Mattis: US will not accept a nuclear North Korea

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued a stern warning to North Korea on Saturday: Despite its ongoing missile and nuclear programs, it is simply no match for the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

“Make no mistake,” Mattis said during a news conference in Seoul, “any attack on the United States or our allies will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons by the North will be met with a massive military response that is effective and overwhelming.”

During the joint appearance with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo, Mattis acknowledged that the threat of a nuclear missile attack by North Korea was accelerating.
The CIA says North Korea could be just months away from being capable of hitting the U.S. with a nuclear strike, Reuters reported.
Mattis accused the regime of Kim Jong Un of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programs -- and vowed to defeat any attack.
He said the North engages in "outlaw" behavior and that the U.S. would never accept a nuclear North. He added that regardless of what the North might try, it is overmatched by the firepower and cohesiveness of the decades-old U.S.-South Korean alliance.
“North Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbors and the world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear weapons programs," Mattis said, adding that U.S.-South Korean military and diplomatic collaboration thus has taken on "a new urgency."
“I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States would accept North Korea as a nuclear power," he said.

"I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States would accept North Korea as a nuclear power."

- U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis

As he emphasized throughout his weeklong Asia trip – which comes ahead of President Donald Trump’s own scheduled tour of East Asia next week -- Mattis said diplomacy remains the preferred way to deal with the North.
Mattis's comments in Seoul did not go beyond his recent statements of concern about North Korea, although he appeared to inject a stronger note about the urgency of resolving the crisis.
While he accused the North of "outlaw" behavior, he did not mention that President Donald Trump has ratcheted up his own rhetoric. In August, Trump warned the North not to make any more threats against the United States, and said that if it did, it would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Limits would be lifted
Song, the South Korean minister, told the news conference that he and Mattis agreed that limits on South Korea conventional missile warhead payloads would be lifted. He offered no specifics.
Also discussed were the conditions under which South Korea would be given wartime operational control of its forces. Currently, if war with the North broke out, the South's forces would operate under the U.S.-led U.N. Command.
Trump entered office declaring his commitment to solving the North Korea problem, asserting that he would succeed where his predecessors had failed. His administration has sought to increase pressure on Pyongyang through U.N. Security Council sanctions and other diplomatic efforts, but the North hasn't budged from its goal of building a full-fledged nuclear arsenal, including missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland.
If Trump sticks to his pledge to stop the North from being able to threaten the U.S. with a nuclear attack, something will have to give - either a negotiated tempering of the North's ambitions or a U.S. acceptance of the North as a nuclear power.
The other alternative would be U.S. military action to attempt to neutralize or eliminate the North's nuclear assets - a move fraught with risk for South Korea, Japan and the United States.
At his Seoul news conference, Mattis said the North is, in effect, shooting itself in the foot.
“If it remains on its current path of ballistic missiles and atomic bombs, it will be counterproductive, in effect reducing its security," he said.

The North says it needs nuclear weapons to counter what it believes is a U.S. effort to strangle its economy and overthrow the Kim government.
Second visit to region
This was Mattis's second visit to South Korea since taking office in January. He made a point of going to Seoul and Tokyo on his first overseas trip in February, saying he wanted to emphasis the importance he places on strengthening alliances and partnerships.
On Friday he visited the Demilitarized Zone that forms an official buffer between the two Koreas. He appeared there with Song in what they both called a show of solidarity.
U.S. government officials for decades have confidently but mistakenly predicted the approaching collapse of North Korea, given its economic and political isolation.
Twenty years ago, Mattis's predecessor five times removed, William Cohen, said as he peered into North Korea from inside the DMZ that its communist system was "decaying and dying." His view was widely shared in Washington, but, like others, he underestimated the resilience of Pyongyang's family dynasty, which began with Kim Il Sung.
The current ruler assumed control of the country shortly after his father, Kim Jong-Il, died in December 2011, and has accelerated the country's nuclear and missile programs.

Mueller Russia probe reportedly nets first charges

Charges have reportedly been filed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.  (Associated Press)

The first charges have been filed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, reports said Friday evening.

At least one person could be taken into custody as early as Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.

It wasn't immediately clear who could be charged or for what.
Richard Hibey, attorney for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, told Fox News that neither he nor any of his colleagues representing Manafort had been informed of any indictment of their client.
Manafort has been the subject of a longstanding investigation due to his dealings in Ukraine several years ago – for which he didn’t file as a foreign agent until June 2017. Manafort had his house raided by FBI agents earlier this summer and was reportedly wiretapped by investigators – before and after the election.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is another possible target of the probe.
A retired Army lieutenant general, Flynn served as a Trump surrogate during the campaign and briefly served as national security adviser before being fired over his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, who was Russia's ambassador to the United States.
Mueller has reportedly probed whether Flynn was involved in a private effort to get former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's emails from Russian hackers.
MUELLER'S RUSSIA INVESTIGATION: WHAT TO KNOW
The special counsel's office declined to comment on the reports of filed charges. There was no immediate comment from the White House.

Opioid Crisis Cartoons

The New York City Board of Elections Admits to Purging Voter Rolls

People vote in the New York primary elections at a polling station in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., April 19, 2016. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

OAN Newsroom

The New York City Board of Elections is admitting it purged voter rolls.

New York’s Attorney General said on Wednesday the board reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought against it for removing more than 200,000 voters its rolls just before the 2016 primaries.
As part of the reported settlement, the board admitted its removal of voters violated both state and federal laws.
Under the deal, all wrongly purged voters will have their names restored to the rolls and the board will be required submit a plan to fix the voter rolls within 90 days.
However, a judge still needs to sign off on the settlement for it to take effect.

Arizona billionaire fueled opioid crisis with bribery scheme, authorities say

An Arizona billionaire was arrested Thursday and charged with leading a conspiracy to profit from an opioid narcotic.

John Kapoor, 74, the founder of opioid pharmaceutical producer Insys Therapeutics (INSY) and the sixth richest man in Arizona with a net worth of $2.1 billion, was charged with the illegal distribution of a fentanyl spray and with violating anti-kickback laws, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston.

Kapoor's scheme allegedly included bribing doctors into over-prescribing a painkiller intended only for cancer patients.
Most of the patients who were prescribed the fentanyl-based painkiller called Subsys – intended only for cancer patients – did not have cancer, authorities said.
The drug is reportedly 80 times stronger than morphine, the Arizona Republic reported.
"In the midst of a nationwide opioid epidemic that has reached crisis proportions, Mr. Kapoor and his company stand accused of bribing doctors to overprescribe a potent opioid and committing fraud on insurance companies solely for profit," said Acting U.S. Attorney William D. Weinreb in Boston. "Today's arrest and charges reflect our ongoing efforts to attack the opioid crisis from all angles."
The success of the drug made Insys one of Arizona’s most profitable companies, but the stocks have plummeted since the investigation began and since Kapoor was arrested. Shares plunged by more than 20 percent on Thursday's news.
The indictment against Kapoor follows the Wednesday news that a Rhode Island doctor had pleaded guilty to participating in a bribery scheme in exchange for prescribing an Insys opioid drug.
Dr. Jerrold Rosenberg reportedly received $188,000 in kickbacks from Insys in the form of speaking fees, influencing Rosenberg's decisions to prescribe Subsys to his patients, Reuters reported.
Last December, former Insys CEO Michael L. Babich and five other former executives and managers of th company were arrested and indicted on similar charges.
An Insys spokesperson said the company is now under new management and has taken steps to avoid repeating past mistakes.
"We also continue to work with relevant authorities to resolve issues related to the misdeeds of former employees," a company statement said.

Fox News Poll: Changing concerns on US security

Americans’ perceptions of national security threats have changed dramatically. 

A new Fox News poll of voters nationwide finds: 

-The number that sees rogue nations like North Korea as the greatest threat to the U.S. has nearly tripled in less than a year.
-Worries about a nuclear attack on the U.S. have jumped dramatically.
-The perceived danger posed by terrorist groups has dropped significantly.
READ THE FULL POLL RESULTS.
Here are more details on the poll, released Thursday:
The largest number of voters, 33 percent, says rogue nations like North Korea and Iran pose the biggest threat to national security.  That’s nearly three times as many who felt that way in January (12 percent).  At that time, a majority said the greatest threat was terrorist groups like ISIS.  But the number picking terrorist groups as the greatest threat has dropped by nearly half: from 51 percent to 27 percent today.

Since January, North Korea has conducted nearly 40 missile tests or launches and fired off a long-range missile, while President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have traded insults. At the same time, Trump has threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear agreement, while major progress was made in defeating the terrorist group ISIS in Raqqa.
Opinion has also shifted on which type of attack poses the most immediate threat to the country’s security.  Today, 38 percent say cyberattacks, 26 percent terrorist attacks, and 17 percent nuclear attacks.  The number citing cyberattacks is up 3 points since January, and those pointing to nuclear attacks increased by 7 points.  But the percentage saying terrorist attacks dropped 17 points.

Meanwhile, when asked which poses a bigger threat here in the United States, 53 percent of voters say a shooting by an American citizen, while 27 percent say a terrorist attack by an Islamic terrorist.

An October 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left nearly 500 people injured and 58 dead happened at the hands of an American citizen whose motive is yet unknown.  There have been no confirmed ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States this year.
By a 23-point margin, voters give the Trump administration negative ratings for its response to the Las Vegas shooting:  34 percent excellent/good vs. 57 percent fair/poor.

President Trump’s ratings on handling North Korea are underwater by a 24-point margin (35 percent approve vs. 59 percent disapprove).  On Iran, it’s a net negative by 21 points (34-55 percent).
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,005 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from October 22-24, 2017.  The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.

Delayed release of JFK records causes backlash

The delayed release of hundreds of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy caused a backlash among scholars and researchers Thursday night, while President Donald Trump insisted that "I had no choice" but to keep the documents back.

In a memo late Thursday, Trump cited "potentially irreversible harm" to national security if he were to allow all records to come out now. He placed those files under a six-month review while letting 2,891 others come out, racing a deadline to honor a law mandating their release.

White House officials said the FBI and CIA made the most requests within the government to withhold some information.
"The government has had 25 years--with a known end-date--to prepare (hash)JFKfiles for release," University of Virginia historian Larry Sabato tweeted in the afternoon. "Deadline is here. Chaos."
The 1992 law mandating release of the JFK documents states that all the files "shall be publicly disclosed in full" within 25 years -- that meant by Thursday -- unless the president certified that "continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense; intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations."
That doesn't allow the president, for example, to hold some records back because they might be embarrassing to agencies or people. The law does not specify penalties for noncompliance, saying only that House and Senate committees are responsible for oversight of the collection.
The documents that were released show federal agents madly chasing after tips, however thin, in the days after the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination and juggling rumors and leads worldwide. The materials also cast a wide net over varied activities of the Kennedy administration, such as its covert efforts to upend Fidel Castro's government in Cuba.
In a Sept. 14, 1962, meeting disclosed in the files, for example, a group of Kennedy's senior aides, including brother Robert, the attorney general, discussed a range of options against Castro's communist government.
The meeting was told the CIA would look into the possibility of sabotaging airplane parts that were to be shipped to Cuba from Canada. McGeorge Bundy, JFK's national security adviser, cautioned that sensitive ideas like sabotage would have to be considered in more detail on a case-by-case basis.
A CIA spokesperson told Fox News that the agency had released all but 18,000 of its more than 87,000 documents related to the assassination and promised that the outstanding records would be made available.
The spokesperson added that some of the remaining documents contained redactions that "were undertaken with the intent to protect information in the collection whose disclosure would harm national security -- including the names of CIA assets and current and former CIA officers, as well as specific intelligence methods and partnerships that remain viable to protecting the nation today."
Mark Zaid, an attorney who handles cases involving national security, whistleblowers and the Freedom of Information Act, tweeted after the documents were released that that "the GOOD stuff has absolutely been withheld as part of 180 day review."
No blockbusters had been expected in the last trove of secret files regarding Kennedy's assassination, given a statement months ago by the Archives that it assumed the records, then under preparation, would be "tangential" to what's known about the shooting.
But for historians, it's a chance to answer lingering questions, put some unfounded conspiracy theories to rest, perhaps give life to other theories
"As long as the government is withholding documents like these, it's going to fuel suspicion that there is a smoking gun out there about the Kennedy assassination," Patrick Maney, a presidential historian at Boston College, told the Associated Press
Even Wikileaks got into the act, with founder Julian Assange calling the delay "inexcusable." The self-described government transparency organization, which CIA Director Mike Pompeo has described as a "hostile intelligence service," offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who leaked the withheld documents "should they show violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error."

Russian Collusion Cartoons

Fusion GPS scandal: Clinton, DNC broke campaign finance law with dossier funding, complaint says

The revelation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund a salacious anti-Trump dossier last year is raising new legal questions for the Clinton team — with a watchdog group filing a formal complaint alleging they hid the payments from public view.
The Campaign Legal Center filed the complaint Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, accusing the DNC and Clinton’s campaign committee of breaking campaign finance law by failing to accurately disclose the money spent on the Trump-Russia dossier.
“Questions about who paid for this dossier are the subject of intense public interest, and this is precisely the information that FEC reports are supposed to provide,” Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center said in a statement to Fox News.
The Washington Post reported this week — and Fox News confirmed — that the political consulting firm Fusion GPS was retained last year by Marc E. Elias, an attorney representing the DNC and the Clinton campaign. The firm then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to write the now-infamous dossier.
According to the Post, that money was routed from the Clinton campaign and the DNC through the law firm Perkins Coie and described on FEC reports as legal services.
Responding to the revelations, Clinton’s former campaign spokesman Brian Fallon compared the project to the kind of “oppo research” that “happens on every campaign.”
But the Campaign Legal Center described the FEC reporting as “misleading.”
“Payments by a campaign or party committee to an opposition research firm are legal, as long as those payments are accurately disclosed,” Fischer said. “But describing payments for opposition research as ‘legal services’ is entirely misleading and subverts the reporting requirements.”
The controversial dossier contained unverified and lurid allegations about dirt the Russians had on Trump and his campaign’s possible connections to Moscow.
Critics argued the latest revelation makes it harder for Democrats to accuse the Trump campaign of collusion.
“Kremlin gave info to Christopher Steele,” tweeted Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “His oppo-research was paid for by the Clinton campaign. If that’s not collusion, what is?”
“Given Democrats’ argument that Russia’s interference on Trump’s behalf was beyond the pale, the Clinton camp and the DNC paying a Brit for information would seem somewhat problematic,” wrote Aaron Blake of the Washington Post.
Responding to the controversy, a DNC official stressed that current Chairman “Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization.”
A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who led the DNC at the time, told Fox News on Wednesday that, “She did not have any knowledge of this arrangement.”
It’s unclear what Hillary Clinton may have known about the research, though Fallon said he didn’t know at the time.
“I personally wasn’t aware of this during the campaign,” Fallon said in a statement, adding: “The first I learned of Christopher Steele or saw any dossier was after the election. But if I had gotten handed it last fall, I would have had no problem passing it along and urging reporters to look into it.”
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Wednesday slammed Democrats for not being more concerned about Russia’s role in the dossier.
“It really tests the validity of how much the Democrats want to get to the bottom of Russia’s interference in this election,” McDaniel said on Fox News’ “The Daily Briefing.” “Because when it comes to them, when it comes to the DNC, when it comes to Hillary Clinton, they don’t seem to have that same appetite as when it comes to this witch-hunt against President Trump.”

Trump EXCLUSIVE: President blasts Democrats’ dirty dossier play, hints at Fed choice

President Trump told FOX Business’ Lou Dobbs on Wednesday that efforts by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to fund research in attempt to smear his presidential candidacy is “disgraceful.”
“Don’t forget Hillary Clinton totally denied this. She didn’t know anything. She knew nothing.  All of a sudden they found out. What I was amazed at, it’s almost $6 million that they paid and it’s totally discredited, it’s a total phony. I call it fake news. It’s disgraceful.  It’s disgraceful, Trump said on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
Hillary Clinton recently slammed new reports of her ties to Russia's nuclear energy deals, claiming the corruption allegations have been “debunked repeatedly.”
The former secretary of state said on C-SPAN Monday that "It’s the same baloney they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone."
Trump said the Clinton camp is now trying to backtrack from the dossier that contained allegations that the Russian government had collected compromising information about Trump and that the Kremlin was engaged in an active effort to assist his presidential campaign.
“It is very interesting. She denied it. Her own people denied it. Everybody and now they are sort of scooting around trying to figure out what to say,” he said.
The House Intelligence Committee announced Tuesday it’s joining the House Oversight Committee in investigating why the Obama administration approved the sale of Uranium One to Russia, giving Moscow control of 20% of U.S. uranium supply, despite a federal investigation that revealed Russian kickbacks and extortion. “That’s the real collusion, believe me. There was no collusion on my side, I can tell you that,” Trump said.
According to the Washington Post, Marc E. Elias, an attorney representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained the D.C.-based firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research that resulted in the infamous and controversial Trump dossier. The dossier contained allegations that the Russian government had collected compromising information about Trump and that the Kremlin was engaged in an active effort to assist his presidential campaign.
The president noted that the push to connect his 2016 campaign to Russia has always been an excuse by the Democrats for losing the election.
“When you hear the kind of money they spent, and when you see all of the things about [Tony] Podesta and you see all the relationships that they actually have with Russia,” Trump said, referring to what he called Democratic efforts to link his campaign to Russia.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating the Democratic lobbying group led by Tony Podesta, brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta.
The president also continued to hedge on who might be the next Federal Reserve chair as the focus appears to be on Stanford University economics professor John Taylor and current Fed Governor Jerome Powell.
“I really have it down to two and maybe three people and I think over the next, very short period of time I will be announcing it. It won’t be a shock,” Trump said.
Trump expressed his admiration for current Fed Chair Janet Yellen but said the decision to select a new head of the central bank is something to which he would like to contribute.
“You like to make your own mark which is maybe one of the things she’s got a little bit against her, but I think she is terrific. We’ve had a great talk and we are obviously doing great together, you look at the markets,” Trump said.