YouTube, Beware: Election-spending regulator sets sights on political Internet videos

Politically themed YouTube videos could be the next target of federal regulators.
The top Democrat on the Federal Election Commission strongly suggested Friday that regulators look at extending their authority to election-themed Internet videos – an area that for years has been largely hands-off for the government.
The statement from Vice Chairwoman Ann Ravel, who is in line to take over the commission next year, prompted Republicans to warn that such a move could threaten the growth and freedom of the Internet itself.
“I have been warning that my Democratic colleagues were moving to regulate media generally and the Internet specifically for almost a year now,” Chairman Lee Goodman told FoxNews.com. “And today’s statement from Vice Chair Ravel confirms my warnings.”
At issue was a case considered by the FEC – the chief campaign-finance regulator – in September involving a group that ran pro-coal videos critical of Democrats in 2012. The group initially was accused of failing to report the cost of the videos and of failing to include the routine “disclaimers.”
But the group maintained that since they were only run on YouTube, they were exempt.
The case ended in a split, 3-3 decision at the FEC and was dismissed. But the vote itself aired a striking divide: despite a decision clearing the organization by the general counsel, Democrats voted to pursue an investigation anyway while Republicans voted to drop it.
Ravel was blunt in her written statement Friday explaining her side’s vote. She scolded Republicans for arguing rules that would apply to TV ads should not apply to web videos.
“As a matter of policy, this simply does not make sense,” she said.
She said, rather, a “re-examination” of the FEC approach to the Internet is “long overdue” and complained the commission has “turned a blind eye” to the Internet’s influence in politics.
“Since its inception, this effort to protect individual bloggers and online commentators has been stretched to cover slickly-produced ads aired solely on the Internet but paid for by the same organizations and the same large contributors as the actual ads aired on TV,” she said. Ravel vowed to “bring together” people from “across the spectrum” next year to look at the issue.
This set off alarm bells.
GOP members of the commission cite an “Internet exemption” dating back to 2006 that spares free web videos from FEC regulations. In other words, anyone who posts a politically themed video for free only to YouTube can – for now -- do so without including a disclaimer or reporting the costs.
“The FEC’s approach to free speech on the Internet should be hands-off,” Goodman said, urging the public to go to the FEC website to comment on the issue.
A statement from Goodman and his GOP colleagues on the commission likewise warned about the implications of the 3-3 decision, and a “desire to retreat” from “important protections for online political speech.”
This, they wrote, would be a “shift in course that could threaten the continued development of the Internet’s virtual free marketplace of political ideas and democratic debate.”
This is hardly the first warning from Goodman and his colleagues about the direction of the current FEC. He previously has warned that officials at the agency want to start regulating the media, and might even try to regulate book publishers. Democrats on the commission have called those allegations “overheated” and overblown.

As Virginia Senate race tightens, GOP’s Gillespie confident about upsetting Warner

Republican Ed Gillespie is making a tight race out of his ambitious plan to defeat Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, slicing deep into the incumbent’s lead in the final days to re-emerge as a player in the GOP set piece to take the Senate.
By some accounts, Gillespie, a former Bush White House staffer and Republican National Committee chairman, has already done his job by forcing Democrats and their supporters to keep spending money on an expected victory, instead of on the handful of other Senate races that they desperately need to retain control of the upper chamber.
But with 10 days to go before Election Day, Gillespie, who according to a recent poll has cut the lead to single digits, feels confident about winning and is in no mood to declare a moral victory for what Washington war room strategists refer to as “expanding the playing field.”
“I’ve always said this is a winnable,” Gillespie told FoxNews.com on Thursday, as he campaigned through the state’s voter-rich Virginia Beach-Hampton Roads region. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I also knew it was possible. We have incredible energy right now… We’re going to win.”
Gillespie -- a first-time candidate and high-powered lobbyist before the campaign -- entered the race trailing by at least 20 percentage points and with considerably less money, one lead he couldn’t close despite his Washington establishment connections.
Warner, a former Virginia governor and wealthy telecommunication entrepreneur before joining Congress, has consistently out-fundraised Gillespie and now has roughly $8 million in available cash, compared to roughly $2 million for Gillespie.
That disparity became apparent last week when the Gillespie campaign temporarily cancelled and reduced the amount of money it had planned to spend on TV ads.
The super PAC of former Virginia GOP Gov. Jim Gilmore jumped in with $86,000 for TV and radio ads in support of Gillespie.
But the Warner campaign meanwhile continued to bombard the airwaves with ads about Gillespie previously lobbying for Enron -- the energy conglomerate forced into bankruptcy in 2001 by an accounting scheme that also resulted to 21 people either pleading guilty or being found guilty of related crimes.
Lauren Bell, a dean and political science professor at Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College, thinks Gillespie entered the race believing he could knock off an incumbent and still does.
“I cannot image somebody of Ed Gillespie’s stature, with his credentials, would just take one for the team,” she said.
Warner has spent $4.4 million on ads, and the liberal Virginia Progress PAC has spent another $2 million.
Gillespie has spent $3.5 million on ads with a mere $260,000 more coming from outside groups, according to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity.
Gillespie has also done most of the heavy lifting with so little outside money, which likely hurt his race but allowed Washington Republicans and pro-GOP political action committees to spend on the tight races in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina.
The Warner campaign could not be reached Saturday for comment. 
Republicans need to win a net total of six seats to take control of the Senate and appear headed to at least win Democratic-held seats in South Dakota and West Virginia.
Bell thinks Gillespie has a shot at winning, pointing to Dave Brat's stunning Virginia GOP primary win this summer over House Minority Leader Eric Canton despite having a huge fundraising disadvantage.
“It seems unlikely that Gillespie will be able to come back,” Bell said. “But I don’t think it’s impossible… Before the Brat primary I would have said no way.”
She also argues that Gillespie could win in similar fashion to Brat, a fellow Randolph Macon professor, by entering the race with lower polls numbers but benefiting from low voter turnout, a major concern for Democrats in November.
Gillespie, like other Republican challengers this election cycle, appears to have found success in trying to tie Warner, known as a centrist, to President Obama’s agenda.
However, the race could now be even tighter, following revelations in mid-October about Warner allegedly discussing a federal judgeship for a supporter in an effort to keep her father from quitting the state Senate and giving Republicans the majority.
Bell said the allegation, largely overlooked by the national media, is a big deal among Virginia voters, though no public polls have been released since it surfaced.
“It’s a big issue,” Gillespie said. “It’s deeply troubling that Mark Warner would play politics with an appointment to a federal bench. Something happened to Mark Warner on his way to Capitol Hill.”

Iran hangs woman for killing alleged rapist

TEHRAN, Iran –  Iran has hanged a woman convicted of murdering a man she said was trying to rape her.
The official IRNA news agency says Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at dawn Saturday for premeditated murder. It quoted the court ruling as rejecting the claim of attempted rape and saying all evidence proved that Jabbari had plotted to kill Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former intelligence agent.
The court ruling says Jabbari, 27, stabbed Sarbandi in the back in 2007 after purchasing a knife two days earlier.
The execution was carried out after Sarbandi's family refused to pardon Jabbari or accept blood money.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups had called on Iran's judiciary to halt the execution.

Anti-Israel restaurant receives funding from John Kerry’s wife’s foundation

A food cart that hands out anti-Israel propaganda with each of its sandwiches has received funding from a foundation run by Secretary of State John Kerry’s wife.
Conflict Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant located at the intersection of Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh University, seeks to use food to educate locals and college students about countries that are allegedly in conflict with the United States.
It recently began serving Palestinian food wrapped in leaflets that include quotes from Palestinians defending terrorism and opposing the existence of Israel.
“How can you compare Israeli F-16s, which are some of the best military planes in the world, to a few hundred homemade rockets?” states one quote on the wrapper, a reference to Hamas rocket attacks against Israelis. “You’re pushing them to the absolute extreme. So what do you expect?”
“Palestinians are not going to just let [Israel] in and drop their arms,” it adds. “No, they’re going to kill and they are going to die.”
The statements on the wrappers were taken from interviews with Palestinians. They are published without quotation marks and do not appear to be edited for accuracy.

As Dems avoid Obama on campaign trail, Romney is in GOP demand

MESA, Ariz. –  Flashing the easy smile of someone whose name isn't on the Election Day ballot, Mitt Romney has never been so politically popular. He’s traveled the country – 23 states by his count – in recent months to lend support to fellow Republicans in advance of November’s midterm election.
“A lot of people who helped me – I owe big time,” the two-time presidential candidate cheerfully explained when asked about his campaign stops.
It’d be understandable if Romney’s enthusiasm for rallies, banquet halls, fundraisers and the seemingly never-ending line of outstretched hands had waned since his 2012 loss. But two years later, Romney is busy stumping for candidates in tight races nationwide including this two-day stretch in Arizona.
“It’s a real thrill to go across the country and I see a lot of the people who helped me during my campaign,” Romney told Fox News on Thursday night in Mesa. “Not just volunteers but a lot of dear, dear friends that I hadn’t seen in many, many years. So it’s fun to get back on the trail and make a difference.”
The irony of Romney’s high-profile appearances – about 1,500 people showed up to see him with Arizona’s statewide Republican candidates – is that President Obama has been nearly invisible in public support of Democrats this cycle. That’s not lost on Doug Ducey, Arizona’s Republican candidate for governor, one of the candidates getting a boost from Romney.
“People talk about contrasts in this campaign and I can’t think of any bigger contrast than for me to say how proud I am to be campaigning with our Republican nominee for president Mitt Romney,” Ducey enthusiastically told supporters after Romney introduced him on stage. The audience then roared in laughter at Ducey’s observation that Obama hasn’t been seen in Arizona supporting Democratic nominee Fred DuVal.  
Romney readily says he wishes he could be in the White House today leading the country but “that’s not going to happen.” He says he wants the president to succeed at home and internationally but is convinced that’s not likely to happen either.  
His sharpest criticism of the president came in response to questions about the administration’s handling of the Ebola crisis, which Romney calls a massive threat to America.
“Frankly, the president has once again been spectator-in-chief,” Romney said, then questioned why the president didn’t take a stronger line with the CDC in making sure the health agency was on top of the situation.
Romney expanded his critique to other controversies that have stricken the Obama administration, singling out the IRS scandal, Secret Service foul-ups and the roll out of ObamaCare.
“This is your administration. You appointed those people to lead those organizations. They report to you,” he said. “You should have been meeting with them, dealing with these issues before they broke and embarrassed our nation.”
Romney’s prominent role on the campaign trail along with polls showing a measure of buyer’s remorse from some 2012 Obama voters has prompted speculation that a third run for the presidency is possible. Romney repeated his oft-stated line that “I’m not running. I’m not planning on running.”  
He offered strong compliments about others who are considered likely candidates for the 2016 presidential nomination. “We’ve got some good people who are looking at the race. I think the first debate may have 10 or more people on the stage. Time will tell. We’ve got very credible people who are giving it a careful look.”
Friday morning outside Tucson, Republicans showed up at a community center to hear from Romney and a pair of GOP congressional candidates. Twice during the short event, rally-goers chanted “run Mitt run” with seemingly little effect on their target. Romney’s smile never left his face.

New York, New Jersey order Ebola quarantines

Both New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday they are ordering a mandatory, 21-day quarantine for all doctors and travelers who have had contact with Ebola victims in the ravaged countries of West Africa.
The move comes a day after a Doctors Without Borders volunteer was diagnosed with the disease after returning to the U.S. a week after treating Ebola victims in Guinea.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the case forced them to conclude that the two states need guidelines more rigorous than those of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends voluntary quarantines.
"It's too serious a situation to leave it to the honor system of compliance," Cuomo said.
A woman who arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport from West Africa developed a fever and was the first traveler to be quarantined under an Ebola watch Friday.
She had no symptoms upon arrival, authorities said.
Dr. Craig Spencer was traveling in New York City prior to his diagnosis Thursday. Health officials said he followed U.S. and international protocols in checking his temperature every day and watching for symptoms, and put no one at risk. But others said he should have been quarantined — that is, kept away from others, either voluntarily or by the government — during Ebola's 21-day incubation period.
An automatic three-week quarantine makes sense for anyone "with a clear exposure" to Ebola, said Dr. Richard Wenzel, a Virginia Commonwealth University scientist who formerly led the International Society for Infectious Diseases.
Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that a quarantine of that nature would be going to far and that people who contract Ebola are not contagious until symptoms begin.
"As long as a returned staff member does not experience any symptoms, normal life can proceed," the organization said in a statement.

The Narrow Path to Victory: Dems fight to keep control of Senate in final week

Democratic control of this country has all but destroyed it. Another victory for them will probably be the last nail in the coffin for America as we knew it.

Amid all the predictions of a Republican-led stomping on Election Day, Democrats and the outside groups supporting them still see a path to victory and are planning a blitz in key states that could act as a firewall against a GOP Senate takeover.
As the campaign enters its final full week, Democrats also are trying to keep Republican attacks at bay by focusing on local issues – as opposed to President Obama – and are training resources on getting out the vote, including with early voting.
Republicans continue to voice confidence about their chances, and political prognosticators largely predict the GOP will control Congress next year.
But Democrats are staying focused.  
Justin Barasky, at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, pointed to key races where, despite what Republicans are saying about Obama being an albatross, the numbers appear to be improving for the Democrats.
That includes Democrat Michelle Nunn in her race against Republican David Perdue for the open Senate seat in Georgia. Recent polls have shown her up by a few points, though the race still is very close – and the winner needs over 50 percent to avoid a runoff.
Another open question is Kentucky, where Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes has endured a rough few weeks in her race against Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. But the DSCC, after letting its previous ad buy expire, now is going back on air in the state in support of Grimes with a $650,000 purchase.
“The race is closing,” Barasky said. “I think Kentucky voters are sick of Mitch McConnell.” He added that “in every state the message will be different,” but it invariably will concentrate on Democrats fighting for the middle class while painting their opponents as subservient to outside interests.
McConnell’s campaign has pushed back hard on the contention that Grimes may be gaining, releasing its own numbers showing the incumbent well ahead. Grimes lately had been tripped up on the campaign trial after refusing to say if she voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, reflecting the mine field that Democrats everywhere are facing over their ties to the president.
The Obama factor alone is one of the biggest challenges for many Democrats in battleground states.
Bill Scher, senior writer for the progressive Campaign for America’s Future, acknowledged they “are not asking him to stand with them on the stage together.”
However, he noted, “even though there is dissonance going on personally with Obama, it’s not like they are abandoning what they believe.”
This is nothing new: at the end of President George W. Bush's term, he was so much of a drag on GOP tickets that he was barely mentioned during the Republican National Convention in 2008. The Obama factor, though, is used as a bludgeon in almost every competitive Senate race this year by Republicans.
Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, who is in a toss-up race with Republican Dan Sullivan, told the Washington Examiner the “president’s not relevant” to his race. “He’s gone in two years,” he said.
When asked in a recent television interview if he is a strong leader, endangered North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan couldn’t seem to think of any issues where the president has shined. “[He’s got] a lot on his plate,” she said, before stumbling through the rest of her response.
Barasky insists these races will be won on local issues and not on any national narrative driven by the GOP.
To advance their message in critical states, some candidates have brought in the big guns – not Obama, but figures like Bill and Hillary Clinton – who have been barnstorming across the country, stumping and fundraising on Democrats’ behalf. In just the last week, this included stops for Grimes, Sen. Al Franken in Minnesota, Sen. Mark Udall in Colorado, Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas, and a number of gubernatorial candidates. Mrs. Clinton is scheduled to make appearances this weekend for Hagan and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire. Shaheen, though, is seeing Republican Scott Brown make significant gains in the polls.
Hillary Clinton recently raised $3.5 million in California for the campaign committees of House and Senate Democrats, including $2.1 million at a Hollywood event with Democratic mega-donors Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg.
“In close races like Arkansas, Bill Clinton is as good a trump card as they can play to inoculate Mark Pryor from Obama there,” points out political strategist Dan Gerstein. “Clinton makes the race more about Arkansas.”
Most importantly, appearances by A-listers can help not so much draw undecided voters to the Democratic candidate but mobilize the troops, Gerstein said.
Getting out the vote in a typically sluggish midterm election is critical. Traditional constituencies like black and women voters are being targeted with television and radio ads to make sure they turn out. Particularly with women, Democrats are feeling the heat as recent polling shows Republicans closing the gender gap in Colorado, New Hampshire and Iowa, despite attempts to rally women on issues relating to contraception and abortion rights.
With black voters, The New York Times reported that Obama had also launched an “under-the-radar” campaign, including video ads and outreach to reporters, to ensure that millions of black voters go to the polls in states where they will make a big difference, specifically Georgia and North Carolina.
On “Fox News Sunday,” the heads of the two parties each voiced confidence about their chances.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the GOP “absolutely” will take the Senate.
“We feel really good about our chances of taking the Senate. And it's partly because number one, the president has taken the country in the wrong direction. These lieutenants out there across the country have followed the president off the plank,” he said.
His Democratic counterpart, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, claimed Democrats would hold their ground, and not give the GOP the six seats it needs to take control.
“The one question that voters are going to ask themselves … is who has my back? And on issue after issue, Democrats have stood up for jobs, for the economy, for investing in education and health care, those are the issues that voters are talking about,” she said.
She cited Georgia, and also South Dakota and Kansas – where independent candidates have caused problems for the GOP nominees – as battlegrounds in the final stretch.
But even Democrats acknowledge Republicans appear to have the enthusiasm edge – something that recent polling underscores.
“The side with the more energy is going to have an advantage and at this rate, in the states that are in play, the Republicans have the advantage because there is so much negative energy toward the president,” Gerstein said. “So the Democrats are doing whatever they can do to get their base out, plus whatever they can do to prevent Democratic-leaning voters and independents from voting Republican.”

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