Fools of the Week: Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News

A full two weeks have passed since the accidental whistleblower MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber outed the Obama administration’s underhanded way of getting ObamaCare past the American people.
The lying and cheating that it took to pass was deplorable.
Well, you know about the Gruber tapes (all seven and counting) ... because we, here at Fox News, told you about them. 
We showed you the tapes because ObamaCare was a game-changer. It changed the way we interpret the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. And gave the federal government new powers over what they can impose on Americans and you needed to understand how the administration perpetrated the Big Hoax.
In the very prescient words of Vice President Joe Biden: “This is a big F***ing deal!”
But if you’re one of the remaining  few viewers to watch mainstream media, you probably never heard of Jon Gruber or his comment that are lighting up the news world.
Because Brian Williams and his NBC Nightly News has NEVER once mentioned Gruber…
They had time for things like Hello Kitty lollipops at McDonalds...
The dress code for Kate and Prince William’s U.S. visit...
And drones carrying mistletoe!
But no Gruber.
Because you are showing your media bias -- like Madonna shows her lingerie --Brian Williams and the NBC Nightly News, you are the Fools of the Week!

GOP, Democrats spar over legality of executive orders, as lawsuits begin

Democrats and Republicans sparred Sunday over whether President Obama violated the Constitution by using his executive power to change U.S. immigration law, with Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz calling the president’s actions “stunning and sad.”
Obama on Thursday announced that he would suspend deportation for roughly 5 million illegal immigrants, garnering support from much of his base and outrage from critics -- including two elected officials who are mounting separate legal challenges to the president’s executive actions.
Cruz  told “Fox News Sunday” that Obama refuses to accept that only Congress has the authority to establish federal immigration laws and that members should block the president’s nominees and some funding until he rescinds his executive actions.
“This is a stunning and sad display by the president,” Cruz said. “We need to impose real consequence.”
He was joined on the show by Greg Abbott, the governor-elect of Texas, which borders Mexico and deals with many illegal immigration issues.
Abbott, the state’s attorney general, intends to sue, arguing the executive actions create the same financial hardships for Texas as those in 2012 that now shield from deportation more than 1 million young people brought to the United States illegally through no fault of their own.
“We think we have standing better than any other state to be able to assert this claim against the president,” Abbott told Fox. “We have a president who feels completely unrestrained by the Constitution of America.”
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Arizona’s Maricopa County, has already filed a similar suit and called Obama’s moves “unconstitutional.”
California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra on Sunday defended Obama’s executive orders, saying they are no different than what Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. did.
“He cannot change a law,” Becerra told Fox. “He can only secure them. The Supreme Court as recently as two years ago said the president has broad discretion to execute the laws.”
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “absolutely” sure the executive actions will pass constitutional muster.
“As a result of the president's actions more felons will be deported, more border patrol would be at the southern border, more people will pay taxes and more families will be able to stay together,” he added. “I think those are the goals that are worthy of being achieved.
Cruz also suggested, as he has since Obama announced the executive action, that Congress should take action next year when Republicans, who already control the House, will also have the majority in the Senate.
He said Congress, which confirms or votes down presidential nominees for judgeships and top administrative posts, should block all of Obama’s judicial and executive nominations for two years, except for those of “vital, national” importance.
The outspoken, first-term senator would not directly say whether Congress should try to block the nomination of Loretta Lynch, Obama’s pick to be the next U.S. attorney general.

Obama: Americans want 'new car smell' in 2016

HENDERSON, Nev. –  President Barack Obama says voters want a "new car smell" in the 2016 White House race and that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be "a great president."
But would Clinton pass that particular smell test?
In a nationally televised interview broadcast Sunday, Obama seemed to suggest that any Democrat other than him would provide the turn of the page that he says voters are interested in. He acknowledged the "dings" to his own political standing during nearly six years of sometimes bruising battles with Congress and said Americans will want something new.
"They want to drive something off the lot that doesn't have as much mileage as me," Obama said in the interview with ABC's "This Week," which was taped Friday in Las Vegas following a public appearance there by the president.
He said a number of possible Democratic candidates would make "terrific presidents," but Hillary Clinton is the only one he mentioned by name. He said she would be a "formidable candidate" and make "a great president" if she decides to run a second time.
But if she does run -- which she is considering, with a decision expected to be announced early next year -- would she have that "new car" scent for voters?
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill declined to comment on the ABC interview.
Hillary Clinton has been a powerful force in Democratic politics for many years, beginning as Arkansas' first lady before she became America's first lady after her husband, Bill Clinton, was elected president in 1992. When his two terms were up, she ran for and won a U.S. Senate seat from New York.
She later sought and lost the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination to Obama, then cemented her worldwide profile by serving Obama as secretary of state in his first term. The Democratic political establishment is now awaiting word on whether she will take on the challenge of another national political campaign.
New car smell or not, Democratic voters hold her in such high regard that she outdistances anyone else in polling of possible Democratic candidates for 2016. One of them is Vice President Joe Biden, who has not ruled out a third run for the White House.
Eight in 10 Democrats held positive views of Clinton in an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in late July. Biden had a 71 percent favorable rating in the survey.
Obama acknowledged that Hillary Clinton won't agree with him on everything, suggesting that such a stance would be a welcome break for voters after eight years of Obama. A benefit of running for president, he said, "is you can stake out your own positions."
The 2016 presidential race could feature a repeat face-off between a Clinton and a member of another leading American political family: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is considering entering the 2016 race. His father and brother both were elected president.
Three of the past four presidents dating to the 1988 election have been named Bush or Clinton.
Jeb Bush's father, George H. W. Bush, was elected president in 1988. He lost re-election in 1992 to Bill Clinton, who served two terms. Jeb Bush's brother, George W., then defeated Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, in 2000 and was re-elected in 2004. The elder Bush also served two terms as vice president to Ronald Reagan.
In the AP-GfK survey, Jeb Bush was most popular among potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates, with 56 percent of Republicans viewing him favorably. Majorities also held positive views of outgoing Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

Obamaland Cartoon

Al-Shabab militants hijack bus in Kenya, kill 28 non-Muslims on board, police say

NAIROBI, Kenya –  One gunman shot from the right, one from the left, each killing the non-Muslims lying in a line on the ground, growing closer and closer to Douglas Ochwodho, who was in the middle.
And then the shooting stopped. Apparently each gunman thought the other shot Ochwodho. He lay perfectly still until the 20 Islamic extremists left, and he appears to be the only survivor of those who had been selected for death.
Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, attacked a bus in northern Kenya at dawn Saturday, singling out and killing 28 passengers who could not recite an Islamic creed and were assumed to be non-Muslims, Kenyan police said.
Those who could not say the Shahada, a tenet of the Muslim faith, were shot at close range, Ochwodho told The Associated Press.
Nineteen men and nine women were killed in the bus attack, said Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo.
Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the killings through its radio station in Somalia, saying it was in retaliation for raids by Kenyan security forces carried out earlier this week on four mosques at the Kenyan coast.
Kenya's military said it responded to the killings with airstrikes later Saturday that destroyed the attackers' camp in Somalia and killed 45 rebels.
"The United States condemns in the strongest terms today's horrific attack in Kenya by the terrorist group al-Shabab against innocent civilians," said Bernadette Meehan, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council in Washington.
"The United States stands with our Kenyan partners in the effort to counter the threat of terrorism and affirms our ongoing commitment to working with all Kenyans to combat these atrocities," her statement said.
The bus traveling to the capital Nairobi with 60 passengers was hijacked about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the town of Mandera near Kenya's border with Somalia, said two police officers who insisted on anonymity because they were ordered not to speak to the press.
The attackers first tried to wave the bus down but it didn't stop so the gunmen sprayed it with bullets, said the police. When that didn't work they shot a rocket propelled grenade at it, the officers said.
The gunmen took control of the vehicle and forced it off the road where they ordered all the passengers out of the vehicle and separated those who appeared to be non-Muslims-- mostly non-Somalis-- from the rest.
The survivor, Douglas Ochwodho, a non-Muslim head teacher of a private primary school in Mandera, said was travelling home for the Christmas vacation since school had closed.
Ochwodho told AP that the passengers who did not look Somali were separated from the others. The non-Somali passengers were then asked to recite the Shahada, an Islamic creed declaring oneness with God.  Those who couldn't recite the creed were ordered to lie down. Ochwodho was among those who had to lie on the ground.
Two gunmen started shooting those on the ground; one gunman started from the left and other from the right, Ochwodho said. When they reached him they were confused on whether either had shot him, he said.
Ochwodho lay still until the gunmen left, he said.  He then ran back to the road and got a lift from a pick-up truck back to Mandera. He spoke from a hospital bed where he was being treated for shock.
Seventeen of the 28 dead were teachers, according to the police commander in Mandera County.
A shortage of personnel and lack of equipment led to a slow response by police when the information was received, said two police officers who insisted on anonymity because they were ordered not to speak to the press. They said the attackers have more sophisticated weaponry than the police who waited for military reinforcements before responding.
Kenya has been hit by a series of gun and bomb attacks blamed on al-Shabab, who are linked to al-Qaida, since it sent troops into Somalia in October 2011. Authorities say there have been at least 135 attacks by al-Shabab since then, including the assault on Nairobi's upscale Westgate Mall in September 2013 in which 67 people were killed.  Al-Shabab said it was responsible for other attacks on Kenya's coast earlier this year which killed at least 90 people.
Al-Shabab is becoming "more entrenched and a graver threat to Kenya," warned the International Crisis Group in a September report to mark the  anniversary of the Westgate attack. The report said that the Islamic extremists are taking advantage of longstanding grievances of Kenya's Muslim community, such as official discrimination and marginalization.
Kenya has been struggling to contain growing extremism in the country. Earlier this week the authorities shut down four mosques at the Kenyan coast after police alleged they found explosives and a gun when they raided the places of worship.
Some Muslims believe the police planted the weapons to justify closing the mosques, Kheled Khalifa, a human rights official said Friday warning that methods being used to tackle extremism by government will increase support for radicals.
One person was killed during the raid on two of the mosques on Monday. Police said they shot dead a young man trying to hurl a grenade at them.
The government had previously said the four mosques were recruitment centers for al-Shabab.

Federal watchdogs uncover thousands of lost Lerner emails, decoding to take weeks

As many as 30,000 lost emails from Lois Lerner -- the ex-IRS official at the center of the agency's targeting scandal -- have been recovered by federal investigators.
The IRS has already turned over thousands of Lerner emails to congressional investigators but has said the remainder are gone forever because Lerner’s hard-drive crashed in 2011. And in June, agency Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress that back-up tapes containing the missing emails have been destroyed.  
“The IRS has continually dragged its feet, changed its story, and been less than forthcoming with information related to its egregious violation of Americans’ First Amendment rights,” said Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has spearheaded congressional probes on the issue.
“These e-mails are long overdue, and underscore again why we need a special prosecutor to conduct an unhindered investigation. Hopefully these e-mails will help us get to the truth,” he continued.
Lerner led the IRS division that targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups for excessive scrutiny during the 2012 presidential election cycle when they applied for tax-exempt status.
Lerner in March refused to testify before the GOP-led House investigative committee, saying she was protected under the Fifth Amendment, and has since retired.
VIDEO: Did IRS bother to look for emails?
Some of the recovered emails might be duplicates. And it could take weeks to learn their content because they are encoded, said Frederick Hill, a spokesman for Republicans on the Oversight committee.
In addition, the IRS would also have to delete information about taxpayers that is considered private before it can be released to the committee, which is headed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
The federal investigators are from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which audits the IRS. A spokeswoman for the inspector general, Karen Kraushaar, declined to comment, saying the investigation was continuing.
The investigators ignited a political firestorm in May 2013 with the initial report about the exceptionally close scrutiny.
The IRS said Saturday that it remains "committed to fully cooperating with all of the pending investigations."
The agency also said that it learned after the June report that the TIGTA had began an investigation of the hard-drive crash and a search for additional emails. 
Senate Finance Committee aides said the investigators will assess if the newly recovered data can be made readable before it can be turned over to the committee.
They said their committee, which has been conducting a bipartisan investigation of the IRS's treatment of groups, including liberal ones, expects to complete its work early next year.

Ferguson grand jury decision unlikely this weekend, sources say

The grand jury considering whether to indict the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed teenager Michael Brown is unlikely to meet and render a decision this weekend, sources told Fox News on Saturday.
Those same sources say it is likely the grand jury will wait until Monday to reconvene.
The 12-member grand jury has been considering whether charges are warranted against Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed the 18-year-old Brown on Aug. 9 during a confrontation on a street in Ferguson. Wilson is white and Brown, who was unarmed, is black.
There have been many demonstrations in the months since Brown's death, including some that were violent. Police arrested three protesters on Friday night -- the third straight night of unrest in the St. Louis area.
The FBI confirmed Saturday that they had arrested two men accused of buying explosives, that they reportedly planned to use in protests in the area.
On Saturday, the authorities set up barricades around the Buzz Westfall Justice Center in Clayton, which is where the grand jury has been meeting.
Barricades also went up in the shopping center parking lot on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, which was where police set up a makeshift command center in the immediate aftermath of Brown's death.
Several businesses in both Ferguson and Clayton have put boards on their windows.
Residents were on edge, too.
Jamie Freeman of Ferguson, 38, a registered nurse and mother of four, said she was especially concerned since her 20-year-old son lives in the neighborhood where Brown was shot.
"I just hope it stays peaceful," Freeman said of protests that will follow the grand jury decision. "We all have human emotions, bit there's a way to do things, and violence, you can't get peace from violence."
Crump, the Brown family attorney, seemed doubtful that Wilson would be charged, saying the grand jury process is weighted against those shot by police officers.
"Ninety-nine percent of the time the police officer is not held accountable for killing a young black boy," Crump said. "The police officer gets all the consideration."
The FBI has sent nearly 100 additional agents to Ferguson to help law enforcement agencies, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the FBI plans.

Few signs of movement as deadline for Iran nuclear agreement nears

Talks between Western diplomats and their Iranian counterparts appeared to be at a stalemate Sunday as the deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement about the fate of Tehran's nuclear program crept closer. 
The Wall Street Journal, citing a senior Western diplomat, reported late Saturday that reaching a final agreement by a Monday deadline was "impossible," though a deal setting out the key principles of a final agreement is not out of reach.  
"We have reached a point in the talks where probably we can’t have an agreement without some very significant moves from the Iranians," the diplomat told the Journal. "No one can say this is finished ... The only thing is we can’t do the job for the Iranians."
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency quoted a member of that country's negotiating team who also said an agreement by Monday was "impossible."
"Considering the short time left until the deadline and number of issues that needed to be discussed and resolved, it is impossible to reach a final and comprehensive deal by Nov. 24," the official is quoted as saying. "The issue of extension of the talks is an option on the table and we will start discussing it if no deal is reached by Sunday night."
On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that "serious gaps" between the two sides existed, while his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the success or failure of the talks is "still completely open at this point."
Kerry spoke by telephone on Saturday to Arab foreign ministers in the Gulf, whose countries fear Iran's potential abilities to make nuclear arms, and with his Canadian and Turkish counterparts, the U.S. State Department said. He also talked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone.
Officials from the so-called P5+1 countries -- the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China are seeking guarantees that Iran cannot produce enough material for a nuclear weapon in exchange for lifting economic sanctions on Tehran. An interim agreement reached last year between the parties put curbs on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for some sanctions. The agreement was extended again this past July, giving both sides the new deadline of Monday. 
The Journal reports that the two key sticking points in the talks appear to be the speed of sanctions relief and the amount Iran would reduce its production of nuclear fuel. Iran wants most U.S., E.U., and U.N. sanctions to be lifted if and when a deal is reached, but the West has said that sanctions levied by the U.N. in response to Iran's nuclear program can't be lifted before Iran has proven it is sticking to the agreement. 
As for enrichment, Western officials have told the Journal that any permanent agreement must ensure that Iran is at least a year away from producing enough nuclear material to build a nuclear bomb. 
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported late Saturday that Western intelligence agencies are attempting to insert language into the text of a proposed deal that would ensure inspections tracking the parts and fuel to and from any Iranian nuclear complex. Iran has three major "declared" nuclear facilities. However, there is at least covert facility in Iran, and U.S. officials believe that any nuclear bomb made by Iran would likely come from those places. 
One of those covert facilities, known as Fordo, was outed by President Obama in 2009. The second such facility, at the city of Natanz, is believed to contain thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges  In the interim, Western intelligence agencies have looked for signs of another such facility, with no luck so far.