House passes abortion bill after earlier stumble

As thousands of abortion foes surged through the city on their annual protest march to the Supreme Court, Republicans muscled legislation through the House on Thursday tightening federal restrictions on abortions. The vote came after internal divisions forced them into an embarrassing fumble of a similar bill.
Even as a White House veto threat all but ensured the bill would never become law, the House voted by a near party-line 242-179 to permanently bar federal funds for any abortion coverage. The measure would also block tax credits for many people and businesses buying abortion coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law.
GOP leaders pushed the measure to the House floor hours after abruptly abandoning another bill banning most late-term abortions because a rebellion led by female Republican lawmakers left them short of votes.
While that stumble underscored the challenges GOP leaders face in controlling their newly enlarged House majority, they were eager to act the same day that March for Life protesters streamed through town to protest the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
"I urge my colleagues to stand with the hundreds of thousands of people out on the Mall right now by voting for this bill," said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. "Stand up and commit to creating an America that values every life."
Democrats accused the GOP of an assault on women's freedom and painted Republicans as trying to placate the marchers not far from the Capitol.
"They certainly wanted to appeal, I would say pander, to that group," said Rep. Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill.
"Women's rights should not be theater, should not be drama," said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.
The approved bill would permanently ban the use of federal money for nearly all abortions -- a prohibition that's already in effect but which Congress must renew each year.
It would also go further. The bill would bar individuals and many employers from collecting tax credits for insurance plans covering abortion that they pay for privately and purchase through exchanges established under Obama's Affordable Care Act. It would also block the District of Columbia from using its money to cover abortions for lower-income women.
The House had approved the same measure last year but it went nowhere in the Senate, then run by Democrats. Its fate in this year's GOP-led Senate is uncertain.
In its veto message, the White House said, "The administration strongly opposes legislation that unnecessarily restricts women's reproductive freedom and consumers' private insurance options."
The action came the day of the annual March for Life protesting the Supreme Court's 1973 decision legalizing abortion. It also came with GOP leaders eager to showcase the ability of the new Republican-led Congress to govern efficiently and avoid gridlock.
The bill that was postponed would have banned abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy but allow exemptions for some victims of rape or incest and in cases when a woman's life was in danger. GOP leaders ran into problems because some GOP women and other lawmakers objected that the rape and incest exemptions covered only women who had reported the crimes to authorities.
Those rebellious Republicans argued that that requirement put unfair pressure on women who had already suffered. A 2013 Justice Department report calculated that only 35 percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to police.
Political pressures cut both ways. GOP leaders had resisted the awkwardness of postponing a high-profile abortion vote scheduled for the day of the anti-abortion march. But they didn't want to push anti-abortion legislation through the House that was opposed by GOP women, especially as the party tries appealing to more female voters ahead of the 2016 elections.
Yet when the leaders considered eliminating the requirement that rapes and incest be previously reported, they encountered objections from anti-abortion groups, Republican aides said. They chose not to anger that powerful GOP constituency.
A report Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, citing the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that about 10,000 abortions annually are performed 20 weeks or later into pregnancies. The budget office estimated that if the bill became law, three-fourths of those abortions would instead occur before the 20th week.

Colorado baker faces complaint for refusing anti-gay message on cake

DENVER –  A dispute over a cake in Colorado raises a new question about gay rights and religious freedom: If bakers can be fined for refusing to serve married gay couples, can they also be punished for declining to make a cake with anti-gay statements?
A baker in suburban Denver who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding is fighting a legal order requiring him to serve gay couples even though he argued that would violate his religious beliefs.
But now a separate case puts a twist in the debate over discrimination in public businesses, and it underscores the tensions that can arise when religious freedom intersects with a growing acceptance of gay couples.
Marjorie Silva, owner of Denver's Azucar Bakery, is facing a complaint from a customer alleging she discriminated against his religious beliefs.
According to Silva, the man who visited last year wanted a Bible-shaped cake, which she agreed to make. Just as they were getting ready to complete the order, Silva said the man showed her a piece of paper with hateful words about gays that he wanted written on the cake. He also wanted the cake to have two men holding hands and an X on top of them, Silva said.
She said she would make the cake, but declined to write his suggested messages on the cake, telling him she would give him icing and a pastry bag so he could write the words himself. Silva said the customer didn't want that.
"It's just horrible. It doesn't matter if, you know, if you're Catholic, or Jewish, or Christian, if I'm gay or not gay or whatever," said Silva, 40, adding that she has made cakes regularly for all religious occasions. "We should all be loving each other. I mean there's no reason to discriminate."
Discrimination complaints to Colorado's Civil Rights Division, which is reviewing the matter, are confidential. For that reason, Silva declined to share the correspondence she has received from state officials on the case. KUSA-TV reported the complainant is Bill Jack of Castle Rock, a bedroom community south of Denver.
In a statement to the television station, Jack said he believes he "was discriminated against by the bakery based on my creed."
"As a result, I filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division. Out of respect for the process, I will wait for the director to release his findings before making further comments."
Jack did not respond to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment. No one answered the door at the address listed for Jack in Castle Rock.
The case comes as Republicans in Colorado's Legislature talk about changing the state law requiring that businesses serve gays in the wake of a series of incidents where religious business owners rejected orders to celebrate gay weddings. Republican Sen. Kevin Lundberg said the new case shows a "clash of values" and argued Colorado's public accommodation law is not working.
"The state shouldn't come in and say to the individual businessman, 'You must violate your religious — and I'll say religious-slash-moral convictions. This baker (Silva), thought that was a violation of their moral convictions. The other baker, which we all know very well because of all the stories, clearly that was a violation of their religious convictions," Lundberg said.
But gay rights advocates say there is a significant difference in the cases. Silva refused to put specific words on a cake while Jack Phillips, the baker who turned away the gay couple, refused to make any wedding cake for them in principle.
"There's no law that says that a cake-maker has to write obscenities in the cake just because the customer wants it," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Colorado.
Phillips' attorneys had argued in court that requiring him to prepare a gay marriage cake would be akin to forcing a black baker to prepare a cake with a white supremacist message. But administrative law judge Robert N. Spencer disagreed, writing that business owners can refuse a specific message, but not service.
"In both cases, it is the explicit, unmistakable, offensive message that the bakers are asked to put on the cake that gives rise to the bakers' free speech right to refuse," administrative law judge Robert N. Spencer said.
Phillips' attorney, Nicolle Martin, said she has sympathy for Silva, arguing she is in the same category as her client. "I absolutely support her right to decline," Martin said. "I support her right as an American to pick and choose the messages she will express."
Silva said she remains shaken up by the incident. "I really think I should be the one putting the complaint against him, because he has a very discriminating message," she said.

Death of Saudi King Abdullah brings uncertain new era for US in Middle East

The death of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah early Friday has launched an uncertain new era for U.S. officials to negotiate amid the spreading influence of Iran and the ongoing battle to roll back gains made by the Islamic State terror group in Iraq and Syria.
A former U.S. diplomat close to the Saudi royal family told Fox News Thursday that the death of the 90-year-old King, along with this week's collapse of the U.S.-supported government in Yemen, was a "worst-case scenario" because it removed another obstacle to Iran expanding its reach in the region. The former diplomat said that Tehran's influence could now be seen in four Middle Eastern capitals -- Sana'a in Yemen, as well as Baghdad, Damascus, and to a lesser extent, Beirut. 
Abdullah, a Sunni Arab, made one of the main priorities of his rule countering mainly Shiite Iran whenever it tried to make advances in the region. He also backed Sunni factions against Tehran's allies in several countries, but in Lebanon, for example, the policy failed to stop Iranian-backed Hezbollah from gaining the upper hand. And Tehran and Riyadh's colliding ambitions stoked proxy conflicts around the region that enflamed Sunni-Shiite hatreds — most notably and terribly in Syria's civil war, where the two countries backed opposing sides. Those conflicts in turn hiked Sunni militancy that returned to threaten Saudi Arabia.
With the death of Abdullah, decision-making in Riyadh is likely to be more cautious on issues like Iran and Syria, former U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross told the Wall Street Journal. 
Citing Saudi officials, the paper reports that King Abdullah became less fond of the U.S. in the final years of his reign. The king repeatedly pushed Obama to lend stronger backing to the rebels against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, against whom he bore a personal animus, and was reportedly furious when airstrikes threatened against Damascus by Obama in the summer of 2013 did not come to pass. 
The officials also said that the late king took a dim view of ongoing talks between the U.S. and Iran over the latter nation's nascent nuclear program, seeing it as a sign that Washington was more than willing to work behind its ally's back. 
King Abdullah's death may also open up a bigger power vacuum in Riyadh than first believed. His successor, 79-year-old half-brother Prince Salman, had recently taken on some of the ailing Abdullah's responsibilities. However, the Journal reports that U.S. officials do not consider him to be a strong or healthy ruler in his own right, which raises the possibility that others in the royal family could come to the forefront. 
The Journal reports that one of the first and biggest questions to face the Saudi king is what to do about the ongoing unrest in Yemen, where gains by Shiite Houthi rebels forced the resignation of the country's president and entire government Thursday. 
There is also the question of what to do about the ongoing U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State, better known as ISIS. The late King Abdullah was so fearful of the group's growing power that he committed Saudi airpower to strike the Sunni insurgency. 
Among the other decisions facing Salman is whether he will continue the country's ongoing strategy of increased levels of oil production. The country produced 9.6 million barrels a day in January, according to Platts, the energy information division of McGraw Hill. That's enough to satisfy 11 percent of global demand, despite a global price drop of nearly 60 percent since June. 
The price of U.S. crude was up 88 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $47.19 a barrel in after-hours trading Thursday.

Just a Little Break from Politics!

https://vimeo.com/88829079

Netanyahu to address Congress on March 3, Obama not planning to meet with him

       Real Classy President.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address Congress on March 3, House Speaker John Boehner announced Thursday -- though President Obama does not plan to meet with him. 
The House speaker had invited Netanyahu to speak to lawmakers about the threat from Iran. The announcement caught the president off-guard, as the invitation was not cleared first with the Obama administration; such invitations typically are coordinated with the White House and State Department. 
Asked Thursday about the visit, the White House said Obama would not meet with him, citing the country's upcoming elections. Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said that in keeping with "long-standing practice and principle," the president does not meet with heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections. 
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meanwhile, said it was inappropriate for Boehner to invite Netanyahu to address Congress in the shadow of that election and give the appearance of endorsing the prime minister. "If that's the purpose of Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit two weeks before his own election, right in the midst of our negotiations, I just don't think it's appropriate and helpful," Pelosi said. 
But Boehner cast the invitation as part of Congress' effort to stay tough on Iran, as the Obama administration forges a possible nuclear deal with the country. Boehner on Wednesday denied any suggestion he was "poking [the White House] in the eye," though White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest noted the invitation was a breach in protocol. 
Boehner originally asked Netanyahu to speak in February. His office now says the prime minister will address a joint session of Congress on March 3. A source told Fox News the Israeli leader requested the date be changed so he only would have to make one trip to the U.S. before Israeli elections; he also plans to attend an AIPAC conference in Washington at the time. 
Boehner had announced the invitation a day after Obama delivered his State of the Union address, in which he threatened to veto a bill -- backed by Republicans and some Democrats -- to tee up more sanctions against Iran in case negotiations fail to curtail the country's nuclear enrichment program. 
Obama warned the legislation would "all but guarantee that diplomacy fails." 
But Boehner told members of the GOP House Conference on Wednesday morning they would not sit on the legislation. "Let's send a clear message to the White House -- and the world -- about our commitment to Israel and our allies," he said. 
Boehner signaled he wants Netanyahu to explain the stakes of the debate to Congress. 
The address would mark his third appearance before a joint session of Congress and his second during Boehner's speakership. His previous addresses were in July 1996 and May 2011.

State of Me Cartoon

Friendly fire: Dems challenge Obama agenda

President Obama, for all the flak he took from Republicans over his combative State of the Union address, now is running into turbulence from members of his own party – who could prove an even bigger barrier to his agenda.
Democrats from across the political spectrum spent Wednesday taking aim at parts of the president’s platform. Though in the minority, they hold sway because Democratic defectors – particularly in the Senate – could make the difference in helping Republicans pass key legislation, and even override a presidential veto.
Already, a top-ranking Senate Democrat has renewed pressure on Obama to slow his diplomatic outreach to Cuba and to Iran. House and Senate Democrats also convened a press conference on Wednesday to blast his push for new free-trade deals. Meanwhile, Democrats are likely to play a big role in advancing a bill in the Senate approving the Keystone XL pipeline.
On Wednesday, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., leveled some of the toughest Democratic criticism to date regarding the president’s foreign policy.  
On the day the U.S. opened historic talks with the Cuban government in Havana, Menendez, who is Cuban-American and is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry warning about the Castro regime’s intentions.
“Mr. Secretary, after five decades of authoritarian, one-party rule, we must recognize that the Castros will never relax their iron-fisted control over Cuba unless compelled to do so,” he wrote. “As the Administration pursues further engagement with Cuba, I urge you to link the pace of changes in U.S. policy to reciprocal action from the Castro regime.”
Menendez voiced concern that a few of the political prisoners released by Cuba as part of the deal were rearrested, and about U.S. fugitives hiding out in Cuba, among other issues. He said all these matters must be addressed before re-establishing diplomatic ties.
Shortly afterward, the senator scorched administration officials at a Senate committee hearing over their pushback on lawmakers’ effort to set up new potential sanctions against Iran. The legislation would provide for sanctions if Iran does not strike a deal with the U.S. and other nations curbing its nuclear enrichment program.
Obama, in his State of the Union address, said this legislation would "all but guarantee that diplomacy fails,” and threatened to veto.
Antony Blinken, deputy secretary of state, also said at the Senate hearing that “new sanctions at this time are both unnecessary and, far from enhancing the prospects of negotiations, risk fatally undermining our diplomacy.”
But Menendez scolded the administration witnesses. “Iran is clearly taking steps that can only be interpreted as provocative,” he said. “Yet the administration appears willing to excuse away any connection between these developments and signs of Iran's bad faith in negotiations.”
He also said the more he hears from the administration, “the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran. And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization.”
Not only could Menendez and his fellow Democrats help pass the Iran sanctions legislation out of Congress, but they potentially could provide Republicans enough votes to override the threatened presidential veto.
On another front, liberal House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday spoke out against Obama’s call for authority to fast-track pending trade deals with Europe and Asia.
In the State of the Union speech, the president said he wants the authority to “protect American workers, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but are also fair.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Obama said. “I’m the first one to admit that past trade deals haven’t always lived up to the hype, and that’s why we’ve gone after countries that break the rules at our expense. But 95 percent of the world’s customers live outside our borders. We can’t close ourselves off from those opportunities.”
But many Democrats, and union leaders, say these kinds of deals cost U.S. jobs, and point to the Clinton-era NAFTA deal.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., on Wednesday vowed to fight the proposal “tooth and nail.” She and other Democrats argued the push would hurt American workers.

New York State Assembly speaker reportedly to be arrested on corruption charges

Sheldon Silver, the powerful longtime speaker of the New York State Assembly, is facing arrest on federal corruption charges, according to a published report. 

The New York Times reported that the charges stemmed from payments that Silver, a Democrat, received from a small New York City law firm, Goldberg & Iryami, that specializes in seeking reductions in New York City real estate taxes. It was not immediately clear how much Silver was paid by the firm, but the paper reported that the amounts were "substantial" and the payments were made over several years. Silver reportedly failed to disclose the payments as required in his annual financial filings with the state. 
The Times reports that the federal investigation of Silver began after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo abruptly shut down an anticorruption commission he created in March of 2013. That inquiry had focused on outside income earned by state legislators with part-time jobs. 
Silver earns $121,000 per year as Assembly speaker and reported a $650,000 income from legal work on his financial disclosure form for 2013, the most recent year available.
Under New York law, officeholders can continue to serve after being arrested, but must leave office upon conviction for a felony offense. 
Silver, 70, was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1976, representing a district comprising much of lower Manhattan, including the site of the newly opened Freedom Tower. He has served as Assembly Speaker since 1994.

Woman showcased by Obama in State of the Union is a former Democratic campaign staffer

The woman whose story of economic recovery was showcased by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address is a former Democratic campaign staffer and has been used by Obama for political events in the past.
Rebekah Erler has been presented by the White House as a woman who was discovered by the president after she wrote to him last March about her economic hardships. She was showcased in the speech as proof that middle class Americans are coming forward to say that Obama’s policies are working.
Unmentioned in the White House bio of Erler is that she is a former Democratic campaign operative, working as a field organizer for Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.).
This also wasn’t the first time the White House used the former Democratic campaign staffer as a political prop. Obama spent a “day in the life” of Erler in June so that he could have “an opportunity to communicate directly with the people he’s working for every day.”
Reuters revealed Erler’s Democratic affiliations following that June event, and the Minnesota Republican Party attacked Obama for being “so out of touch with reality that he thinks a former Democrat campaign staffer speaks for every Minnesotan.”

House GOP drops controversial abortion bill ahead of Roe v. Wade anniversary

House Republicans on Wednesday dropped a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks, ending legislation that at one time seemed certain to pass but fell victim to inter-party disputes over concerns that the law would alienate women voters.
The failure of the bill, which was intended to be Congress' first anti-abortion legislation of the new session, reflects divides in the GOP just weeks after it assumed control of both houses for the first time in eight years.
Instead, the House will vote Thursday -- the 42nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision -- on a bill that would ban the use of tax dollars for abortions, the same law that was passed by the House nearly one year ago but died in the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats.
The substitute bill would make permanent the so-called Hyde amendment, which bans all federal money for abortion services. Currently, Congress simply renews the amendment each year, which it has done since the mid-1970s. Voting on the bill Thursday would provide Republicans with a symbolic act on the same day that the anti-abortion March for Life is scheduled to begin in Washington.
The failed bill, which reflected the idea that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks, would have criminalized virtually all abortions for pregnancies of 20 weeks or longer. It would offer some exceptions, including for victims of rape that have already been reported to authorities.
But some Republicans, including female members of Congress, objected to that requirement, saying that many women feel too distressed to report rapes and should not be penalized. A 2013 Justice Department report calculated that just 35 percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to police.
"The issue becomes, we're questioning the woman's word," Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., said earlier Wednesday. "We have to be compassionate to women when they're in a crisis situation."
There were also objections to the bill's exemption for minors who are victims of incest and have reported the incident.
"So the exception would apply to a 16-year-old but not a 19-year-old?" said Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pa. "I mean, incest is incest."
There was concern that the bill would have looked bad for the Republican Party as it struggles to court female voters in the 2016 presidential and congressional elections, and primary and general election candidates could have turned the vote around on the Republicans. The GOP also wants to demonstrate that it can focus on issues that matter to voters and not get bogged down in gridlock.
But members who backed the 20-week bill were furious that those who shied away didn't raise their objections until essentially the last minute.
“We’ve been working on this for two years. Where were they?” a source who is close to the process told Fox News on Wednesday afternoon.
The source added that it was expected that the abortion bill would be one of the new Congress's first votes of the session, and that any members suggesting otherwise are “being dishonest.”  
Thursday's debate was timed to coincide with the annual march on Washington by abortion foes marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 legalizing abortion.
In a statement, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said he was disappointed by the failure of the 20-week measure, but said he was encouraged that Congress would vote on banning taxpayer funding of abortions.
"Americans have been forced to violate their conscience and religious convictions long enough by being made to fund President Obama's massive abortion scheme," Perkins said.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., a chief sponsor of the 20-week bill, called it "a sincere effort" to protect women and "their unborn, pain-capable child from the atrocity of late-term abortion." He had also said GOP leaders "want to try to create as much unity as we can."
The White House had threatened to veto the legislation, calling it "an assault on a woman's right to choose."
Democrats were strongly against the legislation and said the measure was nothing more than a political gesture.
"This is not only insulting to the women of this country, but it's just another pointless exercise in political posturing," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. "It will never become law."
The GOP rift on the issue was discussed Wednesday at a private meeting of House Republicans, who by a large majority are strongly anti-abortion.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a brief interview earlier Wednesday that he believed the House would debate the bill as planned. But he did not rule out changes.
"We're moving forward," he said earlier Wednesday. "There's a discussion and we're continuing to have discussions."
The legislation would have allowed an exception where an abortion is necessary to save the mother's life.
Under the bill, those performing the outlawed abortions could face fines or imprisonment of up to five years.
A report this week by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office cited estimates by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that about 10,000 abortions in the U.S. are performed annually 20 weeks or later into pregnancies. The budget office estimated that if the bill became law, three-fourths of those abortions would end up occurring before the 20th week.
The House approved a similar version of the bill in 2013, but the measure was never considered in the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats. Its fate remains uncertain in the Senate, where anti-abortion sentiment is less strong than in the House.

State of the Union Peachy Cartoon

Obama undermines Hillary Clinton in State of the Union address

Is President Obama trying to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run? That’s one take-away from his feisty State of the Union address, in which Mr. Obama did three things: first, he moved the Democratic agenda far to the left, where Hillary is not entirely comfortable; second, he rebuffed the clear preference of voters that he work with Congress, by making the cornerstone of his address proposals unacceptable to the GOP and third, he assured the country that our foreign policy (Hillary’s foreign policy) is working. 
Americans are not at all convinced, 13 days after the vicious attacks on Charlie Hedbo in Paris, that Obama’s “broader strategy” is leading to “a safer, more prosperous world.”  Obama says he believes in a “smarter kind of American leadership”; for many in the country, the assertion borders on arrogance.
None of these messages works for Hillary.

Hillary is a successful, wealthy woman who pretends otherwise and stubs her toe on money issues, such as when she described herself and her husband as “dead broke” upon leaving the White House.

Mr. Obama’s focus on the middle class is unsurprising. Lagging income growth for the average American has emerged as the likely debate in 2016, for good reason. The numbers show that during the Obama recovery, the middle class has, as Joe Biden put it, been “left behind.”
The issue is valid; Mr. Obama’s progressive approach to helping average Americans – relying on more taxation and more government programs -- is not. 
Despite Americans listing job creation as their number one concern for the past six years, putting people to work has never been President Obama’s priority. He has not encouraged businesses to hire, either through reducing tax rates on employers or by expanding business opportunities – through trade, or reduced regulations, for instance.
On the contrary, his economic prescriptions have raised costs for employers through the onerous provisions of Obamacare and his efforts to raise the minimum wage. 
As of this SOTU address, he has doubled down, since many of the suggested tax hikes will land on small companies that pay taxes as individuals, and as his proposed sick pay and maternity leave will raise the costs of hiring. Such policies have led to labor participation rates that are still bumping along historical lows, a crisis in our disability program, and stagnant wages. A short course in economics might help the White House: a tighter jobs market will raise wages. The government raising wages will put people out of work. It’s that simple.
Obama revisited his familiar theme of making sure all Americans have a “fair shot”; he wants to raise taxes to make sure the rich do “their fair share.” He has never laid out what that share should be, but he has tried hard to convince Americans that the wealthy don’t play “by the same set of rules.”  
It’s a tired song, and Americans have never bought the program. 
A recent Rasmussen poll showed that 60% of Americans think the country is “fair” and “decent.” They don’t believe that income distribution is the answer. They believe in growth, in optimism, in everyone getting ahead.
The tax proposals outlined by President Obama are old school, and dead on arrival in the Republican Congress, as he well knows. Congress has indicated an eagerness to work with the president on tax reform, but has prioritized changing the dysfunctional corporate tax code. 
The president understands that by placing individual tax hikes first in the queue, he has just undermined any chance for bipartisan agreement. And, by adopting the priorities of the left, which emphasize wealth redistribution and also embrace further exploiting the financial sector, he is drafting behind liberal icon Senator Elizabeth Warren.
This is a slap at Hillary, for two reasons. First, Hillary is unquestionably uncomfortable putting on a progressive cloak. 
In the fall campaigns she awkwardly mimicked Liz Warren’s rhetoric, embarrassing herself with the head-scratcher “Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s businesses and corporations that create jobs.” 
Hillary is a successful, wealthy woman who pretends otherwise and stubs her toe on money issues, such as when she described herself and her husband as “dead broke” upon leaving the White House. Also, Hillary has difficulty distancing herself from Wall Street; the Wall Street Journal has reported that she and her husband have raised nearly $5 million from Goldman Sachs alone.  
It’s also awkward for Mrs. Clinton that the president has burned relations with Republicans…again. In his speech, while talking about “A better politics” in which “we debate without demonizing each other,” the president also threatened to veto a number of GOP initiatives.  
Voters have shown they want the government to function – to repair our infrastructure, reform our dreadful tax code, to compete more effectively with our trading rivals, to streamline our outdated government agencies. 
For six years Mr. Obama has blamed the GOP for standing in the way of his programs; now he will be the obstructer-in-chief. From his State of the Union address, it is clear that he is not interested in partnering with Republicans. His aggressive executive actions over the past several weeks on preventing deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants and unilaterally overhauling our Cuba policy were the tip of the iceberg. Mr. Obama is not into compromise.  
Voters do not like the president’s “go it alone” program; they understand why the nation’s founders included those pesky checks and balances. Obama will make it more difficult for any Democrat trying to succeed him to convince voters that he or she will “work across the aisle” – a claim that Hillary might actually credibly make. 
Finally, Obama’s insufficient resolve against the threat of Islamic terrorism, and conviction that his efforts overseas are bearing fruit, are alarming.  Like Muggles fearful of naming the fearsome Voldemort, Obama seems to think if he just doesn’t say “Islamic terrorism” out loud, the menace will pass him by. 
His embarrassing absence in Paris, his waffle on Syria, his underestimation of ISIS – it all speaks to his pretense that we have won the War on Terror. 
That our president can be so misled and so misleading on a matter of such grave importance is horrifying. That Hillary Clinton was the enabler of his clueless foreign policy is a serious problem for the former first lady. And, for the country, should she be elected.

Dems praise Obama's economic proposals while Republicans call him 'out of touch'

Democrats praised President Obama for the aggressive economic proposals in his State of Union address to help the middle class, while Republicans dismissed the president as continuously "out of touch" and suggested his agenda is doomed in Congress. 
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, a potential 2016 candidate, said he was disappointed in Obama's speech, considering voters in November overwhelmingly rejected his policies along with those of other Democrats.
"He could ... be focusing on jobs and economic opportunity," Cruz said on Fox News' "The Kelley File." "But instead he doubled down on taxes and spending. I was really disappointed."
Cruz said he was pleased to see the president interested in bipartisan efforts to pass free-trade legislation but disappointed to hear him mention a veto threat at least four times, particularly on Iran sanctions and the Keystone XL oil pipeline, each of which has support from Democrats and Republicans. 
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said, "Tonight President Obama sent one resounding message: He remains wholly out of touch with the priorities of the American people." 
He suggested that Obama, in his roughly 60-minute address, focused too much on recent economic gains as a means to support a tax-and-spend agenda before addressing plans to thwart terrorism abroad and on American soil.
The Republican response was expected since Obama and the White House over the past several weeks have signaled what the president would propose -- particularly the plan to tax the country’s highest wage-earners to pay for middle-class tax break.
Democrats praised Obama for putting forth what they called a bold agenda, which comes amid his recent surge in popularity, after months of low approval ratings and Democrats suffering big losses in the November elections.
"Under President Obama’s leadership, we ... restored an emphasis on middle class economics," said Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. "Now ... we need to ensure that middle-class families have their shot at the American dream."
Obama in his pitch to help the middle-class argued his polices helped the United States out of an economic recession and that the country's unemployment rate is now below where it was before the recession, which started roughly seven years ago.
"The president made it clear he is on the side of the middle class," said Hawaii Democratic Rep. Mazie Hirono. "The president’s forward-thinking initiative to fund two years of community college will be a game changer for families I’ve met in Hawaii and across the country. ... Tonight the president laid out how we must invest in our middle class families, which means investing in our infrastructure."
But Rep. Curt Clawson, R-Fla., who delivered the Tea Party response, said, "further burdening the American economy with even higher taxes is wrong, just as more debt and more unfunded programs are wrong,".
In the days before the speech, Republicans dismissed the plan as a “non-starter,” particularly in the GOP-led Congress.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a potential 2016 presidential candidate, struck a more conciliatory tone after the address, saying, "I’ll work with the president, Democrats, Independents and anyone who wants to get people back to work and alleviate poverty in our country."
However, he added, “We need real jobs created in the real world, not more empty government promises.”
Obama said during his address, his sixth, that he would deliver his full fiscal 2016 budget to Congress in two weeks.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., another potential 2016 White House candidate, questioned Obama's sincerity when championing his economic record, saying he takes credit for the country's recent prosperity while wages remain stagnant and the unemployment rate for blacks remains twice that of most other Americans.
He also criticized what he called Obama's tax-and-spend policies.
"I heard a lot about free stuff," he said on "The Kelley File." "But I didn't hear much about how we're going to pay for it. ... I have to wonder about the guy's sincerity."

Republican response: GOP Congress ready to champion middle class

Sen. Joni Ernst hammered home the idea of a new Republican Congress ready to champion the middle class in America as well as go after terrorists abroad in the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.
In contrast to Obama's optimistic tone on the economy, Ernst spoke of the struggle that still exists.
“Americans have been hurting,” she said, and cited concerns over stagnant wages, lost jobs and higher monthly insurance bills.
The freshman senator from Iowa, with less than a month of experience, in Washington, told Americans during her 9-minute rebuttal that the GOP is “working hard to pass the kind of serious job-creation ideas you deserve” that she said includes building the controversial Keystone pipeline.
Ernst also said Republicans will prioritize American concerns and called on Obama to work with her party to simplify the tax code by lowering rates and eliminating unspecified loopholes. She also called on him to ease trade barriers with Europe and Asia.
Obama, who gave the annual speech before a Republican-controlled Congress, focused on the state of the economy and its impact on the middle class. He also took on climate change, cyber threats and terrorism abroad.
Ernst also cited the recent terror attacks in France, Nigeria, Canada and Australia in her rebuttal and said lawmakers need to come up with a “comprehensive plan” to defeat terror groups like  Al Qaeda and the Islamic State as well as those radicalized by them.
“We know threats like these can’t just be wished away,” she said. 
Ernst, a former colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard, won one of the toughest election challenges last year, beating Democrat Bruce Braley. She is the first woman elected to the office from Iowa and the first combat veteran to serve in the Senate. 
Ernst has served 21 years between the Army Reserve and National Guard. She spent 14 months in Kuwait in 2002-2003 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In a nod to her military roots, she wore camouflage pumps.
She also said veterans deserve better care and “nothing less than the benefits they were promised and a quality of care we can all be proud of.”
Ernst, who ran on a promise of bringing change to Washington as well as an attention-grabbing campaign ad where she said she “grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm” and vowed to cut the pork in Washington if elected, said lawmakers have too often “responded with the same stale mindset that led to failed policies like ObamaCare.”
“It’s a mindset that gave us political talking points, not serious solutions,” she added.
But not everyone bought Ernst’s message. 
Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, said  it was Republicans who are blocking efforts to pass legislation in Washington.  
“Ernst decried ‘stagnant wages and lost jobs’ but made no apologies for her fellow Republicans in Congress who have blocked all Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage, to create millions of jobs rebuilding America’s crumbling roads and bridges, and to stop rewarding corporations that outsource U.S. jobs with tax breaks,” he said in a written statement. 
Rep. Curt Clawson, R-Fla., delivered the official Tea Party response to Obama’s State of the Union speech from the National Press Club in D.C.
Clawson, who won a special election seven months ago by marketing himself as “the outsider for Congress,” drew on his strong conservative grassroots base during his response. He stressed that people were key to achieving the American dream, not the government. 
Florida freshman Rep. Carlos Curbelo delivered the Republicans’ Spanish-language response.

Obama pushes tax plan, wields veto pen in defiant State of the Union address

King Obama

A defiant President Obama staked out a populist agenda Tuesday night for his final two years in office built on what he called “middle-class economics,” while using his sixth State of the Union address to deliver a slew of veto threats challenging the new, Republican-led Congress.
Setting a combative tone with Capitol Hill’s GOP leadership, Obama trumpeted a plan centered on free higher education, new worker protections and a sweeping tax overhaul that hikes rates on top earners to fund credits for the middle class. Far from chastened by Republican gains in the midterm elections, he vowed to defend signature accomplishments from his first six years in office.
“Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don't get in the way,” Obama said.
Throughout, Obama hammered the message that the economy, and the country, are bouncing back after the recession and two protracted wars.
“Tonight, we turn the page,” Obama declared, claiming: “The shadow of crisis has passed.”
The address reflected a president disinclined to cede ground in the wake of his party’s midterm losses. While urging lawmakers to join him in pursuing a “better politics” in Washington, the president repeatedly antagonized congressional Republicans. He sprinkled his address with jabs at the “superrich” and the Keystone XL pipeline, and vowed to fight GOP bills that would chip away at ObamaCare, financial regulations and his recent immigration actions.
“If a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of these things, I will veto it,” Obama said. He issued similar threats with regard to legislation teeing up new Iran sanctions and efforts to roll back environmental regulations.
In an off-script moment, the president even reminded Republicans of his electoral successes. After declaring he had no more campaigns to run, he quipped, “I know because I won both of them.”
Obama, in his address, was promoting a series of programs he previewed in the weeks leading up to it.
Most controversial is a plan unveiled over the weekend imposing more than $300 billion in tax hikes over 10 years – including on investment and inheritance taxes for top earners – to fund tax credit expansions for the middle class, including tripling the maximum child tax credit to up to $3,000 per child. The funding also would pay for an initiative providing free community college for two years for students who keep up their grades (though the White House calls for rolling back a separate college savings tax break).
Referring to long-established entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, Obama said “middle-class economics” helps everyone get a “fair shot” when everyone “does their fair share.”
With that pitch, Obama also called anew for Congress to raise the minimum wage. And he called for new measures to guarantee paid sick leave for American workers.
On his college plan, the president said he wants to make two years of community college “as free and universal in America as high school is today.”
While Republicans have questioned the mechanics of the college plan, they have declared his tax proposal a “non-starter” in the new GOP-led Congress.
House Speaker John Boehner described the president’s wish-list Tuesday as “more of the same” and said his approach is hurting, not helping, the middle class.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement that the address showed Obama slipping back into his role as “campaigner-in-chief,” pushing higher taxes and more regulations, while issuing “premature veto threats.”
In a pointed swipe sure to anger Republicans, Obama in his address downplayed the jobs impact of the proposed Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline, without mentioning it by name. Calling for more infrastructure spending, he said: “Let's set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline. Let's pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than thirty times as many jobs per year.”
Defending his tax plan, Obama said lobbyists have “rigged” the system with loopholes and giveaways “that the superrich don't need, while denying a break to middle class families who do.”
He called for closing them “to help more families pay for childcare and send their kids to college.”
Yet the president, as part of his tax plan, is calling for ending a tax break for college savings plans known as 529 plans. Under the change, earnings on contributions could not be withdrawn tax-free, as they can be now.
The speech was dominated by economic and domestic issues, though the president did devote several minutes to addressing terrorism and specifically the threat posed by the Islamic State.
After the recent terror attack in Paris, he said “we stand united” with victims of terrorists.
“We will continue to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks, and we reserve the right to act unilaterally, as we have done relentlessly since I took office to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to us and our allies,” he vowed.
On ISIS, though some lawmakers have criticized his current approach, he claimed the current campaign in Iraq and Syria is “stopping ISIL’s advance.” Though airstrikes have been underway for months, he urged Congress to formally authorize the use of force.
And on Cuba, he defended his recent decision to push for normalizing relations with the country. Despite concerns among some lawmakers in Congress that the Castro regime may exploit the opening to its advantage, Obama urged Congress to “begin the work of ending the embargo.”  
The speech was Obama’s first State of the Union before a Congress controlled by Republicans. The party won control of the Senate and built a historic majority in the House in November.
Yet Obama has made clear he plans to play “offense” in his final two years, and his speech Tuesday set the stage for that political and legislative battle.
Both Republicans and Democrats are appealing to middle-class voters as they begin the new Congress. But Obama’s State of the Union address, thematically, promoted federal government protections and programs as key to their security, where Republicans are making a flat pitch for private-sector job creation.
Earlier in the day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged the president to look beyond “more tired tax hikes,” and instead strive for “responsible reforms that aim to balance the budget.”
He also sounded a middle-class message, but urged the president to boost workers with bipartisan jobs bills, including by backing efforts to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who was elected in November to an open Iowa seat, delivered the official Republican response to Obama Tuesday night. The senator presented a markedly different picture of the economy, where Americans “agonize over stagnant wages and lost jobs.”
On the tax front, Ernst called for simplifying America’s “outdated and loophole-ridden tax code” – not to finance more spending but improve the economy.
“So let’s iron out loopholes to lower rates — and create jobs, not pay for more government spending,” she said. “The president has already expressed some support for these kinds of ideas. We’re calling on him now to cooperate to pass them.”

Taken 4 Cartoon

Hollywood stars smear 'American Sniper,' label Kyle a coward, Nazi

While Americans embrace "American Sniper," some in Hollywood are condemning the film – accusing director Clint Eastwood of "celebrating a killer."
Fox News' Todd Starnes sounded off Monday on filmmaker Michael Moore and actor Seth Rogen, who both spoke unfavorably of the film celebrating the life of Navy Seal Chris Kyle.
"Michael Moore tweeted that snipers like Chris Kyle are cowards. Seth Rogen - who made his mark with movies about sexually frustrated pot heads - compared Kyle's bio-pic to a Nazi propaganda film," Starnes said. "Here is the sum and substance, folks.  Chris Kyle killed bad guys so that good guys could live."

Study used to bolster NY fracking ban developed by anti-fracking 'activists'

New York state’s controversial new fracking ban was bolstered in part by research written and peer-reviewed by scientists with ties to the anti-fracking movement – drawing criticism that their views were not disclosed when the ban was announced last month.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration made New York the second state, after Vermont, to ban the oil-and-gas extraction process of hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as fracking.
At the time of the announcement, Acting Health Commissioner Howard Zucker cited a study published in Environmental Health in October 2014 that warned about “concentrations of volatile compounds” near these drilling sites. He noted the paper, which he included in a presentation, showed “elevated levels of eight different chemicals” in air samples – he said despite some weaknesses in the report, the issue deserves “further study.”
The study also was cited along with several others in a broader state report, “A Public Health Review of High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing for Shale Gas Development,” released in December. That report concluded that, because of uncertainties over the health and environmental impacts of fracking, the practice “should not proceed” in New York.
When the governor announced the ban on Dec. 17, he said: "I think it’s our responsibility to develop an alternative … for safe, clean economic development.”
But Simon Lomax -- western director for Energy In-Depth, a public outreach campaign funded by the pro-fracking Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) – complained that the October study was both written and peer-reviewed by “activists.”
He said this wasn't disclosed. “As advocates, these people are perfectly entitled to their political views, as we all are under the First Amendment,” he told FoxNews.com. “But when advocates hide their political views and subvert the peer-review process to get a questionable research paper published, that violates all kinds of scientific standards.” 
One of the three peer-reviewers is Sandra Steingraber, a biologist and environmental advocate who is also co-founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking. Two others, Robert Oswald and Jerome Paulson, are vocal opponents. Several of the study's authors, though not all, are known fracking skeptics and have ties to groups that oppose the practice -- including Denny Larson, study co-author and director of Global Community Monitor, which is sharply critical of fracking. 
Reached by FoxNews.com, Steingraber and Oswald said they did not disclose their positions because they have taken no money from the movement. Further, they do not work directly with any of the authors or have academic relationships with them. As scientists, they said, they have found evidence that fracking creates health hazards, and it is their professional and ethical obligation to speak out about it.
“You can’t be neutral when people are being harmed,” said Steingraber. “That’s like telling people who did studies on the carcinogenic effects of tobacco smoke to be neutral about smoking.”
Steingraber was arrested for civil disobedience in October during an ongoing protest over the storage of natural and liquefied petroleum gases in the salt caverns at Seneca Lake in New York.
“I am speaking out precisely because of the evidence – the evidence is driving our conclusions and it my moral obligation as a biologist to make sure people are kept out of harm’s way,” she added. As for her ability to review studies like the one in Environmental Health, she said, “I think we are all proud of our ability to be conservative and analytical and absolutely objective about the data. I look at the data and call it as I see it.” 
But Lomax said the validity of the science is called into question when peer-reviewers may be predisposed to a certain outcome. “It’s not sound science,” he said.
He noted the journal’s own editorial standards are clear on disclosing “non-financial competing interests.” The journal says it adheres to the standards set forth by Bio Med Central. Those say authors should not only disclose financial interests but also “political, personal, religious, ideological, academic, and intellectual competing interests.”
Though Lomax is tied to the oil-and-gas industry, he said, “I know the difference between a good, fair effort towards advancing the scientific knowledge of the subject matter and activists who write their own talking points and misrepresent that as science.” 
Calls and emails to the Cuomo’s office and the state Department of Health were not returned.
Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University, who has written extensively on the dangers of fracking, is an admitted opponent and also peer-reviewed the study. He told FoxNews.com he did not believe he needed to disclose his positions beforehand.
“What Lomax said is absolute and complete nonsense – anybody who has the expertise to review a paper has some opinion on the subject,” he said. “I’ve reviewed thousands of papers and I always have some sort of opinion of the area, but it does not really stand in the way of my objective view.”
In New York, the target area for possible oil extraction is on the border with Pennsylvania, in the Marcellus Shale region. Supporters like the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York opposed the ban because they believed the drilling would have brought jobs to an economically depressed area.
"The science that [officials with the state health department] did is junk science,” Dan Fitzsimmons, president of the Landowners Coalition, said in a rally after Cuomo’s decision to ban. "It was all about what may be, what might be, what could be. It wasn't the actual science of the day."
He told FoxNews.com he does not believe the public knows about the interwoven connections between the authors and reviewers and activist groups that are often behind the studies.
“They do the studies to get the results they want,” he said. “They are not going to be objective, they have an agenda.”

Obama shows mixed results in delivering on State of the Union promises

Close Guantanamo. End the Iraq war. Tax the rich. Increase nuclear power. Drill for oil in the Atlantic.
President Obama called for all these initiatives and more in previous State of the Union speeches. Some came to pass; others did not. 
Tuesday's State of the Union address is likely to be similar in scope -- filled with political wish-list items, some strikingly ambitious considering Congress is now controlled by Republicans. But when a president makes such pledges -- be it to add a million jobs, to freeze spending or to cut red tape -- should taxpayers believe the claims or dismiss them as political hype? 
A look back at his past addresses may help answer that question. 
2009
Renewable energy: In 2009, the president said his economic recovery plan would "double the nations' supply of renewable energy in the next three years." 
That didn't quite happen. The share of renewable power in the U.S. increased from 10.62 percent in 2009 to 12.6 percent in 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 
Deficit reduction: Obama also pledged to "cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office." On that count, he eventually did -- though it took a year longer than he promised. The deficit fell to $680 billion in 2013 from $1.41 trillion in 2009. 
College graduation rates: "By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world," Obama said in 2009, when just 41 percent of  Americans graduated from college. That number now stands at 43 percent, a two-point gain in six years and one of the slowest growth rates in the world, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It ranks the U.S. behind Russia, South Korea and Canada. The College Board ranks the U.S. 12th out of 36 countries. 
He also planned to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay and open universal tax-free savings accounts for all Americans. Both efforts failed to fly in Congress. 
2010
Nuclear power: In 2010, the president promised to "build a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in the U.S." That didn't happen. 
Program cuts: "We will continue to go through the budget line by line to eliminate programs that we can't afford," the president told Congress in 2010. That, too, didn't materialize.
The Congressional Budget Office outlined $100 billion in useful spending cuts in 2009. The Office of Management and Budget identified wasteful and non-performing programs totaling another $100 billion in 2013. The Government Accountability Office identified $37 billion in duplicative programs in 2011.
Spending freeze: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years," the president told Congress in 2010. For the most part, that happened. The federal budget remained about $3.5 trillion during that period. 
A promise to "change the tone of our politics" was not as successful. Polls show an increase in partisanship among voters and many blame the president, whose latest Gallup approval ratings hover around 45 percent. 
He also famously said ObamaCare "would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan." That wasn't true.
But Obama did promise to regulate the banks, reform federal student aid and increase taxes on the rich. All became law. 
2011 
Immigration: "We should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration," Obama said in 2011.
While he never convinced Congress to pass immigration reform, Obama acted alone, passing a series of executive actions on immigration last November. 
Tax reform: In 2011, Obama said the U.S. should "simplify the individual tax code," but he did nothing to push the issue. On Tuesday night, he is expected to call for more taxes on the top earners, on investments and inheritances. 
2012
Outsourcing punishment: In 2012, the president promised to "stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas." That effort went nowhere as the White House did not pursue corporate tax reform in Congress, even though the president said it remained a priority in his 2013 and 2014 State of the Union speeches as well. 
Regulation elimination: In 2012, the president said, "I've ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don't make sense." The White House says it followed through, eliminating dozens of outdated rules, governing everything from the handling of spilled milk to warm air hand dryers.
However, the 2013 Federal Register contained 78,891 pages, 70 new laws and 2,898 new rules, according to a study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which says U.S. households "pay" $14,768 annually in hidden taxes from unnecessary regulations.
Obama also wanted to "cut through the maze of confusing training programs" to reduce government waste and duplication. According to the Government Accountability Office, the federal government spends $18 billion a year on 47 overlapping job training programs.
Oil and gas drilling: In response to higher gas prices, in 2012 the president said, "Tonight I'm directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources." He did, but the statement is misleading, since the Atlantic Ocean, and most of the Pacific and Alaskan waters, remain off limits. According to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Management, 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf in the lower 48 states is not open for exploration or drilling, including 45 percent of the Gulf of Mexico. 
2013
Al Qaeda: In 2013, Obama said, "The organization that attacked us on 9/11 is a shadow of its former self." A year before, he said, "Al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can't escape the reach of the United States of America." In 2009, he said "We will forge a new and comprehensive strategy ... to defeat Al Qaeda and combat extremism."
Despite U.S. efforts, including stepped-up drone strikes, many argue Al Qaeda and particularly its affiliates are more powerful today, not less. Even in the Middle East, voters tell Pew Research, Islamic extremism, including Al Qaeda and its affiliates, are a growing threat. 
Health spending: In 2013, the president lobbied for support for ObamaCare, promising to "bring down costs by changing the way our government pays for Medicare." He did. Medicare spending slowed from 7.7 percent to 5.3 percent, according to a new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
A State of the Union speech is a mix of policy and politics, aspirations and accomplishments. After six years in office, Obama has overseen an improving economy -- though middle class wages remain flat. Proposals for corporate tax reform and universal preschool remain in limbo.
While there is partisanship and disagreement on almost every issue, this 2013 statement could be the exception. "Our government shouldn't make promises we cannot keep, but we must keep the promises we've already made," Obama told Congress.
Nevertheless, Tuesday's address may include many promises even he knows cannot be kept.

Japan PM vows to save hostages purportedly threatened by ISIS

 Japan's Prime Minister vowed Tuesday to save the lives of two Japanese hostages threatened with beheading in an online video purportedly released by the Islamic State terror group. 
In the video, identified as being made by the Islamic State group's al-Furqan media arm and posted on militant websites associated with the extremist group, a militant threatened to kill the men unless a $200 million ransom was paid within 72 hours. If confirmed to be from Islamic State, better known as ISIS, the video would mark the first public demand for ransom from the group in exchange for the release of captives. 
Speaking in Jerusalem, Abe called on ISIS to immediately release the hostages, saying that "their lives are the top priority." Abe is in the midst of a six-day visit to the Middle East, accompanied by more than 100 government officials and presidents of Japanese companies.
In the video, the two men, identified by ISIS as Kenji Goto Jogo and Haruna Yukawa, appear in orange jumpsuits like other hostages previously killed by ISIS, which controls a third of Iraq and Syria. The militant who threatens them speaks in a British accent and resembles a militant involved in other filmed beheadings. 
"To the prime minister of Japan: Although you are more than 8,500 kilometers (5,280 miles) from the Islamic State, you willingly have volunteered to take part in this crusade," the knife-brandishing terrorist says. "You have proudly donated $100 million to kill our women and children, to destroy the homes of the Muslims."
Japan's Foreign Ministry's anti-terrorism section has seen the video and analysts are assessing it, a ministry official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of department rules.
Speaking in Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga declined to say whether Japan would pay the ransom.
"If true, the act of threat in exchange of people's lives is unforgivable and we feel strong indignation," Suga told journalists. "We will make our utmost effort to win their release as soon as possible."
In August, a Japanese citizen believed to be Yukawa, a private military company operator in his early 40s, was kidnapped in Syria after going there to train with rebel fighters, according to a post on a blog he kept. Pictures on his Facebook page show him in Iraq and Syria in July. One video on his page showed him holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle with the caption: "Syria war in Aleppo 2014."
"I cannot identify the destination," Yukawa wrote in his last blog post. "But the next one could be the most dangerous." He added: "I hope to film my fighting scenes during an upcoming visit."
Yukawa's father, Shoichi, who lives in Chiba, just outside Tokyo, expressed shock over the news in an interview with Japanese public television station NHK.
"I don't understand this," he said. "I'm quite confused."
Goto is a respected Japanese freelance journalist who went to report on Syria's civil war last year and knew of Yukawa.
"I'm in Syria for reporting," he wrote in an email to an Associated Press journalist in October. "I hope I can convey the atmosphere from where I am and share it."
ISIS has beheaded and shot dead hundreds of captives -- mainly Syrian and Iraqi soldiers -- during its sweep across the two countries, and has celebrated its mass killings in extremely graphic videos. A British-accented jihadi also has appeared in the beheading videos of slain American hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and with British hostages David Haines and Alan Henning.
The group also holds British photojournalist John Cantlie, who has appeared in other extremist propaganda videos, and a 26-year-old American woman captured last year in Syria while working for aid groups. U.S. officials have asked that the woman not be identified out of fears for her safety.
Though the militant in the video links the ransom demand to the Japanese funding efforts to counter ISIS, it comes amid recent losses for the extremists targeted in airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition. Its militants also recently released some 200 mostly elderly Yazidi hostages in Iraq, fueling speculation by Iraqi officials that the group couldn't support them.
This is Abe's second Mideast hostage crisis since becoming prime minister. Two years ago, al-Qaida-affiliated militants attacked an Algerian natural gas plant and the ensuing four-day hostage crisis killed 29 insurgents and 37 foreigners, including 10 Japanese who were working for a Yokohama-based engineering company, JCG Corp. Seven Japanese survived.

Fracking Cartoon

Army commanders order removal of 'God and country' recruiting sign

An Army recruiting station has been ordered by higher ups to shelve a sidewalk sandwich board with the wording "On a mission for both God and country.”
The order went out Friday to a recruiting station in Phoenix that had been displaying the outdoor sign since at least October.  The sign board also shows an image of a Special Forces patch and Ranger, Airborne and Special Forces tabs.
An inquiry from Army Times to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command prompted the sandwich board’s immediate removal.
The command’s spokesman told the paper the sign’s text was changed by “local recruiting personnel” but without clearance from command headquarters.
“Had the process been followed, the copy shown would not have been approved,” spokesman Brian Lepley said.
On Thursday, the head of the atheist group Military Religious Freedom Foundation called the sign the “Poster of Shame.”
In an online post, the group’s Mikey Weinstein called the display a “stunning, unconstitutional disgrace,” Army Times reported.
“The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is delighted the Constitution has been adhered to by the U.S. Army Recruiting Command,” Weinstein said after the sign’s removal.
It appears that prior to being changed the sandwich board read: “We don’t call for reinforcements. We make them.”

US-built Ebola treatment centers reportedly sit empty in Liberia

Several treatment centers built by U.S. troops and meant to receive Ebola patients are sitting empty or nearly empty in the West African country of Liberia, according to a published report. 
The Washington Post reports that the worst of the deadly outbreak appeared to have passed before the first treatment centers were even completed. A Liberian government official tells the Post that the centers were built "too late."
"If they had been built when we needed them, they wouldn't have been too much," the official, Moses Massaquoi, said. 
President Barack Obama dispatched 3,000 troops to West Africa as part of a $750 million plan to fight the spread of the Ebola virus. However, the Post reports that the response from the U.S. and the international community has far outstripped what was necessary. As an example, the Post cites one treatment center where only 46 patients have been admitted since it opened Nov. 18. In Liberia's capital, Monrovia, there are seven Ebola treatment centers. According to the Post, three of those will temporarily suspend operations, while a fourth will close completely. 
The sparsely populated centers are a positive sign that the worst of the outbreak may have passed. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that the outbreak has claimed over 8,400 lives, most of them in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. But for the week ending Jan. 11, WHO said Guinea reported its lowest weekly total of new Ebola cases since mid-August. Liberia had its lowest total since the first week of June and no confirmed new cases for the final two days of the week.
All schools in Guinea, which were closed due to the outbreak, are to reopen on Monday, while in Liberia, the schools are reopening "next month," the Liberian Embassy's Charges d'Affaires in Ghana, Musu Ruhle, told the Associated Press. 
The WHO says there are now enough beds to isolate and treat Ebola patients, but not all are in the hotspots where the disease is spreading fastest. The U.N. estimates that the number of scientists needed to track the outbreak must be tripled.
One place where the outbreak appears to be less contained is Sierra Leone, where at least 16 new cases were reported last week and schools will remain closed until further notice. 
U.N.'s Ebola chief, Dr. David Nabarro, cautioned Thursday that despite the gains "there are still numbers of new cases that are alarming, and there are hotspots that are emerging in new places that make me believe there is still quite a lot of the disease that we're not seeing."

Ted Cruz says 'Democrats will win again' if GOP picks moderate candidate in 2016

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, predicted late Sunday that Democrats would keep the White House in 2016 if Republicans selected a moderate nominee next year.
Speaking at the South Carolina Tea Party Conventions in Myrtle Beach, Cruz, himself a possible presidential candidate, referred disparagingly to political consultants as "Washington graybeards ... telling us about the mushy middle." Cruz has previously used the term when discussing former Massachusetts governor and 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who is widely rumored to be considering a third run for the highest office in the land.
"If we nominate another candidate in the mold of [1996 nominee] Bob Dole or [Arizona Senator and 2008 nominee] John McCain or Mitt Romney," Cruz said Sunday, "The same people who stayed home in 2008 and 2012 will stay home in 2016 and the Democrats will win again. There is a better way."
Cruz's comments echoed criticism of Romney made by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who visited two early primary states, New Hampshire and Nevada, over three days last week. 
"If we try the same thing again we might get the same result," Paul said. "So maybe we need to keep lookin'."
Romney says he has not formally decided whether to join the 2016 race. In a speech Friday at the Republican National Committee winter meeting in San Diego, he said only that he was "giving some serious consideration to the future." 
However, sources close to Romney have told Fox News that he has been been calling former aides, donors and supporters from his 2012 campaign -- as well as GOP leaders and insiders in the vital state of New Hampshire. One longtime adviser who has spoken to Romney in the last few days told Fox News it is "very likely" the 2012 Republican presidential nominee will announce a 2016 campaign for president in the next three to four weeks.
Another possible target of Cruz's remarks Sunday, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is likely to join Romney in making a bid for the White House, according to Fred Malek, finance chairman for the Republican Governors Association. 
"They've taken this forward a lot faster and a lot further than I would have imagined," Malek told Fox News Tuesday. "And I don't think they would have done that unless they have a serious intent on moving ahead." Malek went on to say that he guessed there was an "80 percent chance" Romney would join the race.
Romney is scheduled to speak Monday in Indian Wells, Calif. at the kickoff of the 2015 "Desert Town Hall Speaker Series," which has drawn headliners ranging from former presidents George Bush and George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Senator Bill Bradley, and other luminaries.