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Trump campaign manager Conway grand marshal of Christmas parade in New Jersey

President-elect Donald Trump's campaign manager returns to her home state of New Jersey to lead a Christmas parade on Saturday.
Kellyanne Conway was grand marshal of the parade in Hammonton. She also received a key to the city.
Conway asked the parade crowd to "pray for our outgoing president and vice president" and "our new president and vice president." She also asked people to "do something special this holiday season," suggesting the crowd write a thank you note to a soldier or buy a coat for someone in need.
Conway mostly steered clear of politics during her brief remarks.

The Hammonton Fire Department says Conway was raised in Atco and graduated from St. Joseph's High School in Hammonton in 1985.

"Spread the real cheer and the generosity and the sheer love that comes from being in Hammonton," Conway said.
Conway regularly appears in the media on behalf of Trump and has even been spoofed on "Saturday Night Live."

Louisiana votes to send Republican John Kennedy to U.S. Senate

BATON ROUGE, La. –   Louisiana voters chose Saturday to send Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy to the U.S. Senate, filling the nation's last Senate seat and giving the GOP a 52-48 edge in the chamber when the new term begins in January.
Kennedy had always been the runoff election's front-runner in a state that overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump. He defeated Democrat Foster Campbell, a state utility regulator whose chances were seen as such a long-shot that national Democratic organizations offered little assistance to Campbell's campaign.
As he celebrated the victory, Kennedy said he represented change in Washington.
"I believe that our future can be better than our present, but not if we keep going in the direction the Washington insiders have taken us the last eight years," he said. "That's about to change, folks."
Voters also filled two open U.S. House seats Saturday, choosing Republican Clay Higgins, a former sheriff's captain known as the "Cajun John Wayne," in the 3rd District representing southwest and south central Louisiana and Republican state Rep. Mike Johnson in the 4th District covering northwest Louisiana.
Louisiana has an open primary system in which all candidates run against each other. In the contests for the open congressional seats, the November primary ballots were packed with contenders, so the top two vote-getters advanced to Saturday's runoff.
The Senate runoff drew national attention, with President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence each traveling to Louisiana to rally for Kennedy. The national GOP provided resources and staff to assist Kennedy's campaign, while national Democratic organizations largely abandoned Campbell, assuming an easy Republican win.
Though Campbell's chance appeared slim, donations had poured in from around the country, and several Hollywood celebrities championed his candidacy aiming to bolster resistance to the Trump presidency. Campbell said the support he received across the country was "phenomenal."
"We worked as hard as possible. We left no stone unturned," Campbell said in his concession speech. "I make no excuses. We did everything humanly possible."
The co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Sharon Day, described Kennedy's win as capping "a year of historic Republican wins up and down the ballot.
"With 52 seats in the U.S. Senate, we are excited for Republicans to confirm a conservative Supreme Court justice and begin working with President-elect Trump to pass an agenda of change for the American people," Day said in a statement.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat and ardent Campbell supporter, congratulated Kennedy and pledged to work with him to "deliver great things for the people of Louisiana."
The Senate seat was open because Republican David Vitter decided against running for a third term after losing the governor's race last year. Both men vying for the seat are well-known figures, involved in Louisiana politics for decades.
Kennedy, an Oxford-educated lawyer from south Louisiana, is in his fifth term as treasurer, a role in which he repeatedly drew headlines for his financial clashes with Louisiana's governors.
He sprinkled speeches with examples of government-financed contracts he considered outrageous, like money "to study the effects of Swedish massage on bunny rabbits." In the runoff, he ran a safe, TV-focused effort highlighting his support for Trump and his opposition to the federal health overhaul.
Campbell, a cattle farmer and former state senator from north Louisiana, is a populist who railed against "Big Oil," wanted to increase the minimum wage and talked openly about man-made climate change. He pledged that in Washington he wouldn't "be in anybody's shirt pocket."
He also ran as a Louisiana Democrat — strongly opposed to abortion and supportive of gun rights.
Kennedy hit Campbell for supporting Clinton. Campbell called Kennedy a flip-flopper during prior Senate bids, because the treasurer ran in 2004 as a liberal Democrat and the most recent two times as a conservative Republican.
In the 3rd District race, Higgins traded blistering attacks with his fellow Republican opponent, Scott Angelle, a member of the Public Service Commission and well-known public official for nearly 30 years.
Angelle had been the presumed front-runner. But Higgins — a local celebrity known for attention-grabbing Crime Stoppers videos he filmed when he was a sheriff's captain — capitalized on disenchantment with career politicians to defeat Angelle with only a fraction of his money and a bare-bones organization.
In the 4th District, Johnson defeated Democrat Marshall Jones in a competition that was less attack-laden.
Johnson focused on his work on conservative issues as a constitutional attorney and on his two years as a state lawmaker. Jones, also a lawyer, downplayed his party affiliation, running as an anti-abortion, gun-rights Democrat who could work with Trump.
The House seats were open because Republicans Charles Boustany and John Fleming unsuccessfully sought the Senate seat instead of re-election.

At Army-Navy game, Trump says thought of leading US soldiers, sailors 'humbling'

Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual Army-Navy football game praised the athletes on the field and the service academies’ students in the stands whom he’ll soon command as president, calling them “amazing people.”
“You don’t see this kind of spirit everywhere,” Trump, the Republican president-elect, said during halftime of the game in Baltimore. “Just amazing people.”
He also said the experience of becoming president and knowing he would lead such great men and women was “humbling” and also a “great honor and responsibility.”
“They want to be strong,” Trump said.
Trump otherwise largely kept the conversation with the CBS commentators light and chatty, going along with the idea of making Vern Lundquist the U.S. ambassador to Sweden.
“I couldn’t do better,” he said. “I think you could (pass Senate confirmation.) I think Sweden would be very happy.”
He also talked briefly about owning the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League and called Super Bowl MVP New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath a “great star.”
Trump spent the first half of the game in the box of David Urban, a West Point graduate and Republican adviser. He spent the second half in the box of retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, a graduate of Annapolis and Fox News contributor.
A Trump transition official said before kickoff that Trump would not formally switch sides at halftime in the traditional symbol of commander-in-chief neutrality because he is not the sitting president.
Trump was expected at the game to join several advisers, including incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior adviser Steve Bannon.
Trump is a 1964 graduate of the New York Military Academy, near West Point, in upstate New York.

After Boehner ouster, quiet period, Freedom Caucus attacks on IRS, ObamaCare

Rep. Mark Meadows: I respect Comey for being man of his word

The House Freedom Caucus -- the most conservative and raucous bunch in the chamber -- appears to have ended its wait-and-see approach with the leaders of the GOP-controlled chamber, roughly 16 months after ousting House Speaker John Boehner.
The group of about 40 House Republicans has given new Speaker Paul Ryan a wide berth since he replaced Boehner a month later, in fall 2015, and so far has posed only token opposition to Ryan’s re-nomination.
But the group made a racket this week in attempting to resurrect an unpopular plot to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and in calling for a quicker repeal and replacement of ObamaCare.
Republican Donald Trump vowed during his successful White House bid that repealing and replacing “disastrous” ObamaCare would be among his first official acts as president.
His promise was like a dream come true for House Republicans, particularly those in the fiscally conservative Freedom Caucus, considering they have tried dozens of times to at least partially repeal and replace ObamaCare since it was signed into law in 2010.
Congressional Republicans in the weeks after Trump’s surprise win called for immediate action, after years of unfulfilled promises to voters back home.
However, GOP leaders recently began talking about a two- or three-year effort, with no definitive plan to cover the roughly 20 million Americans who would lose coverage.
Such talk prompted new Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows to suggest earlier this week that the multi-year plan will be the group’s “first big fight” with leaders of the GOP-controlled Congress.
Meadows argues the entire process should be completed before the 2018 congressional elections, in which Republicans could lose their majority in either or both chambers.
“It should be repealed and replaced. And all of that should be done in the 115th Congress … not left to a future Congress to deal with,” he told Politico in an interview published Monday.
House Republicans last month voted in favor a second leadership term for Ryan. But he still faces a final floor vote in January, at the start of the 115th Congress, with members of the two-year-old Caucus having the potential to complicate matters by demanding a two-year repeal-replace program in exchange for their much-needed votes.
Meadows’ office was not able to fulfill a request last week by FoxNews.com for an interview.
The three-term North Carolina lawmaker was an early and solid Trump supporter but suggested last week that members of the fiscally conservative Caucus would oppose the president-elect's plan to impose tariffs on U.S. companies that move operations to other countries and still sell goods in America.
“I think, in general, most of our members would be against tariffs,” Meadows said on CNN.
The Caucus’ attempt last week to impeach Koskinen was led by outgoing Chairman Rep. John Jordon, Ohio, amid the argument Koskinen has tried to obstruct efforts by Congress to get to the bottom of the IRS targeting scandal that preceded him.
Jordon’s effort in September also was sidelined, amid fears that going after a non-Cabinet member would hurt GOP candidates’ chances in the November elections.  
“With majorities in both chambers of Congress and control the White House, Republicans cannot squander the opportunity before them to put America back on the right track,” Adam Brandon, chief executive of the influential conservative group FreedomWorks, said Tuesday. “Now is the time for House Republican leaders to work with the House Freedom Caucus.”

The Freedom Caucus, also known as the House Freedom Caucus, is a congressional caucus consisting of conservative Republican members of the United States House of Representatives. It was formed by a group of Congressmen as a "smaller, more cohesive, more agile and more active" group of conservatives.

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Trump closes companies tied to Saudi Arabia

Corporate registrations in Delaware show that President-elect Donald Trump shut down some of his companies in the days after the election, including four companies that appeared connected to a possible Saudi Arabia business venture.
News of the move comes days before Trump was expected to describe changes he is making to his businesses to avoid potential conflicts of interest as the U.S. president.
The Trump Organization's general counsel, Alan Garten, told The Associated Press that the business currently has no deals in Saudi Arabia.
Garten said he did not know why those companies were set up or whether they were involved a previously planned business venture.
He said the closure of corporate entities was routine.

Ryan: 'We've been fighting Barack Obama for 8 years'

The Speaker of the House said Friday that while President-elect Donald Trump and him had previously had their differences, now their relationship is great, saying at the “end of the campaign we merged forces.”
In an exclusive interview with Fox News' "Hannity," Paul Ryan discussed meeting with the President-elect at Trump Tower earlier on Friday saying the two decided to “forget about any differences in the past” in order to look forward and focus on “personnel and policy.”
“We agree on the same goals, our agenda is one in the same,” Ryan said of Trump.
Ryan discussed his main focus during the campaign process saying his, “primary responsibility is to save House Republicans.”
“You got to know how exciting this is for us,” Ryan said while discussing having a unified Republican government. He added. “We’ve been fighting Barack Obama for 8 years.”
Ryan said they were going to focus on getting things done and discussing a plan to undo “the wreck and the problems” and how to “execute it.”

U.S. is sending 200 more troops to Syria to help fight ISIS

MANAMA, Bahrain –   U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Saturday that as many as 200 more American troops are being sent to Syria to help Kurdish and Arab fighters capture the Islamic State group's key stronghold of Raqqa.
The extra troops will include special operations forces and are in addition to 300 U.S. troops already authorized for the effort to recruit, organize, train and advise local Syrian forces to combat IS.Addressing a security conference in Bahrain, Carter also took gentle jabs at U.S. Middle East partners for failing to provide more military muscle in the broader campaign to defeat IS and counter extremism.
Without mentioning any by name, Carter suggested the U.S. has been the target of disingenuous criticism from "regional powers here in the Middle East" for not doing more to help fight extremism.
"I would ask you to imagine what U.S. military and defense leaders think when they have to listen to complaints sometimes that we should do more, when it's plain to see that all too often, the ones complaining aren't doing enough themselves," he said.
He said it is not unreasonable for Washington to expect regional powers who oppose extremism in the Middle East to do more to help fight it, "particularly in the political and economic aspects of the campaign."

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Carter noted that many Sunni-led Gulf countries have expressed concern about the spread of Iranian influence in the region.
"The fact is, if countries in the region are worried about Iran's destabilizing activities - a concern the United States shares - they need to get in the game. That means getting serious about starting to partner more with each other, and investing in the right capabilities for the threat."
Carter said the 200 extra troops going to Syria will help local forces in their anticipated push to retake Raqqa, the de facto capital of the extremist group's self-styled caliphate, and to deny sanctuary to IS after Raqqa is captured.
He said President Barack Obama approved the troop additions last week.
"These uniquely skilled operators will join the 300 U.S. special operations forces already in Syria, to continue organizing, training, equipping, and otherwise enabling capable, motivated, local forces to take the fight to ISIL," Carter said in his address to the IISS Manama Dialogues in the Bahraini capital, using an alternative acronym for IS.
"By combining our capabilities with those of our local partners, we've been squeezing ISIL by applying simultaneous pressure from all sides and across domains, through a series of deliberate actions to continue to build momentum," he said.
The military push is complicated by the predominant role played by local Kurdish fighters, who are the most effective U.S. partner against IS in Syria but are viewed by Turkey -- a key U.S. ally -- as a terrorist threat.
A senior defense official said the troop boost announced by Carter will give the U.S. extra capability to train Arab volunteers who are joining the Raqqa push but are not well trained or equipped. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of internal Pentagon planning.

The First 100 Days: Can Trump really 'drain the swamp'?

In his often-repeated calls to "drain the swamp" of Washington, President-elect Donald Trump has targeted in particular the capital city's so-called "revolving door."
If there is a poster child for what that door represents, it might be former Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana -- a 12-term Democrat turned Republican, who chaired the influential House Commerce Committee from 2001 to 2004 and pushed the controversial Medicare Bill of 2003 through Congress.
The bill was designed, in part, to make drugs cheaper for senior citizens. But it ended up costing  taxpayers a fortune -- $549 billion over nine years. It also made huge profits for drug companies, partly because it prohibited Medicare and the federal government, which represented millions of senior patients, from negotiating for lower prices from pharmaceutical companies.
A few months later, Tauzin left Congress to become chief lobbyist for and CEO of The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America where he made an estimated $2 million a year.
"It's a sad commentary on politics in Washington that a member of Congress who pushed through a major piece of legislation benefiting the drug industry, gets the job leading that industry," Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said at the time.
Tauzin denied Fox News’ request for an interview, but has often defended his move. He told the Washington Post that he was diagnosed with intestinal cancer after leaving Congress and credited cutting-edge pharmaceuticals for his survival. "I wanted to work in an industry whose mission is no less than saving and enhancing lives,"  he told the Post.
Tauzin's route from Capitol Hill to the lobbying world is hardly unique. "Many of the top staffers who helped write the Affordable Care Act then became health care  lobbyists," said Tim Carney, commentary editor at the Washington Examiner.
Yet, this common practice is not illegal. Some believe it’s not even unethical.
Paul Miller of the National Institute for Lobbying and Ethics says the public benefits from the revolving door. "People don't like to hear that, but government is run a different way. You have to understand how it operates, and you need people like myself to be here every day looking out for your interests, because if you're not, somebody else will," he told Fox News.
Trump’s plan to drain the “swamp”  includes three ambitious components:

• A five-year ban on White House and congressional officials lobbying after they leave government.
• A lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.
• A complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.

History has proven it may be easier said than done. Of the thousands of influence peddlers in Washington, one is only considered a "registered" lobbyist if 20 percent or more of one's time is spent lobbying. Nobody measures that 20 percent. It’s an honor system.
"That's where the gray line is," Miller said. "You have people in the PR arena  who will say, I do some lobbying but most of it is in PR, so that’s not lobbying, so I don’t have to register. Its people skirting the system in my opinion.”
This has allowed the Obama administration to hire people who did lobbying work, after it vowed it would not. The same test awaits the Trump administration.
Miller said previous attempts to shut the revolving door have backfired. He cited the 2006 ban on lobbyists paying for a congressman's meal. Forbidden from picking up the tab, lobbyists simply found new ways to buy time and influence. "I can call your boss and say I want to have a one on one for an hour over a meal and talk about my issue, settle up with the check, and then push an envelope across the table and say, ‘Oh, by the way, here’s your campaign check.You tell me what looks more corrupt,’" said Miller.
The revolving door’s effect can be insidious, not only enriching those who pass through, but raising the cost of government. Take, for example, the Pentagon where former high-ranking military officers are scarfed up by major defense contractors to not just acquire their expertise, but to preserve the contractor’s connections and their business.
"Fewer and fewer companies are involved in the defense business because the Pentagon does play favorites," said Tom Schatz of Citizens Against Government Waste."  He added, "Smaller, newer, more agile companies have trouble getting into the process itself. When the Pentagon has 469 billion dollars in cost overruns in its major defense acquisition portfolio,  then something really needs to be done."