Senator pressing HHS for answers on ObamaCare ad spending

A Senate committee is looking into the millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on ads to promote ObamaCare enrollment.
FoxNews.com has confirmed the Health and Human Services budget for “paid media” is about $35 million for the current enrollment period – focusing on the 38 states using HealthCare.gov.
But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, raised concerns that agency ad spending is becoming a “black box” that is difficult to track. Citing a study that also showed the total federal government budget for ads and PR was nearly $1 billion in fiscal 2013, Hatch recently fired off a letter to the acting head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) asking for a full accounting of agency ad spending.
“Increased transparency on government spending on advertising will improve accountability and help ensure that the taxes from hardworking Americans are not squandered and wasted on ineffective or misguided government programs,” he wrote to Acting Administrator Andrew M. Slavitt.
Politico first reported that HHS was spending the $35 million to run ads in English and Spanish to encourage people to sign up. Hatch cited the report in sending the letter to Slavitt.
An HHS spokesman declined to provide details to FoxNews.com beyond confirming that CMS planned to spend $35 million on paid media advertisements. The department is also using email and social media, and is partnering with 30 women’s organizations to target women, but it remains unclear whether those efforts are included in the HHS advertising budget.
The spokesman said in an email that they “have gotten smarter about how we reach people but we need to get even smarter, and the lessons we learn from testing will continue to pay dividends on enrolling the uninsured for years to come.”
Hatch’s committee set a Nov. 25 deadline for information on the spending. The push to promote the health care exchanges comes after HHS estimated 10 million people would enroll in ObamaCare by the end of 2016, a far lower number than the original prediction that enrollment would reach 21 million by the end of 2016. This comes as America’s largest insurer, UnitedHealth Group, suggested Thursday it might consider dropping out of the exchanges in 2017, citing flagging enrollment and high costs.
It is difficult to accurately ascertain how much the federal government spends annually on advertising and messaging campaigns because no government-wide definition of advertising exists, and there is no central authority with oversight responsibility over media contracts.
According to a June 2014 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, the Obama administration spent a minimum of $4.4 billion on outside advertising contracts between fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2013, a figure that did not include in-house expenditures.
HHS was second only to the Department of Defense, spending $197.4 million on advertising in fiscal 2013, CRS reported.
Hatch’s letter is not the first time ObamaCare promotions have raised concern.
In 2012, reports that HHS was spending $20 million on a campaign to promote ObamaCare drew similar scrutiny and demands for details from Congress.
In 2010, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported the Obama administration spent nearly $20 million on a Medicare brochure that contained “instances in which HHS presented abbreviated information and a positive view of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that is not universally shared.”
GAO concluded that “nothing in the brochure constitutes communications that are purely partisan, self-aggrandizing, or covert.”
Another HHS agency has drawn the attention of the Senate Budget Committee after The Washington Post reported the public relations firm Edelman was hired to “refine their agency messaging” with reporters.
“Agency spending on advertising, public relations and media relations is largely a black box,” committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., wrote in an October letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan seeking details about the firm’s contract with HHS’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
In its fiscal 2016 budget, SAMSHA asked for $16 million for “public awareness and support.”
Noting the Obama administration consistently asks for Congress to raise the debt limit, Enzi said any “unnecessary media relations spending is a cost that the nation simply cannot afford.”
A committee spokesman said OMB missed its deadline, but noted they are working to provide the requested materials.

Carson says refugee screening must 'determine the mad dogs'

MOBILE, Ala. –  Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Thursday that blocking potential terrorists posing as Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. is akin to handling a rabid dog.
At campaign stops in Alabama, Carson said halting Syrian resettlement in the U.S. doesn't mean America lacks compassion.
"If there's a rabid dog running around in your neighborhood, you're probably not going to assume something good about that dog," Carson told reporters at one stop. "It doesn't mean you hate all dogs, but you're putting your intellect into motion."
Carson said that to "protect my children," he would "call the humane society and hopefully they can come take this dog away and create a safe environment once again."
He continued: "By the same token, we have to have in place screening mechanisms that allow us to determine who the mad dogs are, quite frankly. Who are the people who want to come in here and hurt us and want to destroy us?"
He later repeated the comparison at a rally at the University of South Alabama, while telling hundreds of supporters that reporters had misrepresented his earlier remarks. "This is the kind of thing that they do," he said, drawing laughs and applause.
Carson is among the GOP hopefuls who have called for closing the nation's borders to Syrian refugees in the wake of the shooting and bombing attacks in Paris that killed 129 people and wounded hundreds more.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the carnage, stoking fears of future attacks across Europe and in the U.S.
The retired neurosurgeon, who is near the top of many national and early state preference polls, said he's been in touch with House GOP leaders about their efforts to establish new hurdles for Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to enter the U.S.
Dozens of Democrats joined majority Republicans in the House to pass the measure on Thursday. It would require the FBI to conduct background checks on people coming to the U.S. from those countries. The heads of the FBI and Homeland Security Department and the director of national intelligence would have to certify to Congress that each refugee "is not a threat to the security of the United States."
Asked whether he would sign it, Carson said he hasn't reviewed the details. "If, in fact, it does satisfy basic needs for safety, of course," Carson said.
The Council on American-Islamic relations condemned Carson's dog comparisons at the same time it blasted another GOP hopeful, Donald Trump, for declining to rule out setting up a U.S. government database and special identification cards for Muslims in America.
"Such extremist rhetoric is unbecoming of anyone who seeks our nation's highest office and must be strongly repudiated by leaders from across the political spectrum," said Robert McCaw's, CAIR's government affairs manager.
In Mobile, Carson said, "Islam itself is not necessarily our adversary." But he said Americans are justified in seeing threats from Muslim refugees and the U.S. shouldn't "completely change who we are as Americans just so we can look like good people."
He continued: "We have an American culture, and we have things that we base our values and principles on. I, for one, am not willing to give all those things away just so I can be politically correct."
Separately, Carson said Thursday that Islamic State militants are more organized and sophisticated than the al-Qaida terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks.
Those attacks, he said, "really didn't require a great deal of sophistication because we weren't really paying attention."
He added, "You didn't have to be that great. You had to be able to fly a couple of planes. You're going to have to be a lot more sophisticated than that now."
Carson's spoke a few days after some people in and around his campaign offered public concerns about his command of foreign policy. The chief critic, former CIA agent Duane Clarridge, told The New York Times that Carson struggles with Middle Eastern affairs.
He "not an adviser," Carson said, adding that Armstrong Williams, his longtime business manager, also "has nothing to do with my campaign."
Williams spoke to the Times, the Associated Press and other media about Carson's need to improve as a candidate. Carson described Williams as an independent operator who "speaks for himself."
But, Carson acknowledged, Williams as recently as this week helped the candidate edit a foreign policy op-ed the campaign sent to The Washington Post.

NBC executive says she didn’t mean to offend Latino lawmakers: ‘Yo hablo español’

If Latino lawmakers thought they were going to walk out of a meeting with NBC executives feeling assured that the media company was turning a new leaf following protests over Donald Trump's appearance on "Saturday Night Live," they were sorely mistaken.
Things turned tense almost immediately when NBC News President Deborah Turness began talking about undocumented immigrants and referred to them as "illegals" – a term that is not only considered offensive to many Latinos but one that has also fallen out of favor in many parts of the country.
According to a story by Politico, Turness was telling Hispanic members of the House about NBC's integration with their Spanish-language network, Telemundo, which included a story about Pope Francis' visit to the U.S. and his meeting with a young girl who was afraid her parents would be deported because they're "illegals."
"I'm going to stop you right there. We use the term undocumented immigrants," California Democratic, Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) told Turness, who apologized for the remark.
Later, she tried to assure the lawmakers that the network understood the community and its concerns.
"We love the Hispanic community,” she said. “Yo hablo español."
The meeting was already expected to be tense given the strong backlash from Latino leaders and activist groups after the announcement that Trump would host SNL.
The furor against Trump began in June when he announced his Republican candidacy for president and described some Mexicans who are in the United States illegally as criminals and rapists.
Hours before his appearance on the show's earlier in November, dozens of protesters marched from Trump Tower to NBC's studio in Rockefeller Plaza, carrying signs and chanting in both English and Spanish. In Spanish, they chanted: "The people united shall never be defeated." Signs called the show racist.
Trump's comments last summer did spur NBC to sever its Miss Universe ties with him while declaring he would never return to his "Apprentice" role. But leading up to his appearance, NBC did not respond to accusations that it had reversed itself because they invited him to host the show.
The meeting between Latino leaders and NBC was expected to ease the animosity that the network has generated from the Trump fiasco, but Turness appeared to do more harm than good with her comments during the sit-down.
Lawmakers left irate at Turness and her fellow NBC executives.
The NBC officials gathered at the meeting also told the lawmakers that they could not discuss Trump's SNL appearance because they represented the news side of NBC, prompting the lawmakers to question why the network didn't make more of an effort to include someone from the entertainment side.
"There was a lot of frustration in the room," said California Democratic Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.). "You know that (Trump is) an issue on all of our minds and as soon as you start talking about it, you say none of the executives for the entertainment (division) are here. It was a cop out. It was disingenuous."
The meeting "was about them sitting down with the Hispanic caucus for the sake of saying they met with us," Cárdenas added. "Like that is progress."
While little progress was made toward resolving the anger over Trump's "SNL" appearance, NBC News did make some steps to toward promoting diversity in the newsroom – including adding more Hispanic correspondents to "NBC Nightly News." The company also said Jose Diaz-Balart, an MSNBC and Telemundo host, will officially become a rotating anchor on the Saturday edition of "Nightly News" and will be a regular contributor to "Meet the Press."
Yet, the lawmakers did not leave satisfied.
"Members left more offended and more upset then when they walked in there. There was major 'Hispandering,'" said a Democratic staffer. "There is definitely hurt there."

France PM says Paris attacks ringleader used migrant crisis to get into country

France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Friday some of the Paris attackers, including the mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, exploited the Syrian refugee crisis to slip into the country unnoticed.
Abaaoud, the ringleader behind last Friday’s bombings and shootings in the French capital that killed 129 people, was able to get into Europe undeterred, according to French authorities. The 28-year-old had also been linked to several plots around France including a thwarted attack by a gunman on a high-speed train in August.
French officials confirmed Thursday Abaaoud was killed in an anti-terror raid Wednesday in a suburb north of Paris. He was identified from skin samples after the Saint-Denis apartment raid.
Abaaoud had claimed he successfully moved back and forth from Europe to Syria coordinating terror attacks, and narrowly escaped a January police raid in the Belgian city of Verviers. “Allah blinded their vision and I was able to leave... despite being chased after by so many intelligence agencies," he told the ISIS magazine Dabiq.
Two counterterrorism officials told Fox News on Thursday that Abaaoud is comparable to Mohammed Atta – the “tactical guy” who identified and pulled together the operatives.
Police say they launched Wednesday's operation after receiving information from tapped phone calls, surveillance and tipoffs suggesting that Abaaoud was holed up in the apartment. Investigators said it was still unclear how he died. Eight other people were arrested.
French authorities did not know he was in Europe before the massacre, France's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Thursday. He demanded Europe do everything in its power to "vanquish terrorism."
Valls said some of the Paris attackers had taken advantage of the massive influx of migrants into Europe fleeing war in the Middle East.
"These individuals took advantage of the refugee crisis ... of the chaos, perhaps, for some of them to slip in" to France, he told French TV. "Others were in Belgium already. And others, I must remind you, were in France."
Valls also warned that the passport-free Schengen zone is a risk of Europe fails to “take responsibility” over border controls, according to Sky News. European Union ministers are expected to meet in Brussels where they are expected to tighten border security in each of the 26-member nations.
Hasna Aitboulahcen, described as Abaaoud’s cousin, was also killed in the anti-terror raid Wednesday when she activated a suicide belt and blew herself up.
Police now turn their attention to two other suspects who are believed to have participated in the attacks. Police have identified one of them as Salah Abdeslam, who grew up in the same Belgian district as Abaaoud, the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek.
There was no indication Abdeslam escaped to neighboring Spain or tried to do so, Spanish Interior Miniister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said. He told Antena 3 television that security officials from several countries were called together in Paris to discuss the possibility that Abdeslam might try to cross into a country bordering France.
Spanish police say French authorities sent a bulletin to officers across Europe asking them to watch out for a Citroen Xsara car that could be carrying Abdeslam.
Abaaoud's death may provide some relief not only for Europeans, but also for his own family. “We are praying that Abdelhamid really is dead,” his sister, Yasmina, said last year, The New York Times reported. At the time, there was word he died fighting for ISIS, but it eventually emerged that he escaped Syria for Europe.
His own father, Omar, said the jihadi "dishonored" his family, the Times added.

Cuban Cartoon

Better red than fed: California school's communist Che Cafe needs handout

It may offer the best political science course on campus, but the lessons are lost on bureaucrats: UC-San Diego's fabled "Che Cafe" is awash in red ink and in need of a bailout.
Students have run the restaurant, named for Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, for 34 years, but they've steered it into the ground. Boasting of "exorbitantly low" prices, the vegan co-op and concert venue that once hosted an up-and-coming Nirvana has cost the student body nearly $1 million over the years, and isn’t kept up to fire or safety codes. The ragtag band of volunteer staffers, who call themselves a "collective," faced eviction in March, but have persuaded the school to save their beloved stronghold.
"I would say the current students have gotten a lot more involved in the Ché since all this started,” Fabiola Orozco, a fourth-year psychology major and Ché collective member, told the San Diego Reader.

"To execute a man we don’t need proof of his guilt."
- Che Guevara

Orozco was involved in talks with school Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, who is in talks to have the school pay for a new fire suppression sprinkler system, a fire alarm pull system, tempered windows, and a “travel/exit path evaluation” -- all items needed to bring the building up to code.

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Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, seen here in an Associated Press file photo, is the namesake of a nonprofit collective cafe that's brewing controversy on the campus of the University of California-San Diego.

"Vice Chancellor – Student Affairs Juan González and his team have been meeting with the Che Collective representatives over the course of several weeks," school spokesman Jeff Gattas said in a statement. "The discussions have been productive and we remain optimistic that we will be able to address the fire and life safety upgrades at the Che Café. We look forward to the continued dialogue."

The code violations earned the cafe a 180-day eviction notice back in March, but supporters and volunteers staffed it around the clock in anticipation of a standoff with sheriff's deputies. That prompted Khosla to postpone the eviction in July and schedule talks with the students. Earlier this month, school administrators told The College Fix they are exploring how to subsidize the repairs, and committed to footing the bill.

The cafe's supporters believe it has historical significance.
“The venue has been operating for 34 years and it’s the longest-running volunteer space in Southern California, if not in all of California,” café volunteer Rene Vera told FoxNews.com last year. “And our building is covered in murals that document a lot of that history.”
But there are critics on campus who believe a failing cafe that celebrates a murderous revolutionary does not deserve public funds. But Amanda Fitzmorris, chairwoman of the College Republicans at UCSD, told The College Fix that the space "celebrates a dictator who enforced a murderous totalitarian police state that clamped down on free expression." Her group spray-painted one of Guevara's most infamous quotes, “To execute a man we don’t need proof of his guilt,” on a mural in a campus free speech zone to raise awareness to Guevara's legacy.
The cafe's namesake, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who was killed in Bolivia in 1967, was a key figure in the Cuban Revolution he fought alongside Fidel Castro. His legacy remains a contentious issue decades after his death, but the guerilla leader has enjoyed a posthumous resurgence in popularity among some circles, in no small part to the "Guerrillero Heroico" image characterized by some as the world's most famous photograph.
Students shouldn't have to prop up a failing business just because of their classmates' nostalgic romanticism, said one student.
"I do not believe Che Cafe closing will be a severe blow to the campus' overall aesthetic," soon-to-be graduate Marco Vasquez, a political science major and vice chair of the university's College Republicans, told FoxNews.com in an email last year. "The majority of students that I have spoken to do not know what or where the Che Cafe is, given that it is on the edge of campus. Those who do know either visit it regularly or describe it as creepy."

Contrary to Obama claim, US has history of admitting refugees based on faith

Immigration experts give President Obama Pinocchios for his claim that the U.S. has never used “religious tests” to determine which refugees get passage to America.
Russian and Ethiopian Jews, Armenians Christians and Catholics from Vietnam have all been moved to the front of the line in previous eras based on their faith, according to historians. And giving one religious group preference is tantamount to sending others to the back of the lines, noted immigration experts.
“Clearly, there have been policies that said we will consider certain people from certain religions,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

“I don’t know that I would say put Christians at the front of the line in every case, but I would say, as a policy, to put religious minorities first.”
- Randall Everett, 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative

Obama spoke after more than 30 governors and virtually all Republican presidential candidates called for a moratorium on Syrian refugees amid fears that ISIS terrorists may have infiltrated the desperate wave of mostly Muslims pouring out of the Middle East. Obama has called for the U.S. to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees through an expedited process. Critics, who say it is impossible to screen them, objected on national security concerns, but Obama likened their opposition to religious discrimination.
“When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution -- that’s shameful,” Obama said, in an apparent swipe at senators and GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both children of Cuban immigrants. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”

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Among the hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees, some fear ISIS plants are hiding. (United Nations)

But under the 1990 law known as the Lautenberg Amendment, the federal government initially granted a presumption of refugee eligibility for Jews and Christians fleeing the former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia. Nowadays, the amendment, extended last year by Obama, prioritizes the resettlement of Jews, Christians, Baha’is, and other religious minorities who flee Iran.
Obama, his critics and some experts appear to have taken at least three sides in the debate. The president believes not taking in Muslim refugees is religious discrimination; critics say doing so could expose Americans to Islamic extremists who hide among them and still others who spoke to FoxNews.com say religious minorities, which in the Middle East are Christians, deserve priority.
The State Department has even indicated that Syria’s Christian community, which made up an estimated 10 percent of that country’s population prior to the civil war, and has faced horrific brutality from Islamic State, should get preferential treatment based on their status.
“Due to the unique needs of vulnerable religious minority communities, the State Department has prioritized the resettlement of Syrian Christian refugees and other religious minorities fleeing the conflict,” wrote the department’s Special Advisor for Religious Minorities, Knox Thames, in a recent email.
Any religious minority is at greater risk and therefore due extra consideration, said Randall Everett, president of 21^st Century Wilberforce Initiative, a Virginia-based nonprofit dedicated to fighting religious persecution.
“I don’t know that I would say put Christians at the front of the line in every case, but I would say, as a policy, to put religious minorities first,” Everett said. “In Iraq and Syria, Christians and Yazidis are the minority, and their situation is dire.”
The whole argument may be moot anyway, given that determining anyone’s true identity – much less their religion – may not always be possible in the chaotic and war-torn region where phony documents are everywhere and desperate people and evil terrorists will both say whatever they must to achieve their goal.
“It would not be unprecedented to choose refugees in part on the basis of their religion,” said Jessica Vaughan,  of the Center for Immigration Studies. “ Nevertheless, a program to focus resettlement on Syrian Christians is still risky, for the same reasons as one that does not specify religion. We still have no way to ascertain the true identities of the applicants, or verify their claims.”

Fox News Poll: Trump rules GOP race in New Hampshire, Sanders by 1 over Clinton

Donald Trump leads the race for the Republican nomination in New Hampshire, while Bernie Sanders edges Hillary Clinton among Democrats.
That’s according to the latest Fox News poll, released Wednesday, and conducted since Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris.
Trump leads with 27 percent of New Hampshire Republican primary voters.  Marco Rubio receives the support of 13 percent, just above Ted Cruz at 11 percent.  That’s it for the double-digit candidates.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
Jeb Bush and Ben Carson garner 9 percent each, followed by John Kasich at 7 percent and Chris Christie at 6 percent.
Just three percent back Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul, while Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum get one percent each.
There are differences in how some candidates are doing in New Hampshire versus their recent national standing (pre-Paris).  For example, Carson is Trump’s closest competitor nationally, yet he doesn’t break double digits here.  And the reverse is true for Bush, Christie and Kasich, who do better in New Hampshire than nationally.
The poll, however, also shows that the race is in flux: 55 percent of GOP primary voters say they could change their mind before February’s balloting.  Less than half, 44 percent, feel certain of their choice.  
When asked about their second choice candidate, GOP primary voters put Carson at the top of the list at 16 percent.  Rubio is close behind at 13 percent and Trump at 11 percent.
When first and second-choice preferences are combined, Trump (38 percent) and Rubio (26 percent) are still at the top.  However, Carson (25 percent) moves above Cruz (20 percent) and Bush (16 percent).
The favorites among those NH GOP primary voters who identify as “very” conservative are Cruz (27 percent), Trump (26 percent), Carson (13 percent) and Rubio (13 percent).
Here’s how the race for the Democratic nomination stands:  Sanders has a razor-thin one-point edge over Clinton -- 45-44 percent. Martin O’Malley gets 5 percent.
Sanders can thank younger voters for his edge.  Those under age 45 back him by 29 points (59-30 percent).  Those ages 45 and over are more likely to support Clinton by 17 points (52-35 percent).
Men go for Sanders over Clinton by 49-37 percent.  Among women, the vote divides 48 percent for Clinton vs. 42 percent for Sanders.

Potential General Election Matchups
All the candidates remain below 50 percent in the hypothetical matchups tested in this battleground state.
Although Trump is the top choice of Republican primary voters, he performs the worst against Clinton in general election ballot tests.  Clinton bests Trump by seven points (47-40 percent), Cruz by three points (44-41 percent) and Christie by one (44-43 percent).
Clinton and Fiorina tie at 43 percent each.
Four Republican candidates come out ahead of the presumptive Democratic nominee:  Rubio is ahead by 7 points (47-40 percent), Bush (45-42 percent) and Kasich (43-40 percent) are up by 3 points each, and Carson has a 2-point edge (45-43 percent).
President Barack Obama won New Hampshire in both the 2012 presidential election (by 52-46 percent over Republican Mitt Romney) and in 2008 (by 54-45 percent over Republican John McCain).
Among New Hampshire voters overall, about 6 in 10 are unhappy with the way things are going in the country today (58 percent), including 31 percent who are “not at all” satisfied.
Nearly 9 of 10 Republicans are dissatisfied with how things are going (86 percent), compared to 60 percent of independents and 29 percent of Democrats.
That dissatisfaction is reflected in Obama’s performance rating, as more New Hampshire voters disapprove (50 percent) than approve (43 percent) of the job he is doing.
The Fox News Poll is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R). The poll was conducted November 15-17, 2015, by telephone (landline and cellphone) with live interviewers among a sample of 804 New Hampshire registered voters selected from a statewide voter file.  Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, and 5.5 points for Democratic primary voters and 5 points for Republican primary voters.  The hypothetical matchups were split sampled, which means each question was only asked of half the sample and the results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 points.