Ryan vows 'bottom up' effort to unite GOP but signals no to helping Democrats on immigration, family leave

New House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan on Sunday renewed his vow to unify congressional Republicans but suggested no compromises with congressional Democrats on their push for immigration reform or passage of a family leave act.
The Wisconsin Republican told “Fox News Sunday” that he would change how House Republicans “do business” by ending the top-down leadership system and said the party needs a more “long-term” vision.
However, Ryan, who was elected Thursday to the speakership post, also called Democrat-backed paid family leave another federal entitlement.
“I don’t think people asked me to be speaker so I can take more money from hard-working taxpayers, so I can create some new federal entitlement,” he said.
Ryan also disagreed with all-out attempts by Washington Democrats in recent weeks to portray him as hypocritical for not supporting family leave legislation but insisting that he’d take the speakership post only if he was able to return to Wisconsin on weekends to be with his young family.
The passage of such legislation -- which would include paid maturity leave for female workers -- has been a priority for 2016 Democratic presidential candidates.

More on this...

• Paul Ryan 'turns the page' for 'broken' House

And for the past couple of weeks, party leaders have tried to show Ryan and 2016 GOP presidential candidates’ opposition to the idea through rallies in Ryan’s home state, on social media and in key voting states.
“You deserve quality time with your family,” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida, said at a women’s forum two weeks ago in Washington. “But every mother and father in America deserves that time too. And we Democrats will be loud and clear in calling on you to make paid family leave a priority at the outset of your speakership.”
Ryan said Sunday: “So if you’re asking me, because I want to … continue being the best dad and husband and speaker … means I should sign up for some new, unfunded entitlement, that doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Ryan’s sharpest message for Democrats was perhaps on the issue of comprehensive reform for the U.S. immigration system, led by President Obama.
Ryan, who appeared on the five major Sunday political talk shows, said no such legislation will get passed during the president’s remaining 14 months in office.
“We can’t trust this president on immigration reform,” Ryan told Fox News. “He has already proven untrustworthy because he’s tried to circumvent the legislative process with is executive orders.”
However, Ryan allowed that Democrats and Republicans could achieve consensus on the issues of border security and enforcing fines for violating federal immigration laws. He also said that no immigration-reform bills would reach the House floor unless they have support from the majority of chamber Republicans.
On the issue of uniting the House Republican conference, Ryan told Fox News:  “We have to show people where we’re going and what horizon we’re shooting for. I think we’ve been bold on tactics but not on policy.”
Ryan was voted in as new speaker after a tumultuous several weeks in which dissent among the House Republican conference’s most conservative members led to Ohio GOP Rep. John Boehner resigning from the speakership.
Ryan and Republican leaders insist Ryan was recruited for the job and accepted only after forming some consensus with the conservative caucus.
“I cannot pick up where John Boehner left off,” Ryan said Sunday, in the pre-taped Fox News interview. “I can’t do things the same way. We have to do things differently.
Among the concerns raised by the conservative caucus and other rank-and-file members are: their legislation not getting a full floor vote and who gets appointed to lead the committees.
A GOP House member told FoxNews.com on Friday that Ryan agrees that more legislation should come from the committees.
And on Sunday, Ryan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said, “We need to get Congress working like it was intended to by our founders, a bottom-up, consensus driven process.”
Ryan repeated that he didn’t agree with the process that last week led to the two-year budget deal, which was driven by GOP House leaders, passed with full Democrat support but few Republican votes.
He said the process “stunk” but argued that members had to agree to the proposal, which included spending and borrowing increases, because of critical Nov. 3 and Dec. 11 deadlines.
“We fight over tactics because we don’t have a vision,” Ryan said. “Leadership presented us with a bill a few days beforehand.”
He also dismissed talk that he might have to attack Republicans in the GOP-run Senate for failing, as some argue, to pass legislation coming from the House.
“I don’t think we throw any Republicans under the bus,” Ryan said. “I was not asked to dis-unify the Republican Party in the Congress. … I wasn’t made dictator of the House. I was made speaker of the House.”

Breaking away? GOP campaigns push for debate changes, may hold unsanctioned events

Republican presidential campaigns agreed Sunday to side-step party leaders and try to negotiate directly with television networks over the ground rules for the remaining debates following controversy over last week's CNBC event.
At least one campaign refused to rule out holding debates that are unsanctioned by the Republican National Committee, with Ben Carson campaign manager Barry Bennett saying that he didn't think it would be hard to buy television airtime for such an event.
Representatives from more than a dozen campaigns met behind closed doors for nearly two hours Sunday night in suburban Washington, a meeting that was not expected to yield many results given the competing interests of several candidates. Yet they emerged having agreed to several changes to be outlined in a letter to debate hosts in the coming days.
Bennett said the demanded changes include largely bypassing the RNC in coordinating with network hosts, mandatory opening and closing statements, an equal number of questions for the candidates, and pre-approval of on-screen graphics.
"The amazing part for me was how friendly the meeting was," Bennett said, noting the private gathering was held in a private room marked "family meeting." "Everybody was cordial. We all agreed we need to have these meetings more regularly."
The GOP's most recent debate in Boulder, Colo., on Wednesday night, drew harsh criticism from the campaigns and GOP officials alike. Afterward, some candidates complained that the questions were not substantive enough; others wanted more air time or the chance to deliver opening and closing statements.

More on this...

• Fiorina talks CNBC debate, Clinton, attack from 'The View'

GOP chairman Reince Priebus decided to suspend a partnership with NBC News and its properties on a debate set for February, but that wasn't enough to satisfy the frustrated campaigns.
"We need to mature in the way that we do these debates if they're going to be useful to the American people," Carson told ABC's "This Week."
While the campaigns agreed to the changes in principle Sunday night, the media companies that host the debates are under no obligation to adopt them. Bennett suggested that campaigns could boycott debates to get their way.
"The only leverage we have is to not come," he said.
The pushback comes despite a high-profile effort by the Republican National Committee to improve the debate process going into the 2016 election season. The party said the 2012 debate schedule promoted too much fighting among candidates, so for 2016, the RNC dramatically reduced the number of debates for this election and played a leading role in coordinating network hosts and even moderators, in some cases.
Three debates remain before the first nomination contest, the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1; the next one is scheduled for Nov. 10 in Milwaukee. The RNC has sanctioned five debates after the caucuses.
"What it really comes down to is the candidates want to have more control of the ability to negotiate with the networks," Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said after the meeting.
While organizers of the meeting were not including the RNC, the party has been in regular communication with campaigns about their concerns.
Shortly before the meeting, the RNC appointed Sean Cairncross, the committee's chief operating officer, to take the lead in negotiating with the networks. It's unclear, however, what role he'll play should the campaigns get their way.
"This is the first step in the process of understanding what the candidates want, and then we need to have a more specific conversation about NBC," RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer said Sunday ahead of the meeting. "We need to start a process. Tonight's the first step."
Some candidates are trying to use the debate discord to their advantage -- none more than Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Campaigning in Iowa this weekend, he slammed the CNBC debate moderators for asking questions in a way that he said "illustrate why the American people don't trust the media." He was cheered after calling for future debates to be moderated by conservatives such as radio host Rush Limbaugh.

'Colossal waste': Watchdog slams $43M, US-funded gas station in Afghanistan

It might be the world's most expensive gas station — not to mention a gross misuse of taxpayer money, according to a top government watchdog.
The lead oversight team monitoring U.S. spending in Afghanistan has found the Department of Defense spent $43 million to build a gas station in Afghanistan that should have cost roughly $500,000. The discovery came as part of a broader investigation into allegations of criminal activity within the DOD's premiere program to kick-start the Afghan economy.
"It's fright-night at the Pentagon," John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), told FoxNews.com, calling the spending "outrageous to the taxpayer."
At issue is spending by the Task Force for Stability and Business Operations, known as TFBSO or the Task Force, which ended in March 2015. But most alarming, according to Sopko, is the DOD's failure to answer questions about the $800 million program and its claim the Task Force's employees no longer work for the DOD.
"I have never in my lifetime seen the Department of Defense or any government agency clam up and claim they don't know anything about a program," said Sopko, a former federal prosecutor appointed by President Obama in 2012 to watch over spending in Afghanistan.
"Who's in charge? Why won't they talk?" he said. "We have received more allegations about this program than we have received about any other program in Afghanistan."
In a report released Monday, SIGAR detailed how TFBSO's Downstream Gas Utilization Project set out to build a compressed natural gas (CNG) filling station in the Afghan city of Sheberghan in 2011. The U.S. Geological Survey found in 2006 that northern Afghanistan is rich in natural gas reserves, and the Task Force sought to make the compressed natural gas commercially viable by constructing the facility -- and more broadly, helping to reduce the war-torn country's dependence on costly imported gas.
The Task Force struck a contract with Central Asian Engineering, which received just under $3 million from the U.S. government to construct the Sheberghan gas station. Sopko noted the cost of building a similar gas station in neighboring Pakistan is no more than $500,000.
But the final tab in Sheberghan would turn out to be astronomically higher.
The Task Force spent $42,718,739 between 2011 and 2014 to "fund the construction and to supervise the initial operation of the CNG station," the U.S. military told SIGAR -- with "approximately $12.3 million in direct costs and $30 million in overhead costs."
Who approved all that funding and why are questions the DOD will not answer, according to Sopko.
In an Oct. 22 letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, Sopko asked why no one at the DOD could speak about the nearly-billion dollar TFBSO program, which had reported directly to Carter.
"Frankly, I find it both shocking and incredible that DOD asserts that it no longer has any knowledge about TFBSO, an $800 million program that reported directly to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and only shut down a little over six months ago," Sopko wrote. "Nevertheless, I intend to continue our inquiry."
Sopko was responding in part to a June 17 letter from Brian McKeon, the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy. McKeon had told Sopko in response to earlier questions that "the closure of TFBSO in March 2015 and departure of all its employees have resulted in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) no longer possessing the personnel expertise to address these questions or to assess properly the TFBSO information and documentation retained by WHS in the OSD Executive Archive."
"It is totally incredible that you now have a ghost program in the Department of Defense," Sopko told FoxNews.com. "It’s almost like it's pixie dust."
SIGAR said it is unable to determine whether the CNG station in Sheberghan is currently operational. But government documents obtained by the oversight team show that Qashqari Oil and Gas Services -- the business that took over the station in 2014 -- did not renew its business license six months later, in November 2014.
The TFBSO was originally created by the DOD to revitalize Iraq's economy after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The program was redirected to Afghanistan in 2009 to lead projects supporting economic development.
Sopko said his office has received "numerous allegations" of criminal activity by the Task Force from former employees as well as "current and former uniformed officers who worked over there, other agencies and contractors." He declined to elaborate on the specifics of the accusations.
A review by FoxNews.com shows at least one employee -- Joseph Catalino, the former head of the Task Force -- is still employed by the Defense Department in a senior role.
According to a congressional source, Catalino was in charge of TFBSO in Afghanistan before beginning work in June as a senior adviser in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. The DOD's personnel office confirmed Catalino's employment and current job title.

Related Image

Expand / Contract

March 10, 2014: Former TFBSO Director Joseph Catalino is seen speaking at an event at the Afghanistan Embassy in Washington, D.C. (The Embassy of Afghanistan)

A senior defense official, speaking on background, said Sopko and his team have access to extensive records archived with Washington Headquarters Services (WHS), and he disputed any suggestion of a deliberate effort by the DOD to conceal information.
The official, however, told FoxNews.com he could not name any current DOD employees with detailed knowledge of the gas station project and said decisions made on its construction predated Catalino’s time as head of the Task Force. The official said he did not know whether the gas station was currently functional.
Sopko said billions of U.S. dollars have been wasted to date in Afghanistan. In its quarterly report to Congress, released Friday, SIGAR said the U.S. has provided $8.4 billion for counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan since 2002, yet the country remains the world's leading producer of opium.
SIGAR's report on the $43 million gas station spurred outrage among U.S. lawmakers in both parties who called for a thorough investigation into the program's finances.
"There's few things in this job that literally make my jaw drop," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "But of all the examples of wasteful projects in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Pentagon began prior to our wartime contracting reforms, this genuinely shocked me."
"It’s hard to imagine a more outrageous waste of money than building an alternative fuel station in a war-torn country that costs more than 8,000 percent more than it should, and is too dangerous for a watchdog to verify whether it is even operational," said McCaskill, who penned a letter to Carter on Monday demanding information. "Perhaps equally outrageous however, is that the Pentagon has apparently shirked its responsibility to fully account for the taxpayer money that’s been wasted — an unacceptable lack of transparency that I’ll be thoroughly investigating."
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, echoed McCaskill's call for transparency and said, "Under the law, government employees are not authorized to spend tax dollars without proper documentation like contracts, invoices, receiving reports and payment vouchers."
"If those documents don't exist, that's a huge problem," Grassley said. "The Defense Department needs to come clean, drop the obfuscation, and hold people responsible for a colossal waste of tax dollars."

San Francisco Cartoon

Sheriff is up from re-election, no joke.

Ted Cruz Brings in Huge Fundraising Numbers After Amazing Performance in CNBC Debate

There’s little doubt in my mind Sen. Ted Cruz totally OWNED the GOP debate on CNBC Wednesday night, completely dismantling the media and the moderators in an inspiring moment that will no doubt be talked about for years to come.
While Cruz’s comments will likely cause him to surge a bit in the polls — we’ll know for sure in a few days — the Texas senator saw another kind of spike due to his performance last night.
Cruz’s fundraising efforts drew in a whopping $772,000 after the debate.
Here are the details.

Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign says it is raking in some major cash after Wednesday’s Republican debate in Colorado.
Cruz brought in $772,000 as of midnight Wednesday, a campaign aide told NBC News.
The Texas senator had one of the most memorable moments of the third GOP debate when he lambasted the CNBC moderators for their questions.
“The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” Cruz said to raucous applause. “This is not a cage match.”

Fundraising is definitely one of the strong points of Cruz’s campaign as is evidenced by the $1 million he brought in just 100 hours after the first debate in August.
While Cruz has sort of chugged along in the polls, I think Wednesday night was his break out moment, as he seized an opportunity to smack the liberal media, proving he’s a man who will stand on principle, regardless of the consequences.
The fact people — grassroots kind of folk — are willing to shell out so much money to the guy, is proof he resonates with a great deal of Americans, he just hasn’t gotten the chance to really express what’s he about in the debates.
Until now.
With impressive fundraising numbers like these, it’ll be interesting to see what his poll numbers look like after that epic debate line.
Trump and Carson are in for some competition!      http://www.youngcons.com/

Donald Trump vows to take on ‘corrupt’ Veterans Affairs

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made a new pitch Saturday to veterans,  promising them that he’ll take on the “corrupt” and incompetent” Department of Veterans Affairs.
Trump told a crowd of supporters in front of the U.S.S. Wisconsin in Norfolk, Va., that the department is mismanaged and "not efficient.”
“We're going to replace them with more effective ones to get our veterans working, which is what they want to do,” Trump said. “We're going to transform the VA to meet the needs of the current veterans. Exposing and addressing the VA's inefficiencies and shortcomings will be rewarded, not punished. We're going to find out why its' going bad and we're going to fix it."
The Trump campaign released a more detailed policy plan after the rally.
"Over 300,000 veterans died waiting for care,” the statement in part read. “Corruption and incompetence were excused. Politicians in Washington have done too little too slowly to fix it."
The Department of Veterans Affairs didn't immediately return a FoxNews.com request for comment.
A 2012 Government Accountability Office report found that the Veterans Health Administration, a component of the VA had labeled their outpatient medical-appointment wait times as "unreliable."
In the wake of a congressional investigation into the agency's mishaps, Congress last year approved a $16.3 billion reform package to overhaul the department's actions.
Though mismanagement has seemed to continue at the VA. This July, officials announced they couldn't count how many veterans died while waiting to sign up for health care benefits.
Since announcing his White House run, Trump has touted his support for helping veterans. As a businessman, he says his experience can help improve the ability for those leaving the battlefield to find work.
"We're going to increase funding for job training and services for companies hiring veterans, and they're getting a great deal because they get incentive and they hire the best people," he told supporters. "We're going to give educational support ... service members have learned valuable skills in the military. But many need help understanding how to apply those skills in civilian life ... others know how to apply those skills, but need help connecting with good jobs to support their families.”
The current job market for veterans appears to be stronger than for the wider public.
While the national unemployment rate sits at 5.1 percent, the rate for all veterans is lower than the national average at 4.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Though, specifically for veterans who enlisted after the September 11th terror attacks, the figure is slightly higher at 4.7 percent.
“The VA is lacking two things -- accountability and managers who understand how to manage an enterprise," retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who served more than 30 years in the military, said Saturday. "Should Trump bring in 'best practices' of what has worked in his Trump business empire, there is no doubt that he could not make the current situation in the VA any worse -- and chances are he could actually move the agency toward accountability and efficiency."
Highlights of the policy plan also include all veterans eligible for VA health care being allowed to bring their veteran’s ID card to any doctor or care facility that accepts Medicare to get the care they need immediately. Another is to increase funding for job training and placement services (including incentives for companies hiring veterans), educational support and business loans.

Trump wants to reform the VA by firing “the corrupt and incompetent VA executives that let our veterans down,” according to his plan.
“Under a Trump Administration, there will be no job security for VA executives that enabled or overlooked corruption and incompetence,” the policy statements says.

Email shows Clinton's State Department cautioned about blaming Benghazi attack on video

Look at all the Cattle in the background.

Hillary Clinton and other State Department officials were apparently warned by overseas U.S. diplomats about blaming the 2012 Benghazi terror strikes on an “inflammatory” Internet video, according to an email released Saturday by House Republicans probing the fatal attacks.
The email was sent three days after the fatal Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, and two days before then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice went on TV to say the attacks were inspired by the anti-Islamic video.
The email -- released by the GOP-led House Select Committee on Benghazi -- was sent from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, to the State Department, which Clinton led from 2009 to 2013. But the names of the exact sender and receiver have been redacted.
“The film’s not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countries in the region,” the unknown sender wrote. “And it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest, which escalated into violence.
“It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well planned attack by militant extremists.”
The official writes the suggestion to Washington was based on monitoring the Libyan media, comments on such social media sites as Facebook and Twitter and talking to residents, who expressed “sorrow” about the attacks and “anger” toward the attackers.
U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attacks.
Clinton, now the front-running 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, has testified at least twice before Congress on the Benghazi matter, including earlier this month before the select committee.
When asked during a 2013 Senate hearing about what sparked the attacks, Clinton responded: “The fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?"
“It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.”
On Saturday, select committee spokesman Matt Wolking told FoxNews.com that the email was not part of the batch released Friday by the State Department.
“This email shows that State Department staff privately raised serious concerns about conflating the terrorist attacks in Benghazi with a video,” he also said in a statement, “even as the secretary of state and other Obama administration officials continued to do so publicly.”
Wolking also argued that a former CIA chief said intelligence analysts never said the video was a factor.
“So while Secretary Clinton may use the ‘fog of war’ as a convenient excuse for why she said one thing in private and something else in public, the reality is that’s just another smokescreen,” Wolking said.

San Francisco sheriff at center of sanctuary city debate faces reelection

SAN FRANCISCO –  Only two incumbent San Francisco sheriffs have lost re-election in the last 60 years -- but Ross Mirkarimi is facing a tough battle Tuesday to avoid being the third.
The San Francisco sheriff's office has been in the spotlight since a Mexican national in the country illegally was accused in the fatal shooting of a San Francisco woman this summer. The man had been released from Mirkarimi's jail even though federal immigration officials had requested that he be detained.
Also, Mirkarimi has endured a series of personal and official embarrassments, including having his driver's license briefly suspended and flunking a marksmanship test that prevents him from carrying a service weapon.
"I'm in the redemption industry," said Mirkarimi, 54, who launched the Green Party in California before changing his voter registration to Democrat.  "I believe in second chances."
His opponent, retired sheriff's official Vicki Hennessy, 62, is running a low-key campaign -- her first -- hoping to capitalize on Mirkarimi's negative image.
"The department needs leadership," Hennessy said. "It needs its credibility restored."
The latest campaign contribution disclosures show that she has raised $286,000 to his $109,000 and won the endorsements of the unions representing the county jail's sworn officers. Hennessy is also supported by the mayor.
Mirkarimi, who served for eight years on the city's Board of Supervisors, has won the endorsement of the previous sheriff, who served for 32 years before retiring in 2011.  Former Mayor Art Agnos also has endorsed Mirkarimi, who points to the success of the jail's high school and the dramatic reduction of the inmate population as major accomplishments.
Hennessy said she was encouraged to enter the race by Mayor Ed Lee and others because of Mirkarimi's stumbles, which began when he bruised his wife's arm during a New Year's Eve argument in 2011.
"I never expected to run," said Hennessy, who joined the sheriff's department in 1975 and rose to chief deputy, the third-highest ranking position in the office. The San Francisco native retired five years ago after directing the city's emergency services agency. She is married to a retired San Francisco police officer and mother to an adult son and daughter.
Mirkarimi pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor false imprisonment charge on March 13, 2012, and was placed on three years of probation. Lee suspended him a week later, saying he intended to remove him permanently. Lee appointed Hennessy as interim sheriff until the San Francisco Board of Supervisors narrowly rejected Lee's attempt to remove Mirkarimi from office in October 2012.
Today, Mirkarimi and his wife, Eliana Lopez, campaign together at commuter train stops, coffee shops and marijuana dispensaries.
Lopez opposed the prosecution of her husband, saying the criminal case was politically motivated.
"I am not a victim," said Lopez, a Venezuelan-born actress who turned the incident into a one-woman play. The couple has a 6-year-old son.
The pivotal issue in the race is the city's policy of shielding people in the country illegally from the reach of federal immigration officials. Mirkarimi's interpretation of the policy came under scrutiny following the March jail release of an inmate despite a federal immigration request to detain him for possible deportation.  A few months later on July 2, the Mexican national is alleged to have shot to death Kate Steinle, 32, as she walked with her father along San Francisco's waterfront.
Mirkarimi said city law prohibits the department from cooperating with federal immigration officials unless they have a warrant, a position criticized by presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton along with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and the mayor.
Hennessy said the sheriff's order barring the San Francisco jail from cooperating with immigration officials is misguided. There are cases, she said, when federal immigration officials should be notified that the jail is about to release an inmate who is in the country illegally.
But Hennessy said there are other problems with the department.
Since the shooting of Steinle, Mirkarimi has had his driver's license briefly suspended for failing to properly report a minor accident while driving a department-issued car, and he flunked a marksmanship test.
Before those two incidents, a drug gang leader escaped from jail, and guards were accused of staging and gambling on inmate fights.
In November 2014, Mirkarimi apologized for the bungled search for a San Francisco General Hospital patient whose body was found in a stairwell weeks after she wandered from her room. The sheriff is in charge of the hospital's security, but deputies didn't search the building until nine days after her disappearance. The city paid the patient's family $3 million to settle a lawsuit.
Political consultant Dan Newman and other analysts say the election is Hennessy's to lose because of Mirkarimi's problems.
"He imploded before he started," Newman said. "Then he continued with a string of screw ups."

New Mexico Driver License Cartoon

Grounded: New Mexico driver's licenses fail feds' test, thanks to illegal immigrant policy

Driver's licenses issued by New Mexico are about to become a lot less useful, and residents can blame the state's insistence on issuing the IDs to illegal immigrants.
The federal Department of Homeland Security informed state officials last week that a two-year effort to reconcile tough federal ID requirements with the granting of licenses to illegal immigrants based on dubious documents failed. Beginning on Jan. 10, state driver’s licenses will no longer be accepted at federal facilities, and eventually, state IDs won’t be enough to get bearers on board commercial flights.
"Although DHS recognizes the State of New Mexico's efforts to enhance the security of its driver's licenses and identification cards, New Mexico has not provided adequate justification for continued noncompliance with the REAL ID standards that would warrant granting your request for another extension," read the DHS letter sent to the state Department of Taxation. "As a result, federal agencies may not accept New Mexico driver's licenses and identification cards for official purposes in accordance with the phased enforcement schedule announced on December 20, 2013."

"With this letter, the feds are saying that they are fed up that the Legislature continues to allow the dangerous practice of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants."
- Demesia Padilla, New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue

In addition to New Mexico, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, Utah and Vermont, Washington, and Washington, D.C., issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Washington and New Mexico are the only states that do not require proof of legal presence in the U.S. to get a state license or ID, while the others give restricted licenses to people who can't prove they are in the U.S. legally.
But New Mexico is in worse shape than Washington, which offers enhanced driver's licenses and IDs that require proof of U.S. citizenship. Those are valid under the federal law, but the standard IDs issued for years don't pass federal muster. Since 2007, more than 500,000 Washington residents have gotten an enhanced driver's license or enhanced ID card. There are about 5.4 million people with standard licenses, and about 600,000 with regular ID cards.
The REAL ID Act requires proof of legal U.S. residency for holders of government-issued identification cards who want to use them to access certain areas of federal buildings. New Mexico state law allows immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally to obtain driver’s licenses, a policy current Republican Gov. Susana Martinez has tried to get repealed. But with the policy entrenched, and officials unable to guarantee to the satisfaction of federal authorities that IDs are secure, no New Mexico-issued licenses will be recognized.
"With this letter, the feds are saying that they are fed up that the Legislature continues to allow the dangerous practice of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants," said Demesia Padilla, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue. "An overwhelming majority of New Mexicans have been very clear on this issue, and the Legislature should start listening to them before it begins to affect the daily lives of New Mexicans."
The feds have granted New Mexico two years' worth of extensions to comply with the REAL ID Act, but has denied any further delay. The federal crackdown will extend to military bases and federal facilities such as courts, but the aspect likely to have the widest effect is air travel. Without a new solution in the coming months, New Mexico residents will likely be forced to show passports in order to board even domestic flights.
The REAL ID Act, was passed by Congress in 2005, enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver's licenses.”
At the core of DHS's decision is a 2003 policy implemented by then- Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants who were allowed to present the Matricular Consular card issued by Mexican consulates, as an official form of identification.
Richardson had hoped the policy would bring unlicensed drivers out of the shadows and at least have them go through the licensing process to bolster the number of insured drivers in the state.
In March, the state Senate approved a two-tiered bill that would have continued to allow licenses to be issued to illegal immigrants while taking steps to ensure security, but the measure died in the house.
Despite being the first Latina governor in U.S. history, Martinez, a former prosecutor, sees the policy as a catalyst for criminal fraud which occurred almost immediately after the policy went into place.
In 2014, Hai Gan, 57, a legal, permanent resident from China who resides in The Colony, Texas, was sentenced  in federal court  to 41 months in federal prison and will be deported after he completes his prison sentence for attempting to fraudulently obtain driver's licenses for 51 illegal immigrants.

Senate passes budget and debt deal, sends measure to Obama

In a rare late-night session, the Senate gave final approval to an ambitious budget and debt deal early Friday, sending it to President Barack Obama to sign.
The final vote on passage was 64-35, as Democrats joined forces with Republican defense hawks over the objections of GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio, all of whom voted against the deal. The bill is aimed at averting a debt default, avoiding a partial government shutdown and setting spending priorities for the next two years.
Earlier in Friday's session, the Senate voted 63-35 to end debate on the measure. The vote to approve the bill was taken just after 3 a.m. EDT.
Obama negotiated the accord with Republican and Democratic leaders who were intent on steering Congress away from the brinkmanship and shutdown threats that have haunted lawmakers for years. Former Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, felt a particular urgency days before leaving Congress, while lawmakers looked ahead to presidential and congressional elections next year.
Opposition was strong in the Senate, with Paul and Cruz both leaving the campaign trail to criticize the deal as excessive Washington spending.
In an hour-long speech that delayed the start of the final vote, Paul said Congress is "bad with money." He railed against increases in defense dollars supported by Republicans and domestic programs supported by Democrats.

More on this...

• Cruz on debate performance, mainstream media, budget deal

• Sen. Tim Scott on why he will vote against the budget deal

"These are the two parties getting together in an unholy alliance and spending us into oblivion," Paul said.
Meanwhile, Cruz said the Republican majorities had given Obama a "diamond-encrusted, glow-in-the-dark Amex card" for government spending.
"It's a pretty nifty card," Cruz said. "You don't have to pay for it, you get to spend it and it's somebody else's problem."
The Democratic National Committee slammed Cruz, Paul and Rubio for their opposition to the deal, with chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz saying, "There is nothing presidential about failing to pay your bills and jeopardizing our standing in the world economy. It is completely unbelievable that these reckless politicians think they deserve a promotion to the presidency."
The agreement would raise the government debt ceiling until March 2017, removing the threat of an unprecedented national default Nov. 3. At the same time, it would set the budget of the government through the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years and ease spending caps by providing $80 billion more for military and domestic programs, paid for with a hodgepodge of spending cuts and revenue increases touching areas from tax compliance to spectrum auctions.
The deal would also avert a looming shortfall in the Social Security disability trust fund that threatened to slash benefits, and head off an unprecedented increase in Medicare premiums for outpatient care for about 15 million beneficiaries.
The promise of more money for the military ensured support from defense hawks like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, while additional funds for domestic programs pleased Democrats.
Obama and allies like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., were big winners in the talks, but GOP leaders cleared away political land mines confronting the party on the eve of 2016 campaigns to win back the White House and maintain its grip on the Senate.
The measure leaves a clean slate for new Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as he begins his leadership of the House.
Obama had repeatedly said he would not negotiate budget concessions in exchange for increasing the debt limit, though he did agree to package the debt and budget provisions.
"I am as frustrated by the refusal of this administration to even engage on this (debt limit) issue," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "However, the president's refusal to be reasonable and do his job when it comes to our debt is no excuse for Congress failing to do its job and prevent a default."
The budget relief would lift caps on the appropriated spending passed by Congress each year by $50 billion in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017, evenly divided between defense and domestic. Another $16 billion or so would come each year in the form of inflated war spending, evenly split between the Defense and State departments.
The Appropriations committees will still have to write legislation to reflect the spending and Congress faces a Dec. 11 deadline to approve such a bill.
The cuts include curbs on Medicare payments for outpatient services provided by certain hospitals and an extension of a 2-percentage-point cut in Medicare payments to doctors through the end of a 10-year budget. There's also a drawdown from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and savings reaped from a Justice Department fund for crime victims that involves assets seized from criminals.

Taxpayer-backed solar plant actually a carbon polluter

Even as the Obama administration announces another $120 million in grants to boost solar energy, new reports indicate a centerpiece of the administration's green-energy effort is actually a carbon polluter. 
Located in Southern California's Mojave Desert, the $2.2 billion Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System benefited from a $1.6 billion Energy Department loan guarantee, and a $539 million Treasury Department stimulus grant to help pay off the loan.
Yet it is producing carbon emissions at nearly twice the amount that compels power plants and companies to participate in the state's cap-and-trade program.
That's because the plant relies on natural gas as a supplementary fuel.
According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the plant burned enough natural gas in 2014 to emit 46,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. But Ivanpah, while in the cap-and-trade program, is still considered a renewable energy source because it technically produces most its energy from solar.
Built by BrightSource Energy Inc. and operated by NRG Energy, the Ivanpah project has been mired in controversy from the start.
Taxpayer advocates object to the federal support. Environmentalists say it would hurt the endangered desert tortoise and lament that 3,500 birds were "fried" by the heat produced by the plant in its first year.
But the natural gas factor raises the fundamental question of whether this plant -- and others -- are undercutting their own green energy gains by emitting carbon pollution in the process, while not producing anywhere near the level of electricity of a regular power plant.
"This is a prime example of when good intentions go bad," said H. Sterling Burnett, a research fellow at the Heartland Institute.
Solar and wind power plants typically require some form of supplemental fuel, to deal with weather changes.
Natural gas, used at several California operations, can be used during the evenings to help protect against overnight freezing and temperature changes that can hurt equipment.
Yet while natural gas is not as environmentally damaging as coal or oil, it is a fossil fuel generally not considered "green."
Ivanpah's original license allowed it to use millions of cubic feet of natural gas with the understanding the total would not exceed 5 percent of the energy the project gets from sunlight.
BrightSource originally estimated the plant's main auxiliary boilers would use the gas for an average of an hour per day.
But in March 2014, they petitioned the California Energy Commission for permission to increase that to roughly 4.5 hours per day. In the petition, they cited a need to protect equipment and "maximize solar electricity generation."
The company defended the plant operations.  
"Less than 5 percent of electricity generated is attributed to natural gas, which ... qualifies 100 percent of the plant generation as renewable," NRG spokesman David Knox wrote in an email.
Michael Ward, information officer for the California Energy Commission which provided the emissions data, confirmed that Ivanpah indeed falls below the 5 percent mark.
But the 5 percent figure does not tell the whole story -- as California does not account for emissions produced when a power plant is not generating electricity, according to Ward.
So the actual percentage of natural gas use could well be higher.
"If it were any other energy industry besides solar, the plant never would not have been built," said David Lamfrom, director of California desert and national wildlife programs at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).
Lamfrom said that "political pressure pushed this project through without proper input from the taxpayers and without them being adequately informed of exactly what kind of project this was."
He said officials "generated enough momentum to make this project happen in order to meet the [deadlines for] the stimulus funding."
According to Lamfrom, designers also erred in placing Ivanpah between the tallest mountains in the Mojave where there is significant cloud cover and dust which would interfere with the sunlight.
Burnett noted that low sunlight only increases the use of natural gas: "You can make solar power as cheap as you want. If the sun is not shining, or it is cloudy or rainy, it will require natural gas to ramp up [the plant] quickly when solar power goes offline. They say it is green, but that assumes that there is a power source without any environmental impact."

CNBC moderators get bipartisan drubbing for debate performance

Analysts across the political spectrum may be at odds over who won the third Republican presidential debate, but they seem to agree on one thing: the CNBC moderators had a very bad night. 
The negative reaction to the debate questions and other factors has become a story unto itself, almost overshadowing the actual policy debates that broke out in between the candidate-moderator rancor Wednesday night.
The Republican candidates and observers complained the questions were demeaning, silly, and designed to provoke confrontation rather than genuine policy discussion. Others took aim at the debate format, and wondered about  the moderators’ professionalism.
On several sites aggregating Twitter reaction, the moderators were declared the losers, “hands down.”
The Washington Post declared it “CNBC’s really bad debate night.”
“The moderators had a worse night than the New York Mets … this was a trainwreck,” Fox News' Howard Kurtz charged Thursday, referring to Game 2 of the World Series, and calling the debate questions “condescending, snide, hostile and borderline insulting.”

More on this...

• Kurtz: CNBC debate moderators were a 'trainwreck'

• RNC: Future GOP debates to be reevaluated in light of bias

• John Kasich calls out GOP competitors for being unrealistic

While it might not have hurt CNBC during the broadcast -- the network touted 14 million viewers the following day, a network record -- it got a drubbing from candidates and party leaders during and after the prime-time event.
"While I was proud of our candidates and the way they handled tonight’s debate, the performance by the CNBC moderators was extremely disappointing and did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement, calling the questioning “deeply unfortunate.”
CNBC’s John Harwood was blasted for asking Donald Trump whether he was running a "comic book" campaign, and asking Mike Huckabee if he thought Trump had “the moral authority” to be president -- a question Trump called "nasty." Moderator Carl Quintanilla later called Marco Rubio a “young man in a hurry” in reference to his age and his experience in the Senate.
Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, told Fox News Thursday morning that “it was very frustrating to be on stage.” He faulted the moderators for not sticking to the issues and promises to divvy time equally. “They lost control of the debate,” he said.
At varying times, the audience booed the moderators, giving the candidates space to draw together for the attack against what they said was their common enemy: the liberal media.
The criticism took off after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was asked whether his opposition to raising the debt ceiling indicates he may not be the “the kind of problem-solver American voters want.” Cruz unloaded on the moderators, blasting them for asking questions like, “Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?” After the cheers for Cruz died down he suggested the moderators were Democrats.
“Nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators has any intention of voting in a Republican primary,” he charged. Cruz used the debate to send out a fundraising letter to supporters afterward, “declaring war on the liberal media,” and went on to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight. As for the focus groups following the debate, the candidates who took on the media and the moderators directly -- namely Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- seemed to benefit the most.
“It was brutal takedown, and CNBC’s smarmy moderators had it coming. Cruz is far from the first conservative to rail against liberal media bias, but he did it about as effectively as it can be done in 30 seconds,” said the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby. “The clip of that moment will go viral.”
Even some in the entertainment world, like comedian Patton Oswalt, began agreeing with Cruz and others on stage by the end, in spite of their fundamental dislike for the GOP candidates.
Not everyone thought the moderators went too far. Some analysts argued the questions were par for the course for the debates. And Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he “thought they did a good job,” saying he was “very appreciative of how they did their job.” He felt he had time to speak and that it “wasn't a circus."
When asked over Twitter by The Blaze about the widespread criticism, Harwood said simply, "it comes with the job."

CBS Cartoon

CNBC moderators repeatedly booed as candidates Trump, others bash ‘nasty’ questions

The CNBC debate started late and lame, and then the punches started flying.
Several candidates had very strong outings, but I must say, some of the moderators’ questions came off as downright snide, bordering on insults. One question after another was just loaded, worded to denigrate the candidates.
No wonder Ted Cruz got a big cheer from the Boulder audience when he attacked the questioners and called the debate a case study in mainstream media bias.
I’m in favor of tough and provocative questions. The Fox moderators asked tough questions. CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked tough questions. The CNBC moderators sounded condescending.
This surprised me. The network has good journalists. I thought if anything the focus on the economy might slide into dullness. But its team played into the hands of those who think the media are unfair to Republicans.
It got so bad that “Mad Money” madman Jim Cramer and Tea Party inspiration Rick Santelli sounded restrained by comparison.
After a throwaway query about biggest weaknesses, John Harwood, who also writes for the New York Times, asked Donald Trump if he wasn’t running a “comic-book version” of a campaign. Trump pivoted away from the “not very nice” question, but Harwood hammered him again: His tax plan, according to experts, had as much chance of working as The Donald flying away from the podium.
Carl Quintanilla was dismissive toward Marco Rubio by calling him a “young man in a hurry.” This was part of a long question about why he was missing many Senate votes, that ended with a preachy tone why he didn’t wait in line for his turn to run for president. Really?
Rubio punched back by saying the GOP establishment wanted him to wait, and denouncing Florida’s Sun-Sentinel (which called on him to vote more or resign) for liberal bias, since the paper hadn’t made a similar call when Democrat Bob Graham ran in 2004.
The exchange provided Jeb Bush with his one big moment in the debate, a chance to smack his fellow Floridian for supposedly not showing up for work. But Rubio effectively responded by saying someone must have convinced the former governor he had to attack Rubio.
Becky Quick asked Carly Fiorina a negative question about getting fired at Hewlett-Packard, which is fair, but rather than breaking new ground, she simply asked why the stock had plunged during her tenure. Fiorina said the Nasdaq had dropped 80 percent.
Quintanilla actually got booed during a series of questions to Ben Carson about his connection to a controversial medical supplement maker. When the doctor said the firm had put his picture on its home page without his permission, Quintanilla shot back: “Does that not speak to your vetting process or judgment in any way?” The audience unloaded.
Quick seemed befuddled when Trump challenged the premise of her question on immigration.
“Where did I read this and come up with this?” she asked.
“I don’t know, you people write this stuff,” Trump replied.
Quick wound up apologizing, but many minutes later, she found the quote (calling Rubio the personal senator of Mark Zuckerberg) that Trump had disputed.
Anyone can make a mistake, but how do you not have the backup research at hand?
The crowd also booed Harwood when he invited Mike Huckabee to slam Trump by asking whether The Donald has the “moral authority” to unite the country. Huckabee deflected it with a joke, and Trump accused Harwood of “such a nasty question.”
As the Colorado night wore on, the debate’s focus often seemed to shift from the economy to the press. When Trump was railing against Super PACs, Rubio declared that the Democrats have a Super PAC called the mainstream media. He cited the positive reports of Hillary Clinton’s House Benghazi testimony (which some conservative commentators and even GOP candidates did say was a good day for her).
And Cruz may have overreached in comparing CNBC’s questions to those asked at the Democratic debate, since that event was handled by CNN.
Rubio may have had the most breakout moments, some of them sprinkled with humor. Cruz, Fiorina, Kasich and Chris Christie had a few. Bush failed to make his mark. Trump and Carson did nothing to hurt themselves.
But my takeaway is that the candidates were the most effective and impassioned when they bashed the media—and that CNBC gave them plenty of ammunition.
Click for more Media Buzz.

Watchdog: Federal security force has more cars than officers, wastes millions

The security force that protects federal buildings has more SUVs than officers, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) watchdog, which found $2.5 million wasted each year due to mismanagement of its vehicle fleet. 
The Federal Protective Service (FPS) had 101 more law enforcement vehicles than officers last year, and spent taxpayer funding to upgrade its SUVs with bike racks, the new audit released by the Office of Inspector General found.
"FPS is not managing its fleet effectively," the OIG said. "FPS did not properly justify that its current fleet is necessary to carry out its operational mission."
"Specifically, FPS did not justify the need for: more vehicles than officers; administrative vehicles; larger sport utility vehicles; home-to-work miles in one region; and discretionary equipment added to vehicles," they said.
The FPS has a fleet of 1,169 vehicles, the vast majority of which are SUVs. The fleet cost $10.7 million to lease last year.
"In [fiscal year] FY 2014, FPS had 101 more law enforcement vehicles than full-time equivalent law enforcement positions," the audit found.
The OIG noted that the agency does have a need for spare vehicles when an officer's vehicle breaks down, but questioned the large number of excessive vehicles in the fleet. The FPS could save $1,071,500 each year if it got rid of its spare vehicles.

US special forces reportedly in covert combat for months against ISIS

U.S. special operations forces reportedly have carried out several covert combat missions against ISIS over the past year, contrary to the Pentagon's insistence that operations like last week's raid of an ISIS-held prison in northern Iraq was a "unique" circumstance.
Bloomberg View reported that a special operations task force staffs an operations center in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to support such missions. The report, which cited U.S. and Kurdish officials, claimed that the task force has worked in recent months to identify and locate senior leaders of ISIS. Members of the group also participated in last week's raid, during which Army Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler was killed. Wheeler became the first American to die in combat since the launch of anti-ISIS operations last year.
At a Pentagon briefing in Baghdad Tuesday, spokesman Col. Peter Warren answered a question about whether U.S. forces in Iraq were in combat against ISIS in no uncertain terms.
"We're in combat," Warren said. "I thought I made that pretty clear ... That is why we all carry guns. That's why we all get combat patches when we leave here, that's why we all receive [an] immediate danger badge. So, of course we're in combat."
Last week, Cook said the raid on the ISIS prison in the town of Hawija was "consistent with our counter-ISIL effort to train, advise and assist Iraqi forces", using a different acronym for the terror group. He also said the rescue was a "unique" circumstance, but declined to say that it was the only time U.S. forces have engaged in a form of ground combat in Iraq. Instead, he noted that U.S. troops are "allowed to defend themselves, and also defend partner forces, and to protect against the loss of innocent life."
Cook's previous comments had kept with a general avoidance on the part of administration officials to admit that U.S. troops were in combat. However, on Friday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said while discussing the raid, "This is combat, things are complicated."

More on this...

• Is WH taking responsibility for US casualty in ISIS raid?

• Pentagon reveals aggressive shift in ISIS strategy

In addition to the death of Master Sgt. Wheeler, The Daily Beast reported earlier this week that five service members had been wounded in action since the start of operations in Iraq last year. However, the Pentagon has refused to disclose how and when they were injured. The Washington Post reported in March that one of the wounded service members was hit in the face by bullet fragments while coming under enemy fire.
Bloomberg View reported that in addition to the special operations task force, the operations center also contains so-called Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, who work with U.S. allies and the Iraqis to coordinate combat flights against ISIS over Iraq. A third group, from the Marine Special Operations Command, is in charge of training Kurdish counter-terrorism forces.
On Tuesday, Carter testified on Capitol Hill that that the military plans a "higher and heavier rate of strikes" against ISIS targets. Separately, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that President Obama is considering proposals to move U.S. troops closer to the front lines in the fight.
On Wednesday, retired Gen. John Allen told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that as the U.S. continues to build up its military options in Syrian, European nations might consider combat operations to battle extremists.
Allen said the U.S. military recently began asking its European allies to join it at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey where the U.S. is being allowed to launch fighter aircraft and surveillance missions in Syria.
"I expect that as time goes on, and as more opportunity becomes available to us, we may well see our European partners become more kinetically involved in Syria," Allen said.
"There may be opportunities in the south as well as in the north where our European coalition partners could in fact play an important role, and I'm thinking special operations," Allen said, adding that additional details could only be provided in a classified setting.

'Extremely disappointing': RNC head slams CNBC debate moderators

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus had harsh words for the CNBC moderators of Wednesday night's GOP debate, calling their performance "extremely disappointing."
"While I was proud of our candidates and the way they handled tonight’s debate, the performance by the CNBC moderators ... did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters," Priebus said in a statement. "Our diverse field of talented and exceptionally qualified candidates did their best to share ideas for how to reinvigorate the economy and put Americans back to work despite deeply unfortunate questioning from CNBC."
Priebus restated his criticism on Twitter.


Priebus was not the only Republican to take issue with moderators John Harwood, Carl Quintanilla and Becky Quick, as several candidates expressed frustration with the questions posed to them.
"The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said early on.
"This is not a cage match," he added. "How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?"
Others complained the moderators' questions were hostile and based on inaccurate premises.
"That's not true," retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson objected to one moderator's depiction of his tax plans. "When we put all the facts down, you'll be able to see that it's not true, it works out very well."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took issue with one moderator's interruption. "Do you want me to answer or do you want to answer?" he said. "Because, I've got to tell you the truth, even in New Jersey what you're doing is called rude."
In his closing statement Donald Trump chastised the network for trying to extend the debate past the two-hour mark, which he and Carson had teamed up to stop.
"In about two minutes I renegotiated it down to two hours so we could get the hell out of here," he bragged.
Trump, who had predicted the debate would be "unfair" hours before it started, told CNBC after he walked offstage that he felt the Republicans had been treated far differently than the Democrats during their first faceoff earlier this month.
"If you looked at Hillary's deal a couple of weeks ago, the questions were much softer, much easier, much nicer. It was like a giant lovefest," he said. "That did not take place over here. This was pretty tough."
Bush campaign manager Danny Diaz confirmed that he had expressed displeasure to a CNBC producer about the debate.
NBC spokesman Brian Steel responded with a one-sentence statement: "People who want to be president of the United States should be able to answer tough questions."

Gitmo Cartoon

Planned Parenthood doctor appears to admit to partial-birth abortions

A Planned Parenthood doctor laughs as she says she continues to “strive” to deliver an aborted baby with an intact skull and appears to admit participating in partial-birth abortions in the latest undercover video released Tuesday targeting Planned Parenthood.
A woman identified as Dr. Amna Dermish of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas is the focus of the Center for Medical Progress’ 11th video, which is purported to have been filmed during a medical conference in October 2014.
“My aim is usually to get the specimens out pretty intact,” Dermish says at one point.

“Well this will give me something to strive for!”
- Dr. Amna Dermish, when asked if she's delivered a fetus with an intact skull

Dermish says in the video that she does not use the chemical digoxin, used to kill fetuses in the womb, before 20 weeks. She doesn’t say if she uses another chemical during the more than eight-minute, edited clip, and CMP asserts that means babies are delivered alive and killed outside of the womb. Dermish says she has used “ultrasound guidance” to manipulate fetuses for feet-first abortions in the video, a practice CMP describes as a “hallmark” of the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure.
A partial-birth abortion is defined as “deliberately and intentionally vaginally” delivering a living fetus where “any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of” killing the fetus. The practice was outlawed by President George W. Bush in 2003.

More on this...

• Vote to de-fund Planned Parenthood to take place Friday

“Usually what I do, if it’s a [feet-first] presentation, I’ll remove the extremities first, the lower extremities, and then go for the spine and then sort of bring it down that way,” Dermish says.
Asked about harvesting intact fetal brains, Dermish says she has not been able to do that yet.
“Well this will give me something to strive for!” she says, laughing.
When discussing a colleague that is able to identify nine-week fetal hearts in the remains of aborted babies, a woman identified as being from Whole Women’s Health, another abortion clinic, interjects, “Well it’s cute. It is cute.”
Dermish adds: “It’s amazing. It’s sort of – I have so much respect for development. It’s just incredible. So she’s always at 10, 11, 12 weeks, she’s like trying to find the kidneys and any of the organs of that gestation.”
Previous CMP videos have appeared to show Planned Parenthood officials admitting the organization alters abortion procedures to procure fetal tissue, delivers intact fetuses and sells fetal tissue for profit. Each of those practices is against federal law.
Planned Parenthood has denied breaking any laws and has said payments discussed in the videos relate to reimbursement costs for procuring the tissue – which is legal. Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood announced it would stop taking money from researchers for aborted baby parts.
“These extremists show a total lack of compassion and dignity for women’s most personal medical decisions,” an Aug. 4 statement from Planned Parenthood said.
The videos have spurred investigations of Planned Parenthood's policies on aborted fetuses by several Republican-led congressional committees and numerous states. Investigators in Florida cited four Planned Parenthood clinics for violations in August. Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced in September that Republicans would be leading a select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood.

House Republicans introduce measure to impeach IRS Commissioner Koskinen

House Republicans on Tuesday introduced a resolution to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, accusing him of making "false statements" under oath and failing to comply with a subpoena for evidence.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and 18 other committee members introduced the resolution to begin impeachment proceedings. In doing so, they followed through on a threat first made over the summer, when Republicans accused the IRS leader of making inaccurate statements to Congress regarding the Tea Party targeting scandal and its aftermath.
"Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust," Chaffetz said in a statement Tuesday. "He failed to comply with a congressionally issued subpoena, documents were destroyed on his watch, and the public was consistently misled.
"Impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the IRS and to protect the institutional interests of Congress."
The IRS issued a statement later Thursday saying, "The IRS vigorously disputes the allegations in the resolution. We have fully cooperated with all of the investigations."
The announcement of the impeachment resolution comes on the same day Koskinen testified before the Senate Finance Committee, and after the Justice Department on Friday decided to close its investigation of the targeting scandal without pursuing criminal charges.

More on this...

• House committee introduces resolution to impeach IRS chief

• GOP senators grill IRS head Koskinen over targeting scandal

• IRS commish feels scandal blowback with impeachment

Koskinen took over in late 2013, after the scandal broke over IRS agents subjecting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny.
But he faced questions over statements he made in the course of various investigations. The resolution containing articles of impeachment accused him of "high crimes and misdemeanors" over the following allegations:

• That he failed to preserve IRS records in accordance with a congressional subpoena; the resolution notes the IRS erased hundreds of backup tapes containing potentially thousands of emails from Lois Lerner, the former official at the heart of the controversy.
• That he made "false and misleading statements" to Congress, including claiming "nothing" had been "lost" or "destroyed."
• That he did not notify Congress of missing emails until June 2014, despite allegedly being aware earlier.

Pursuing impeachment against an agency leader is exceedingly rare, and a step beyond contempt charges, which is the tool House Republicans tried to use against both Lerner and former Attorney General Eric Holder in past disputes.
While impeachment is often thought of as a congressional weapon reserved for presidents, it can apply to "all civil officers of the United States," on the grounds of treason, bribery or other "high crimes and misdemeanors."
There was one case, more than a century ago, when articles of impeachment were brought against War Secretary William Belknap -- in 1876.
He resigned amid the proceedings.

Senators blast order barring female guards from transporting Gitmo inmates

Female soldiers serving at Guantanamo Bay are not being allowed to transport inmates following a court order issued in response to prisoners who complained on religious grounds, according to Republican senators who recently returned from a visit to the prison camp. 
Inmates apparently complained the female soldiers' actions were an insult to their Islamic faith, but the senators blasted the court decision as an "insult to women." Top U.S. military leaders agreed the directive is "outrageous," while suggesting they're currently bound by the order.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., first revealed the decision at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday morning. She told Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford that on a visit Friday to the detention center, she was told female soldiers were not being allowed to transport the “9/11 five” – five inmates suspected of masterminding the 2001 terror attack -- after the court order.
“We have a situation down there where we met with women guards who are being prevented from fully performing their mission because the five 9/11 attackers who are charged with killing 3,000 Americans will not allow them to perform their duties because they're women,” Ayotte said.
“It’s outrageous,” Dunford agreed. “That’s being worked by lawyers, it’s an injunction. I’m not using that as an excuse, but that’s where it is right now.”
“I think it is counter to the way we treat service members, including female service members, and outrageous is a very good word for it,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter added.
A military judge issued the order in January prohibiting female guards from transporting the defendants, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to and from legal proceedings after they refused to meet with defense lawyers and complained that any physical contact with unrelated women violated their Muslim beliefs.
The ruling by Army Col. James Pohl was meant to deal with their complaints, which posed a threat to legal proceedings.
At a press conference following Tuesday's Senate hearing, Sens. Ayotte; Tim Scott, R-S.C.; and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. -- who accompanied Ayotte on the visit to the facility -- expanded on the issue.
Capito said the country is letting the "9/11 five dictate" the procedures in the U.S. military, adding that it is “amazing” a military judge would rule in such a way.
"Terrorists should not dictate to us what our men and women in uniform are permitted to do," Ayotte said. “This is not an insult to Islam, it's an insult to women.”