Mom of Marine held in Mexico pleads with lawmakers, as attorney says release could come soon

The mother of the U.S. Marine imprisoned in Mexico after mistakenly crossing the border with three legally-registered guns told lawmakers Wednesday her son is rapidly deteriorating and pleaded with them to press for his return.

Jill Tahmooressi, whose 26-year-old son, Andrew, served two tours in Afghanistan, appeared before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee to push her case for the U.S. to pressure Mexico to release him. The condition of Tahmooressi, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from his service, has deteriorated since he was locked up March 31 on gun charges.

“My son is despondent, without treatment, and he needs to be home,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

The longtime nurse, who lives in Weston, Fla., recounted several emotional calls from her son, including one from Afghanistan, where he told her about blacking out after an IED exploded near him. Upon returning home, Andrew Tahmooressi abandoned his dream of becoming a commercial pilot because, he told his mother, “I can’t concentrate on the academic work.”

Then, on March 31, he called her from a Mexican border checkpoint to say he was in trouble.

“Mom, I got lost; I made a wrong turn,” Jill Tahmooressi recounted her son saying. “I’m at the Mexican border. You need to know this because I’m surrounded by Mexican military.”

Hours later, in another call, he told her, “Mom, I’ve been arrested, please secure me an attorney.”

Appearing with the distraught mother before the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee were television personality and former Navy Lt. Commander Montel Williams, who is also a former Marine, and Pete Hegseth, the CEO of Concerned Veterans for America and a Fox News contributor.

“We know for a fact that A’s time in this prison has been worse than his time in both tours of combat,” Williams said. “How dare we, how dare we as a nation, hesitate to get that young man back?”

The hearing took place just hours after Tahmooressi’s attorney, Fernando Benitez, told Fox News he plans to rest his case today, possibly opening the door for Tahmooressi's release within a matter of weeks.

"We have more than enough for an acquittal,” Benitez said. He said a crucial development in the case came within recent days, when the prosecution acknowledged that Tahmooressi's PTSD may have played a role in the immediate aftermath of his detention. That stipulation could pave the way to Tahmooressi’s release on humanitarian grounds, he said.

Lawmakers said it is outrageous for a U.S. ally to hold an ailing American on gun charges that clearly stem from an honest mistake. Tahmooressi was in the San Diego area to get PTSD treatment, and living out of his pickup truck when he mistakenly crossed the border at a poorly marked checkpoint. He immediately declared that the guns were among all of his possessions in the truck, according to Benitez.

“As a direct result of his honorable service in Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi now suffers from combat-related PTSD,” said Rep. Matt Salmon, R- Ariz. "Tragically, instead of receiving the treatment he needs, he is being held in a Mexican prison.

“Our war hero needs to come home,” he added.

Hegseth, a former infantry officer in the Army National Guard who served tours in Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, said the administration needs to do more to bring Tahmooressi home.

“Shame on anyone, at home or abroad, who does not move heaven and Earth to ensure that those who given so much, receive the care they deserve,” Hegseth said.

Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., noted that the Obama administration traded five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay for the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, accused of desertion by several men who served with him.

“Sgt. Tahmooressi is an American hero, whose wrong turn at the Mexican border has had the devastating effect of delaying his much-needed PTSD treatment for too long,” Royce said.

Royce said he and Salmon have been in contact with Mexico’s attorney general, who has the power to release Tahmooressi on humanitarian grounds. They said they impressed upon Jesus Karam that Tahmooressi had been diagnosed with PTSD by the VA San Diego Healthcare System just five days before his arrest.

“I am confident the humanitarian release of Andrew Tahmooressi will occur very soon,” Royce said.

More than 100,000 people have signed a petition asking the Obama administration to demand Tahmooressi’s release, prompting White House officials earlier this summer to ask Mexican authorities to quickly process the Marine’s case.

Gun Fight Cartoon

Oregon pols battle over when to pull plug on costly ObamaCare website

Cover Oregon was supposed to be a shining example of ObamaCare at its best. 
The state insurance exchange for the state of Oregon received $300 million in federal grants to launch a state-of-the-art website. But it never worked, and not a single Oregonian was able to sign up for health care from start to finish. 
So now, Oregon is in the process of pulling the plug on the site and switching over to the federal exchange and HealthCare.gov -- but the question is, how quickly they can do it. 
“We need to move forward and do the best thing for the people of Oregon,” Republican State Sen. Tim Knopp said, “and I think that’s ending Cover Oregon as soon as we practically can.” 
Knopp and other Oregon Republicans are calling for a special session of the Legislature -- since lawmakers created Cover Oregon, only the Legislature can end it. But Democrats control the Legislature and the governor’s office, and they’re pushing back against Republicans' demand, and would rather wait until the 2015 session convenes in February to complete the transition.
“There are functions that still have to be performed by someone in the next few weeks and months,” Democratic state Sen. Richard Devlin said. 
Inaction comes with a price tag. 
According to Republican leaders, it costs taxpayers $200,000 a day to keep Cover Oregon running. Waiting until February 2015 or beyond will cost $20 million.
A libertarian think tank is urging a Cover Oregon death sooner, not later. “The simplest thing to do, the cleanest thing to do would be to give Oregonians some certainty and say, you won’t be having to deal with Cover Oregon come November,” said Steve Buckstein of the Cascade Policy Institute.
Oregon officials decided earlier this year to hand off Cover Oregon functions to the Oregon Health Authority, which will work with the federal exchange and HealthCare.gov. But the transition is complicated by a lawsuit filed by the state of Oregon against its website contractor, Oracle. The state is seeking reimbursement alleging a breach of contract.
Also, there recently has been more bad news for Cover Oregon and hundreds of Oregonians. The agency recently discovered it made a serious miscalculation when determining the federal tax credit for 775 families that purchased health plans on the state exchange. It turns out they owe more taxes than they were told.
“This is Cover Oregon’s error,” said Cover Oregon’s Executive Director Aaron Patnode. “So what we’re evaluating at this time is the proper course of action to make sure these consumers have the least financial impact as possible.”
Some in the Oregon Legislature want the government to pay the back taxes.

Rise of ISIS takes center stage in NC Senate race, as Republican Tillis eyes game change

CHARLOTTE, N.C. –  Republican leaders had ticketed Thom Tillis as their best hope to unseat incumbent North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan -- but a month before voters go to the polls Tillis still is trailing, and his campaign is cranking up its attacks on Hagan's Senate record by questioning her national security credentials in light of the growing Islamic State threat. 
Tillis, the state House speaker, is turning up the heat in the final weeks. He's bringing in party luminaries for campaign cameos, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush last week. And he's hitting his Democratic opponent hard on foreign policy -- specifically, how one of the world's fastest-growing terror groups went largely ignored by lawmakers in Washington. 
On Monday, Tillis’ camp released a new 30-second ad that hammers Hagan for missing several Senate Armed Service Committee hearings while the Islamic State threat mounted. It accuses Hagan of missing half the committee hearings this year, suggesting both she -- and President Obama -- were sitting back at a critical time. 
“While ISIS grew, Obama kept waiting and Kay Hagan kept quiet,” the narrator says ominously. “The price for their failure is danger.” 
Hagan’s camp, which had been relatively quiet on the topic, hit back Monday – saying that Tillis’ new ad “attempts to distract from his own record by distorting Kay’s instead.”
But Tillis' approach effectively seizes on a growing national anxiety about the rise in terror groups, which is becoming a factor in races that used to focus on health care and the economy. 
During a recent stop in Charlotte, Tillis and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., hammered home the message that Hagan and Obama are to blame for the growing emergency linked to extremist groups like ISIS and said a new approach in Washington is needed. 
"Anything short of a strategy that calls for and achieves the complete elimination of ISIS and any emerging threats is unacceptable," Tillis said in an interview with FoxNews.com. 
He added, "I think this president needs to recognize that he, more than anyone else, needs to get that right and the senator that I'm running against, Kay Hagan, needs to start playing a more active role and demanding that we have a comprehensive strategy to what's occurring the Middle East." 
Tillis accused Hagan of siding with Obama and helping give rise to ISIS by their “inaction and appeasement.” 
The GOP nominee, though, was unclear when asked what he would do in Hagan's position. He said only that his decision would be based on what military officials told him and that as a “private citizen” he could not comment on what he’d do or how he’d vote.
When asked about the prospect of arming Syrian rebels, Tillis said he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to arm them, saying he would “have to know that these arms would not get in the hands of people who would want to take over the Middle East.”
Sadie Weiner, Hagan’s communication director, ripped Tillis for not saying what he would do. “North Carolinians – especially our servicemembers and their families – deserve better than Speaker Tillis’ spineless fence-sitting on this pressing national security threat,” she said. 
Andrew Taylor, professor of political science at North Carolina State University, also said such responses by Tillis could backfire with voters. 
But he nevertheless said the Tillis tactic of painting Hagan as “an out-of-touch, ineffective” politician could generate the bump the GOP nominee needs on Election Day.
“Tillis has been doing this for awhile and really going after Hagan as someone who isn’t a principle player in Washington and isn’t at the table when important decisions are being made,” Taylor said. 
Recent Fox News and other polls show Hagan slightly ahead. The Fox News poll showed Tillis leading by 5 points; a separate CNN/Opinion Research poll put her ahead by 3 points. Both surveys had a margin of error of 4 percentage points. 
Republicans need to pick up a net six Senate seats to gain control of the chamber next year. With once-sleepy races like Kansas suddenly looking competitive for Republicans, it makes states like North Carolina all the more important for the GOP. In the closing weeks, both parties are pulling out the stops, sending heavy-hitters into the state to stump for their respective nominees. 
Last week, Tillis campaigned with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Bush. Former President Bill Clinton will be a special guest Tuesday during a Hagan luncheon in Chapel Hill. 
The Senate race in North Carolina also has seen a staggering amount of outside money pouring in, with some experts predicting it will be one of the most expensive Senate races in history. 
The candidates' most recent campaign finance filings showed Hagan ahead with $8.7 million in cash on hand and Tillis with $1.5 million. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, more than $22 million has been spent in outside money in North Carolina for the midterm races, with the majority going to the Senate race.