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ISIS, Al Qaeda affiliate reportedly unite to fight US-backed rebels in Syria

ISTANBUL –  The two most brutal terror groups in Syria reportedly have struck an alliance, in a deal that poses serious problems for the Obama administration’s efforts to prop up “moderate” rebel factions in the country.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that militant leaders from the Islamic State and Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, the Nusra Front, agreed during a meeting in northern Syria last week to stop fighting each other.
Such an accord could present new difficulties for Washington's strategy against the Islamic State. While warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition strike militants from the air, the Obama administration has counted on arming "moderate" rebels to push them back on the ground.
Those rebels, already considered relatively weak and disorganized, would face far stronger opposition if the two heavy-hitting militant groups now are working together. One official claimed the Islamic State and Nusra already have agreed to work toward destroying one prominent, U.S.-backed rebel group.
The Islamic State, which also operates in Iraq where U.S. troops already are stationed, had fought with the Nusra Front for more than a year to dominate the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Their new agreement, according to the sources in rebel groups opposed to both, would involve a promise to stop fighting and team up in attacks in some areas of northern Syria.
The developments came as the top two U.S. military officials testified on Capitol Hill about the status of the Islamic State fight in both Iraq and Syria. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, responding to some concerns about the progress of the war, said there is “no change in strategy.”
But he and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered a cautious assessment of the progress in the three-month-old war against Islamic extremists.
And Dempsey said an effort to move into Mosul, an area in Iraq now held by ISIS militants, or to restore the border with Syria would require more complex operations. He suggested this could involve U.S. forces.
"I'm not predicting at this point that I would recommend that those forces in Mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by U.S. forces, but we're certainly considering it," Dempsey told the House Armed Services Committee.
Meanwhile, a U.S. official with access to intelligence about Syria told the Associated Press the American intelligence community has not seen any indications of a shift in the strategy by ISIS and the Nusra Front, but added that he could not rule out tactical deals on the ground.
According to a Syrian opposition official speaking in Turkey, the meeting where the deal was reached took place Nov. 2 in the town of Atareb, west of Aleppo, starting at around midnight and lasting until 4 a.m. The official said the meeting was closely followed by members of his movement, and he is certain that an agreement was reached. The official said about seven top militant leaders attended.
A second source, a commander of brigades affiliated with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army who is known as Abu Musafer, said he also had learned that high-ranking members of Nusra and ISIS met on Nov. 2. He did not disclose the exact location, but said it was organized by a third party and took place in an area where the FSA is active.
According to Abu Musafer, two decisions were reached: First, to halt infighting between Nusra and ISIS and second, for the groups together to open up fronts against Kurdish fighters in a couple of new areas of northern Syria.
The Nusra Front has long been seen as one of the toughest factions trying to oust Assad in a civil war estimated to have killed more than 200,000 since 2011. The Islamic State group entered the Syria war in 2012 from its original home in Iraq and quickly earned a reputation for brutality and for trying to impose itself as the leading faction in the rebellion behind which all pious Muslims should unite. Al Qaeda initially rejected ISIS’ claims to any role in Syria, and Nusra and other factions entered a war-within-a-war against it. But the Islamic State group swelled in power and became flush with weapons and cash after overrunning much of northern and western Iraq over the summer.
According to the opposition official, the meeting included an ISIS representative, two emissaries from Nusra Front, and attendees from the Khorasan Group, a small but battle-hardened band of Al Qaeda veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The official said ISIS and the Nusra Front agreed to work to destroy the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, a prominent rebel faction armed and trained by the United States and led by a fighter named Jamal Maarouf. They agreed to keep fighting until all of the force, estimated to be 10,000 to 12,000 fighters, was eliminated, the official said.
During the meeting, ISIS also offered to send extra fighters to Nusra Front for an assault it launched last week on Western-backed rebels from the Hazm Movement near the town of Khan al-Sunbul in northern Syria, the official said. IS sent about 100 fighters in 22 pickup trucks but Nusra ended up not needing the assistance, he said, because Hazm decided not to engage in the fight. Sixty-five Hazm fighters defected to Nusra, he said.
Tom Joscelyn, an American analyst who tracks terror groups for the website Long War Journal, said he hasn't seen any messaging that would confirm that the two groups have formally joined forces on the battlefield. But he said there has been information emerging before the reported Nov. 2 meeting "that would seem to fit in with that being what they were driving at. There has been a big push on the al-Qaida side to get this (alliance) through."
If they work together, the jihadis will be more effective in Syria, he said. "If there is less blood being spilled against each other and they don't have to worry about that, that's going to make it easier for the jihadis to go after Assad or any Western-backed forces."

Secret US spy program targeted Americans' cellphones

The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of cellphones through fake communications towers deployed on airplanes, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.
The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.
Planes are equipped with devices—some known as “dirtboxes” to law-enforcement officials because of the initials of the Boeing Co. unit that produces them—which mimic cell towers of large telecommunications firms and trick cellphones into reporting their unique registration information.
The technology in the two-foot-square device enables investigators to scoop data from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight, collecting their identifying information and general location, these people said.
People with knowledge of the program wouldn’t discuss the frequency or duration of such flights, but said they take place on a regular basis.
A Justice Department official would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a program. The official said discussion of such matters would allow criminal suspects or foreign powers to determine U.S. surveillance capabilities. Justice Department agencies comply with federal law, including by seeking court approval, the official said.
The program is the latest example of the extent to which the U.S. is training its surveillance lens inside the U.S. It is similar in approach to the National Security Agency’s program to collect millions of Americans phone records, in that it scoops up large volumes of data in order to find a single person or a handful of people. The U.S. government justified the phone-records collection by arguing it is a minimally invasive way of searching for terrorists.

Obama won't budge on Keystone ahead of House vote

The King has Spoken.

President Obama would not budge on the Keystone pipeline ahead of a key House vote on Friday, indicating during a press conference that he wants to let a review process run its course even as lawmakers threaten to send a bill fast-tracking the project to his desk.
The president spoke during a joint press conference in Burma with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. As the House prepares to vote on the pipeline -- and the Senate is set to vote next week -- Obama made clear his position has not changed. 
Obama said his administration believes the project should be judged on the basis of whether it accelerates climate change. Obama also insisted the pipeline would not be a “massive jobs bill” and would have no effect on U.S. gas prices.
The looming vote will mark the ninth time it has been voted on in the House as lawmakers look to finally secure approval of the delayed proposal after numerous environmental reviews, legal challenges to its route and politics. 
But the pipeline was only put on the lame-duck Congress agenda because Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu pushed it on the Senate side -- in an apparent effort to not only boost the energy industry, but boost her own re-election bid in a tough runoff next month. Landrieu’s race for re-election goes to a runoff next month against GOP-hopeful Bill Cassidy. Landrieu is considered an underdog in that election.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, traveling with Obama in Myanmar, told reporters that the president takes a "dim view" of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest stopped short of threatening a veto, but reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review.
Obama has repeatedly ordered such reviews under pressure from environmental groups, who say the project would contribute to climate change.
Senate Republicans and several moderate Democrats have pushed for the project to be approved for years, and backers of the project got a major win after Republicans took control of the Senate. Supporters say the construction of the pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs.
But the project divides Democrats, with environmentalists in opposition while some unions as well as energy-state and business-minded lawmakers support it.
The Sierra Cub issued a statement opposing the measure, as did Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who urged Obama to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.
Supporters of the measure appeared to have at least 58 of the 60 votes they would need for approval next week. That included all 45 Republicans as well as 13 Democrats, among them Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, whose office confirmed his support during the day.
Another obstacle in the pipeline is getting approval for it to go through Nebraska.
The administration has put off announcing any decision pending a Supreme Court ruling in Nebraska on a challenge to the law that allowed the route of the pipeline to be set.
The Nebraska Supreme Court's decision is expected before the end of the year.
That case involves a lawsuit filed by landowners and activists opposed to the project who are seeking to overturn a 2012 state law that allowed Republican Gov. Dave Heineman to approve the pipeline's route through the state.

Fox News weighing decision on keeping Mike Huckabee

Ben Carson is off the Fox News payroll. Is Mike Huckabee next?
The former Arkansas governor, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, has been careful not to do anything that would shatter his status as a network contributor.
But some of his political moves have prompted a reevaluation.
Bill Shine, Fox’s executive vice president for programming, said in a statement:
“We are taking a serious look at Governor Huckabee’s recent activity in the political arena and are evaluating his current status. We plan on meeting with him when he returns from his trip overseas.”
The scrutiny was probably inevitable after Fox dropped Carson as a contributor on Friday. The trigger there was the Baltimore physician’s plan to run an hourlong infomercial on local stations as a prelude to a possible presidential run.
I addressed the development on Sunday’s “Media Buzz”: “This was a smart move by Fox. Because a guy who is more or less running for president shouldn't be on a network payroll. Which means Fox also faces a decision about former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who is openly weighing a White House run as well.”
That got plenty of pickup, but the day of reckoning was inevitable. Huckabee, who hosts a Saturday night program, went through a similar dance in the 2012 cycle before deciding to stick with Fox rather than mounting a second presidential campaign.
The Washington Post reported today that Huckabee “is reconnecting with activists and enlisting staff to position himself in a growing field of potential Republican presidential candidates.” In fact, the Baptist preacher is leading a group of more than 100 pastors and Republican insiders from early primary states on an overseas jaunt to such locations as Poland and Britain.
Huckabee has also formed a nonprofit political advocacy group, America Takes Action.
Is he on the verge of running? “His heart is into it,” Huckabee’s daughter Sarah told the Post.
Asked about his Fox connection, Huckabee told the paper: “I have to be very careful about this” because he has “obligations in broadcasting.” He added that “I am not doing anything official at this point.”
Fox is obviously a great platform for a potential Republican contender. In an interview last week, Bill O’Reilly told Huckabee: “You must be happy because you, Paul, Rand Paul and Jeb Bush are all about 11 percent in the Real Clear political who Republicans would like to see run. That's taking Mitt Romney out of the equation. If Romney gets in, then he becomes the favorite. So, you know, it looks to me like you have a decent shot if you want to go to be president.”
Huckabee responded: “Well, I think it's quite a ways away to make that decision, but, you know, it's kind of comforting to know that at least there are 11 percent of the people that would like it.”
In 2011, Fox cut ties with two contributors, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, as they took steps to jump into the GOP primaries. Some network insiders said then that they were uncomfortable with Huckabee’s role. And he was conscious of the situation, saying: "If I run, I walk away from a pretty good income.”
The issue is a familiar one in cable news, going back to the days when Pat Buchanan kept returning to CNN after his presidential campaigns.
The Post says Huckabee has been sounding out potential consultants, including his former campaign manager Chip Saltsman. “According to Huckabee’s associates, the Fox News show may not be a runaway national success, but it has been useful to Huckabee’s political brand, keeping him in front of Republican primary voters but not turning him into a political celebrity whose every move draws attention.”
But now it may be drawing so much attention that both sides have to make a decision.

Source: Obama to announce 10-point immigration plan via exec action as early as next week

EXCLUSIVE: President Obama is planning to unveil a 10-part plan for overhauling U.S. immigration policy via executive action -- including suspending deportations for millions -- as early as next Friday, a source close to the White House told Fox News. 
The president's plans were contained in a draft proposal from a U.S. government agency. The source said the plan could be announced as early as Nov. 21, though the date might slip a few days pending final White House approval. 
Obama was briefed at the White House by Homeland Security officials before leaving on his Asia-Pacific trip last week, Fox News has learned. 
The plan contains 10 initiatives than span everything from boosting border security to improving pay for immigration officers. 
But the most controversial pertain to the millions who could get a deportation reprieve under what is known as "deferred action." 
The plan calls for expanding deferred action for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children -- but also for the parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. 
The latter could allow upwards of 4.5 million illegal immigrant adults with U.S.-born children to stay, according to estimates. 
Critics in the Senate say those who receive deferred action, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, receive work authorization in the United States, Social Security numbers and government-issued IDs.
Another portion that is sure to cause consternation among anti-"amnesty" lawmakers is a plan to expand deferred action for young people. In June 2012, Obama created such a program for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, entered before June 2007 and were under 31 as of June 2012. The change would expand that to cover anyone who entered before they were 16, and change the cut-off from June 2007 to Jan. 1, 2010. This is estimated to make nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants eligible. 
One of the architects for the president's planned executive actions at DHS is Esther Olavarria, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's former top immigration lawyer. 
Under the changes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers also would see a pay raise in order to "increase morale" within the ICE workforce. 
DHS also is planning to "promote" the new naturalization process by giving a 50 percent discount on the first 10,000 applicants who come forward, with the exception of those who have income levels above 200 percent of the poverty level. 
Tech jobs though a State Department immigrant visa program would offer another half-million immigrants a path to citizenship. This would include their spouses as well. 
The other measures include calls to revise removal priorities to target serious criminals for deportation and end the program known as "Secure Communities" and start a new program. 
The planning comes as immigrant advocates urge Obama to act. As lawmakers returned for a lame-duck session, Democrats in Congress on Wednesday implored Obama to take executive action. 
"We're begging the president. Go big. These [illegal immigrants] are a plus to our nation. Mr. President, please. You said you were going to do something. Do it. Act now," said Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif. 
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said: "I join with my colleagues in urging the president to take action. What he needs to do is give immediate relief to families who are being wrenched apart and living in fear." 
Angela Maria Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, touted deferred action as a "tried and true component of immigration policy used by 11 presidents, 39 times in the last 60 years." 
She said for many undocumented immigration who have been here for years, "there is no line for people to get into." 
Obama has vowed to act in the absence of congressional action and has claimed that congressional action could still supersede his executive steps. 
In a recent op-ed in Politico, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Congress would stop Obama from taking executive action by adding language explicitly barring money from being used for that purpose. "Congress has the power of the purse. The President cannot spend a dime unless Congress appropriates it," Sessions wrote. He also pointed out that similar language in the past has prevented the president from closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Yet another video shows ObamaCare architect disparaging voter intelligence

Yet another video has surfaced of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber crediting the passage of the health care bill in part to American voters’ lack of intelligence.
The Daily Caller posted the third video Wednesday of the MIT professor, this time speaking at the University of Rhode Island in 2012.
Gruber was discussing the law’s so-called "Cadillac tax,” which he said was helped along by “hero” then-Sen. John Kerry. The “Cadillac tax” mandates that insurance companies be taxed rather than policy holders. He said that taxing individuals would have been “politically impossible,” but taxing the companies worked because Americans didn't understand the difference.
“So basically it's the same thing,” he said. “We just tax the insurance companies, they pass on higher prices that offsets the tax break we get, it ends up being the same thing. It's a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”
The new video follows a second tape played on Fox News' "The Kelly File” Tuesday that showed Gruber speaking on a similar topic at an October 2013 event at Washington University in St. Louis.
Referring to the "Cadillac tax,” he said: "They proposed it and that passed, because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference."
This was similar to remarks he made at a separate event around the same time in 2013. In a clip of that event, Gruber said the "lack of transparency" in the way the law was crafted was critical. "Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass," he said.
After the first tape surfaced -- prompting Republican outrage -- Gruber went on MSNBC to express regret. On Tuesday, he said: "I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately, and I regret having made those comments."
But after Fox News played the second tape, GOP lawmakers said it proves what they've been saying all along.
"It confirms people's greatest fear about the government," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News on Wednesday. "Remember, it was Nancy Pelosi who said first you have to pass it before you get to find out what's in it."
As Congress returns for a lame-duck session, on the heels of midterm elections where Republicans won control of the Senate, GOP leaders say they will try once again next year to repeal the law -- or least change its most controversial provisions.

Keystone pipeline re-emerges as political football as Landrieu, GOP rival call for vote

The lame-duck Congress has been in session a matter of hours, and the Keystone pipeline already is a political football.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., facing a tough runoff election next month, on Wednesday called for a vote on a bill approving the long-delayed project -- in an apparent bid to flex her clout on Capitol Hill. The Senate approved her request and teed up a vote for next Tuesday.
 Republicans responded swiftly to Landrieu's maneuvering, scheduling a vote in the House on Thursday on an identical bill sponsored by Rep. Bill Cassidy.
The back-and-forth amounts to a continuation of their bitter Senate campaign, with one of the most controversial energy projects in America caught in the middle. The TransCanada-built pipeline, which would cross over an aquifer in Nebraska, has been held up for six years by environmental and other concerns. 
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, traveling with President Obama in Burma, told reporters that the president takes a "dim view" of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest stopped short of threatening a veto, but reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review. Obama has repeatedly ordered such reviews under pressure from environmental groups, who say the project would contribute to climate change. 
Landrieu, who is thought to be trailing Cassidy ahead of their Dec. 6 runoff election, wants to deliver a win for the energy industry by pushing Keystone. The measure was one she co-sponsored with Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., back in May. 
“We can pass the Keystone pipeline and answer the frustrations of the American people,” she said. “So they could rest next and say, oh my gosh the senators of the United States of America have ears and they have brains and they have hearts and they heard what we said and we can do this.” 
But the timing immediately raised Republican suspicions. 
Cassidy noted that the House has passed pro-Keystone legislation eight times, and "the Senate did not consider any of the eight." After Landrieu called for a vote, Cassidy and GOP leaders in the House said they would vote Thursday on a Cassidy-authored Keystone bill. 
"I hope the Senate and the president do the right thing and pass this legislation creating thousands of jobs," Cassidy said in a statement. "After six years, it’s time to build."
The legislative tug-of-war came a day after aides first said that Senate Democrats were considering bringing the pipeline to a vote in order to boost Landrieu ahead of the runoff election. (The two rivals are heading to a runoff because neither got more than 50 percent of the vote last week.) The pipeline is a popular project in oil industry-heavy Louisiana, and Landrieu has touted her support of the pipeline and her tenure as chairwoman of the Senate energy committee in her campaign.
On the Senate floor on Wednesday, Landrieu insisted she was not trying to gain political points, and said she didn’t even care if her name stayed on the bill. 
“I didn’t come here to see my name in lights,” she said. “I came to fight for jobs for my state.”
She also seemed to take credit for Cassidy's House bill, calling it "identical" to the legislation she co-sponsored.
However, Cassidy told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that his rival's assertion that politics were not involved was obviously untrue. 
"I have to smile when Sen. Landrieu says politics are not involved," he said on "On the Record." "Clearly (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid did not care about the 40,000 jobs that would be created for families which are struggling, but he does care about Sen. Landrieu’s job. So finally he is going to take the bill up. I don’t think the president cares about those 40,000 people."
Senate Republicans and several moderate Democrats have pushed for the project to be approved for years, and backers of the project got a major win after Republicans took control of the Senate. Supporters say the construction of the pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs. 
Landrieu said in an evening press conference that she does not have a commitment from Obama that he would sign the bill should it reach his desk, but she is "hopeful."
"We believe the bill we drafted could receive support in the House of Representatives and get the president's signature," she said.
Landrieu is facing a tough battle to keep her job after nearly 20 years in office. A Real Clear Politics average of recent polls has the senator trailing her rival by nearly 5 points ahead of the election on Dec. 6.