Why NBC’s suspension is Brian Williams’ last hope for remaining anchor

NBC Universal tried to save Brian Williams’ job last night—and that’s why he was suspended for six months.
The company finally had to stop the bleeding, to halt the hemorrhaging of its own credibility along with that of its franchise player.
The brass slowly came to realize that Williams had to be punished, and significantly, for the sin of fabricating a story about his 2003 trip to Iraq. The betting is that with Lester Holt handling “Nightly News” for six months, things will cool off—the country will have moved on to some other outrage—and Williams will be able to return to the chair.
But that will also require a complete accounting by Williams of what he did wrong—in Iraq, in New Orleans, perhaps on other stories—and a full-throated apology that shows he understands the magnitude of his misconduct.
The note yesterday from Steve Burke, installed by Comcast as the head of NBC Universal, shows that this matter was decided at the highest reaches of the company. That’s how important Williams is to the network—not just for the 9 million viewers he drew to his newscast, but as a high-wattage spokesman and sometimes entertainer.
NBC News President Deborah Turness said that Williams’ Iraq tale was “was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian’s position.” But the harsher words came from Burke:
“By his actions, Brian has jeopardized the trust millions of Americans place in NBC News.  His actions are inexcusable and this suspension is severe and appropriate.”
But then there was this: “He deserves a second chance and we are rooting for him.”
NBC has so much invested in Williams that it wants to rehabilitate him—but is also buying time to line up a successor in case that proves impossible.
Despite the chatter about Matt Lauer or Savannah Guthrie, it would be difficult for NBC to take either one off “Today,” because morning shows are far more lucrative than evening newscasts.
NBC is also trying to recover from its own botched handling of the crisis. First, its executives allowed Williams to go on air with a lame and inaccurate apology that only inflamed his critics. Second, the brass let him announce that as managing editor he was taking himself off the broadcast for a short period—as if he didn’t report to anyone else.
In the end, NBC had little choice. While weighing Williams’ career against the self-inflicted damage, it is now trying to split the difference. The challenge for the network and its sidelined anchor is to regain the trust of the audience—if that is still possible.

The Back Story: Details emerge on Kayla Mueller’s capture, captivity at ISIS hands

The nightmare started in the summer of 2013, when Kayla Mueller and her boyfriend were forced off the road and kidnapped by the Islamic State.
While her boyfriend was eventually released, the 26-year-old aid worker spent the next several months shuttling between holding cells – a children’s hospital in Aleppo, an industrial area near the Turkish border, and the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa.
Despite attempts to rescue her, including a failed U.S. raid last year, the Arizona resident – who was beloved by her family and friends and now has become a symbol of American sacrifice for the people of Syria – was killed.
Fox News first learned details about Mueller’s capture and captivity last fall, and, at the request of U.S. officials who cited national security concerns in ongoing efforts to secure her release, agreed to hold off on reporting them. A similar request was made by a spokeswoman for the family and agreed to by Fox.
Following the confirmation Tuesday of Mueller’s death, Fox News can now report those details, though some specifics are still deemed too sensitive for publication.
A source with first-hand knowledge of the efforts to free western hostages from ISIS told Fox News that Mueller and her Syrian boyfriend were kidnapped after being forced off the road in August 2013.
The Syrian man was eventually released. There initially was concern he may have been a plant to lure the American into a trap, but after he went back and pleaded with ISIS for Mueller’s freedom, the suspicion was discarded.
Between September2013 and May 2014, the hostages were moved between Aleppo, an industrial area near the Turkish border and Raqqa.The source said Kayla's ISIS captors were so confident in their self-described capital of Raqqa that there was limited visible security. The western hostages were often held in groups and by May had been in the same location for at least two weeks.
This is highly unusual because the practice is to move hostages on a regular basis to obfuscate their location.
In Raqqa itself, the male and female hostages were held in close proximity, but separated by sex. The source said Mueller was able to get a message to at least one of the western male hostages -- at the time American James Foley was held in the group --that was she was not being mistreated by her captors. Mueller made the same statement in a 2014 letter released Tuesday by her family.
By late May, specific intelligence had emerged on the hostage's likely location -- including a building, sources say.The intelligence was described to Fox News as "strong," "specific" and "perishable" --but the White House did not sign off on the rescue operation until much later.
The mission was launched over the July 4^th weekend.
In an interview with Buzzfeed on Tuesday, President Obama also confirmed that Mueller was among the hostages the U.S. tried to rescue in what ultimately was a failed raid that summer.
He objected to the notion that the U.S. may not have done all it could to rescue her.
Fox News asked the White House in November about the May timeline, and the apparent gap between the strong intelligence and the White House sign-off.
Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said at the time, “U.S. forces conducted this operation as soon as the president and his national security team were confident the mission could be carried out successfully and consistent with our policies for undertaking such operations.”
Contacted Tuesday, Meehan said the White House position had not changed.
The May timeline nevertheless conflicts with administration claims that the White House signed off on the operation as soon as the intelligence allowed.
“The intelligence is never bullet-proof,” a former military official said. “When [the rescue team] finally did go, the general view was that the intelligence was drying up. … These guys were ready to go, on a lower threshold [for the intelligence than the White House] … We want the American people to know we are there for them, and ready to go 24 hours a day.”

US, UK and France announce closures, evacuations of embassies in Yemen

The State Department announced late Tuesday that the U.S. Embassy in Yemen had been closed and evacuated after much of the country was taken over by Shiite rebels last month.
Hours later, Britain and France followed suit and ordered their citizens to leave Yemen as soon as possible. 
The U.S. embassy had already been operating with severely reduced staff for several weeks. State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said remaining diplomatic personnel had been relocated "due to the ongoing political instability and the uncertain security situation."
Yemen has been in crisis for months, with Iran-linked Shiite Houthi rebels besieging the capital and then taking control and forcing the resignation of the U.S. and Saudi-backed president and his government.
"The security situation in Yemen has continued to deteriorate over recent days," U.K. Minister for the Middle East Tobias Ellwood said in a statement. "Regrettably we now judge that our embassy staff and premises are at increased risk." Ellwood also urged all British citizens still in Yemen to "leave immediately."
In a statement on its website, the French Embassy said it would close as of Friday.
The embassy closures were announced as Houthi rebels, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and dressed in police uniforms and civilian clothes, patrolled the main boulevards of the capital, Sanaa, some in pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns.
Scattered protests could be seen in the city, with demonstrators denouncing the Houthis for taking power and dissolving parliament. Shops closed early and helicopters also hovered overhead.
Houthis attacked one demonstration, stabbing and beating protesters trying to reach the local United Nations office, witnesses said. The rebels detained a number of people as well, they said.
Earlier Tuesday, U.S. officials told the Associated Press that the embassy closure would not affect ongoing operations against the terror group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). 
"The United States remains firmly committed to supporting all Yemenis who continue to work toward a peaceful, prosperous and unified Yemen," Psaki said. "We will explore options for a return to Sanaa when the situation on the ground improves."
The State Department also issued a travel warning advising U.S. citizens to defer travel to Yemen and urging U.S. citizens currently living in Yemen to depart.
Two U.S. officials said Marines providing the security at the embassy will also likely leave, but American forces conducting counterterrorism missions against Al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate in other parts of the country would not be affected. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the closure publicly on the record.
Although operations against AQAP will continue, the closure of the embassy will be seen as a blow to the Obama administration, which had held up its partnership with ousted Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government as a model for his strategy in combatting terrorism, particularly in unstable countries.
"Yemen has never been a perfect democracy or an island of stability," President Barack Obama said late last month as conditions in the capital of Sanaa became worse. "What I've said is, is that our efforts to go after terrorist networks inside of Yemen without an occupying U.S. army, but rather by partnering and intelligence-sharing with that local government, is the approach that we're going to need to take."
The embassy closure will also complicate the CIA's operations in Yemen, U.S. intelligence officials acknowledge. Although CIA officers could continue to work out of U.S. military installations, many intelligence operations are run from embassies, and the CIA lost visibility on Syria when that embassy was evacuated in 2012. The CIA's main role in Yemen is to gather intelligence about members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and occasionally kill them with drone strikes. Both the CIA and the military's Joint Special Operations Command run separate drone killing programs in Yemen, though the CIA has conducted the majority of the strikes, U.S. officials have said.
There were 23 U.S. drone strikes reported in Yemen last year, 26 in 2013 and 41 in 2012, according to Long War Journal, a website that tracks them through media reports.
The Houthis last week dissolved parliament and formally took over after months of clashes. They then placed President Hadi and his Cabinet ministers under house arrest. Hadi and the ministers later resigned in protest.
Earlier Tuesday, Yemeni military officials said the Houthis, aided by troops loyal to Hadi's predecessor, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, took full control of the key central province of Bayda province.
Bayda is the gateway to the country's south, which remains in the hands of pro-independence southerners and to the strategic oil-rich Maarib province, to the east, also still not in rebel hands.
The U.S. Embassy in Yemen is the third in an Arab country that has closed since the turmoil of the Arab spring began in December 2010. The other two were embassies in Damascus, Syria and Tripoli, Libya. The embassy in Damascus was closed in Feb 2012 and the embassy in Tripoli was closed in July 2014.
The embassy in Yemen was operating with only a small portion of its usual diplomatic staff and had closed to the public for all but emergency services in January. It had been operating with reduced manpower since September 2014, when the State Department ordered all non-essential personnel to leave the country.
In May, 2014 the embassy in Sanaa was closed for several weeks due to heightened security threats.

School Funding Cartoon

School worksheet tells kids GOP thinks helping poor 'waste of money,' parent claims

A Wisconsin mother claims her 16-year-old son's classroom assignment last week described Republicans as opposed to helping the poor because "it's a waste of money."
The woman said her son, a junior at Nathan Hale High School in West Allis, Wisc., was asked, along with other students, to complete an assignment about different views on the political spectrum while in a U.S. government and politics class on Thursday.
The assignment listed a series of quotes and required students to identify which party affiliation best represented each statement.
The first quote read, "We should not help the poor, it’s a waste of money."
The mother, who asked only to be identified as "Heather" to protect her son's privacy, said he chose option "E" for "Fascist" because he "didn't know what else could be the answer."
When the assignment was returned, the answer was marked as incorrect and the teacher wrote in option "D" for "Conservative/Republican" instead, his mother told FoxNews.com.
"I picked my son up from school on Thursday and asked him what was wrong and he brought up that quote," she said. "He asked, 'Mom, where would you say this went on the political spectrum?'"
"I said, 'Nowhere. I don’t know any political party that espouses not helping the poor,'" she told FoxNews.com. "Once we got home, I looked at the work sheet and saw that his answer was marked wrong. The teacher had put the correct answer in the margin and marked it conservative."
"I was shocked and then I was very angry," she said, claiming she called the superintendent of West Allis-West Milwaukee School District Friday morning to inquire about the assignment. 
The school district issued a press release late Monday saying students were "required to take a political spectrum quiz, which is not a quiz in the traditional sense with right or wrong answers; instead, the quiz asks survey questions. The answers to the questions place students on the political spectrum. While the survey is completed online, no personal information is entered, including name, login, and student number."
The district also said the spectrum quiz would not be used again in the future.
The assignment, which was first reported on by the conservative education blog EAGnews.org, was not meant to survey students' political beliefs. The bottom portion of the quiz, however, instructed students to visit a website – gotoquiz.com – to "find out where they stood on the political spectrum," the woman said.

A psychiatrist’s view: Why would Brian Williams make up stories?

NBC anchor Brian Williams is really under fire now -- for seemingly making up details or whole story elements about, among other things, coming under enemy fire by Hezbollah, being in a helicopter hit by enemy fire in Iraq, rescuing puppies while working as a volunteer firefighter and reporting from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  
Williams is a talented man.  He has one of the most coveted positions in all of journalism. Whether he was in a chopper that was actually hit by enemy fire, or close to one hit by enemy fire, or simply in the same general vicinity as one hit by enemy fire, he had gone into a war zone to report on a bloody conflict. Whether he rescued one or two puppies from a blaze, or simply volunteered to help put out a blaze, he was doing something commendable. Whether gangs attacked the French Quarter hotel he was staying in or there was simply chaos in the streets -- streets he had elected to walk -- he was putting himself in harm’s way.  
I have never evaluated Brian Williams, but this question could be asked:  Why wasn’t the truth about each of the stories that Williams seems to have embellished enough?  What leads a man to make him look even more courageous than the courage he displayed?  What leads a man to cast himself as the leading man in dramas that course through even greater dangers than the very real perils that unfolded?
One potential answer is that some people must do everything they can to camouflage deep feelings of weakness and unworthiness.  If you were a bullied kid who suspects himself of cowardice, or an abused kid who suspects himself of being unlovable, or a short or asthmatic kid who suspects himself of being weak, and if you never deal with those underlying fears, then you can end up trying to camouflage them with one tall tale after another.  
People very often cast themselves as one thing to avoid being seen as the opposite.
Casting oneself as heroic and powerful and fearless, when it is done to stave off buried feelings of being vulnerable and frightened, is no different than using any other drug. A person can become just as addicted to praise and the admiration in someone’s eyes as he can to cocaine or heroin.  
I know this is hard to believe, but it is true.  And just like any other drug of abuse, mainlining the ill-gotten respect of others is never enough to really quell the internal sadness and anxiety a damaged person carries inside.  You need more and more praise, however you can get it, to keep the negative feelings at bay.
And if praise and attention and awe are your drugs (rather than a nice byproduct of your work) as an anchorman, then being in front of the camera reading the headlines may not be enough.  You might chase the camera everywhere you can, as Williams seems to have done -- to one talk show, after another, to one celebrity cameo, after another.
Telling tall tales isn’t a skill that you’re born with, or that you develop at age 50.  It’s acquired.  And that’s why it is important for anyone addicted to that drug to figure out when he first mainlined it.  
What was it used to cover up?  If you had an alcoholic father who beat you (and I am not implying in the least that this or any other example I generate describes Mr. Williams), and you want to believe he was a good father, then you could be off to the races, as a confabulator.  If you had a sister who confronted a deadly illness as a child, and your family wanted you to believe it was the flu that kept coming back, then you could be on your way to being expert at generating cover-ups.
The truth always wins. Ask anyone who uses any drug to try to distance himself from any reality. It never, ever works. And so, now, Mr. Williams would be wise to do the work of uncovering just why the real facts of his very real willingness to be in harm’s way just weren’t gritty enough.  
The real admiration of colleagues for his real skills just wasn’t flattering enough.  The real success he enjoyed at the top of his profession just wasn’t rich enough.
The psyche or God or one’s self (maybe all the same thing) has a way of bringing you to your knees in an instant, and making you confront the very things you have been running from. Brian Williams may find himself at that very moment.  
And, as strange as it sounds, and as painful as it could be, it could be a transformational one.

After 54 years, mountaineers find wreckage of plane crash that killed soccer stars

The discovery of twisted pieces of aircraft fuselage high in the Chilean Andes has apparently ended a 54-year aviation and sporting mystery.
Mountaineers say that they have found the wreckage of a plane that crashed more than half a century ago, killing 24 people, including eight members of the Green Cross soccer team from Chile's top division.
The tragedy occurred 11 years before members of a Uruguayan rugby team travelling to a game were famously left stranded for more than two months after their plane crashed in Argentina’s high Andes. 
The Green Cross crash occurred on April 3 1961 when a Douglas DC-3 carrying members of the team went missing, sending shockwaves through the world of sport. The soccer players were returning to Santiago after playing a Copa de Chile game in the southern Chilean city of Osorno. Argentine soccer star Eliseo Mouriño, a Copa America winner with Argentina in 1955 and 1959, and a member of his country’s 1958 World Cup squad, was among the victims.
The U.K.’s Mirror newspaper reports that three referees also lost their lives in the crash. Other members of the team and its staff travelled back to Santiago on a separate flight, which was scheduled to make several stops. Most of the Green Cross first team, however, opted to take the fateful direct flight to Santiago.
The wreckage was found at an altitude of 10,500 feet about 215 miles south of Chile’s capital, Santiago. "It was a breathtaking moment and we felt all kinds of sensations. One could feel the energy of the place and breathe the pain," said expedition member Leonardo Albornoz.
Albornoz told Chile's Channel 7 that the exact site is being kept secret to prevent looting.
The expedition found scattered debris and bones, and could see much of the plane’s fuselage without having to dig it out. The wreckage was not where official publications indicated that it would be, according to the mountaineers.
After drawing 1-1 in Osorno, Green Cross bravely completed the second game of its domestic cup tie against Osorno Selección, losing 1-0. The 1961 Cope de Chile was named “Copa de Chile Green Cross” in the team’s honor.
Green Cross ended the season 12^th out of 14 teams in Chile's Primera Division, but were relegated the following season after finishing bottom of the division. The team returned to Chile’s top division in 1964. The following year, however, Green Cross merged with Deportes Temuco to become Green Cross Temuco.
The crash came just three years after the Munich air disaster that killed 23 people, including eight players and three staff members from English soccer powerhouse Manchester United. In 1949 31 people, including the entire Torino soccer team, died when their plane crashed into the retaining wall of the Basilica of Superga in Turin, Italy.

Republicans claim payout from big-bank settlements being steered toward 'special interests'

House Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of letting millions of dollars from recent mortgage-lending settlements go toward politically favored advocacy groups, in turn "shortchanging" the people originally harmed by the financial crisis.
The separate deals were reached with the Justice Department in summer 2014, with Citigroup agreeing to pay $7 billion for misleading investors over mortgage-backed securities and Bank of America paying $16.65 billion for similar actions.
But of the $24 billion, roughly $150 million is tabbed for financial-counseling agencies -- a category that includes liberal-leaning groups such as the National Council of La Raza.
While some Americans likely will need help figuring out how to recover money through the settlement -- help these organizations could give -- Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are questioning why certain activist groups are on the Department of Housing and Urban Development-approved list.
“The Obama administration is shortchanging victims by using these settlements to send money to their pet projects rather than allowing it to go to directly to the people who were harmed in the first place,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told FoxNews.com on Monday.“Furthermore, the administration is also abusing the separation of powers by using these cases to funnel money to their preferred special interests in an attempt to do an end run around Congress, which the Constitution grants the power of the purse.”
Goodlatte pointed specifically to groups such as La Raza and NeighborWorks America -- a network of community development organizations that his office compared to the defunct, controversial low-income advocacy group ACORN.(ACORN disbanded in 2010 after losing government funding amid a controversy over misconduct captured in hidden-camera videos. NeighborWorks is not affiliated and has declined to even work with groups that are.)
Goodlatte said the settlement deal also could result in banks having to pay an additional half-billion dollars to the “controversial activist groups.” A House Judiciary subcommittee will hold a hearing Thursday on the matter.
Concerns about the HUD-approved groups have been raised since at least 2012, when the agency announced the release of $42 million for mortgage counseling, with groups like La Raza and the National Urban League being eligible service providers.
The Urban League received $1 million and La Raza received roughly $1.7 million from HUD, according to the conservative website WesternJournalism.com.
La Raza supports administration-backed, comprehensive immigration-reform legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants and President Obama's recent executive actions that suspended deportation for millions.
La Raza’s nonprofit 501(c)4 group, the NCLR Action Fund, spent $147,521 exclusively on Democratic candidates during the 2014 election cycle.
Group spokeswoman Lisa Nauarrete said Monday that La Raza, though, has been an approved counselor since the first Bush administration and has yet to "receive a dime" of settlement money.
"The argument seems terribly speculative to us," she said. "And the amount is less than 1 percent [of the settlement]. That's a minuscule part."
Goodlatte and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, have been pursuing issues related to the settlements since last year, including sending a letter in November to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting additional information about the “questionable terms” of the deal.
The Justice Department did not return a request Monday for comment on the eligible groups and the deal itself.
Documents provided to FoxNews.com by HUD show hundreds of national and local housing-counseling groups are approved by the agency for settlement money.
A La Raza affiliate was listed in at least five states and the District of Columbia. A NeighborWorks group was listed in five states, and a National Urban League group was listed in nine.
Goodlatte and Hensarling also have raised concerns about the incentive structure in the settlements with Citigroup and Bank of America, which were preceded by a similar one in 2013 with JP Morgan for $13 billion. They argue the deals have an incentive clause in which banks earn $2 worth of credit for every dollar donated to the groups above a certain threshold, compared with a dollar-for-dollar credit for government-mandated consumer relief.
“This makes donations to activist groups far more attractive to banks than providing relief to injured consumers,” Goodlatte and Hensarling said in their 2014 letter to Holder. “As a result, the settlement appears to serve as a vehicle for funding activist groups rather than as a means of securing relief for consumers actually harmed.”