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Court brief: Rogue agency defied judges to carry out partisan probe of Wisconsin conservatives

Agents for the embattled state Government Accountability Board in Wisconsin continued a zealous campaign finance investigation into dozens of conservative groups even after judges who preside over the board voted to shut it down, according to a previously sealed brief made public Friday. 
The documents, from an updated complaint filed by conservative plaintiffs in a case against the GAB, appear to support claims that the campaign finance, ethics and election law regulator is a rogue agency. They also show that the GAB considered using the state's John Doe law to investigate key state conservatives and even national figures, including Fox News' Sean Hannity and WTMJ Milwaukee host Charlie Sykes. 
Wisconsin Reporter also obtained some of its information from previous court documents that were supposed to have been redacted. 
"What we have uncovered so far shows the Government Accountability Board, or at least its staff, being anything but 'accountable,'" said Eddie Greim, attorney for plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the GAB. "For example, the public has learned for the first time, over GAB's objections, that GAB set up a secret system of Gmail accounts for its staffers and the prosecutors who ran the John Doe. We also know that GAB hoped its 'illegal coordination' theory could even extend to allow it to subpoena media figures like Charlie Sykes and Sean Hannity." 
A spokesman for the agency did not immediately return a request for comment. 
Wisconsin's unique "John Doe" procedure is much like a grand jury investigation, without the benefit of a jury of peers. A judge vested with extraordinary powers to compel witnesses to testify presides over the probes.
Click for more from Watchdog.org.

Obama administration accused of political motives in push for new citizens

Nearly 20 years after reporters and congressional investigators caught the Clinton administration trying to register a million immigrants as new citizens and Democratic voters -- many without proper documents -- some Republicans fear the Obama administration is instituting a similar policy. 
The November memorandum issued by the White House and Department of Homeland Security on immigration does more than give a reprieve to millions of illegal immigrants. It also makes a push for legal immigrants to become citizens. It allows legal immigrants in the U.S. to, for the first time, pay their $680 naturalization fee by credit card. And the plan offers to waive the cost, based on income, for families earning up to $47,000 for a family of four. 
In the past, the government prohibited such partial waivers. The plan, dubbed "New Americans," will also include a comprehensive media campaign in major media markets in 10 states.
Critics worry this is part of an effort to register new Democratic voters and turn red states blue by the next election.
"The goal is to naturalize as many as they can with the idea of registering them to vote with the hope that they're going to vote Democratic as they did in 1996," said Republican strategist Randy Pullen. "They're using our money for political means for their 2016 path to victory in their minds."
But Ali Noorani, director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington, D.C.- based policy organization, said the goal is to "bring them into the full fold of society, make sure they are assimilating, learning English, learning their civics and becoming U.S. citizens." He called that a positive. 
The administration argues immigrants are good for the economy, representing just 13 percent of the population, but 16 percent of the labor force and 28 percent of all new businesses. The White House Task Force on New Americans, according to the November document, will consist of almost a dozen Cabinet-level agencies. They will train and support other agencies and nonprofits to "improve long term integration and foster welcoming community climates." 
But the GOP sees something else behind the plan.
"They're cutting fees with the intent to spur naturalization on, but someone else is going to pay for this," Pullen said. "We're talking about millions of naturalization cases that will have to be handled. The vast majority in the next 18 months."
The plan will target 8-12 million legal immigrants living in states like New York, California, Florida, Illinois, Virginia and Arizona. In some states, the number of legal permanent residents eligible for citizenship far exceeds the margin of victory for candidates in the last election. About half the green-card holders are Hispanic, followed by Asians. In 2012, almost 70 percent of Hispanics voted Democratic. Among Asians, nearly 60 percent did so. 
"To have more people become citizens is good for our democracy and at the end of the day, whether a candidate is a Republican or a Democrat, they just have to make the best case possible to get that voter," Noorani said. "If Republican candidates, whether it's for president, Senate, House or city council, want Asian, Latino voters to come to them, they have to compete for them."
Indeed, George W. Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004. But Republicans fear a repeat of 1996, when the Clinton administration tried to create a million new voters by Election Day, three times the normal amount. In the process, officials pushed the Immigration and Naturalization Agency beyond its capacity, illegally hiring some 900 volunteers without background checks, a violation of federal employment law. 
An inspector general's report found numerous memos showing the White House urged the INS to "approve, approve, approve" for political reasons, disregarding policies and protocols designed to keep out immigrants who did not qualify for citizenship.

Obama says Keystone pipeline mostly helps Canadian oil companies, not Americans

WASHINGTON –  President Obama on Friday downplayed the potential benefits of the Keystone pipeline, claiming it would not lower gas prices much for Americans -- but instead would boost Canadian oil companies.
Obama, who was speaking at a year-end news conference, said the controversial pipeline was not “a magic formula to what ails the U.S. economy” and added that it’s “hard to see on paper where exactly they’re getting that information from.” 
The president often downplays the economic benefits of the project, but appeared to be putting new emphasis Friday on claims that it would disproportionately help Canada. He said it would be “not even a nominal benefit for U.S. consumers.” 
A spokesman for developer TransCanada fired back in a statement late Friday, noting the project would support thousands of U.S. jobs and describing it as mutually beneficial. 
"The Keystone system is about helping our Canadian and American customers -- which includes leading U.S. oil producers and refiners -- get a safe, secure and reliable supply of crude oils they need to create products we all need -- gasoline, diesel, aviation fuels and many other products we use and consume here in North America," spokesman Shawn Howard said. "After being approved, Keystone XL will employ thousands of skilled American pipeline industry workers in the United States." 
He also said there are no plans to export this oil overseas. 
Obama spoke ahead of a new congressional session where majority Republicans are expected to push the pipeline as a first order of business. 
Earlier this week, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Keystone pipeline would be the first bill taken up in the new GOP-controlled Senate, setting up a potentially contentious showdown with the Obama administration as well as environmental activists who have championed against the pipeline.
The $8 billion oil pipeline would run from Canada’s oil sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. It has become a symbol of divisions over the country’s energy and environmental policy.
Republicans and other supporters say the project would create jobs and reduce U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle East.
The 1,179-mile project is proposed to go from Canada through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. TransCanada filed its first permit application with the State Department in September 2008.
The Republican-led House has repeatedly passed legislation approving the pipeline. But the bills have died in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Last month, a bill fell one vote short of advancing in the Senate.
In a recent Fox News poll, nearly seven voters in 10 support building the Keystone XL Pipeline (68 percent). That included just over half of Democrats (53 percent), two-thirds of independents (69 percent) and almost all Republicans (85 percent). 
Overall support for the pipeline has held steady over the last couple years: it was 70 percent in 2013 and 67 percent in 2012, according to the Fox News poll.
When asked by a reporter on Friday if Congress would force his hand on the issue, Obama replied, “I’ll see what they do. Take that up in the new year.”

Sony defends decision to shelve release of 'The Interview,' saying studio 'had no choice'

Sony Pictures Entertainment defended its decision Friday to shelve the comedy film "The Interview" in the wake of a massive hacking attack and threats against movie theaters, saying it had "no choice" but to cancel the Dec. 25 release.
The statement was released hours after President Obama, speaking at an afternoon press conference, said he believed the studio "made a mistake" in not releasing the film, the plot of which centers on a fictional assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The film has ignited a debate about censorship, and the FBI has formally blamed North Korea for the cyberattack, which has included leaks of confidential data and unreleased movies, as well as threats against Sony employees.
"Let us be clear: the only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theaters, after the theater owners declined to show it," Sony said in its statement. "Without theaters, we could not release it in the theaters on Christmas Day. We had no choice."
Sony's statement, however, comes several days after the studio told theater owners it would be supportive of their individual decisions on whether or not to show the film after hackers sent a message that threatened "11th of September"-style attacks against venues showing the movie.
In a message emailed to various reporters on Tuesday, hackers who call themselves "Guardians of Peace" sent a warning to people planning to attend screenings of "The Interview," and even warned people who live near cinemas to leave home, according to a report from Variety.
“Warning ... We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places 'The Interview' be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to,” the message said. “Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear.”
The studio on Friday said that it still hopes to release the movie, albeit on a "different platform."
Also on Friday, Michael Lynton, Sony's chief executive and chairman, pushed back against Obama's remarks, insisting to CNN that the company has "not given in and we have not backed down,” and said Obama, the media and the public “are mistaken” about the situation.
On Friday, hackers sent a new email to Sony Pictures Entertainment, calling the studio’s decision to cancel the film’s release a “wise” one and warned the studio not to distribute the film “in any form.”
According to The Associated Press, a person close to the studio confirmed the email and said it was sent to several employees of the company from Guardians of Peace.
The FBI has said it has enough evidence to conclude that North Korea was behind the breach. On Friday, Obama vowed that the U.S. would "respond," to the attack, though he offered no details on what that response might entail.
He mocked the North Korean regime for launching an "all-out assault" over a satirical movie, but he also chided Sony for responding by shutting down the movie's release.
"I think they made a mistake," Obama said.
Obama said that if somebody can "intimidate" a company out of releasing a satirical movie, "imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like or news reports that they don't like."

ISIS reportedly selling Christian artifacts, turning churches into torture chambers

The Islamic State is turning Christian churches in Iraq and Syria into dungeons and torture chambers after stripping them of priceless artifacts to sell on the black market, according to reports.
Ancient relics and even entire murals are being torn from the houses of worship and smuggled out through the same routes previously established for moving oil and weapons in and out of the so-called caliphate, a vast region the jihadist army has claimed as sovereign under Sharia law.
"ISIS has a stated goal to wipe out Christianity,” Jay Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice and the author of "Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore," told FoxNews.com. “This why they are crucifying Christians -- including children -- destroying churches and selling artifacts. The fact is, this group will stop at nothing to raise funds for its terrorist mission.”
It’s not clear what items have been stolen, but the terrorist group has sought to destroy religious groups that don't embrace its twisted and violent interpretation of Islam, and has already blown up several revered Christian sites and monuments.

“In short, ISIS is composed of religiously motivated psychopaths."- Jay Sekulow, American Center for Law and Justice

Last July, ISIS militants used sledgehammers to destroy the tomb of Jonah in Mosul. Around the same time, they were destroying Sunni shrines and mosques in the northern province of Ninevah, including the Shia Saad bin Aqeel Husseiniya shrine in the city of Tal Afar and the al-Qubba Husseiniya, as well as Christian churches in Syria. The group follows a strict interpretation of the Sunni faith which is against idolatry of anything other than God. ISIS has also threatened to destroy the holy sight of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Christianity, like Judaism and Islam, have powerful historical ties to the region, and some of its most treasured sites and relics are in Iraq and Syria, according to experts. Their destruction or dispersal is tragic, said Shaul Gabbay, senior scholar at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies.
“The Middle East is where the three monotheistic religions begun and anything that can inform us about the history and chronology of the development of religion is of unparalleled significance to the core identity of anyone who is Christian,” Gabbay told FoxNews.com. “This is where Abraham, the forefather of the three monotheistic religions, came from, where Moses led the Hebrews to the Promised Land and where Jesus Christ was born, walked, died and was resurrected.
“Anything physical part that exists from the past including more modern artifacts is of extreme value to Christianity both at the informative and educational level as well as the spiritual/faith level,” he said.

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A woman prays inside a damaged church in Maaloula, a Christian town in Syria. (REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki)

Experts believe Islamic State's trafficking in religious artifacts is both to make money and to culturally cleanse the region. The Islamic militants have converted churches in Qaraqosh and other Iraqi cities into torture chambers, according to the Sunday Times. One priest from the region, who gave his name as Abu Aasi from Mosul, told the newspaper earlier this month that prisoners were being held in the Bahnam Wa Sara and Al Kiama churches.
“These two churches are being used as prisons and for torture,” he said while in hiding. “Most inside are Christians and they are being forced to convert to Islam. Isis has been breaking all the crosses and statues of Mary.”
Christianity is believed to be practiced by just three percent of the population of Iraq. They lived in relative religious freedom while under Saddam Hussein's rule, but have faced persecution from Islamic State in the last two years. In particular, the Yazidi, a Kurdish Christian people, have been hounded and murdered by the extremist group, leaving many of them becoming refugees trying to escape the region.
“We know that ISIS considers several groups -- including Christians -- as 'infidels without human rights,'" Sekulow said. "ISIS jihadists commit violence against fellow Muslims in violation of Islamic law. They routinely commit war crimes and engage in torture in violation of international law; and they also kill and threaten Christian, Jewish, and other religious communities.”
“In short, ISIS is composed of religiously motivated psychopaths," he said.

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$10 billion UN-linked climate change fund wants immunity from prosecution

The Green Climate Fund, (GCF) a United Nations-affiliated piggy-bank  intended to finance climate change projects around the world, is determined to win sweeping U.N.-style immunities from prosecutions for its global operations--even though  the U.S., its biggest contributor, opposes the idea, and the U.N. itself says its own diplomatic immunities can’t cover the outfit.
The immunities issue could well spark even deeper opposition from Republican lawmakers in next year’s Congress to the Obama Administration’s aggressive climate change policies--which include a recent $3 billion pledge to the Fund.  
“We would definitely be opposed to any extension of immunity to the Fund,” said a senior aide to Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who will chair the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works starting in January.
“What do they need protection from?” he asked. “In essence, they are doing business development projects. If you look at the way millions of people do transactions across national borders, they do it without immunity and very successfully.”
Apparently undeterred, fund officials told Fox News that they are now trying to hammer out “bilateral agreement templates” that could be laboriously negotiated with each country where it operates—a total that could eventually reach the great majority of  the U.N.’s 193 members.
The Fund has already negotiated one agreement of immunity—with its new host country, South Korea, as a condition of moving its headquarters there last year.
CLICK HERE FOR THE SOUTH KOREA AGREEMENT
If the GCF succeeds in its broader negotiations, not only billions but eventually trillions of dollars in climate funding activities could fall outside the scope of criminal and civilian legal actions, as well as outside examination, as the Fund, which currently holds $10 billion in funding and pledges, expands its ambitions.
The shield would cover all documentation as well as the words and actions of officials and consultants involved in the activity documentation—even after they move on to other jobs. As a tasty side-benefit, the “privileges” attached to such “privileges and immunities,” as they are known in diplomatic parlance, mean that employees get their salaries tax-free.
Just why the GCF needs the sweeping protections is not exactly clear. In response to questions from Fox News, Michel Smitall, a Fund spokesman, provided mostly opaque answers.
“Privileges and immunities are intended to facilitate GCF activities in countries in which it operates and the GCF’s ability to use contributions by donor countries in an effective and efficient manner that serves the objectives agreed by its member countries,” he said.
Smitall added that it is “premature” to give out any information on the specific scope of  privileges and immunities, because these “would be negotiated bilaterally with countries in which the GCF operates.”
The immunities, however, “are expected to cover a range of issues,” he said,  “such as protecting GCF staff members acting in their official capacity and facilitating their official travel and protecting taxpayer dollars contributed by donor countries.”
The GCF, he added, “functions in a transparent manner, with strong oversight by its [24-member] Board. To the extent that there are civil or criminal actions against the GCF, we would work closely with the authorities of the relevant country.”
Smitall’s statements, of reassurance however, did not cover the prospect that in many developing countries, those same national authorities may well be direct or indirect partners in the activities the Fund is financing, or the fact that national authorities in many of the developing countries where the Fund hopes to operate are spectacularly corrupt.
The assurances apparently have also failed to win over Obama Administration officials (the U.S. is a GCF Board member). "The Green Climate Fund is an independent institution wiht an independent Board and Secretariat, which is by design separate from the United Nations," a U.S. Treasury official told Fox News.
Treasury officials did not answer, however,  other emailed Fox News questions about whether other countries supported the U.S. position, and about U.S. views on the GCF's new country-by-country approach.
The British government, which has recently given $1.2 billion to the GCF through its Department for International Development (DFID), is staying close-mouthed about the immunities issue.  “The GCF Board will be deliberating the issue of privileges and immunities in 2015 and UK will engage in those discussions,” a DFID spokeswoman told Fox News.
The GFC’s determined pursuit of immunity highlights the broad zone of legal ambiguity that is proliferating in the era of international action against climate change, led by organizations operating under the aegis of the United Nations without being explicitly part of it.
The GFC, for example, is a by-product of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, which is the legal home of the Kyoto Protocol and the forum for hammering out a successor treaty that is now expected to be unveiled at a climate summit in Paris late next year.
Despite its name, the UNFCCCC is also not an organ of the U.N. that automatically gets and passes on  the same kind of sweeping immunities as direct U.N. subsidiaries, or that are granted by international agreement to major development banks.  That position was underlined in an opinion from the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs in 2006.
The GCF, in turn,  is a child of the UNFCCC—via a 2011 decision of UNFCCC parties--with its standing just as fuzzy—a situation that it has been trying to change since at least 2012. 
The effort to get that status shifted into a higher gear in November 2013, when the Fund’s Board sought another legal opinion from the U.N.’s Office of Legal Affairs on  whether it could obtain a “link” between its own status and that of the U.N., along “hybrid” lines derived from U.N. subsidiary organs.
The answer came back to the GCF board at a meeting this May—No.
CLICK HERE FOR THE BOARD’S QUERY AND REPLY
The Board apparently did not want to accept that answer.  A single sentence in a Board report at an October, 20144 meeting in Barbados notes that “a mission to
New York in August also helped prepare the UN Climate Summit and explore how the Fund may acquire privileges and immunities,” presumably with the same people who already  had replied in the negative.
(Questioned by Fox News about the August mission, GCF spokesman Smitall replied more circumspectly that “GCF Secretariat staff, including its general counsel, met with U.N. staff to engage in technical discussions to better understand the scope of U.N. immunities and the possibilities of U.N. linkage, given that the GCF is not a U.N. body.”)
While the rewards of  immunities are still something that GCF does not wish to discuss in detail, the potential risks they pose—to other people—have been raised by  critics who looked at disasters where U.N. immunities played an important role—such as Haiti.
U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal are almost universally believed to have introduced cholera in October 2010  to the earthquake shattered nation that had not seen the disease in a century. About 700,000 cases and 8, 560 deaths have been reported since then.
After denying U.N. involvement in the epidemic for many months, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon invoked U.N. diplomatic immunities in rejecting lawsuits brought against the world organization by relatives of the victims. Lawsuits in U.S. courts are still ongoing, but the State Department has supported the U.N.’s blanket immunity status.
“As we are seeing in the wake of the Haiti cholera epidemic, once we have agreed on privileges and immunities to any mission, they offer an extreme amount of protection to activities that could affect populations badly,” notes Brett Schaefer, an expert on the U.N. at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. ‘’They should be awarded only in circumstances where they are truly necessary and critical to the mission or fulfillment of the mandate of the organization.”
“That is not the case,” he added, “with the GCF"—a position that the Fund is working as hard as it can to overcome.