IRS says it has lost emails from 5 other employees related to probes

The IRS said Friday that it has lost emails from five other employees involved in congressional probes into the agency's targeting of conservative groups, leading one top Republican to declare "this pattern must stop."
The announcement comes after the agency said in June that it could not locate an untold number of emails to and from Lois Lerner, who headed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. The revelation set off a new round of investigations and congressional hearings.
On Friday, the IRS issued a report to Congress saying the agency also lost emails from five other employees related to the probe, including two agents who worked in a Cincinnati office processing applications for tax-exempt status.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, whose committee has been investigating the scandal, said the disclosure is yet another example of the Obama administration changing its story on the scandal.
"The IRS’s ever-changing story is practically impossible to follow at this point, as they modify it each time to accommodate new facts," Issa, R-Calif., said. "This pattern must stop."
The disclosure came on the same day the Senate's subcommittee on investigations released competing reports on how the IRS handled applications from political groups during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The Democratic report, released by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, said both liberal and conservative groups were mistreated, revealing no political bias by the IRS. The Republican report, issued by Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said conservative groups were clearly treated worse.
The IRS inspector general set off a firestorm last year with an audit that said IRS agents singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for inappropriate scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.
Lerner's lost emails prompted a new round of scrutiny by Congress, the Justice Department, the inspector general and at least two federal judges.
The IRS blamed computer crashes for all the lost emails. In a statement, the IRS said all the crashes happened well before Congress launched the investigations.
"Throughout this review, the IRS has found no evidence that any IRS personnel deliberately destroyed any evidence," said the IRS statement. "To the contrary, the computer issues identified appear to be the same sorts of issues routinely experienced by employees within the IRS, in other government agencies and in the private sector."
When Congress started investigating the IRS last year, the agency identified 82 employees who might have documents related to the inquiries. The IRS said 18 of those people had computer problems between September 2009 and February 2014. Of those employees, five probably lost emails -- in addition to Lerner -- the agency said Friday.
Lerner, who was placed on leave and has since retired, has emerged as a central figure in congressional investigations. The other five employees appear to be more junior than she.
In addition to the Cincinnati workers, they include a technical adviser to Lerner, a tax law specialist and a group manager in the tax-exempt division.
In general, the IRS said the workers archived emails on their computer hard drives when their email accounts became too full. When those computers crashed, the emails were lost.
"By all accounts, in each instance the user contacted IT staff and attempted to recover his or her data," said the IRS statement.
The IRS has said it stored emails on backup tapes but those tapes were re-used every six months. The inspector general's office is reviewing those tapes to see if any old emails can be retrieved.
Friday's reports by the Senate subcommittee on investigations mark the conclusion of just one investigation. The Justice Department and three other congressional committees are continuing their probes.
Levin is chairman of the investigations subcommittee and McCain is the ranking Republican. Their staffs routinely work together on investigations, and while they don't always agree on the results, it is highly unusual for them to issue such diverging reports.
"The investigation found that the IRS used inappropriate selection criteria, burdensome questions and lengthy delays in processing applications for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status from both conservative and liberal groups," Levin said in a statement.
The Democratic report slams last year's audit by the IRS inspector general. It says the IG report was incomplete because it focused only on the treatment of conservative groups. The IG's report "produced distorted audit results that continue to be misinterpreted," the Democratic report said.
The inspector general's office declined to comment Friday. A spokeswoman said they were reviewing the report.
The Republican report says far more conservative groups were singled out for extra scrutiny. They were also asked more questions and were more likely to have their applications rejected or withdrawn.
"The IRS selected conservative groups out of normal processing, placed them on a separate list, stopped work on their applications completely, forced them to answer intrusive questions about their behavior and demeanor at meetings and delayed their applications for multiple years," the Republican report said. "Our investigation has uncovered no evidence that liberal groups received the same expansive inappropriate treatment that conservative groups received."
The Democratic report said investigators reviewed 800,000 pages of documents and conducted 22 interviews with current and former workers at the IRS and the inspector general's office. The investigators, however, were not allowed to see confidential taxpayer information, so many of the documents were blacked out.
Only two committees in Congress have the authority to see confidential taxpayer information: the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. Those two committees are continuing their probes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Cartoon

ISIS threat scrambles candidates’ 2014 playbook, brings out Dems’ hawkish side

The rise of the Islamic State threat has, in a matter of weeks, turned the 2014 midterm election on its head, leaving Democrats and Republicans alike scrambling to show their hawkish side on national security and terrorism -- shelving for now the partisan sparring over ObamaCare, and the multiple scandals that dominated headlines and threatened to define the Obama administration. 
With just nine weeks to go before voters decide the makeup of the next Congress, ISIS, Ukraine, Gaza and Boko Haram have supplanted the IRS, Benghazi, NSA data-gathering and the VA on the lips of candidates -- and the minds of voters. 
The result is a race that's looking much different than the last off-year midterm cycle. Four years ago, Fox News polled voters on their top issues at the ballot box -- the economy was at the top, and Iraq was at the bottom. 
While the economy still matters, recent polling shows voters want a tougher approach to foreign policy, as Islamic State militants ravage northern Iraq and Syria and threaten western interests. 
Candidates are giving it to them. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who faces a Republican challenge from former GOP chairman Ed Gillespie in November, on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to present a "clear strategy" for "eliminating" the Islamic State threat. 
"The United States should not take any military options off the table, because stopping ISIL is in the national security and foreign policy interests of the U.S. and our European allies," Warner said in a statement. 
The sudden focus on foreign policy poses a challenge for both parties. 
Republicans, who have been pulled in an isolationist direction by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and budget-minded Tea Party groups, are adjusting their tone. Even Paul, while saying President Obama must make his case for military action to Congress, told Fox News on Wednesday that the terror group has "absolutely" declared war on America. (And for the record, Paul says he is not an "isolationist".) 
For Democrats, the focus on the Middle East allows candidates to -- at least briefly -- get off the defensive on ObamaCare and administration controversies ranging from Benghazi to IRS targeting. 
But the furor over terror threats means there's less room for Democratic candidates to tout modest domestic gains like job creation or the rebound of the stock market. And new polls show that the president suffers in public opinion on foreign affairs, leaving Democrats once again putting distance between themselves and the commander-in-chief. 
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who's in a race against former GOP Sen. Scott Brown, did exactly that when she issued a Twitter rebuke of the president on Wednesday after he said the goal is to make the terror group "manageable." 
"Do not believe ISIL is 'manageable,' agree these terrorists must be chased to the 'gates of hell,'" she tweeted. The comment was a reference to Vice President Biden's vow, at an event on Wednesday with Shaheen, to pursue the militants "to the gates of Hell." 
Lara Brown, associate professor of political management with George Washington University, said the economy -- and the "languishing recovery" -- likely will remain a top issue in the fall. 
But she described voter perceptions of Obama's leadership abroad as a factor. 
"I think that puts Democrats, especially those that are more moderate ... in a more difficult position, because they need the president to take a strong stand so they can say they are standing behind the president," she said. 
Brown said the president could still "get back on top" of the narrative. "To a certain extent, the jury's out on where we are on this," she said. 
A fresh GWU poll underscored the president's vulnerability on the subject. The poll of 1,000 likely voters, taken Aug. 24-28, showed 58 percent disapprove of his handling of foreign affairs. A Pew Research Center and USA Today survey also showed 54 percent see Obama as "not tough enough" on security issues. That's a turnaround from when Obama ran in 2012 in part on the successful mission to take out Usama bin Laden. 
The same Pew poll showed dramatically changing attitudes toward America's role in the world, after years where fatigue from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars appeared to be setting in. The share of Americans who now say the U.S. does "too little" to address world problems roughly doubled since November 2013, to 31 percent. The share who say the opposite fell sharply, from 51 to 39 percent. The survey of 1,501 adults was taken Aug. 20-24. 
As Democrats try and toughen their tone, Republicans are doing the same -- and going after the president for a strategy they say is in shambles. 
Brown, Shaheen's opponent, said this week that America's enemies have been "emboldened by the Obama administration's incoherent foreign policy. " 
He released a scathing web video juxtaposing Biden's 2012 claims about Obama's "strength" with ominous footage of Islamic militants and the president's recent gaffe where he said "we don't have a strategy" yet to address ISIS in Syria. 
The ad ends with the text "Obama Biden -- a foreign policy failure."

GOP lawmaker accuses DOJ of hiding former employee linked to IRS scandal

WASHINGTON –  A top House Republican is demanding the Department of Justice hand over contact information on a former employee accused of having a conflict of interest in the IRS targeting scandal investigation.
In a Sept. 3 letter, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, once again asked Attorney General Eric Holder for information on Andrew Strelka’s whereabouts. 
“Despite notifying [Oversight and Government Reform] Committee staff that the [Justice] Department no longer employs Mr. Strelka, the department has refused to assist the committee in speaking to Mr. Strelka directly,” Jordan wrote. “The department’s efforts to prevent the committee from learning Mr. Strelka’s whereabouts suggest the department has cause for keeping him from speaking with the committee.”
Jordan says he wants Strelka’s contact information so the Oversight Committee can conduct a transcribed interview. The letter gives Holder a Friday deadline for the information.
The DOJ has addressed the Strelka issue in the past, saying he is no longer an employee. They have also said that the department is “already conducting an active investigation” into the IRS matter.
In August, Jordan along with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., pressed the DOJ for information on Strelka.
The lawmakers claimed in that letter that Strelka, who was employed as an attorney at the Justice Department’s tax division, until recently represented the IRS in civil lawsuits filed over the targeting. However, Strelka used to work under IRS official Lois Lerner in the exempt organizations division of the IRS.
Lerner was the IRS’s exempt organizations director when Tea Party and other conservative groups were scrutinized when applying for tax-exempt status.
The lawmakers claim that Strelka’s relationship with Lerner should have prevented him from being involved in the investigation.
They also say they have emails that show that during his tenure Strelka was directly involved in the targeting of conservative groups. In one case, they point out, Strelka was informed by a manager to be on the “lookout” for a Tea Party case.

ISIS Disappear Cartoon

Chechen leader, Putin pal vows to crush ISIS after threat against Russia

The latest recipients of an Islamic State threat are responding in kind, with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov vowing that "these bastards" will be "destroyed."
Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, went on an Instagram rant after Islamic State posted a video threatening Putin over his support for Syria's Bashar al-Assad and vowing to liberate Chechnya. The Muslim strongman, who has fought Islamic militants in his backyard for years, seemed to take special umbrage at a threat aimed at his patron in Moscow.
"I state with full responsibility that the one who had the idea to express a threat to Russia and say the name of the president of the country Vladimir Putin, will be destroyed, where he did it," Kadyrov seethed. "I emphasize that they finish their days under the hot sun in Syria and Iraq, and in the first instant of death meet their eternal flames of Hell. Allahu Akbar!"

"I emphasize that they finish their days under the hot sun in Syria and Iraq, and in the first instant of death meet their eternal flames of Hell. Allahu Akbar!"- Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov

The video that incensed Kadyrov showed Islamic State fighters cavorting around Russian fighter planes sent to Assad by the Kremlin but seized when Islamic State overran Syria's Tabqa airport.
In the video, which was posted and translated by Middle East Media Research Institute, a fighter refers to Kadyrov as a Putin puppet. Kadyrov responded on Instagram by saying "these bastards have no relation to Islam," and vowing if they try to threaten Russia or Chechnya "you will be destroyed."
"I want to remind everyone who is planning something against our country, that Russia has worthy sons, ready to fulfill any order, wring the neck of any enemy in his own lair, wherever he may be," Kadyrov wrote. "And we find ourselves with happiness ridding the world of these scum."
The threat against Russia and Chechnya came as an Israel-based intelligence news service claimed that the Saudi, British and Australian governments have "credible information" that Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have plans to launch a coordinated attack around the time of the Sept. 11 anniversary. 
DEBKAfile reported that unnamed "counterterrorism sources" say the groups are preparing to hit in the Middle East and somewhere in western Europe. According to the site, the militants are holding off on planning an attack on the U.S. for now. ISIS operates in Iraq and Syria, while AQAP is based in Yemen. 
The report comes after a second American journalist was executed by the Islamic State. 
So far, U.S. officials have said they are not aware of any plots against the U.S. at this stage, though they have the potential to target the U.S. and Europe using western passport holders. 
Matt Olsen, outgoing director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said Wednesday there is no indication of any Islamic State cells in the U.S., "full stop." 
But he said the group poses a "multi-faceted threat to the United States."

Hearing for Marine jailed in Mexico to feature surveillance video

Next week’s court appearance by a U.S. Marine imprisoned in Mexico could turn into a video viewing marathon.
Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been held since March 31, when he says he mistakenly crossed into Mexico with three legally-purchased and registered guns in his truck, will be in a Tijuana courtroom on Tuesday, where a judge, prosecutors and his lawyer will view surveillance video made at the border the night he was arrested.
With 90-minute footage from 18 different cameras in evidence, the session could prove lengthy, Tahmooressi’s attorney, Fernando Benitez, told Fox News. What has Benitez most curious is the fact that Mexican Customs officials dragged their feet in turning over the video, to the point that Judge Victor Octavio Luna Escobedo had to order them to comply.
“He set forth an order whereby basically he told Customs, ‘I’m not asking.I’m telling you to deliver the tapes,’” Benitez told Fox.
Benitez said it is likely the judge will fast-forward through irrelevant portions of the video, none of which has audio. And despite Mexican customs officials reluctance to produce it, Benitez doubts there will be a bombshell on the tape.
“It in no way is it a case-maker or a case-breaker,” Benitez said. “I’m willing to accept the possibility that it doesn’t show that much.”
But, Benitez said, “We can assume that what’s in the tape will not support their story.”
The attorney, who once successfully represented former Tijuana mayor and current owner of the Xolos soccer team Jorge Hank Rhon on weapons charges, is working the case on several other fronts. He plans to file a motion to suppress evidence gathered against Tahmooressi on the basis that his detention was illegal from the beginning.
Benitez will also eventually present a report from a psychiatric expert who will focus on Tahmooressi’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a result of two combat tours in Afghanistan. Benitez believes that Tahmooressi cannot receive PTSD treatment in Mexico and an eventual prison sentence would be inconsistent with the country’s policy of providing rehabilitation to prisoners.
Tahmooressi’s team is also working on a video which will show how easy it was to accidentally cross into Mexico on the night of March 31, when the signage was not clear. It’s since been replaced, making future incidents like Tahmooressi’s less likely.
If Tahmooressi is convicted, he faces six to 21 years in prison. Tahmooressi served four years in the Marines before being honorably discharged in November 2012.

Lawmakers tell Obama ‘we must go after ISIS’ after new video surfaces

Congressional lawmakers urged the Obama administration to crank up the offensive against the Islamic State after another video surfaced purporting to show the graphic execution of an American journalist.
Two weeks after American James Foley was beheaded by his Islamic State captors, a video emerged Tuesday afternoon claiming to show freelance journalist Steven Sotloff being executed in the same way.
The White House and State Department said intelligence officials are working quickly to determine the video’s authenticity. If it is genuine, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, “We are sickened by this brutal act.”
But U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle urged tough and swift action in response.
“Let there be no doubt, we must go after ISIS right away because the U.S. is the only one that can put together a coalition to stop this group that’s intent on barbaric cruelty,” Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said in a statement.
Nelson added that he plans on filing legislation next week that would give President Obama authority to order airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. 
Sotloff had been held since last year by Islamic State militants. As before, the executioner in the video claimed the act was a message to the United States in response to airstrikes.  
“I am back Obama, and I am back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State,” the person in the video said.
The administration, while launching another humanitarian mission in northern Iraq in recent days and sustaining a campaign of airstrikes around the Mosul Dam and elsewhere, continues to deliberate over the next steps – and whether to expand airstrikes across the border into Syria, where the Islamic State has a stronghold.
The president, drawing criticism from some GOP lawmakers, acknowledged last week that his team does not have a strategy yet for confronting ISIS in Syria.
With the president en route to Europe for meetings with allies and a NATO summit, it’s unclear whether the latest video might change, or accelerate, the administration’s planning.
Without commenting specifically on whether the U.S. military should go into Syria, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said Tuesday that the U.S. needs to be “acting urgently” to arm the Kurds in northern Iraq and target the Islamic State with drone strikes.
“Sadly, ISIS is bringing this barbarity across the region – beheading and crucifying those who don’t share their dark ideology,” he said. “The threat from this group seems to grow by the day.”
Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., a member of the House intelligence committee, also said in a statement that “we cannot afford to allow these terrorists to continue their march.”
Asked Tuesday about the terror group, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said the U.S. “absolutely” has a strategy for the Middle East and a “clear” mission in Iraq.
“We are there to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces as they take the fight to ISIL.  We are there to provide humanitarian assistance where and when we can,” he said.  
Psaki said the U.S. wants to see the group “destroyed” but it won’t be “an overnight effort.”
Analysts and others, though, said some elements of the approach will have to change.
Former U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson, speaking with Fox News, called for a “kitchen sink approach” and – like in Iraq years ago – a “coalition of the willing” to increase training, military aid and airstrikes.
Michael O’Hanlon, with the Brookings Institution, said the Obama administration made the right decision to launch airstrikes in northern Iraq, but said more might be needed.
He urged the government to consider sending up to several thousand special forces and “mentor teams” into Iraq to help the Iraqi army in its fight against the Islamic State.
And he suggested the latest brutal act might spur more countries in the region to align with Baghdad and Washington.
“I think this will shake some sense into countries that wanted to have it both ways up until now,” he told Fox News.

Obama to send approximately 350 additional military personnel to Iraq

President Obama announced Tuesday he is sending approximately 350 additional military personnel to Iraq to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities and workers in Baghdad.
The White House said in a press release that the personnel will not serve a combat role, and are fulfilling a request from the State Department for more protection as the country fights an insurgency from the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
The White House said the additional personnel will be able to provide a “more robust, sustainable security force” and will allow previously deployed personnel to leave the country.
Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement that Obama's authorization will result in a net increase of approximately 350 military personnel. Kirby said 405 personnel will be sent to Baghdad, and 55 will leave, leading to the net increase. 
Additionally, the White House said the U.S. is continuing to support the Iraqi government against the terror group, which it says “poses a threat not only to Iraq, but to the broader Middle East and U.S. personnel and interests in the region.”
“The president will be consulting this week with NATO allies regarding additional actions to take against ISIL and to develop a broad-based international coalition to implement a comprehensive strategy to protect our people and to support our partners in the fight against ISIL,” the release stated.
According to Kirby, the latest deployment means the number of U.S. forces responsible for providing security support in Baghdad will total approximately 820. 
Defense officials told Fox News that once the latest forces arrive, the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq will be 1,213. 
The announcement came after U.S. military officials said Tuesday that an airstrike against Islamic State militants in Iraq had damaged or destroyed 16 armed vehicles near the Mosul Dam.
In a statement from U.S. Central Command, officials said an airstrike conducted Monday in northern Iraq involved fighters and attack aircraft.
By Central Command's count, that's the 124th airstrike in Iraq since operations against the Islamic State group began in early August.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

White House confirms authenticity of ISIS video showing beheading of reporter

The White House has confirmed that an Internet video purporting to show the beading of American reporter Steven Sotloff by the Islamic State extremist group is authentic.
"The U.S. Intelligence Community has analyzed the recently released video showing U.S. citizen Steven Sotloff and has reached the judgment that it is authentic," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement released early Wednesday. "We will continue to provide updates as they are available."
The global terror intelligence firm SITE first reported the release of the 2-minute video, titled "A Second Message to America," in which Sotloff, a 31-year-old freelance journalist, speaks to the camera before a cloaked Islamic State fighter begins to decapitate him.

“I’m sure you know exactly who I am by now and why I am appearing,” Sotloff said under apparent duress. "Obama, your foreign policy of intervention in Iraq was supposed to be for preservation of American lives and interests, so why is it that I am paying the price of your interference with my life?”

The video then cuts to the masked militant warning that as long as U.S. missiles “continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.” He also threatens the life of British captive David Cawthorne Haines.

"I'm back, Obama," said the left-handed executioner with a British accent who appears to be the same man who killed Foley. "And I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State."

The gruesome video then shows Sotloff's severed head lying next to his body.

"The family knows of this horrific tragedy and is grieving privately," Barak Barfi, a spokesman for the Sotloff family, told The Associated Press Tuesday. "There will be no public comment from the family during this difficult time."

The grim video comes just days after Sotloff's mother, Shirley, directly addressed the leader of the Islamic State last week, saying her son shouldn't pay for U.S. government actions in the Middle East and that he cared about the weak and oppressed as a journalist.

"I want what every mother wants, to live to see her children's children," she said last week. "I plead with you to grant me this."

Shirley Sotloff cited by name the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has described himself as a caliph intending to lead the Muslim world. She had asked him to show mercy and follow the example of the prophet Muhammad in protecting people of Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths.

Sotloff was last seen in August 2013 in Syria. He was recently threatened with death by the militants on a video unless the U.S. stopped airstrikes on the group in Iraq. The same video showed the beheading of fellow American journalist James Foley, 45.

Several U.S. officials, including U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., have said they were working behind the scenes to find out more about Sotloff and try to secure his release.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest could not confirm the reports when asked about the video at Tuesday’s press briefing. He noted the administration has been monitoring his situation carefully since threats were first made.

“The United States, as you know, has dedicated significant time and resources to try and rescue Mr. Sotloff,” he said, adding “thoughts and prayers” are with the family.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the intelligence community will work “as quickly as possible” to determine the video’s authenticity.

"If the video is genuine, we are sickened by this brutal act taking the life of another innocent American citizen,” she told reporters.

Pressed by Fox News, Psaki would not say whether this would constitute an act of war. She said the prior execution of journalist James Foley was a “horrific terrorist act,” and was a “motivating” factor for creating a coalition to address the Islamic State.

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council confirmed that the agency had seen the purported video.

"The intelligence community is working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity," spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in a statement. "If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends.  We will provide more information when it is available.”

At University of Central Florida, where Sotloff studied journalism from 2002 to 2004, President John Hitt said the school is mourning the loss.

“Our UCF family mourns Steven’s death, and we join millions of people around the world who are outraged at this despicable and unjustifiable act,” said Hitt.

Obama Cartoon

Dozens of police agencies report loss of Pentagon-supplied military weapons

Just tell the bad guys to come on in!

Images showing high-powered military rifles in the hands of law enforcement in Ferguson, Mo., after the police shooting of an unarmed black man focused attention on a controversial Pentagon program that supplies that kind of weaponry to local police departments. Now reports reveal how some of those guns have been lost by law enforcement officials who received the weapons.
Take Huntington Beach, Calif., which was given 23 M-16 rifles and has reported one missing.
“Bottom line is the gun is not here and we were suspended from the program, haven’t received anything since 1999,” Huntington Beach Police Department Lt. Mitchell O’Brien told ABC News Friday.
O’Brien told the network the lost weapon could have been melted down, but that’s uncertain.

“Bottom line is the gun is not here and we were suspended from the program."- Huntington Beach Police Department Lt. Mitchell O’Brien

“Probably, [it was] one of those things where we used it for parts and the spare parts probably got discarded at some point -- but again, it’s inconclusive,” he said. “But we are pretty confident nobody got into our armory and took it.
The program O’Brien was referencing is the Pentagon’s 1033 program, which gives away surplus military weapons to local police departments. In a report Friday the Cox Washington Bureau said Huntington Beach is one of 145 local law enforcement agencies across the country that has been suspended from the program.  Three states — Alabama, North Carolina and Minnesota — also have been suspended.
Cox named some of the banned agencies.
The Daytona Beach Police Department was suspended after reporting a lost M-16 in January.
“We still have not been able to find it,” Daytona Beach Police spokesman Jimmie Flynt told Cox.
The Napa County Sheriff’s Office was banned after someone stole a rifle from an employee’s personal vehicle.
“If I knew where it was, I’d go get it,” Undersheriff Jean Donaldson told Cox. “It’s equipment we can obtain at no cost to our budget, so the taxpayers don’t get taxed twice.”
KARK-TV in Arkansas said three law enforcement agencies in the state have been suspended for losing weapons or having weapons stolen: the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, the Woodruff County Sheriff’s Office and the Judsonia Police Department.
James Ray, who oversees the 1033 program in Arkansas, told the station officials are worried the missing weapons could end up in the wrong hands.
“I have no reason to believe that, but if we don’t know where they are then hopefully we can get them back,” he said. “I mean they’ve been reported stolen by the law enforcement agencies….”
“It just appears that the Pentagon’s not minding the store, that once the inventory is gone, it’s out of sight, out of mind—and we can’t afford to have weapons of this type walking around the streets,” Steve Ellis, vice president of Tax Payers for Common Sense, told ABC.
A Pentagon spokesman told the station that 8,000 law enforcement agencies participate in the 1033 program and that 98 percent remain in good standing.

Islamic militia group says it has 'secured' US compound in Libya

An Islamic militant group said Sunday it has “secured” a U.S. Embassy compound in Libya’s capital city of Tripoli.
American personnel evacuated the area roughly a month ago amid ongoing fighting in the country.
An Associated Press journalist walked through the compound Sunday after the Dawn of Libya, an umbrella group for Islamist militias, invited onlookers inside.
Windows at the compound had been broken, but it appeared most of the equipment there remained untouched.
The breach of a deserted U.S. diplomatic post likely will reinvigorate debate in the U.S. over its role in Libya, more than three years after supporting rebels who toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
A commander for the Dawn of Libya group said his forces had entered and been in control of the compound since last week.
"We've seen the reports and videos and are seeking additional details." a senior State Department official told Fox News late Sunday. "At this point, we believe the Embassy compound itself remains secure but we continue to monitor the situation on the ground, which remains very fluid."
"We continue to work with the Government of Libya and other parties on issues of concern. Our Ambassador and other officials remain engaged both in Washington and from our Embassy in Valetta, Malta, where Embassy staff from Tripoli were recently relocated," the official said.
No U.S. military or assets were guarding the property after the State Department pulled out.
On Sept. 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, and State Department information management officer Sean Smith were killed in a terror attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
A video posted online showed men playing in a pool at the compound. In a message on Twitter, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said the video appeared to have been shot in at the embassy's residential annex.
However, two sources with first-hand knowledge of the embassy and other U.S. facilities in Libya say the YouTube video in which the militia members are diving from a roof into pool was taken at the CIA annex in Tripoli that was abandoned when U.S. Embassy personnel and the ambassador pulled out July 26. It is about a mile away from the U.S. Embassy in Libya.
When CIA abandoned the annex in July, it would no longer be considered sovereign US territory.
Jones also said the compound appears to be "safeguarded," not "ransacked."
The fighting prompted diplomats and thousands of Tripoli residents to flee. Dozens were killed in the fighting.
On July 26, U.S. diplomats evacuated to neighboring Tunisia under a U.S. military escort. The State Department said embassy operations would be suspended until the security situation improved.
The Dawn of Libya militia is deployed around the capital and has called on foreign diplomats to return now that the fighting has subsided.

Strategy Cartoon

Israeli soldier succumbs to wounds; Israel's Gaza death toll rises to 72

JERUSALEM –  The Israeli military says a soldier wounded in fighting in the Gaza Strip has died, bringing the Israeli military toll in the recently concluded conflict to 66.
The military says 20-year-old Sergeant Shachar Shalev died Sunday. He was wounded on July 23, six days after Israeli ground forces entered the densely populated coastal strip.
Six civilians were also killed on the Israeli side, including one agricultural worker from Thailand.
More than 2,100 Palestinians, mainly civilians, were killed during the 50-day war.
Israel and Hamas agreed last Tuesday to an open-ended truce. The cease-fire brought an immediate end to the fighting but left key disputes unresolved.

Obama under pressure to delay immigration action until after midterms

It's all about politics.

President Obama is reportedly mulling the possibility of delaying making changes to U.S. immigration policy until after the upcoming midterm elections, after Democrats in tough Senate races have argued that it could damage their chances in November.
The president had been expected to use his executive authority to ease deportations and give temporary work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. 
After Republicans in the House of Representatives voted down a version of immigration reform, Obama announced that he intended to act on his own before the end of summer in order to make what he said were urgent changes to the immigration system. Republicans claim that such moves would exceed his legal authority if he were to act without congressional approval.
However, The Wall Street Journal reports that White House officials are now debating whether to put off some or all of Obama’s policy changes until after the November election, after several Democrats running in tight elections in conservative states have urged the president to do so, claiming that such a move would damage their election prospects.
Democratic Senators Mark Pryor in Arkansas, Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Mark Begich in Alaska and Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, all have called for immigration reform to be addressed by Congress, not by the White House, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Obama said in a news conference Thursday that his timeline for immigration reform was unclear, and said that the child-migration crisis could affect the timing of any announcement.
"Some of these things do affect timelines, and we're just going to be working through as systematically as possible in order to get this done," Obama said.
Obama also faces pressure from immigrant-rights advocates strongly urging the president not to back down and to move forward as planned, especially as he has already delayed action once in 2014.
However, Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Mr. Obama's executive action on immigration would be unpopular no matter when he made it. 
"Whether President Obama declares executive amnesty in September, October or November, he has neither the legal authority nor the public support to do it," Dayspring told The Wall Street Journal.

Reid's name removed from center at Utah university from which he graduated

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s name has been removed from a Southern Utah University facility, following pressure from a conservative group to make the change.
The group received $40,000 in pledges over five days toward removing the Nevada Democrat’s name from the school’s Outdoor Engagement Center.
University President Scott Wyatt acknowledged Friday that he was under pressure from a group of conservatives to remove Reid's name but insisted that politics had nothing to do with his decision.
Reid’s name was removed last week from the front door of the facility, several months after two local elected officials and others met with Wyatt and told him about the campaign, Wyatt said.
He said he told the group to stop raising money and that pledge money would not be accepted to remove Reid's name.
Wyatt said he removed Reid’s name because "nobody" associated the senator with the outdoors. 
The center rents outdoor equipment to students, offers internship programs for students seeking outdoor careers and coordinates project-based learning activities for students. Reid graduated from the school in 1959.
Wyatt also said the school's 2011 naming of the center in Reid's honor generated no donations to it from the senator's friends as had been hoped. 
"The decision has nothing to do with politics," Wyatt told The Associated Press. "We're a university. We're full of Democrats and Republicans and Green Party members and Libertarians. We don't make partisan calls with regard to our esteemed alumnus.
"The leading factor is the center's leadership reported to me it created confusion. When people looked at the name, they didn't understand the connection (between the center and Reid). It was just a little difficult."
Reid issued a brief statement Friday.
"I was approached and asked to use my name and I was happy to, but there was no such agreement to have me raise funds for it," he said. "I'm not going to raise money to have my name placed on anything."
When the center was named for him, Reid touted his congressional record concerning public lands in Nevada, noting his role in the creation of Great Basin National Park, the designation of wilderness areas and an annual summit to protect Lake Tahoe.
At the time, he also criticized Utah's attempts to wrest control of public lands from the federal government.
Cedar City Councilman Paul Cozzens and Iron County Commissioner Dave Miller praised Wyatt's decision to remove Reid's name. They were among the group of conservatives who met with him last spring.
"This is a conservative base in southern Utah, and many people in southern Nevada also feel the same way," Cozzens told The Spectrum of St. George, Utah. "These people in Nevada do not espouse to Reid's political philosophies, and they told me they would not support the university or send any more of their children there ... so long as Harry Reid's name remained."
But Wyatt said plans call for a future center to be named for Reid on campus. The center's purpose will depend on who donates and their interests.
"Absolutely, he's one of our most distinguished alumnus," Wyatt said. "He's somebody we should all be proud of, regardless of politics ... . It's not Sen. Reid's concern as to whether we raise money (for the new center). It's ours."

ISIS CARTOON

Mitch McConnell's campaign manager resigns

Senator Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager resigned Friday in the wake of a scandal involving former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign, where he had been a top aide.
Jesse Benton said the decision to leave the staff of McConnell, R-Ky., “breaks my heart” but “inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns” were becoming a distraction in McConnell’s efforts to win re-election in November.
His announcement stems from a political scandal in Iowa. Earlier this week, a former Iowa lawmaker pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from his switch of support from one Republican presidential candidate to another before the 2012 Iowa caucuses.
Former state Sen. Kent Sorenson received thousands of dollars in "under the table payments" before switching loyalties from Michele Bachmann, whose Iowa campaign he headed, to Paul, then lied to federal investigators about the money, the Justice Department said. Prosecutors refused to say which campaign paid Sorenson.
Benton, a Tea Party insider, worked as a top aide to Paul.
In a separate statement Friday, McConnell's campaign said the senator "obviously has nothing to do with the Iowa presidential caucus or this investigation, so it would be inappropriate for his campaign to comment on this situation."
Benton was mentioned in documents gathered during an Iowa state ethics probe of Sorenson, a complaint to the Federal Election Commission and e-mails purported to be from the Ron Paul campaign obtained by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors federal campaign finance issues, The Courier-Journal of Louisville reported.
McConnell, the Senate minority leader, is in a tight race for a sixth term against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state.
Charly Norton, a spokeswoman for the Grimes campaign, said in a statement, "Sen. McConnell owes the people of Kentucky a full account of what he knew and when he knew it."
In his resignation statement, Benton said, “recently, there have been inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns that are politically motivated, unfair and, most importantly, untrue... the press accounts and rumors are particularly hurtful because they are false.
“However, what is most troubling to me is that they risk unfairly undermining and becoming a distraction to this reelection campaign.”
He said his resignation would take effect Saturday.

Online posts show ISIS eyeing Mexican border, says law enforcement bulletin

EXCLUSIVE: Social media chatter shows Islamic State militants are keenly aware of the porous U.S.-Mexico border, and are “expressing an increased interest” in crossing over to carry out a terrorist attack, according to a Texas law enforcement bulletin sent out this week.
“A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending August 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of US, for terror attack,” warns the Texas Department of Public Safety "situational awareness" bulletin, obtained by FoxNews.com.
The three-page bulletin, entitled “ISIS Interest on the US Southwest Border” and dated Aug. 28 was released to law enforcement on Thursday.
“Social media account holders believed to be ISIS militants and propagandists have called for unspecified border operations, or they have sought to raise awareness that illegal entry through Mexico is a viable option,” states the law enforcement bulletin, which is not classified.
It notes no known credible homeland threats or specific homeland attack plot has been identified. That assertion was underscored by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who said Friday that DHS and the FBI are "unaware of any specific, credible threat to the U.S. homeland" from Islamic State.
Despite assurances that no threat to American soil is imminent, the watchdog group Judicial Watch said Friday that Islamic State operatives are in Juarez, just across the border from Texas, and are planning to attack the United States with car bombs.
"Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat," Judicial Watch stated on its website.
The Texas law enforcement bulletin cites suspected fighters from the terrorist group previously known as ISIS and based in Syria and Iraq as eyeing a border crossing.
“The identities of persons operating these accounts cannot be independently verified; however the accounts were selected for monitoring based on several indications that they have been used by actual ISIS militants for propaganda purposes and collectively reach tens of thousands of followers,” states the bulletin. “One account was verified as belonging to an individual located in Mosul, Iraq.”
Some 32 Twitter and Facebook posts monitored by law enforcement over one recent week reflected interest in the southern border, according to the bulletin. The messages, which were forwarded thousands of times, included calls for jihadists to cross over from Mexico to carry out attacks and even alluded to a recent video by U.S. activist James O’Keefe, who was recorded coming across the Rio Grande valley in an Usama bin Laden costume.
The bulletin details numerous “calls for border infiltration” on social media, including one from a militant confirmed to be in Mosul, Iraq who explicitly beckons the “Islamic State to send a special force to America across the border with Mexico.”
“This Twitter account holder, who is the administrator of an ISIS propaganda trading group, stated that the time was right for such an action because ‘the US-Mexican border is now open large numbers of people crossing,’” the bulletin said.
Another message sent out via Twitter suggested that Islamic State fighters have already entered the U.S. via the border, warning that, as a result, “Americans in for ruin (sic).”
The Texas DPS bulletin comes on the heels of a federal Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice Joint Intelligence bulletin dated August 22, a copy of which was also obtained by FoxNews.com.That bulletin, entitled “Online Reaction but No Known Credible Homeland Threats from ISIL and Its Supporters Following US Air Strikes,”addresses potential threats to the Homeland in response to recent US air strikes on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in Iraq and the murder of journalist James Foley.
This bulletin notes that while the FBI and DHS are unaware of specific credible threats against the U.S. from homegrown violent extremists, ISIL or other violent extremist groups overseas “we continue to assess that violent extremists who support ISIL have demonstrated the capability to attempt attacks on US targets overseas with little-to-no warning.”
The report also says that “because of the individualized nature of the radicalization process—it is difficult to predict triggers that will contribute to [homegrown violent extremists] attempting acts of violence…lone offenders present law enforcement with limited opportunities to detect and disrupt plots, which frequently involve simple plotting against targets of opportunity.”
“FBI and DHS assess that civilian deaths reportedly associated with these US military air strikes will almost certainly be used as further examples of a perceived Western war against Islam in English-language violent extremist messaging that could contribute to [homegrown violent extremist] radicalization to violence,” the report notes.
The FBI and DHS bulletin includes a section titled "ISIL Supporters Increasingly Using Social Media to Encourage Violent Acts against US Interests."
"ISIL and its online supporters have employed—and will almost certainly continue—Twitter “hashtag” campaigns that have gained mainstream media attention and been able to quickly reach a global audience of potential violent extremists, highlighting ISIL’s supporter message and encouraging individuals to commit acts of violence, in Iraq or in the West," the bulletin states.
"Several of the Tweets in response to the air strikes featured original and creative use of graphics—including a photo of the ISIL flag in front of the White House—and graphically rendered images depicting desecration of US monuments and landmarks."

Qatar's role as US ally at odds with claims it sponsors terror

The man in the above photo on the right thinks man on left is a dumb ass.                                                                                                                                            

If the Middle East were one big room, Qatar would be the elephant, according to a growing number of regional experts who believe the oil rich emirate is propping up violent jihadists around the globe even as it poses as a U.S. ally and would-be broker of peace.
Israel has long complained of Qatar's alleged duplicity, accusing it of meddling, bankrolling Hamas in Gaza, exporting radical Islamic terrorism through its tight links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Nusra. And a German official recently suggested that Qatar may also play a role in funding Islamic State, the savage extremist group behind the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley.
"You have to ask who is arming, who is financing ISIS troops? The key word there is Qatar - and how do we deal with these people and states politically?" German Development Minister Gerd Muller said last week.
In response, Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah unequivocally denied funding the Islamic State group.
"Qatar does not support extremist groups, including ISIS, in any way," he said in an emailed statement. "We are repelled by their views, their violent methods and their ambitions. The vision of extremist groups for the region is one that we have not, nor will ever, support in any way."
Indeed, Qatar was one of the first Middle Eastern countries to condemn Foley's murder, saying it was "a heinous crime that goes against all Islamic and humanitarian principles, as well as international laws and conventions."
Qatar hosts a U.S. military base, helped broker U.S.-backed peace talks between Israel and Hamas, helped free U.S. journalist Peter Theo Curtis from Al Nusra earlier this week and even played a role in the U.S. swap of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Guantanamo Bay detainees earlier this year.
Yet previous statements from U.S. officials indicate that they know Qatar has a multi-faceted role in the region.
“Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally, has for many years openly financed Hamas, a group that continues to undermine regional stability,” Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen told the Center for New American Security on "Confronting New Threats in Terrorist Financing" in March. “Press reports indicate that the Qatari government is also supporting extremist groups operating in Syria. To say the least, this threatens to aggravate an already volatile situation in a particularly dangerous and unwelcome manner.”
Qatar is a U.S. “frenemy,” according to Jonathan Schanzer, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. On one hand, it hosts the biggest U.S. military base in the Middle East at Al Udeid; invests tens of billions of dollars in the U.S and across the globe in a bid to make itself indispensable and acts as the ‘white knight’ intermediary in hostage negotiations.
On the other hand, Qatar is arming and funding Hamas in Gaza, brazenly fueling violent Arab uprisings including the brief and bloody reign in Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood and is long alleged to be arming vicious rebel groups in Libya, Mali, Syria, Iraq, and Tunisia.
“Qatar is trying to cozy up to everyone," Meir Dagan, former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, warned the U.S. in a 2010 cable revealed by Wikileaks. "I think that you should remove your bases from [Qatar]. [The Qataris] owe their security to the presence of the Americans.”
Noting that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have all recalled their ambassadors from Qatar, Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, called for Qatar to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism.
"If we can get that done, then we can stop [the sale of U.S.] defense equipment and arms to Qatar.," Klein said. "There is an $11 billion deal to Qatar right now to sell them Apache helicopters, Patriot missiles, anti-tank rockets and such. This [designation] would enable both Israeli and Arab victims of Hamas attacks to sue Qatar in the United States.”
Klein is also working to try to suspend the FAA license for Qatar government-owned airline Qatar Airways to operate in the United States, but admits that getting enough U.S. politicians to speak out is a challenge.
Qatar’s policy of involving itself in so many different spheres on the world stage might finally be catching up with the tiny Gulf state that has a native population of just 250,000. The more Qatar seeks the limelight, the more scrutiny it attracts, and a growing number of informed observers around the world appear to increasingly believe that Qatar's two-faced foreign policy posture is being exposed.
“There are simply too many links, this network is too great, for us to pretend these are isolated instances of misguided individuals operating independently of government policy; or that this is merely part of talking to all sides in an argument,” Martin Samuel of Britain’s Daily Mail noted earlier this year. “Qatar has systematic and long-standing associations with some extremely dangerous people and information to support these allegations are established and in the public domain.”

Canada Cartoon

Former US judge on 'one-sided' UN Gaza inquiry headed previous probe that criticized Israel

A former New York State Supreme Court judge who replaced George Clooney’s fiancé on the latest United Nations-sponsored inquiry into human rights violations in Gaza once chaired another U.N. committee that harshly criticized Israeli for a previous military operation into the Hamas-controlled territory.
The “committee of independent experts in international humanitarian and human rights law” chaired by Mary McGowan Davis in 2011 was intended to follow up on  the now discredited Goldstone Commission investigating human rights violations in the wake of the 2008 operations, known as Operation Cast Lead, against the forces of Hamas. 
The Goldstone Commission’s report, which placed responsibility on Israel’s political and military leadership for human rights violations during the conflict including the direct targeting of civilians, was subsequently recanted by its chairman, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, for its unfounded accusations of Israeli war crimes and tilt against Israel—though it lives on in U.N. archives and references.
Both the Davis committee of 2010 and the current inquiry—generated by the U.N.’s 47-member Human Rights Council in Geneva—were opposed by the U.S., which cast the sole negative vote against each of them.
In the case of the current three-person probe—called the Schabas commission, after its chairman, Canadian law professor William Schabas— the U.S. declared it was “deeply troubled” by the enabling resolution and said that it created “yet another one-sided mechanism targeting Israel.”
The U.S. attitude now, however, is more wait-and-see.  While reaffirming that the Obama Administration was “strongly opposed” to creation of the Schabas Commission,  a State Department official told Fox News that “we will watch closely to see if the commission takes a constructive, unbiased, and balanced approach to the investigation.”
He warned that “It risks damaging the reputation of the Human Rights Council and its ability to objectively and constructively address human rights in the region.”
Whether the Geneva-based Human Rights Council has any reputation left to damage is perhaps a more pertinent question. Nonetheless, the appointment of Davis, by providing a thread of continuity tracing back to the other distorted U.N. investigations against Israel in the now- simmering Gaza conflict, doesn’t indicate that the Council itself is fretting much about the issue.
For its part, Israel has charged bias against all of the investigations and refused to allow them into the territory.
Davis, who served on the New York Supreme Court from 1986 to 1998, was named to the latest inquiry on Monday by the current President of the Council, Baudelaire Ndong Ella, after British human rights attorney  Amal Alamuddin—better known these days as the fiance of George Clooney—turned down the job.
Davis can at least claim to have impressive amounts of experience on the issue. Before she chaired the 2011 “independent experts” probe, she was a member of its three-person immediate predecessor, which reported in September 2010  along the same lines as her own probe six months later.
When it came to even-handedness, both reports were also about the same. In the report resulting from the  inquiry she chaired, eight pages were devoted to the criticism of the shortcomings of Israeli military investigations into alleged crimes and excessed by Israeli forces, while three pages were devoted to Palestinian investigations—which were, the report noted delicately, “limited.”
The report also heard from Gaza’s ruling Hamas authorities—referred to as the “de facto Gaza authorities,” meaning they had no legal status—that they “did not have access to persons involved in the launching of rockets and mortars into Israel” –an assertion that the probe said left it “concerned,” but not much else.
The committee also took with a straight face the assertion by “de facto authorities” that they had conducted seven investigations of alleged human rights violations by their forces—against fellow Palestinians” but that four of the cases had been “discontinued at the request of the victim.”
Overall, the Davis committee said mildly, “It considers that the de facto authorities should make genuine efforts to conduct criminal inquiries and to hold accountable those who have allegedly engaged in serious violations of international humanitarian law by firing these rockets.”

Census figures show more than one-third of Americans receiving welfare benefits

Fifty years after the “war on poverty” was first waged, there are signs a new offensive is needed.
Newly released Census data reveals nearly 110 million Americans – more than one-third of the country – are receiving government assistance of some kind.
The number counts people receiving what are known as “means-tested” federal benefits, or subsidies based on income. This includes welfare programs ranging from food stamps to subsidized housing to the program most commonly referred to as “welfare,” Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
At the end of 2012, according to the stats, 51.5 million were on food stamps, while 83 million were collecting Medicaid – with some benefitting from multiple programs.
Though the programs were created to help those in need, some analysts worry that the way they’re designed is, increasingly, incentivizing people not to work. They note that when recipients combine several government assistance programs, in many cases they pay better than going to work.
The Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner said that in the eight most generous states, the benefits can be tantamount to a $20 minimum wage – which would exceed the $7.25 minimum wage in most states.
“So in many cases people could actually do better on welfare than they could in an entry level job," Tanner said.   
Supporters say the safety net is necessary to keep Americans from living in dire conditions. As for concerns that these benefits pay better than working, they argue the solution is to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
"I think a lot of people would do the jobs when they pay a living wage,” said Melissa Boteach, from the Center for American Progress. “In addition, there's growing jobs in health care and information technology and energy. There's a lot of places where, if able to make investments, we can really grow our economy in those sectors.”
As millions still rely on government assistance programs, technology and automation have eliminated jobs many Americans used to do with a high school diploma. The challenge for policymakers is helping the economy adjust.  
"We have to figure out a way around this. Put innovation in play and really figure out how we're going to create a new economy where we can both raise wages and create more jobs for people," Boteach said.
Tanner said there must be a serious effort to put people back to work because the continued growth of these entitlement programs is unsustainable. The number of people on such benefits is up slightly from 2011.
The government still runs a half-trillion dollar deficit, according to the most recent estimates, and the national debt is nearing $18 trillion.
"You can't in the long run have a society in which you have to rely on a smaller and smaller group of wealth producers who have to support more and more people who are not contributing to that wealth," Tanner said.

Fort Hood shooter says he wants to become 'citizen' of Islamic State caliphate

 Bailey Comment: "This just shows you how politically correct our officials in the government are. He should have been put up against a wall and shot for the mad dog he is !"


The convicted shooter in the Fort Hood massacre has written a letter to the leader of the Islamic State saying he wants to become a "citizen" of the caliphate, in the latest example of the terror group's reach inside the U.S.
The letter from Nidal Hasan, obtained by Fox News, comes after two Americans reportedly died fighting for ISIS in Syria. Sources late Wednesday identified the second as Abdirahmaan Muhumed, of Minneapolis. Fox affiliate KMSP-TV in Minneapolis reported that Muhumed was killed in the same battle as Douglas McArthur McCain, who grew up outside Minneapolis in the town of New Hope and most recently lived in San Diego.
The State Department said Thursday it could not confirm Muhumed’s death and efforts to reach his family were unsuccessful.
In the undated letter, Hasan -- who fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009 in what the Defense Department called “workplace violence”-- tells ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that he wants to join the caliphate.
"I formally and humbly request to be made a citizen of the Islamic State,”Hasan says in the handwritten document addressed to “Ameer, Mujahid Dr. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”
"It would be an honor for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier to a people and its leader who don't compromise the religion of All-Mighty Allah to get along with the disbelievers."
The two-page letter includes Hasan’s signature and the abbreviation SoA for Soldier of Allah.
Hasan's attorney, John Galligan, said the letter “underscores how much of his life, actions and mental thought process are driven by religious zeal. And it also reinforces my belief that the military judge committed reversible error by prohibiting Major Hasan from both testifying and arguing…how his religious beliefs” motivated his actions during the shooting.
In the last year, the Department of Justice has brought at least five prosecutions against Americans -- in Florida, California, Virginia and North Carolina - for trying to help terrorists in Iraq and Syria.
Omar Jamal, who is well known in Minneapolis’ Somali community, said at least 10 young men from there have been recruited to travel to Syria for ISIS.
"Douglas McCain wasn't the first one and unfortunately he won't be the last,"Jamal told KMSP-TV.
The former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee that investigated radicalization in a series of congressional hearings said there is a pattern.
“It was clear and convincing evidence then, that there was a pipeline from Minneapolis to Islamic jihad overseas,” said Peter King, R-N.Y. “And that people in the community knew about it and that people in the community were covering it up.”

Whopper Cartoon

Minnesota man is second American ISIS fighter killed in Syria, sources say

Is that a American Tank??

A second American killed fighting with the Islamic State group in Syria has been identified as Abdirahmaan Muhumed, of Minneapolis, two sources told Fox News late Wednesday. 
KMSP-TV in Minneapolis reported that Muhumed was killed in the same battle as Douglas McArthur McCain, who grew up outside Minneapolis in the town of New Hope and most recently lived in San Diego. The State Department confirmed McCain's death earlier this week, but spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the U.S. has no independent confirmation of the second American's death. "We're looking into it," she said.
A source told Fox News that Muhumed's family had been sent a photo of his body from Syria, but had not been formally notified by the State Department. 
A profile of Muhumed by Minnesota Public Radio this past June described him as a 29-year-old Somali-American who had been married more than once and was a father of nine children. MPR reported, citing the FBI, that at least 15 young men from the Twin Citites' Somali-American community had traveled to Syria to join Islamic State, the militant group formerly known as ISIS that has captured wide swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq. 
In a Facebook messages to an MPR reporter, Muhumed wrote "I give up this worldly life for Allah" and "Allah loves those who fight for his cause." A picture posted on the social network showed Muhumed carrying a Koran in one hand and a rifle in the other. 
Federal investigators believe that approximately 100 Americans have traveled to Syria to join Islamist groups. Most of them are disaffected young men targeted by recruitment videos like those one put out by the Somali-based, Al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab that praised Minnesota's "martyrs." One such "martyr" was Troy Kastigar, a high school classmate of Douglas McCain and a Muslim convert who was killed in Somalia in 2009. 
Abdi Bihi, a leader in the Twin Cities' Somalian community, told KMSP that ISIS has recently begun trying to recruit young women from the Twin Cities to their cause.
"They are brainwashing them to marry them off to jihadists," he said. "They call them to help out as nurses, help out the wounded -- but the real catch is they will be sexually exploited."
While the jihadists may see fighting as a path to paradise, Bihi said the only thing young people who take that path will face is disappointment, possibly even death.
"What will not change is the pain and agony and suffering of the parents," he lamented.