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Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington to address Congress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to Washington on Sunday to press his case against an emerging deal on Iran's nuclear program in a contentious address to the U.S. Congress, which he said he is delivering out of concern for Israel's security.
The address has caused an uproar that has exposed tensions between Israel and its most important ally, the United States. In accepting a Republican invitation to address Congress, Netanyahu angered the White House, which was not consulted with in advance of the invite, as well as Democrats who were forced to choose between showing support for Israel and backing their president.
Netanyahu plans to express his disapproval over a potential deal between Iran and world powers that he says falls short of preventing Tehran from having the ability to make an atomic bomb. A preliminary deadline is late this month.
"I feel deep and genuine concern for the security of all the people of Israel," Netanyahu told reporters on the tarmac, his wife by his side, before boarding his flight. "I will do everything in my ability to secure our future."
He called the trip a "crucial and even historic mission" and said he feels like "an emissary" of all citizens of Israel and the Jewish people.
Tuesday's speech to Congress has touched off a wave of criticism in Israel, where Netanyahu is seeking re-election on March 17.
His main challenger, Isaac Herzog, had demanded he cancel the speech. The former head of Israel's Mossad spy agency has called the address pointless and counterproductive. Netanyahu has long been a vocal critic of Iran, and his position is already well-known.
Stopping Iran from building a nuclear bomb has become a defining challenge for both President Barack Obama and Netanyahu, yet they have approached the issue differently.
Netanyahu considers unacceptable any deal that doesn't end Iran's nuclear program entirely. Obama appears to be willing to leave some nuclear activity intact, backed by safeguards that Iran is not trying to develop a weapon.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Venezuela to shrink US Embassy staff, require Americans to apply for tourist visas

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro announced Saturday the country will restrict the activities of U.S. diplomats, shrink the size of the U.S. Embassy staff and require Americans to apply for visas if they want to visit.
Maduro said at a protest against imperialism that “gringo” meddling had forced him to adopt the series of limitations that also includes requiring U.S. diplomats to seek approval from the Foreign Ministry before conducting meetings.
The new tourist visa requirement was imposed for national security reasons after authorities had detained several Americans, including a U.S. pilot, who allegedly were involved in espionage, Maduro said.
About an American pilot possibly being held in Venezuela, a State Department official told Fox News “we are still looking into it.”
Venezuela released four missionaries from North Dakota earlier Saturday. They were detained for several days for unknown reasons. Venezuela banned them from the country for two years.
Maduro also addressed President Obama directly Saturday, saying the U.S. president has "arrogantly" refused to engage in conciliatory talks. 
"I'm very sorry, Mr. President, that you have gone down this dead end," he during a speech that all Venezuelan television and radio stations were required to carry.
Venezuela plans to charge Americans the same tourist visa fees that the U.S. charges Venezuelans. The payment will have to be made in dollars. Maduro said he welcomes all comers.
A senior administration official in Washington said the U.S. government had not received any communications from Venezuela and couldn't comment yet on the new restrictions, which come after the U.S. recently imposed a travel ban on a list of top Venezuelan officials accused of human rights violations.
The official also again rejected Maduro's claims that the U.S. is plotting against Venezuela.
"We are aware of reports that President Maduro repeated a number of inflammatory statements about the United States during a televised political rally today. The continued allegations that the United States is involved in efforts to destabilize the Venezuelan government are baseless and false," said the official.
Earlier in the day, Venezuelans participated in two different protests. One rally called for the attention to a crackdown on government opponents and another showed support for the socialist administration.
Government supporters marched to the presidential palace to express their rejection of imperialism and commemorate the 26th anniversary of a convulsion of violence in Caracas widely seen by government backers as evidence of the brutality of pre-socialist administrations.
Opposition activists, meanwhile, gathered to denounce the arrest of Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma earlier this month and the death on Tuesday of a teenager who was shot during an anti-government protest.

Colleges using coffers for financial aid to illegal immigrants stirs debate on immigration reform

Several U.S. colleges are giving financial aid directly to students who are young illegal immigrants, extending the debate about helping people in the United States illegally at the expense of Americans who are in need of similar opportunities.
Such opportunities have opened up since President Obama's 2012 executive action that deferred deportation to millions of young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. However, they still are largely ineligible for state or federal student aid.
New York University -- which receives federal, state and city money -- says the aid given to illegal immigrants is not at the expense of American students.
“This is not taking away from anybody,” MJ Knoll-Finn, an N.Y.U. admissions officer, told The New York Times, which first reported the story. “This is a formalized way of making sure these students know they’re welcome.”
However, others disagree.
"This policy not only encourages new illegal immigration, but comes at the expense of the college dreams of young Americans," Stephen Miller, spokesman for Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on immigration and the national interest, told FoxNews.com on Saturday.
Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Times that such funding has a "zero-sum aspect to it."
"The fact is, there is not an unlimited pot of money to help needy students or high-achieving low-income students. And there is a certain one-for-one, a crowding-out effect," he said.
NYU received at least $310 million in federal money in 2012, in addition to state and city grants, according to the school’s website.
In addition, school President John Sexton has put the NYU community’s support behind a budget proposal by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to give financial aid to illegal immigrants.
“Expanding educational opportunities for immigrant youth not only helps individual students,” Sexton wrote Cuomo in a Feb. 7 letter. “It helps entire communities, states and the nation as a whole.”
The New York legislature on Thursday pass a so-called DREAM Act, which would make illegal immigrants eligible for state tuition breaks and college savings plan. But the measure will face strong opposition from state Senate Republicans in the budget negotiations.
The battle is similar to those in Washington and across the county.
Congressional Republicans nearly shut down the Department of Homeland Security this week by trying to tie a funding bill to efforts to roll back Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
Congress late Friday passed a last-minute bill, signed by the president, to fund the agency. But the funding is for just seven days, and the battle will resume next week.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in Texas earlier this month temporarily halted the executive actions. The judge declined a Justice Department request to lift the stay by Wednesday. He is expected by Monday to make a decision on the request, but the administration will likely attempt to take the issue to a federal appeals court.
Other colleges reportedly acknowledge that the financial aid for illegal immigrant students comes from the same coffers that help American students but argue that diversity is always an admissions’ challenge and that illegal immigrant students bring a unique perspective to the campus community.
Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania is among the other colleges that are giving financial aid to illegal immigrant students.
President Daniel R. Porterfield said the school has been offering more of such aid as a result of the 2012 executive action, known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
“It now gives those students the legal right to be more out of the shadows than they had been when they were simply undocumented,” he told The Times.
Illegal immigrants in some states, including California and Texas, are eligible for state financial-aid programs. And more than a dozen reportedly allow illegal immigrant students who have attended public high schools to pay in-state college tuition.

Reports of possible deal on DHS funding reignites chatter about Boehner ouster

Multiple reports that House Speaker John Boehner has cut a deal to pass a long-term funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security without ties to rolling back President Obama’s executive action on immigration has reignited rumblings about a Boehner coup.
The deal was purportedly struck as the House agreed late Friday night to fund the agency for seven days to avoid a partial shutdown.
At least one congressional aide said the deal between Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was to get enough Democratic votes in the Republican-led chamber to avoid the shutdown at midnight Friday, in exchange for Boehner’s promise to allow a vote next week on a long-term funding bill “clean” of the immigration issue.
Boehner spokesman Mike Steel told Fox News that such a deal doesn’t exist. Pelosi’s office has neither confirmed nor denied such a deal.
The calls for Boehner’s ouster appear to be coming mostly from the 50-plus, most-conservative members who formed the new Freedom Caucus. And they appear to be growing more restless.
The number of House Republicans who voted Friday night against the 7-day funding for DHS was 55, compared to 52 who voted against the failed 3-week funding bill earlier in the evening.
The party’s most conservative wing tried unsuccessfully in January, at the start of the 114th Congress, to replace Boehner.
A dozen House Republicans either voted for somebody else or didn’t cast a vote.
Ousting a House speaker is unprecedented. Electing a House speaker and thus trying to remove one is a “privileged” effort in the lower chamber. Privileged resolutions can skip to the front of the legislative line and not be sidetracked by leadership.
Jefferson’s Manual, crafted by Thomas Jefferson and still used today as one of the main sources for House operations, says the following:
“A Speaker may be removed at the will of the House and a Speaker pro tempore appointed.”
But it’s unclear how that process happens since no speaker has ever faced a challenge in the middle of the Congress.
Boehner opponents could write a “privileged” resolution declaring that the speakership is vacant. The House would then vote on that motion or possibly vote to table or kill it.
The closest the House ever got to this scenario came during the failed coup attempt in July 1997 on House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
They tried to bring forth such a privileged “vacancy” resolution, but the coup fizzled after Gingrich learned of it and those who tried it realized they didn’t have the votes.

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'Knives are out': Hawaii Dem faces backlash for taking on Obama over 'Islamist' extremism

She was Hawaii's golden girl after winning a seat in Congress with support from top liberal groups, but now that Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been critical of President Obama, her political reputation in the bluest of blue states is taking a hit.
That isn’t stopping the twice-deployed 33-year-old Army veteran from continuing to challenge the president, her home state's favorite son, over his refusal to identify terror groups like the Islamic State as driven by "radical Islam.”
“Every soldier knows this simple fact: If you don't know your enemy, you will not be able to defeat him,” Gabbard told FoxNews.com. “Our leaders must clearly identify the enemy as Islamist extremists, understand the ideology that is motivating them and attracting new recruits, and focus on defeating that enemy both militarily and ideologically.”
Gabbard has been hitting this message for weeks now, putting her at odds with many in her party who toe the line that the Islamic State should not be associated with Islam.

“Every soldier knows this simple fact: If you don't know your enemy, you will not be able to defeat him."- Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii

Gabbard called "mind-boggling" Obama's refusal to associate ISIS with the Muslim religion, even though the terrorist army is emphatic it is enforcing a strict interpretation of Islam.
"[Obama] is completely missing the point of this radical Islamic ideology that’s fueling these people,” she said.

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The Army veteran has encountered rough political surf since challenging President Obama.

Her comments have stunned political experts in her home state.
“It is very, very unusual for a junior member in the president's own party to criticize him,” said Colin Moore, assistant professor at the University of Hawaii Department of Political Science. “Especially for someone considered a rising star in the party. This is a serious gamble for her.”
Michael W. Perry, of Hawaii's most popular KSSK Radio's "Perry & Price Show," said that "while Gabbard is correct in her 'emperor has no clothes' moment, she may have lost her future seat on Hawaii's political bench." He said she's committed "a mortal sin" by challenging Obama, and "now the knives are out."
For now, she's taking her hits in the media.
The editorial board of the online political news journal Civil Beat, owned by eBay Founder Pierre Omiydar, said "the bright-red Right" is promoting her criticism but she is not "presenting serious policy arguments."
"One wonders where Gabbard is going with this. Sure, the Iraq war veteran and rising political star is achieving national prominence in a high-profile discussion. But at what cost?" the editorial board wrote, saying her comments could be dismissed "as pandering from a young pol with lofty ambitions."
Bob Jones, columnist for the Oahu-based Midweek, wrote a scathing piece suggesting Gabbard should be challenged in 2016. "I take serious issue when somebody who's done a little non-fighting time in Iraq, and is not a Middle East or Islamic scholar, claims to know better than our President and Secretary of State how to fathom the motivations of terrorists, or how to refer to them beyond the term that best describes them -- terrorists," Jones said.
Gabbard acknowledges the political risks. “I'm not naïve,” Gabbard said. “It could hurt me politically, but I don’t worry about it because that's not what I care about. ... Our national security and the future of our country is infinitely more important than partisan politics or my personal political future."

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who directed the Defense Intelligence Agency, said this should not be a political issue. “[Gabbard] has taken a very courageous stand in a party that just refuses to face reality,” he said.
Decorated intelligence officer and noted specialist on Islamic law, Stephen Coughlin, who authored the book "Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad," set for release in March, also sided with Gabbard. “Rep. Gabbard is correct as a matter of history, she is correct as a matter of current events, and she is correct of published Islamic law.”

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While Gabbard has many detractors, she has a growing number of supporters, including a former Hawaii GOP congressional candidate who spent seven years in a POW camp in Vietnam.
“It is encouraging to see a bright young woman like Congresswoman Gabbard in politics in Hawaii, speaking up the way she is doing,” said retired Lt. Col. Orson Swindle, who was awarded 20 military decorations for valor in combat including two silver stars and two purple hearts.
Born in American Samoa as one of five children, Gabbard moved to Hawaii as a toddler. Her parents, strict social conservatives, were elected to public office in Hawaii -- her father, Mike Gabbard, to the state Senate, and her mother, Carol Gabbard, to the statewide Board of Education.
In 2002 at age 21, Gabbard was the youngest person ever elected to the Hawaii Legislature. The following year, she enlisted with the Hawaii National Guard, and was voluntarily deployed in 2004 to Iraq with the 29th Brigade. On the military front, she made a name for herself, awarded the Meritorious Service Medal during Operation Iraqi Freedom and designated a distinguished honor graduate at Fort McClellan's Officer Candidate School.
After her first deployment, Gabbard worked as a legislative aide in Washington, D.C., to U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, a beloved Hawaiian senator who advocated for his fellow veterans, until she was deployed a second time -- to the volatile "Sunni Triangle" in Iraq.
"She along with the soldiers of the 29th didn't spend all their time inside the wire, and witnessed the horrific Muslim on Muslim violence and carnage in the name of Allah," said retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, the adjutant general for Hawaii during Gabbard’s deployment.
After returning home, Gabbard was elected to the Honolulu City Council in 2010. She stepped down to run for Congress in 2012, taking on the well-financed former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann. Much to the surprise of political observers, she easily beat Hannemann in the primary, largely with the help of the progressive veteran group VoteVets.org. She was also backed by Emily’s List and the Sierra Club.
Winning a second term in 2014 was easy. Throughout, she has been defined by her contrasts:
A captain in the Hawaii National Guard, she also was featured on the pages of Vogue magazine and named as one of The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful People.
She’s a left-leaning Democrat until it comes to foreign affairs.
She is a junior member of her party, but not afraid to speak up when she feels the highest-ranking member of her own party is wrong.
While she suits up at work, she leaves behind formalities to go surfing. She also is the first Hindu, the first Samoan, and one of the first two female combat veterans to serve as a member of Congress.
Some analysts believe she has stirred up controversy in preparation to challenge U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, in the primary election in 2016. When asked by Fox News if she will run for U.S. Senate, Gabbard said “no.”
“Anyone who thinks I'm playing politics with national security issues clearly doesn't know me,” Gabbard said.

The Internet Gone Mad: Stop talking about white and gold dress. Now.

I’m color blind. There’s not much good that comes from being color blind. Traffic lights are a challenge. I can never be a pilot. My wife frequently sends me back into the closet to change the frightful mélange of colors in which I’ve adorned myself, and I’m useless as a sounding board for her when she’s shopping (there’s also the fact that she looks stunningly beautiful in any color).
But finally I’ve found the silver (or is it blue?) lining to being color blind. The gold/white, black/blue dress debate doesn’t matter to me. To me it’s green, blue, yellow, white, red, turquoise, magenta, grey, green and every other color on this great earth. And I don’t care.

I love Facebook, I tweet a lot, I’ve been known to Instagram on occasion. But this? This national debate over what color a dress may or may not be? What has happened to us?

If you see it a certain way, and like it, buy the damn thing. If you don’t it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter -- not in a real sense, to anyone. No one. Not a single soul. But somehow the color combinations and what different brains and eyes register has taken Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and every water cooler conversation by storm.
People are fighting, yes fighting, over what colors they see in a dress. I hereby declare the Internet broken, the world gone mad, and our public discourse officially dumb and dumber.
Get a life people. This is a free country. See what you like. Wear what you like. Say what you like. Just stop doing it on social media.
Look, I love Facebook, I tweet a lot, I’ve been known to Instagram on occasion. But this? This national debate over what color a dress may or may not be?
What has happened to us? What has happened to debating the great issues of the day? New ideas on tackling terrorism, reaching across religious and cultural divides, discussing ways to end poverty in America and around the world, guarding our privacy in the digital era?
Hey, why talk about those things when there’s an ugly dress to talk about that could be blue and black or may be white and gold, or perhaps is made in both color combinations and there’s more than one photo of it. (Now there’s a whole new conspiracy theory to set Tumblr alight!)  The social square where we could all talk to each other and make the world a better, more inter-connected place has become a black hole of banality.
Just stop it.
And leave me alone in my purple and red pajamas. I’m watching llamas on the loose. They’re black and white. I think.

Jeb Bush stands firm on controversial immigration, education policies at CPAC

Jeb Bush stood firm at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, defending his position on immigration reform and Common Core before a sometimes skeptical crowd of voters who don’t always see eye to eye with his policies.
Energetic and composed, Bush also defended his record on granting drivers licenses to illegal immigrants while he was governor of Florida.
“The simple fact is there is no plan to deport 11 million people,” he said. “We should give them a path to legal status where they work, where they don’t receive government benefits … where they learn English and where they make a contribution to our society.”
His comments were met with a mix of applause and scattered boos from the crowd – a change from earlier in the day when just the mere mention of his name triggered a chorus of boos.
Bush’s appearance at CPAC was largely seen as an olive branch to those conservative voters who have disapproved of some of his controversial ideas, as he moves toward a 2016 presidential bid.
At CPAC, Bush also defended his view on granting in-state tuition for students in the country illegally -- a stark contrast to ex-Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s view on the topic.
As Bush upheld his position on higher education standards, he also told the crowd that the “federal government has no role in the creation of standards” and said the government should not dictate what is taught in schools.
“The role of the federal government, if any, is to create more school choice,” he said to a cheering crowd.
Prior to Bush’s speech, there had been some talk of a walk-out. The National Review reported seeing “scores” of CPAC attendees leaving as soon as Bush began speaking with protesters reportedly chanting “USA, USA.”
Democratic National Committee spokesman Ian Sams said Bush’s speech was just more of the same.
“Jeb Bush isn’t a new type of Republican, and he certainly isn’t looking out for everyday people in America,” Sams said in a written statement. “Instead, he’s the same Jeb Bush who, as governor, supported slashing funding for urban schools and higher education, while giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations. Bush may say he can bring Latino voters into the GOP fold, but with priorities like these, that’s really hard to imagine.”
Earlier in the day, Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson strode onstage to give the conservative crowd a spirited history lesson, which included quotes from and about President John Adams and a lengthy warning about sexually transmitted illnesses.
Robertson’s unconventional speech was among the most well-received at CPAC.
The patriarch of the “Duck Dynasty” franchise was also on hand to receive the “Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award” at the event. During his acceptance speech, he launched into a lengthy monologue about morals, responding to criticism that he was too religious by telling the crowd, "I'm trying to help you, for crying out loud, America!"
“You lose your religion, according to John Adams, and there goes your morality,” he said. “We’re almost there. I hate to admit I got my facts from the CDC the day before yesterday -- 110 million, 110 million Americans now have a sexually transmitted illness.”
Robertson, whose walked on stage dressed down in a dark shirt and bandana, pulled out the Bible and read a passage from it. He exited the stage just as dramatically as he entered it.
He saluted the crowd and said in his signature dry tone, “God help us.”
Earlier in the day, former Texas Gov. Perry, declaring "our leadership is failing," told the crowd that the country needs to do a better job securing the border and fighting terror groups like the Islamic State -- but assured the audience "we will survive the Obama years."
Perry, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, said he was there “to speak plainly about the times we live in” and said the country “has entered a time of testing and our leadership is failing.”
Perry also called out Obama for comments he said have been less than truthful.
“The president declared that the advancement of ISIS has been stopped and that is not true,” Perry said. “He is wrong. To deny the nature of the threat and to downplay it is naïve and misguided. That’s the worst threat to freedom since communism.”
Perry also took on the topic of immigration. Perry said when the administration deals with immigration “people literally die.”
“We’ve had to deal with this issue last summer when there were literally tens of thousands of people showing up [at the border], “ he said. “The country was being impacted by it.”
Perry was among a handful of Republican presidential hopefuls courting the conservative crowd at this year’s conference.
As a parting shot, Perry told the crowd, “We survived Depression, we even survived Jimmy Carter and we will survive the Obama years too!”
Also making waves Friday morning at CPAC was Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Rubio used his time to target Obama’s foreign policies, focusing mostly on Iran’s nuclear threat. During his speech, Rubio said America needed a leader who understands that the way to defeat the Islamic State “wasn’t to give him a job,” referencing comments made by State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf who suggested a way to fight the Islamic State was by creating jobs and economic opportunity.
Rubio also said negotiations between the Obama administration and Iran’s leaders to curb Tehran’s nuclear program were “foolish” and said the U.S. should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that it fully backs Israel.
Rubio also blamed Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s foreign policies for weakening America’s standing on the world’s stage.
“Because of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, our allies no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us,” Rubio said.
Meanwhile, former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton told reporters he’s considering a presidential run of his own and said those in the crowd were once again focusing on global threats.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., is scheduled to speak on Saturday – the final day of the three-day conference.