Federal firewall reportedly struggles against increasing number of cyberattacks

Federal employees and contractors are unwittingly undermining a $10 billion-per-year effort to protect sensitive government data from cyberattacks, according to a published report. 
The Associated Press says that workers in more than a dozen agencies, from the Defense and Education departments to the National Weather Service, are responsible for at least half of the federal cyberincidents reported each year since 2010, according to an analysis of records.
They have clicked links in bogus phishing emails, opened malware-laden websites and been tricked by scammers into sharing information. One was redirected to a hostile site after connecting to a video of tennis star Serena Williams. A few act intentionally, most famously former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who downloaded and leaked documents revealing the government's collection of phone and email records.
Then there was the federal contractor who lost equipment containing the confidential information of millions of Americans, including Robert Curtis of Monument, Colorado.
Curtis, according to court records, was besieged by identity thieves after someone stole data tapes that the contractor left in a car, exposing the health records of about 5 million current and former Pentagon employees and their families.
"I was angry, because we as citizens trust the government to act on our behalf," Curtis told the AP. 
At a time when intelligence officials say cybersecurity now trumps terrorism as the No. 1 threat to the U.S. -- and when breaches at businesses such as Home Depot and Target focus attention on data security -- the federal government isn't required to publicize its own brushes with data loss.
Last month, a breach of unclassified White House computers by hackers thought to be working for Russia was reported not by officials but The Washington Post. Congressional Republicans complained even they weren't alerted to the hack.
"It would be unwise, I think for rather obvious reasons, for me to discuss from here what we have learned so far," White House press secretary Josh Earnest later said about the report.
To determine the extent of federal cyberincidents, which include probing into network weak spots, stealing data and defacing websites, the AP filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, interviewed hackers, cybersecurity experts and government officials, and obtained documents describing digital cracks in the system.
That review shows that 40 years and more than $100 billion after the first federal data protection law was enacted, the government is struggling to close holes without the knowledge, staff or systems to outwit an ever-evolving foe.
"It's a much bigger challenge than anyone could have imagined 20 years ago," said Phyllis Schneck, deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, which runs a 24/7 incident-response center responding to threats.
Fears about breaches have been around since the late 1960s, when the federal government began shifting its operations onto computers. Officials responded with software designed to sniff out malicious programs and raise alarms about intruders.
And yet, attackers have always found a way in. Since 2006, there have been more than 87 million sensitive or private records exposed by breaches of federal networks, according to the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which tracks cyberincidents at all levels of government through news, private sector and government reports.
By comparison, retail businesses lost 255 million records during that time, financial and insurance services lost 212 million and educational institutions lost 13 million. The federal records breached included employee usernames and passwords, veterans' medical records and a database detailing structural weaknesses in the nation's dams.
From 2009 to 2013, the number of reported breaches just on federal computer networks -- the .gov and .mils -- rose from 26,942 to 46,605, according to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Last year, US-CERT responded to a total of 228,700 cyberincidents involving federal agencies, companies that run critical infrastructure and contract partners. That's more than double the incidents in 2009.
And employees are to blame for at least half of the problems.
Last year, for example, about 21 percent of all federal breaches were traced to government workers who violated policies; 16 percent who lost devices or had them stolen; 12 percent who improperly handled sensitive information printed from computers; at least 8 percent who ran or installed malicious software; and 6 percent who were enticed to share private information, according to an annual White House review.
Documents released to the AP show how workers were lured in.
In one incident around Christmas 2011, Education Department employees received an email purportedly from Amazon.com that asked them to click on a link. Officials quickly warned staff that it could be malicious. The department did not release information to the AP about any resulting damage.
Reports from the Defense Department's Defense Security Service, tasked with protecting classified information and technologies in the hands of federal contractors, show how easy it is for hackers to get into DOD networks. One military user received messages that his computer was infected when he visited a website about schools. Officials tracked the attacker to what appeared to be a Germany-based server.
"We'll always be vulnerable to ... human-factor attacks unless we educate the overall workforce," said Assistant Secretary of Defense and cybersecurity adviser Eric Rosenbach.
Although the government is projected to spend $65 billion on cybersecurity contracts between 2015 and 2020, many experts believe the effort is not enough to counter a growing pool of hackers whose motives vary. Russia, Iran and China have been named as suspects in some attacks, while thieves seek out other valuable data. Only a small fraction of attackers are caught.
For every thief or hostile state, there are tens of thousands of victims like Robert Curtis.
He declined to talk about specifics of his case. According to court records, a thief in September 2011 broke into a car in a San Antonio garage and stole unencrypted computer tapes containing the Pentagon workers' information. The car belonged to an employee of a federal contractor tasked with securing those records.
Criminals have tried to get cash, loans, credit -- even establish businesses -- in Curtis' name, according to court records. He and his wife have frozen bank and credit accounts. A lawsuit brought by victims was dismissed.
"It is very ironic," said Curtis, himself a cybersecurity expert who worked to provide secure networks at the Pentagon. "I was the person who had paper shredders in my house. I was a consummate data protection guy."

European think tank says Russian brinksmanship at Cold War levels

A report from a European think tank has identified more than 40 dangerous incidents involving forces from Russia and those of NATO member states over the past eight months. 
The report, released Monday by the London-based European Leadership Network (ELN), specified three incidents in the past year that could have sparked open conflict between Russia and the West. 
"We believe [the incidents] are a very serious development, not necessarily because they indicate a desire on the part of Russia to start a war but because they show a dangerous game of brinkmanship is being played, with the potential for unintended escalation in what is now the most serious security crisis in Europe since the cold war," the report's authors wrote. 
The report was released following this weekend's celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, during which ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned that Russia and the West were in danger of entering a "new Cold War."
The 83-year-old accused the West, particularly the United States, of giving in to "triumphalism" after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the communist bloc. The result, he said, could partly be seen in the inability of global powers to prevent or resolve conflicts in Yugoslavia, the Middle East and most recently Ukraine.
The first incident noted by the ELN, in March of this year, involved a near-collision between a civilian airliner and a Russian spy plane that had turned off its transponders, making it nearly impossible to be tracked by civilian air traffic controllers. The aircraft, which was traveling from Copenhagen to Rome at the time of the near-miss, was carrying 132 people on board. The report said that the civilian aircraft's pilots were only just able to avert a tragedy when they spotted the Russian plane through their window. 
The second major incident was the September abduction of Eston Kohver, an Estonian secret service operative who was taken from a border post on Estonian territory. Kohver was later brought to Moscow and accused of espionage. The third incident was last month's hunt by Sweden's armed forces for the source of what Stockholm termed "foreign underwater activity." Rumors that the military was searching for a Russian submarine were never confirmed by officials.
The report maps most of the encounters as having taken place around the Baltic Sea, but incidents have also occurred over the Black Sea and along the U.S. and Canadian borders. 
In September, military officials said that two F-22 fighter jets intercepted six Russian military airplanes that were flying about 55 nautical miles from the coast of Alaska. The Russian planes were identified as two IL-78 refueling tankers, two Mig-31 fighter jets and two Bear long-range bombers. They looped south and returned to their base in Russia after the U.S. jets were scrambled.
Hours after that encounter, two Canadian CF-18 fighter jets intercepted two of the long-range Russian Bear bombers about 40 nautical miles off the Canadian coastline in the Beaufort Sea.
In both cases, the Russian planes entered the Air Defense Identification Zone, which extends about 200 miles from the coastline. They did not enter sovereign airspace of the United States or Canada.
The report recommends that Moscow "urgently re-evaluate" its posture, adopted in the midst of ongoing fighting in Ukraine; that both Russia and NATO improve communications, including the development of a joint crisis management arrangement in the event of a deadly incident; and that both sides exercise "military and political restraint."

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Fast and Furious II? Justice Department watchdog faults agency over grenade probe

Federal agents and prosecutors in Arizona made multiple errors in their investigation of a U.S. citizen who was suspected of smuggling grenade components to Mexico, including failing to arrest him when there was more than enough evidence to do so, the Justice Department watchdog said in a harshly critical report Thursday.
The inspector general's report found parallels between the investigation into Jean Baptiste Kingery by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and "Operation Fast and Furious," an ATF gun-running operation along the Southwest border that relied on flawed tactics and became a political firestorm for the Justice Department. Those similarities include poor supervision, weak oversight and a failure "to take or insist on overt enforcement action against the subjects of the investigations."
"Our reviews of both cases concluded that, in failing to act, they did not adequately consider the risk to public safety in the United States and Mexico created by the subjects' illegal activities," the report states.
In a statement, the Justice Department said that in the past six years it had taken "aggressive action" to ensure that the mistakes of the Kingery case "are not repeated."
The department said the officials responsible for the operation have either left the department or have been reassigned. It also noted that the deputy attorney general last year issued guidance to U.S. attorney's offices around the country about "overseeing sensitive operations." The ATF has also developed specialized training to deal with intelligence matters and legal issues.
According to the report, the ATF learned in 2009 that Kingery was ordering grenade components from an online military surplus dealer that agents suspected were being transported into Mexico and converted into live grenades for use by drug cartels.
Agents over the next few months intercepted two deliveries of grenade components that were intended for Kingery. But instead of trying to arrest him for the illegal export, agents marked the components so they could be identified later, delivered the items to his shipping address and set up surveillance to determine whether the parts were being taken into Mexico.
The operation came under public scrutiny in 2011 after Mexican soldiers involved in a shootout with members of a drug cartel found grenade hulls bearing markings similar to the ones the ATF made as part of its investigation.
The inspector general's report also faults the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona for failing to prosecute Kingery after he was stopped at the border in June 2010 transporting hundreds of grenade hulls and fuses. A prosecutor said Kingery was not arrested because the ATF wanted him as an informant, though ATF agents said he was never used as an informant and that prosecutors simply refused at the time to bring charges, according to the report.
Kingery returned to Mexico, where he was arrested in August 2011. Mexican authorities are prosecuting him for allegedly violating organized crime laws.
In "Operation Fast and Furious," federal agents permitted illicitly purchased weapons to be transported unimpeded in an effort to track them to high-level arms traffickers.
Federal agents lost control of some 2,000 weapons, and many of them wound up at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S. Two of the guns were found at the scene of the December 2010 slaying of border agent Brian Terry near the Arizona border city of Nogales.

For Hillary Clinton, an uncertain return to the campaign trail

She is the leading global voice championing the empowerment of girls and women, but of the eight Democratic women Hillary Clinton stumped for in the 2014 midterm cycle, only one was declared a winner.
She is the prospective frontrunner for her party’s presidential nomination in 2016, but of the 26 Democrats Clinton campaigned for in the midterms, 12 won, 13 lost, and one – Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana – lingers in uncertainty, facing a Dec. 6 runoff election against her Republican opponent.
This cycle marked Hillary Clinton’s return to the arena of electoral politics for the first time since her failed presidential bid in 2008 – secretaries of state traditionally abstain from partisan activity – and for those scouring the newly refashioned landscape for indications of how Clinton’s White House prospects may be affected, the results are decidedly mixed.
Supporters of the former secretary of state argue that, despite having eschewed the rough and tumble of politics for six years, she used her time on the stump this fall to good effect, forging new and strong ties with local party chieftains in states where such connections will prove valuable to a presidential run in two years.
“I think Hillary Clinton did yeoman's work in campaigning out there for Democrats,” said Patti Solis Doyle, a former Clinton campaign manager in 2008, in an interview with Fox News. “She did what she could to help her friends, and very strong Democrats out there. She raised money for them; she campaigned for them.” 
Solis Doyle emphasized that neither Clinton’s name nor her policies were on the ballot on Tuesday – but that hasn’t stopped some of her potential rivals from spreading the word that the big GOP gains marked a major setback for her aspirations. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that Tuesday’s verdict “tells you that she’s not inevitable. I think she’s very beatable.”
More pointed was Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who took to Twitter with unabashed glee to brand the 13 unsuccessful candidates Clinton stumped for “Hillary’s Losers.” “The 1990s was a long time ago,” Paul said on “Fox and Friends” on Friday morning. “I don't think there is such a Clinton cachet as there once was. ... There is a message here about Hillary Clinton as much as there is a message about the president.”
Doug Schoen, a former pollster for President Clinton, dismissed Sen. Paul’s suggestions that Mrs. Clinton remains, in the public imagination, tied at the hip to the unpopular incumbent in the White House. “This election was a repudiation, first and foremost, as every Republican I've heard say, of President Obama,” Schoen said on Fox News' “Happening Now” on Wednesday. “I think that the Clinton brand is separate and distinct from President Obama. I don't think this has an appreciable impact on her fortunes and future.”
With long memories of the central role that Florida and Ohio have played in recent presidential contests, Clinton and her Democratic colleagues cannot have looked favorably upon the Republicans’ success on Tuesday in holding onto the governor’s mansions in those critical battleground states. Some have argued that she will benefit from the GOP wave by being able to run against the GOP Congress.
Yet in the actual business of campaigning – the deployment of rhetoric and charisma to sway persuadable hearts and minds – Clinton’s performance again left some feeling as though she has still not worked out the kinks on display in her rocky book tour this spring. Perhaps Clinton’s most memorable statement as a surrogate speaker during this cycle was her assertion, during an Oct. 24 appearance in Boston on behalf of (doomed) Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley: “Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.”
That statement prompted criticism from Charles Lane, the left-leaning opinion writer for the Washington Post. “ I thought NBC created a job for Chelsea [Clinton], so there is at least one corporation that has created a job,” he quipped on the Oct. 27 edition of Fox News' “Special Report with Bret Baier.” “She has made quite a few gaffes now since this unofficial presidential campaign has gotten underway.”
Solis Doyle, who recalled chatting amiably with Clinton at a Georgetown event last month, thought her former boss effectively used the campaign cycle to regain her footing as a stump speaker after a long absence from the trail and the difficulties of the "Hard Choices" rollout. “There has been some criticism over the book tour,” Solis Doyle said. “But I think what was good about that is that it was able to get some of the, you know, not-great performances out of the way, and she’s sort of back in her game. ... I thought her performance on the stump during the 2014 midterm elections was pretty good.”

US-led airstrikes target ISIS leaders in Iraq

A series of U.S.-led airstrikes launched Friday targeted what was thought to be a gathering of Islamic State leaders in Iraq, a defense official told Fox News.
The airstrikes, that took place near the Iraqi town of Mosul near the Syrian border, destroyed a vehicle convoy of 10 armed trucks. The official offered no further information and said they could not confirm if Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was among those present.
“This strike demonstrates the pressure we continue to place on the ISIL terrorist network and the group’s increasingly limited freedom to maneuver, communicate and command,” a defense official told Fox News.
The U.S. has been launching airstrikes on Islamic State group militants and facilities in Iraq and Syria for weeks as part of an effort to give Iraqi forces the time and space to mount a more effective offensive. Early on, the Islamic State group gained ground across Iraq, as local Iraqi units threw down their weapons and fled or joined the insurgents.
The Islamic State group has proclaimed al-Baghdadi as caliph, or supreme leader, of the vast areas of territory in Iraq and Syria under its control and demanded that all Muslims pledge allegiance to him.
Al-Baghdadi, an ambitious Iraqi militant believed to be in his early 40s, has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. Since taking the reins of the group in 2010, he has transformed it from a local branch of Al Qaeda into an independent transnational military force, positioning himself as perhaps the pre-eminent figure in the global jihadi community.
Despite the airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, Sunni militants have continued to carrying out deadly bombings targeting Iraqi security forces and civilians.
A suicide truck bomber struck the convoy of a top Iraqi police officer killing eight people, including the ranking official, authorities said Saturday, in an attack that bore the hallmarks of militants from the Islamic State group.
The late Friday attack happened when the suicide attacker drove his bomb-laden truck into the convoy of police Lt. Gen. Faisal Malik al-Zamel, who was inspecting forces in the town of Beiji north of Baghdad, police said. The blast killed al-Zamel and seven other police officers, while wounding 15 people, hospital officials and police officers said.
Meanwhile on Saturday, a series of bombings in and around the capital Baghdad killed at least 43 people, with the deadliest blast hitting the city's sprawling Shiite district of Sadr City, where a car bomb tore through a commercial area, killing 11 people and wounding 21.
There has been an uptick in the number of bombings blamed on Sunni militants in the capital and mostly targeting Shiites, feeding sectarian tensions in the city, as the security forces of the Shiite-led government battle the Sunni militants of the Islamic State group to the west and north of the capital. More recently, the attacks targeted Shiite pilgrims marking Ashoura, the highlight of the sect's religious calendar.
A U.S.-led coalition has been launching airstrikes on Islamic State militants and facilities in Iraq and Syria for months, as part of an effort to give Iraqi forces the time and space to mount a more effective offensive. The Islamic State had gained ground across northern and western Iraq in a lightning advance in June and July, causing several of Iraq's army and police divisions to fall into disarray.
On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of up to 1,500 more American troops to bolster Iraqi forces, including into Anbar province, where fighting with Islamic State militants has been fierce. The plan could boost the total number of American troops in Iraq to 3,100. There now are about 1,400 U.S. troops in Iraq, out of the 1,600 previously authorized.
"What is needed from the U.S. is that it should work to bring the Iraqi people together," said Hamid al-Mutlaq, a Sunni Iraqi lawmaker. "America, and others, should not become an obstacle that hinder the Iraqis' ambitions for a free Iraqi decision that serves the interests of Iraq"
Besides the Sadr City bombing, at least nine people were killed and another 18 wounded when a car bomb tore through a commercial street lined with restaurants in the southeastern Baghdad neighborhood of al-Amin. Two car bombs also killed eight people and wounded 16 on a commercial street in Baghdad's southwestern Amil neighborhood, police officials said.
A car bomb also detonated on a commercial street in Baghdad's busy central al-Karadah district, killing seven people and wounding at least 21, officials said. In Yousifiya, a town just south of the capital, two people were killed and four wounded in a bombing near a fruit and vegetable market. Another car bomb struck Zafaraniya in southeastern Baghdad, killing six and wounding 13, officials said.
Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All police and hospital officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Americans released from North Korean captivity back on US soil

One of two Americans released from North Korean captivity this weekend thanked his family, friends, and other supporters for not forgetting about him while he was held in the Communist state. 
"I just want to say thank you all for supporting me and standing by me," Kenneth Bae, of Lynnwood, Wash., said during a press conference at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle. ""It's been an amazing two years, I learned a lot,  I grew a lot, I lost a lot of weight." Bae also thanked President Barack Obama, as well as the North Korean government for releasing him. 
A plane carrying Bae and Matthew Miller, of Bakersfield, Calif. arrived at the base shortly after 9 p.m. local time. Members of Bae's family, who live nearby, met him when he landed. His mother hugged him after he got off the plane. Miller stepped off the U.S. government aircraft a short time later and was also greeted with hugs. Neither Miller nor anyone in his party met the media. 
The men's release had been secured following a secret mission by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who accompanied Bae and Miller back to the U.S. and was the highest-ranking American official to visit Pyongyang in over a decade. 
A senior Obama administration official said the president approved the mission last week and U.S. officials spent the next several days planning the trip. Clapper spent roughly a day on the ground and met with North Korean security officials -- but not with Kim, the official said aboard Air Force One as Obama prepared to head to Beijing.
Clapper went with the sole purpose of bringing home the two detainees, although the U.S. anticipated that other issues of concern to the North would come up during Clapper's discussions on the ground, the official said. "It was not to pursue any other diplomatic opening," said the official, who wasn't authorized to comment by name and demanded anonymity.
The U.S. had considered sending someone from outside government to retrieve the detainees, the official said, but suggested Clapper after the North Koreans indicated in recent weeks that they would release the detainees if the U.S. sent a high-level official from Obama's administration. He said the U.S. settled on Clapper because of his role as a security official, rather than a diplomat.
Bae, a Korean-American missionary, was serving a 15-year sentence for alleged anti-government activities after being arrested in November 2012 while leading a tour group in North Korea and accused of crimes against the state. Bae's family and the State Department have repeatedly called for his release on humanitarian grounds, citing his failing health.
When asked how he was feeling, Bae told reporters, "I'm recovering at this time." His family has said he suffers from diabetes, an enlarged heart, liver problems and back pain,
Miller was serving a six-year jail term on charges of espionage, after he allegedly ripped his tourist visa at Pyongyang's airport in April and demanded asylum. North Korea said he had wanted to experience prison life so that he could secretly investigate North Korea's human rights situation.
It was not immediately clear whether either of the men were debriefed or questioned about their experiences in North Korea while en route to the U.S. 
"It's a wonderful day for them and their families," Obama said at the White House following his announcement of his pick for attorney general. "Obviously we are very grateful for their safe return. And I appreciate Director Clapper doing a great job on what was obviously a challenging mission."
Analysts who study North Korea said the decision to free Bae and Miller now from long prison terms probably was a bid by that country to ease pressure in connection with its human rights record. A recent United Nations report documented rape, torture, executions and forced labor in the North's network of prison camps, accusing the government of "widespread, systematic and gross" human rights violations.
North Korea seems worried that Kim could be accused in the international criminal court, said Sue Mi Terry, a former senior intelligence analyst now at Columbia University.
"The North Koreans seem to be obsessed over the human rights issue," she told The Associated Press. "This human rights thing is showing itself to be an unexpected leverage for the U.S."
Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that efforts to shine a spotlight on the country's human rights record "startled the regime and led to frantic attempts to derail the process."
Bae and Miller were the last Americans held by North Korea following the release last month of Jeffrey Fowle. Fowle of Miamisburg, Ohio, was held for nearly six months. He had left a Bible in a nightclub in the hope that it would reach North Korea's underground Christian community.
Fowle said his fellow Americans' release is "an answer to a prayer." He also said he initially thought Bae and Miller had been released with him.
"I didn't realize they weren't released with me until I got on the plane," Fowle said.
The detainee releases do not herald a change in U.S. posture regarding North Korea's disputed nuclear program, the main source of tension between Pyongyang and Washington, said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters.
International aid-for-disarmament talks have been stalled since 2008. The U.S. wants the North to take concrete steps to show it's committed to denuclearization before the talks can resume.
The last concerted U.S. effort to restart those negotiations collapsed in spring 2012. North Korea had agreed to freeze its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for food aid, but then launched a long-range rocket in breach of a U.N. ban on its use of ballistic missile technology.

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Supreme Court to hear new ObamaCare challenge

WASHINGTON –  The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a new challenge to ObamaCare, bringing the law back before the court after it survived a brush with death in 2012. 
At issue in this case is the legality of subsidies offered to help millions of low- and middle-income people buy health insurance. Opponents argue that most of the subsidies are illegal.
A federal appeals court upheld Internal Revenue Service regulations that allow health-insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for consumers in all 50 states. 
But opponents of the subsidies argued the Supreme Court should resolve the issue now because it involves billions of dollars in public money. At least four justices, needed to grant review, apparently agreed with the challengers that the issue is important enough to decide now.
The case is likely to be heard in the spring of 2015. 
"The plain language of the law makes it clear that subsidies are only to be provided for the purchase of health coverage through exchanges setup by the states," Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said in a statement. "Nevertheless, the Obama administration and others are asking the courts to disregard the letter of the law and instead rule based on bureaucratic rewrites and revisions." 
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the congressional intent behind the law is for eligible customers regardless of where they live to receive assistance from the government to subsidize the purchase of health care. He promised a vigorous defense before the high court. 
"The ACA is working. These lawsuits won't stand in the way of the Affordable Care Act and the millions of Americans who can now afford health insurance because of it," he said in a statement, calling the lawsuit "just another partisan attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act and to strip millions of American families of tax credits that Congress intended for them to have." 
The justices upheld the heart of the law in a 5-4 decision in 2012 in which Chief Justice John Roberts provided the decisive vote, preserving the law's individual mandate to buy insurance. 
This past June, the court again ruled on ObamaCare, this time siding with companies that had religious objections over the law's requirement to provide contraceptive coverage. The ruling forced the administration to adjust the regulations, but did not seriously disrupt the health law. 
The case over insurance subsidies, though, puts more at stake for the administration. The insurance subsidies are a key plank of the law's system for ensuring that the people required to buy insurance can actually afford to pay for it. Foes have challenged the legality of providing them in states that do not have their own insurance exchanges -- in other words, those using HealthCare.gov. 
In July, a Richmond, Virginia-based appeals court upheld Internal Revenue Service regulations that allow health-insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for consumers in all 50 states.
On that same July day, a panel of appellate judges in Washington, District of Columbia, sided with the challengers in striking down the IRS regulations. The Washington court held that under the law, financial aid can be provided only in states that have set up their own insurance markets, known as exchanges.
The administration said in court papers that the federal government is running the exchanges in 34 states and that nearly 5 million people receive subsidies that allow them to purchase health insurance through those exchanges.
For those federal exchange consumers, the subsidies cover 76 percent of their premiums, on average. Customers now pay an average of $82 on total monthly premiums averaging $346. The federal subsidy of $264 a month makes up the difference.
But in October, the entire Washington appeals court voted to rehear the case and threw out the panel's ruling, eliminating the so-called circuit split. The appeals argument has been scheduled for December 17, but that case now recedes in importance with the Supreme Court's action to step in.
The court rarely steps into a case when there is no disagreement among federal appellate courts, unless a law or regulation has been ruled invalid.

Obama approves sending up to 1,500 more US troops to Iraq

WASHINGTON –  President Obama has approved sending up to 1,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, doubling the number being deployed to help Iraqi forces fight the Islamic State. 
The president also requested an additional $5.6 billion on Friday for the war against the Islamic State, in part to cover the additional deployments. 
The decisions reflect a deepening U.S. involvement in the region, though the White House again stressed that U.S. personnel "will not be in combat," but rather training, advising and assisting Iraqi forces near Baghdad and Irbil. 
Currently, there are about 1,400 U.S. troops in Iraq. 
The U.S. has been launching airstrikes on Islamic State group militants and facilities in Iraq and Syria for weeks, as part of an effort to give Iraqi forces the time and space to mount a more effective offensive. Early on, the Islamic State group gained ground across Iraq, as local Iraqi units threw down their weapons and fled or joined the insurgents. 
Lately, with the aid of the U.S. strikes, the Islamic State has suffered a number of losses in Iraq, where it is fighting government forces, peshmerga and Shiite militias aided by Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group. Last week, Iraqi forces recaptured the town of Jurf al-Sakher. ISIS also lost Rabia, Mahmoudiyah and Zumar, a string of towns near the Syrian border, last month. Besieged Iraqi troops have also managed to maintain control of Iraq's largest oil refinery outside the town of Beiji north of Baghdad, despite numerous attempts by the Islamic State group to capture it.
At the same time, some have warned the U.S. operation is insufficient. In particular, there have been calls to send troops to the western Anbar province, where extremists have been slaughtering men, women and children. 
A senior military official said one of the operations centers being set up by the U.S. will be in Anbar Province, and that it is likely that the bulk of the additional troops will be in Iraq by the end of the year. 
The White House troop request comes with a $3.7 billion price tag. Of that, $3.2 billion will go to the Department of Defense while $500 million will go to the State Department.
The money will also go toward “replenishing or replacing munitions expended while conducting air strikes against ISIL, including from Air force and Navy platforms” as well as “financing operations and maintenance costs for air, ground and naval operations, including: flying hours; ship steaming days; and fuel, supplies and repair parts,” according to the White House. 
CENTCOM Commander Gen. Lloyd Austin and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel were at the White House on Friday briefing a bipartisan congressional group invited by the president. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey had first hinted at the announcement during an Oct. 30 briefing at the Pentagon.
The increased number of troops will allow the U.S. to spread its forces to additional locations across Iraq.
U.S. Central Command will also “establish several sites across Iraq that will accommodate the training of 12 Iraqi brigades, specifically nine Iraqi army and three Peshmerga brigades,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.
He added, “Over the coming weeks, as we finalize the training site locations, the United States will work with coalition members to determine how many U.S. and coalition personnel will be required at each location for the training effort.” 
Earlier this week, British education secretary Nicky Morgan announced British military officers would also be heading back to Iraq to help fight ISIS. Morgan confirmed that a group of officers would be sent to a U.S.-led training camp in Baghdad.
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said there would be no troops on the ground fighting ISIS.
Pressure has been mounting on western nations to provide more assistance to Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s new prime minister as forces try to reclaim towns and territories in the northern and western part of the country. U.S. and British troops were part of the 2003 Iraq invasion that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein.

For Hillary Clinton, an uncertain return to the campaign trail

She is the leading global voice championing the empowerment of girls and women, but of the eight Democratic women Hillary Clinton stumped for in the 2014 midterm cycle, only one was declared a winner.
She is the prospective frontrunner for her party’s presidential nomination in 2016, but of the 26 Democrats Clinton campaigned for in the midterms, 12 won, 13 lost, and one – Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana – lingers in uncertainty, facing a Dec. 6 runoff election against her Republican opponent.
This cycle marked Hillary Clinton’s return to the arena of electoral politics for the first time since her failed presidential bid in 2008 – secretaries of state traditionally abstain from partisan activity – and for those scouring the newly refashioned landscape for indications of how Clinton’s White House prospects may be affected, the results are decidedly mixed.
Supporters of the former secretary of state argue that, despite having eschewed the rough and tumble of politics for six years, she used her time on the stump this fall to good effect, forging new and strong ties with local party chieftains in states where such connections will prove valuable to a presidential run in two years.
“I think Hillary Clinton did yeoman's work in campaigning out there for Democrats,” said Patti Solis Doyle, a former Clinton campaign manager in 2008, in an interview with Fox News. “She did what she could to help her friends, and very strong Democrats out there. She raised money for them; she campaigned for them.” 
Solis Doyle emphasized that neither Clinton’s name nor her policies were on the ballot on Tuesday – but that hasn’t stopped some of her potential rivals from spreading the word that the big GOP gains marked a major setback for her aspirations. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that Tuesday’s verdict “tells you that she’s not inevitable. I think she’s very beatable.”
More pointed was Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who took to Twitter with unabashed glee to brand the 13 unsuccessful candidates Clinton stumped for “Hillary’s Losers.” “The 1990s was a long time ago,” Paul said on “Fox and Friends” on Friday morning. “I don't think there is such a Clinton cachet as there once was. ... There is a message here about Hillary Clinton as much as there is a message about the president.”
Doug Schoen, a former pollster for President Clinton, dismissed Sen. Paul’s suggestions that Mrs. Clinton remains, in the public imagination, tied at the hip to the unpopular incumbent in the White House. “This election was a repudiation, first and foremost, as every Republican I've heard say, of President Obama,” Schoen said on Fox News' “Happening Now” on Wednesday. “I think that the Clinton brand is separate and distinct from President Obama. I don't think this has an appreciable impact on her fortunes and future.”
With long memories of the central role that Florida and Ohio have played in recent presidential contests, Clinton and her Democratic colleagues cannot have looked favorably upon the Republicans’ success on Tuesday in holding onto the governor’s mansions in those critical battleground states. Some have argued that she will benefit from the GOP wave by being able to run against the GOP Congress.
Yet in the actual business of campaigning – the deployment of rhetoric and charisma to sway persuadable hearts and minds – Clinton’s performance again left some feeling as though she has still not worked out the kinks on display in her rocky book tour this spring. Perhaps Clinton’s most memorable statement as a surrogate speaker during this cycle was her assertion, during an Oct. 24 appearance in Boston on behalf of (doomed) Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley: “Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.”
That statement prompted criticism from Charles Lane, the left-leaning opinion writer for the Washington Post. “ I thought NBC created a job for Chelsea [Clinton], so there is at least one corporation that has created a job,” he quipped on the Oct. 27 edition of Fox News' “Special Report with Bret Baier.” “She has made quite a few gaffes now since this unofficial presidential campaign has gotten underway.”
Solis Doyle, who recalled chatting amiably with Clinton at a Georgetown event last month, thought her former boss effectively used the campaign cycle to regain her footing as a stump speaker after a long absence from the trail and the difficulties of the "Hard Choices" rollout. “There has been some criticism over the book tour,” Solis Doyle said. “But I think what was good about that is that it was able to get some of the, you know, not-great performances out of the way, and she’s sort of back in her game. ... I thought her performance on the stump during the 2014 midterm elections was pretty good.”

Obama urging Senate to confirm attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch quickly

President Obama chose Loretta Lynch, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., as his nominee to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder Friday.
Obama plans to announce Lynch’s nomination Saturday at a White House event. If confirmed, Lynch will become the first African-American woman in the job, succeeding Holder, who was the first African-American head of the Justice Department.
The ball is now in the new Senate’s court as to when Lynch’s confirmation will be. The White House has urged Senate officials to work out the timeline for her confirmation as soon as possible.
Democrats and Republicans have told the White House it would be difficult and damaging to the nominee politically to try to push her through while Democrats control of the Senate. Republicans will oversee her confirmation with the next Congress.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, has already indicated that he is unhappy Obama is making the nomination now, instead of during the new session, when Republicans will have the majority in both chambers.
“Democrat senators who just lost their seats shouldn't confirm (a) new Attorney General,” he tweeted on Friday. “(They) should be vetted by (the) new Congress.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, expressed "every confidence that Ms. Lynch will receive a very fair, but thorough, vetting by the Judiciary Committee."
"U.S. attorneys are rarely elevated directly to this position, so I look forward to learning more about her, how she will interact with Congress, and how she proposes to lead the department," Grassley said. "I'm hopeful that her tenure, if confirmed, will restore confidence in the attorney general as a politically independent voice for the American people."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who presumably will become the majority leader in the next session, issued a statement Friday night urging the Senate to wait until January to vote on the nomination.
"Ms. Lynch will receive fair consideration by the Senate," he said. "And her nomination should be considered in the new Congress through regular order."
Lynch, 55, is a Harvard Law School graduate and popular prosecutor who is currently serving her second stint as U.S. attorney for Eastern New York, which covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.
She received big praise from New York City mayor Bill De Blasio Friday as well.
“President Barack Obama has chosen a great New Yorker as the country’s highest-ranking law enforcement official,” he tweeted after learning the news about Lynch’s nomination.
"Ms. Lynch is a strong, independent prosecutor who has twice led one of the most important U.S. Attorney's offices in the country," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. "She will succeed Eric Holder, whose tenure has been marked by historic gains in the areas of criminal justice reform and civil rights enforcement."

Obama, emboldened GOP leaders meet to chart course -- and clash over immigration

King Obama just can't understand that he's lost the throne.

And you can tell that the Jester sitting to his left is not happy about it. (Reid)

Senate Cartoon

Source says reported letter from Obama to Ayatollah ‘f***s up everything'

President Obama reportedly penned a secret letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last month discussing their shared interest in fighting the Islamic State -- a development one congressional source told Fox News "f***s up everything."
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that, according to people briefed on the letter, Obama wrote to Khamenei in the middle of last month and stressed that any cooperation on dealing with the Islamic State, or ISIS, was tied to Iran striking a deal over its nuclear program. The U.S., Iran and other negotiators are facing a Nov. 24 deadline for such a deal.
A senior congressional source told Fox News that there is not anything definitive as to whether the letter even exists. But the source indicated they don't doubt that it's true because "we've seen [the president] do it before, so there is [a] precedent."
According to the Journal, Obama has written to Khamenei four times now since taking office.
The congressional source told Fox News that the letter would upset the inroads they've tried to make with "the Sunni league," noting that the president should have informed Congress of this back-channel if it was in fact going on.
"This f***s up everything," the source said.
Iran's government is Shiite-led, while the Islamic State is a Sunni terror group. The source was apparently referring to efforts to rally support among Sunni-led Arab states to confront ISIS.
Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina issued a joint statement Thursday night saying it was "outrageous that, while the cries of moderate Syrian forces for greater U.S. assistance fall on deaf ears in the White House, President Obama is apparently urging Ayatollah Khamenei to join the fight against ISIS.
Asked about the reported letter, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest would not confirm the report.
"I'm not in a position to discuss private correspondence between the president and any world leader," he said.
However, he said the U.S. policy toward Iran "remains unchanged."
"The United States will not cooperate militarily with Iran in that effort [against ISIS]. We won't share intelligence with them," he said. "But their interests in the outcome is something that's been widely commented on ... and something that on a couple of occasions has been discussed on the sidelines of other conversations."

Issa: Document dump shows Holder ‘at the heart’ of Fast and Furious debate

House oversight committee Chairman Darrell Issa told Fox News on Thursday that a massive trove of emails handed to his office on the eve of the elections indicates Attorney General Eric Holder was “at the heart” of deliberations over the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.
More than 64,000 pages of documents were given to the committee Monday night, a move Issa, R-Calif., said was a ploy to make sure they didn’t sway the election. But he said his staff is starting to go through them – already, one email exchange has surfaced in which Holder in 2011 blasted Issa “and his idiot cronies” looking into the botched anti-gun trafficking operation.
In that email, published by The Wall Street Journal, Holder claimed Issa and others “never gave a damn about” the program “when all that was happening was that thousands of Mexicans were being killed with guns from our country.” He accused them of trying only to “cripple ATF and suck up to the gun lobby.”
Issa rejected the charges, saying on Fox News the culpability lies with higher-ups, not the ATF, anyway.
“This was an undercover activity that specifically cut out our allies in Mexico … so if there’s culpability, I think it really belongs with the attorney general,” he said.
The now-halted operation allowed firearms to be trafficked into Mexico so U.S. agents could track them. But many guns ended up in the hands of criminals and at multiple crime scenes, including the murder of U.S. border agent Brian Terry.
Issa said that while Holder has suggested before Congress that he didn’t know much about the program, “it looks very much like he’s CC’d on everything.”
“This is an example of where the attorney general is at the heart of this,” he said.
The documents were released to the committee in response to a court order. Issa’s office claimed the turn-over is proof the department never had grounds to withhold them in the first place through so-called executive privilege.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon, though, said the department has been willing to cooperate.
“We have long been willing to provide many of these materials voluntarily in order to resolve this matter outside of court, and believe that producing them now should bring us a big step closer to concluding this litigation once and for all,” he said.
According to the department, the latest delivery includes about 10,000 documents, bringing the total provided so far to 18,000. Some documents still withheld were deemed “deliberative,” and exempt.  
A DOJ official said nothing in the materials contradicts what the department has said before about the “flawed” operation, and said they affirm the finding that Holder was not aware of the tactics until February 2011.

Election results looked nothing like the polls -- what gives?

WASHINGTON –  Tuesday's midterm elections were supposed to be a night of nail-biters, from Sen. Mitch McConnell's re-election race in Kentucky to veteran Sen. Pat Roberts' battle in Kansas. The too-close-to-call refrain was expected to be heard throughout the night. 
Instead, when the dust settled, Republicans rumbled to one of their biggest victories in decades. 
How could so many polls get so many races so wrong? 
"I want an investigation of the polls in Virginia," University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato told Fox News. "They were completely wrong, just as they were in Georgia. They were also way off in Illinois. And I could go on and on." 
Virginia played host to one of the biggest surprises of the night, for anyone who had been basing their election predictions on the polls. In the same state where pollsters failed to predict then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's loss to economics professor Dave Brat in the primaries, they also misjudged the race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Warner and Republican Ed Gillespie. 
Many polls had Warner with a double-digit lead over Gillespie. Warner is currently clinging to a 1-point lead, with the ballot count ongoing. 
It's not just that candidates thought to be dark horses ended up winning, or coming close. A flood of polls also showed several races to be tight in the closing weeks -- but on election night, Republicans soundly defeated Democrats in those contests. Exhibit A is the race between Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky. Polls showed Grimes within single digits -- one even showed her within a point -- of McConnell. The powerful senator ended up winning by 15 points. 
The results have led to some self-reflection, as well as recriminations, over the state and accuracy of political polling. 
Sabato, who said the polling industry "needs some housecleaning," clarified to FoxNews.com on Thursday that he wants the polling business -- not the government -- to conduct an internal review of its practices and procedures. 
"The government is the last group you'd want conducting any inquiry. Not only would it become partisan, inevitably, but the best polling professionals are well capable of organizing this themselves," he told FoxNews.com in an email.
In Kansas, number-crunchers at FiveThirtyEight had forecast a big loss for Gov. Sam Brownback, but he won by a 4-point margin. Data from FiveThirtyEight also predicted Roberts would be defeated in Kansas -- and many polls showed him virtually tied -- but he won by more than 10 percentage points against independent candidate Greg Orman. Likewise, in Georgia, Republican David Perdue beat Michelle Nunn for an open Senate seat by 8 points, despite polls showing a much closer race. 
Sabato, who heads up the Center for Politics' Crystal Ball website, had his own share of misses Tuesday night. Sabato had nine races leaning Democrat. Of those, seven were won by Republicans including the gubernatorial races in Maryland, Maine and Illinois. Maryland was a huge upset, as most polls showed Democrat Anthony Brown well ahead, yet Republican Larry Hogan won comfortably. 
Real Clear Politics, an online site that compiles polls from various resources, posted polling averages that largely did not square with the results. In almost every contested Senate race, Republican candidates beat the Real Clear Politics polling data. 
Sabato believes that in many cases, pollsters failed to factor in how heavily Republican and conservative the electorate in a low-turnout midterm was going to be. 
"After the experience of 2012, when they undercounted Hispanics and young people, they were concerned about the same phenomenon happening again," he said. "Perhaps they over-compensated. I want them to tell us." 
Rasmussen Reports defended its polling data on its website, saying in a written statement that they got it right "most of the time." 
"It's interesting to note that in the races in which the spread was really off for us (and the Real Clear Politics average of all pollsters), most of the time we were spot-on for the Democratic number but wrong on the Republican number," the message stated. 
Rasmussen pointed to a number of unknowns. "If you add the percentage of voters 'not sure' to the GOP side, you will come very close to the final Republican number," the statement said. 
Rasmussen believes that the data "suggests the last-minute swing vote went to the Republicans, and while it did not necessarily change the game in terms of the winner, it very much changed the spread between the candidates." 
This is not the first time some off-base polling has prompted a review of the methods used by polling firms. After Gallup showed Mitt Romney ahead in the 2012 presidential race -- he lost -- the Gallup Poll reviewed its own methodology of selecting voters. 
"It's becoming a much more difficult, nerve-wracking business," Geoff Garin, the president of Hart Research Associates and a leading Democratic pollster, told Bloomberg News at the time.

Speculation swirls over timing, pick for Holder replacement

WASHINGTON –  Tuesday’s elections have thrown President Obama a potential curveball when it comes to replacing outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder -- forcing him to decide whether to introduce a nominee during the lame duck session or take his chances with a more hostile Senate majority after January.
“(Obama) seemed pretty unapologetic yesterday, he didn’t seem to be extending an olive branch at all,” said Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal analyst at the Heritage Foundation. “I think if he has someone in mind who might be at all controversial, he won’t have any trouble getting (Democratic Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid to push it through the lame duck session.”
But reports this week indicate that while there’s still time to announce a nominee and have him or her vetted and voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee and full Senate before the holiday break, the White House is sending out signals it might wait until 2015.
Last week, Holder, who announced his retirement in September, told a reporter that he expects to stay on until early February.
A short list of nominees is making the media rounds. Missing from it are the more colorful and familiar faces, like outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. The three who appear to be in the running, according to unnamed White House sources: Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, and current Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.
“I don’t know if there are any (nominees) that Republicans would speedily or readily confirm,” said Sarah Binder, congressional expert at the Brookings Institution, who believes the two-month lame duck session may be too crowded with budget and spending priorities to properly vet and channel a nominee through the dangerous shoals of a Senate confirmation.
So it’s possible, she said, that these restraints will lead to “the White House saying we’ll just have to find a nominee come January, and that it will be a hard road but we’ll find a nominee who will be a bit more acceptable to Republicans.”
That might not include Perez, a former assistant attorney general at DOJ, who was opposed by Republicans when he was confirmed as Labor Secretary in a party line vote on July 18, 2013. He was called a “crusading ideologue” by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is poised to take over Reid’s position in January. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a judiciary committee member who voted against Perez, said the nominee showed “a lack of respect for the rule of law.” Critics pointed to his work on voting rights and immigration as “radical.”
Meanwhile, Lynch is being called an under-the-radar contender for Holder’s job. She is a 55-year-old Harvard grad with no particular ties to Obama – which could either help or hurt her in the process. She is close to Holder, however, serving on his AG’s Advisory Committee in Washington. 
During her tenure as U.S. Attorney, she convicted potential terrorists in a thwarted Al Qaeda attack on New York subways, and a Mexican drug kingpin, and she brought tax evasion charges against Republican Rep. Michael Grimm.
In addition, seeing Lynch become the first African-American woman to hold the AG position would “be inspiring to millions of people, especially children, to know what they could become,” said former federal prosecutor Andrew Weisman, who worked closely with Lynch.
As solicitor general, Verrilli has the confidence of the president, but like Perez, might have some difficulties getting past Senate critics. Republicans don’t like the fact that he is the administration’s top lawyer on every issue they have fought against at the Supreme Court level, including the Affordable Health Care Act. Others say he has a mixed record on winning cases.
Other names also have been floated. The National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) has asked the president to nominate the number two at the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, for the job.
In a letter to Obama dated Oct. 31, FOP president Chuck Canterbury wrote that his “reverence for the law, his respect for people of all persuasions and backgrounds and ready willingness to give a fair hearing to opposing views make him an extraordinary candidate.”
Whoever the nominee is, he or she will have to face Holder’s baggage with Senate Republicans, which will no doubt include questions on the ongoing IRS scandal, and any executive orders the president issues to protect undocumented workers in the U.S. from deportation. “Anyone who is not cooperative and who is not willing to answer questions is going to have a hard time,” said von Spakovsky.
That means the nominee will not only have to fulfill the myriad requirements of the job, but be able to keep his or her cool under fire in the hearing room.
“They will need to know their way around Capitol Hill, in congressional offices and in hearing rooms, and be able to work with both sides of the aisle," said Michele Jawanda, legal expert at the Center for American Progress. "The attorney general operates under the spotlight, which is why the position requires a savvy and calm, but an aggressive pursuer of injustice anywhere.”

2016 Cartoon

Reid to remain as Dem leader in GOP takeover

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will seek to lead the Democrats in the next Congress as they hand over the majority to Republicans.
Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Reid, said Wednesday that the five-term Nevada Democrat plans to remain leader and other Democrats indicated that he is unlikely to face a challenge.
Democrats suffered a drubbing in Tuesday's elections, losing their majority as Republicans picked up seven seats. The GOP majority could grow with possible wins in Alaska and Louisiana.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is in line to become Majority Leader in the new Congress in January.
Reid is up for re-election in 2016.

Israeli foreign minister berates right-wing politicians for exploiting Jerusalem tensions

JERUSALEM –  Israel's foreign minister on Thursday berated right-wing politicians for exploiting tensions in Jerusalem, underscoring concerns that an increasingly violent dispute over a major holy site may be spinning out of control.
The comments by Avigdor Lieberman came a day after a Hamas militant slammed a minivan into a crowd waiting for a train in Jerusalem, killing one person and wounding 13, and a Palestinian motorist drove into a group of soldiers in the West Bank, injuring three.
The wife of the first attacker said he had been angered by a confrontation earlier in the day between police and Palestinians at the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
Perennial tensions in the area have spiked in recent weeks as hard-line Israeli politicians have stepped up demands for the removal of restrictions preventing Jews from praying at the holy site. The clashes on Wednesday erupted as Palestinians threw stones and firecrackers in response to a demonstration by Israeli activists.
Last month, a Palestinian rammed his vehicle into a crowded train stop in east Jerusalem, killing a 3-month-old Israeli-American girl and a 22-year-old Ecuadorean woman. Days later, police shot and killed the suspected gunman behind a separate drive-by attack on Yehuda Glick, a rabbi and activist who has pushed for greater Jewish access to the sacred hilltop compound. Glick remains hospitalized.
In his comments Thursday, Lieberman said that Israeli politicians pushing for greater Jewish access to the site were behaving irresponsibly.
"I think these are people seeking cheap headlines in this very sensitive atmosphere, trying to cynically exploit a very complex situation," he told Israel Radio. Lieberman himself is a secular ultra-nationalist who in the past has made incendiary remarks about Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, but he has moderated his tone in recent months.
Right-wing Israelis have been pushing for lifting the restrictions on Jewish prayer at the site almost from the day they were first imposed by the government in the immediate wake of the 1967 Middle East war.
That conflict saw Israel seize east Jerusalem -- which includes the holy site -- as well as the West Bank and Gaza, territories where the Palestinians want to establish an independent state.
The durability of the restrictions reflect a longstanding Israeli desire not to inflame Muslim sensitivities and a formal rabbinical ban on praying in an area that tradition holds is the site of Judaism's ancient holy temples.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly come out in favor of maintaining the status quo at the site. Israeli security officials said earlier this week that changing that status quo could inflame an already tense situation.
Reacting to the comments from the security officials, Moshe Feiglin, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's Likud Party, said on Thursday that the struggle over the site was directly related to Israeli efforts to achieve overall security throughout the country.
"Any pullback from the Temple Mount will not end just at its gates," he said. "This society has to decide whether it is willing to pay the price to maintain its control, not only at the site, but in Israel as a whole."

Dow, S&P 500 Hit Fresh Highs On GOP Wave Election

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday, with both the S&P 500 and Dow advancing to records, after Republicans took control of the Senate, allaying fears of drawn-out runoffs and raising investor hopes for more business- and energy-friendly policies.
A stronger-than-expected report on the labor market also helped lift stocks, but some weak tech sector earnings weighed on the Nasdaq.
The beaten-down energy sector rallied on hopes that a Republican majority could pass legislation that includes approval of oil and gas pipelines and reforms of crude and natural gas export laws. The S&P energy index <.SPNY> was up 1.8 percent.
"For now, the market generally likes the results. If we had uncertainty around the result, that would have been a cause for concern," said John Canally, chief economic strategist at LPL Financial.
"A little bit less business unfriendliness coming out of Washington is a clear plus," he added, noting that 88 percent of the time, stocks rise in the fourth quarter of midterm election years, regardless of the outcome.
U.S. private employers added 230,000 jobs in October, the most since June, according to the ADP National Employment report. The data could raise hopes for Friday's closely-watched payroll report. On the downside, the pace of growth in the U.S. services sector slowed more than expected in October.
Time Warner Inc rose 4 percent to $77.99 after it reported revenue growth of 3 percent. Activision Blizzard Inc late Tuesday raised its full-year forecast, sending shares up 4.4 percent to $20.83.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 100.69 points, or 0.58 percent, to 17,484.53, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 11.47 points, or 0.57 percent, to 2,023.57 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dipped 2.92 points, or 0.06 percent, to 4,620.72.
Weighing on the Nasdaq, TripAdvisor Inc dropped 14.1 percent to $71.95, a day after weaker-than-expected earnings. FireEye Inc fell 15 percent to $29.12 a day after the cybersecurity company's revenue outlook was largely below expectations.
After the market closed, Tesla Motors shares gained 5.2 percent following results.
About 6.4 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the 7.3 billion average for the last five sessions.
NYSE advancing issues outnumbered decliners 1,799 to 1,258, for a 1.43-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,408 issues rose and 1,278 fell for a 1.10-to-1 ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 92 new 52-week highs and 5 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite showed 113 new highs and 55 new lows.

2016 Tryouts? Good, bad midterm nights for possible White House hopefuls

WASHINGTON –  So long midterms, hello 2016.
The winners and losers of Tuesday’s midterm elections are already starting to re-frame the conversation about which candidates may be considering a 2016 run for the White House.  
Voters sent a strong message to party leaders as the GOP took back control of the Senate and won governorships in states such as Maryland that previously had been deeply blue.
Experts and party watchers are combing through Tuesday night's winners and losers to determine which candidates – or those stumping for them - could translate into a big win when Republicans, Democrats and Independents battle it out to determine who will make their home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January of 2017.
Tuesday’s midterms also gave party leaders a look at polarizing issues and candidates heading into the next presidential race.
“The Republican senatorial committee, who I also think was a very big winner, went out and recruited candidates that could go out and fill that void of appealing to voters across a wide swath from the landscape,” GOP strategist Philip Stutts told FoxNews.com.  “Middle of the road voters, conservative voters. They did a really good job. “

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON:
It was a mixed bag for Hillary Clinton Tuesday night.
Though Clinton has not officially said whether she’ll run in 2016, she has hinted at it multiple times in interviews. But would the midterm election results help or harm Clinton?
“She’s got a situation where Democrats are going to have a knee jerk reaction immediately, which is to consolidate, go to your comfort zone, sort of go lick their wounds and get behind a name you know,” Democratic strategist Joe Lestingi told FoxNews.com. “She’s going to be able to exploit that.”
GOP strategist Philip Stutts sees it differently.
“Bill and Hillary were the number one surrogates for Democrats all across the country,” Stutts told FoxNews.com.
Stutts said the Clintons stumped for candidates in states that saw big GOP gains including governorships in Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland.
“Hillary lost many, many, many states she went into,” Stutts said. “And how that portends in 2016 is going to be very interesting.”

NEW JERSEY GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE:
Even though New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was not on the ballot this year, he lent his popularity and political clout when he helped raise a record $102 million to defend 22 GOP-held governorships. He also he stumped for Republican governors in 37 states.
Christie also is chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association.
“If you look at the gains they made in big Democratic states like Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland, the Republican Governor’s Association had a great night,” Stutts said.
Other wins Christie helped achieve were those of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Maine Gov. Paul Lepage, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Some political watchers say Christie will most likely use the races he stumped -and helped win - as leverage should he run in 2016. The New Jersey governor told the Wall Street Journal that Tuesday's win has the added benefit of helping his political goals.
"It's a political venture, so I'm hoping it helps me politically," the Republican governor said. "Everything that I'm doing helps to give me more information for when I ultimately decide."

MASSACHUSETTS SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN:
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was among the more successful Democrats stumping for their party ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections.  Of the 11 candidates Warren campaigned or fundraised for, six won.
While there had been whispers of Warren as a possible 2016 Democratic candidate for the White House, she repeatedly has said she wasn’t interested.

WISCONSIN GOV. SCOTT WALKER:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker secured his spot at the 2016 table on Tuesday by trouncing Democratic challenger Mary Burke. Walker, the golden boy of the GOP’s conservative base, outperformed expectations and easily beat out a push to oust him from the governor’s mansion.  
Walker, who was elected in 2010 and fought off a recall two years later in 2012, showed voters he had the political stamina to win a presidential race.
Although he hasn’t said he would run for president, Tuesday’s win was vital if he decides to give it a shot.

FLORIDA GOV. RICK SCOTT:
Although he was largely seen as one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for re-election, Florida Gov. Rick Scott was able to win re-election against former Gov. Charlie Crist.
Scott squeezed out the win against Crist, a one-time Republican-turned Independent-turned-Democrat.  Although he’s been consistently rated unfavorably among Floridians, according to The Associated Press, Scott is just one of two GOP governors in the state's history to win re-election, proving he can bring in the vote..
In the days leading up to Tuesday’s election, Scott and his wife put $13 million of their own money into his campaign coffers, turning a pricey campaign into one of the most expensive in the country. 

OHIO GOV.  JOHN KASICH
While many had predicted a win for Kasich, political analysts they were surprised by his political landslide. Kasich had 64 percent of the vote, compared with 33 percent for his Democratic challenger Ed FitzGerald. 
Several strategists say Kasich's big win puts him front and center should he decide to run for president in 2016. 
Kasich cheered as he took the stage at the Renaissance Downtown Columbus Hotel.
"This is just not another election, another political campaign," Kasich told his supporters Tuesday night. "This is a movement to restore the hope in our state, and maybe it can even become contagious with hope being restored all across the United States of America."

Obama Cartoon

Report: US turned to Iran for help in Afghanistan

Struggling to jump start Afghanistan’s fledgling economy, the United States reportedly turned to an unlikely country for help.
Even with strict sanctions on American companies doing business in Iran, the Pentagon established a special task force to seek out business relations with Afghanistan’s western neighbor, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The task force received special permission from the United States government to ask Iran to help establish Afghanistan’s first pharmaceutical company and in developing four mines, the journal reported.
Although talks ultimately failed, the olive branch to Iran shows the desperation of the American military to establish some sort of economy in Afghanistan having lost billions of dollars in 13 years of war there.
Even as the U.S. seemingly tries to garner a relationship with Iran, the country still strongly opposes Washington.
Tuesday marked the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. Thousands of Iranians took to the streets to chant “Down with America.”
Many in the crowd chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to Britain," neither of which has an embassy here. Several protesters burned the American, Israeli and the British flag.
Over the weekend Iranian officials blasted the U.S. as well.
The United States remains “the great Satan” and Iran’s “number one enemy,” Iranian military and defense officials said in statements that also called for “the prosecution, trial, and punishment of the White House,” The Washington Free Beacon reported.
The inflammatory comments, released over the weekend by Iran’s Defense Ministry and the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), come as nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran reach a critical juncture.
“The U.S. is still the great Satan and the number one enemy of the (Islamic) revolution and the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation,” the IRGC said in an organizational statement released Saturday to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, which has close ties to the group.