Supreme Court paves way for gay marriage in several states, leaves issue unresolved nationally

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away appeals from five states looking to prohibit gay marriage, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in those states and likely others -- but also leaving the issue unresolved nationally. 
The justices rejected appeals from Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. The court's order immediately ends delays on gay marriage in those states. 
Couples in six other states -- Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming -- also should be able to get married in short order. Those states would be bound by the same appellate rulings that were put on hold pending the Supreme Court's review. That would make same-sex marriage legal in 30 states and the District of Columbia. 
In Utah, Gov. Gary Herbert said he was "surprised" and "disappointed" by Monday's development. But the Republican governor said that "while I continue to believe that the states do have the right to define marriage and create laws regarding marriage, ultimately we are a nation of laws, and we here in Utah will uphold the law." 
With no other state cases currently pending before the court, the decision to reject the appeals means the justices -- for now -- will not be considering the question of same-sex marriage nationwide. 
Experts and advocates on both sides of the issue believed the justices would step in and decide gay marriage cases this term. The justices have an obligation to settle an issue of such national importance, not abdicate that responsibility to lower court judges, the advocates said. Opting out of hearing the cases leaves those lower court rulings in place. 
Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, called on the high court to "finish the job." Wolfson said the court's "delay in affirming the freedom to marry nationwide prolongs the patchwork of state-to-state discrimination and the harms and indignity that the denial of marriage still inflicts on too many couples in too many places." 
Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, an opponent of same-sex marriage, also chastised the court for its "irresponsible denial of review in the cases." 
However, several other lower-court cases still are percolating and eventually could make their way to the Supreme Court. 
Two other appeals courts, in Cincinnati and San Francisco, could issue decisions any time in same-sex marriage cases. Judges in the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit who are weighing pro-gay marriage rulings in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, appeared more likely to rule in favor of state bans than did the 9th Circuit judges in San Francisco, who are considering Idaho and Nevada restrictions on marriage. 
The situation, meanwhile, was changing rapidly Monday in the states affected by the court's latest announcement: 
-- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, said the fight against same-sex marriage "is over" in Wisconsin. "With the Supreme Court's announcement today, it is clear that the position of the court of appeals at the federal level is the law of the land and we're going to go forward enacting it." 
-- Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, said marriage licenses could start to be issued to same-sex couples as early as Monday afternoon. 
-- In North Carolina, lawyers for same-sex couples said they planned to ask a judge Monday to overturn the state's gay marriage ban. 
-- In Oklahoma, the clerk in the largest county said he would await a formal order from the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before he begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That court had placed its ruling striking down the state ban on hold. 
It takes just four of the nine justices to vote to hear a case, but it takes a majority of at least five for an eventual ruling. Monday's opaque order did not indicate how the justices voted on whether to hear the appeals.

Ebola strikes Spanish nurse who treated priests, 30 people under surveillance in Madrid

A Spanish nurse who treated two missionaries for Ebola at a Madrid hospital has tested positive for the virus, Spain's health minister said Monday.
It is the first known transmission of the current outbreak of the disease outside West Africa.
The female nurse was part of the medical team that treated priests Manuel García Viejo, who died on Sept. 26, and Miguel Pajares, who died Aug. 12, at the hospital Carlos III de Madrid.
The infection was confirmed by two separate tests, Health Minister Ana Mato said after an emergency meeting held Monday afternoon in Madrid.
According to El País newspaper, the woman checked herself Monday morning in a hospital in Alcorcón, a suburb southwest of Madrid, with a high fever. The identity of the woman, who according to El Pais is 44 years and has no children, has not been released.
Health officials quoted by the paper say 30 people are currently under surveillance, and it is still being determined who she has been in contact with.
Nobody apart from the woman is in quarantine at the moment.
They said the woman went on vacation after García Viejo’s death, but did not disclose the destination. She led a normal life in recent weeks and her only symptoms were a fever and fatigue, Antonio Alemany, Madrid director of primary health care, said in the news conference.
"We do not know yet what could have failed, we are investigating the mechanism of infection," he said.
The World Health Organization confirmed there has not been a previous transmission outside West Africa in the current outbreak. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told The Associated Press that so far there have only been confirmed cases in West Africa and the United States, and no known transmission outside West Africa. The organization is awaiting official notification of the case from Spanish authorities.
The woman will be transferred for treatment to Madrid's Carlos III hospital, where she has been a nurse for 15 years.
The virus that causes Ebola spreads only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person who is showing symptoms.
Spanish authorities said they were investigating how the nurse became infected at a hospital with modern health care facilities and special equipment for handling cases of deadly viruses.
More than 370 health workers in West Africa have become infected in this outbreak, and more than half of those have died. Doctors and nurses there have worked under difficult conditions, treating patients in overflowing wards, sometimes without proper protection. But even under ideal conditions, experts warn that caring for Ebola patients always involves a risk.
WHO estimates the latest Ebola outbreak has killed more than 3,400 people.

Ex-Fed chief Bernanke denied loan to refinance his home

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke revealed last week that he was turned down when he tried to refinance his home loan.
According to Bloomberg News, Bernanke, in speaking at a conference in Chicago Thursday, told the crowd, “I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful in doing so.”

“I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful . . ."- Ben Bernanke

The audience reportedly laughed, and Bernanke responded: “I’m not making that up.”
“I think it’s entirely possible” that lenders “may have gone a little bit too far on mortgage credit conditions,” he said.
Bernanke also told the conference of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care that the first-time homebuyer market is “not what it should be.”
Bernanke was paid $199,750 annually as head of the central bank and reportedly earned $250,000 in March for his first public speaking engagement since stepping down in January.
He also reportedly received $1 million in a deal to write his memoirs.

Shipment of medical supplies to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone reportedly delayed for weeks

A shipping container filled with approximately $140,000 worth of medical equipment needed to fight the spread of the Ebola virus in the West African country of Sierra Leone has sat untouched on the docks of the country's capital for nearly two months according to a published report. 
According to The New York Times the shipment of hospital linens, protective suits, face masks, and other items arrived in the port of Freetown Aug. 9, but has still not been cleared by government officials.
The Ebola outbreak has killed over 3,000 people, with the vast majority of deaths occurring in Sierra Leone and two other West African countries, Liberia and Guinea. Local health officials have been overwhelmed by the spread of the virus, and some say the case of the delayed container is a vivid illustration of how government corruption has undercut efforts to fight Ebola as well. 
The Times reports that the shipment was organized by Chernoh Alpha Bah, an opposition politician in Sierra Leone. A government official told the paper that approval of the shipment may have been delayed to prevent the opposition from scoring political points about their response to the outbreak. 
The paper also reported that the $6,500 shipping fee for the container had not been paid by the Sierra Leone government, resulting in three other other containers of supplies being kept at the docks by the shipping company. According to The Times, government officials disputed the fee before arguing that proper shipping protocols had not been followed. An official at the country's health ministry said the shipment should have been cleared with them first, before adding that the supplies would be cleared "very soon."
Meanwhile, another would-be donor, an expatriate Sierra Leonean living in Canada, tells the paper his shipment has been delayed for over a month because of the government's unwillingness to pay a $5,000 shipping fee. In context, the government official told The Times that the country has received over $40 million in cash donations to help fight Ebola. 
Sierra Leone is still recovering from an 11-year-long civil war, and the country's health ministry was beset by corruption charges levied at dozens of health officials over misappropriation of vaccination funds.

Biden issues second apology of weekend, after offending US allies in fight to destroy Islamic State

Vice President Biden on Sunday issued his second apology of the weekend for remarks that offended allies that the U.S. needs in the fight to destroy the Islamic State.
Biden apologized by phone Sunday to Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, saying he never meant to imply that his country was supporting Al Qaeda fighters in Syria. Al Nahyan is also the deputy supreme commander of the United Arab Emirates’ armed forces. 
Biden made the remarks at a speech Thursday, suggesting U.S. allies including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had funded and armed extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda. The UAE was exasperated and requested a formal clarification.
"The Turks … the Saudis, the Emirates, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down (Syrian President Bashar) Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war," Biden said during the speech at Harvard University.
"What did they do?” he continued. “They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad -- except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world."
The White House said Biden clarified his remarks Sunday and recognized the UAE's strong steps to counter extremists and participation in U.S.-led air strikes on the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS.
On Saturday, Biden apologized to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for also saying during the speech that the Turkish leader admitted his country made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.
Biden also spoke directly to Erdogan -- to “clarify” his comments and to apologize for “any implication" that Turkey or the other allies had intentionally supplied or helped in the growth of the Islamic State or other extremists groups in Syria, the White House said.
Erdogan denied making such remarks and said Biden would become "history to me" over the comments unless he fixed the situation.
The speech was an especially bad event for the vice president, who has a history of gaffes and unscripted, problem-causing remarks.
Biden also took a question from a student who identified himself as being the vice president of the student body by jokingly saying first: "Ain't that a b-tch? … I mean ... excuse me, the vice president thing?”
In 2010, after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law on national TV, Biden was caught on a live microphone saying to the president this is "a big f---ing deal."
Turkey, a NATO ally, is expected to define the role it will play in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State militants who have captured a swath of Iraq and Syria, in some cases right up to the Turkish border.

Netanyahu: US criticism of Israeli settlements ‘against the American values’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized the White House’s rebuke of his country’s settlement construction as “against American values,” but praised President Obama’s decision to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria.
Israel came under fire last week after a Jerusalem city official signed the final go-ahead for construction of a new housing development in east Jerusalem. Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and considers Jewish housing developments there to be neighborhoods of the city, but the international community, including the U.S., does not recognize Israel's annexation of the area and considers construction there to be illegitimate settlement activity.
In a striking public rebuke last week, the Obama administration warned Israel that the new project would distance Israel from "even its closest allies" and raise questions about its commitment to seeking peace with Palestinians.
Netanyahu, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” called the administration’s condemnation of the project “baffling.”
"It's against the American values. And it doesn't bode well for peace," he said. "The idea that we'd have this ethnic purification as a condition for peace, I think it's anti-peace."
However, Netanyahu said he supported the Obama administration’s decision to launch airstrikes in the battle against the Islamic State, and that Israel is ready to help the U.S. in “every way that we're asked.”
Netanyahu said he believes the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, Hamas and Iran are all locked in a competition to be the dominant militant Islamist group in the Middle East. He said the greatest threat to both the U.S. and Israel is the possibility that one of the groups could “marry their mad ideologies to weapons of mass death.”
"ISIS has got to be defeated because it's doing what all these militant Islamists are trying to do. They all want to first dominate their part of the Middle East, and then go on for their twisted idea of world domination," Netanyahu said. “The difference between ISIS and Hamas and ISIS and Iran and so on is they all agree that the world should be an Islamist hill, but ... each of them wants to be the king of the hill."
Netanyahu also spoke positively about his sometimes testy relationship with Obama, saying he has a good working relationship with the president.
"I don't want to say like an old married couple, but the president said that we had-- he's had more meetings with me than with any other foreign leader,” he said. “And I think you get to a point of mutual respect. You cut to the chase very quickly. You talk about the real things openly, as befitting real allies."

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Greta Van Susteren Scolds Obama for ‘ Childish ’ Snipe at Fox News - " Act Presidential "

Biden apologizes to Turkish President Erdogan for saying Turkey allowed foreign fighters into Syria

Good Old Democrat.

Vice President Biden on Saturday apologized to Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for saying the Turkish leader admitted his country made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.
Biden spoke directly to Erdogan to “clarify” comments made on Thursday at Harvard University and apologized for “any implication" that Turkey or other allies had intentionally supplied or helped in the growth of the Islamic State or other extremists groups in Syria, the White House said.
Erdogan denied making such remarks and said Biden would become "history to me" over the comments at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, in Cambridge, Mass., unless he fixed the situation.
The speech was an especially bad event for the vice president who has a history of gaffes and unscripted, problem-causing remarks.
Biden also took a question from a student who identified himself as being the vice president of the student body by jokingly saying first: Ain't that a b-tch? … I mean ... excuse me, the vice president thing?”
In 2010, after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law on national TV, Biden was caught on a live microphone saying to the president this is "a big f---ing deal."
Biden on Thursday also described Erdogan as "an old friend" but suggested he said privately: “You were right. We let too many people through.”
Turkey is now trying to seal its border.
Erdogan also said: "I have never said to (Biden) that we had made a mistake, never. If he did say this…, then he has to apologize to us.
"Foreign fighters have never entered Syria from our country. They may come to our country as tourists and cross into Syria, but no one can say that they cross in with their arms."
He said Turkey had prevented 6,000 suspected jihadis from entering the country and deported another 1,000.
The spat comes as Turkey, a NATO ally, is expected to define the role it will play in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State militants who have captured a swath of Iraq and Syria, in some cases right up to the Turkish border.
This week Turkey's parliament approved a motion giving the government powers for military operations across the border in Syria and Iraq and for foreign troops to use Turkey's territory.
A day earlier, Biden and Erdogan held a telephone discussion on ways their countries can work together to degrade and destroy Islamic State and restore security and stability to the region, according to the White House.
At Harvard, Biden said that "our biggest problem is our allies" in responding to the civil war in Syria.
"The Turks … the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down (Syrian President Bashar) Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war," Biden said.
"What did they do?” he continued. “They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad -- except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world."
The White House also said in readout of the Biden-Erdogan conversation Saturday: "The two leaders reaffirmed the importance of Turkey and the United States working closely together to confront ISIL," as Islamic State is also known.

CDC chief warns travel ban could make Ebola crisis worse

The head of the CDC said Saturday that imposing a travel ban between the U.S. and West African countries dealing with the Ebola virus could worsen the outbreak that has killed over 3,000 people in five countries. 
"Though we might wish we can seal ourselves off from the world, there are Americans who have the right of return and many other people that have the right to enter this country," Dr. Thomas Frieden told a press conference. "We're not going to be able to get to zero risk no matter what we do unless we control the outbreak in West Africa."
Frieden added that a travel ban could make it difficult to get medical supplies and aid workers to the affected regions in West Africa. 
"We really need to be clear that we don't inadvertently increase the risk to people in this country by making it harder for us to respond to the needs in those countries," he said, "by making it harder to get assistance in and therefore those outbreaks would become worse, go on longer, and paradoxically, something that we did to try and protect ourselves might actually increase our risk."
Health officials have ruled out two potential Ebola cases in the Washington D.C. area, with Howard University Hospital in the District and Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in suburban Maryland confirming that patients who had been kept in isolation did not have the virus. A similar scare in New Jersey, when a passenger on a United Airlines flight from Brussels fell ill, also turned out not to be the virus. 
Frieden said Saturday that officials are “beginning to see some progress” toward controlling the outbreak, “but it's going to be a long hard road.”
Frieden said that they've already gotten "well over" 100 inquiries on suspicious cases in recent months, with an uptick coming after the Dallas patient was diagnosed. Federal officials have said tests have been done on about 15 and all but one -- Duncan -- were false alarms.
Most of the cases don't involve travel to West Africa, "but we'd rather have a wider net cast," said Frieden. That way "we're more likely to find someone promptly if they did actually have exposure and they do actually have symptoms," he said.
The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids -- blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen -- of an infected person who is showing symptoms.
The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United Sates went to a Dallas hospital last week but was mistakenly sent home, despite revealing he was visiting from Liberia, before returning by ambulance days later.
"There were things that did not go the way they should have in Dallas," Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the National Institutes of Health, said Friday. "But there were a lot of things that went right and are going right."
Texas officials now are monitoring 50 people, 10 of whom they consider at high risk, who came into contact with the man, identified as Thomas Eric Duncan. They've had to quarantine four of them, and even had problems getting rid of the infectious waste left in the apartment where the patient stayed.
Texas health officials say Duncan is now in critical condition.
Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said during the Saturday press conference that he took the four to a new home where they will be quarantined for 21 days.
Jenkins, the county top elected official, urged Americans to show compassion for them, saying they are deeply concerned about the public’s health and are people “just like in your family.”

Political Cartoon

VIDEO: President calls out Fox News over ObamaCare coverage

Obama takes heat over swipe at Fox News

President Obama is taking heat for mocking Fox News over its coverage of his health care overhaul. 
The president took the shot Thursday during a speech at Northwestern University in Illinois, as he defended his six-year record in office on the economy, on health care and on the budget. 
He claimed fewer Republicans are "preaching doom on deficits" because deficits are lower. 
On ObamaCare, he added: "There's a reason fewer Republicans, you hear them running about ObamaCare --- because while good, affordable health care might seem like a fanged threat to the freedom of the American people on Fox News, it's turns out it's working pretty well in the real world." 
The president's team, shortly afterward, drove the point home on Twitter: 
But Tim Graham, director of media analysis with the Media Research Center, slammed the president for his remarks. 
"Now ask yourself: Did President George W. Bush ever trash a news network like that?" he wrote on NewsBusters. "Did he ever make a major speech and take a whack at Keith Olbermann? Republicans avoid that, because you can upset the entire liberal media with a remark like that. 
"But Obama bashing Fox is completely acceptable, apparently." 
Graham recalled how Bush was pilloried in the media after being caught on a hot mic calling a New York Times reporter a "major league a-hole." 
"ABC and NBC led off their nightly newscasts with that mini-scandal," Graham noted. 
The president's comments were picked up widely on media news sites, including MediaBistro.com -- one commenter on their article said: "If only this man hated terrorists as much as he hated FOX News ...."

Crew disinfects home where Ebola patient stayed

DALLAS –  A hazardous-materials crew on Friday decontaminated the Texas apartment where an Ebola patient was staying when he got sick, while public-health officials cut by half the number of people being monitored for any symptoms of the deadly disease.
Hours later, the family that was living in the apartment was moved to a private residence in a gated community that was offered by a volunteer.
The decontamination team was to collect bed sheets, towels and a mattress used by the infected man before he was hospitalized, as well as a suitcase and other personal items belonging to Thomas Eric Duncan, officials said.
The materials were sealed in industrial barrels that were to be stored in trucks until they can be hauled away for permanent disposal.
Federal transportation and disease-control officials issued an emergency special permit Friday to allow an Illinois-based company to haul away and dispose of the materials — not only from the apartment but also any from the hospital where Duncan is receiving treatment.
The first Ebola diagnosis in the U.S. has raised concerns about whether the disease that has killed 3,400 people in West Africa could spread in the U.S. Federal health officials say they are confident they can keep it in check.
Elsewhere, NBC News reported that an American freelance cameraman working for the network in Liberia has tested positive for the virus and will be flown back to the United States, along with the rest of the news crew.
Neighbors stood on their balconies and watched the family's grim departure from behind a black tarp hung to shield their front door from view.
The family was placed in a Dallas County deputy's patrol car and driven away, apparently leaving with nothing more than the clothes they wore.
The residence where they will stay had been offered only a short time earlier. Until then, a search for shelter had come up short. The city had been refused by hotels, apartments and other providers.
"No one wants this family," said Sana Syed, a Dallas city spokeswoman.
The family was confined to their home under armed guard while public-health officials monitored them — part of an intense effort to contain the deadly disease before it can get a foothold in the United States.
Louise Troh, originally from Liberia, shares the apartment with her 13-year-old son and two nephews.
When the decontamination is complete, even the crew's protective suits are to be burned, said Tamara Smith, office manager for the Cleaning Guys of Fort Worth.
Judge Clay Jenkins, Dallas County's top administrative official, said he went to the apartment with two epidemiologists to apologize for the delay in removing the soiled items, which happened five days after Duncan was admitted to the hospital.
"I want to see this family treated the way I would want to see my own family treated," Jenkins said.
The confinement order, which also bans visitors, was imposed after the family failed to comply with a request to stay home.
Also Friday, Texas health officials said they had narrowed the number of people they were monitoring from as many as 100 to about 50 who had some type of exposure to Duncan.
Texas Health Commissioner David Lakey said all 50 are meeting with health workers and having their temperatures taken daily. So far, none shows symptoms of the virus. Ten are considered to be at higher risk and are being monitored more closely.
The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — of an infected person who is showing symptoms.
Troh's 35-year-old daughter lives a few blocks away in a small apartment with her partner and four children. The two families often visited each other's homes.
Health officials have told Youngor Jallah to keep her family at home. But unlike at her mother's apartment, there are no armed guards preventing them from leaving.
She's now wracked with regret that she did not take greater precautions in her dealings with Duncan.
"I'm just doubting myself every minute," she said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm trying to take my mind off it, but I can't do it."
She is not kissing or hugging her children, ages 2, 4 and 6, or her partner's 11-year-old son, or sharing dishes with them.
Duncan arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and fell ill a few days later. After an initial visit to the emergency room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, he was sent home, even though he told a nurse he had been in disease-ravaged West Africa.
He returned to the hospital two days later, on Sunday, and has been kept in isolation ever since. He's listed in serious but stable condition.

ISIS' NEXT TARGET: Terror group warns US vet next to be beheaded

The Islamic State terror group identified its next target on Friday, a former U.S. Army Ranger who was captured in Lebanon last year during a relief mission to help Syrian refugees.
Peter Edward Kassig, 26, first visited Beirut on a college spring break trip. What the Indiana native saw there prompted him to return, the next time as a medical assistant and humanitarian worker hoping to offer blankets, food and medical care to victims of the region's conflicts.
Kassig founded a nongovernmental organization that provided aid for refugees fleeing the civil war in neighboring Syria. But his work in Lebanon led to his capture by militants on Oct. 1, 2013, while en route to eastern Syria.
Kassig appeared in an online video that purported to show a masked militant who threatened to behead the Army veteran next, after the apparent beheading of British hostage Alan Henning. The gruesome video was released in the same manner as other Islamic State group recordings and the masked militant sounded similar to the one who carried out other slayings.
In a statement issued Friday evening, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden confirmed that Kassig was being held by Islamic State militants.
"At this point we have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the video released earlier today. We will continue to use every tool at our disposal — military, diplomatic, law enforcement and intelligence — to try to bring Peter home to his family," Hayden said.
The video and threat were a heartbreaking development for Kassig's family and friends, who have stayed silent since his capture while working to secure his release.
Kassig's parents issued a statement Friday describing their son's work and asking for privacy.
"We ask everyone around the world to pray for the Henning family, for our son, and for the release of all innocent people being held hostage in the Middle East and around the globe," the statement said.
According to his parents, Kassig, an Indianapolis native, converted to Islam while in captivity and now goes by the name Abdul-Rahman.
Kassig enlisted in the Army in 2004, and became a Ranger, ultimately serving in the 75th Ranger Regiment, an Army special operations unit, according to his military record.
He trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 2006, and deployed to Iraq from April to July 2007. He was medically discharged at the rank of private first class in September 2007.
In a January 2013 interview with Time, Kassig said he traveled heavily throughout Lebanon to assess the needs of people there.
He said he designed his aid organization, Special Emergency Response and Assistance, or SERA, around a belief that "there was a lot of room for improvement in terms of how humanitarian organizations interact with and cooperate with the populations that they serve."
SERA, he said, focused on supplementing the work of larger organizations by delivering aid that could "do the most good for the most people over the longest period of time possible."
"It's about showing people that we care, that someone is looking out for those who might be overlooked or who have slipped through the cracks in the system for whatever reason," he said.
SERA has since suspended its efforts while Kassig's family has worked to win his release.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence asked for prayers Friday for Kassig and his family during "this unspeakably difficult time."
This is the fourth such video released by the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL. The full beheadings are not shown in the videos, but the British-accented, English-speaking militant holds a long knife and appears to begin cutting the three men, American reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines.
ISIS has its roots in Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate but was expelled from the global terror network over its brutal tactics and refusal to obey orders to confine its activities to Iraq. It metamorphisized amid the bloody three-year civil war in neighboring Syria, growing stronger to the point of being able to launch a lightning offensive across much of northern Iraq, routing security forces there.
The extremist group has been widely denounced by mainstream Muslim authorities.
Other foreigners are believed held by the Islamic State group. On Friday, the father of John Cantlie, a British photojournalist held by the group, appealed for his release in a video, saying he was a friend of Syria.

Fox News Poll: Voters reveal which state they want kicked out of the union

There’s lots of talk about it. Last month, Scotland voted against it. In 2013, some residents in California, Colorado and Maryland signed petitions to do it. And Texas has toyed with the idea off and on for years. What is “it”? 
Secession! 
But it’s a lot more talk than anything else, according to a Fox News national poll that asked voters if they would support their state splitting off from the United States. Just nine percent said they would. 
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
The poll also gave people another option: What if you could boot other states out of the union? 
Nearly twice as many -- 17 percent -- liked that idea.
Which state would be the first voted out? California. Of the voters willing to ditch a state or two, 53 percent pick the Golden State. 
Next out the door is New York (25 percent), followed by Texas (20 percent) and Florida (11 percent). Respondents were allowed to name multiple states they wanted out of the union.
Democratic pollster Chris Anderson says voters who want to kick out a state appear to have presidential politics in mind. 
“The top four states targeted for expulsion,” he observed, “are also the four most electorally rich states in the country.” Anderson conducts the Fox News poll with Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who for his part approvingly noted the first two states on the chopping block are solid blue. 
One reason more Democratic states end up on the chopping block is Republicans (21 percent) are more likely than Democrats (13 percent) to want to vote a state out of the union.
In addition, Republicans (12 percent) and independents (13 percent) are three times as likely as Democrats (4 percent) to want their state to secede. Nearly one in four voters who are part of the Tea Party movement would vote for their state to split off (23 percent). 
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,049 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from September 28-30, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Panetta unloads on White House for pulling US forces out of Iraq

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is lashing out at President Obama’s inner circle for failing to secure a 2011 deal to leave U.S. troops in Iraq, effectively accusing the White House of sabotaging the talks – in turn, opening the door for the region to become a haven for the Islamic State.
Panetta, who served as CIA director and then Defense secretary during those negotiations, aired his complaints in his forthcoming memoir, “Worthy Fights.” Excerpts on the Baghdad talks were published by Time.
In them, Panetta explained that Iraqi leaders privately wanted some U.S. forces to stay behind after the formal 2011 withdrawal, though they would not say so publicly. The former secretary, though, said the U.S. had “leverage” to strike a deal, and the Defense and State departments tried to do exactly that.
“But,” he wrote, “the President’s team at the White House pushed back, and the differences occasionally became heated. … and those on our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.”
He said the negotiations with then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went down to the wire in December 2011, but the White House never stepped up.
“To my frustration, the White House coordinated the negotiations but never really led them,” Panetta charged. “Officials there seemed content to endorse an agreement if State and Defense could reach one, but without the President’s active advocacy, al-Maliki was allowed to slip away.”
The account from Panetta challenges the notion that the Obama administration would have left some troops behind – as U.S. military advisers wanted – if only the Iraqi government had been more willing to negotiate. While Panetta lays some blame at the feet of the Iraqis, he also argues that the White House never seized the chance at a deal.
Panetta claims that a residual troop presence like he and others had advocated could have made the difference.  
“To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country,” he wrote.
Panetta also warned that the rise of the Islamic State “greatly increases the risk that Iraq will become al-Qaeda’s next safe haven.”
Gen. John Campbell, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, was asked Thursday about Panetta’s comments, but said “we absolutely left [the Iraqis] in the best possible condition militarily that we could.”
He put to onus on the Iraqi government.
“Things that were done by the government did not bring all the different factions in Iraq together was not something that … the U.S. military could have done or changed once we left there in 2011,” he said.
Asked again whether leaving a force in Iraq could have helped, he said: “I think any military guy is going to tell you if you could leave a force, you'd always leave a force.” 
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., though, seized on Panetta's comments -- as well as similar remarks by former Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker that the U.S. "could have gotten that agreement" if officials had been more persistent. 
"The latest statements by two of the most respected national security officials to serve under President Obama definitively refute the falsehood that this Administration has told the American people for years about their efforts to leave a residual force in Iraq," the senators said in a statement. "As we have said all along ... the Obama Administration never made a full effort to leave a residual force in Iraq."

Illinois Gov. Quinn embraces Obama, as other Dems keep distance

Unlike some other Democrats whose jobs depend on the November elections, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is not dodging an association with President Obama.
Despite a tough election, Quinn is embracing both the president and first lady.
“They do us proud. They stand for progress. They stand for doing the right thing. I’m with the president all the way,” Quinn said.
The president attended a fundraiser for the governor on Thursday, before delivering a speech on the economy that was heavy on election-year rhetoric.
Earlier, first lady Michelle Obama cut a radio ad for Quinn. “Pat’s fighting to raise the minimum wage,” she says in the ad, before reminding listeners she votes in Chicago. “For this election, Barak and I are casting votes for Pat Quinn.”
Quinn is in a statistical dead heat with Republican challenger and political newcomer Bruce Rauner. A few polls have put one or the other out in the lead, but the RealClearPolitics average puts the incumbent only a point-and-a-half ahead, 43.3 to 41.8 percent.
So, both candidates are trying to appeal to the everyman in Illinois. “If Pat Quinn wins, it’s because he is a populist,” pollster Mike McKeon said.
However, their attempts to appear average border on risible.
The former lieutenant governor, who moved up to the mansion, poses in a golf shirt and pretends he cuts his own lawn in one ad. “State government needed to be cut, like my lawn. So, I got to work,” Quinn says before he pushes a rickety manual mower across the grass, while wearing khakis.
Rauner, a North Shore billionaire, often poses in a workingman’s Carhartt jacket. In one ad, he highlights a rusty old van. “I've had this van 20 years,” Rauner says.
He’s also got nine homes.  
The attempts to connect take a backseat, however, to the negative barbs from the two candidates -- who seem to feel the attacks are working and appear to harbor a genuine dislike for each other.
A meeting with Quinn and Rauner before the Chicago Tribune editorial board melted down into a bickering match with extended index fingers. Quinn called Rauner a “profiteer,” who made “a fortune on the misfortune of others.” 
Rauner countered with a crack that involved the governor’s male pattern baldness. He said the only difference between Quinn and the now-imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was the hair.
The ads run negative and blanket the airwaves. When it comes to mud, both candidates leave behind rich soil to be harvested – Quinn, for his years in politics; Rauner, for the time spent financing companies. Neither candidate has been in trouble himself, but some of the executives and managers they put in charge have.
Rauner chaired an equity firm called GTCR, which left in its wake the bankruptcy of Home Banc Mortgage Corp. The provided fodder for an ad claiming the CEO fled with a $5 million parachute, while the employees received $20 gift cards along with their pink slips.
Quinn created the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, which took in $54.5 million and apparently blew it. A panel of lawmakers will convene next week to interview managers and determine if there was any criminal wrongdoing. Quinn is not directly in the crosshairs, but close enough to drive the partisan rhetoric.
What voters miss in the process is any specific information about plans to improve Illinois’ struggling budget or underfunded pension. The candidates are largely running on a message that they’re not as bad as the other guy.
“I’ve done well financially. I don’t need any special interest money. I don’t need any patronage workers,” Rauner said. “I’m going to work for families. I can’t be bought, bribed or intimidated.”

Ebola patient’s family quarantined as officials search for possible exposures

The family of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan were legally quarantined Thursday after they did not comply with Dallas health officials requests that they stay home.
Doctors are taking the temperatures of four family members in the unit where Duncan was staying twice a day to monitor symptoms as part of the health surveillance efforts being led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local Dallas government.
“If people leave, even though they’re asymptomatic, if they’re not at home when we go out to do our surveillance test on them, then that defeats the purpose of that surveillance test and that endangers them … if they were to be infected, they need to know that as quickly as possible,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. “So it’s for their benefit and everyone else’s.”
Texas health officials said during a press conference Thursday that the family would be quarantined in their apartment unit for the next 20 days until the potential incubation period for Ebola is over.
Health officials widened their search Thursday to 100 individuals possibly exposed to the disease – tracing contacts of the patient and medical staff who initially treated him. Also on Thursday, officials said three more young children potentially had contact with Duncan, bringing the number of kids being monitored to eight.
“We’re going to break that risk down to high-risk, no-risk and low-risk, and that’s going to be the basis of our contact tracing,” said David Daigle, associate director for communications, public health preparedness and response at the CDC.
Daigle expressed concern about infection control at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Duncan is currently in isolation, and said that a team was dispatched to conduct the same kind of contact tracing officials are doing in the local community.
Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, tried to quell fears in the community of the virus spreading and stressed transparency during the investigation.
“A lot of the individuals that we come in contact with will not have any symptoms, they will not have any association other than the fact that someone said they were there, or they might have had contact,” Thompson said. “This is local public health surveillance at its best, in what we do day in and day out.”
Police were stationed at the Ivy Apartment complex where the family lives Thursday to keep the peace and assist residents and health officials in the community during the investigation.
“We want to make sure we create a calm and safe environment for [health officials] to do their work – that’s our primary focus.  We have had reverse 911 calls to all the residents … We’ve talked to them, we’ve explained what happened, and we’ve given them the option to call us back,” said Dallas city mayor, Mike Rawlings. ”If citizens have any questions, they need to call 311. We will be able to give them a full explanation of what’s happening and answer any questions that are challenging.”
Additional nurses and health professionals were called into schools where the five students that were potentially exposed to Ebola attended.
“Our nurses are making two rounds every school day to every classroom just to check to see if anyone has questions or if there are any symptoms,” said  Mike Miles, superintendent of Dallas Independent School District, adding that additional custodial staff was on hand to clean and disinfect the buildings the students attended. Miles stressed the fact that the potential for contamination in the schools was minimal, but said they were doing extra cleaning to take the possibility off the table.
The eight students in the potential contacts were enrolled in a homebound program where they will receive curricular and technology support to complete their coursework while they are out of school. Attendance at the five schools involved in the investigation was down 10 percent Thursday, but Miles said he expects it to go back up.
Sally Nuran, manager of the Ivy Apartments where Duncan was visiting family, said during a press conference Thursday that health officials alerted her of the Ebola case on her property late Monday night. She confirmed that the lease for that particular unit lists one adult and two children, but said she does not know how many people are currently occupying the space.
As part of the monitoring process, the CDC has quarantined the family inside the unit, with strict instructions not to leave the apartment or even step out on the porch, according to Nuran. The family was set to move out of the apartment when their lease expired on September 30.
According to Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of Texas Department of State Health Services, the family’s apartment will be cleaned by a cleaning company.
“The house conditions need to be improved,” Lakey said in a press conference Thursday. “We have been working to identify an entity that will go out and there and do cleaning— there has been hesitancy… but we have identified and that will take place today.”
Lakey also noted that there is a local law enforcement agent monitoring the apartment.
The complex is home to residents of many different nationalities and translators have been on hand to distribute information in at least eight different languages, according to Nuran, who said she’s working with the CDC and other government agencies to educate residents about the current situation.
Fliers were placed on residents’ doors in the apartment complex Wednesday night and more translated fliers will be handed out during a community meeting Thursday, according to Nuran, who said that language barriers have made it difficult to disseminate information. Nuran added that all common areas have been disinfected by the CDC.

White House Cartoon

Krauthammer: 'We have a presidency falling apart'

Charles Krauthammer said Wednesday on "Special Report With Bret Baier" that President Obama is dealing with a "crisis of competence," adding he believes Obama's presidency "is falling apart."
Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist and a Fox News contributor, cited the scandals surrounding the IRS, the VA and the Secret Service as examples of problems plaguing the administration.
"All the institutions in the past you'd make a movie about," he said. "Secret Service is the hero ... all of these agencies we had trust in, under this administration are showing how bad the government is run. You combine them and you get a sense that things are out of control."
Krauthammer said Obama's policies have led to these various crises. 
"I think it is a sense in the country," he said. "Now we have a presidency that is falling apart. And it isn't as if it all happened at once."

Palestinians draft UN resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from West Bank, East Jerusalem

The Palestinians have drafted a United Nations resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem by November 2016 as part of a new push for independence and full U.N. recognition. 
The draft resolution, which was given to Fox News Wednesday by a diplomat who wished to remain anonymous, has not yet been shared with all of the Security Council's 15 members. Jordan, as the Arab Group's representative on the Security Council, would be charged with introducing the resolution. 
The resolution calls for Israel to return all territory seized since the 1967 Six-Day War, a condition that Israel has not agreed to in any of the recent U.S.-backed peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that ongoing rocket attacks from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, as well as Israel's relatively small amount of territory, make it too perilous for his government to accept a return to the pre-1967 borders. 
The draft calls for intensified efforts, including through negotiations, to reach a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and "a just resolution" of the status of Jerusalem as the capital of two states and of the Palestinian refugee problem.
The Associated Press reported that Abbas told a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on Wednesday evening that the draft was submitted last Friday "and we hope to get an answer within a month."
"Of course we are not sure whether the Security Council will agree on it or whether we will get the right number of countries on our side. But whatever will happen, we have something to say. We put it in writing and this is clear. We don't need to repeat it again," he said.
It is the first time that the U.S. has had to consider such a forceful draft Security Council resolution. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power said on Tuesday that Washington’s position remains that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be reached through negotiations. Several Arab diplomats have told Fox News that they expect US opposition to the text. They say, however, that if Washington vetoes the resolution it will isolate the United States in world opinion. The United States is one of five permanent, veto-holding members of the Security Council.
In his address to the U.N. General Assembly last Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he would ask the council to set a deadline for a pullout and dictate the ground rules for any further talks with Israel. Abbas also accused Israel of conducting a "war of genocide" in during the 50-day conflict in Gaza over the summer, a charge that drew a furious response from Netanyahu Monday. 
Decrying Hamas for its use of human shields and rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, Netanyahu said, addressing Abbas, "these are the war crimes committed by your Hamas partners in the national unity government which you head and you are responsible for. And these are the real war crimes you should have investigated, or spoken out against from this podium last week."

Hospital reportedly failed to follow protocol by releasing Ebola patient

Officials at a Dallas hospital apparently failed to follow federally issued guidelines last week when they sent home the patient later diagnosed with the first case of the Ebola virus on U.S. soil.
The Dallas Morning News reports that Thomas Eric Duncan arrived in the emergency room of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital late on the evening of Sept. 25 complaining of a fever and abdominal pain. When questioned by a nurse, Duncan admitted that he had been in Liberia as recently as the prior week. 
At that point, according to an Aug. 1 protocol issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Duncan should have been placed in an isolation unit and tested for Ebola immediately. However, the News reports that key medical personnel at the hospital were not told of Duncan's travel history, and he was given antibiotics and sent home, a decision that could have exposed dozens of people to the virus for several hours. 
Duncan's condition later worsened, and he returned to the hospital Sunday in an ambulance. At that point, the CDC protocol was followed. The Ebola diagnosis was confirmed by health officials Tuesday. 
Dr. Mark Lester, the southeast clinical leader for hospital parent company Texas Health Resources, acknowledged Wednesday that Duncan had voluntarily provided his travel history. However, Lester said, "that information was not fully disseminated." Lester did not say who he thought might be responsible for the miscommunication. 
Hospital officials defended the initial handling of Duncan, issuing a statement describing his fever as "low-grade," and insisting "his condition did not warrant admission." They added that they are still investigating why Duncan's travel history was not conveyed to the doctors who sent him home. Hospital epidemiologist Dr. Edward Goodman told the Associated Press that the patient did not show the riskier symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea.
KDFW reported late Wednesday that Duncan's condition had been upgraded to serious. Goodman wouldn't comment on drugs being used to treat the patient, but he said that there isn't any more ZMapp available. ZMapp is an experimental drug that was used on two previous Ebola patients.
Meanwhile, a nine-member team of federal health officials has begun tracking anyone who had close contact with him after Duncan fell ill on Sept. 24. The group of 12 to 18 people included three members of the ambulance crew that took Duncan to the hospital and a group schoolchildren. They will be checked every day for 21 days, the disease's incubation period.
Neither the ambulance crew nor the children showed any symptoms and were being monitored at home. It was not clear how Duncan knew the children, but his sister told the AP he had been visiting with family, including two nephews.
The CDC sent a team to the airport in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, on Wednesday to make sure health officials there are screening passengers properly. All people traveling from the outbreak zone are supposed to be checked for fever and asked about their travel history before being allowed to leave. Plastic buckets filled with chlorinated water for hand-washing are present throughout the airport.
"There were no signs of any disease when the gentleman boarded the flight," said Dr. Tom Kenyon, director of the CDC's Center for Global Health. "This was not a failure of the screening process at the airport."
Since the man had no symptoms on the plane, the CDC stressed there is no risk to his fellow passengers.
The Dallas apartment complex where Duncan was believed to be staying was cordoned off Wednesday, and the management was turning away visitors. TV cameras lined the fence of the parking lot, and at least one helicopter hovered overhead.

Mom of Marine held in Mexico pleads with lawmakers, as attorney says release could come soon

The mother of the U.S. Marine imprisoned in Mexico after mistakenly crossing the border with three legally-registered guns told lawmakers Wednesday her son is rapidly deteriorating and pleaded with them to press for his return.

Jill Tahmooressi, whose 26-year-old son, Andrew, served two tours in Afghanistan, appeared before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee to push her case for the U.S. to pressure Mexico to release him. The condition of Tahmooressi, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from his service, has deteriorated since he was locked up March 31 on gun charges.

“My son is despondent, without treatment, and he needs to be home,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

The longtime nurse, who lives in Weston, Fla., recounted several emotional calls from her son, including one from Afghanistan, where he told her about blacking out after an IED exploded near him. Upon returning home, Andrew Tahmooressi abandoned his dream of becoming a commercial pilot because, he told his mother, “I can’t concentrate on the academic work.”

Then, on March 31, he called her from a Mexican border checkpoint to say he was in trouble.

“Mom, I got lost; I made a wrong turn,” Jill Tahmooressi recounted her son saying. “I’m at the Mexican border. You need to know this because I’m surrounded by Mexican military.”

Hours later, in another call, he told her, “Mom, I’ve been arrested, please secure me an attorney.”

Appearing with the distraught mother before the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee were television personality and former Navy Lt. Commander Montel Williams, who is also a former Marine, and Pete Hegseth, the CEO of Concerned Veterans for America and a Fox News contributor.

“We know for a fact that A’s time in this prison has been worse than his time in both tours of combat,” Williams said. “How dare we, how dare we as a nation, hesitate to get that young man back?”

The hearing took place just hours after Tahmooressi’s attorney, Fernando Benitez, told Fox News he plans to rest his case today, possibly opening the door for Tahmooressi's release within a matter of weeks.

"We have more than enough for an acquittal,” Benitez said. He said a crucial development in the case came within recent days, when the prosecution acknowledged that Tahmooressi's PTSD may have played a role in the immediate aftermath of his detention. That stipulation could pave the way to Tahmooressi’s release on humanitarian grounds, he said.

Lawmakers said it is outrageous for a U.S. ally to hold an ailing American on gun charges that clearly stem from an honest mistake. Tahmooressi was in the San Diego area to get PTSD treatment, and living out of his pickup truck when he mistakenly crossed the border at a poorly marked checkpoint. He immediately declared that the guns were among all of his possessions in the truck, according to Benitez.

“As a direct result of his honorable service in Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi now suffers from combat-related PTSD,” said Rep. Matt Salmon, R- Ariz. "Tragically, instead of receiving the treatment he needs, he is being held in a Mexican prison.

“Our war hero needs to come home,” he added.

Hegseth, a former infantry officer in the Army National Guard who served tours in Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, said the administration needs to do more to bring Tahmooressi home.

“Shame on anyone, at home or abroad, who does not move heaven and Earth to ensure that those who given so much, receive the care they deserve,” Hegseth said.

Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., noted that the Obama administration traded five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay for the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, accused of desertion by several men who served with him.

“Sgt. Tahmooressi is an American hero, whose wrong turn at the Mexican border has had the devastating effect of delaying his much-needed PTSD treatment for too long,” Royce said.

Royce said he and Salmon have been in contact with Mexico’s attorney general, who has the power to release Tahmooressi on humanitarian grounds. They said they impressed upon Jesus Karam that Tahmooressi had been diagnosed with PTSD by the VA San Diego Healthcare System just five days before his arrest.

“I am confident the humanitarian release of Andrew Tahmooressi will occur very soon,” Royce said.

More than 100,000 people have signed a petition asking the Obama administration to demand Tahmooressi’s release, prompting White House officials earlier this summer to ask Mexican authorities to quickly process the Marine’s case.

Gun Fight Cartoon

Oregon pols battle over when to pull plug on costly ObamaCare website

Cover Oregon was supposed to be a shining example of ObamaCare at its best. 
The state insurance exchange for the state of Oregon received $300 million in federal grants to launch a state-of-the-art website. But it never worked, and not a single Oregonian was able to sign up for health care from start to finish. 
So now, Oregon is in the process of pulling the plug on the site and switching over to the federal exchange and HealthCare.gov -- but the question is, how quickly they can do it. 
“We need to move forward and do the best thing for the people of Oregon,” Republican State Sen. Tim Knopp said, “and I think that’s ending Cover Oregon as soon as we practically can.” 
Knopp and other Oregon Republicans are calling for a special session of the Legislature -- since lawmakers created Cover Oregon, only the Legislature can end it. But Democrats control the Legislature and the governor’s office, and they’re pushing back against Republicans' demand, and would rather wait until the 2015 session convenes in February to complete the transition.
“There are functions that still have to be performed by someone in the next few weeks and months,” Democratic state Sen. Richard Devlin said. 
Inaction comes with a price tag. 
According to Republican leaders, it costs taxpayers $200,000 a day to keep Cover Oregon running. Waiting until February 2015 or beyond will cost $20 million.
A libertarian think tank is urging a Cover Oregon death sooner, not later. “The simplest thing to do, the cleanest thing to do would be to give Oregonians some certainty and say, you won’t be having to deal with Cover Oregon come November,” said Steve Buckstein of the Cascade Policy Institute.
Oregon officials decided earlier this year to hand off Cover Oregon functions to the Oregon Health Authority, which will work with the federal exchange and HealthCare.gov. But the transition is complicated by a lawsuit filed by the state of Oregon against its website contractor, Oracle. The state is seeking reimbursement alleging a breach of contract.
Also, there recently has been more bad news for Cover Oregon and hundreds of Oregonians. The agency recently discovered it made a serious miscalculation when determining the federal tax credit for 775 families that purchased health plans on the state exchange. It turns out they owe more taxes than they were told.
“This is Cover Oregon’s error,” said Cover Oregon’s Executive Director Aaron Patnode. “So what we’re evaluating at this time is the proper course of action to make sure these consumers have the least financial impact as possible.”
Some in the Oregon Legislature want the government to pay the back taxes.

Rise of ISIS takes center stage in NC Senate race, as Republican Tillis eyes game change

CHARLOTTE, N.C. –  Republican leaders had ticketed Thom Tillis as their best hope to unseat incumbent North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan -- but a month before voters go to the polls Tillis still is trailing, and his campaign is cranking up its attacks on Hagan's Senate record by questioning her national security credentials in light of the growing Islamic State threat. 
Tillis, the state House speaker, is turning up the heat in the final weeks. He's bringing in party luminaries for campaign cameos, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush last week. And he's hitting his Democratic opponent hard on foreign policy -- specifically, how one of the world's fastest-growing terror groups went largely ignored by lawmakers in Washington. 
On Monday, Tillis’ camp released a new 30-second ad that hammers Hagan for missing several Senate Armed Service Committee hearings while the Islamic State threat mounted. It accuses Hagan of missing half the committee hearings this year, suggesting both she -- and President Obama -- were sitting back at a critical time. 
“While ISIS grew, Obama kept waiting and Kay Hagan kept quiet,” the narrator says ominously. “The price for their failure is danger.” 
Hagan’s camp, which had been relatively quiet on the topic, hit back Monday – saying that Tillis’ new ad “attempts to distract from his own record by distorting Kay’s instead.”
But Tillis' approach effectively seizes on a growing national anxiety about the rise in terror groups, which is becoming a factor in races that used to focus on health care and the economy. 
During a recent stop in Charlotte, Tillis and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., hammered home the message that Hagan and Obama are to blame for the growing emergency linked to extremist groups like ISIS and said a new approach in Washington is needed. 
"Anything short of a strategy that calls for and achieves the complete elimination of ISIS and any emerging threats is unacceptable," Tillis said in an interview with FoxNews.com. 
He added, "I think this president needs to recognize that he, more than anyone else, needs to get that right and the senator that I'm running against, Kay Hagan, needs to start playing a more active role and demanding that we have a comprehensive strategy to what's occurring the Middle East." 
Tillis accused Hagan of siding with Obama and helping give rise to ISIS by their “inaction and appeasement.” 
The GOP nominee, though, was unclear when asked what he would do in Hagan's position. He said only that his decision would be based on what military officials told him and that as a “private citizen” he could not comment on what he’d do or how he’d vote.
When asked about the prospect of arming Syrian rebels, Tillis said he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to arm them, saying he would “have to know that these arms would not get in the hands of people who would want to take over the Middle East.”
Sadie Weiner, Hagan’s communication director, ripped Tillis for not saying what he would do. “North Carolinians – especially our servicemembers and their families – deserve better than Speaker Tillis’ spineless fence-sitting on this pressing national security threat,” she said. 
Andrew Taylor, professor of political science at North Carolina State University, also said such responses by Tillis could backfire with voters. 
But he nevertheless said the Tillis tactic of painting Hagan as “an out-of-touch, ineffective” politician could generate the bump the GOP nominee needs on Election Day.
“Tillis has been doing this for awhile and really going after Hagan as someone who isn’t a principle player in Washington and isn’t at the table when important decisions are being made,” Taylor said. 
Recent Fox News and other polls show Hagan slightly ahead. The Fox News poll showed Tillis leading by 5 points; a separate CNN/Opinion Research poll put her ahead by 3 points. Both surveys had a margin of error of 4 percentage points. 
Republicans need to pick up a net six Senate seats to gain control of the chamber next year. With once-sleepy races like Kansas suddenly looking competitive for Republicans, it makes states like North Carolina all the more important for the GOP. In the closing weeks, both parties are pulling out the stops, sending heavy-hitters into the state to stump for their respective nominees. 
Last week, Tillis campaigned with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Bush. Former President Bill Clinton will be a special guest Tuesday during a Hagan luncheon in Chapel Hill. 
The Senate race in North Carolina also has seen a staggering amount of outside money pouring in, with some experts predicting it will be one of the most expensive Senate races in history. 
The candidates' most recent campaign finance filings showed Hagan ahead with $8.7 million in cash on hand and Tillis with $1.5 million. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, more than $22 million has been spent in outside money in North Carolina for the midterm races, with the majority going to the Senate race.