nagano and Gifu prefectures, on the main Japanese island of Honshu. The volcano's last major eruption was in 1979.

Krauthammer on how Obama is downplaying radical Islam

Another Holder Cartoon

Ted Cruz: 'We need a president who will speak out for people of faith'

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told an audience of Christian conservatives Friday that it is time for “a president who will speak out for people of faith.”
Speaking to the annual Values Voter Summit, the possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate referenced the situations of imprisoned Christians in Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and Mexico.
“Oh the vacuum of American leadership we see in the world,” Cruz said. “We need a president who will speak out for people of faith, prisoners of conscience.”
He also told a story about how his father became a Christian.
“You know, when I was a young child, my parents were living up in Calgary,” Cruz began. “They were in the oil business. And neither of my parents were people of faith at the time. Neither of them had a relationship with Christ. Both of my parents drank far too much. Both of them had serious problems with alcohol.”
“And when I was three years old, my father decided he didn’t want to be married anymore,” he continued. “And he didn’t want a three year old son. So he got on a plane and left Calgary and flew back to Texas to Houston. And he left us. Now, when he was in Houston, a colleague in the oil and gas business invited my father to come with him to Clay Road Baptist church.”
“And my father accepted that invitation,” Cruz said, “he went to Clay Road Baptist church and he gave his life to Jesus. And he went and bought an airplane ticket. And flew back to Calgary to rejoin my mother and to rejoin his son.”
Cruz said: “So when anyone asks is faith real, is a relationship with Jesus real, I can tell you, if it were not for my father giving his life to Christ, I would have been raised by a single mother without having my dad in the home.”
Cruz reminded the conservative audience that it had been a year since his Obamacare filibuster, an act that helped make him a favorite of the conservative base across the country.
“One year ago this week, I stood on the Senate floor and said I intend to stand until I can stand no longer,” Cruz said to applause.
The senator also joked about the recent fence jumpers who have breached security at the White House.
“You know, we should actually hold the media to account,” Cruz said. “Because I will say, in their reporting on this person who broke into the White House, they really have not used the politically correct term. And we should insist that ABC, NBC, and CBS refer to the visitor, according to the term that is politically correct: an undocumented White House visitor.”

California city council candidate receives death threats over Mexican flag flap

A Southern California city council candidate was fired from her day job and is receiving death threats after she posted a video in which she told a woman that it was “very disrespectful” to have a Mexican flag on her front lawn.
Tressy Capps, a political activist from California’s Inland Empire, filmed a video on her smartphone of her approaching a homeowner about the Mexican flag fluttering in front of her home. She asked the woman to take it down.
“Hi. Is that a Mexican flag in your front yard?” Capps asks the homeowner, who is inside her home. “You know we live in America right? This is the United States. So, why are you flying a Mexican flag in your front yard?”
Capps goes on to say the she finds the Mexican flag “disrespectful.”           
Capps, who is running for a local city council spot in Fontana, Calif., posted the video online – and it quickly went viral.
When her former employer Coldwell Banker got wind of the video, the banking giant promptly let Capps go from her position with the company.
"We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind," David Siroty of Coldwell Banker Real Estate said in a statement. "We hold our affiliated companies to high ethical standards. Each of our franchised companies is independently owned and operated and we fully support the local owner's decision to disassociate this independent agent from the brokerage firm and, by extension, our franchise system."
Capps, in her video, also suggests that the family could face fines and legal problems for flying the Mexican flag, but the Ontario, California City Attorney John Brown disputed that claim.
"The City of Ontario takes great pride in being one of the most ethnically and racially diverse cities in Southern California,” Brown said. “Those expressions of ethnic and racial diversity take many forms throughout our City, and the City has always taken the position that such speech is absolutely protected by the both the United States and California Constitutions."
In an interview with Fox News, Capps said she can’t believe one video she posted is causing such outrage.
“My family is being threatened, I’m being threatened. We may have to move. I don’t know – I’m really scared,” she said.
Capps, who said it was not a campaign stunt, has since said she regrets uploading the video onto YouTube and said it was in bad judgment. 
The homeowner with the Mexican flag on her lawn, Maria Banuelos, told a local Spanish-language news network that she didn’t think that the flag, which she says she has flown for 13 years, was bothering anyone. Her husband, Siefrado, told Fox News that while Capps has since apologized, the family does not believe she is being sincere.
“We don’t feel like she’s saying it from the heart. She’s just saying it from the mouth,” he said.  
In a Facebook post, Capps said she should not live in fear because of speaking her mind.
 “[T]aking a position on an issue does not make me evil, racist or unethical if I disagree with your position,” she said. “My life is being threatened and the business I built for 30 years has suffered over a flag video. My son is being bullied at school now and for that I am devastated.”
Capps said all she was trying to do was “to educate with my video about flag etiquette.” Clearly, she said, “I did a very poor job communicating that.”
“If you want to fly another country’s flag you do it in the proper way. The American flag flies on top; it has a place of prominence and then the other country’s flag is underneath,” she said. “It’s just flag etiquette.”

US launching complex operation to train, arm Syrian rebels amid airstrikes

Bailey : Will this end up being another screw up like ATF's Fast and Furious? http://www.latimes.com/nation/atf-fast-furious-sg-storygallery.html

WASHINGTON –  Newly launched airstrikes in Syria are only one piece of the puzzle in the war against the Islamic State, as the U.S. military prepares to launch a complex operation to train and arm Syrian rebels. 
Just how that operation, formally approved by Congress last week, will play out is largely an open question. But based on past operations including those the U.S. already is running, analysts say allies in the region would likely help in getting military aid to rebels -- whom the U.S. hopes will one day fight as a cohesive unit to rout the Islamic State in their Syria headquarters, aided by airstrikes. 
On Friday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the U.S. is now "setting up the vetting system" to determine which opposition fighters will get U.S. training. Hagel, while unable to say who the head of that opposition is, said that process would include "regional partners" as well as the State Department and intelligence agencies. 
Lt. Gen. William Mayville, head of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this week that the mission is in the "beginnings of implementation" and described it as "a multi-year program." 
This is not the United States' first foray into the region. 
In the year leading up to Monday’s airstrikes, the CIA had set up camps in Jordan with the purpose of turning Syrian rebels into competent foot soldiers. 
"It is my understanding most of the lethal aid that has been provided by the U.S. has been through the clandestine channel – the CIA," Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told FoxNews.com. 
While the Pentagon said it could not comment further for this story, White speculated that there likely is a "third party being used to actually deliver" weapons to the Syrian fighters. 
He said the U.S. probably is getting help from Syria’s regional neighbors Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It remains unclear what role they might play in the new train-and-equip mission. Reuters reports that Saudi Arabia is among the countries that has offered to host a training facility. 
To date, the U.S. mostly has been sending humanitarian aid into Syria. For that, there is a clear route. 
A July vote from the 15-member U.N. Security Council opened up four routes from Iraq, Turkey and Jordan into Syria. The resolution, though, also approved a monitoring arm that would make sure only humanitarian supplies – like food and medical equipment – would be allowed in the country, effectively closing the path for governments to use those routes for military supplies. 
Earlier this month, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the U.S. government is providing an additional $500 million in humanitarian assistance to Syria. The funds bring the total U.S. humanitarian figure to more than $2.9 billion. According to the latest numbers from the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, there are currently 10.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria. Of those, 5.5 million are children. USAID is a federal government agency responsible for administering civilian foreign aid.
With the U.S. maintaining no ground forces in Syria, the route for military supplies may be more complicated. 
Still, Syrian opposition fighters have found a way to arm themselves over the course of the three-year civil war. "There’s no question that the rebels are getting weapons," White said, adding it’s nearly impossible to know the exact kind of weapons being fast-tracked to Syria in the wake of the U.S.-led airstrikes.
Sources tell FoxNews.com that U.S.-made weapons were used by rebels during a "test run" earlier this year. In April, a video uploaded by Harakat Hazm, a Syrian splinter with an estimated 7,000 members, showed its fighters using U.S.-made Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided antitank missiles, commonly called TOW missiles.
The use of BGM-71 TOWs, which are capable of cutting through heavy armor, marked the first time U.S.-made anti-tank missiles had appeared in rebel hands. The TOWs were introduced during a time when Syrian forces, using Russian-supplied weapons and ammunition, were quickly gaining ground on the rebels.
In the past, the United States had sold TOW missiles to Turkey. In December, the Pentagon approved the sale of 15,000 TOWs to Saudi Arabia. Though it's unclear how exactly the missiles got to the rebels, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are both U.S. allies and have helped rebel fighters in the past. 
TOWs are used in 40 armies globally and are the “preferred heavy assault anti-armor weapon system for NATO, coalition, United Nations and peacekeeping operations worldwide,” according to Raytheon, the company that makes TOWs. Current versions of the missiles can penetrate more than 30 inches of armor. The missiles can be fired using a tripod or from vehicles and helicopters. 
Going forward, military experts say rocket-propelled grenades and other communication equipment are also on the list of items the United States wants to send to Syrian opposition.  
But arming rebels is only part of the multi-layered solution, they tell FoxNews.com.
Training local fighters may be the toughest battle yet – and several military experts FoxNews.com spoke to say there is no easy path to a post-Assad Syria.
“After three years of inaction, anything the United States does will be in a difficult environment,” Foreign Policy Initiative Executive Director Christopher Griffin told FoxNews.com. “We need to train the trainers. We don’t want to subcontract this to others.”
Just how long will the training take?
By the Pentagon’s own schedule, it could take up to five months to identify trustworthy rebels and then up to a year to train them into an organized militia. Defense officials say they can train 3,000 rebels per year once the program become operational. 
Amid concerns that the ambitious operation could simply take too long -- with ISIS continuing to threaten the entire region -- White claimed that training smaller groups could be done in weeks.
“To produce a basic soldier, it would probably take weeks or a few months depending on how good we want them to be,” White told FoxNews.com. 
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate hearing that about two-thirds of ISIS’s personnel – which the CIA has estimated to be between 20,000-31,500 – are in Syria.

FBI probing suspect's recent conversion to Islam in Oklahoma beheading

FBI officials are investigating a beheading at an Oklahoma food distribution center after co-workers said the suspect tried to convert them to Islam after his recent conversion.
The alleged suspect, Alton Nolen, 30, was recently fired from Vaughan Foods in Moore prior to Thursday’s attack. Moore Police Department Sgt. Jeremy Lewis told KFOR that Nolen drove to the front of the business and struck a vehicle before walking inside. He then attacked Colleen Hufford, 54, stabbing her several times before severing her head. He also stabbed another woman, 43-year-old Traci Johnson, at the plant.
Lewis said Mark Vaughan, the company’s chief operating officer and a reserve county deputy, shot Nolen as he was stabbing Johnson, who remains hospitalized in stable condition Friday.
“He’s a hero in this situation,” Lewis told the station. “It could have gotten a lot worse.”
Nolen was apparently attacking employees at random, authorities said. The motive for the attack is unclear, but FBI officials confirmed to Fox News that they were assisting the Moore Police Department in investigating Nolen's background and whether his recent conversion to Islam was somehow linked to the crime.
The police department issued a statement saying, "After conducting interviews with Nolen's co-workers, information was obtained that he recently started trying to convert several employees to the Muslim religion. Due to the manner of death and the initial statements of co-workers and other initial information, the Moore Police Department requested the assistance of the FBI in conducting a background investigation on Nolan."
Nolen, according to state corrections records, was convicted in January 2011 of multiple felony drug offenses, assault and battery on a police officer and escape from detention. He was released from prison in March 2013.
Saad Mohammad, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, told NewsOK.com that leaders of the society’s mosque are taking security precautions to protect Muslims who gather there from any potential retaliatory violence.

Mohammad said anti-Muslim sentiments local residents may have could be heightened due to the beheadings and violence overseas by Islamic State militants.

“They have this ISIS thing on their minds and now this guy has brought it to America,” Mohammad told the website.

Lewis said he does not yet know what charges will be filed against Nolen, adding that police are waiting until he's conscious to arrest him. Authorities said he had no prior connection to either woman.
Moore Police Department officials have released 911 calls from the incident, OKCFox.com reports. During the recording, a caller tells an operator that a person is attacking someone in the building. Several gunshots can be heard in the background at the end of the call. 
A Vaughan spokeswoman said the company was "shocked and deeply saddened" by the attack.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Holder Cartoon

The next ‘top cop’? Race to replace Holder begins

Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation announcement has set off a flurry of speculation over who might replace him – and, perhaps more importantly, who could survive the bruising confirmation process on Capitol Hill.
“I have a hard time coming up with anyone the president could trust who would have an easy road,” said Holder critic Hans von Spakovsky, who published the book, “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department,” in 2013.
The president did not offer any hints when he formally announced Holder’s decision to step down after six years on the job. He said Holder would stay on until a successor is named.
Several prominent names could be in the mix, though, and already are starting to get some buzz. Among them are Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Within hours, a few of the possible prospects were busy knocking down the speculation.
Harris released a written statement saying: "I am honored to even be mentioned, but intend to continue my work for the people of California as Attorney General. I am focused on key public safety issues including transnational gangs, truancy and recidivism."
Patrick, 58, a former Justice Department official in the Clinton administration, has been floated as a potential successor since as far back as 2012. He is serving his second and last term as governor.
Tom Whalen, presidential historian and associate professor of social science at Boston University, suggested Patrick could meet an important test.
“Attorney generals tend to be consigliere, people who defend the president’s interests” first, he said. “That is why the president usually picks someone who is a close friend who is beyond doubt loyal to him or her. Deval Patrick fits that to a T.”
Patrick and Obama are close friends and political allies, having campaigned for one another over the years. Earlier this year, Obama said his friend would make “a good president or vice president,” stoking speculation that Patrick had his sights more or less on the White House. But on Thursday, the media seized upon news that the governor had plans to arrive in Washington that day.
Patrick, though, also quelled some of the speculation when he spoke to reporters at a morning event.
“First of all I want to say of Eric Holder that he has distinguished himself and the role of the attorney general, as attorney general, and I thank him for his service to the administration and his service to the nation,” Patrick said, according to the full statement released by his press secretary. “That’s an enormously important job but it’s not one for me right now.”
Jesse Rhodes, associate political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, still said Patrick’s commitment to enforcing civil rights law was “clear” and that in this way he was “substantively quite similar” to Holder.
Von Spakovsky, a judicial and legal expert at the Heritage Foundation, predicted that the hearings will be tough on any nominee, considering the unfinished business over the Fast and Furious scandal and the ongoing IRS scandal. He said Patrick's own record heading the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which von Spakovsky called spotty and “extreme,” would be under the microscope if he were nominated.
Others under consideration could include: Preet Bharara, U.S Attorney in Manhattan; Deputy Attorney General James Cole; and former White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a former Rhode Island attorney general, and other Democratic senators also have appeared in some reports as possible prospects.
Aside from Patrick, speculation on Thursday centered fairly heavily on Verrilli, 57, who is the administration's top representative to the Supreme Court.  He successfully defended the Affordable Care Act -- but other landmark cases including one on voting rights and the Hobby Lobby challenge over ObamaCare’s contraceptive coverage did not break in the administration’s favor. Critics say his record is mixed as a defender of the Obama administration.
Meanwhile, Harris, despite her statement on Thursday, is a staunch ally of Obama and had also been mentioned in the top tier of potential nominees. Having taken on the banking industry, Harris is popular among progressives and would be only the second female AG – after Janet Reno.
On the other side of the country, Bharara has emerged as one of the most colorful and ambitious officials in New York politics -- making Wall Street corruption, cybercrime and terrorism his signature issues as U.S. Attorney for New York’s Southern District. More recently, he has entered a battle with Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the governor’s decision to shut down a corruption panel. 
Whalen said the call to “top cop” would be a tough request to resist. On one hand, “you make enemies everywhere, not just on the opposite political aisle but in your own party because you prosecute people.
“But if the president calls and says I need you in this post, it would be difficult to turn down this office.”

Michigan SEIU branch allowed to keep millions taken from home health care workers

A Michigan court ruled that the state branch of the powerful Service Employees International Union does not have to pay back tens of millions of dollars in dues taken from home health care workers who were forced into unionization.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled last week that the SEIU Healthcare Michigan does not have to pay back more than $34 million in dues collected from over 40,000 home health care workers. Many were forced into the union under state requirements that they join because they were taking care of sick family members at home.
The SEIU successfully lobbied for the plan in multiple states that classified unpaid family members as "home health care workers." Dues were then automatically collected from the care recipients' Medicare or Medicaid checks.
The Court of Appeals ruling was in favor of SEIU Healthcare Michigan’s motion to have the case dismissed because the union had paid back dues to Patricia Haynes and Steven Glossop, who had filed suit demanding dues they were forced to pay be returned. The court noted that Haynes and Glossop were paid back more than they requested in their lawsuit.
The Court of Appeals also said it dismissed the case because the law had changed and “to allow appellants to proceed with this appeal to vindicate the possible interests of third parties would improperly allow them to litigate abstract questions of law in which they are no longer interested parties.”
Officials at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which represented the two, said the overpayment was a devious move by the union in an attempt to hold onto the millions it took from the others.
“The SEIU overpaid our clients to prevent a full review by the court,” Patrick J. Wright, vice president of legal affairs for the Mackinac Center, said in a statement provided to FoxNews.com. “It was pretty obvious the SEIU did not want the court to take a close look at its tactics. Unfortunately, that means the union gets to keep the money it took from the other approximately 39,998 people who were caught up in this scheme. We’re going to review our legal options and look at other possible ways to vindicate all of these victims.”
The ruling comes after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June, that public sector unions in Illinois cannot collect fees from home health care workers who don't want to be part of a union.
The SEIU had sent checks to the Mackinac Center on behalf of Haynes and Glossop after that ruling.
The forced unionization ended in 2013 in Michigan and enrollment in the SEIU’s Michigan chapter plummeted the next year.
According to reports the union filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, over 44,000 home-based health care workers left SEIU Healthcare Michigan after learning they did not have to join the union or pay dues.
The Michigan Court of Appeals also said that the Michigan Employment Relations Commission does not have a platform for allowing class action matters.
Officials for the Mackinac Center say they are still weighing their options.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Ted O’Neil, spokesman for the legal group. “The SEIU wanted to make this go away as quietly as possible. If this had continued in court it would have brought the issue to the public spotlight. It’s also unfortunate because of the statute of limitations there was a limit to what anyone could have gotten back.”
O’Neil noted that despite the fact the SEIU “siphoned” $34 million, in the future it will no longer be able to collect money for “basically doing nothing.”
“Hopefully, that is somewhat comforting to those that were ripped off,” he said.
Officials at SEIU Healthcare Michigan said to FoxNews.com that they did not have a comment immediately available.

US considers softening demands on Iran nuke deal, report says

Bailey: " It would be a stupid move on the government's part, as Iran already looks upon the Americans as being weak and stupid!"

The United States is considering softening demands that Iran scales back its uranium enrichment program, instead agreeing to a new proposal that would allow Tehran to keep almost half of the program intact, diplomats say.
The initiative, reported late Thursday by The Associated Press, comes as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has sought to leverage the crisis in the Middle East to ease sanctions on his country as part of nuclear talks, suggesting in a United Nations address that security cooperation between Iran and other countries could only occur if they struck a favorable nuclear deal.
While focusing in large part on Islamic extremists in the region, Rouhani made clear Iran’s cooperation in addressing these threats hinges on the outcome of ongoing nuclear talks – as he once again urged other nations to drop what he described as “excessive demands.”
The U.S., fearing Tehran may enrich to weapons-grade level used to arm nuclear warheads, ideally wants no more than 1,500 centrifuges left operating. Iran insists it wants to use the technology only to make reactor fuel and for other peaceful purposes and insists it be allowed to run at least the present 9,400 machines.
The tentative new U.S. offer attempts to meet the Iranians close to half way on numbers, diplomats told The Associated Press.  They said it envisages letting Iran keep up to 4,500 centrifuges but would reduce the stock of uranium gas fed into the machines to the point where it would take more than a year of enriching to create enough material for a nuclear warhead.
That, they said, would give the international community enough lead time to react to any such attempt.
Rouhani said a deal could mark the “beginning of multilateral cooperation” and allow for “greater focus on some very important regional issues such as combating violence and extremism.”
Iran insists it does not want atomic arms but the West is only willing to lift nuclear-related sanctions if Tehran agrees to substantially shrink enrichment and other activities that Iran could turn toward making such weapons.
The diplomats emphasized that the proposal is only one of several being discussed by the six powers -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- and has not yet been formally submitted to the Iranians.
The new proposals reflect Washington's desire to advance the talks ahead of a Nov. 24 deadline that was extended from July.
They are running up against a Nov. 24 deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions.
GOP lawmakers have also warned that the Obama administration may be willing to give too much ground to Iran in pursuit of an agreement.
Failure to seal a deal could see a return to confrontation, including U.S. and Israeli threats of military means as a last resort to slow Iran's nuclear program.
"My message to Iran's leaders and people is simple: Do not let this opportunity pass," President Obama said Wednesday in his own address to world leaders.
At the same time, Rouhani has been critical of the U.S. bombing campaign of Islamic State group strongholds and the growing coalition of countries seeking to stop the extremists by military means. "Bombing and airstrikes are not the appropriate way," Rouhani said in his address to the United Nations, warning that "extraterritorial interference ... in fact only feeds and strengthens terrorism."
There are other issues that could further complicate negotiations. American officials are furious with Iran for detaining Jason Rezarian, a Washington Post journalist who has both American and Iranian citizenship, as well as his wife.
Iranian officials have not specifically said why the couple is being held, and Rouhani has dodged questions about their fate. Asked again Wednesday about Rezarian, he said he would be freed if he is innocent of any crime.

First Step Cartoon