US considers softening demands on Iran nuke deal, report says

Bailey: " It would be a stupid move on the government's part, as Iran already looks upon the Americans as being weak and stupid!"

The United States is considering softening demands that Iran scales back its uranium enrichment program, instead agreeing to a new proposal that would allow Tehran to keep almost half of the program intact, diplomats say.
The initiative, reported late Thursday by The Associated Press, comes as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has sought to leverage the crisis in the Middle East to ease sanctions on his country as part of nuclear talks, suggesting in a United Nations address that security cooperation between Iran and other countries could only occur if they struck a favorable nuclear deal.
While focusing in large part on Islamic extremists in the region, Rouhani made clear Iran’s cooperation in addressing these threats hinges on the outcome of ongoing nuclear talks – as he once again urged other nations to drop what he described as “excessive demands.”
The U.S., fearing Tehran may enrich to weapons-grade level used to arm nuclear warheads, ideally wants no more than 1,500 centrifuges left operating. Iran insists it wants to use the technology only to make reactor fuel and for other peaceful purposes and insists it be allowed to run at least the present 9,400 machines.
The tentative new U.S. offer attempts to meet the Iranians close to half way on numbers, diplomats told The Associated Press.  They said it envisages letting Iran keep up to 4,500 centrifuges but would reduce the stock of uranium gas fed into the machines to the point where it would take more than a year of enriching to create enough material for a nuclear warhead.
That, they said, would give the international community enough lead time to react to any such attempt.
Rouhani said a deal could mark the “beginning of multilateral cooperation” and allow for “greater focus on some very important regional issues such as combating violence and extremism.”
Iran insists it does not want atomic arms but the West is only willing to lift nuclear-related sanctions if Tehran agrees to substantially shrink enrichment and other activities that Iran could turn toward making such weapons.
The diplomats emphasized that the proposal is only one of several being discussed by the six powers -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- and has not yet been formally submitted to the Iranians.
The new proposals reflect Washington's desire to advance the talks ahead of a Nov. 24 deadline that was extended from July.
They are running up against a Nov. 24 deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions.
GOP lawmakers have also warned that the Obama administration may be willing to give too much ground to Iran in pursuit of an agreement.
Failure to seal a deal could see a return to confrontation, including U.S. and Israeli threats of military means as a last resort to slow Iran's nuclear program.
"My message to Iran's leaders and people is simple: Do not let this opportunity pass," President Obama said Wednesday in his own address to world leaders.
At the same time, Rouhani has been critical of the U.S. bombing campaign of Islamic State group strongholds and the growing coalition of countries seeking to stop the extremists by military means. "Bombing and airstrikes are not the appropriate way," Rouhani said in his address to the United Nations, warning that "extraterritorial interference ... in fact only feeds and strengthens terrorism."
There are other issues that could further complicate negotiations. American officials are furious with Iran for detaining Jason Rezarian, a Washington Post journalist who has both American and Iranian citizenship, as well as his wife.
Iranian officials have not specifically said why the couple is being held, and Rouhani has dodged questions about their fate. Asked again Wednesday about Rezarian, he said he would be freed if he is innocent of any crime.

First Step Cartoon

Climate change? China rebuts Obama

EXCLUSIVE: While President Obama challenged China at the United Nations to follow the U.S. lead in pushing for drastic reductions in national carbon emissions to save the planet from “climate change,” it appears that China has dramatically different ideas. As in: no.
According to a document deposited at the Geneva-based U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in advance of a planned meeting next month, China -- now the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases -- insists that the U.S. and other developed countries endure most of the economic pain of carbon emission cutbacks, and need to make significantly more sacrifices in the months ahead.
Carbon emission cutbacks by China and other developing countries, the document says, will be “dependent on the adequate finance and technology support provided by developed country parties” to any new climate accord.
In other words, only if Western nations pay for it.
More specifically, only if Western taxpayers ante up.  Among other things, the Chinese communist regime insists that the incentive payments it demands must come from “new, additional, adequate, predictable and sustained public funds" -- rather than mostly private financing, as the U.S. hopes.
In addition, the Chinese state:
-- A promised $100 billion in annual climate financing that Western nations have already pledged  to developing countries for carbon emission control and other actions by 2020 is only  the "starting point" for additional Western financial commitments that must be laid out in a "clear road map," which includes "specific targets, timelines and identified sources;"
--In the longer run, developed countries should be committing “at least 1 percent” of their Gross Domestic Product — much more than they spend on easing global poverty” into a U.N.-administered Green Carbon Fund to pay for the developing country changes;
--In the meantime, the $100 billion pledge to the same fund should be reached by $10 billion increments, starting from a $40 billion floor this year;
--Western countries also need to remove “obstacles such as IPRs [intellectual property rights]” to “promote, facilitate and finance the transfer” of “technologies and know-how” to developing countries in advance of any future climate deal;
CLICK HERE FOR THE PAPER
The Chinese submission is part of the paperwork submitted by a variety of nations in advance of negotiations on a new global climate treaty, which is slated to be unveiled at a grand climate summit meeting in Paris at the end of 2015. This week’s ballyhooed climate summit in New York City was intended to kick-start the diplomatic process that will wend toward the Paris finale.
The Paris 2015 treaty is supposed to replace the tattered Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2020, and which the U.S. never ratified — in large measure because huge greenhouse emitters like China and India were given a pass from most of its strictures.
Since then, countries like Canada and Russia have left the protocol, and others, like Japan, have declined to tighten the screws further on carbon emissions in a time of faltering economic growth.
But while President Obama was telling the summit attendees in New York that “nobody can stand on the sidelines on this issue,” and advising world leaders that he had told China’s top delegate at their meeting that “we have a special responsibility to lead,” China has staked out its much tougher position  in a nine-page position paper drearily titled, “Submission on the Work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Durban Platform for Enhanced Action.”
The working group, part of the UNFCCC process, is pulling together international positions to develop a consensus starting point for the Paris treaty negotiations, which will supposedly be unveiled at a meeting in Lima, Peru, in December. The Chinese paper, however, went to an earlier preparatory meeting slated to begin in Bonn on October 25.
According to the Chinese, all of the additional Western action is necessary because developing countries have already done their part at greenhouse gas cutbacks—or, as the position paper has it, in typical U.N. climate-speak, “have already communicated and implemented ambitious nationally appropriate mitigation actions.”
Indeed, the paper continues, “Their contribution to global mitigation efforts is far greater than that by developed countries.”
That conclusion appears to largely draw on the fact that China believes that Western countries are “responsible for the current and future concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because of their historical, current and future emissions,” while “developing countries have the right to equitable development opportunities and sustainable development.”
That was largely the logic behind the faltering Kyoto Protocol, in which China pledged only to reduce the “carbon intensity”—the relative greenhouse gas efficiency-- of its industrialization, without any effort at actual cutbacks.
Optimists now believe that China will move in the new round of climate negotiations toward an actual trajectory of cutbacks, but there is no sign of that ambition in the current position paper.
In fact, the paper argues that any new agreement should “be based and built” on the structures of the old Kyoto deal, with “developed country Parties taking the lead in greenhouse gas emission reduction.”
There is perhaps one major exception: “Commitments by developed country Parties [to the new treaty] on providing finance, technology and capacity-building support to developing country Parties shall be of the same legal bindingness as their mitigation commitments.”
In other words:  pay-as-you-go on “climate change”  means that so far as China is concerned, the U.S. and other advanced countries should do all the paying, and most of the going.

US, allies target ISIS oil supplies in Syria

The U.S. and Arab allies unleashed a new round of airstrikes against Islamic State militants in eastern Syria late Wednesday, targeting a dozen small oil refineries.
U.S. officials told Fox News the latest round of strikes was designed to target a dozen so-called “modular oil refineries”-- essentially small, ISIS-built refineries that the terror group uses to fuel its vehicles and to fund its operations. “This is not going to look like the oil fields burning in Iraq,” one official said, referring to the Gulf War.
A Department of Defense official said ISIS made roughly a $2 million a day profit from the modular oil refineries, which produced 300 to 500 barrels a day.
Officials said all the aircraft made it back safely from the strikes.
The U.S. Central Command said in a statement partner nations in the mission included Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and the 13 airstrikes were conducted by both piloted aircraft and drones. Initial indications were the strikes were successful, the statement said.
U.S. officials said the goal was to leave the refineries largely intact, so they eventually could be used again, but to destroy the support facilities used by ISIS.
Earlier airstrikes Tuesday and Wednesday in Iraq and Syria were carried out by a mix of attack, bomber and fighter aircraft.
Two airstrikes west of Baghdad destroyed two ISIS armed vehicles and a weapons cache. Another two airstrikes, southeast of Irbil, destroyed ISIS fighting positions.
A fifth airstrike damaged eight ISIS vehicles in Syria in an area northwest of the Iraqi town of Al Qa'im, according to U.S Central Command.
All aircraft exited the area safely.
A senior defense official told Fox News that Jordan also conducted an airstrike against ISIS in Syria on Wednesday.
In a separate statement, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said the strikes in eastern Syria hit a staging area used by the militants to move equipment across the border into Iraq.
He did not specify exactly where the air raids took place, but the Iraqi town of Al Qa'im is across the border from the Syrian town of Boukamal, where Syrian activists reported at least 13 airstrikes on suspected Islamic State positions on Wednesday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not immediately clear who carried out the airstrikes in and around Boukamal, but it cited locals as saying the intensity of the air raids was similar to that of strikes on the town early Tuesday by the U.S.-led military coalition.
To date, the U.S. Central Command says it has conducted 198 airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and 20 in Syria – with the help of partner nations.
In the opening salvo of the campaign, the U.S. on its own also hit Al Qaeda's Syria branch, known as the Nusra Front. American officials said the strikes targeted the so-called Khorasan Group, which the U.S. says consists of hardened jihadis who pose a direct and imminent threat to the United States.
On Wednesday, the Nusra Front said it was evacuating its compounds near civilian areas in Idlib province in northwestern Syria. The announcement, made on a Facebook page associated with the group's Idlib operations, follows a U.S. airstrike on a Nusra Front base in the village of Kfar Derian that killed around a dozen fighters and 10 civilians, according to two activists.
Another Syrian rebel group, Ahrar al-Sham, was also clearing out of its bases, weapons workshops and offices, according to the Observatory. It said the group issued a statement calling for fighters to limit the use of wireless communication devices to emergencies, to move heavy weapons and conceal them, and to warn civilians to stay away from the group's camps.
An activist in Idlib who goes by the name of Mohammed confirmed that Ahrar al-Sham was evacuating its bases throughout the northern area. He said he was not aware of any strikes against the group, but said the fighters thought they would be targeted by the coalition because of their ultraconservative Islamic beliefs.
Ahrar al-Sham has been among the steadiest and most effective forces fighting to oust President Bashar Assad in Syria's civil war. It has also been on the front lines of a nine-month battle in northern Syria against the Islamic State group. But the U.S. has long looked at Ahrar al-Sham with suspicion, considering the group too radical and too cozy with the Nusra Front.
The U.S.-led campaign in Syria has drawn a mixed response from the country's multitude of rebel brigades, many of whom cooperate with the Nusra Front and have been locked in a deadly fight with Islamic State militants since January. But the rebels' ultimate goal is to topple Assad, while the U.S. is focused on defeating the Islamic State group.
On Wednesday, the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group criticized the American-led airstrikes for being limited to the Islamic State group and other extremists while leaving Assad's government untouched.
"We regret that the international community has come up with partial solutions to the Syrian conflict in which hundreds of thousands were killed or detained by the Assad regime," said Nasr al-Hariri, secretary general of the Syrian National Coalition.
In a statement, al-Hariri also said that any effort other than helping Syrians overthrow Assad will only fuel extremism.

Oval Office Cartoon

Obama uses coffee cup to salute Marines

Real Classy ain't he.

President Barack Obama returned a formal military salute with a one-handed coffee-cup salute Tuesday, only a few hours after he dispatched the nation’s military on their attack mission into northern Syria.
White House aides posted the sloppy salute video on Instagram.
The commander in chief offered the coffee-cup salute when he disembarked from his U.S. Marine Corps helicopter in New York, as he made his way to the United Nations General Assembly.
“President Obama just landed in New York for #UNGA2014,” says the caption.
The salute is “the most important of all military courtesies,” says a manual for Marine Corps officer candidates.
“In some situations, the salute is not appropriate,” says the manual. “In general, do not salute when… carrying articles with both hands or being otherwise so occupied as to make saluting impractical,” says the manual, titled “Customs and Courtesies.”
Some of the comments on the Instagram account were very critical of Obama’s unconventional salutation.
“Put the damn coffee down and salute correctly,” said part of a message from “gatorman1361.”

Karzai says US has not wanted peace in Afghanistan during farewell speech

Outgoing Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai took one final swipe at the U.S. Tuesday, telling a gathering of Afghan government employees that the 13-year American-led military action had failed to bring peace to his country. 
"We don't have peace because the Americans didn't want peace," said Karzai, who will officially give way to President-elect Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai when the latter is sworn in Monday.
"If America and Pakistan really want it, peace will come to Afghanistan," Karzai added, referring to his country's eastern neighbor as well as the U.S. "The war in Afghanistan is to the benefit of foreigners. But Afghans on both sides are the sacrificial lambs and victims of this war." Karzai also thanked a number of countries for their efforts in Afghanistan — India, Japan, China, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Germany — without thanking the U.S.
Karzai's words were met with a furious response by the American ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham, who called the comments "ungracious and ungrateful."
"It makes me kind of sad. I think his remarks, which were uncalled for, do a disservice to the American people and dishonor the huge sacrifices Americans have made here and continue to make here," Cunningham told a gathering of journalists.
Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi told The Washington Post that while the president appreciates the efforts of U.S. troops and taxpayers to rebuilt the war-torn country, he also believes that the U.S. did not do enough to confront Pakistan-backed militants in the country and that Washington and Islamabad "sabotaged" efforts to reach a peace deal with the Taliban. 
Karzai is the only president Afghanistan has known since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion removed the Taliban from power. In the intervening years, The United States has spent more than $100 billion on aid in Afghanistan since 2001 to train and equip the country's security forces, to pave crumbling dirt roads, to upgrade hospitals and to build schools. More than 2,200 U.S. forces have died in Afghanistan operations since 2001. Nearly 20,000 have been wounded.
The United Nations says that some 8,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in the conflict over the last five years alone. Karzai for years has railed against U.S. military strikes for the civilian casualties that some of them cause — although the United Nations has said insurgents are to blame for the overwhelming majority of casualties.
In his final year in office Karzai refused to sign a security agreement with the U.S. that would set the legal framework to allow about 10,000 American military advisers and trainers to stay in the country next year. Ghani Ahmadzai has said he will sign it.
Samehullah Samem, a member of parliament from the western province of Farah, said as a decade-long ruler Karzai has earned respect among Afghans, but that he should be more careful with his words toward an ally. He noted that the Afghan economy is faltering.
"We are completely dependent on the international community. We need the support of the international community, especially the United States of America," Samem said.
U.S. military and intelligence operatives helped transport Karzai around the region in late 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. That U.S. connection helped pave the way to the presidency.
Ghani Ahmadzai's entrance is more conventional. A former finance minister, the new president has worked at the World Bank and earned a PhD. from New York's Colombia University. His path to the presidency follows a long election season that ended with negotiations for a national unity government and the election commission giving him 55 percent of the runoff vote.
Cunningham said the U.S. was asked to be involved in the unity negotiations and that the U.S. exerted itself to help Afghanistan succeed, an important achievement especially given the "psychic investment as well as blood and treasure" here since 2001.
The 13-year war against the Taliban has largely been turned over to Afghan security forces, a development that has seen casualties among Afghan soldiers rise significantly this year.

Al Qaeda-linked target of strikes in Syria obsessed with next 9/11

The U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria put a spotlight on the shady terrorist group known as Khorasan, a small but potent Al Qaeda offshoot whose sole objective is pulling off another 9/11 terror attack.
The 50 or so fighters hardened from battle in Afghanistan and Pakistan were dispatched to Syria by Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri not to topple Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad or help the Islamic State establish a caliphate, but to recruit foreign fighters and send them home to kill. With thousands of fighters from Europe and the U.S. drawn to Syria’s bloody civil war, Khorasan’s recruiters have a surplus of passport-ready jihadists to choose from.
“Their focus is recruiting those that hold Western passports so they can attack Western airliners,” said Ryan Mauro, national security analyst and adjunct professor of homeland security at the Clarion Project. “Since Al Qaeda is looking like a bunch of has-beens, an attack on Western airliners would be a way of restoring their credibility.
“It's the jihadist equivalent of an old rock band launching a comeback tour,” he added.
The group takes its name from a Middle Eastern region that jihadists believe will be host to a final war that brings about the appearance of the Mahdi, the messianic “End Times” figure of Islam,” according to Mauro.

“Their focus is recruiting those that hold Western passports so they can attack Western airliners.”- Ryan Mauro, Clarion Project

In Syria, Khorasan is believed to have set up training camps where recruits practiced with explosives and were instructed on plots to commit terrorist attacks in the West. Intelligence experts have long warned that the greatest danger posed to the West are its own radicalized jihadists, returning home from battle in the Middle East.
On Tuesday, coalition bombers attacked around Idlib and Aleppo after intelligence showed Khorasan’s plots were ripening. Officials expressed confidence that the bombings damaged the group, but could not say the threat was eliminated.
Aligned with the jihadist group Al Nusra, also an offshoot of Al Qaeda, Khorasan has clashed with Islamic State. While they may be fighting for the allegiance of Western jihadists, their fight is mainly part of the larger rift between Islamic State and Al Qaeda. While experts say the two groups are vying for dominance in international terrorism, the organizations paint the split as spiritual.
"Al Qaeda, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Khorasan, deviated from the rightful course," Islamic State spokesman Mohammed al-Adnani recently declared. "It is not a dispute about who to kill or who to give your allegiance. It is a question of religious practices being distorted and an approach veering off the right path."
Khorasan’s leader is Muhsin al-Fadhli, a Kuwaiti well-versed in launching attacks on the Western world. Previous reports have emphasized Al Fadhli’s expertise and obsession with executing terror attacks in Western countries, targeting trains and airplanes in particular.
Reports that Al Fadhli was killed in the bombing raid could not be confirmed, but sources said his death would be a crippling blow to Khorasan. At just 33, he has long been seen as a top commander in Al Qaeda. As a 19-year-old jihadist, he is believed to have been one of the few to know in advance of the 9/11 plot. According to the UN, he went on to fight against Russian forces in Chechnya, where he trained in the use of firearms, anti-aircraft guns and explosives.
Al Fadhli is known to have headed up an Iranian Al Qaeda cell, and to have established a terrorist network in his native Kuwait, where he served jail time for helping to finance a terrorist organization.
In recent years, Al Fadhli and Khorasan have worked with the Yemeni bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri, a member of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and the explosives expert who made the underwear bomb used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in a failed airliner attack in 2009. He also designed ink cartridge bombs that were used in another failed plot to blow up UPS planes.
It’s these repeated attempts to attack the West by this shadowy group that has most alarmed U.S. officials.
“The group’s repeated efforts to conceal explosive devices to destroy aircraft demonstrate its continued pursuits of high-profile attacks against the West,” said Nicholas Rasmussen, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, adding that Khorasan’s “increasing awareness of Western security procedures and its efforts to adapt to those procedures” make it particularly dangerous.
Just last week, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the group is a threat to people and facilities on U.S. soil.
“In terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State,” Clapper said.

Iraqi Cartoon

Climate change skeptics call out marchers’ ‘hypocrisies’

Manhattan’s flood of green protesters had climate-change skeptics seeing red Sunday.
“Their love for the Earth is so real, they couldn’t even use a trash can,” tweeted a disgusted @chelsea_elisa, along with a photo of an overflowing trash can in Manhattan, after tens of thousands of marchers invaded the city on fleets of smog-producing buses.
David Kreutzer, a research fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, shared a similar photo of the marchers’ refuse trashing the city’s streets.
“Somehow this doesn’t seem too green 2me,” Kreutzer tweeted.
He and other critics of the People’s Climate March called the protesters hypocrites for wasting paper and burning fossil fuel in getting to the big event.
“The hypocrisy varies from person to person,” economist Kreutzer, 61, told The Post. “The ones that fly in on private jets are the most hypocritical.”
He was referring to celebrity A-listers who joined Sunday’s march.
Stars such as Leo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, an outspoken opponent of fracking, paraded through Midtown with people from around the country.

Number of ObamaCare enrollees appears to be dropping

President Obama’s claim last spring that 8 million people had enrolled in ObamaCare recently got a significant downgrade from the head of the agency overseeing the plan.
Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told a congressional committee that "as of August 15, this year, we have 7.3 million Americans enrolled in Health Insurance Marketplace coverage and these are individuals who paid their premiums."
A key part of her statement was Tavenner's reference to those who paid, because just signing up isn't enough to be counted as enrolled.
As Doug Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, explained,"it’s not enough to sign up. You have to sign up and pay on a regular basis to really be enrolled."
That is one reason both state and private insurance officials have been saying their enrollments were shrinking.
"They've deteriorated quite a bit, this was anticipated to some degree, but I think it's exceeded expectations in some cases," said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
For instance, state officials in Florida say their enrollments are now 220,000 lower than the administration's count in April, going from some 983,000 to just over 762,000, a drop of more than 20 percent.
A state official said some may have been duplicate enrollments because ofwebsite problems on healthcare.gov. The others, he said, just didn't pay their premiums and lost their coverage, a problem insurance companies are also reporting.
Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, said,"I've talked to a number of insurance companies around the industry and they're indicating that they're down as low as 70 percent of the original enrollments they had."
In fact, Mark Bertolini, the CEO of Aetna, the nation's third largest insurer, said recently that his companyhad 720,000 people sign up for exchange coverage as of May 20, but only 600,000 turned out to be paying customers.
He added he expects that number to fall to "just over 500,000" by the end of the year. That would leave Aetna's paid enrollment down some 30 percent from its original sign-up numbers.
Many analysts think enrollments across the industry will continue to erode.
"So the enrollment that the administration was touting in March and April," Capretta said, "I think you could bring that down by at least 20 percent going into the end of the year."
The Congressional Budget Office is predicting 13 million total enrollments at the end of the next open enrollment in February 2015. So the number they're starting from makes a big difference:
"If we've got closer to 6 million enrolled," Laszewski said, "they'd have to enroll more people in 2015 than they did this past year."

US, Arab allies launch first wave of strikes in Syria

The United States, joined by five Arab allies, launched an intense campaign of airstrikes, bombings and cruise-missile attacks against the Islamic State and other militant groups in Syria Monday night – marking the first U.S. military intervention in Syria since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011. 
U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement released early Tuesday that 14 Islamic State targets were hit, including the group's fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armed vehicles. The statement said that the operation involved 47 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles launched from the USS Arleigh Burke and USS Philippine Sea operating in the Red Sea and the North Arabian Gulf. Officials told Fox News that B-1 bombers, F-16 and F-18 fighters, and Predator drones were also used. The F-18s flew missions off the USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf.
Centcom said that U.S. aircraft also struck eight targets associated with another terrorist group called the Khorasan Group, made of up Al Qaeda veterans. Those strikes, near the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo, targeted training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communication building and command and control facilities.
Centcom said the Khorasan Group was involved in "imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests."
U.S. officials said that said the airstrikes began around 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time, and were conducted by the U.S., Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. The first wave of strikes finished about 90 minutes later, though the operation was expected to last several hours. Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said the military made the decision to strike early Monday. 
Syria's Foreign Ministry told the Associated Press that the U.S. informed Syria's envoy to the U.N. that "strikes will be launched against the terrorist Daesh group in Raqqa." The statement used an Arabic name to refer to the Islamic State group, which is more commonly known as ISIS or ISIL.
The military strikes come less than two weeks after President Obama, on Sept. 10, authorized U.S. airstrikes inside Syria as part of a broad campaign to root out the militants.
In a nod to his plans to go into Syria, Obama said then, “I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq."
The following day, at a conference with Secretary of State John Kerry, key Arab allies promised they would "do their share" to fight the Islamic State militants. The Obama administration, which at a NATO meeting in Wales earlier this month also got commitments from European allies as well as Canada and Australia, has insisted that the fight against the Islamic State militants could not be the United States' fight alone.
Until now, U.S. airstrikes have been limited to specific missions in northern Iraq, where 194 missions have been launched since August 8. Lawmakers and military advisers, though, had stressed for weeks that any campaign against the Islamic State would have to include action in Syria, where the militant network is based.
"To defeat ISIS, we must cut off the head of the snake, which exists in Syria," Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement late Monday. "I support the administration’s move to conduct airstrikes against ISIS wherever it exists."
A senior official told Fox News that President Obama was being briefed by military officials on the operation throughout the night. Earlier in the evening, the president spoke to House Speaker John Boeher, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. A White House official also updated House Majority Leader Kevin McCarty, R-Calif., on the progress of the airstrikes.
Because the United States had stayed out of the Syria conflict for so long, the Obama administration had spent the last several weeks scrambling to gather intelligence about possible targets in Syria, launching surveillance missions over the country last month.
Syrian activists reported several airstrikes on militant targets in the northern city of Raqqa, ISIS's main base. One Raqqa-based activist, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AP that the airstrikes lit the night sky over the city, and reported a power cut that lasted for two hours.
The head of the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group, Hadi Bahra, welcomed the commencement of airstrikes in Syria.
"Tonight, the international community has joined our fight against ISIS in Syria," he said in a statement.  "We have called for airstrikes such as those that commenced tonight with a heavy heart and deep concern, as these strikes begin in our own homeland. We insist that utmost care is taken to avoid civilian casualties."
Centcom said that other airstrikes hit ISIS targets near the Syrian cities of Dayr az Zawr, Al Hasakah, and Abu Kamal. Also, the U.S. carried out four airstrikes against ISIS in northern Iraq, southwest of the city of Kirkuk. 
Military leaders have said about two-thirds of the estimated 31,000 Islamic State militants were in Syria.
Some officials have expressed concern that going after Islamic State militants in Syria could inadvertently help Syrian President Bashar Assad, since the militants are fighting in part to overthrow Assad.
Urged on by the White House and U.S. defense and military officials, Congress passed legislation late last week authorizing the military to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels. Obama signed the bill into law Friday, providing $500 million for the U.S. to train about 5,000 rebels over the next year.
The militant group, meanwhile, has threatened retribution. Its spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said in a 42-minute audio statement released Sunday that the fighters were ready to battle the U.S.-led military coalition and called for attacks at home and abroad.

Close races mean possibility Senate control will be decided by post Election Day runoffs

A handful of tight races in states with quirky election laws make for the possibility that Election Day will come and go without deciding which party controls the Senate.
If that happens, brace for a fierce runoff election and possible recounts that could make for an ugly holiday season in politics and government.
The main reason for uncertainty: Louisiana's election laws. Strategists in both parties say a Dec. 6 runoff is likely because Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and top Republican challenger Bill Cassidy will struggle to exceed 50 percent on the crowded Nov. 4 ballot.
In Louisiana's "jungle primary," all candidates -- regardless of party -- run in November. If none exceeds 50 percent, the top two finishers head into a Dec. 6 runoff.
It's not implausible that control of the Senate could hang on a Louisiana runoff.
Republicans need six more seats to claim a 51-49 Senate majority. A 50-50 split would let Vice President Joe Biden break tie votes and keep Democrats in charge.
Republicans are strongly favored to win three races where Democratic senators are retiring: West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana.
Their best hopes to pick up three more seats are in the four contests where Democrats seek re-election in states President Barack Obama lost: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
Republicans are also making strong bids in Iowa, Colorado and New Hampshire, which Obama carried.
If Republicans win two of those races, plus the three where they are heavily favored, then all eyes and lots of campaign money would turn to Louisiana if there's a runoff.
"And I don't think there's any chance we don't go into a runoff in Louisiana," said Brian Walsh, a Republican adviser in Senate races.
A major GOP campaign group has reserved $4 million in Louisiana TV air time after Nov. 4, anticipating battling Landrieu through Dec. 6.
Waiting for a make-or-break Louisiana outcome would deeply affect the postelection congressional session scheduled to start Nov. 12. Congress must appropriate money in November to keep the government running, and it may revisit the president's continued authority to arm Syrian rebels, among other things.
If Republicans think they will control the Senate in the new Congress set to convene Jan. 3, they may want to limit action in the Democratic-controlled lame-duck session. It's almost certain that Republicans will retain their House majority.
Georgia's Senate race could have an even messier outcome than Louisiana's. GOP nominee David Perdue is thought to have a modest lead over Democrat Michelle Nunn in the race to succeed retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss.
But there's a Libertarian on the ballot, who might win enough votes to keep Perdue and Nunn from reaching 50 percent. That would trigger a runoff Jan. 6, three days after the new Congress' scheduled start.
It requires a lot of "ifs." But a scenario in which Republicans entered the new Congress with a 50-49 Senate majority, while awaiting a Georgia outcome that could soon return them to the minority, would further roil an already bitterly partisan government.
If nothing else, "it would make for a bad Christmas for everyone," said GOP strategist Ron Bonjean.
A recount of a Georgia runoff result, should there be one, would extend confusion even deeper into 2015. A candidate may request a recount if the margin is less than 1 percent of all votes cast.
Alaska presents another possibility for an inconclusive Nov. 4 Senate election. Alaska traditionally counts only about two-thirds of its total vote on election night. State law postpones counting most absentee and questioned ballots until a week after the election.
Twice in the past six year, a Senate winner in Alaska wasn't declared until at least two weeks after Election Day. This year, the state features one of the nation's tightest races. First-term Democratic Sen. Mark Begich faces Republican Dan Sullivan. Obama lost Alaska by 14 percentage points.
Of all the high-stakes "what if" possibilities, campaign professionals see a Dec. 6 Louisiana runoff as the most likely. Landrieu has scrapped to win three Senate terms, but the state has trended Republican in recent years.
"If Louisiana is the deciding seat, pity anyone watching television in the state that month," said Matt Bennett, who has advised several Democratic candidates. "They will be blitzed with more ads, from campaigns and outside groups, than they could possibly imagine."
Generally, Republicans fare better in runoffs because their supporters tend to vote regardless of the date, weather or levels of publicity.
But an intensive, well-targeted get-out-the-vote operation could save Landrieu, Bennett said, "and the Democrats clearly dominate in the technology and coordination of their ground campaigns."

Alleged White House intruder is decorated Iraq combat vet

The Texas man accused of dashing through the White House front door Friday with a folding knife is a decorated Army veteran and marksman who served in Iraq, the U.S. military said Sunday.
Omar Jose Gonzalez, who is being held in connection with illegally trying to enter the White House complex, served more than 13 years over the course of two Army stints.
The 42-year-old Gonzalez was discharged in 2003 after serving six years and completing his military service obligation. He retired in 2012 as a result of a disability, after serving roughly seven more years, according to his military record.
The military does not provide details about a soldier's disability due to privacy considerations.
Gonzales, of Copperas Cove, Texas, allegedly jumped the White House fence along Pennsylvania Avenue at 7:20 p.m. Friday, then crossed the North Lawn and opened the mansion’s front door before being apprehended by a Secret Service police officer standing guard.  
President Obama, his two daughters and a friend had left minutes before on helicopter Marine One for Camp David. First lady Michelle Obama had departed earlier for the western Maryland presidential retreat.
According to court documents, Gonzales told Secret Service agents after being apprehended that the “atmosphere was collapsing” and that he had to tell the president so he could warn the public.
Officials first said the fact that Gonzales appeared to be unarmed may have been a factor in why agents at the scene didn't shoot or have their dogs pursue him before he made it inside the White House.
According to Gonzales’ record, his military occupation was Cavalry Scout, which the Army calls the “eyes and ears of the commander during battle” and whose duties included preparing ammunition, reporting on terrain and collecting data on classify routes.
He received more than a dozen awards, badges and ribbons during his military career including two Good Conduct medals an Iraq Campaign medal, a Combat Action badge and an Expert Marksmanship badge.
Gonzalez is expected to appear in federal court Monday to face charges of unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon.
At a hearing late Saturday afternoon in D.C. Superior Court, the assistant public defender representing Gonzalez said her client had no convictions or arrest warrants and had tested negative Saturday for drug use, according to The Washington Post.
"This is someone who has provided service to his country and shown commitment in his life," said the lawyer, Margarita O'Donnell, as she tried unsuccessfully to get Gonzalez released.

JV Team Cartoon

Dem rep under fire over video with lewd reference to Maine GOP senator, sex act

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Maine is under fire from Republicans for promoting a video containing a rap song that makes a sexual reference to Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Rep. Michael Michaud’s campaign says it did not pay for or oversee the contents of the video, and is lashing back out at Republicans for making it a campaign issue.
But the trouble started when Michaud retweeted the short video, a documentary-style clip on his campaign that was made by a Maine multimedia company.
The video includes a song by local rapper Spose. It lyrics include the line: "I'm the King of Maine. I've got Susan Collins giving everyone brain" -- a slang term for oral sex.
The Maine Republican Party on Friday denounced the video and demanded Michaud apologize to Collins and “all Maine women” for his “endorsement” of the video.
“It is absolutely appalling and completely inexcusable that Michael Michaud would make a video with such a vulgar reference to Susan Collins,” party spokeswoman Deborah Sanderson said in a statement. “In his quest to win votes from a younger generation, Congressman Michaud has gone way over the line by participating in this depraved insult to Maine’s senior senator.”
Michaud's campaign, though, says it wasn't immediately aware of the lyric's meaning, and has since asked the production company to take the video down.
While the state GOP claimed the video was a “collaboration” with the Democrat’s campaign, Michaud denied it.
“The Michaud campaign did not produce the video or have any control or advance knowledge of its contents,” the candidate tweeted. 
His campaign and its allies, meanwhile, are accusing Republicans of “gutter politics” for making an issue of it.
“This is just rank dishonesty. Period. It’s really a shame that at a time when so many important issues are facing the state of Maine, the Maine GOP has resorted to outright lying in trying to tear down Mike Michaud,” Ben Grant, chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, said in a statement.
Spose appears to be no fan of Michaud’s Republican rival, Gov. Paul LePage. According to The Maine Wire blog, the rapper tweeted a picture of himself posing with Michaud. In the tweet, he called the sitting governor an “a—hole.”
Polls show Michaud and LePage in a tight race.
The Portland Press Herald reports that Michaud wasn’t the only one who may have missed the meaning of the sexual innuendo in Spose’s “King of Maine” lyrics -- and that state Republicans also had promoted the video.
According to the newspaper, Bangor Daily News blogger Alex Steed, who made the video with his production company, said Michaud had “nothing to do with it” -- though Republicans argued that the Democrat’s staff nevertheless gave him access to the candidate and his team.

F-22 fighters intercept Russian military planes 55 miles off Alaska

Two U.S. F-22 fighter jets intercepted six Russian military airplanes that were flying near Alaska, military officials said Friday.
Lt. Col. Michael Jazdyk, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, said the jets intercepted the planes about 55 nautical miles from the Alaskan coast at about 7 p.m. Pacific time Wednesday.
Tensions are high between the United States and Russia as the two countries are increasingly at odds over Ukraine, where Russian-backed insurgents have been fighting for control of parts of the country.
The Russian planes were identified as two IL-78 refueling tankers, two Mig-31 fighter jets and two Bear long-range bombers. They looped south and returned to their base in Russia after the U.S. jets were scrambled.
At about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, two Canadian CF-18 fighter jets intercepted two of the long-range Russian Bear bombers about 40 nautical miles off the Canadian coastline in the Beaufort Sea.
In both cases, the Russian planes entered the Air Defense Identification Zone, which extends about 200 miles from the coastline. They did not enter sovereign airspace of the United States or Canada.
Jazdyk said the fighter jets were scrambled “basically to let those aircraft know that we see them, and in case of a threat, to let them know we are there to protect our sovereign airspace.”
In the past five years, jets under NORAD’s command have intercepted more than 50 Russian bombers approaching North American airspace.
NORAD is a binational American and Canadian command responsible for air defense in North America.

Will Tea Party, GOP establishment be 'mending fences' to win Senate in November?

After a long, unapologetic effort to defeat Tea Party and other so-called “unelectable” candidates in GOP primaries, the Washington establishment will likely need Tea Party voters in November to help swing several tight Senate races and win control of the upper chamber.
Republicans appear poised to win three of the net total six seats required to take the Senate. But they are locked in six other, too-close-to call contests in their effort to win the remaining three seats.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee on Friday dismissed the notion that party voters are not united behind their candidates.
“Can you point to a race … ? It’s a false narrative,” said group spokeswoman Brook Hougsen, who cited a recent George Washington University survey that shows Republicans with a 16-point advantage over Democrats (52-to-36 percent) in a generic poll on competitive Senate races.
Kevin Broughton, spokesman for the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, a political action committee, singled out a few races, particularly in Kansas and Mississippi, but suggested his troops will rally for the general election.
“While Tea Party people and conservative activists might have a bad taste in their mouth, the goal is to keep Barack Obama from making more bad appointments to the federal appeals courts,” he said. “And the way you stop that is to take away (Nevada Sen.) Harry Reid’s Democratic majority and his nuclear option.”
Broughton said they will focus on such grassroots efforts as get-out-the-vote, instead of buying TV or other media spots. 
The establishment and its deep-pocket supporters made clear from the start of the 2014 election cycle that their goal was to field a full squad of electable candidates, thus avoiding past mistakes, and to weed out anybody who might get elected and undermine their legislative agenda.
“Our job is to win a GOP majority,” NRSC strategist Brad Dayspring said in terse November 2013 tweet.
Two months later, the Chamber of Commerce made clear that Big Business was also going to work -- vowing to support candidates “who want to work within the legislative process” and to unleash “enough resources to run the most effective political program of 2014.” 
The results were indeed impressive.
All six Republican senators who faced promising Tea Party-backed challenges won their primaries, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who in March boldly predicted he and the rest of the Washington establishment would “crush” far-right advocacy groups and their candidates. 
“I don’t think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country,” the five-term Kentucky Republican told The New York Times.
The other wins came in Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Kansas, where the NRSC helped incumbent GOP Sen. Pat Roberts to victory with more than 40,000 phone calls in the final three weeks of his campaign.
In Mississippi, Tea Party-backed candidate Chris McDaniel forced GOP incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran -- who had strong inside-the-beltway financial and grassroots support -- into a runoff to retain his seat.
Politico described the contest as “a flashpoint in the GOP civil war.”
The North Carolina Senate race is among the six deadlocked races.
The Washington establishment has invested in candidate Thom Tillis, a state House leader who defeated a field of Tea Party-backed challenger in a May primary and now faces incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagen.
The U.S. chamber has so far put $1.2 million into the race, according to OpenSecrets.org.
The other races are in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana and now Iowa -- all considered “tossups,” according to the nonpartisan website RealClearPolitics.
“There will have to be some fence mending with these groups, particularly in states with late primaries,” Andrew Smith, a University of New Hampshire pollster and political science professor, said earlier this week.
He said the GOP establishment must get those groups energized and that the best way is to “make it easy for independent voters” by tying every Democratic candidate to President Obama.
Republicans blame Tea Party-backed and flawed candidates for squandering the party's shot at Senate control in 2010 and 2012, especially in Delaware, Nevada, Colorado, Missouri and Indiana.
In Delaware, for example, Christine O’Donnell rode the 2010 Tea Party wave to victory over nine-term Rep. Mike Castle in the state’s GOP Senate primary, only to run a disastrous general-election campaign and lose the Republican-held seat by 17 percentage points.
“I’m sure a lot of party leaders are also saying, ‘Look, you saw what happened in 2010 and 2012. Don’t let it happen again,’ ” Smith said.
This weekend, Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund sent an email to members attacking Colorado Democratic Senate nominee Rep. Bruce Braley. The email in part criticized Braley for his support of ObamaCare but made no mention of Republican nominee Joni Ernst, who has support from the Washington establishment and such Tea Party stalwarts as 2010 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
“By any measure, Republicans are fired up and ready to deliver victories to their candidates in November,” said Ed Goeas, president and chief executive of the Tarrance Group, which helped in the GWU poll.   

NFL Cartoon

Democrats' big guns court women voters

With little more 40 days until voters head to the polls, the 2014 midterm election cycle marks the first in modern history in which Democrats find themselves scrambling to reclaim the lion’s share of the female vote in such elections.
Women tilted Republican in 2010, an unprecedented development since exit polling for congressional races began in 1992, and both parties recognize the critical role women will play in determining whether the GOP regains control of the Senate.
With such concerns in mind, the Democratic Party’s biggest guns – President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the party’s putative frontrunner if she runs in 2016, as many expect – descended on Washington’s Marriott Marquis Hotel, site of the 21sr annual conference of the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum.
The event represented a homecoming of sorts for Clinton, who co-founded the group back in 1993, when she was First Lady. Conceding that midterm elections are not as “glamorous” as presidential contests, Clinton urged the several hundred people in attendance to vote in November, singling out a number of female candidates locked in tight House and Senate races across the country. “This election is a crucial one,” she said.
While touting her own record on women’s issues – a term Clinton herself discounted, preferring instead “family issues” – the potential 2016 contender also praised the records of Obama and Biden, who has made no secret of his interest in pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination.
Following the rocky rollout for her book this spring, when Clinton’s comments about her finances prompted criticism that she has lost touch with ordinary Americans, she used the DNC event to emphasize that she understands the challenges faced by working mothers. 
She recounted her own days as a young attorney in Arkansas, when her husband, the future president, was the state’s governor, and the couple occasionally had problems lining up day care for their daughter Chelsea.
Obama argued that America is “better off” now than when he became president, and that “strong women” will help the nation reach its best days in the years to come. He also rose to the defense of the embattled DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. Published reports over the past week have alluded to dissatisfaction with Wasserman-Schultz within Democratic ranks – alternately linked to the White House and the Clinton camp – and suggested that some party activists are angling for her replacement.
“Nobody, anywhere, works harder than Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” the president said in comments that followed the congresswoman’s staunch defense of the Obama administration’s record on issues of concern to women.
Biden also defended the DNC chair, saying, “If we want anybody to do that 60 seconds or 120 seconds we get to respond to some attack on the president or on the administration, the best person…is always Debbie.”
As the principal architect of the Violence Against Women Act, a landmark law enacted 20 years ago, Biden enjoys a solid reputation among women voters. However, he committed a gaffe Friday when, in his remarks before the mostly female crowd, he praised the moderation of a number of Republican senators with whom he used to collaborate on legislation – and specifically named former Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, who was forced to resign in 1995 amid multiple allegations of sexually harassment.
Polls show no clear trend lines for women voters in key races for the Senate, where Republicans need to win six seats to reclaim majority control of the chamber. Some analysts argue that that bodes well for the GOP, because it shows Democratic candidates are not enjoying the kind of lopsided support from women that they may need in order to offset traditional Republican strength among male voters.
With videos of the beheadings of two American journalists driving fears about the deteriorating state of the Middle East, and U.S. military forces preparing for war against the terrorist army known as ISIS, one female conservative suggested this election cycle will witness the return of “security moms” – female voters distrustful of Democrats on national security issues.
“After all of the unraveling around the world this summer with President Obama’s foreign policy – in the Middle East, with ISIS, in Russia, new relationships with China – we see that unraveling is unsettling to women,” said Gayle Trotter,an attorney and senior fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum in Washington. “More women are saying now that foreign policy is something that they’re very concerned about for the midterm elections.”

Goodell says NFL got it 'wrong,' announces partnerships with anti-violence groups

NEW YORK –  Commissioner Roger Goodell says the NFL wants to implement new personal conduct policies by the Super Bowl.
Goodell was short on specifics at a news conference Friday, his first public statements in more than a week about the rash of NFL players involved in domestic violence. More defiant than contrite as he was hammered with questions, Goodell said he has not considered resigning.
"Unfortunately, over the past several weeks, we have seen all too much of the NFL doing wrong," he said in his opening statement. "That starts with me."
The league has faced increasing criticism that it has not acted quickly or emphatically enough. The commissioner reiterated that he botched the handling of the Ray Rice case.
"The same mistakes can never be repeated," he said.
Goodell said he would meet with NFL Players Association chief DeMaurice Smith next week, and they would work with outside experts to evaluate the league's policies.
Among the areas that will be examined is Goodell's role in discipline. The commissioner now oversees all personal conduct cases, deciding guilt and penalties.
"Nothing is off the table," he said.
Goodell said he believes he has the support of the NFL's owners, his bosses.
"That has been clear to me," he said.
The commissioner and some NFL teams have been heavily criticized for lenient or delayed punishment of Rice, Adrian Peterson and other players involved in recent domestic violence cases. Less than three weeks into the season, five such cases have made headlines.
Vikings star running back Peterson and Carolina defensive end Greg Hardy are on a special commissioner's exemption list and are being paid while they go through the legal process. Arizona running back Jonathan Dwyer was placed on the reserve/non-football illness list, meaning he can't play for the team again this season. Ray McDonald, a defensive end for San Francisco, continues to practice and play while being investigated on suspicion of domestic violence.
As these cases have come to light, such groups as the National Organization of Women and league partners and sponsors have come down hard on the NFL to be more responsive in dealing with them. Congress also is watching to see how the NFL reacts.
Rice was initially suspended for two games. After defending the punishment at first, Goodell admitted more than a month later that he "didn't get it right" and announced tougher penalties for future domestic violent incidents.
Then when a video emerged of the assault on his then-fiancee, the Baltimore Ravens cut the star running back and the league banned him indefinitely.
Goodell reiterated Friday that he didn't believe anybody at the NFL had seen the video before it was published by TMZ. The Associated Press reported last week that a law enforcement official says he sent the video to a league executive five months ago.
Citing Rice's appeal of his indefinite suspension, Goodell declined to specify Friday how the player's description of what happened was "inconsistent" with what the video showed — the commissioner's reason for changing his punishment.
The NFL asked former FBI director Robert Mueller to conduct an investigation into the league's handling of the Rice case. The law firm where Mueller is now a partner, WilmerHale, has connections to the NFL. Goodell insisted Friday that it wasn't a conflict of interest because Mueller himself has not previously worked with the league.
Goodell acknowledged he has learned that interviewing Rice and his now-wife together is an inappropriate way to handle a domestic violence case.
The commissioner declined to address whether any women were involved in the decision to suspend Rice for two games, but conceded that's "exactly what we're concerned about."
"We didn't have the right voices at the table," he added.
The NFL has since added domestic violence experts as consultants. It also announced it is partnering with a domestic violence hotline and a sexual violence resource center.
Goodell said Friday that he will establish a conduct committee. One of the key questions is how to balance the league's desire to take a stance against violent acts with the due process of the legal system.
In a memo to the clubs late Thursday, Goodell said that within the next 30 days, all NFL and team personnel will participate in education sessions on domestic violence and sexual assault. The memo said the league will work with the union in providing the "information and tools to understand and recognize domestic violence and sexual assault."
The league will provide financial, operational and promotional support to the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

49 Turkish hostages held by ISIS freed, prime minister says

ANKARA, Turkey –  Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday that 49 hostages who were seized by Islamic militants in Iraq have been freed and safely returned to Turkey, ending Turkey's most serious hostage crisis.
The hostages were seized from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul, Iraq on June 11, when the Islamic State group overran the city in its surge to seize large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
Their release contrasts with the recent beheadings of two U.S. journalists and a British aid worker by the Islamic State group, but it wasn't immediately clear what Turkey had done to secure the safe release of the hostages.
Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said the hostages are 49 Turkish consulate employees — 46 Turks and three local Iraqis — including Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz, other diplomats, children and special forces police.
The hostages were released early on Saturday and had arrived in Turkey, Davutoglu told Turkish reporters during a visit to Baku, Azerbaijan. He said he was cutting his visit short to meet them in the province of Sanliurfa, near Turkey's border with Syria.
He didn't say where the release took place, but the arrival of the hostages in Sanliurfa indicates they may have been moved from Iraq to Syria, demonstrating the Islamic State group's cross border reach.
Turkey had been reluctant to join a coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, citing the safety of its 49 kidnapped citizens. The United States had been careful not to push Turkey too hard as it tried to free the hostages.
The extremist group beheaded two U.S. journalists and a British aid worker who were working in Syria as payback for airstrikes that Washington has launched against them in Iraq.
Leaders gave only limited details of the release and it wasn't clear if Turkey had paid ransoms to have the hostages released, or what other method had been used to avoid their hostages meeting a similar fate.
Davutoglu said the release was the result of the intelligence agency's "own methods," and not a "point operation" involving special forces, but didn't elaborate.
"After intense efforts that lasted days and weeks, in the early hours, our citizens were handed over to us and we brought them back to our country," Davutoglu said.
Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Turks were freed through "a successful operation."
"I thank the prime minister and his colleagues for this operation which was pre-planned, whose every detail was calculated, which lasted through the night in total secrecy and ended successfully this morning," Erdogan said in a statement.
Thirty-two Turkish truck drivers who were also seized in Mosul on June 6 were released a month later. Turkey did not provide information surrounding their release.

White House fence jumper sparks evacuation

Bailey: "This just shows how weak and stupid Democrat elected Obama's Regime has become. It's really scary as this is the government that is suppose to protect us!"

WASHINGTON –  A man jumped over the fence of the White House on Friday and made it through the front door before officers managed to apprehend him, the Secret Service said. President Obama had departed the White House just minutes earlier.
The rare security breach was likely to renew intense scrutiny of the Secret Service, an agency whose storied history has been marred in recent years by multiple allegations of misconduct by officers. It was unclear whether a fence-jumper has ever made it into the White House before.
After scaling the fence on the north side of the White House, the intruder darted toward the presidential residence, ignoring commands from officers to stop, said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan. He was ultimately apprehended just inside the North Portico doors — the grand, columned entrance that looks out over Pennsylvania Avenue.
Donovan said the man appeared to be unarmed to officers who spotted him climbing the fence, and a search of the suspect turned up no weapons. The suspect was transported to a nearby hospital for examination after complaining of chest pain. He was charged with unlawful entry into the White House complex.
The Secret Service identified the suspect as Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, of Copperas Cove, Texas. Attempts to reach Gonzales or his relatives by phone Friday evening were unsuccessful.
The incident prompted a rare evacuation of much of the White House. Inside the West Wing, White House staffers and Associated Press journalists were rushed into the basement and out a side exit to a nearby street by Secret Service agents — some with their weapons drawn.
Although it's not uncommon for people to make it over the White House fence, they're typically stopped almost immediately and rarely get very far. Video from the scene showed the suspect, in jeans and a dark shirt, sprinting across the lawn as Secret Service agents shouted at nearby pedestrians to clear the area.
"This situation was a little different than other incidents we have at the White House," Donovan said. "There will be a thorough investigation into the incident."
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who chairs the House Oversight Committee's subpanel on national security, said it was "totally unacceptable" that the fence-jumper made it inside the White House. Chaffetz said he's been investigating the Secret Service for more than a year and that there have been many security breaches that were never publicly reported.
"Unfortunately, they are failing to do their job," Chaffetz said in an email to the AP. "There are good men and women, but the Secret Service leadership has a lot of questions to answer."
The incident occurred shortly after 7 p.m., only minutes after Obama and his daughters, along with a guest of one of the girls, left the White House aboard Marine One on their way to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland where Obama and his family were to spend the weekend. First lady Michelle Obama had traveled separately to Camp David and was not at home.
The Secret Service's elite reputation has suffered a succession of blows in recent years, and Friday's breach marked yet another setback in the agency's efforts to rehabilitate its image.
In 2012, 13 agents and officers were implicated in a prostitution scandal during preparations for Obama's trip Cartagena, Colombia. The next year, two officers were removed from Obama's detail after another alleged incident of sexually-related misconduct. And in March, an agent was found drunk by staff at a Dutch hotel the day before Obama was set to arrive in the Netherlands.
Obama appointed the agency's first female director last year as a sign he wanted to change the culture and restore public confidence in its operations. An inspector general's report in December found no evidence of widespread misconduct.
The Secret Service has struggled in recent years to strike the appropriate balance between ensuring the first family's security and preserving the public's access to the White House grounds. Once open to vehicles, the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was confined to pedestrians after the Oklahoma City bombing, but officials have been reluctant to restrict access to the area further.
Evacuations at the White House are extremely rare. Typically, when someone jumps the White House fence, the compound is put on lockdown and those inside remain in place while officers respond to the situation. Last week, the Secret Service apprehended a man who jumped over the same stretch of fence on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, prompting officers to draw their firearms and deploy service dogs as they took the man into custody.

Mother of Slain Journalist James Foley Drops Bombshell on TV

Not that red-blooded Americans need any more reason to desire a total shake-up of the entrenched establishment… nevertheless, here’s a bit more fuel to add to the fire.
Diane Foley told Anderson Cooper in a CNN interview that she was both “embarrassed” and “appalled” at how the situation regarding her son’s capture and eventual execution played out. Primarily because the government looked right past the plight of her son and treated her and her family as an “annoyance.”
Diane Foley she wasted no time in indicting the government with serious “mishandling” of her son’s capture and treatment. For example, she told Cooper that many times she and her family knew more about the whereabouts of her son James than authorities ever did.
“Jim was killed in the most horrific way. He was sacrificed because of just a lack of coordination, lack of communication, lack of prioritization,” Foley said. “As a family, we had to find our way through this on our own.”
The Foley’s are like any other family who love their children. They weren’t selfish; they merely wanted to be reunited with their loved one.
At times, when it seemed like the U.S. government wasn’t doing enough to help them, the Foley’s considered raising ransom money to free their son.
Shockingly, they were told by the state department that, if they were to do that, they would be charged with a criminal offense.
The Foley’s were left with very little recourse, and were forced to depend on a government that didn’t really seem all that interested in helping free their son.
“I think our efforts to get Jim freed were an annoyance [to the U.S. government],” she said in the interview. “It didn’t seem to be in (U.S.) strategic interest, if you will.”
As outrageous as it is, perhaps it isn’t all that shocking.
The Obama administration has been very calculating and very secretive in its handling of affairs internationally, often using situations like this as mere political props.
For instance, Foley revealed to Cooper that more than once they were told by U.S. government officials they were “not go to the media,” and that the “government would not exchange prisoners” or carry out “military action” to help free her son.
Why wasn’t the government interested in helping the Foley’s? The answer to that question might have something to do with America’s desire for military engagement with ISIS.
Keep in mind, much of the establishment is always looking out for their best interest. If you’ll recall, just a few short months prior, right as the VA scandal broke, Obama hastily arranged a hostage negotiation for Bowe Bergdahl, despite lacking the constitutional authority to do so.
His release served Obama and his administration as much as it did Bergdahl.
So, if you look at it in a certain light, James Foley might have served the U.S. government’s interests better dead than he ever would have alive.
As his mother said, “Jim would have been saddened… Jim believed, till the end, that his country would come to (his) aid.”

They're Back Cartoon

Immigration worker union warns ‘serious threat’ of ISIS entering US

The union representing America's immigration caseworkers warned Thursday of the "real and serious threat" that Islamic State terrorists could gain entry to the United States, either by slipping through the southern U.S. border or exploiting "loose and lax" visa policies. 
Kenneth Palinkas, president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, issued the warning in a written statement. He's the latest to raise alarm that the Islamic State may be planning to infiltrate the U.S., though top security officials have said they see no evidence of such a plot at this stage. 
Palinkas specifically alleged the administration has made it easier for terrorists to "exploit" the country's visa policies and enter the homeland. 
He complained that the administration has "widened the loophole" they could use through the asylum system, and has restricted agents from going after many of those who overstay their visas. 
Further, he warned that executive orders being contemplated by President Obama would "legalize visa overstays" and raise "the threat level to America even higher." He said there is "no doubt" many are already being "targeted for radicalization." 
Palinkas' union represents 12,000 workers with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles immigration documents. 
His statement, though, also backed recent claims from lawmakers and others that ISIS is already looking at the southern border. Palinkas cited the threat that "ISIS has already or will soon slip across our porous southern border." 
On Wednesday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a House hearing with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson that he had "reason to believe" that four individuals were apprehended trying to cross into the U.S. from Texas on Sept. 10, and that they "have ties to known terrorist organizations in the Middle East." 
Johnson said he had "heard reports to that effect" but could not speak to their accuracy. 
Johnson, though, stressed that the government had "no specific intelligence or evidence to suggest at present that ISIL is attempting to infiltrate this country though our southern border." 
At the same hearing, National Counterterrorism Center head Matthew Olsen also said: "There has been a very small number of sympathizers with ISIL who have posted messages on social media about this, but we've seen nothing to indicate there is any sort of operational effort or plot to infiltrate or move operatives from ISIL" into the U.S. through the southern border. 
Still, Johnson said the U.S. needs to be "vigilant" and aware of the possibility of "potential infiltration by ISIL or any other terrorist group." 
Warnings have been circulating for weeks about that possibility. 
In August, the Texas Department of Public Safety put out a bulletin that said ISIS social media messages showed "militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of US, for terror attack." 
Chaffetz, in an interview with Fox News, said he's concerned about that prospect. 
"We have a porous border," he said. "I'm worried about them actually coming to the United States and crossing that porous border and getting into the homeland."