A debate with tough terror talk: Trump deflects while Cruz and Rubio clash

From the opening moments of the Las Vegas debate, Wolf Blitzer tried to make it about Donald Trump, whether he wants to isolate America, and whether he is “unhinged.”
Jeb Bush, languishing in the polls, took the bait. Ted Cruz, surging into second place, did not. Marco Rubio, doing well in the polls, also did not.
And Trump, with a huge lead in the national polls, calmly deflected the first attack. As I had predicted on the air, Trump generally avoids bonking his rivals over the head in debate settings, saving his tougher language for interviews and speeches.
The CNN moderators gave the candidates every opportunity to bash each other, and the two Cuban-American senators were happy to answer the call, starting with a spat over NSA surveillance. Trump, defying some pundits’ predictions that he would smack Cruz around, didn’t engage in fisticuffs.
Some takeaways: Blitzer did a solid job in keeping the debate firmly focused on terrorism, a reflection of how fundamentally the Paris and San Bernardino attacks have transformed the presidential campaign. This was a high-stakes encounter on dead-serious subjects.
The entire debate was about projecting strength: against ISIS, against lone-wolf killers, against the Obama administration’s approach.
The debate did nothing to dent Trump’s lead, and Cruz and Rubio lived up to their reputations as the best orators in the field, probably fighting to a draw. Jeb got in a few licks, and Ben Carson wasn’t much of a presence.
After Trump finessed Blitzer’s opening question about his plan to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country—he shifted to attacking the Iran nuclear deal as “horrible” and “disgusting”—Wolf tried again. Why, he asked Bush, did you call Trump’s plan “unhinged?”
Jeb, rather than seize the moment, began with a wordy response, but then delivered his practiced line: “Donald is a chaos candidate, he’d be a chaos president.” But he looks slightly uncomfortable taking such swings.
Trump was almost dismissive in response, saying “Jeb doesn’t really believe I’m unhinged,” and adding that the former Florida governor was only trying to revive his failing campaign.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt tried, and failed, to entice Cruz into criticizing Trump’s Muslim plan. The senator shifted to President Obama engaging in “double-speak” on Islamic terrorism. Hewitt tried again, but Cruz stuck to his game plan of speaking no evil of The Donald so as not to alienate his supporters.
Cruz tried to sidestep a Dana Bash question on his vote to limit NSA surveillance by saying “the premise of your question is not accurate.” When Rubio criticized Cruz’s vote, the Texan hit back: “Marco knows what he’s saying isn’t true.”
Rand Paul, who barely made the debate cutoff, also whacked Rubio by saying he has more of an allegiance to Sen. Chuck Schumer and his fellow liberals.
That gave Chris Christie, back on the main stage, an opening to take on the squabbling senators, saying: “If your eyes are glazed over like mine…”
Trump’s only moment of agitation came when he scolded Bush for interrupting him, then said he was “a very nice person, but we need toughness.”
“Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency,” Jeb said, sounding annoyed.
“With Jeb’s attitude, we will never be great again,” Trump said evenly.
The Donald chided CNN in the second hour, though not with Newt Gingrich-like force, calling it “very sad” that the moderators kept feeding the others lines that “Mr. Trump said this”—and were doing it for ratings. He seemed annoyed only when Bush said he doesn’t get his information “from the shows,” Saturday morning or Sunday morning—a reference that most of the audience missed because Jeb didn’t explain it was an old Trump comment.
“I’m at 42 and you’re at 3!” Trump proclaimed, wielding polling numbers as a weapon.
No question the CNN team asked could get the GOP candidates to retreat a centimeter from the tough terror talk.
Would Trump close down the Internet to stop ISIS?
He said it wasn’t a question of freedom of speech: “I don’t want them using our media,” before clarifying that the efforts would be narrowly targeted.
Had Cruz said he would carpet-bomb ISIS until the sand glows in the dark?
He would bomb until we “utterly and completely destroy ISIS,” Cruz said, before clarifying he didn’t mean cities.
Even Carson didn’t flinch when Hewitt, in a question that drew boos, asked: “You are okay with the deaths of thousands of innocent children?”
At times, there was so much tough talk that the rivals’ rhetoric seemed to blur and they canceled each other out.
No one dominated the stage, as in some past debates. Trump went to Las Vegas with a huge lead and leaves the same way. Cruz and Rubio showed up in second and third place, and if their counterpunching changed that equation, it was not immediately evident. None of the other contenders had a breakout moment. And the country got a powerful reminder that we are at war.

Watters' World: Traffic edition

Humbug, indeed

For Christians, this is the season of Advent – an intentionally somber period of preparation before the fat geese and goodies of Christmas. It’s something like a low-key Lent. Think of the haunting strains of "O come, O come, Emmanuel” for Advent versus the sonic blast of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” for Christmas. Even though Christians know that these are just thought exercises and spiritual disciplines, the spreading gloom still sometimes seems real. Ash Wednesday or Advent vespers can leave believers in a fog of gloom. The tomb is full. The manger is empty.

But Christmas always comes. Easter always comes. The fog will be burned away. Christians intellectually understand what has happened and what will come, but emotions overawe intellect.

For Republicans, December of every fourth year acts as something of a secular Advent. There will be a brokered convention. The party will rupture and break. The House and Senate are doomed. The divisions are so deep that they cannot be overcome. A third-party candidate will arise and hand the election to the Democrats. Woe betide!

The gloom is gloomier this year than most. And the political press leans in to whisper into anguished ears, “Doomed, doomed, doomed…”

There is silly talk from party leaders about how to deny Donald Trump the nomination at the Republican National Convention – wishful thinking born of desperation. They shouldn’t kid themselves. If Trump gets the delegates, he will get the nomination and there’s nothing any “establishment” can or will do about it.

And if Trump doesn’t get enough delegates, somebody else almost certainly will. The idea that the convention will be deadlocked is (for now) exclusively the province of political journalists that would love to cover it and long-shot candidates who need some reason (beyond vainglory) to continue their campaigns.

Now, predictions of a re-united party and an orderly convention can hardly be delivered with the same certitude with which Christians can await December 25. Trump’s wealth and celebrity do afford him the chance to play spoiler if he chooses. The overpopulated GOP field does make it harder for the party to sort itself out. And the chaotic, dangerous condition of the world certainly creates a scenario in which dark Advent dreams could become real.

But in every year past, the deep angst of December has faded and Republicans have found some way to survive, endure and, occasionally, win elections.

So if you are one of the GOPers caught in the December fog, give yourself a break. The Halleluiah Chorus is almost certainly still to come.

Chris Stirewalt

• Twitter

Chris Stirewalt joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in July of 2010 and serves as digital politics editor based in Washington, D.C.  Additionally, he serves as the host of "Power Play" on FoxNews.com and makes daily appearances on the network including "America Live with Megyn Kelly," "Special Report with Bret Baier," and "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace." Most recently, Stirewalt provided expert political analysis during the 2012 presidential election.

Prior to joining FNC, Stirewalt served as political editor for The Washington Examiner where he wrote a twice-weekly column and led political coverage for the newspaper. He also served as politics editor at the Charleston Daily Mail and West Virginia Media. Stirewalt began his career at the Wheeling Intelligencer in West Virginia.

He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia.

Agents reportedly blocked by secret US policy from looking at social media of visa applicants

If it been a American Citizen the government would have been all over it!

A secret U.S. policy that prohibits immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas was reportedly kept in place over fears of a civil liberties backlash and “bad public relations.”
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused in early 2014 to end the policy, even though several other officials in the organization pressed for such a policy change, ABC News reported Monday.
John Cohen, a former acting under-secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and currently a national security consultant for ABC News, said he pushed for a change in 2014 that would allow a review of social media messages posted publically as terror group followers increasingly turned to Twitter and Facebook.
"Immigration, security, law enforcement officials recognized at the time that it was important to more extensively review public social media postings because they offered potential insights into whether somebody was an extremist or potentially connected to a terrorist organization or a supporter of the movement," Cohen, who left DHS in June 2014, told ABC News.
Cohen’s account comes as members of Congress question why U.S. officials failed to review the social media posts of San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik.
Malik received a U.S. visa in May 2014, despite what the FBI said were extensive social media messages about jihad and martyrdom.
Cohen said that officials from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement both pressed for a change in policy, which eventually became the subject of a meeting in 2014 chaired by Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, other top deputies and representatives of the DHS Office of Civil Liberties and the Office of Privacy.
"The primary concern was that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly and there were concerns that it would be embarrassing," Cohen told ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday.
Cohen added that he and other officials were deeply disappointed that the senior leadership would not approve a review of what were publicly-posted online messages.
"There is no excuse for not using every resource at our disposal to fully vet individuals before they come to the United States," told ABC News.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday the Homeland Security and State departments have been asked to review the process for screening people who apply for visas and to return with specific recommendations.
"I think the president's top priority here is the national security and safety of the American people," Earnest said. "And that will continue to be the case with ensuring that this K-1 visa program is effectively implemented."
Malik came to the United States in 2014 on a K-1, or fiancé, visa.
Earnest did not provide specifics of the security review for visas, but said one consideration going forward is resources.
The government approved more than 9.9 million visa applications during the 2014 budget year.
The department said three pilot programs to specifically incorporate "appropriate" social media reviews into its vetting process were launched in the last year and the department is looking at other ways to use social media posts.
The DHS is working on a plan to scrutinize social media posts as
part of its visa application process before certain people are allowed entry into the nation, a person familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
The move is part of a new focus on the use of social networking sites following the shooting rampage in San Bernardino, Calif., the person told the Journal.  
The pilot programs currently used by DHS do not sweep up all social media posts, though government officials have kept details of the programs closely held, as they do not want to reveal the precise process they use to try and identify potential threats.
On Sunday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded that the U.S. immediately initiate a program that would check the social media sites of those admitted on visas.
"Had they checked out Tashfeen Malik," he said, "maybe those people in San Bernardino would be alive."
Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that Farook was radicalized as early as 2010 and Malik as far back as 2012, which would have been years before her visa was processed.
"We want to look at how our immigration process for a visa for a spouse broke down, that they didn't notice the radicalization," Burr said.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the committee is working on legislation that would require online information, including social media accounts, be reviewed as part of the background check for visa applicants, including K-1 visas.
Allowing visa vetters to review social media postings however is no guarantee that a would-be immigrant who has radicalized views will be discovered. Facebook and Twitter users can make their pages private and aliases are routinely employed.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced legislation last week that would require social media companies to report to law enforcement any "terrorist activity" they became aware of — for example, attack planning, recruiting or the distribution of terrorist material.
Representatives with the technology industry say that would become a massive new liability for companies, chill free speech online and increase the number of reports funneled to law enforcement, making it difficult to find credible threats.

Saudi Arabia announces anti-terror alliance of Islamic nations

The pot calling the kettle black? Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia and its law requires that all citizens be Muslims.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia –  Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that 34 nations have agreed to form a new "Islamic military alliance" to fight terrorism with a joint operations center based in the kingdom's capital, Riyadh.
The announcement published by the state-run Saudi Press Agency said the alliance will be Saudi-led and is being established because terrorism "should be fought by all means and collaboration should be made to eliminate it." The statement said Islam forbids "corruption and destruction in the world" and that terrorism constitutes "a serious violation of human dignity and rights, especially the right to life and the right to security."
The new counterterrorism coalition includes nations with large and established armies such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt as well as war-torn countries with embattled militaries such as Libya and Yemen. African nations that have suffered terrorist attacks such as Mali, Chad, Somalia and Nigeria are also members.
Saudi Arabia's regional rival, Shiite Iran, is not part of the coalition. Saudi Arabia and Iran support opposite sides of in the wars raging in Syria and Yemen. Saudi Arabia is currently leading a military intervention in Yemen against Shiite Houthi rebels and is part of the U.S.-led coalition bombing the Sunni extremist Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
At a rare news conference, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman said the new Islamic military coalition will develop mechanisms for working with other countries and international bodies to support counterterrorism efforts. He said their efforts would not be limited to only countering the Islamic State (ISIS) group.
"Currently, every Muslim country is fighting terrorism individually ... so coordinating efforts is very important," he said.
He said the joint operations center will be established in Riyadh to "coordinate and support military operations to fight terrorism" across the Muslim world.
Smaller member-states included in the coalition are the archipelago of the Maldives and the island-nation of Bahrain. Other Gulf Arab countries such as Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are also in the coalition, though notably absent from the list is Saudi Arabia's neighbor Oman. But Iraq and Syria whose forces are battling to regain territory taken by the Islamic State group and whose governments are allied with Iran are not in the coalition.
Benin, while it does not have a majority Muslim population, is also a member of this new counterterrorism coalition. All the group's members are also part of the larger Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which is headquartered in Saudi Arabia.

With rise in polls, Cruz in Tuesday's GOP debate

Media trying to turn Cruz and Trump against each other?

The once-friendly rivalry between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump is getting edgy as the Texas senator cuts into the business mogul’s lead, setting up a potential showdown in the GOP presidential primary debate Tuesday.
Cruz has largely avoided public attacks on Trump -- likely in part to avoid his withering counter-attacks and also in hopes of gathering Trump supporters should he falter or quit the race.  
Trump has mostly left Cruz alone -- at least until recently, when Cruz apparently criticized him at private fundraisers.
The Texan then pulled ahead in Iowa, according to polls released over the past few days.
“He said it behind my back. Somebody taped that conversation,” Trump said about Cruz on “Fox News Sunday.”
“I don't think he's qualified to be president. …  I don't think he's got the right judgment.”
Tuesday's debate, hosted by CNN, will be the fourth of 12 sanctioned GOP White House primary debates and the final one of the year.
It also comes less than 50 days before the Iowa Caucus, the first voting in the 2016 election cycle.
Cruz and Trump will be joined on the main stage in Las Vegas by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
On Sunday, Trump suggested that Cruz’s tactics on Capitol Hill are devoid of the compromising skills needed to run the country.
“He goes in there … like a bit of a maniac,” Trump said.
“You never get things done that way. You can't walk into the Senate and scream and call people liars and not be able to cajole and get along with people. … That's the problem with Ted.”
When the reports surfaced last week of Cruz at New York fundraisers questioning Trump’s judgement, Cruz promptly tweeted: “The Establishment's only hope: Trump & me in a cage match. Sorry to disappoint.”
And within hours of Trump’s attack Sunday, Cruz responded on Twitter by posting a link to the song “Maniac” from the movie “Flashdance” and writing: "In honor of my friend @realDonaldTrump and good-hearted maniacs everywhere ..."
CNN will also host a debate for the second-tier GOP candidates -- former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former New York Gov. George Pataki.
The network said Paul squeezed into the main debate “by showing viability in Iowa in a Fox News poll released Sunday morning.”
Christie returns to the main stage, largely because of his strong poll numbers in early-voting state New Hampshire.
Carson last month surged in national polls and briefly held second place behind Trump in Iowa. But his campaign has since plummeted roughly 12 percentage points, from 24.8 to 12.6 percent.
Bush is also looking for a comeback, after being considered the presumptive frontrunner early in the election cycle. However, his campaign has failed to catch fire, despite its infrastructure and fundraising prowess.
Rubio has also improved his poll rankings in recent weeks but is competing with Cruz for essentially the same voters, which could bring fireworks to the debate.
Cruz's national poll numbers didn't reach double-digits until early November, according to a RealClearPoltics.com averaging.
But he could indeed win Iowa, considering his support among evangelicals and other social-conservative voters is similar to that of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who in 2008 and 2012, respectively, won the caucus despite average numbers in national polls.
A Fox News Poll released Sunday showed Cruz edging Trump in Iowa, 28-26 percent among likely caucus-goers. The poll was taken Dec. 7-10 and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
Cruz has a 10-point lead over Cruz according to a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll, which previously had him trailing Trump in Iowa by 11 percentage points.

Strategy Cartoon

School principal bans Santa, Thanksgiving and Pledge of Allegiance (In America?)

Principal Jaela Kim, of PS 169 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Santa Claus is banned. The Pledge of Allegiance is no longer recited. “Harvest festival” has replaced Thanksgiving, and “winter celebrations” substitute for Christmas parties.
New principal Eujin Jaela Kim has given PS 169 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a politically correct scrub-down, to the dismay of teachers and parents.
“We definitely can’t say Christmas, nothing with Christmas on it, nothing with Santa,” PTA President Mimi Ferrer said administrators told her. “No angels. We can’t even have a star because it can represent a religious system, like the Star of David.”
Kim, 33, did not return a call or e-mail seeking comment.
A memo last month from assistant principal Jose Chaparro suggested a “harvest festival instead of Thanksgiving or a winter celebration instead of a Christmas party.” He urged staff to “be sensitive of the diversity of our families. Not all children celebrate the same holidays.”
Ninety-five percent of the 1,600 kids at PS 169 are Asian or Hispanic. This is what happens when the the minority over-rule the majority.

Watchdog group reportedly calls for probe of Clinton relationship with firm tied to son-in-law

A conservative watchdog group will call for a federal investigation Monday into Hillary Clinton's actions toward a deep-sea mining company tied to her son-in-law, according to a published report.
According to Time magazine, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), plans to file a complaint with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics alleging that Clinton gave Neptune Minerals "special access to the State Department based upon the company’s relationships with Secretary Clinton’s family members and donors to the Clinton Foundation."
The complaint comes two weeks after emails released by the State Department show that Clinton, now the Democratic presidential front-runner, ordered a senior State Department official to look into the request from Marc Mezvinsky.
Mezvinsky, a partner in a New York hedge fund and the husband of Clinton's daughter Chelsea, had received an email in May 2012 from investor Harry Siklas asking if he could help set up contacts with Clinton or other State Department officials.
That August, Clinton relayed a copy of the investor's email to Mezvinsky to Thomas Nides, then a deputy secretary of state and now vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, a major New York financial services firm. "Could you have someone follow up on this request which was forwarded to me?" Clinton asked Nides. He replied: "I'll get on it."
At the time, Clinton was advocating for an Obama administration push to win Senate approval for a sweeping law of the sea treaty. The pact would have aided U.S. mining companies scouring for minerals in international waters, but the Republican-dominated Senate blocked it.
The emails do not show whether Clinton or other State Department officials met with Siklas or with Neptune executives. Federal ethics guidelines warn government employees to "not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual," but there are no specific provisions prohibiting officials from considering requests prompted by relatives.
In the email, Siklas also said that his then-employer, Goldman Sachs, was representing Neptune. Before joining Eaglevale, Mezvinsky had also worked for eight years at Goldman, partly during Siklas' tenure there between 2004 and 2007. Members of the influential New York firm were one of Clinton's top funders in her 2008 presidential race, giving more than $225,000 that cycle. The firm has also been a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, giving between $1 million and $5 million.
"We believe that requests like this from anyone other than Goldman Sachs and her son-in-law were not passed along," FACT Executive Director Matt Whitaker told Time, "so there was a preference given in her duty as Secretary of State in comparison to other requests."
Whitaker said the Office of Government Ethics could refer the matter to the Justice Department once it conducts an investigation into the emails.

Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton 'killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity'

Donald Trump claimed Sunday that Hillary Clinton "killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity" with her decisions as secretary of state, seemingly shocking his interviewer.

In a "Fox News Sunday" interview, Trump said Clinton and President Barack Obama's foreign-policy decisions in Africa and the Middle East resulted in the deaths of "hundreds of thousands" of people.

"She is the one that caused all this problem with her stupid policies. You look at what she did with Libya, what she did with Syria. Look at Egypt, what happened with Egypt, a total mess."

"She was truly — if not the — one of the worst secretaries of state in the history of the country," he added. "She talks about me being dangerous. She's killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity."

Wallace pushed Trump to clarify what he meant.

"The Middle East is a total disaster under her," Trump said.

Trump was responding to an interview this week in which Clinton said Trump's plan to temporarily ban most Muslims from traveling to the US was dangerous.

"He has gone way over the line. And what he’s saying now is not only shameful and wrong — it’s dangerous,” Clinton said.

The former secretary of state said Trump's proposal "plays right into the hands of terrorists" by alienating Muslims in Western countries and framing terrorism as a clash between Islam and the West.

“I don’t say that lightly, but it does. He is giving them a great propaganda tool, a way to recruit more folks from Europe and the United States," Clinton said. "And because it’s kind of crossed that line, I think everybody and especially other Republicans need to stand up and say, ‘Enough. You've gone too far.'"

Ted Cruz poised to steal Iowa from Donald Trump

Ted Cruz shot to a 10-point lead over Donald Trump in the latestBloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, putting him in prime position to win the first-in-the-nation Republican caucus on Feb. 1. But the Texas Senator may be even stronger than the top-line numbers suggest. A deeper look into the poll's crosstabs suggests that Cruz is poised to draw away even more of Trump's supporters—and that Trump may have difficulty luring those who currently favor Cruz.
Until now, Trump's great source of strength has been his support from voters without a college degree. One reason Trump has been able to maintain an overall lead in most national polls since last summer is that, as Ron Brownstein has pointed out, blue-collar workers have coalesced around him, while white-collar workers with at least a college degree have split their support among several candidates. However, the new Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll shows that Cruz, for the first time, is winning both non-college voters (Cruz 32, Trump 23, Ben Carson 13) and college voters (Cruz 29, Trump 18, Carson 12) alike.Of course, voter preference is fluid and the Iowa caucuses are still six weeks away. But Cruz's strategy of embracing, rather than attacking, Trump—even after Trump makes controversial or offensive statements—appears to have served him well, at least so far. In the new poll, respondents who say they support Trump have an extremely positive view of Cruz: 73 percent view him favorably, while 18 percent view him unfavorably. Asked to state their second-choice preference, these Trump supporters overwhelming pick Cruz (49 percent), with Rubio (16 percent) a distant second. If Trump falters or alienates his current supporters, they appear quite open to supporting Cruz.
But the reverse is less true: Cruz supporters aren't nearly as enthused at the prospect of backing Trump. Overall, they do view him positively. Sixty percent have a favorable view of Trump, versus 33 percent who view him unfavorably. Yet asked to state their second choice of candidate, Cruz supporters are about as likely to favor Ben Carson (26 percent) as they are Trump (25 percent). So Trump may have a hard time climbing back into the lead, especially if he goes on the attack against Cruz, as he did over the weekend when he told CNN he had "far better judgment than Ted."

Trump could, of course, look elsewhere to grow his support. But he may have a hard time luring people outside his base of anti-establishment male voters. Women voters, for example, could be a hard sell. Call it the "Megyn Kelly Effect": women in the poll more commonly prefer Cruz (28 percent) and Carson (16 percent) to Trump (13 percent). As strange as it may sound, maybe Trump should consider a pivot to the center and a more moderate tone.

Des Moines Register Poll Bias?

This is the kind of trash cartoons the Des Moines Register's Paper puts out.

Cruz surges to 10-point lead in Iowa poll

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has jumped businessman Donald Trump for a big lead in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus, according to a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll released Saturday.
Cruz paces the field with 31 percent support, followed by Trump at 21 percent, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 13 percent.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Texas) places fourth with 10 percent.

The last iteration of the poll, released Oct. 25, showed Carson with 28 percent support in the state, beating Trump out by 9 points, and Cruz with 10 percent support.

Cruz has been aggressively campaigning in the Hawkeye State, picking up key endorsements in the state earlier this week.
Fueling the anti-establishment firebrand’s 22-point ascent is his support among traditional Christian voters in the state.
He carries 45 percent of the evangelical vote in the state, as well as 39 percent of self-described tea partiers.
Twenty percent of all voters also listed Cruz as their second choice in the poll, suggesting he has a lot of untapped support and may not have peaked in the state.
Pollster Frank Luntz told the Register that it’s possible that Cruz “could win Iowa big – very big.”
As he watched his lead slip away in the state, Trump made a series of blunders that may have hastened Cruz’s rise.
The businessman attacked the Register the day before the influential newspaper released the poll, accusing the news outlet of dishonestly covering his presidential campaign.
“You have one of the most dishonest right here in your backyard,” Trump said at a rally in Des Moines on Friday. “The Des Moines Register is the worst. They’re very dishonest.”
He predicted he would not fare well in the poll, lamenting that “every time the Des Moines Register does a poll, I always do badly.”
“It’s my opinion that they don’t do it properly,” he added, suggesting the newspaper may be skewing its results.
As the poll was being released Saturday, Trump told his followers on Twitter not to trust it, pointing to a different poll that showed him up by double digits in Iowa.
Trump still polls well in the state on issues like the economy, illegal immigration and solving problems.
Forty-nine percent said they believe Trump knows how to “get things done,” while only 22 percent said the same of Cruz.
Carson led in the poll as recently as Oct. 23, when he carried 28 percent support in the state.
But amid terrorist attacks and the escalating fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the soft-spoken Carson has struggled to convince voters that he’s the best man to lead the nation during a time of war.
The poll of 400 likely Republican caucus-goers was conducted Dec. 7–10. The margin of error is 4.9 percent.

Trump slams Chief Justice Roberts' record

Chief Justice John Roberts

Donald Trump went on the offensive Saturday attacking Chief Justice John Roberts’ record on the Supreme Court telling supporters he’s “so disappointing”.
During a town hall in Aiken, S.C., the Republican front-runner gave his take on Roberts backing the 6-3 decision in King vs. Burwell earlier this year, which kept subsidies nationwide setup under the Affordable Care act, better known as ObamaCare, in place.
“ObamaCare is going down with or without Justice Roberts, if you know what I mean,” he explained.  “I will tell you this: Justice Roberts really let us down. He really let us down.”
Trump added, “I think he did that because he wanted to be popular within the [D.C.] beltway or something because he did it the first time and should have never done it and that would have killed it.” The New York real estate magnate was speaking to Roberts’ 2012 decision to support upholding the health care law’s individual mandate. 
While the businessman said he respects Roberts as a “great legal scholar,” the chief justice “knows it better than any of us— there was no legal reason,” to support the law in either case.
Other Republican White House hopefuls have echoed similar thoughts on the Supreme Court’s recent rulings.
After the 2015 decision, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said the court was full of “activist judges”. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz went even further in September saying it was a “mistake” to place Roberts on the high court.
Trump did throw his support behind at least one current justice. “Clarence Thomas, we should give him credit, he has been so consistent. He has been very, very strong.”
When pressed on the type of judges he’d appoint if elected, Trump told the crowd he would “want strongly conservative people and great scholars, legal scholars, people who follow and admire and respect our Constitution.”

California Democratic Senate candidate, Rep. Sanchez criticized for Islam remarks

A California congresswoman and U.S. Senate candidate was sharply criticized Friday after suggesting that as many as two of 10 Muslims would engage in terrorism to establish a strict Islamic state.
In response, Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez issued a statement saying the estimate did not reflect her views on the Muslim community in America, and most Muslims around the world are committed to peace.
"I believe that Muslim Americans are fully committed to the security and prosperity of our country," the statement said. "I stand with them as my fellow Americans. They are law-abiding citizens who love our country."
The episode marked another political misstep for Sanchez, who earlier this year apologized after a videotape surfaced showing her making a whooping cry in reference to Native Americans that brought her a cascade of reprimands from fellow Democrats.
In an interview with "PoliticKING with Larry King," Sanchez said between 5 percent and 20 percent of Muslims want a strict Islamic state -- or caliphate -- and would use terrorism to impose their views.
They "desire for a caliphate and to institute that in any way possible, and in particular go after what they consider Western norms, our way of life," she told King. "They are willing to use and they do use terrorism, and it is in the name of a very wrong way of looking at Islam."
The Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American Islamic-Relations called Sanchez's statement harmful and perplexing.
"Using inaccurate polls that reinforce false stereotypes about the Muslim community, at a time when right-wing bigots are calling for fascist measures against Muslims, is inexcusable," spokesman Haroon Manjlai said.
In her statement, Sanchez, an Orange County resident who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said she was referring to estimates based on limited research, and other data support far lower estimates.
Sanchez is running for the seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Barbara Boxer.

Border Patrol catches smuggler using fake agency vehicle

Texas authorities are on high alert after Border Patrol agents caught an alleged smuggler trying to disguise its SUV as one of the agency's vehicles, officials said Friday.

Border Patrol agents caught a smuggler driving a Chevy Tahoe that was painted to look like one of the agency’s vehicle, according to KRGV-TV. Vehicles are usually painted to act as delivery or telecommunications trucks to try and fool agents, but it’s unusual to see a Border Patrol vehicle to be copied.
Border Patrol in Laredo found 12 people stuffed in the back of the imposter vehicle. Agents knew the vehicle was a fake as soon as they found it.
“There’s no fender, there’s no ground effect on any of our vehicles, Omar Zamora, an agent with the Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley sector, told KRGV-TV. “They’re actually pretty bare and about as high as we get the vehicle, because we do go off road.”
Zamora said any agent would’ve recognized the SUV.
“In the 18 years that I’ve been in the Border Patrol, we’ve seen UPS, FedEx trucks, Time Warner trucks, any kind of clones. Any business you can think of. The smugglers are trying to clone it to avoid law enforcement detection,” Zamora added.
Zamora said the numbers and codes on each unit means something and was confident a clone couldn’t conceal a crime in the region.
Border Patrol said this is the first cloned unit in recent memory in the Laredo area and has urged the public to call law enforcement if they see something suspicious.

ACLU Cartoon

Colorado ACLU official resigns after suggesting Trump supporters be shot

Loring Wirbel

 

 The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado said on Friday it had accepted the resignation of a co-chair who came under criticism for a Facebook post that said people who insist on voting for Donald Trump should be told they will be shot.

Loring Wirbel, who served as co-chair of the Colorado Springs chapter of the ACLU, also compared Trump, the current Republican presidential frontrunner, to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Wirbel's Facebook comments were reported by the conservative website "The Daily Caller" and caught the ire of Trump supporters and members of the Republican Party in Colorado.
"The thing is, we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, 'This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before election day'," Wirbel wrote of Facebook, according to the Daily Caller.
"They’re not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there’s always force," the post read.
The comments could no longer be found on Wirbel's personal Facebook page.
Daniel Cole, executive director of the El Paso County Republican Party, called for Wirbel to be replaced at the ACLU, saying the comments were irresponsible and especially insensitive coming two weeks after of a gunman killed three people and wounded nine at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.
"It's beyond belief that he would think it was acceptable to post something like that," Cole told the Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs.
Wirbel said the comments were not meant to be taken seriously.
"They are taking that stuff out of context. It's smear politics," he told the newspaper.
The ACLU said in a statement on Friday it had accepted Wirbel's resignation and did not condone the sentiments.

 

 

Carson threatens to leave Republican Party

Carson threatens to leave GOP: I won't be part of deception

Presidential hopeful Ben Carson threatened Friday to leave the Republican Party.   
The retired neurosurgeon lashed out Friday morning at reports of a recent closed-door meeting of Republican establishment leaders focused on deep divisions within the GOP electorate, particularly the continued strength of billionaire businessman Donald Trump.
The Washington Post reported that the group, including Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, discussed the possibility of a "brokered national convention" if there isn't a clear winner in the party's months long primary election season.   
"If this was the beginning of a plan to subvert the will of the voters and replace it with the will of the political elite, I assure you Donald Trump will not be the only one leaving the party," Carson said  in a statement that referenced Trump's repeated threats to leave the GOP if treated "unfairly."   
"I pray that the report in the Post this morning was incorrect," Carson added. "If it is correct, every voter who is standing for change must know they are being betrayed. I won't stand for it."
The Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to questions about the meeting and Carson's threat.   
A third-party run by Carson or Trump would be a nightmare scenario for the GOP. While Carson is slipping in recent polls, an independent bid that siphoned even a few percentage points away from the party's nominee could make it all but impossible for the Republican nominee to win the general election.   
Spokesman Doug Watts said Carson was appalled at reports suggesting that Republican leaders were trying to manipulate the party's presidential nominating process. He acknowledged that Carson, like Trump and the rest of Republican field, signed a pledge not to launch a third-party bid.   
"The pledge isn't meaningless," Watts said. "But he signed the pledge based on everybody playing by the rules."

Trump's name, image removed at Dubai development amid uproar

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates –  The image and name of American presidential hopeful Donald Trump was gone on Friday from parts of a Dubai golf course and housing development amid the uproar over his comments about banning Muslims from traveling to the United States.
A billboard showing Trump golfing had been at the Damac Properties' Akoya development, as well as an image of Trump's daughter Ivanka. All that remained Friday was the brown background, though another billboard declaring the development "The Beverly Hills of Dubai" remained.
Also, pieces of letters that appeared to spell out Trump's name had been pulled down from a stone wall, the letters left lying on the sandy ground.
Damac Properties declined to comment. It earlier said it "would not comment further on Mr. Trump's personal or political agenda, nor comment on the internal American political debate scene."
Trump has for years looked to do business in the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf and the emirate of Dubai. But some of his rhetoric about Islam on the campaign trail -- including his call to monitor mosques and his proposal this week to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S. -- has led to increased wariness in the Arab world.
Earlier this week, Dubai-based Landmark Group pulled all Trump home decor products at its 180 Lifestyle stores over his comments.

1 billion dollar weapons deal from Obama, think about it ???

Feds warn of bogus batch of Syrian passports amid report ISIS can print them

Former FBI official: Fake Syrian passports a concern

 

 

Fake Syrian passports aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, but they can be had for as little as $200, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security that could call into question the ability to screen Middle East refugees fleeing to the West.
The 18-page report, circulated to law enforcement agencies across the nation, warns that a certain batch of Syrian passports – those issued since June 2014 from two regions under the Islamic State control, Deir- ez-Zour and Raqqa – are likely to be phonies, based on the fact one was bought on the black market in Turkey.
“The person who was issued the passport did not have to travel to Deir- ez-Zour to obtain it,” the report states. “Therefore, it is believed that passport issuance code 014 pertains to Deir- ez-Zour.”

“The lack of ability to verify information with the Syrian government about how many passports may be vulnerable for exploitation in former provincial and regional government buildings will make attempts to analyze the scale of the problem difficult.”
- DHS report to law enforcement agencies

The report, developed with intelligence from Homeland Security Investigations and the State Department, also asserts ISIS is using its own passport printing machines to generate the bogus documents with covers printed in Russia, and then selling them for between $200 and $400.
Intelligence agencies have already flagged some 3,800 counterfeit Syrian passports, and will add data on another 10,000 fake Syrian passports recently intercepted in Bulgaria on the way to Germany. The sheer volume of fake passports flooding the market as refugees – or terrorists posing as refugees - pour into Europe has investigators on edge. The fake Syrian passports will add to an already challenging problem of vetting Syrian refugees, said Claude Arnold, a former DHS Investigations special agent in charge for Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
“In absence of specific intelligence that identifies the refugee as a member ISIS, we are not going to know they are a member of ISIS," Arnold said. "We don’t have those boots on the ground in Syria, no one is really gathering that information, it’s a no mans land. So their application is based solely on story that person tells. It is dangerous, it is idiotic."
Arnold said in the past, war criminals were able to get into the U.S. by telling convincing stories about being persecuted on religious or political grounds because they were actually involved as persecutors. Some war criminals became permanent residents and citizens of the U.S., before being caught, because there was a lag time to get information on what occurred.
“Now it’s much worse," he continued. "The war criminals were not coming here to wage jihad, they just wanted to hide out, but these terrorists are coming to do us harm. We have the same vulnerability, but the consequences are potentially much more dire.”
The report makes the same point, if in the language of bureaucrats.
“The lack of ability to verify information with the Syrian government about how many passports may be vulnerable for exploitation in former provincial and regional government buildings will make attempts to analyze the scale of the problem difficult,” the report said.
Adding to the problem, Homeland Security Investigations believes the police force in Deir ez-Zour, Syria, may be involved in issuing and distributing counterfeit passports, because a forged Syrian passport that turned up in Turkey in July displayed the signature of Zuhair Hamad saad Al deen, head of the Deir ez-Zour Police.

Related Image

Expand / Contract

The Homeland Security Investigations specifically has asked all U.S. government personnel to be on the lookout for former Syrian Ministry of Interior employees or former Syrian immigration officials applying for U.S. visas, refugee status, asylum, or green cards or who tries to enter the U.S. through Ports of Entry, noting “they should be thoroughly debriefed.”
They’ve also entered information on the 3,800 fake passports investigators have tracked into U.S. databases, although it wasn’t clear from the report if those 3,800 fake passports have turned up in the U.S.
Terrorists involved in the deadly Nov. 13 attack in Paris, which left 130 dead and 350 injured, used fake Syrian passports to enter France, the report notes.
The U.S. has already accepted 2,500 Syrian refugees into the country since 2011.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees continue to flee the war torn country, crossing into Turkey, Greece and Europe.
The Obama administration plans to welcome some 10,000 Syrian refugees to the U.S. in the coming year.
Governors of more than half of U.S. states, as well as many members of Congress, have expressed concerns about the Obama administration’s plan, because they are concerned terrorists may enter the country through the refugee resettlement program. Critics of the plan note many Syrian refugees often have little documentation or documentation that cannot be verified when they apply for refugee status in the U.S.
"That's the challenge we are all talking about, is that we can only query against that which we have collected," FBI Director James Comey testified in Congress last month. "And so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home but ... there will be nothing show up because we have no record on that person."
However, the president has maintained his administration has a solid screening plan to accept the 10,000 refugees from Syria in addition to the 70,000 refugees fleeing war and religious persecution, the U.S. regularly accepts from around the world. Homeland Security Department, State Department and U.S. intelligence will head up vetting process.
Fox News is told through one such source that given this assessment, it is possible that individuals possessing these fake passports have travelled to the U.S. This source adds, however, that there is no evidence at this time to suggest that that is the case.
A Syrian looking to enter the United States would still be required to obtain a visa, since Syria is not one of the 38 “Visa Waiver” countries acknowledged by the U.S.
Through that visa process, that individual would be subject to screening procedures which would include background checks against U.S. terror databases, Fox News is told.

$1 billion weapons deal for Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON -- Barring last minute opposition from Congress, Saudi Arabia is poised to receive a hefty $1.3 billion weapons package that includes 13,000 “smart bombs” from the United States by the end of the year. But don’t necessarily expect it to be used to fight ISIS.
Critics say the payload of sophisticated weapons will instead bolster the Saudis' continuing air war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. That campaign is drawing fire from human rights groups, who say the kingdom has been targeting civilians with American-made weapons, and may be responsible for war crimes.
“President Obama is poised to sell thousands of bombs and warheads to a government that unlawfully targets civilians,” Amnesty International, which has been lobbying hard for Congress to kill the deal, said in a statement Thursday.
More than 5,700 people, including at least 2,577 civilians — 637 of them children — have been killed in the eight months Saudi Arabia has led a coalition of Gulf States in the bombing campaign, according to the United Nations. Another 2.3 million have been displaced. Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that "almost two-thirds of reported civilian deaths had allegedly been caused by coalition airstrikes.”
“By selling the Saudis the weapons included in the latest deal, the U.S. will be further implicated in possible war crimes committed in Yemen and it will be helping to fuel an unnecessary war,” charged Daniel Larison, senior editor at The American Conservative magazine.
“At the same time the Saudis are using U.S. weapons in Yemen, they and the other members of their coalition have withdrawn their small contributions to the campaign against ISIS and diverted their resources to the fight that they consider to be more important,” he added.
The coalition has denied the accusations in published reports. Saudi Arabia is determined to beat back the Houthis, who deposed President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, in February. The Houthis are said to be getting support from the Iranians, and the conflict is largely seen as part of a regional stuggle between the Sunni Gulf States and Shia Iran.
After strikes killed 70 people at a wedding in Yemen in September, Saudi officials warned not to jump to conclusions. They have since blocked an international inquiry into war crimes there.  “We need to be careful about facts and fiction,” Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters at the time.
The concerns, however, have not escaped members of Congress, which has had 30 days to review the deal before it goes through.
While Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supports the action in Yemen, he has requested “that the committee be notified of future weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia resulting from this proposed sale,” according to an email forwarded to Foxnews.com from the committee.
He is joined by ranking member Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who has raised alarms about the human rights issue, along with other Democratic members.
They are not expected to stop the sale, however. It is the most recent in a long line of arms deals brokered with Riyadh -- $90 billion worth since 2010, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Reached for comment, the State Department, which engineered the sale, called Saudi Arabia “a key U.S. strategic partner within the region,” and that “the purchase of these munitions will rebuild Saudi Arabia’s inventory, helping them to meet their defense requirements over the long term.”
On the human rights issue, the State Department says it has “noted our concern several times regarding civilian casualties and deaths in Yemen,” and has encouraged the coalition to investigate “credible accounts of civilian casualties.”
“Ultimately, we want to see a diplomatic solution,” the agency said, and noted the start of peace talks in December, in concert with a seven-day ceasefire.
Saudi Arabia, a long time ally of the U.S. in the Middle East, has nonetheless been the subject of criticism on a number of fronts. In addition to its human rights record in Yemen, the kingdom has been cited for abuses at home, including beheadings over the last year for crimes such as “sorcery” and “apostasy” against Islam. The legal system is based on sharia law, and religious freedoms there are all but non-existent, say critics.
Saudi Arabia is also the birthplace of Wahhabism, the radical fundementalist strain of Islam practiced by global terror groups like ISIS today. While the kingdom has partnered in counterterrorism operations with the U.S. and its Gulf neighbors, it is also accused of turning a blind eye while the country’s elites pour billions into extremist mosques, madrassas, and terror-related organizations across the globe.
Tafheen Malik, one of the shooters in the recent San Bernardino attack, came to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia.
“At a minimum they have to stop aiding and abetting Wahhabism; I would hope that the administration would make that a condition,” said former Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who is now the Jerry and Susie Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom at Baylor University, and lobbies often on Capitol Hill for protection of religious minorities in the Middle East conflict zones.
Saudi officials have long denied the complaints and have often pushed back against detractors. Early this year, they blocked an arms agreement with Sweden after its foreign minister Margot Wallstrom called the kingdom a dictatorship and criticized the sentence of 1,000 lashings it imposed on a blogger there. The kingdom called her remarks "offensive."
But the issue has become so pronounced in recent months due to the terror attacks in Europe, that world leaders are speaking out more. In a moment of candor this week, the German Vice Chancellor accused the kingdom of financing terror.
“We have to make clear to the Saudis that the time of looking away is over,” Vice Chancellor Gabriel Signar told Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview.
“Wahhabi mosques all over the world are financed by Saudi Arabia,” he added. “Many Islamists who are a threat to public safety come from these communities in Germany.”
Critics like Wolf say the U.S. has been trying to get Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to step up their game in the fight against ISIS and maybe such a lucrative weapons package sends the wrong message.
“You need American intelligence, American special ops, but you need boots on the ground from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan,” he said. “They need to start participating. This is absolutely critical before giving them weapons and aid.”
Corker is not as willing to blame Saudi Arabia so quickly.
“(Corker) also believes the U.S. should encourage greater involvement of our coalition partners in the fight against ISIS, but he thinks the perception of U.S. disengagement resulting from the Obama administration’s approach to the region, especially after the Iran nuclear deal, is hindering that effort,” his office said Friday.
A breakdown of the munitions being sold to the kingdom can be found on the State Department website.

Harry Reid Cartoon