Hungary Prime Minister calls on Germany to stop taking refugees

Hungary's prime minister called on Germany late Monday to close its doors to thousands of refugees from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia who have poured into Eastern Europe in an effort to reach more prosperous nations.
Viktor Orban warned in an interview with Austrian television that millions of refugees would descend upon the continent if what he called Germany's "open door" policy continued. He also claimed that many who had passed through his country via the so-called "Balkan Corridor" were not in dire straits, but rather imrefugees attracted by Germany's generous benefit programs. For that reason, Orban warned, the refugee surge risked placing an intolerable financial burden on members of the 28-nation E.U.
"As long as Europe cannot protect its external borders it makes no sense to discuss the fate of those flowing in," Orban said.
Germany, with the largest economy in Europe, is expecting to take in 800,000 refugees in 2015, more than four times last year's total. An estimated 20,000 refugees entered Germany via Hungary by train, bus, and on foot this past weekend alone.
"I am happy that Germany has become a country that many people outside of Germany now associate with hope," Merkel told a Berlin news conference Monday. But as she has done before, the German leader pushed other E.U. nations to accept refugee quotas for those still trying to enter.
"What isn't acceptable in my view is that some people are saying this has nothing to do with them," Merkel said. "This won't work in the long run. There will be consequences although we don't want that."
Despite Merkel's steadfast support for letting in refugees, the episode has exposed tensions not only within the E.U., but within Merkel's own coalition government.
"There is no society that could cope with something like this," Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer, leader of the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union, told Reuters. "The federal government needs a plan here."
Late Monday, Upper Bavaria government spokeswoman Simone Hilgers told the Associated Press that a total of 4,400 people have arrived in Munich, and a further 1,500 refugees were routed to other cities in Germany, including Dortmund, Hamburg and Kiel.
Reuters reported that European President Jean-Claude Juncker would unveil new plans for distributing refugees throughout the member states. Under the plan, Germany would take on more than 40,000 and France 30,000 of the 160,000 asylum seekers the European Commission says need to be relocated from Italy, Greece and Hungary, the main entry points for refugees into the E.U.
French President Francois Hollande has already pledged that his country would accept 24,000 refugees. Later Monday, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced that France would immediately take in 1,000 refugees currently in Germany who are in "urgent need of protection." Cazeneuve said a French asylum team was currently at the border of Germany and Austria, near Munich, to identify the 1,000 — who had to be Syrian, Iraqi or Eritrean.
The 1,000 will be briefly lodged in the Paris region in the coming days while their asylum demands are processed, the minister said. They will then be sent to towns around France where mayors have said they are willing to take in refugees. The lodgings will be state-owned buildings, he said, and "very temporary." Cazeneuve will meet with the mayors on Saturday.
It was not immediately clear if the 1,000 counted toward the 24,000 specified by Hollande.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also said Monday that the U.K. would re-settle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees from camps in Turkey, Jordan and Syria over the next five years.
Late Monday, Hungarian Defense Minister Csaba Hende resigned amid delays in the construction of a border fence meant to keep refugees from crossing into Hungary via the country's border with Serbia.
A statement from Orban's government didn't explicitly blame Hende for the failure to complete the building of the planned 13-foot fence along the 110-mile frontier, but it was supposed to be completed by the end of last month and remains largely unfinished. Only several strands of razor wire have been placed along the full length of the border, while the higher barrier is standing only in a few areas.

Labor Day Cartoon

Memorial for Darren Goforth comes at a cost for local gas station where he was killed

Texas deputy Darren Goforth took his last breaths at pump #8, filling his cruiser up with gas as his assailant walked up behind him at a Harris County Chevron station and unloaded 15 bullets.
The police officer’s Aug. 28th murder shocked the nation, and particularly affected the Harris County community members who came to the pump at West Road and Telge to pay tribute with signs, balloons, American flags and flowers.
But the cathartic expressions have come at a cost for the owners of the gas station and convenience store, who’ve shut down part of their business to allow the remembrances to go on, according to KHOU. The owners have also planned a permanent tribute for Goforth at the station and, in another sign of respect, they shut down the registers during Goforth’s funeral.
“It’s our honor, because that’s a tragic moment,” station manager Amjad Latief told KHOU. Latief was the manager the night Goforth, 47, was killed.
The pump #8 memorial was started by Christine Bossi. Bossi didn’t know Goforth, but her brother is a policeman and she said she felt the need to do something. Now she feels the need to do something for the station's owners. She’s seen the sacrifices they've made and Bossi has urged the community to recognize the gesture.
“Since they have lost much business, we’re gonna ask all the community to come out for a day or for a weekend,” Bossi told KHOU. “Come fill up your gas tank. Come in and buy something from the store.”
Shannon Miles, 30, has been charged with capital murder in Goforth’s killing. Cops continue searching for a motive in the shooting.

Colin Powell, Wasserman Schultz support Iran nuclear deal

Another Idiot.

President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal on Sunday got some largely unexpected support -- from former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The deal, which is expected to receive a vote this week in the Republican-led Congress, has essentially no other GOP support.
Still, Obama late last week secured enough support from Senate Democrats to ultimately complete the deal, despite the Republican opposition.
Powell, who served in the Republican administration of President George W. Bush, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the international agreement is "a pretty good deal" that would reduce the threat of Iran gaining a nuclear weapon.
Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, joins about half of the roughly two-dozen congressional Jewish lawmakers in supporting the deal, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes.
New York Sen. Charles Schumer, expected to be the next Senate Democratic leader, is among a handful in that group who opposes the deal. And his decision in early August was among the first.
Powell said Sunday that Iran's nuclear program "has been thrown into a detour," decreasing the likelihood that it can produce a nuclear weapon to be used against Israel or other countries.
"So that's pretty good," he said.
The international deal would lift billions of dollars in crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for the rogue nation curtailing its nuclear development program.
Wasserman Schultz made her announcement in The Miami Herald, saying the decision to endorse the agreement was the most difficult one she has made in nearly 23 years in elected office.
She expressed concerns about the agreement, but argued it "provides the best chance to ensure" security for the U.S., Israel and other allies.
"Under the agreement Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear bomb for at least 10-15 years," she said, while the U.S. and its allies "will be able to more closely concentrate on stopping Iran's terrorist activity."
The White House already has enough Senate votes to ensure that Congress will uphold the deal even if Obama has to veto a disapproval resolution set for a vote in the week ahead.
But with that support in hand and more piling up, the White House and congressional backers of the deal have begun aiming for a more ambitious goal: enough commitments to bottle up the disapproval resolution in the Senate with a filibuster, preventing it from even coming to a final vote.
That effort suffered a setback on Friday as Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, who is Jewish and top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he opposed the deal.

Kentucky clerk appeals order putting her in jail

LEXINGTON, Ky. –  A Kentucky county clerk has appealed a judge's decision to put her in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Attorneys for Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis officially appealed the ruling to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sunday. The three page motion does not include arguments as to why Davis should be released but amends Davis' earlier appeal of the judge's order.
Davis objects to same-sex marriage for religious reasons and stopped issuing all marriage licenses in June after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her. U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Davis to issue the licenses and the Supreme Court upheld his ruling.
But Davis still refused to do it, saying she could not betray her conscience.
Thursday, Bunning ruled Davis was in contempt of court for disobeying his order and sent her to jail. Her deputy clerks then issued marriage licenses to gay couples Friday with Davis behind bars.
"Civil rights are civil rights and they are not subject to belief," said James Yates, who got a marriage license on Friday after having been denied five times previously.
Mat Staver, one of Davis' attorneys, said the marriage licenses issued Friday are "not worth the paper they are written on" because Davis refused to authorize them. But Rowan County Attorney Cecil Watkins says the licenses are valid. Bunning said he did not know if the licenses were valid but ordered them issued anyway.
Bunning indicated Davis will be in jail at least a week. She could stay longer if she continues to not obey the judge's order. Bunning had offered to release Davis from jail if she promised not to interfere with her deputy clerks as they issued the licenses. But Davis refused.
Staver called the contempt hearing "a charade" saying that Bunning had his mind made up before the hearing began.
Kentucky law requires marriage licenses be issued under the authority of the elected county clerk. Davis views issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples as a stamp of approval of something she believes is a sin. She has said she will not issue marriage licenses until the state legislature changes the law so the licenses can be issued under someone else's authority.
The state legislature is not scheduled to meet again until January and Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear has refused to call a special session. Davis has refused to resign her $80,000-a-year job. As an elected official the only way she could lose her job is to lose an election or have the state legislature impeach her, which is unlikely given the conservative nature of the state General Assembly.
"She's not going to resign, she's not going to sacrifice her conscience, so she's doing what Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, which is to pay the consequences for her decision," Staver said.
Davis' plight has reignited the gay marriage debate and the limits of religious freedom. Her imprisonment has inspired spirited protests from both sides in this small eastern Kentucky community known mostly as the home to Morehead State University.
Saturday, about 300 people rallied in support of Davis at the Carter County Detention Center where she is being held. Another rally is scheduled for Tuesday with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

Closing doors: Austria to phase out emergency measures after thousands of refugees reach Germany

Austria's leader said late Sunday that the country would begin phasing out emergency measures that helped thousands of refugees make their way to Germany over the weekend.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann told reporters he had made the decision following what he called " intensive talks" with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
"We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely," said Faymann. "We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation. Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measures towards normality, in conformity with the law and dignity."
Austria's national railway company told the Associated Press it plans to end special service to the Hungarian border town of Hegyeshalom on Monday. Direct service between Vienna and Budapest will take its place will take their place, spokeswoman Sonya Horner said.
Refugees from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia who often have spent weeks traveling through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans to reach Hungary, a popular back door into the European Union, found to their surprise they were permitted Sunday to buy tickets to take them all the way into Austria and Germany. Hungary had insisted last week they would no longer be allowed to do this.
Fourteen trains from Hungary's capital of Budapest arrived at the Hegyeshalom station Sunday, disgorging refugees onto the platform. Police didn't check travel documents as passengers walked a few yards to waiting Austria-bound trains, which typically left less than 3 minutes later. Austrian police said more than 13,000 refugees had passed through their country to Germany over the past two days, far more than expected.

More on this...

• Pope Francis urges Catholics to help refugees

"No check, no problem," said Reza Wafai, a 19-year-old from Bamiyan, Afghanistan, who hopes to join relatives in Dortmund, Germany. He displayed his just-purchased ticket to Vienna costing 9,135 forints ($32.50). He was traveling without a passport, carrying only a black-and-white Hungarian asylum seeker ID.
EU rules stipulate asylum seekers should seek refuge in their initial EU entry point. But virtually none of the refugees want to claim asylum in Hungary, where the government is building border defenses and trying to make it increasingly hard for asylum seekers to enter.
Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told The Associated Press that Hungary had decided to drop visa checks on train ticket customers, a measure introduced only Tuesday, because of the sudden drop in refugee numbers made possible by Germany and Austria's breakthrough decision to take thousands of asylum seekers stuck in Hungary. The country used 104 buses to clear Budapest's central Keleti train station and Hungary's major motorway of more than 4,000 refugees and deliver them to the border.
Sunday's free movement for refugees on trains represented an effort "to return to normality, whatever that is," Kovacs said.
The refugee crisis, Europe's most severe since the end of World War II, has exposed deep divisions in the 28-member bloc over how to handle the situation. Germany, which was expected to receive an estimated 800,000 refugees this year, said it was putting no limit on the number displaced people it would accept. Other countries, like the United Kingdom, have said they would take in thousands more refugees than they had previously said they would.
But E.U. foreign ministers failed to agree practical steps to solve the crisis during a meeting in Luxembourg on Saturday, and despite allowing thousands to travel to Austria and Germany, Hungary has provided an otherwise lukewarm welcome, with thousands of refugees being sent to camps.
"While Europe rejoiced in happy images from Austria and Germany on Saturday, refugees crossing into Hungary right now see a very different picture: riot police and a cold hard ground to sleep on," Amnesty International researcher Barbora Cernusakova told Sky News.
Hungary is also constructing a fence along its southern frontier with Serbia in order to keep out, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that a fence would be constructed along his country's border with Jordan to prevent Syrian refugees arriving.
Amnesty International figures show the influx of refugees into Europe pales in comparison to the numbers taken by Lebanon (1.2 million), Jordan (650,000) and Turkey (1.9 million).
Division also remains on how to tackle the root cause of the mass migration from Syria, with reports that the British government is seeking to persuade opposition Members of Parliament to back airstrikes in Syria. France is also set to make a decision on airstrikes this week.

Mount McKinley to Denali Cartoon

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign boosted by private air fleet

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has a big advantage hidden in plain sight: Trump Air.
Mr. Trump’s fleet of private aircraft, which includes a Boeing 757, a Cessna Citation X and three Sikorsky helicopters, whisks the billionaire executive to Republican primary events in far-flung locales, some of them difficult to reach by commercial planes.
The fleet also allows Mr. Trump to promote his brand. He garnered valuable publicity at the recent Iowa State Fair, for example, by giving children free rides in one of his helicopters with a huge Trump logo on the side.
“It’s a massive, unbelievable competitive advantage,” said Dave Carney, a GOP campaign consultant who was chief strategist for Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential primary campaign. “Having access to a private jet is the single most important asset to any national political campaign. It’s hugely expensive, but it gives you the ability to set your own schedule.”
The two Trump jets logged at least 71 campaign-related flights between April 1 and Aug. 31, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Federal Aviation Administration flight records on Flightwise.com and FlightAware.com. The flights included at least 26 stops in airports serving Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, all of them early primary or caucus states. As of Sept. 1, Mr. Trump’s jets have been blocked from being tracked by commercial aviation sites, which is permissible.
In an interview, Mr. Trump said other campaigns might charter planes, but his 757 has amenities such as two bedrooms and a shower. It also features a 57-inch TV, pillows emblazoned with the Trump family crest and gold-plated seat belt buckles and bathroom faucets, according to a 2011 promotional video of the jet provided by his campaign.
“It’s like living in a beautiful home,” Mr. Trump said. “The advantage is that I’m able to fly nicely, quickly and on time.” He said he owns the aircraft outright and has no mortgages on them.
Flyovers with his Trump-branded planes, such as a recent one when his 757 circled over a campaign rally at an Alabama stadium, maximize his impact, Mr. Trump said. “We flew over the center of the stadium and the place went wild. It gave impact to the stadium and it gave impact the following day when everybody carried it” on television, he said.
Many of his GOP rivals, meanwhile, are flying commercial flights for all or much of their travel. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio typically flies commercial; he and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sat next to each other on an American Airlines flight from Miami to Nashville, Tenn., for a National Rifle Association event in April.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has flown commercial of late, although he racked up a hefty private-jet tab last year when flying as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. While former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum reported $10,000 in commercial airline expenditures for the second quarter, his campaign emails have asked supporters to “fill up the tank,” seeking per-mile donations to fund his visits to all 99 counties in Iowa by car.

Police recover 'significant' new evidence in hunt for killers of a northern Illinois police officer

Investigators revealed Friday they found “significant” new evidence in a wooded, marshy area where a northern Illinois police officer was gunned down during a pursuit of three suspicious men.
The discovery came after investigators used weed trimmers and machetes to clear the spot where Fox Lake Lt. Joe Gliniewicz, 52, was found shot to death Tuesday and then searched the ground on their hands and knees, MyFoxChicago reported.
“We did recover a significant piece of evidence,” George Filenko, Commander of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, told reporters, according to the station. “I know your next question is going to be what is it? I'm not at liberty to tell you.”
The recovered evidence could be very crucial to the case if and when it gets to the point of prosecution, the station reported, adding that investigators seemed encouraged, if not excited, about what was found.
The station said the search of the crime scene was being conducted in a painstaking manner.
“They've basically gotten it down to almost bare earth. They're on their hands and knees literally today doing grid to grid searches,” Filenko said.
Earlier in the week investigators sent to the crime lab DNA evidence that they hope could lead to the killers.
MyFoxChicago also reported Friday that police obtained videos from homes and businesses that show the three suspects, described only as two white men and one black man, before and after Gliniewicz was murdered.
On Thursday police said a homeowner gave them video of the three men. The new videos could provide more clues, the station said.
The videos were turned over to the FBI which is compiling a timeline of the suspects movements, Filenko said.
The investigators believe the three suspects are probably still in the Fox Lake area, 45 miles north of Chicago.
“We are expecting a high volume of people out on the chain of lakes with it being a holiday weekend and there is no cause for concern for the people coming into town. There's no cause for concern for the residents within the town,” said Detecive Chris Covelli with the Lake County Sheriff’s Department.
A local company Motorola Solutions has announced a $50,000 reward for help in finding the killers.
Gliniewicz, a 30-year police veteran who was planning to retire at the end of the month, contacted dispatchers about the three suspicious men run and requested a second unit. Dispatchers soon lost contact with him, and backup officers found him about 50 yards from his squad car with a gunshot wound. He died soon after.

Clinton acknowledges paying State Department staffer to maintain private email server

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Saturday confirmed that she and her family personally paid a State Department staffer to maintain the private email server that Clinton used when she led the agency.
“We obviously paid for those services and did so because during a period of time we continued to need his technical assistance,” the former secretary of state told reporters after a campaign stop in Portsmouth, N.H.
She also said the payments to former agency IT specialist Bryan Pagliano are “in the public record.” And she commented on Pagliano’s reported decision to plead the Fifth Amendment if called to give closed-door testimony before the GOP-led House’s Select Committee on Benghazi.
"We encouraged everyone to cooperate,” Clinton said. “Facts are facts. I would very much urge those who are asked to cooperate to do so."
A congressional source told Fox News on Friday that committee investigators hope to question Pagliano over possible destruction of evidence. Clinton turned over emails from the private server that she deemed official and deleted those she considered personal.
The Washington Post first reported the payments to Pagliano, citing an unnamed campaign official.

More on this...

• Clinton server scandal: Timeline of key events

The official also told the newspaper that the arrangement also ensured that taxpayers weren’t paying for the upkeep of the server that was shared by Clinton, her husband, the former president, and their daughter as well as former aides.
Clinton, who was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, is under scrutiny for using the private server and personal email accounts to conduct official business.
The Justice Department is investigating the matter and has a server. Among the questions are whether Clinton knowingly sent or received classified information and whether the setup resulted in any security breaches. Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 White House race, has said she never knowingly sent or receive classified information.
Pagliano served as the IT director of Clinton's 2008 campaign committee, then on her political action committee, according to The Post. He installed and managed her server and left his IT job at the State Department in February 2013, the same month Clinton stepped down as secretary.
The Post reports the Clintons paid Pagliano $5,000 for “computer services” prior to him joining the State Department, according to a 2009 financial disclosure form he filed. After he arrived on the State Department’s staff in 2009, he continued to be paid by the Clintons to maintain the server, a campaign official and another person familiar with the arrangement told The Post.
When asked about whether the former IT specialist had been paid privately to maintain the server, a State Department official said the agency “found no evidence that he ever informed the department that he had outside income,” The Post reported. This week, a different State Department official, couldn’t clarify to the newspaper Pagliano’s pay situation.
Pagliano reportedly didn’t list any outside income in the required personal financial disclosures he filed each year. The Post reports he remains a State Department contractor doing work on “mobile and remote computing functions,’ according to the State Department.
It’s not known exactly when or who “wiped” Clinton’s personal email server. However, it seems clear the move came after October 2014, when the State Department requested personal emails be returned as part of her business records.
Committee Republicans have long argued they don’t have all the documents that should be available to the investigation, after Clinton, using her personal discretion, purged some 30,000 emails.
Fox News put additional questions to Pagliano’s attorney, Mark J. MacDougall, Friday about whether his client played a direct role or had knowledge of the server scrub, but MacDougall said there was nothing further to add beyond the letter.
An intelligence source who confirmed to Fox that the FBI’s “A-team” was handling the Clinton email case, described the investigation as “moving along well,” adding investigators remain “confident” deleted records can be recovered because whoever did the scrub may “not be a very good IT guy. There are different standards to scrub when you do it for government vs. commercial.”

Republican disappointment with renaming of Mt. McKinley sparks petition drive to rename Reagan airport

President Obama returning the name of the United States’ tallest mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali has sparked a name-game feud, most recently Republicans under attack by an influential liberal PAC that is setting its sights on Ronald Reagan National Airport.
The group, CREDO Action, the political arm of San Francisco-based cellphone company Credo Mobile, is behind the effort with a petition drive.
“Tell John Boehner: Rename Ronald Reagan Airport,” the group writes on its webpage seeking petition signatures. “President Obama just took a small but important step for recognizing the history, culture, and human rights of America’s Native Americans when he decided to rename …. Mount McKinley in Alaska. But right-wing extremists in the Republican party, including House Speaker Rep. John Boehner, don’t see it that way.”
Within hours of the Obama administration announcing late Sunday that the president was removing the name of William McKinley, American’s 25th president and an Ohio Republican, Boehner and other Ohio Republicans were expressing their disapproval.
Boehner said he was “deeply disappointed” in this decision.
And Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman tweeted that he also was “disappointed” with Obama’s decision, announced ahead of the president's trip this week to Alaska where he tried to garner support for his climate change agenda.
The PAC raised $4 million during the 2014 election cycle. Of the $400,062 spent in connection with congressional races, $355,000 was against Republican candidates, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Credo Action states on its homepage that its mission is in part to fund progressive nonprofits.
The groups also states that during its 4-year history it has raised more than $79 million for hundreds of nonprofits including Democracy Now! and Planned Parenthood -- “efforts made possible by the revenues from our mobile phone company.”
The group had more than 52,400 signatures as of Saturday afternoon, toward its goal of 75,000.
News of the petition was reported first by the Washington, D.C.-based blog PrinceofPetworth.com.
This is not the first time the airport’s name, or renaming, has sparked partisan disagreement.
Just this spring, The Washington Post conducted a survey of area residents on the issue. It found 72 percent of Republicans said they refer to the airport as “Reagan” or “Reagan National,” while only 35 percent of Democrats acknowledged the airport by that name.
“Given Speaker Boehner’s current outrage and disappointment at President Obama’s decision to rename Mount McKinley, it’s time to give him the opportunity to make up for his own past mistakes,” the petition drive also states. “Sign the petition and tell John Boehner he needs to be consistent when it comes to naming America’s landmarks.”
The group also says its “history-making Pledge of Resistance … was a major factor in delaying the approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.”

Black Lives Matter Cartoon

Kentucky clerk's same-sex marriage refusal divides 2016 GOP field

WASHINGTON –  The case of Kim Davis, the defiant Kentucky clerk thrown in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, has divided the 2016 Republican presidential field -- pitting social conservatives championing her cause against others who suggest she's gone too far.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is planning a rally Tuesday in support of Davis, and says he’s offered her “prayers and support.” The Southern Baptist minister, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses with the help of a social conservative coalition but is struggling in the polls this time around, argues Davis is on sound legal footing and commended her Friday for “not abandoning her religious convictions and standing strong for her religious liberty.”
On his campaign website, Huckabee posted a “Free Kim Davis” petition and demanded “we must end the criminalization of Christianity!"
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum also has come out strong in support of Davis, as has Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Cruz called Davis’ jailing an act of “judicial tyranny” and encouraged “every believer, every constitutionalist, every lover of liberty to stand with Kim Davis.” And he criticized any 2016 candidate not doing so.
Indeed, several other candidates have walked a fine line, and at least hinted they think Davis has overstepped now that gay marriage has been ruled legal nationwide.

More on this...

• Rick Santorum wades into same-sex marriage license debate

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said "she is sworn to uphold the law."
Former HP executive Carly Fiorina told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday, "I think that we must protect religious liberties with great passion and be willing to expend a lot of political capital to do so now because it’s clear religious liberty is under assault in many, many ways."
She added: "Having said that, when you are a government employee, I think you take on a different role. When you are a government employee as opposed to say, an employee of another kind of organization, then in essence, you are agreeing to act as an arm of the government. And, while I disagree with this court’s decision, their actions are clear."
Fiorina told the host it was now up to Davis to make a personal decision about what is required of her at her job.
“Is she prepared to continue to work for the government, be paid for by the government, in which case she needs to execute the government’s will … or sever her employment with the government and go seek employment elsewhere where her religious liberties would be paramount.”
Whether voters and caucus-goers will see the clerk's case as a litmus test for candidates' social conservative credibility remains to be seen. But the case drags on.
With the clerk herself in jail, the county clerk’s office started to issue same-sex marriage licenses through Davis’ deputy clerks. Davis’ son, Nathan Davis, was the lone holdout from the office.
The first couple to get the license Friday was William Smith Jr. and James Yates.
“I just want the licenses given out,” Yates said. I don’t want her in jail. No one wanted her in jail.”
During a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Bunning told Davis she would be released if she promised not to interfere with her employees issuing licenses, but she refused.
In Louisiana, presidential candidate and Gov. Bobby Jindal says the Davis case is exactly like ones where business owners – like florists and bakers -- have refused their services for same-sex ceremonies.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told CNN, “I think it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty.”
Others, like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Marco Rubio, searched for a middle ground.
“While the clerk’s office has a governmental duty to carry out the law, there should be a way to protect the religious freedom and conscience rights of individuals working in the office,” Rubio told The New York Times.
Christie told radio host Laura Ingraham the situation is different when it comes to public employees.
“What I’ve said before is for someone who works in the government has a bit of a different obligation than someone who’s in the private sector or obviously working for education institutions that’s religiously based or others,” he said, adding, “but my point is we have to protect religious liberty and people’s ability to be able to practice their religion freely and openly, and of course we have to enforce the law too.”
During another radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said despite Davis’ conviction, “the rule of law is the rule of law.”
Also on Thursday, Marion County Circuit Judge Vance Day, a former chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, began taking steps to create a legal defense fund in response to his decision not to perform same-sex ceremonies.

Houston-area sheriff's deputy remembered during funeral

 

HOUSTON –  Thousands of law enforcement officers stood at attention to form a wall Friday outside one of Houston's largest churches as a 21-gun salute and flyover by police helicopters were carried out in honor of a slain sheriff's deputy.
The symbolic gestures followed the funeral for Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth, who was gunned down at a gas pump a week ago.
"We come to this place with heavy hearts, and have questions we don't really understand," Lt. Don Savell, the sheriff's department chaplain, said as the ceremony began. "We gather to share the grief we all feel and perhaps to find the strength to bear our sorrow and to look for seeds of hope."
Second Baptist Church, which holds 7,000 people, was filled. Some officers stood outside and watched the nearly two-hour service on big-screen televisions, while other spectators gathered outside the suburban convenience store where Goforth was killed to view the funeral on screens set up there. Flowers, balloons, posters and written messages in memory of Goforth still surround the pump where he was shot.
Goforth, 47, was in uniform when he was killed while putting fuel in his patrol car. A 30-year-old Houston man is charged with capital murder. Investigators are still trying to determine a motive.
"Darren Goforth was one of the good guys, one that made a difference," Sheriff Ron Hickman said during the funeral. He said Goforth's life was taken "senselessly and in an act of cowardice" the night of Aug. 28 but that he and others "will answer calls in Darren's honor."
He said about 11,000 officers from "coast to coast" had come to pay respects.
Outside the church after the service, Hickman gave Goforth's wife, Kathleen, the flag that had been draped over the casket.
A line of patrol cars formed a large cross in the parking lot, and two Houston fire trucks with ladders extended formed an arch with a flag extended at the top. People lined streets as the funeral procession drove away. A private burial was planned.
Officers at various Texas law enforcement departments held moments of silence outside their buildings around the time of the funeral.
The killing brought out strong emotions in the law enforcement community, with Hickman suggesting last weekend that it could have been influenced by heightened national tension over the treatment of blacks by police. Goforth was white and the man charged with killing him, Shannon Miles, is black.
The Rev. Ed Young told those at the funeral that he fears evil has reached an "almost epidemic stage" with attacks on those who "wear the blue" — a reference to the police uniform.
But he said he's seen signs of hope in the wake of Goforth's death, with people being supportive of officers and openly praying for them.
"Things are changing," Young said. "There will be a new Houston, a new Texas, a new America.
"And you can write it down. We have your back," he told officers as the funeral crowd stood and applauded.

Pandora's Box: New Orleans prof says Confederate purge would target Andrew Jackson, too

Why not? The PURGE has begun on all offensive History. 

If New Orleans intends to purge all symbols of the Confederacy, it must take down its famous statue of Andrew Jackson, too, according to a Big Easy professor, who says his tongue-in-cheek demand is meant to show the absurdity of measuring historical figures by contemporary standards.
With rebel symbols under fire around the nation in the wake of the mass shooting in June of black worshipers at a Charleston, S.C., church by a white supremacist who embraced the stars and bars, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has called for the removal of statues of Confederate stalwarts Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and PGT Beauregard. But a local university dean says a longstanding city ordinance being invoked by Landrieu would just as easily apply to the seventh president, known as "Old Hickory" and famous for defeating the British in the War of 1812's pivotal Battle of New Orleans.

“If they [keep] going down this route, they will open Pandora’s box.”
- Richard Marksbury

The ordinance allows city officials to remove any statue or monument deemed a nuisance if, among other things, it "honors, praises, or fosters ideologies which are in conflict with the requirements of equal protection for citizens as provided by the constitution and laws of the United States." Taken at its word, and without the benefit of historical context, the ordinance would mandate the removal of the statue of Jackson on horseback that has marked Jackson Square since 1856, said Tulane University Prof. Richard Marksbury.
“I don’t want to see any statues taken down," Marksbury told FoxNews.com. "I’m trying to prove a point.”
Marksbury, who has called New Orleans home for more than 40 years, said he is dismayed at the calls for removal of historical statues. Jackson owned slaves, battled fiercely against Seminole Indians in Florida, ordered the Cherokee nation onto reservations and signed the Indian Removal Act, all actions that could put his statue at odds with the ordinance. But he was of a different time, and a significant historical figure, said Marksbury. Monuments may be seen as marking history, not necessarily venerating individuals, he said.

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Tulane University Dean of Continuing Studies Richard Marksbury is proposing the statue of Andrew Jackson be taken down - but he is not serious.

Last week, a public commission in the French Quarter voted to remove a 124-year-old obelisk monument dedicated to the White League's brief, and bloody, overthrow of a biracial Reconstruction government after the Civil War. The fate of 35-foot-high monument, which stands on the edge of the old historic district, now awaits a decision from the City Council, as do the Confederate statues.
“If they [keep] going down this route, they will open Pandora’s box,” Marksbury said, explaining why he proposal, first made in a letter to local newspaper The New Orleans Advocate in late July. “My position is that if you remove one, you have to remove them all."
Landrieu's office in New Orleans did not immediately return requests for comment.
Jackson died 16 years before the Civil War but made military history in the War of 1812. When New Orleans was under threat, Jackson took control of the defenses, including militia for various western states and territories. In the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, his 5,000 troops successfully fought off nearly 8,000 British troops, saving the city.

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Jackson Square, New Orleans (Wikipedia/Aashish Lamichhane)

Next on the chopping block is an engraving of the Confederate flag that is part of a mural near the entrance of City Hall according to local TV station Fox8.
"Across our state and our country, there has been broad consensus that confederate flags should not fly over government buildings,” Landrieu said. “Staff is currently researching the history of the etched marble at the entrance of City Hall to determine the process for removing the Confederate flag crest, as well as alternatives to represent the Civil War period of our city's history in this mural."
Orleans Parish Councilman James Gray is in favor of taking down the Confederate monuments in the city, but he does not believe the Confederate engraving should be removed.
"I think it's a real difference in having a mere historical account than having a statue that is set in a place of honor and being maintained by taxpayer dollars," Gray said to Fox8.

Benghazi investigators hoped to question Clinton IT specialist about possible destruction of evidence

Investigators on the Benghazi Select Committee had hoped to question former Clinton IT specialist Bryan Pagliano over the possible destruction of evidence, known in legal circles as “spoliation,” a congressional source told Fox News.
However, in an August 31 letter to Congress, Pagliano’s attorney said the former 2008 campaign staffer who installed and managed Clinton’s personal server and left his IT job at the State Department in February 2013, the same month Clinton stepped down as secretary, would “respectfully assert his Fifth Amendment right” before the Benghazi Select Committee.
“The matters for which Mr. Pagliano’s testimony and documents are being sought by the Select Committee are also the subject of investigative activity by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice,” the letter said.
According to the 2014 Black’s Law Dictionary, spoliation is “the intentional destruction, mutilation, alteration, or concealment of evidence…If proved, spoliation may be used to establish that the evidence was unfavorable to the party responsible. Also termed ‘spoliation of evidence.’”
While it is not known exactly when or who “wiped” Clinton’s personal server, it seems the move came after October 2014,when the State Department requested personal emails be returned as part of her business records.
On his Linked-In account, Pagliano said he served as “strategic advisor and special projects manager” for “a geographically diverse customer base of over 50,000 users around the world” from May 2009 - February 2013.
Committee Republicans have long argued they do not have all the documents that should be available to the investigation, after Clinton, using her personal discretion, purged some 30,000.
Former Clinton policy aide Jake Sullivan, who testified Friday before the Benghazi Committee, has direct knowledge of the policy decisions that established a U.S. consulate in eastern Libya with substandard security that did not meet State Department requirements, as well as direct knowledge of the 2012 attack  there and the administration's response.

The Benghazi emails released in May to Congress contained only130 references to Sullivan in an online search, yet the most recent records released Monday contained more than 1,300.

Fox News put additional questions to Pagliano’s attorney, Mark J. MacDougall, Friday about whether his client played a direct role or had knowledge of the server scrub, but MacDougall said there was nothing further to add beyond the letter.
An intelligence source who confirmed to Fox that the FBI’s “A-team” was handling the Clinton email case, described the investigation as “moving along well,” adding investigators remain “confident” deleted records can be recovered because whoever did the scrub may “not be a very good IT guy. There are different standards to scrub when you do it for government vs. commercial.”
The disparities seem difficult to reconcile, also given the most iconic image of Clinton on her blackberry aboard a C-17 military plane  was during a 2011 trip to Libya, but the Select Committee said no records were provided from this period.

Gay Cartoon

EXCLUSIVE: Kentucky Clerk: 'This is a fight worth fighting'

UPDATE: A federal judge has ordered a defiant Kentucky clerk to jail after she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning told Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis she would be jailed until she complied with his order to issue the licenses. Davis said "thank you" before she was led out of the courtroom by a U.S. marshal. She was not in handcuffs.
Bunning also warned deputy clerks around the state that they could suffer the same fate should they refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
Davis has refused to issue marriages licenses for two months since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. She argues that her Christian faith should exempt her from signing the licenses.

I’m very steadfast in what I believe. I don’t leave my conscience and my Christian soul out in my vehicle and come in here and pretend to be something I’m not. It’s easy to talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?
- Kim Davis, clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky

Liberty Counsel attorney Mat Staver, who is representing Davis,  called the ruling “outrageous.”
“If this country has come to this point where a judge jails someone like Kim Davis for their religious convictions – then we have lost our religious liberty,” Staver told me.
He said Davis will be fingerprinted and photographed “just like a criminal.”
“This cannot be tolerated,” he said. “This is ultimately going to spark a huge debate around the country. This is not the kind of country – this is not the America that our founders envisioned.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kim Davis could become the first Christian in America jailed as a result of the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage.
“I’ve weighed the cost and I’m prepared to go to jail, I sure am,” Mrs. Davis told me in an exclusive interview. “This has never been a gay or lesbian issue for me. This is about upholding the word of God.”
“This is a heaven or hell issue for me and for every other Christian that believes,” she said. “This is a fight worth fighting.”
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Davis is the clerk of Rowan County, Ky. – a small patch of earth in the northeastern part of the state. She was elected last November – taking the place of her mother, who held the position for nearly 40 years.
It’s fair to say that issuing marriage licenses was something of a family business – until the day the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.
Davis is a devout Apostolic Christian, and she knew that should gay marriage become legal, she could not and would not sign her name on a same-sex marriage certificate.
“I would have to either make a decision to stand or I would have to buckle down and leave,” she said, pondering her choices. “And if I left, resigned or chose to retire, I would have no voice for God’s word.
So when that day came, she issued an edict: No more marriage licenses would be issued in Rowan County. It was a decision that would bring down the wrath of militant LGBT activists and their supporters.
“They told my husband they were going to burn us down while we slept in our home,” she said. “He’s been told that he would be beaten up and tied up and made to watch them rape me. I have been told that gays should kill me.”
Liberty Counsel, the public interest law firm that represents Davis, says forcing her to issue same-sex marriage licenses violates her religious beliefs. But the courts don’t seem interested in that argument.
A federal judge ordered her to issue the licenses, an appeals court upheld that decision and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. Should Davis continue to defy the law, she could be fined or sent to jail.
No matter what the court decides, Davis says she will not violate her religious beliefs – and she will not resign her post.
“I’m very steadfast in what I believe,” she told me. “I don’t leave my conscience and my Christian soul out in my vehicle and come in here and pretend to be something I’m not. It’s easy to talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?”
The mainstream media and the activists have been ruthless. They’ve portrayed her as a monster – a right-wing, homophobic hypocrite. She’s been smeared by tabloid-style reports on her checkered past. They’ve written extensively about her failed marriages.
It’s true, she’s been married four times. But what’s missing in the mainstream media coverage is the context. Her life was radically changed by Jesus Christ in 2011, and since then she has become a different person.
“My God in heaven knows every crack, every crevice, every deep place in my heart,” she said. “And he knows the thoughts that are in my mind before I even think them. And he has given me such a beautiful and wonderful grace through all of this.”
She once lived for the devil, but now she lives for God. She’s a sinner saved by grace.
“I had created such a pit of sin for myself with my very own hands,” she told me.
So how does she handle the reporters and talking heads who call her a hypocrite?
“All I can say to them is if they have a sordid past like what I had, they too can receive the cleansing and renewing, and they can start a fresh life and they can be different,” she said. “They don’t have to remain in their sin, there’s hope for tomorrow.”
Davis did not seek the national spotlight. She had no intention of becoming a spokeswoman for religious liberty, and she bristles at the idea that she is a hero of the faith.
“I’m just a vessel God has chosen for this time and this place,” she said. “I’m no different than any other Christian. It was my appointed time to stand, and their time will come.”

Iran thumbs nose at US even as Obama rallies support for nuke deal

Even as President Obama was securing the Senate support necessary to assure passage of the nuclear deal with Iran, Tehran's top defense officials were scoffing at U.S. claims the pact will restrict the Islamic Republic's military ambitions.
The president has been twisting arms and Secretary of State John Kerry reassuring lawmakers that the deal between Iran and the P5 +1 - members of the UN Security Council plus Germany - will ensure international inspections and bar Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons. This week, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., became the 34th member of the Senate to back the controversial and unpopular deal, meaning that if it is defeated in a vote as expected, Obama will have enough support to sustain his certain veto. But Iran's military brass has answered the U.S. nose-counting by thumbing their nose at America.
“Iran does not plan to issue permission for the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to inspect every site," Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan told Al Mayadeen News Wednesday. "U.S. officials make boastful remarks and imagine that they can impose anything on the Iranian nation because they lack a proper knowledge of the Iranian nation.”

"U.S. officials make boastful remarks and imagine that they can impose anything on the Iranian nation because they lack a proper knowledge of the Iranian nation.”
- Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan

Iran’s official FARS news agency added that “Dehqan had earlier underlined that Tehran would not allow any foreigner to discover Iran's defensive and missile capabilities by inspecting the country's military sites.”
On the same day, a top Iranian general told troops preparing for a massive military drill involving up to 250,000 men that “the U.S. and the Zionists should know that the Islamic Revolution will continue enhancing its preparedness until it overthrows Israel and liberates Palestine.”

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Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan vowed that international inspectors will not have access to key sites. (Reuters)

The bluster from Iran is in sharp contrast to the message Obama and Kerry conveyed to lawmakers to line up support for the deal, which lifts international sanctions and frees up $150 billion in Iranian funds frozen when the Islamic Republic took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days beginning in 1979. Over the following three decades, Iran has, according to U.S. officials, been the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism while constantly calling for war with Israel and America. In return, Iran agreed to allow international inspectors to monitor its facilities and ensure that it did not build nuclear weapons. But troubling conditions have emerged, including that Iran will not allow Americans to take part in the inspections and will conduct its own monitoring of the key Parchin military site and turn over findings to international inspectors.
Obama has gone to great lengths to assure skeptics that the deal assures genuine oversight of the Iranian nuclear program, and in an August 19 letter to Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., he said the deal is the best chance to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons, which he acknowledged would pose a major threat to Israel.
"It is my steadfast conviction that a nuclear-armed Iran would present a profound security threat to us and to our partners, particularly Israel,” Obama wrote.
Critics of the deal wonder why its supporters listen to Obama regarding Iran's intentions and ignore Iran.
“Within the last 24 hours, Iran has said that the U.S. is the enemy of mankind," said Benjamin Weinthal, a research fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "These highly jingoistic statements from Iran don’t bode well for the enforcement of the agreement.
“There is all this euphoria about Obama securing congressional support for the Iran nuclear deal, but I think it’s worth pointing out that in context a little more than one-third of the Senate supports the deal," Weinthal added. "Given that all the major attitude surveys in the U.S. show a majority of Americans oppose the deal, and a majority of the Senate and the House of Representatives oppose the deal, [Obama] is on very flimsy ground.”
The deal is deeply unpopular in Israel, which has been the target of Iranian threats for years, as well as attacks from the terrorist groups it funds. Israelis fear that the cash infusion to Iran, through unfreezing of funds and the lifting of economic sanctions, will result in new terror attack in the short term and a graver, nuclear threat in the future.
“We are not against a deal,” a spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry told FoxNews.com. “We are against this particular deal, because it does not cater to the real dangers represented by Iran. A stronger deal, which would encompass not only the nuclear aspect but also the terrorist activities of Iran, would have been much better.”
Officials in Jerusalem also note that a significant majority of the American public oppose the deal and sympathize with Israel’s predicament.
“The American people get it,” an official Israeli source told today’s Jerusalem Post. “They understand the dangers to Israel. Iranian leaders openly say they will continue their terrorism and aggression, and they will now – with the sanctions relief – have enhanced resources to do, so because the deal will give them billions of dollars.”

Arby's fires manager, suspends clerk who allegedly refused to serve Florida police officer

The Arby's fast food chain announced late Thursday that it had fired a Florida restaurant manager and suspended a clerk after a female police officer said she had been denied service because she was a cop.
Arby's spokesman Jason Rollins confirmed to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that manager Angel Mirabal, 22, and clerk Kenneth Davenport, 19, had been disciplined.
The chain known for its roast beef sandwiches became the center of a national firestorm after an incident Tuesday night, when Pembroke Pines Police Sgt. Jennifer Martin, 34,  pulled up to the drive-thru and ordered a meal. When she handed over her credit card to pay, Davenport allegedly refused to ring her order up. That prompted Mirabal to say "He doesn’t want to serve you because you are a police officer."
Sgt. Martin finally received her food, but said she was too uncomfortable to eat it, so she returned it and got a refund. The next day, the department tweeted about the incident, which Chief Dan Giustino called "unacceptable."
"I am offended and appalled that an individual within our community would treat a police officer in such a manner," he said in a statement.
Davenport has said the controversy stemmed from a misunderstanding, and Maribal's comment was an attempt at a joke. Davenport told the Sun-Sentinel he was unable to ring up Martin's order due to the number of other customers he was servicing. He said Mirabal made his remark after Davenport asked him for help with the transaction.
"We don't hate cops,” Davenport told reporters Wednesday. "We don't hate anybody. We're just trying to get people out of the drive-thru."
On Thursday, WSVN reported that Arby's rivals took advantage of the flap between the police and the restaurant. McDonald's partnered with a local radio station to deliver bags of pancakes and Egg McMuffins to the department Thursday morning. The station reported that a local Whole Foods store put out a spread of its own, while residents supplied donuts and coffee from a local Dunkin' Donuts.
"We're here today to show our love for the community and the people that take care of us as first responders in the community," one woman said.

US monitoring reports Russia has stepped up Syria presence

The White House and State Department said Thursday that it was monitoring reports that Russia is carrying out military operations in Syria's civil war on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad, with both warning that such actions would further destabilize Syria's perilous situation.
Syrian state media reported this week that Russian forces were fighting alongside Assad's army. The Times of London reported Thursday that video shot by a militia loyal to Assad and aired on SANA, Syria's state-run television station, showed troops backed by an armored vehicle. The newspaper also reported that Russian voices could clearly be heard in the film, which claimed to show government forces fighting rebels in the Latakia Mountains, near Syria's Mediterranean coast.
We are aware of reports that Russia may have deployed military personnel and aircraft to Syria, and we are monitoring those reports quite closely," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday
"Any military support to the Assad regime for any purpose, whether it's in the form of military personnel, aircraft supplies, weapons, or funding, is both destabilizing and counterproductive."
State Department spokesman Mark Toner echoed Earnest's message, saying "we have seen various reports that Russia may be deploying military personnel ... we're unclear what these might be used for." Toner added that he was "not sure that we have contacted [Moscow] about this yet."
"Russia has asked for clearances for military flight to Syria," a U.S. official was quoted as telling Britain's Daily Telegraph, "[but] we don't know what their goals are ... Evidence has been inconclusive so far as to what this activity is."
Observers have long believed that Russian military advisers are working with Assad as part of Moscow's longstanding support for Syria's regime. However, the video shown by SANA, if confirmed to be genuine, would be the first time Russian forces have been seen taking part in actual combat operations.
However, it was not immediately clear whether the Russians shown in the video were regular soldiers or civilian contractors, which would provide Moscow with deniability. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously claimed that Russians fighting in Ukraine are volunteer civilian contractors.
The Times also reported that rebel activists in the area where the video was purportedly shot say the mountaintop town of Slunfeh, east of the port of Latakia, as a listening post run by Russian troops.
"The Russians have been there a long time,” one activist told The Times. "There are more Russian officials who came to Slunfeh in recent weeks. We don’t know how many but can assure you there has been Russian reinforcement."
The military relationship between Russia and the Assad regime in Damascus is longstanding. Many Syrian army officers have been trained in Moscow and Russia leases a naval facility at the Mediterranean port of Tartus. The SANA video was not the only sign that Russia has stepped up its involvement in the four-year-old conflict.
On Tuesday, a Twitter account linked to the al-Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-linked group fighting against Assad, claimed to show Russian aircraft and drones over Idlib province in northwestern Syria. The Times reported that last month, photographs uploaded to a shipping blog showed a Russian vessel loaded with military vehicles passing through the Bosphorus Strait, heading to the Mediterranean.
Russian military involvement in Syria, if confirmed, would add a new layer of complexity to a war that has killed an estimated 220,000 people and displaced over 4 million, according to United Nations estimates. The conflict has facilitated the rise of the ISIS terror group, drawn in the United States as the head of a coalition launching airstrikes against ISIS, as well as the trainer and supplier of rebel groups who are asked to fight a three-way battle against Assad and ISIS.
In recent months, Syrian government forces have begun to lose ground to rebel groups, including ISIS, a situation that may have forced Moscow to increase its support. Last month, President Obama said that Russia and Iran, the Damascus regime's other key supporter, recognize "the trend lines are not good for Assad."

Clinton Phone Cartoon

RNC asking GOP presidential candidates to pledge not to run as independent

The Republican National Committee on Wednesday began reaching out to several GOP presidential campaigns, asking if their candidates would sign a pledge not to run as an independent in 2016, multiple campaign sources told Fox News.
“The RNC reached out to us today about signing the pledge in order not to run as an independent,” said one source with a leading GOP presidential campaign.
RNC sources told Fox News that the plan has been in the works for weeks.
The pledge states in part that if the GOP contender does not become the nominee: “I will endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee regardless of who it is," and "I will not seek to run as an independent or write-in candidate nor will I seek or accept the nomination for president of another party.”
The pledge follows concerns that leading Republican candidate Donald Trump will run as a third-party candidate if he fails to win the GOP nomination. Such a move would likely result in Trump taking enough votes with him to possibly sink the Republican Party’s chances of defeating the Democratic nominee and taking the White House.
A GOP source with direct knowledge of the meeting told Fox News that the pledge would be at the center of a scheduled meeting Thursday between Trump and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus in New York City. Trump was scheduled to hold a press availability Thursday afternoon.

More on this...

• Perry reacts to polling near bottom of GOP primary pack

• Expectations high for Fiorina heading into second GOP debate

During the Aug. 6 Republican debate, Fox News moderator Bret Baier asked the main-stage candidates to raise their hand if they would not pledge to support the eventual nominee and not run as an independent if they lost the nomination. Trump was the only candidate to raise his hand, to a smattering of boos from the Cleveland crowd.
The Associated Press reported that RNC officials had been working privately with Trump's campaign for several weeks to avert the possibility of Trump making a third-party run. In recent days, Trump has suggested he would soon decide whether to rule out an independent campaign.
"I think a lot of people are going to be very happy," he said Saturday in Nashville.
Late Wednesday, a spokesperson for Ohio Gov. John Kasich confirmed that Kasich would sign the pledge, making him the first GOP candidate to go on record that he would do so. Former New York Gov. George Pataki's campaign confirmed to Fox late Wednesday that he had signed the pledge, while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush did the same when asked by the Associated Press.
The pledge also follows Virginia and South Carolina GOP state parties making a similar pledge effort.

Obama wins critical backing on Iran deal, virtually ensuring survival in Congress

 Sen. Barbara Mikulski, DumbAss

The Obama administration now appears to have enough support in Congress to stave off Republican efforts to reject the president's controversial Iran nuclear deal, after a retiring Maryland Democratic senator came out Wednesday morning in favor of the pact. 
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., announced her support for the deal as Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a lengthy and detailed address in Philadelphia defending the accord.
In his speech, Kerry disputed what he called "false information" circulating on the deal. He said, contrary to the views of many critics, that the deal provides "access" to keep Iran in check, preserves "every option" to respond if Iran balks, and has elements that will last "for the lifetime of Iran's nuclear program."
"President Obama and I are convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that the framework that we have put forward will get the job done," Kerry said.
But, with Mikulski's endorsement locked down, the speech served more as a public reminder of the administration's stance than a last-minute appeal for support.
Mikulski becomes the 34th senator to support the deal -- giving President Obama enough backing to sustain a veto of a Republican bill opposing it, should that bill pass in a vote later this month. Unless an announced supporter flips his or her vote, Obama would appear to have the crucial coalition in place to preserve the agreement on Capitol Hill.

More on this...

• Dozens of retired US Generals back Iran nuclear deal

• Ex-lawmakers pen letter to Congress in support of Iran deal

• Rand Paul: Obama should still be nervous about Iran deal

"No deal is perfect, especially one negotiated with the Iranian regime," Mikulski said in a statement. "I have concluded that this Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the best option available to block Iran from having a nuclear bomb. For these reasons, I will vote in favor of this deal."
Her support, though, doesn't end what has been a raging debate. Opposition to the agreement among Republicans, among ex-military leaders and in Israel remains widespread.
"Forcing a bad deal, over the objections of the American people and a majority in Congress, is no win for President Obama," said Cory Fritz, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. "The White House may have convinced just enough Democrats to back an agreement that legitimizes Iran's nuclear program, trusts the regime to self-inspect and offers amnesty to terrorists, but this deal is far from being implemented."
The latest report warning of dire consequences from the agreement came Wednesday morning, from the Iran Strategy Council, a group of ex-senior military officials and defense analysts examining the deal for the The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. The group is co-chaired by retired Gen. James Conway, who served as Marines commandant in the beginning of the Obama administration, and retired Gen. Charles Wald.
"The [nuclear deal] will not prevent a nuclear Iran," the report said, warning of "potentially grave strategic implications" that threaten national security. "No later than 15 years, the deal's major nuclear restrictions will lapse, Iran will stand on the brink of nuclear weapons capability, and once again the United States will likely have to devote significant resources and attention to keeping Tehran from attaining nuclear weapons."
The group was referring to the sunset of major provisions after 15 years. But Kerry and others in the administration argue that even after that period, Iran will remain subject to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and have to abide by inspection requirements. Kerry also argued Wednesday that Iran's "covert pathway" to a bomb would be blocked, and that the intelligence community agrees Iran "could never get away" with establishing a "completely secret nuclear supply chain." He said rejecting a deal would hurt the U.S. and endanger the region.
Kerry also sent a letter Wednesday to all members of Congress outlining U.S. security commitments to Israel and the Gulf Arab states in light of the nuclear deal.
Republicans in Congress and running for president unanimously oppose the deal, which aims to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.
The Israeli government is vehemently against it, contending that concessions made to Iran could empower that country, which has sworn to destroy Israel. But critics struggled to use Congress' summer recess to turn the tide against the agreement, despite a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign funded by the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
Only two Democratic senators have come out against the deal -- Chuck Schumer of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey -- while in recent weeks undeclared Democratic senators, even from red states, have broken in favor one after another.
Each side, meanwhile, has been rolling out letters of support and opposition in the run-up to a vote.
The latest came this past weekend with a full-page letter in The New York Times signed by more than 200 retired military generals and admirals opposing the deal. "This agreement will enable Iran to become far more dangerous, render the Mideast still more unstable and introduce new threats to American interests as well as our allies," the letter, which previously had been sent to congressional leaders, reads.
Even if Congress had been able to pass the disapproval resolution, it couldn't completely stop the deal, which was agreed to among Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. In July, the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed the nuclear deal, approving a resolution that would lift the international sanctions on Iran in 90 days.