‘Aggressive’ timetable for launching Obama immigration actions raising concerns

Nearly two months after President Obama announced his immigration executive actions, questions remain over whether the Department of Homeland Security can be ready to process millions of additional immigrants through an already-burdened system.
DHS is on a hiring spree as it sets an ambitious schedule – outlined in a recent memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS agency in charge of processing the requests -- for accepting new applicants.
The agency plans to begin accepting applications in late February under an expanded program for those who came to the U.S. illegally as children (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA). And the agency is looking to May to implement the biggest, and most controversial, plank of Obama’s plan – effectively legalizing potentially millions of parents of U.S. citizens and legal residents.
But the colossal effort, on a tight timetable, perhaps inevitably has some questioning whether they can pull it off.
One source inside the Department of Homeland Security told Fox News that so far, not enough has been done to get that machine up and running on time. The source raised the specter of the HealthCare.gov launch.
“There is a state of confusion at DHS,” said the DHS source, who works in immigration enforcement, claiming that “just like ObamaCare, the administration is eager to make an announcement, but infrastructure is lacking to make it happen.”
The administration wants to hire 1,000 workers to help process applications out of a new facility in Crystal City, Va., just outside Washington.
Ken Palinkas, president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council (NCISC), the union representing USCIS employees, said he recently toured the new operations center and it has little in it but leftover furniture from the last government tenant. With the agency aiming for Feb. 20 or so to launch the first phase, that leaves less than six weeks to hire, vet and train these new employees, he told FoxNews.com. 
“They want to do this in February – this is unheard of,” Palinkas said. “I’ve been working in government for 15 years, and I know things don’t get done on time.”
While the administration scrambles to get ready, Republican foes in Congress continue their quest to halt the effort. Republicans are debating legislation this week to block funding for the immigration actions.
But supporters of the program say that beyond leasing new office space and hiring employees, USCIS has been readying for the influx for some time and has learned from the rollout of DACA, which has been processing tens of thousands of young undocumented immigrants since 2012. Further, the administration already has launched a new policy, as a result of Obama’s November announcement, for immigration enforcement and deportations.
“The agency knew for a long time to anticipate something coming,” said Wendy Feliz, of the American Immigration Council. “They have been planning and thinking and modernizing for years. I think ramping it up to five million probably won’t be as hard as you think.”
Under what’s known as “deferred action,” those eligible would be able to work legally and avoid deportation for three years, as well as qualify for services offered by their state. Children and parents would have to demonstrate they have been living in the U.S. continuously since 2010.
DHS officials, meanwhile, describe an across-the-board effort to prepare, including multiple avenues for members of the public to get answers and training for employees.
A DHS spokeswoman stressed that Secretary Jeh Johnson has issued several sets of guidance, and training has begun for the new enforcement and removal program. She noted Johnson met with leaders from several agencies in Texas, and said there has been “extensive communication” with employees, in addition to DHS-sponsored town halls across the country.
As for the looming flood of applications, she said: “USCIS is building the additional capacity needed to begin accepting requests for upcoming immigration initiatives.”
She said additional workers and the new facility “will ensure that every case processed by USCIS receives a thorough review under our guidelines.” The spokeswoman said the USCIS website will be updated with new information “on a regular basis,” and hotlines are available for people to call if they have questions or need help.
Further, the departments of Homeland Security and State recently launched an outreach effort detailing eligibility requirements. The effort, which includes radio and TV ads, is aimed at the Mexican and Central American public, telling them whom the executive actions apply to and urging against more illegal immigration. Separate fliers remind would-be applicants that nobody can apply yet.
An estimated 3.7 million would be eligible for the program affecting parents of legal residents; and roughly 290,000 would be eligible for the expanded DACA.
The example of the 2012 DACA shows a significant number of those who qualify apply, and most who do are approved. According to the Migration Policy Institute, some 55 percent of the 1.2 million who qualified in 2012 have applied in the last two years.
According to their numbers, 682,189 had applied as of July 2014; approval was granted to 587,366. Those approved early in the program already are applying for renewals, which would add to the processing pressure on the agency.
According to the Brookings Institution, renewal applications should be in the 20,000-40,000 range per month until at least June. There have been numerous reports about DACA backlogs threatening a smooth roll-out of the expanded programs.
Meanwhile, a class-action suit filed against DHS and USCIS in July by asylum-seekers who say they have been in “limbo” cited a backlog of more than 45,000 in that program.
“The question is, how prepared is the agency going into this, and what things look like on their end,” said Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at Brookings. She is a supporter of the program who believes USCIS learned a lot in the last two years and will be depending on an “army” of municipal and community-based organizations to help streamline the effort.
According to a New York Times report in late December, the new operations center was leased for nearly $8 million a year, and salaries are expected to cost more than $40 million annually.
Palinkas, who opposes the president’s executive actions, said he’s been surprised at the “aggressive” nature of the roll-out. “My personal opinion is they are working more aggressively for illegal [immigrants] than for people who are legally taking the route [to citizenship],” he said.
Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which also opposes the actions, questioned where the money for the building comes from. “There is no doubt the agency has been planning this action for a quite some time,” she told FoxNews.com. “My idea is they squirreled away money from the fee revenues from other programs to get this off the ground … without authorization from Congress.”
This is the funding stream congressional Republicans are targeting.
Vaughan also predicted that with the influx of new applicants and the president’s ambitious timetable, USCIS agents will be pressured to “rubber stamp” requests. “It’s completely impossible for the agency to accommodate all these applications and process them with any integrity whatsoever,” she said. “This is five times their workload we’re talking about.”
Singer said aside from criminal background checks, applicants must meet specific criteria and provide documentation of their ages and residency.
“Rubber stamping” isn’t an option, she said. “People can speculate all they want. But this is a program the agency is taking very seriously, it’s very high profile and nothing is going to fly under the radar.”

Critics question Syracuse mayor's appointment of Nation of Islam rep to school board

The mayor of Syracuse is drawing criticism after appointing a member of the Nation of Islam to fill an opening on the school board, but the follower of firebrand minister Louis Farrakhan vowed to help the community tackle "the whole problem of race."
Mark Muhammad, 54, an assistant professor at nearby Onondaga Community College and adjunct professor at Syracuse University, was tapped by Mayor Stephanie Miner to fill the last nine months of a term won by a board member who moved out of the city. Muhammad is the city’s local representative for the often controversial offshoot of Islam, led by Farrakhan, who has a long history of making anti-Semitic and racist statements.
"Mark is a positive influence on our community and has been for many years,'' Miner said in a prepared statement. "I am confident he will go on to do good work for the children and families of the school district."

“It’s also troubling that he has chosen not to distance himself from Louis Farrakhan.”- Kyle Olson, EAGnews.org

Critics acknowledge that Muhammad has no history of making inflammatory statements like some made by Farrakhan, who some said called for blacks to kill whites in the wake of the Ferguson, Mo., case involving a police officer's shooting of an unarmed man in August. 
"As long as they kill us and go to Wendy’s and have a burger and go to sleep, they’ll keep killing us,” Farrakhan said in a speech last November at Morgan State University, in Baltimore. “But when we die and they die, then soon we’re going to sit at a table and talk about it! We’re tired! We want some of this earth or we’ll tear this god---n country up!”
But Caleb Bonham, of education watchdog group Campus Reform, said Muhammad's unwillingness to distance himself from such a polarizing figure could compromise his ability to contribute in the new post.
“I hope Mr. Muhammad is more agreeable than the hate-filled rants heard by the Nation of Islam leader, Mr. Farrakhan,” Bonham said. “Our campuses, our universities, our school boards need less hatred and racial division. We are desperate for leaders who, with a pure heart, are interested in educating children and young adults without politics or agendas.”

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Mark Muhammad being sworn-in as a Syracuse City School District Board Member by Mayor Stephanie Miner (right) at Syracuse City Hall. (sunyocc.edu)

Muhammad told a local reporter he believes he is uniquely qualified to help the district address key issues.
"I would say that I am probably the best person to address some of these (race) issues,” he said. “This whole problem of race we want to ignore. But it is central, an important part of the discussion that we don't want to have."
When reached by FoxNews.com, Muhammad declined to discuss his ties to the Nation of Islam.
"I am honored to join the Syracuse City School District Board of Education,” he said in a written statement. “We are fortunate to live in a country where we are free to practice the religion we choose; and to work to help others, regardless of their ethnicity, socio-economic or religious background."
Kyle Olson, publisher of education blog EAGnews.org, said it is "troubling that [Muhammad] has chosen not to distance himself from Louis Farrakhan.”

Ohio bartender threatened to kill Boehner, authorities say

A former Ohio country club bartender -- who told authorities that he was Jesus Christ -- threatened to murder House Speaker John Boehner last fall because he believed the Ohio congressman was responsible for Ebola, according to records made available Tuesday.
A grand jury indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Ohio on Jan. 7 identified the accused man as Michael R. Hoyt, a resident of Cincinnati.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE CRIMINAL COMPLAINT
A separate criminal complaint said Hoyt was fired last fall from his job at a country club in West Chester, Ohio, where he served drinks to Boehner, who is a member.
In a subsequent conversation with a police officer, Hoyt said that before leaving, he "did not have time to put something in John Boehner's drink," according to the complaint.
The court paper also said, "Hoyt told the officer he was Jesus Christ and that he was going to kill Boehner because Boehner was mean to him at the country club and because Boehner is responsible for Ebola."
According to the criminal complaint, Hoyt said he had a loaded Beretta .380 automatic pistol and he was going to shoot Boehner. Hoyt volunteered to be taken to a psychiatric hospital, and police took his weapon.
He is currently being held under a court order for mental evaluation and treatment, and U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI believe he "poses a current and ongoing credible threat" to Boehner, the complaint added.
The complaint says Hoyt was treated for a previous psychotic episode about two years ago. He was prescribed medication "which he voluntarily stopped taking" about six months ago, it added.
A senior congressional source told Fox News that Hoyt was committed to a mental institution from October through the end of December but then was released. Once he was out, law enforcement felt strongly enough to move to indict him to get him off the street because of the potential threat posed to Boehner.
“He said some things that really spooked us,” said one senior congressional source who is familiar with the case but asked not to be identified.
As speaker of the House, Boehner is second in line for the presidency in the event of a vacancy. His congressional district includes part of western Ohio.
A spokesman for Boehner, Michael Steel, said the speaker is "aware of the situation and sincerely thanks the FBI, the Capitol Police and the local authorities in Ohio for their efforts."
The Capitol Police could not be reached for immediate comment.
It was not clear why officials waited as long as they did to disclose the charge. The grand jury indictment is dated Jan. 7, but the incident referred to in the papers took place on Oct. 29 of last year, and the complaint itself was filed on Nov. 6.

'Survivor's issue' of Charlie Hebdo sells out in minutes amid backlash from Muslim leaders

The first issue of Charlie Hebdo to be produced since Islamist gunmen killed 12 people at the satirical magazine's Paris offices last week has been flying off the shelves at newsstands across the French capital Wednesday morning amid backlash from Islamic leaders who objected to the cover's depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. 
Sky News reported that lines to buy the magazine began forming at 6 a.m. local time (midnight Eastern) and some newsstands had sold out by 8 a.m. The Associated Press reported that one newsstand just off Paris' Champs Elysee sold out at 6:05 a.m. -- five minutes after opening. At Saint-Lazare, people hoping to buy a copy scuffled when they realized there weren't enough to go around.
"It was incredible. I had a queue of 60-70 people waiting for me when I opened," one woman said. "I've never seen anything like it. All my 450 copies were sold out in 15 minutes."
Sky News correspondent Robert Nisbet reported that one newsstand outside the Gare de l'Est railway station had 75 copies when it opened for business. 
"They all went, they're waiting for more," he said. "You can't get a copy inside the Gare de l'Est railway station at all, such is the demand not just here, but all around the world."
Sky News and the Daily Telegraph reported that some copies had already been listed on eBay, with one seller seeking 511 British pounds ($775). 
The first 500,000 issues of an eventual 3 million print run were scheduled to go on sale Wednesday, with another 500,000 due to be produced tomorrow. A typical print run for the weekly is 60,000 issues. 
"Distributing Charlie Hebdo, it warms my heart because we say to ourselves that he is still here, he's never left," Jean-Baptiste Saidi, a van driver delivering copies well before dawn on Wednesday, told the Associated Press. 
Wednesday marked the one-week anniversary of the deadly terror attack at the magazine's offices by two brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, who claimed to be members of Al Qaeda. Twelve people were killed, including eight staffers, among them the magazine's editor and four staff cartoonists. The survivors, working out of offices borrowed from the left-wing daily Liberation, began production of Wednesday's issue two days after the murder of their colleagues.
"For the past week, Charlie, an atheist newspaper, has achieved more miracles than all the saints and prophets combined," the lead editorial in Wednesday's edition read. "The one we are most proud of is that you have in your hands the newspaper that we always made."
The issue will be printed in French and Italian, with online translations available in English, Spanish, and Arabic. Proceeds from the sales will go to aid the families of the victims. 
Not everyone has greeted the new issue with acclaim. In particular, the cover cartoon depicting Muhammad holding a "Je Suis Charlie" sign and weeping drew condemnation from Muslim leaders around the world. 
Al Azhar, the prestigious Cairo-based center of learning for Sunni Muslims said Tuesday that the drawings "do not serve the peaceful co-existence between peoples and hinders the integration of Muslims into European and Western societies."
The Washington Post, citing the SITE Intelligence Group, reported that extremist sympathizers had posted fresh calls for violence on social media, with one Twitter user saying "They want a car bomb this time." 
In France Wednesday, police detained the controversial comic Dieudonne for posts on Facebook that appeared to praise the attacks that left 17 dead in three separate attacks over three days last week. 
Dieudonne's detention for defending terrorism followed a four-year prison sentence involving the same charge for a man in northern France who seemed to defend the attacks in a drunken rant while resisting arrest.
Dieudonne, who popularized an arm gesture that resembles a Nazi salute and who has been convicted repeatedly of racism and anti-Semitism, is no stranger to controversy. His provocative performances were banned last year but he has a core following among many of France's disaffected young people.
His Facebook post, which was swiftly deleted, said he felt like "Charlie Coulibaly" -- merging the names of Charlie Hebdo and Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who seized a kosher market and killed four hostages, along with a policewoman.

Free Stuff Cartoon

Obama threatens veto on immigration, regulatory bills

WASHINGTON –  Another week, another round of veto threats from President Obama.
The White House says Obama would veto legislation backed by House Republicans that would undo the immigration executive orders the president issued late last year. The GOP wants to include provisions blocking the executive actions in a spending bill to fund the Homeland Security Department.
The president is also threatening to veto House legislation that aims to rein in what Republicans say are unnecessary regulations. Obama also issued a formal veto threat Monday against a bill that would weaken his financial regulatory law, though the White House had previously stated its opposition to the bill.
Obama rarely used his veto power, but has said he expects to do so more often now that Republicans control Capitol Hill.

US threatens money cut-off to UN agency over Afghan police corruption scandal

EXCLUSIVE: The United Nations Development Program, which for years has run a multibillion-dollar trust fund to pay salaries for Afghanistan’s 150,000 national police, has been hit with a harsh ultimatum: come up with a plan to verify the true number of police officers on the Afghan payroll by the end of this month -- or else.
The “else” is something that UNDP, the UN’s anti-poverty agency, has never faced before: a shutoff of a U.S. portion of the millions in fees the agency charges to run the police financing program, which is slated to cost nearly $300 million in the first six months of this year alone for “Phase VII” of its existence. UNDP’s piece of the action for managing the fund is 4 percent of the tally, or nearly $12 million.
All told, some $3.8 billion has been spent on the so-called Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, or LOTFA, which has been administered by UNDP since its creation in 2002. The U.S. contribution amounts to more than $1.3 billion -- and since 2006, U.S. government auditing agencies have been finding mammoth problems with the personnel records and payroll data associated with the program.
How much money overall has been siphoned off by police payroll corruption, in particular by Afghan officials who can exploit holes in the system, is still a mystery -- in large part because the data needed to solve the puzzle, and computer systems that can speak to each other to correlate the information, still does not exist.
In past months the crisis has hit new heights of tension, with European Union donors temporarily withholding $100 million in contributions to LOTFA while they expressed concerns about its management.

How much money overall has been siphoned off by police payroll corruption is still a mystery.

Just before Christmas, President Ashref Ghani called LOTFA a “cash cow” for UNDP and demanded that his bureaucrats develop a plan to bring it under government control within the next six months -- the length of time allotted to LOTFA.
The latest ultimatum toward UNDP is buried in the final pages appended to a new audit report on the police payroll scandal by the Special U.S. Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, published today.
It represents part of an apparently determined multinational effort to drain the longstanding police payroll swamp -- which is rife with tens of thousands of “ghost” personnel, phony food ration claims, and IDs that never retire from the system, even when the police do.
Among other things, the report declares that the “window of opportunity” to clean up the longstanding mess “is narrowing.” It added that “this may be the international community’s last chance” to reform the financial support for police ,who will become more important than ever with the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces.
That effort is one that UNDP also says it supports -- even though as recently as last fall it has claimed that dealing with many of the problems was “outside UNDP’s current areas of responsibility,” and attempted to lay most of the blame for the mess on the Afghan government. That was followed by President Ghani’s hostile pushback.
Many of the problems that SIGAR outlines in its report have been made public before, either by SIGAR itself or the Pentagon’s Inspector General, among others.
Among the ones mentioned in the new report:

• There are twice as many Afghan national police ID cards in circulation as there are national police;

• For most of the past decade, two electronic human resource systems, one managed by UNDP and one by the Afghan government, haven’t been able to talk to each other, with disastrous results. The UNDP system manages payroll; the government system manages personnel records. 

A match between the two is supposedly provided by the police ID cards and their numbers. But in fact, MOI tallies have been accepted without much questioning by everyone.

• The UNDP payroll system, the report noted, “was not fully functional at all provincial headquarters,” meaning payroll and staffing information mostly comes from police posts without much verification (where crooked officers have the most incentive to inflate staffing and posts that receive extra hazard pay). In some cases, more police are reported working than are even authorized.

• Time sheets for rank-and-file police are written up by their officers, another opportunity to falsify information and siphon off the resulting pay.

• 20 percent of Afghan national police are at risk of not receiving their full salaries because they are paid in cash by a “trusted agent,” appointed by the Afghan MOI, and often unsupervised.  SIGAR deems that “a process that lacks documentation and accountability,” where as much as half of these payments are possibly diverted.

• UNDP contracts with an “independent monitoring agent” who is supposed to cross-check and verify personnel information. But, according to SIGAR, the monitoring agent did a haphazard job of sampling, and may have inflated the percentage of “verified” police personnel by more than 40 percent.

(Last October, UNDP’s own Office of Audit and Investigation did a “desk review” of the agency’s oversight of the “independent monitoring agent,” which declared the effort to be “unsatisfactory,”  and recommended UNDP take “prompt” action to fix the situation. UNDP declared that it accepted the review’s recommendations, and published the news a month later.)
CLICK HERE FOR THE “DESK REVIEW”
The get-tough suggestion appears at the end of SIGAR’s dismal findings  in a draft response from the U.S.-led multinational military command structure that remains to support President Ghani as his government takes the lead responsibility for national security.
In a handwritten note on a copy of the audit, Maj. Gen. Todd Semonite, deputy commander of the international security group known as the Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan (CSTC-A), declares that “this command is committed to achieving dramatic results” on the police payroll issue.
He urges SIGAR’s auditors to “pay particular attention” to the sections of his response that “reflect the increased fiscal discipline, oversight and policy adherence stipulated to UNDP to effect change.” He also underlines  his  “intent not to transfer” U.S. Department of Defense funds to UNDP  “until we can be assured of revised process control.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE NOTE
CSTC-A’s response also turns up the heat on Afghanistan’s Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to clean up its act. The CSTC-A sets a March 15 deadline for the ministry to upload “100 percent” of the accurate police personnel records into a database under its control, and a January 2016 deadline to make sure that all of that information is integrated with the payroll system managed by UNDP that actually dispenses cash.
Failure to do either one, the military response says, will result in a 5 percent cut in payments to the ministry for “operations and maintenance” -- a sum that is not disclosed in the document.
All of the reforms for U.N. bureaucrats and Afghan government officials alike are supposed to be wrapped up in “commitment letters” between the international military command, UNDP and the Afghan government, which were supposed to take effect on January 1, but are still in draft form. 
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL AUDIT REPORT
In response to questions from Fox News, a spokesman for UNDP said that the agency is “recruiting 17 officers who will “verify payroll processes at the provincial and district level;” put out an international bid for a new monitoring agent; launched a “two-month end-to-end review of the entire payroll process”; and “developed a poster series in local languages informing police of their salary rights which will be distributed to police stations in 2015.”
The agency also is updating U.S. and other Western donors to LOTFA on a weekly basis about its efforts.
In the near future, however, UNDP may also find that its role has come to an end. The six-month Phase VII of LOTFA, according to project documents on the UNDP website, “marks the beginning of a transition phase during which LOTFA activities are transitioned” to Ghani’s government.
That announcement is heavily laden with escape clauses that include reference to nebulous “activities that may carry over beyond June 30 and cannot be arbitrarily ended.”
But they also include a minimum 90-day announcement period  for the Afghan government to terminate UNDP’s “partnership” in LOTFA entirely.
Asked about the possibility of a parting of the ways in Afghanistan over policing, the UNDP spokesman told Fox News that “a central goal of UNDP’s work worldwide is to build capacity of national counterparts with a view to phasing out its assistance in due course.”

Dems pitch controversial plan to tax Wall Street, to pay for new middle-class credit

Influential Democrats are pushing a new plan to give middle-class Americans a big tax break, but only by imposing a new tax on Wall Street traders and other top earners -- drawing a rebuke from majority Republicans who say the proposal would hurt the economy. 
"Our economy is still struggling to create jobs -- and the last thing we need is a new trillion-dollar tax hike added to the current broken tax code," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. 
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., unveiled the tax plan on Monday at the Center for American Progress. 
His plan would give a tax credit of roughly $2,000 per year to middle-class families, reportedly defined as couples making under $200,000. According to The Washington Post, the windfall would add up to roughly $1.2 trillion over the next decade. 
However, to pay for the plan, Van Hollen wants to charge a fee on financial transactions, and curtail tax breaks for other top earners, effectively transferring wealth from Wall Street and beyond to everyone else. 
Van Hollen on Monday said middle-class families need to keep more of what they earn, calling for a "fair" tax code that rewards work, and not just those who make money from making money -- a dig at Wall Street. 
House Republicans urged Democrats to work with them on reforming the tax code to eliminate loopholes and bring down rates overall. But they said Van Hollen's plan is not the right approach. 
"Just as the sun rises in the east, Washington Democrats propose another massive tax increase," said Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "Here in the House our focus is going to be on cleaning up the tax code so that we can lower rates for all taxpayers and help create good-paying jobs, not scaring them off with punitive tax hikes." 
The plan stands little chance of advancing, given that Republicans have a tighter grip on the House and have taken control of the Senate, in the wake of the November midterms. 
But it immediately puts congressional Republicans and Democrats at odds, once again, over the tricky topic of taxes and tax reform, which some hoped might be a priority in the new Republican-controlled Congress. 
The House Democrats' plan is more aggressive than anything touted by the Obama administration last year. 
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fired back at Boehner on Monday, saying in a statement, "Apparently House Republicans only like tax relief if it's for their millionaire friends and special interest backers, not for hardworking middle class families." 
Van Hollen's office argues that the plan aims to grow paychecks for everyone, "not just the wealth of a few." They stress it is fully paid for. 
The Washington Post first reported that the plan would give a credit of $1,000 to individuals and $2,000 to couples making under the wage cap. It would also increase the tax credit for child care and make a few other changes. 
Democrats reportedly would fund this with a .1 percent fee on stock trades; limits on tax breaks for the top 1 percent; and new rules for deductions for high-value executive performance bonuses.

White House admits should have sent 'higher-profile' official to Paris rally

The White House acknowledged Monday that it erred in not sending a higher-level representative to the massive rally in Paris against Islamic terrorism, after facing bipartisan criticism over the meager U.S. presence at the march -- which was attended by more than 40 world leaders. 
"We should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there," Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday. 
But he also explained that the planning for the rally began on short notice and President Obama's personal attendance, given the security challenges, would have had a "significant impact" on the march. Earnest said they had only 36 hours to prepare, and suggested the outdoor event with large crowds posed security risks. 
Earnest said the U.S. still stands "four-square behind our allies in France." 
The rally on Sunday was a historic show of unity that drew more than a million people -- but none higher representing the U.S. than its ambassador to France. While the administration dispatched Attorney General Eric Holder and a top homeland security official to Paris for meetings over the weekend, the only U.S. official of note to attend Sunday's rally was Ambassador Jane Hartley. 
The White House wouldn't say why Holder did not attend the march, suggesting only that he or some other top official should have gone. 
Secretary of State John Kerry initially dismissed the criticism as "quibbling," and announced a trip to the French capital later this week. 
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Paris told Fox News that Holder did not attend Sunday's march because he was "not available at the time." A Justice Department spokesman said Holder had to return to Washington that afternoon, but was "proud" to join world leaders at the summit before the rally. 
But the White House absorbed heavy criticism on Sunday and Monday for the thin U.S. presence, as well as for continuing to avoid calling last week's attacks an act of Islamic terror. 
On Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., questioned the logic in even sending Holder for the Paris counterterrorism meetings, suggesting the president is not confronting the matter as Islamic terrorism. 
"Last time I checked we're at war. I wouldn't send my attorney general if I were president to deal with Islamic radical terrorists. We're at war here," Graham said. "[Obama] thinks it's a crime out of control." 
Speaking on CBS News, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., suggested he can understand how security may have played a role in the decision for Obama not to attend but said, "I think, in hindsight, I would hope they would do it differently" next time. 
Others were tough on the administration's decision. 
"Not an excuse in universe can explain why US failed to send to Paris a more visible rep. than Holder," tweeted Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who now works at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, calling Obama, Kerry and Vice President Biden "MIAs." 
James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral who previously led U.S. European Command, also said on Twitter: "I wish our US President had gone to Paris to stand with our European allies." 
Amid the criticism, Kerry, who is traveling on official business in India, rearranged his schedule to make it to Paris later in the week. He announced his plans at a press conference in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, where he had made a long-scheduled appearance at an international investment conference Sunday ahead of Obama's planned visit to that country later this month. 
"I would have personally very much wanted to have been [in Paris]," Kerry said, "but couldn't do so because of the commitment that I had here and it is important to keep these kinds of commitments." 
When asked about criticism directed at the Obama administration for not sending a high-ranking official to take part in the march, Kerry said earlier, "I really think that this is sort of quibbling a little bit in the sense that our Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was there and marched, our ambassador [to France Jane Hartley] was there and marched, many people from the embassy were there and marched." 
Nuland attended a march in Washington. 
A senior administration official stressed that Hartley attended the Paris march, and that Obama has shown U.S. solidarity with France by placing a call to their president, stopping by the French embassy and directing U.S. officials to work on helping the French in the wake of last week's terror attack. 
The official also said "it is worth noting that the security requirements for both the President and VP can be distracting from events like this -- this event is not about us." 
Kerry, at the news conference, said that U.S. officials, including himself and Obama, had been "deeply engaged" with French authorities almost immediately after the first attack occurred Wednesday and had offered intelligence assistance. 
More than 40 world leaders -- press reports put the number at 44 -- along with more than a million ordinary French citizens, marched arm in arm through the streets of Paris Sunday to rally for unity and freedom of expression and to honor the 17 victims killed in three separate terror attacks last week. 
Among the world leaders who did march, under heavy security, were French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. 
Shibley Telhami, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, tweeted, "What's missing in this picture? American leaders. Even Palestinian and Israeli leaders in front line of Paris march." 
Democratic strategist Doug Schoen, in a column on FoxNews.com, said Obama has "morally abdicated his place as the leader of the free world." The decision to stay in Washington, Schoen wrote, "sent a clear message to the world: Obama just doesn't care." 
He also lamented that Obama "is the only Western leader who has refused to call this attack Islamic terrorism, even though President Hollande has declared that France is it at war with radical Islam." 
Kerry said he is going to France to reaffirm U.S. solidarity with America's oldest ally. He said as soon as he heard about the march, he asked his team what the earliest time was that he could go. 
"That is why I am going there on the way home and to make it crystal clear how passionately we feel about the events that have taken place there," he said. "I don't think the people of France have any doubt about America's understanding about what happened, about our personal sense of loss and our deep commitment to the people of France in this moment of trial." 
Kerry will arrive in Paris on Thursday after stops in Sofia, Bulgaria and Geneva, Switzerland. Kerry will be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit France since the terrorist attacks on a French newspaper and a kosher supermarket. Authorities say one of those involved in the attacks pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a video. He and two other suspected extremists were killed during police raids. 
Meanwhile, the White House said Sunday it will hold an international summit next month in Washington on thwarting violent extremism. 
The summit is scheduled for Feb. 18 and will focus on domestic and international efforts to "prevent extremists and their supporters from radicalizing, recruiting and inspiring individuals and groups in the United States and abroad from committing acts of violence," the White House said.

Dems change tune after mocking GOP for ‘drill, baby, drill’

Back when gas topped $4 a gallon, Republicans chanted "drill, baby, drill' at rallies across the country -- arguing more domestic drilling would increase supplies, reduce dependence on foreign oil and boost the U.S. economy. 
Democrats, almost universally, mocked the GOP plan. In 2012, President Obama called it "a slogan, a gimmick, and a bumper sticker ... not a strategy." 
"They were waving their three-point plans for $2-a-gallon gas," Obama told a laughing audience during an energy speech in Washington. "You remember that? Drill, baby, drill. We were going through all that. And none of it was really going to do anything to solve the problem." 
"'Drill, baby, drill' won't lower gas prices today or tomorrow," Rep. Janice Hahn, D-Calif., echoed on the floor of Congress in 2012. "But it will fuel our addiction to fossil fuel." 
Today, Democrats are singing a different tune, as increased domestic drilling has led to a record supply of domestic crude, put some $100 billion into the pockets of U.S. consumers and sent world oil prices tumbling. 
The price of a gallon of regular gasoline on Monday was $2.13 nationwide, and below $2 in 18 states. 
"Of course [Obama] was wrong. We've seen oil prices fall internationally now by half since last June," said American Enterprise Institute economist Ben Zycher. "The U.S. is now the biggest oil and gas producer in the world, or almost that, and the effect has been to drive prices down as we've seen." 
Most of the domestic increase is due to "fracking" for tight oil in shale deposits across the U.S., as well as advances in directional drilling, where numerous pipelines diverge from a single platform in numerous directions, for a large cost savings. 
But the gains, according to oil experts, come off private, not federal, lands. 
Oil production on federal lands -- those under the president's control -- fell 6 percent since 2009, according to the federal Energy Information Administration, while production on private lands increased 61 percent. 
Nevertheless, Obama is touting the lower prices, which injected billions into the improving U.S. economy. 
"America is the number one producer of oil, number one producer of gas. It's helping to save drivers $1.10 a gallon at the pump over this time last year," the president told a crowd last week in Detroit. 
Zycher, a former UCLA economist who also served on President Reagan's President's Council of Economic Advisers, called it "rather disingenuous for the president to take credit for the decline in oil prices and gasoline prices and the increase in incomes generated by increasing production." 
He added: "It's somewhat amusing. He's taking credit for an increase in production that has happened largely on private land and had nothing to do with federal government policies."

Mr. Speaker Cartoon

Big ticket: Cost to protect Gov. Christie rises 1,800 percent

No matter who pays for Chris Christie’s ticket to today’s Dallas Cowboys vs. Green Bay Packers football game, the New Jersey governor will be running up the score on taxpayers.
The travel costs of state police troopers assigned to protect the governor are 18 times higher than when Christie took office, a New Jersey Watchdog investigation found.
New Jersey spent nearly $1 million on travel expenses for its state police Executive Protection Unit during Christie’s four years and nine months as governor, according to documents obtained under the Open Public Records Act. Last year, Christie traveled out-of-state on more than 100 days while visiting 36 states, Mexico and Canada, primarily on personal and political trips that were not official state business.
The current average monthly travel costs to protect Christie for a single month are 50 percent more than former Gov. Jon Corzine’s entire final year in office, according to state records. For 2009, EPU’s expenses were only $21,704 – compared to $32,933 per month for the first three quarters of 2014.
Spokesmen for Christie did not respond to New Jersey Watchdog’s requests for comment.
The governor announced Friday he will pay for his own travel and ticket to today’s game in Green Bay. Last week, Christie acknowledged Cowboys owner Jerry Jones paid for him, his wife and their four children to fly to Dallas on a private charter jet plus their VIP seats at the Jan. 4 game against the Detroit Lions – an admission that stirred controversy about ethics and gifts to the governor.

Hoeven says Senate still needs four votes to pass veto-proof Keystone legislation

The Senate still needs four votes to pass veto-proof legislation to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, Sen. John Hoeven, who sponsored the legislation, said Sunday.
Hoeven, R-N.D., told “Fox News Sunday” the GOP-controlled Senate remains shy of the 67 votes needed to override a presidential veto.
All of the chamber's 54 Republicans and nine Democrats are expected to support the legislation, which needs a two-thirds majority to override a veto.
“But we're going to the floor with an open amendment process, trying to foster more bipartisanship,” Hoeven said.
He also suggested Senate Republicans might attach the bill to other legislation that would get 67 votes.
The upper chamber could hold a preliminary vote on the legislation as early as Monday.
The Obama administration early last week repeated that President Obama intends to veto the legislation should it reach his desk before a State Department study on the issue is completed.
Hoeven suggested that Obama has stalled the project since shortly after taking office in 2009, through repeated State Department studies.
“He’s delayed this project for more than six years. America won World War II in less than six years, so clearly he’s trying to defeat the project with endless delays,” he told Fox.
The GOP-led House last week passed legislation to build the pipeline.
The administration also objects to the legislation because it takes the decision about Keystone away from the executive branch.
One of the administration’s other principal arguments for not approving completion of the pipeline, which would carry crude Canadian oil through the heartland to Gulf Coast refiners, was resolved Friday.
The Nebraska Supreme Court cleared the way for the pipeline to be built in that state.
Both sides have argued about whether the pipeline would indeed be a jobs creator. Supporters refer to a State Department report stating it would create roughly 42,000 jobs, while critics argue many of those jobs will be temporary.

North Carolina city removes sculpture of soldier kneeling before cross

Until a few days ago, a war memorial in a public park in North Carolina included a metal sculpture depicting a soldier kneeling in prayer before a cross. But city officials voted to remove the sculpture to settle a lawsuit claiming the artwork promoted Christianity.
King, a small city of about 6,000 people 15 miles north of Winston-Salem, dedicated the memorial about a decade ago. But the statue was removed Tuesday night, immediately after The King city council voted 3-2 to end the lawsuit. Now, an empty hole can be seen where the statue once stood.
MyFox8 in Winston-Salem, reporting on the controversy the other day, said the memorial is on city-owned land but was paid for through private donations.
“Both sides in this matter wish to avoid further costs, and this agreement will ensure that the City of King will not spend additional taxpayers’ funds to continue litigation in federal court,” the city said in a statement after the vote.
As part of the agreement, the King City Council also said it would stop flying the Christian flag over the memorial and would pay $500,000 to Americans United for Separation of Church and State for the legal costs the group incurred bringing the lawsuit on behalf of local Afghanistan War veteran Steven Hewett.
Hewett explained his reasons for suing in November, the Christian News Network reported Saturday. His lawsuit claimed violations of his constitutional rights.
“I proudly served alongside a diverse group of soldiers with a variety of different religious beliefs,” he said in a news release. “The City of King should be honoring everyone who served our country, not using their service as an excuse to promote a single religion.”
The settlement calls for Hewett to be paid $1 in nominal damages.
The Stokes News reported that King’s elected officials were worried about losing the lawsuit and facing higher legal bills, as much as $2 million by one estimate. The city’s insurer also was insisting on a settlement.
“I feel this city has been sabotaged and bullied by folks who don’t believe in what this community stands for,” the newspaper quoted City Councilman Wesley Carter as saying when he voted against the settlement. “I feel like we have been pressured by insurance companies and attorneys who have never been to King. They don’t know what we are about and what this community stands for.”
King’s elected officials incensed veterans groups, churches and others in the city in 2010 when they ordered the removal of the Christian flag from the memorial. As part of a protest, the Christian flag started flying everywhere else in the town, including barbecue joints and hair salons. Eventually the city passed a law establishing a lottery system in which citizens could choose what flag they wanted flown over the memorial, including the Christian flag.
City officials say they will now draw up plans for a new kneeling soldier sculpture that does not include a cross, and will ask residents for their input.

Kerry announces planned Paris trip, says criticism for missing march 'quibbling'

Secretary of State John Kerry called criticism that no top U.S. officials attended Sunday's massive march against terrorism in Paris "quibbling" Monday, even as he announced a trip to the French capital later this week for talks on countering Islamist violence. 
Kerry announced his plans at a press conference in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, where he had made a long-scheduled appearance at an international investment conference Sunday ahead of President Barack Obama's planned visit to that country later this month. 
"I would have personally very much wanted to have been [in Paris]," Kerry said, "but couldn't do so because of the commitment that I had here and it is important to keep these kinds of commitments."
When asked about criticism directed at the Obama administration for not sending a high-ranking official to take part in the march, Kerry said, "I really think that this is sort of quibbling a little bit in the sense that our Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was there and marched, our ambassador [to France Jane Hartley] was there and marched, many people from the embassy were there and marched."
Nuland, in fact, attended a march in Washington.
Kerry also said at a news conference that U.S. officials, including himself and President Barack Obama, had been "deeply engaged" with French authorities almost immediately after the first attack occurred Wednesday and had offered intelligence assistance.
More than 40 world leaders, along with more than a million ordinary French citizens, marched arm in arm through the streets of Paris Sunday to rally for unity and freedom of expression and to honor the 17 victims killed in three separate terror attacks last week. 
Among the world leaders who did march, under heavy security, were French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Attorney General Eric Holder did not take part, despite being in Paris for meetings on counterterrorism.
 Kerry said he is going to France to reaffirm U.S. solidarity with America's oldest ally. He said as soon as he heard about the march, he asked his team what the earliest time was that he could go.
"That is why I am going there on the way home and to make it crystal clear how passionately we feel about the events that have taken place there," he said. "I don't think he people of France have any doubt about America's understanding about what happened, about our personal sense of loss and our deep commitment to the people of France in this moment of trial."
Kerry will arrive in Paris on Thursday after stops in Sofia, Bulgaria and Geneva, Switzerland. In Geneva, on Wednesday Kerry will he meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif to discuss the status of nuclear negotiations that are to resume the following day.
Kerry will be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit France since the terrorist attacks on a French newspaper and a kosher supermarket. Authorities say one of those involved in the attacks pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a video. He and two other suspected extremists were killed during police raids.
"I want to emphasize that the relationship with France is not about one day or one particular moment," Kerry said. "It is an ongoing longtime relationship that is deeply, deeply based in the shared values, and particularly the commitment that we share to freedom of expression."
"No single act of terror, no two people with  a AK-47s, no hostage-taking at a grocery store is ever going to prevent those who are committed to the march for freedom to continue to march and to ultimately see all people enjoy their rights, to be able to enjoy the protections that come with that freedom," he added.

Radical Islam Cartoon

Gas tax, infrastructure funding puts some daylight between GOP House, Senate leaders

Falling gasoline prices have sparked congressional debate about increasing the federal gas tax to help fund upcoming infrastructure projects and have set up a potential disagreement among House and Senate Republicans.
The federal gas tax primarily pays for transportation projects but has stayed at 18.4 cents a gallon for roughly two decades, helping create the funding gap.  
In addition, increasing construction costs combined with less revenue from the gas tax, in large part because of more fuel-efficient vehicles, have further contributed to the estimated $16 billion funding gap over the past several years.
Though Congress has managed to find money elsewhere in the federal budget to cover the shortages, lawmakers say the country needs more than a stop-gap solution.
However, House Speaker John Boehner suggested Thursday that getting a gas-tax increase passed in the now-Republican-controlled House and Senate seems unlikely.
“When the Democrats had total control of the Congress they couldn't find the votes,” he told reporters. “It's doubtful the votes are here to raise the gas tax again. … I’ve never voted to raise the gas tax. We'll have to work our way through it.”
But at least four Senate Republicans -- Bob Corker, Tenn.; James Inhofe, Okla.; Orrin Hatch, Utah; and John Thune, S.D. -- appear open to the idea of increasing the tax.
Last week, Thune, the third-ranking Senate Republican, told “Fox News Sunday” that he didn’t “favor increasing any tax, but I think we have to look at all of the option.”
Gas prices are now $2.50 a gallon, which some economic experts argue now gives Americans enough money to absorb such a tax increase.
The federal highway bill expires at the end of May. And there is a roughly $100 billion shortfall on funding the agency’s Highway Trust Fund at its current levels.
Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has suggested lawmakers have little choice but to at least consider an increase, in light of the state of the fund and the country’s crumbling roads and bridges.
Corker, who is backing a proposal for a 12-cent-a-gallon increase in the gas tax over the next two years, says such a hike would be offset by other taxes that Americans now pay.
“At least it would put our infrastructure on strong footing,” he said. “And that second component seems to get left out of the conversation most of the time. But, yes, I believe that's what we should do.”
Democrats including Sen. Barbara Boxer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both of California, have urged Congress to increase the tax or find other ways to better fund infrastructure projects.
“If there's ever going to be a time to raise the gas tax, the time when gas is so low is the time to do it,” Pelosi said last week.

Sledding on ice: Fear of lawsuits makes Dubuque latest city to ban winter rite

DES MOINES, Iowa –  Yet another city is pulling kids from city-owned sledding hills and slapping hefty fines on anyone trying to use the public property, but it might be more for fear of lawsuits than for kids' safety.
The City Council in Dubuque, Iowa, voted Jan. 7 to ban sledding in 48 of its 50 public parks. The new ordinance, which council members acknowledged was put in place to protect the city from expensive lawsuits, provides for $750 fines for repeat offenses.
According to council members during the Monday night meeting and an editorial in U.S. News and World Report by Dubuque Mayor Roy Buol, sledding injury lawsuits are real concern for the city. A lawsuit in Boone, Iowa, cost that city $12 million after a woman hit a concrete block on public property and claimed negligence on the part of the city. And in Omaha, Neb., a sledding collision with a tree paralyzed a young girl and cost the city $2 million. Still another case, in Sioux City, Iowa, saw a man win a $2.75 million settlement after he struck a city sign and sued.
Buol said the city did not want to restrict sledding, but was forced to because state lawmakers have not moved on legislation that would protect cities from what he called frivolous lawsuits. In Iowa, someone cannot sue a city if they are injured while doing activities like biking on public property. But sledding is not covered under that law and leaves cities open to lawsuits.
In his editorial in U.S News and World report, Buol wrote, “Our legal counsel advises us we limit our liability for negligence, which is the failure to exercise reasonable care to maintain a park safe for sledding…Safe sledding areas require inspections, ongoing evaluation and maintenance throughout the season, and we do not have the resources to do that for our other 47 parks.”
According a report that looked at sledding injuries from 2000-2007 by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, 20,000 children are injured in sledding incidents each year. These could be injuries from minor scraps, to broken bones and more serious injuries.
In a counter editorial piece in U.S. News and World Report to Buol’s, Nicole Kaeding of the Cato Institute says kids should be allowed to be kids, which includes getting bumps and bruises.
“The quest for safety doesn’t mean that we eliminate all the fun in childhood. Kids should be kids. As parents, we should teach our children to look, understand, listen and access their surroundings,” wrote Kaeding, adding, “Banning sledding is just another absurd item fostered by overzealous safety experts.”
Cities all over the country are banning sledding on public property. And others, like Des Moines, are trying to avoid all-out bans by posting signs that warn sledders of the risk. However, it doesn’t completely get cities legally off the hook.
The Mayor and City Council said that if anyone has a problem with the new ordinance they should direct their frustration towards their state-elected officials in the capital. Who they say, can enact laws that would cut down on the lawsuits. The Mayor also wrote in his editorial that if more funding becomes available, they can ensure safety at more parks and open more hills for sledding.

HHS execs doing good and living large, flying first class around the world

Helping America's poor, aged and sick is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' reason for being, but hundreds of its top officials are traveling in style and luxury at taxpayer expense.
Records obtained by the Washington Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act show that HHS executives spent $31 million taking 7,000 first class and business class flights between 2009 and 2013, including 253 trips for which a one-way ticket cost more than $15,000.
Half the records listed the price of a coach ticket for comparison. For that portion alone, the upgrade boosted the cost by almost $14 million, from $4.9 million to $18.5 million.
Federal employees are allowed to fly business or first class if the flight is longer than 14 hours, but only 1,400 of the 7,000 flights met that description.

Leaked Al Jazeera emails reveal disdain for Paris murder victims

While citizens around the free world embraced the mantra “Je suis Charlie” to show solidarity with the murdered employees of a French satirical magazine, a top editor at a Muslim-owned news organization had a different message for his colleagues: “We are Al Jazeera.”
A leaked email from Al Jazeera English Editor and Executive Producer Salah-Aldeen Khadr used the twist on a viral phrase used around the world to show support for victims of Wednesday’s Islamist terror attack on Charlie Hebdow in Paris. The magazine was targeted for its penchant for publishing forbidden caricatures of Prophet Muhammed, which it did in addition to poking fun at other religions.
“Was this really an attack on “free speech?” Khadr asked his subordinates in the email blast. “Who is attacking free speech here exactly?
“Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile,” wrote Khadr, who urged Al Jazeera staffers to consider that “I am Charlie” is an “alienating slogan – with us or against us type of statement – one can be anti-CH’s racism and ALSO against murdering people.”
The email, first obtained by National Review Online, appears to have touched off a vigorous debate among editorial employees of the Qatar-owned outlet, which has often been accused of showing sympathy to Muslim extremists.

“Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile,”- English Editor and Executive Producer Salah-Aldeen Khadr

Al Jazeera English channel reporter Omar Al Saleh responded with an obligatory condemnation of the killings of 12 people, including four well-known cartoonists, in the attack, but made his real point in all capital letters, for extra emphasis.
“I AM NOT CHARLIE,” Saleh wrote. “JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME. INSULTISM IS NOT JOURNALISM AND NOT DOING JOURNALISM PROPERLY IS CRIME.”
But Al Jazeera’s U.S. correspondent Tom Ackerman disagreed, in another portion of the leaked email chain.
“If a large enough group of someone is willing to kill you for saying something, then it’s something that almost certainly needs to be said, because otherwise the violent have veto power over liberal civilization,” Ackerman wrote. “When offenses are policed by murder, that’s when we need more of them, not less, because the murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think that their strategy can succeed.
FULL COVERAGE: Islamic Terror Massacre in Paris
Al Jazeera, whose headquarters are in Doha, also has international offices in London and New York. It received a U.S. license and began broadcasting in August 2013 under its Al Jazeera America brand. On its mission statement the company outlines its values saying, “We maintain credibility through impartial, accurate and comprehensive representation of the story,” and adds, “Integrity and respect guide our conduct internally and externally.”
The company is Al Jazeera is owned and funded by Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family, whose regime has been accused of financing radical Islamist terror groups in the Middle East, most notably Hamas in Gaza and the Al Nusra Front in Syria.
Reached for comment about the internal debate, an Al Jazeera spokesman said such discussions are part of the reporting process.
“We have arguably the most diverse newsroom in the world, and the robustness of our internal discussions that flow from this are a great strength,” the spokesman said. “Viewers judge us on our output, which on the Paris story has been first class, relaying events in real time, all the while providing a full spectrum of context.”
The spokesman also added that Khadr is one of several executive producers at the organization and his opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Al Jazeera

Iowa Republicans vote in favor of keeping presidential straw poll

DES MOINES, Iowa –  State Republican party leaders voted unanimously Saturday in favor of keeping their annual presidential straw poll, defeating critics who said the summer tradition attracts only fringe contenders while keeping away mainstream candidates.
The vote by the Republican Party Central Committee was 16 yeas to 0 nays.
Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said he was pleased with the outcome of the vote, after saying earlier in the week that he had a “hunch” that members would vote as such.
“I knew in the end we would circle the wagons. We have a unified party at this point,” he said. “This was about making sure the (Republican National Committee) is comfortable about what we’re doing.” 
The event will be held in August. Kaufmann said the exact date and location will be decided “within weeks, not months.”
Among the critics of the poll are such prominent Republicans as Gov. Terry Branstad.
However, the governor’s office said Branstad “looks forward to working with the Republican Party of Iowa and the State Central Committee to make it a successful event.”
Committee members said the poll energizes the party base and serves as an important early test of campaign strength.
“I think what’s so valuable is that it brings Iowans into the political arena,” committee member Trudy Caviness said. “To move our country forward, we have got to have more informed and active young and old.”
The RNC’s legal counsel told Kaufmann on Thursday that continuing to have the straw poll wouldn't jeopardize the Iowa’s status as the first state to hold a primary in the presidential election cycle, as long as party officials make clear the poll is unofficial and unscientific.
“Most people who come to the straw poll intuitively know that this is snapshot in time,” Kaufmann said in response. “They know the difference between a scientific poll.”
First conducted in 1979, the Iowa straw poll has grown from a county GOP fundraiser stop to a large event on the Iowa State University campus, where candidates spend heavily to entertain supporters.
The poll has been a lackluster predictor of who will win the GOP nomination. Its winners in 1979 (George H.W. Bush), 1987 (Pat Robertson), 2007 (Mitt Romney) and 2011 (Michele Bachmann) did not win the nomination. Only twice — in 1995 (Bob Dole, who tied with Phil Gramm) and 1999 (George W. Bush) — did the straw poll winner go on to win the GOP nomination.
In 2011, about 17,000 people turned out — far less than the roughly 120,000 who voted in the January 2012 caucuses. Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman, spent $2 million on the event and won the poll, while Romney, the eventual nominee, chose not to participate. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the nomination race after a third-place finish.

The Pen is Cartoon

Krauthammer: France terror attacks 'the third stage of the jihadist war against us'

Charles Krauthammer told viewers Friday on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that this week’s terror attacks in France are “the third stage of the jihadist war against us.”
Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor, said the first stage “of course is 9/11. All of the attackers were from the Middle East. And then for the last year or two, we have seen the lone wolf attacks, usually home grown but fairly unstable.”
Now, he said, “it’s as if there’s a critical mass of these dissident jihadists in the West who are now in a position rather than act like the single guy in Australia or the single guys acting separately in Canada, as a group, as a cell, and as an organized wave. And that could be what we’re facing right now.”

'The Man Who Would Not Be Washington': Historian Jonathan Horn on Gen. Robert E. Lee

Editor's note: Fox News anchor and former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino recently sat down with Jonathan Horn, author of the new biography on Robert E. Lee, "The Man Who Would Not Be Washington: Robert E. Lee's Civil War and His Decision That Changed American History" (Scribner, January 6, 2015) to talk about the book and its larger lessons.

 Jonathan Horn

Dana Perino: How did you come to be so interested in Robert E. Lee's life, and why did you think it was important for people to know more about him?
Jonathan Horn: What first drew me to Robert E. Lee’s story was geography. I grew up near the Potomac, the same river Lee called home. He spent his childhood in the town of Alexandria, which now is part of Virginia but then was part of the District of Columbia. He married his wife at Arlington House, the columned mansion across the Potomac from where the Lincoln Memorial now stands. And at the start of the Civil War, leaders on both sides of the river recruited Lee for high command.  
The more I studied the choice Lee faced in 1861, the more I wanted to tell his story. He faced an agonizing decision between his devotion to the Union and the duty he felt to follow his native state of Virginia into rebellion. We often focus so much on historical movements and trends that we lose sight of how history can pivot on the decision of one individual. Here was such a moment. The decision Lee made forever changed the course of American history.  
Perino: Explain the title: "The Man Who Would Not Be Washington."
We remember George Washington as the man who would not be king. The title of my book plays off that phrase and speaks to a tragic tension in Lee’s life: that one decision could turn an army officer so closely bound to George Washington’s family against the Union that represented Washington’s greatest legacy. 
For generations, Washingtons and Lees had lived along the Potomac. Lee’s father was Washington’s most famous eulogist, author of the famous words “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Meanwhile, Lee’s father-in-law was George Washington’s adopted son.
These connections were so powerful at the start of the Civil War that an emissary for the Lincoln administration actually tried to persuade Lee to accept command of the main Union army by arguing that the country looked to Lee as “the representative of the Washington family.” Lee’s place in history today would be very different had he accepted that offer instead of casting his fate with Virginia.
Perino: Is there anything in your new book that we may not have known before?
Researching this book revealed just how fraught the Washington-Lee relationship was. For example, what most entangled Lee in slavery—the institution that caused the Civil War—was his marriage to the daughter of George Washington’s adopted son. Lee spent a few years before the war actively managing an estate that included slaves descended from George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation.
The decision Lee made to fight against the Union tore his ties to its founder in shockingly personal ways that I think will astonish readers, even history buffs who already know something of how federal authorities captured and converted the Arlington estate, where Lee married, into the cemetery we know today.
Perino: During your extensive research, you seem to come to know Lee personally, noting that he had a sense of humor. What was it like to delve so deep into the libraries and archives to piece together the characteristics of someone from another place and time?
Poring over 19th century correspondence makes you feel grateful to the family members and archivists who preserved these documents. It also makes you feel privileged because Lee’s personal letters, like our emails today, express feelings and thoughts that he never intended to share with the public. 
You quickly realize that historical figures defy the simple ways we often characterize them. 
It is true that Lee had a sense of humor, but he also suffered from fatalistic gloom. A general widely remembered for his ability to seize the initiative on the battlefield privately believed himself a captive of circumstance.
Perino: Given all that you learned about Lee and the excruciating decision he made, "the inner turmoil," did it give you a bigger appreciation for how difficult it is for a soldier to take up arms against his own country? While not relevant to America today, there are many countries in the world that are being torn apart by civil war.
It was an especially excruciating decision for Lee because while he believed his duty lay with his native state of Virginia, he personally opposed secession. When Lee turned down command of the main Union army, his mentor in the military told him, “You have made the greatest mistake of your life.” Lee’s wife described the act of resigning from the U.S. Army as “the severest struggle of his life.”
Perino: In present day, there are still major debates about what the Founders intended, which is something Lee wrestled with as well. What do you think Lee would think about how far we've come as a nation?  And is there anything that was learned during that time that is applicable to today's policy debates?
The debates we have today over what the Founding Fathers would do show how our understanding of the past can influence our future. 
We can take solace in knowing that our debates today are nowhere near as divisive as they were at the start of the Civil War. Back then, Unionists and secessionists both cited George Washington’s actions as precedents for their own. Lee himself took the view that the Founding Fathers would have condemned secession, though his opinion on that question changed later in life.
Perino: In the book's acknowledgements, you note that your wife, Caroline, told you to "just go write." I'm wondering, for a project like this, where do you even begin?
I once read an interview where the great American historian David McCullough said, “I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read.” That’s the goal I had in mind when I started this book. There is nothing more fun to do.