McConnell vows no debt default as deadline nears

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that the Republican-controlled Congress won’t allow the government to default as the Treasury Department quickly approaches its so-called “debt ceiling.”
“I made it clear after November that we won’t shut down the government or default on debt,” the Kentucky Republican told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
McConnell’s promise came two days after Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told Capitol Hill that the government loses its authority after March 15 to borrow money to cover approved congressional spending and that his agency would have to resort to “extraordinary measures” as a short-term solution.
To be sure, McConnell acknowledged after winning a tough midterm election bid that voters were tired of an ineffective Congress that too often teetered on shutting down the government over bipartisan issues.
“I hear your concerns,” McConnell said in his victory speech.
Still, Congress came perilously close in recent weeks to at least partially closing the Department of Homeland Security when Republicans tried to tie funding for the agency to efforts to roll back President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
Lew told Congress on Friday that he will start using the package of emergency measures he has used in the past to keep the federal government from going over the debt limit next week.
The debt limit has been suspended for the past year, meaning that Treasury could borrow as much as it needed to keep the government running. But the limit will go back into effect on March 15 at whatever level of debt exists at that point.
The nation's debt currently stands at $18.1 trillion.
Treasury can employ certain accounting measures to buy time to keep the government operating without facing a costly default on the nation's debt.
In his letter to congressional leaders on Friday, Lew said he would use the first of those measures on March 13, two days before the debt limit will be re-imposed.
Lew said he would stop issuing on March 13 special-purpose Treasury debt that can be purchased by state and local governments to assist them in financing such activities as construction projects.
The Congressional Budget Office, in a report last week, estimated that the various measures Lew can employ could put off the date the debt ceiling will have to be raised until October or November.
McConnell also told CBS on Sunday that Congress will handle the issue “over a period of months” and that he has a responsibility to work with President Obama, despite their political differences.
He also said he is “very optimistic” about potential compromises with Obama on some issues.
“The American public wants us to look at what we can agree on,” McConnell said.
It was a standoff over the debt limit in August 2011 that prompted the first-ever downgrade of the nation's credit rating by Standard & Poor's, and in October 2013 there was a 16-day partial government shutdown.
"Only Congress is empowered to increase the nation's borrowing authority and I hope that Congress will address this matter without controversy or brinksmanship," Lew said in his letter. "I respectfully ask Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible."
While GOP lawmakers have given no indication when they will take up legislation to increase the debt ceiling, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday urged them to move quickly, warning that an unprecedented default by the government on its debt obligations would severely harm the economy by causing consumer and business interest rates to soar.
"There is no reason that the Republican Congress should not act immediately to take the prospect of a catastrophic default off of the table," she said in a statement. "Failure to act would have savage impacts on American families."

Dempsey: Some Iraqi troops show up for training ill-prepared

ABOARD THE CHARLES DE GAULLE –  Some Iraqi army units in line for U.S.-led training to fight the Islamic State group are showing up ill-prepared, the top American general said Sunday.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, speaking to reporters aboard this French aircraft carrier in the northern Persian Gulf not far from Iran's coast, said he sees no reason to send more U.S. military trainers or advisers at this time. More, broadly, he defended the pace of the overall military campaign in Iraq.
"Right now we don't need more advisers on the ground," Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said with his French counterpart, Gen. Pierre de Villiers, at his side on the hangar deck of the de Gaulle.
"We've got trainers and advisers that are waiting for some of the Iraqi units to show up, and when they've shown up -- a handful of them -- they've shown up understrength and sometimes without the proper equipment. The Iraqi government can actually fix that themselves."
The crux of the U.S.-led coalition's strategy for dislodging IS from Iraq is  this: degrade the militants' fighting power and resources through limited airstrikes against positions in northern and western Iraq, as well as in Syria; train and advise underperforming Iraqi security forces; and press the Iraqi government to take firmer steps to reconcile with the disaffected Sunnis.
"This is going to require some strategic patience," Dempsey said.
He said the military part of the conflict could be concluded "in the foreseeable future." The underlying problems -- failures in Iraqi governance and a disaffected Sunni population -- probably will take longer to resolve.
Dempsey spent the day aboard the de Gaulle to highlight U.S.-French military cooperation and to discuss strategies for combating IS in Iraq. He planned to visit Iraq next to discuss the campaign with government leaders and U.S. military commanders.
France is flying a variety of missions into Iraq from aboard the de Gaulle, which began operating in the northern Gulf on Feb. 23 and is scheduled to remain for eight weeks.
Dempsey watched as four French Rafale attack aircraft roared off the carrier's deck en route to Iraq, and later he observed four Super Etendard fighters land after returning from a mission.
French officials said they are flying 12 to 15 missions a day, including intelligence and surveillance flights, airstrikes and close air support missions in coordination with Iraq ground troops. Dempsey said that makes the French a valued partner in a conflict that has about 20 countries flying various air missions but only three conducting maritime operations.
Dempsey arrived aboard the de Gaulle on a U.S. Navy C-2 Greyhound twin-engine aircraft. After meetings with de Villier and other French and American officers, he was catapulted off the carrier in the C-2 for a return flight to a U.S. Navy station in Bahrain. Earlier Sunday he met with Bahrain government officials.
While they met aboard the de Gaulle, an American aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, pulled to within about 1,000 yards. The two carriers have been coordinating their air operations in what Dempsey called a sign of increased U.S.-French military cooperation around the world. In an unusual arrangement, the French carrier is under the operational control of the Americans as part of the IS campaign.
Dempsey was asked by reporters to respond to criticism by some that the U.S. is not using air power aggressively enough in Iraq and Syria. Dempsey said there are valid reasons for limiting the pace of the bombing while other aspects of the conflict are addressed.
"Carpet bombing through Iraq is not the answer," he said, adding that IS fighters have adapted since the U.S.-led bombing began in Iraqi in August.
"This is not an enemy that is sitting around in the open desert waiting for me to come find it and either use U.S. or French aircraft to attack it," Dempsey said. "They did some of that in the beginning and paid the price. So the enemy has adapted and they have developed tactics and techniques that make them a little more difficult to find."
Dempsey said the intensity and scale of the bombing campaign is necessarily limited by a need to avoid civilian casualties and to ensure the best possible intelligence is collected before striking targets.
"We are very precise because the very last thing we want to do is create a condition of civilian casualties on the ground, which would add to these competing narratives about taking sides and it being a religious issue, and Christianity and Islam. And so we have a responsibility to be very precise in the use of air power, and that means it takes time" to build the proper intelligence picture before striking.
"If I had more targets and I could be precise, we could produce more effects on the ground," he added.

GOP Senate battles for Congress to have vote in Iran nuclear deal as talks resume, deadlines near

This is going to turn out Bad.

Democrats and Republicans sparred Sunday over congressional involvement in the Iran nuclear agreement, as President Obama attempted to assure critics that the U.S. won’t accept a bad deal.
The debate intensified as the United States and five other world powers are set to resume negotiations next week with Iran to stop the country from pursuing and achieving a nuclear weapon. The goal of Secretary of State John Kerry and the other negotiators is to agree on the framework of a deal before April toward a final agreement by June 30.
Obama told CBS' "Sunday Morning" that the U.S. would "walk away" from nuclear talks with Iran if there's no acceptable deal and that any agreement must allow Western powers to verify that Tehran isn't going to obtain an atomic weapon.
"If we don't have that kind of deal, then we're not going to take it," he said.
Obama also said the U.S. and others still would have "enough time to take action," if Iran “cheated.”
Iran says their program is peaceful and exists only to produce energy for civilian use.
The GOP-led Congress wants to be able to vote on a final deal before it’s accepted, with Senate leaders trying to figure out whether they can pass legislation on the issue with enough votes to override a presidential veto.
“The Iranian parliament will get to say yes or no on this deal,” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think the United States Congress should have that exact same input into the process.”
Johnson said a bill cosponsored by Illinois GOP Sen. Mark Kirk and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez addresses that issue and that the Senate is scheduled to begin working on the legislation in the coming days.
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democratic on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" that he will reserve action until the administration announces on March 24 whether the negotiations were successful. And he argued that the Kirk-Menendez bill deals only with congressional sanctions that have already been imposed on Iran.
The general outline of a proposed deal purportedly includes intrusive inspections, a freeze on sensitive nuclear activity for at least 10 years and a cap on centrifuges and enriched uranium.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insists that Congress has a chance to review and vote on any deal. But he acknowledged Sunday that he doesn't have the support yet to override a threatened veto by Obama.
"I'm hoping we can get 67 senators to assert the historic role of the Senate and the Congress in looking at matters of this magnitude,” the Kentucky Republican told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Obviously, the president doesn't want us involved in this. But he's going to need us if he's going to lift any of the existing sanctions. And so I think he cannot work around Congress forever.”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, before a joint meeting of Congress, argued against the proposed deal, suggesting Iran could easily resume its pursuit of a nuclear weapon after such a relatively short wait and that other Arab nations will follow in Tehran’s footsteps.
Roughly 50 Capitol Hill Democrats boycotted the address, arguing it undermined the efforts of the administration, which was not advised about Netanyahu’s invitation by House Speaker John Boehner.
Among the most outspoken was California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
She told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Netanyahu’s speech was “arrogant” and said he shouldn’t “trash” a potential deal before it’s completed.

Top Senate Democrat urges Clinton to address private email controversy

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee urged former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to give a full explanation of why she used a private e-mail account for all her official correspondence during her four years as America's top diplomat.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that Clinton "needs to step up and come out and say exactly what the situation was," adding that from "this point on, the silence is going to hurt her."
Feinstein is the first major Democrat to urge Clinton to share details of the account's contents, some of which have been subpoenaed by a special House committee investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Clinton, thought to be the near-unanimous frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has kept mostly silent on the private e-mail story, which was first reported by the New York Times last Monday. Her use of the account may violate federal rules requiring officials to keep all their communications for record-keeping purposes. The controversy grew later in the week when the Associated Press reported that the account's server had been traced to an Internet service registered to her Chappaqua, N.Y. home.
This past week, Clinton said in a Twitter message that she had asked the State Department to make public all emails she had previously turned over to them, a total of approximately 55,000 pages. However, The Times reported that those messages previously had been selected by members of her staff and were not a complete record of her four years at Foggy Bottom.
She did not address the issue in her most recent public appearance Saturday night during an event in Coral Gables, Florida, for the Clinton Global Initiative University.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the Benghazi committee, told CBS' "Face The Nation" "there are gaps of months and months and months" in the emails the committee had previously received. "It's not up to Secretary Clinton to decide what's a public record and what's not," Gowdy said.
"We're not entitled to everything," Gowdy continued. "I don't want everything. I just want everything related to Libya and Benghazi."
For his part, President Obama said Sunday that he first learned of Clinton's private account through news reports. He went on to praise Clinton for requesting the release of the 55,000 pages of e-mail by the State Department, called her "an outstanding public servant" and defended his administration's record on transparency.

Black Hole Cartoon

Does House Minority Leader Pelosi really hold all of the cards?

In late 2006, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had a decision to make. Democrats had just captured control of the House in the midterm elections and she would soon become the first female speaker of the House.
One question weighing on Pelosi was whether she would maintain her smaller, hodge-podge office suite overlooking the Library of Congress on the east side of the Capitol -- or move into the more commodious digs featuring a vast panorama of the National Mall and Washington Monument on the west side of the building.
Then-House Speaker Denny Hastert, R-Ill., would soon be out the door.
And though Democrats held the House majority for more than 40 years, for the latter half of the 20th century, Democratic speakers -- including the late Sam Rayburn, Texas; Tip O’Neill, Mass.; and Tom Foley, Wash. -- mostly opted for the diminutive offices.
Out of tradition, Democrats ceded the capacious suites to Republicans despite their minority status. The better offices became the Speaker’s Office when the GOP captured the House in the historic 1994 midterms.
Should Pelosi remain in the smaller offices as homage to fellow Democratic speakers? Or should she upgrade to the new suite?
She consulted with O’Neill’s granddaughter, Catlin O’Neill, who at the time was an aide.
“It was sentimental and Catlin said ‘It’s OK. Move the office. The family wants you in the Speaker’s Office,’” Pelosi recounted to the Washington Post in 2007. And so Pelosi abandoned the Democratic rabbit warren on the west side of the building, matriculating to the anchor property on the Capitol’s East Front.
As strange as it may seem, Pelosi may feel a bit like her Democratic predecessors Rayburn, O’Neill and Foley these days. She now inhabits the cramped quarters now reserved for the minority as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, enjoys the roomier acreage.
But after recent congressional exercises just to pass a bill to avoid a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, one wonders who really commands the most votes in the House now.
The case-in-point came a week ago Friday, hours before the DHS funding would expire. House Republicans insisted on latching a provision onto the spending plan to block President Obama’s immigration executive action. The gambit couldn’t get through the Senate. After multiple failed procedural votes, senators zapped an amended DHS measure back to the House. The new bill funded DHS through September 30 but dropped the immigration provisions.
House Republicans balked and refused the altered bill. Instead, they voted to form a conference committee to work out differences between the bodies. Meanwhile, DHS funding swung in the balance. The Senate mailed the House a three-week DHS spending bill to avoid a shutdown. Some House conservatives protested because the bill lacked the immigration executive order provisos. And Democrats voted no too, preferring a full-year of funding.
With DHS funding set to expire in just seven hours, House Republicans generated 191 yeas for that bill. But 217 yeas are needed these days for passage. With their majority, Republicans can only lose 28 of their own before turning to Democrats. Only 12 Democrats voted aye.
The bill failed.
Democrats were happy to vote yes on a “clean” DHS bill bereft of the immigration policy riders for the rest of the government’s fiscal year, but not for one that limped along for just a few weeks. Pelosi and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., implored their members to vote nay.
“House Republicans have painted themselves into a corner,” said Pelosi at the time. “I’m just saying to the speaker, get a grip. Get a grip on the responsibility we have.”
The vote infuriated Republicans who voted yes. A senior House GOP leadership source said they knew the vote was “going sideways” ahead of time. The source said rank-and-file members were “super-mad” at those who didn’t take one for the team and vote yea, feeling hung out to dry.
Without Democratic assistance, Republicans were cooked. And DHS was defunded in a matter of hours. With Obama’s blessing, Pelosi offered Democratic votes to Boehner to overcome the impasse.
The minority leader then crafted a “Dear Colleague” letter addressed to House Democrats. Pelosi thanked them for their “cooperation” on the failed DHS vote. But this time asked for yeas on a “seven-day patch.” She told Democrats a yes vote would “assure that we will vote for full funding next week.
An hour later, the House voted on the interim spending bill, approving it 357 to 60. A coalition of 183 Republicans and 174 Democrats voted yes. But Democrats were the key. The Department of Homeland Security was funded for a week.
But that wasn’t much time. And Monday night, it became clear that the Senate couldn’t handle the House’s wish to form a conference committee. The Senate prepped to send the “clean” DHS bill back to the House. And that’s when Boehner moved -- knowing Democrats could bail out recalcitrant Republicans and not shutter DHS.
“Imagine if, God forbid, another terrorist attack hits the United States,” said Boehner to House Republicans at a Tuesday morning conclave, according to a source.
Boehner told Republicans he continued to be “outraged and frustrated” at the president’s immigration maneuvers. But he said the decision to forge ahead and fund DHS was “the right one for this team and the right one for the country.”
Maybe so. Not many of Boehner’s members would buy it. And that’s where Pelosi would swoop in. The GOP wouldn’t secure 191 yeas like they did on the three-week spending bill last week. They’d need Democratic assistance. A source suggested the GOP would cobble together a group of Republicans who were either in the leadership, held committees chairmanships, served on the Appropriations Committee or were moderates. Democrats would take up the slack. In early 2013, the House approved a $50 billion aid bill for victims of Hurricane Sandy 241-180. But only 49 GOPers voted yes. Last February, the House voted to raise the debt limit 221-201. A scant 28 yeas came from Republicans with minority Democrats hauling most of the freight.
The House voted 257-167 to fund DHS, but only 75 Republicans voted yes. Again, it was Democrats who largely advanced the measure despite their minority status.
“Our members had the courage to say, ‘I don’t want the government to be shut down. But I’m not falling for this three-week plan,’” trumpeted Pelosi.
Pelosi persuaded her members to hold out for full-year fiscal funding. After several acrimonious days, the House voted for what Pelosi demanded.
So who is really in charge here? Boehner or Pelosi? Especially since big fights await on the debt limit, funding highway construction programs and avoiding a government shutdown in the fall. Democratic votes will be crucial to assist Republicans. Was Pelosi a “de facto speaker?"
“If there’s ever an oxymoron it is ‘de facto speaker.’ You’re either speaker or you’re not,” insisted Pelosi.
But on DHS funding, it was Pelosi who controlled the game. And because of the disarray on the GOP side of the aisle, the bill only passed when Pelosi offered her members to vote for the plan Democrats wanted.
The debate time allocation on the bill reflected internal House fissures. For the standard hour of debate, Republicans received 20 minutes of time, Democrats 20 minutes and opponents 20 minutes. This mirrors the “coalition” approach which appears to be essential to operate the House these days.
“The problem is, I don’t see a path to victory with what (opponents) are looking at,” chirped Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican and Boehner ally who managed the spending plan for the GOP. “It will lead to a close-down of the Department of Homeland Security and that is not a victory. That is very dangerous.”
Conservatives weren’t quite done with their machinations even as the final bill came to the floor. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., launched a final dilatory maneuver, objecting to the House setting aside an oral reading of the 96-page Senate amendment which struck the immigration provisions. House procedure dictates that all bills and such amendments are read aloud. It’s a vestige from the days before Xerox when there was often only a sole copy of legislation. The only way lawmakers could learn about a bill was to hear its content read from the dais.
Massie required House Reading Clerk Susan Cole to read the amendment for 20 minutes (she stopped once to sip water) before abandoning his protest and allowing the House to consider the Senate changes.
“It’s time to move forward and stop playing these silly games,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. “It is time for the House to move past the corrosive pattern of self-imposed cliffs and shutdowns and get to the work that the American people expect us to address.”
But Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, railed against the GOP’s gambit.
“Since December, the outcome has been baked into the cake,” said Cruz. “Capitulation was the endpoint.”
Soon Congress must wrestle with the onerous issue of reimbursing physicians who treat Medicare patients. A failure to act could slash doctors’ payments by 25 percent. Lawmakers must adopt a budget. The Highway Trust Fund is bankrupt. They must keep the entire government open come October and also raise the debt limit. Each fight increases in level of difficulty. Perhaps the only way Republicans can move major agenda items is to rely on Democrats. This isn’t new. Boehner has had to rely on Democrats to pass almost every major bill since he assumed the speakership -- ranging from the debt ceiling to avoiding a government shutdown.
Pelosi flexed her muscles on the DHS bill and got her way. There could be a repeat of that phenomenon on big votes this year.
On Friday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wrote to Congress, saying the government will technically hit the debt ceiling next week. But the general consensus is that lawmakers might not have to move until autumn. Regardless, Lew beseeched “Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible.”
Pelosi quickly dashed off a follow-up statement:
“The treasury secretary’s letter is another reminder of the consequences of Republicans’ culture of crisis. There is no reason that the Republican Congress should not act immediately to take the prospect of a catastrophic default off of the table,” said the California Democrat.
If history is our guide, it’s hard to consider a scenario where Democrats aren’t again asked to carry the water on this issue and other issues, in lieu of the GOP majority.
Pelosi’s is certainly no longer the House speaker or a “de facto” speaker. She operates out of the smaller office suite and doesn’t have the power to bring bills to the floor yet the numbers to pass measures with only Democratic votes. Still, there was a time when Tip O’Neill and Tom Foley toiled in that very office while making sure the House trains ran on time. And it’s a circumstance not unlike the one in which Pelosi finds herself now.

UC Irvine reverses American flag ban

The Star-Spangled Banner will once again wave at the University of California, Irvine, after student government leaders nixed a bid to ban the American flag from a campus lobby.
Members of the executive cabinet of the Associated Students of UC Irvine met Saturday in an emergency session to reverse the flag ban.
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“Our campus is patriotic and proud,” student government President Reza Zomorrodian told me. “We did something right for our campus.”
Zomorrodian, said he was furious that a handful of student legislators pushed through the ban.
“Our campus stands with the flag,” he said.
On March 3, student legislator Matthew Guevara authored a bill to remove the American flag, along with all other flags, from the lobby of a campus building housing their offices. Click here to read my original column.
Guevara said he wanted to make the university a more “culturally inclusive” place by banning Old Glory.
“Designing a culturally inclusive space aims to remove barriers that create undue effort and separation by planning and designing spaces that enable everyone to participate equally and confidentially,” read the resolution.
The student government’s decision created a firestorm of national outrage from alumni, current students and the university’s administration.
“This misguided decision was not endorsed or supported in any way by the campus leadership, the University of California, or the broader student body,” read a statement posted online by the university. “The views of a handful of students passing a resolution do not represent the opinions of the nearly 30,000 students on this campus, and have no influence on the policies and practices of the university.”
They also tweeted a photograph showing the Stars & Stripes were still posted at the taxpayer-funded university.
As for the student government association’s flag, that will be rehoused on Monday, Zomorrodian said.
Guevara and his band of cohorts could not be reached for comment. They aren’t talking publicly and Zomorrodian said he hasn’t been able to locate them. But when he does - he plans on giving them an earful, he said.
Zomorrodian said he was especially offended that they banned the flag because he is a first generation American.
“That’s why the flag is special to me,” he said. “I was born here. My parents came here as immigrants.”
That makes him proud to be an American, and to stand up for the flag.
“This country has been great to our family,” he said.
The university’s administration should also be commended for their swift condemnation of the flag ban. It’s refreshing to see there are still educators who still love the land of the free, the home of the brave.
If nothing else, this episode has shown the nation that the University of California, Irvine has hundreds, if not thousands, of young men and women who love our nation.
I was especially pleased to hear that a member of the university’s ROTC volunteered to stand guard over Old Glory — just in case someone tried to snatch it in the dark of night.
God bless America, friends.

  Matthew Guevara Idiot of the Year.

Ex-Iranian hostages agree with Bibi: Tehran can't be trusted

American Tied Up and in Blindfold.

They dealt with the Iranian regime first-hand more than three decades ago, when it was founded in an act of war against the U.S., and several survivors of the hostage crisis say the idea of the U.S. negotiating with an unrepentant Tehran makes their blood boil.
For 444 days, the 52 Americans were held prisoner in the U.S. Embassy by the student revolutionaries that would help usher in the hard-line Islamic theocracy that remains in place today. Many of the hostage takers and guards held key roles in the Iranian government then and continue in important positions today.
“I think it’s very naive because the Iranians talk out both sides of their mouth,” said Clair Cortland Barnes, 69, of Leland, N.C, who was a 34-year-old communications officer at the time he was taken hostage. “Their actions betray their conversations. Their conversations say one thing and then they do something else.'
“They have an agenda that is to wipe out Israel and take over America,” he added.

“I think it’s very naive because the Iranians talk out both sides of their mouth.”- Clair Cortland Barnes, former Iranian hostage

The U.S., along with the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- Russia, China, United Kingdom and France -- as well as Germany,  are negotiating a deal that could end international sanctions against Iran in return for assurances it will not pursue nuclear weapons. Iran’s history of disguising its pursuit of nuclear weapons, as well as its rhetoric against the U.S., Israel and the West in general, make any deal that comes from the talks suspect, said hostages.
Barnes' sentiment was shared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in a speech to the U.S. Congress that he delivered against the wishes of the Obama administration, characterized Iran as the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and said the regime has "proven time and again that it cannot be trusted."
“Iran’s regime poses a great threat not only to Israel, but also to the peace of the entire world,” railed Netanyahu, who also said he does not "believe that Iran’s radical regime will change for the better after this deal.”
David Roeder, a former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who was attached to the U.S. Embassy when it was overrun by students seeking to overthrow the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran, said the details of the deal that have so far leaked out -- details the U.S. has not confirmed -- make it sound like Iran is being rewarded for bad behavior.

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Kathryn Koob, shown at the time she was freed from the US embassy in Iran and recently, says talks with Iran could be constructive. (AP, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)

“It doesn’t seem like this is a good deal for the U.S.,” said Roeder, who is now 72 and retired in North Carolina. "It seems as if we are paying a lot of money and not getting much of a return.”
Roeder and other hostages believe they have a right to legal damages from the Iranian assets that are already being released after being frozen for years following the hostage crisis. The former hostages are represented by attorney Thomas Lankford, of Alexandria, Va.
“Most of them were tortured horribly," Lankford said of the hostages. "Even [though some were] soldiers, no war experience can prepare you for what they endured.”
Lankford said Americans who spent more than a year as captives of a regime that remains in place cannot be expected to trust it in negotiations.
“There’s a large degree of mistrust," Lankford said. "It’s hard for many of them to know what’s in those discussions.”
There is more to earning a place at the negotiating table with the U.S. and world powers than simply paying the hostages a settlement, said Donald Cooke, who was the embassy's vice consul when he was taken hostage. Iran must own up to the criminal violence in which the current regime was forged, he said.

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Donald Cooke was vice consul at the embassy when students took over, and like others spent 444 days as a hostage.

“If they want to negotiate, they have to deal with the issue of the hostage taking, which the current government is still responsible for," said Cooke, 61, of Maryland. “The Iranian government has to take responsibility or you can't take them seriously in any negotiations.”
Like several of the former hostages, Cooke said he watched the Israeli prime minister's speech with keen interest.
“Benjamin Netanyahu had a good point when he spoke to Congress," Cooke said. "Any negotiation should not be about technical issues. The negotiation should be about changing behavior, and it is not.”
Former U.S. Marine Rodney “Rocky” Sickmann, 57, of St. Louis, was a 22-year-old guarding the embassy in Tehran when his life was changed forever.
"I truly believe that the war on terrorism started on Nov. 4, 1979, when I was a young Marine standing guard at the embassy," he said. "I was only 30 yards away from that fence when they came over it. They used Iranian women as shields when they broke in because they knew we’d stand down.”
Like other survivors, he believes Iran has never answered for its actions.
“They have never been held accountable for what they’ve done to us," Sickmann told FoxNews.com, recounting how he was tied to a chair for days while held by the Iranians. "How do you trust a government that publicly says Israel needs to be eliminated? Anyone should understand why Israel needs to be concerned."
Not all of the surviving hostages believe participating in talks with Iran is a bad idea. Kathryn Koob, who was 41 at the time of the crisis, and was in Tehran serving as director of the Iran-America society, a nonprofit organization established by the U.S. government to strengthen educational and community ties between the two countries, said talking is better that not talking.
“I am glad to see that that is happening,” said Koob, who lives in Waterloo, Iowa, and was one of just two females held hostage by the Iranians. “I think it’s terribly important to engage with all countries in the world, including Iran.

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David Roeder, a former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who was attached to the U.S. embassy, says the U.S. can't trust Iran.

The U.S. has not had formal diplomatic relations with Iran since the crisis, but Koob said the talks, along with a thaw in U.S. relations with Cuba, are a heartening sign.
“Diplomacy does not mean agreement,” Koob said. “I think discussion is better than doing nothing. You can’t accomplish anything by not speaking to a country and pretending they’re not there.”

O'Malley emerges in New Hampshire as potential Clinton rival for 2016 but soft sells potential challenge

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is emerging as a potential challenger to Hillary Clinton for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination but appears unwilling, at least for now, to mount a head-on challenge to the front-running Clinton.
O’Malley on Friday night at a Democratic fundraiser in key voting state New Hampshire declined to discuss two Clinton controversies -- donations to the Clinton Foundation and her use of a private email accounts -- much less use them to his political advantage.
“I like Hillary Clinton. I respect Secretary Clinton. I am not here to talk about Secretary Clinton," O’Malley said when asked after his speech about the foundation accepting large donations from foreign countries in the two years since Clinton left her post as secretary of state.
Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have long been supportive of O’Malley, who reportedly got Hillary Clinton’s blessing to run for the White House as far back as 2013.
O’Malley’s speech Friday at the Merrimack County Democrats fundraiser in Concord, N.H., marks his first visit to the state since the midterm elections. He last visited New Hampshire in October to campaign on behalf of Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, who won re-election.
Clinton, also a former New York senator, has been the presumptive Democratic 2016 presidential nominee since polling started as far back as 2012, though she has yet to announce whether she is running.
With roughly 44 percent of the potential vote, formidable fundraising might and campaign infrastructure, Clinton has essentially cleared the field of potential primary challengers.
The 67-year-old Clinton has so far in speeches largely focused on wage equality for women and helping the middle and lower classes by increasing pay overall.
When O’Malley was asked Friday night how he would distinguish himself from Clinton, he said, “I don’t know. … I don't know what she's proposing as her candidacy.”
On the issue of Clinton using at least one private email account when secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, O’Malley, a former assistant U.S. attorney, said he wasn’t familiar enough with federal regulations to comment.
But he said that all personal emails for Maryland officials are subject to federal Freedom of Information Act requests.
He also said that openness and transparency is the way of the future and that cities and states have embraced this more than the federal government.
Republicans have sought to take advantage of the back-to-back Clinton controversies, with House Republicans saying they will subpoena the roughly 50,000 pages of emails in question.
And political observers say the controversies could create enough space for another Democrat to mount a strong challenge to Clinton.
On Friday, O'Malley did criticize President Obama and attempted to distinguish himself from the party’s torch-bearer.
He criticized the president for not using executive action to raise the federal overtime pay threshold and said reforming federal laws on immigration is necessary for a thriving economy and national security.
People living “in the shadows of society" create an "underground economy," O’Malley said.

WHERE IS FLIGHT 370? One year after tragedy, officials no closer to finding answers

One year ago today, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared as it made its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The search for the Boeing 777, with 239 passengers and crew on board, has covered almost 1.8 million square miles of the southern Indian Ocean, and has involved 82 aircraft and 84 ships from 26 countries, CBS News reported Saturday.
The search has yielded no signs of the plane -- no wreckage, no life jackets, no flotation devices, no luggage, no human remains.
In January, Malaysia's civil aviation authority reportedly declared passengers and crew on board deceased and officially classified Flight 370's disappearance as "an accident." The families were offered $50,000 per victim.
While the announcement allowed the airline to settle any legal obligations and speed up payments to the families of the victims, many of the families who lost loved ones are angry.
"Despite this complete lack of wreckage found or physical evidence of a catastrophic event, the Malaysian government has officially declared that the airplane crashed, leaving no survivors, and it has ended the rescue phase of the search effort," a group called Voice370, which speaks on behalf of the victims' families, said in a statement issued to the press on Friday, CBS reported. "We do not accept this finding and we will not give up hope until we have definitive proof of what happened to MH370."
According to CBS, four ships continue to search the South Indian Ocean and have covered nearly 45 percent of the target area to date.

"I still call the phone."- Jacqui Gonzales

The one-year anniversary is a difficult time for many victims' families, including Jacqui Gonzales, whose husband of nearly 30 years, Patrick, worked on Flight 370 as an in-flight supervisor.
"A year of no news, no answers and no Patrick," she told CBS. One year later, Gonzales says she still calls Patrick's cellphone.
"I still call the phone," she said. She doesn't hear his voice, "but the recording of his voice mail. His number is still there."
On Saturday, Malaysia's transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, told the BBC that search teams would continue to look for Flight 370. Liow said he is confident the plane will be found in the southern Indian Ocean.
Still, according to Liow, if the massive undersea search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 turns up nothing by the end of May, the three countries leading the effort will go "back to the drawing board," Malaysia's transport minister said Saturday.
Liow told a small group of foreign reporters on the eve of the anniversary of the plane's disappearance that he remains cautiously optimistic the Boeing 777 is in the area of the southern Indian Ocean where the search is ongoing.
Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said last week that if the plane isn't found by May, one option is to expand the hunt beyond the current search zone to a wider surrounding area.
Despite the exhaustive search for the plane, which disappeared last March 8, no trace of the jet has been found. Malaysia's government on Jan. 29 formally declared the incident an accident and said all 239 people on board were presumed dead.
"By the end of May, if we still can't find the plane, then we will have to go back to the drawing board," Liow said.
Ships looking for debris from the plane on the ocean floor off the coast of western Australia have so far scoured 44 percent of the 60,000-square-kilometer (23,166-square-mile) area the search has been focused on, Liow said.
In the latest report he received Friday, he said the search team had identified 10 hard objects that still need to be analyzed.
Such findings, which often include trash and cargo containers from passing ships, have been common during the search, and so far no trace of wreckage has been located.
Liow said that Australia, Malaysia and China would meet next month to discuss the next steps in the search. Most of the plane's passengers were Chinese.

Transparency Cartoon

Dem strategist on Christie: ‘We want to kill him dead’

A longtime Democratic strategist is taking heat for recent comments about how aggressively his super PAC plans to go after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. 
"We're not going to pull resources from Christie, we want to kill him dead," Brad Woodhouse told Bloomberg Politics.
Woodhouse is president of the left-leaning American Bridge, launched by Media Matters' David Brock.
During the Bloomberg interview, Woodhouse made the comment when asked if recent bad press about Christie would prompt his group to pull back.
He made clear it would not.
The Republican Party is now calling for an apology.
"We understand that Democrats are getting desperate after the recent revelations about their presumptive nominee and need to create a distraction," Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement Thursday night.
Spicer added that "in no circumstance is it acceptable to say about a sitting governor that you want to kill him dead."
"A line has been crossed, and Brad Woodhouse should apologize," he said.
Woodhouse lobbed back: "Let me respond by using the acronym of Christie's PAC- LMFAO," Woodhouse said via Twitter.  
That retort might be a bit in the weeds, but for context, Christie's PAC name is Leadership Matters for America. LMFAO is Internet shorthand for "laughing my f---ing a-- off."

Students at UC Irvine vote to ban American flag

Idiots

Students at the University of California, Irvine have voted to make their school a more “culturally inclusive” place by banning the American flag.
The Associated Students of University of California (ASUCI) passed a resolution March 3 that would remove the Stars & Stripes along with every other flag from the lobby of a complex housing the offices of the student government.
“Designing a culturally inclusive space aims to remove barriers that create undue effort and separation by planning and designing spaces that enable everyone to participate equally and confidentially,” read the resolution authored by Matthew Guevara.
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The resolution passed 6-4. Two people abstained. Let me break down the vote for you -- six unAmerican students, four patriots and two individuals who could have a career in House Republican leadership.
Guevara’s resolution, which was in dire need of an edit, rambled on about “paradigms of conformity” and “homogenized standards” and blah, blah, blah.
It sounds like Mr. Guevara could have a future career in community organizing or the Democratic party.
“The American flag has been flown in instances of colonialism and imperialism,” he bemoaned. “Flags not only serve as symbols of patriotism or weapons for nationalism, but also construct cultural mythologies and narratives that in turn charge nationalistic sentiments.”
I know, folks. I know it’s California. But this is beyond bizarre even for the yoga and granola crowd.
I reached out to the university for a comment and a very nice spokesperson (who seemed anxious for the weekend) assured me the university did not endorse the resolution.
She also told me the executive board of the student government association is going to meet this weekend and discuss the possibility of a veto.
Reza Zomorrodian, the ASUCI president and a young patriot, told me he was very upset over the student government’s actions and will push for a veto.
“It’s an attack on American values,” he said. “A lot of people want to come to the United States for a reason – it’s because of the freedoms we have.”
Zomorrodian told me the legislation was the result of a longstanding feud over the display of the American flag. He said unknown perpetrators kept taking down the flag and he would put it back up.  The flag is currently folded and being protected in a vice president’s office.
“I’m really disappointed in our legislative council right now,” he said. “I’m firmly against what they did. I think it was a horrible idea.”
Zomorrodian said he wants the American public to know that UC Irvine is a patriotic campus.
“Only six people voted for this,” he said. “We have 22,000 undergrads here. Six people made this decision. The UC Irvine has made huge contributions to bettering this country. This is an elected body that made a decision for the whole and will suffer the consequences of making that decision.”
Mr. Zomorrodian sounds like a very nice young man who understands what the American flag represents --- and I hope he musters the votes necessary to rehoist the Stars & Stripes.
As for the handful of un-American rabblerousers who’ve brought shame upon the campus of UC Irvine – I would offer these gentle words:
If you have a problem with the flag and what that flag stands for and the brave men and women who died for that flag – then you are more than welcome to pack your bags and haul your ungrateful buttocks across the border.
And one final thought about the vandals who keep taking down the flag in the dark of night. I wonder if Mr. Zomorrodian has considered asking the university’s ROTC program for help. I suspect a handful of young soldiers might be able to nip that problem in the bud.

Defiant Sen. Menendez declares, "I am not going anywhere"

A defiant Sen. Robert Menendez declared, “I am not going anywhere,” Friday night amid reports the Justice Department is preparing to charge the New Jersey Democrat with corruption counts over allegations he used his office to help a Democratic donor.
A person familiar with a federal investigation of Menendez told the Associated Press the Justice Department is expected to bring criminal charges against him in the coming weeks. The pending charges were first reported by CNN.
Menendez told a press conference about four hours after the reports surfaced that he had “always conducted myself appropriately and in accordance with the law.”
He added, “I fight for things I believe important…and for the people of our country. That’s who I am.
“I am not going anywhere.”
Menendez took no questions from reporters, saying that because of the “ongoing inquiry” he could not make any additional comments.
The Justice Department would not comment on the criminal charges report, although DOJ sources are not denying that charges may be coming.
Menendez' office did not confirm the reports, but defended the senator's conduct.
In a statement, the senator's spokeswoman Tricia Enright said: "As we have said before, we believe all of the Senator's actions have been appropriate and lawful and the facts will ultimately confirm that. Any actions taken by Senator Menendez or his office have been to appropriately address public policy issues and not for any other reason."
Attorney General Eric Holder also declined to comment on the case when asked by Fox News and President Obama ignored shouted questions by reporters as he left Marine One following a trip to South Carolina.
The case against the powerful lawmaker, two years in the making, comes at a sensitive time for Menendez -- and the Obama administration. Menendez has been a leading critic of the direction of current diplomatic talks with Iran over its nuclear program, and has helped draft legislation meant to check the administration's power to negotiate a deal.
As top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- and a Cuban-American lawmaker -- he also has criticized the administration's efforts to normalize ties with Cuba.
The federal case involves Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, a friend and donor, and allegations of potential favor-trading.
According to CNN, investigators looked at a plane trip the senator took as Melgen's guest to the Dominican Republic. They also looked at how the senator allegedly advocated for him with Medicare officials who accused him of overbilling and allegedly pushed his friend's business interests in the Dominican Republic.
The New Jersey Law Journal, late last month, also reported on court documents in the case, which reportedly were posted by accident for a brief time. The publication said an appeals court has ordered a hearing into whether Menendez' aides can be compelled to testify to a grand jury in the case. The Law Journal, citing the court documents, said the case revolves around the billing dispute Melgen had with Medicare officials and the donor's deal to sell port-screening equipment to the Dominican Republic. In the latter instance, the documents reportedly said the senator's former chief counsel asked U.S. Customs and Border Protection not to donate old screening equipment to the Caribbean nation -- which would allow a Melgen-tied contractor to sell such equipment.
Enright said Friday that Melgen is one of Menendez' closest friends but they cannot specifically address the claims.
"The two have spent holidays together and have gone to each other's family funerals and weddings and have exchanged personal gifts. As has been reported, the start of this investigation is suspect," she said. "We know many false allegations have been made about this matter, allegations that were ultimately publicly discredited. We also know that the official investigation of this matter is ongoing, and therefore cannot address allegations being made anonymously."
Various allegations indeed have swirled around the New Jersey lawmaker, including that he solicited prostitutes in the Dominican Republic -- allegations that have not been substantiated.
The Justice Department's record of going after high-level lawmakers is mixed.
They have won convictions against several House members, including former Republican Rep. Rick Renzi and former Democratic Rep. Bill Jefferson. But the late Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, had his conviction vacated over prosecutorial misconduct. They also never went after Alaska Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, despite claims they were considering it years ago.

‘Nobody is going to wait’: Saudi drafting nuclear back-up plan to counter Iran?

Saudi Arabia, growing increasingly nervous about its neighbor across the Persian Gulf, may be hedging its bets and crafting a nuclear back-up plan if a diplomatic deal with Iran fails to halt the Islamic Republic's alleged march toward a weapon.
The latest sign is a curious visit on Wednesday by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the day before Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to the capital Riyadh.
Sharif arrived in Saudi Arabia following a visit by the Egyptian president on Sunday and Turkey's president on Monday -- but the Pakistan PM's House of Saud call might be the most significant of the three, considering Pakistan is seen by some analysts as Saudi Arabia's future nuclear tech supplier, should the Kingdom take that leap.
"The visit by the PM ... almost certainly has to be seen in the context of Saudi Arabia looking to Pakistan for nuclear cooperation to counter Iran's emerging status," Simon Henderson, of the Washington Institute, told Fox News.
Henderson, in an essay for the Washington Institute last month, also noted Riyadh's support for Pakistan's nuclear program, "providing financing in return for a widely assumed understanding that, if needed, Islamabad will transfer technology or even warheads."

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The developments point to increasing tension in the region over the course of U.S.-driven nuclear talks. Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an address to Congress urging the Obama administration to pull back on the talks, warning the pending deal is too soft on Iran.
"When the Israelis and Arabs are on the same page, people should pay attention," Israel's ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer told Fox News on Thursday. "That doesn't happen too often."
President Obama and his top advisers have urged allies, and lawmakers, to be patient and wait until a deal is actually presented before judging it.
But some in the region are getting impatient. "Nobody is going to wait for Iran to get a nuclear weapon. Proliferation has already started," retired Col. Derek Harvey, a former senior intelligence official in Iraq, told Fox News. The reported sunset clause allowing unrestricted enrichment for Iran after 10 years may be a driving factor.
The State Department did not return a request for comment from Fox News on whether it was concerned about Saudi Arabia seeking a nuclear weapon.
Henderson, in his essay, pointed out that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan may have just renewed a secret nuclear weapons pact.
In early February, the chairman of Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee visited Saudi Arabia, amid some speculation that the House of Saud had indeed reconfirmed a supposed arrangement with Pakistan for the nation to supply Saudi Arabia with warheads should Iran go nuclear. The visit to Saudi Arabia last month came a day after a successful test-firing of Pakistan's Raad air-launched 220-mile-range cruise missile, which supposedly is able to deliver nuclear and conventional warheads.
Ironically, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer "AQ" Khan, also provided the technology to Saudi Arabia's nemesis, Iran.
Kerry is navigating complicated Arab world geopolitics as he meets with foreign counterparts. Amid wariness over Shiite Iran's nuclear program, these countries are also concerned about Iran's support for Shia militants against ISIS militants in Iraq, support for Houthi rebels in Yemen and the country's ever-growing regional footprint.
In Riyadh, Kerry met Thursday with counterparts from the Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman -- all Sunni nations concerned about Iran's intentions in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
At a press conference Thursday, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal expressed concern over Iran's involvement in helping Iraqi forces in Tikrit. "The situation in Tikrit is a prime example of what we are worried about. Iran is taking over the country," he said.  
The Pentagon acknowledged Iran's leading role in the battle for Tikrit. Two-thirds of those taking part in the operation are Iran-backed Shia militias led by Quds Force commander Gen. Major General Qasem Soleimani, the special operations wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
"This is the most overt conduct of Iranian support in the form of artillery and other things," Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of Congress Tuesday.
Kerry did his best to reassure Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies that the United States will not ignore Iran's actions in the region outside of the ongoing nuclear talks.
"The first step is, make sure they don't have a nuclear weapon, but nothing else changes the next day, with respect to our joint commitment, to stand up against any other kind of interference of violation of international law, or support for terrorism," he said Thursday in Riyadh.
Joining the Sunni alliance against Iran is Israel. Netanyahu cautioned the U.S. on Tuesday not to become too dependent on Iran fighting inside Iraq.
"When it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy -- is your enemy," Netanyahu told Congress.
While Pakistan's prime minister was meeting his ally in Saudi Arabia this week, over in northern Iraq, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government was also looking to shore up support from one of its patrons -- Iran.
An official representing the KRG in Iran, Abdullah Akerei, told Iranian Press TV that gas for the Kurdistan region's power plants would be supplied by Iran.
KRG has welcomed Iran's help in the past. Over the summer, Soleimani and 70 soldiers arrived to defend Irbil from the Islamic State after Mosul fell. Iran has since helped supply the Kurds with weapons to help them in their ongoing fight against ISIS.

Emails show Clinton aides running interference during Benghazi attack

Emails obtained through a federal lawsuit show that two top aides to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were running interference internally during the 2012 Benghazi terror attack.
The aides were Philippe Reines, widely described as Clinton’s principal gate-keeper, and Cheryl Mills, who has been at Clinton's side for decades.
The emails show that while receiving updates about the assault as it happened, Mills told then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland to stop answering reporter questions about the status of Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was missing and later found dead.
Also littered throughout the State Department emails, obtained by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, are references to a so-called Benghazi Group. A diplomatic source told Fox News that was code inside the department for the so-called Cheryl Mills task force, whose job was damage control.
The effort to stop Nuland from answering reporter questions also may have contributed to confusion over the nature of the attack. Clinton that night had put out the first statement wrongly linking the attack to a supposed protest sparked by an obscure, anti-Islam YouTube video – but that was never updated that night.
"Cheryl Mills was instrumental in making sure the big lie was put out there,"  Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
Judicial Watch obtained the State Department emails through legal action. "What's notable thus far is we received no emails from or to [Hillary Clinton],” he said. “You have to wonder whether these aides went offline and were using secret accounts to communicate with her about Benghazi attack."
The emails emerged as Clinton fields criticism over revelations that she used personal email during her tenure as secretary. She is now asking the department to make public thousands of emails she has turned over.
On Friday, the State Department spokeswoman was pushed to explain how they will review the Clinton emails under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, and what will be made public.
"We will use FOIA standards for the review,"  spokeswoman Marie Harf said. "What we determine is appropriate under those FOIA standards will be public."
Harf also was questioned on a State Department unclassified cable, obtained exclusively by Fox News. The cable shows in 2011, Clinton's office told employees not to use personal email for government business, citing security reasons -- while she carried out government business exclusively on private accounts.
"This isn't her best practice guidance,” Harf said. “Her name is at the bottom of the cable, as is practiced for cables coming from Washington … some think she wrote it, which is not accurate."
Nevertheless, cables sent under Clinton's electronic signature carry her authority.
Mills, meanwhile, is a focus of the select congressional committee investigating the Benghazi attacks. During congressional testimony, retired Adm. Mike Mullen, who helped lead the Accountability Review Board investigation into the attacks, confirmed under cross-examination that he personally warned Mills that a witness would be damaging to the department.
Critics say it is more evidence the Accountability Review Board, or ARB, was deeply flawed.

Hillary Email Cartoon

Bill giving Congress say on Iran deal delayed by Senate Dems

Senate Democrats have delayed Republican efforts to fast-track a bill giving Congress a vote on any nuclear agreement with Iran.
With diplomatic talks still underway, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had wanted to tee up a procedural vote next week on the legislation giving Congress a say.
"Congress must be involved in reviewing and voting on an agreement reached between this White House and Iran," McConnell said on Tuesday -- the same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the pending deal "paves Iran's path to the bomb" and urged the U.S. not to accept it.
But several Democratic senators, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., wanted McConnell to wait. Though they support the legislation, they don't want him bringing the bill directly to the floor without first going through committee.
In a letter to McConnell, they said the move suggests "the goal ... is to score partisan political points, rather than pursue a substantive strategy to counter Iran's nuclear ambitions."
Further, the senators argued there is "no immediate" need to do this since the initial deadline for a deal framework is March 24, and a final deal is not expected until June. "We will only vote for this bill after it has gone through the regular [process] ... and after the March 24th deadline for the political framework agreement," they wrote.
McConnell appears to be relenting, signaling he will take up a different bill next week -- and give lawmakers more time to consider the Iran legislation.
While Republicans hold the majority in the Senate, they need at least six Democrats to advance the measure.  
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, had also objected, telling The Associated Press he wants the Senate to wait. He accused McConnell of "hijacking" the legislation, which was written by Menendez and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.
Republicans continue to tout the bill, and say it ultimately will be approved.
Corker suggested Thursday the delay could be a good thing, and help the Senate build a "veto-proof majority."
Sen. Lindsey Graham earlier predicted the same. "I'm highly confident that a bipartisan supermajority in the Congress will insist that any deal with Iran come before the Congress to be debated and voted on," Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News. "I don't trust Barack Obama or John Kerry to do a good deal. I want to look at it."
The legislation specifically would require the president to submit the text of a deal to Congress and refrain from suspending congressional sanctions for two months; Congress could then approve or disapprove of the deal.
Obama has threatened to veto the legislation, and has urged all sides to wait until a deal actually has been produced.
Tensions are running high on Capitol Hill over the issue, in the wake of Netanyahu's impassioned address on Tuesday to Congress. He called the agreement in the works a "very bad deal," claiming it would only restrict Iran's nuclear program for a decade and would not adequately dismantle nuclear facilities.
Obama criticized Netanyahu after the speech, saying he didn't offer any "viable alternatives" to curb Iran's nuclear program.

7 injured, including 6 female soliders, in Jerusalem car-ramming attack, police say

A Palestinian motorist rammed his car into a group of people waiting for a train in east Jerusalem Friday morning injuring seven people, including six Israeli soldiers, before being shot and wounded by guards, police said.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri described the assault as a “terror attack.”
The motorist plowed his car into the curb after running over the group of people. Police said the man then got out of his car with a knife and stabbed a pedestrian before he was shot.
The injured and the motorist were taken to the hospital.
Samri said initial reports suggested the man was a Palestinian from east Jerusalem. However, police are still trying to identify the attacker.
"The swift and determined response stopped the attack as it was beginning and prevented more innocents from being injured," said Moshe Edri, regional police commander. 
The attack mirrored a spate of similar assaults on Israelis late last year amid heightened tensions over the most sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, revered by Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.

Majority of House members sign letter blasting Obama bullet ban proposal

Opposition to the Obama administration's proposal to ban a popular bullet is gaining steam in the House of Representatives, where more than half of the lawmakers have signed a letter opposing the move.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says it wants to ban popular .223 M855 “green tip” ammunition because the bullets can pierce bulletproof vests used by law enforcement. Although the ATF previously approved it in 1986, the agency now says that because handguns have now been designed that can also fire the bullets, police officers are now more likely to encounter them.Some 239 members of the House have now put their names to the letter opposing the ban, which they say would interfere with Americans’ Constitutional rights.
“This attack on the Second Amendment is wrong and should be overturned,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, (R-Va.), who started the petition, said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "A clear, sizeable majority of the House agree,” he noted.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest backed up the agency’s proposal at a press conference on Monday.

“This attack on the Second Amendment is wrong and should be overturned.”- Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

“We are looking at additional ways to protect our brave men and women in law enforcement… This seems to be an area where everyone should agree that if there are armor-piercing bullets available that can fit into easily concealed weapons, that it puts our law enforcement at considerably more risk,” Earnest said.
But gun-rights groups such as the National Rifle Association note that almost all rifle bullets can pierce armor, and say that this is just an excuse for limiting civilian gun use.
“The claim that this is done out of a concern for law enforcement safety is a lie. The director of the Fraternal Order of Police has said this is not an issue of concern. And according to the FBI, not one single law enforcement officer has been killed with M855 ammunition fired from a handgun," Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, told FoxNews.com.
Some law enforcement groups reached by FoxNews.com also say that they no need for the regulation.
“The notion that all of a sudden a new pistol requires banning what had long been perfectly legal ammunition doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to many officers,” William Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, told FoxNews.com.
NAPO represents over 1,000 police units and associations and 241,000 law enforcement officers around the country.
But some law enforcement experts support the ban.
“I am definitely for the banning of these rounds… officers worry about them all the time,” former NYPD detective Harry Houck told FoxNews.com, though he added that a ban might not actually keep criminals from getting the ammunition.
Gun control groups support the ban.
"We understand why law enforcement has always been concerned about the threat of armor-piercing bullets," Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told FoxNews.com.
Lawmakers warn that the regulation – especially as it follows on the heels of attempts to restrict lead bullets -- will “result in drastically reduced options for lawful ammunition users.” Already, the ammunition has been cleared from many store shelves by gun owners looking to stock up in anticipation of the ban. The proposed regulation would not prohibit owning the bullets, but it would stop anyone from manufacturing or importing them.
Gun-rights groups also worry that the ban – if allowed to stand – won’t stop with this type of bullet.
“Almost any hunting rifle bullet will go through body armor, so you could prohibit almost any rifle bullet with this. This is the administration redefining the law on its own,” Alan Gottlieb, of the Second Amendment Foundation, told FoxNews.com.
The lawmakers also dispute the ATF’s legal authority to ban the bullets, saying that the proposed ban “does not comport with the letter or spirit of the law.”
The law, which was passed in 1986, gives the agency authority to ban bullets that are “constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper or depleted uranium.”
However, the lawmakers say that the core of these bullets “contains a substantial amount of lead, raising questions about its classification as ‘armor piercing’ in the first place.”
The House members also allege that the ATF violated government transparency requirements.
“The Administrative Procedures Act… requires that ‘general notice of proposed rulemaking shall be published in the Federal Register…’ To date, [the proposed ban] has not been published in the Federal Register.”
The ATF has announced that it is currently taking public comments on the regulation until March 16, when it will prepare to issue a final regulation. Comments can be sent to APAComments@atf.gov.
An ATF spokesman emphasized that no final decision has been made yet.
“No final determinations have been made and we won’t make any determinations until we’ve reviewed the comments submitted by industry, law enforcement and the public at large,” ATF spokesman Corey Ray told FoxNews.com.
“The framework is… intended to protect law enforcement while respecting the interests of sportsmen and the industry,” he also noted.

Clinton created multiple email addresses on private server, data show

Hillary Clinton appears to have established multiple email addresses for her private use, and possibly the use of her aides, under the domain of “clintonemail.com,” according to a prominent member of the hacking community who supplied independent research data, conducted with high-tech tools, to Fox News.
The hacker used an open-source tool, publicly available, called “The Harvester” to search a variety of data sources – including well-known platforms such as Google, Bing, LinkedIn, Twitter and others – for any stored references to email addresses seen using a particular domain, in this case clintonemail.com. Hackers working under contract for private firms, also known as “White Hat hackers,” routinely use The Harvester during so-called “penetration testing,” or “pen testing,” on behalf of clients trying to ensure that their internal systems are secure.
The application of The Harvester to clintonemail.com revealed additional email addresses besides the one that Clinton aides have insisted publicly that she used, and have said was the only one that she used, when she served as Secretary of State: namely, hdr22@clintonemail.com.
A screen grab of The Harvester’s findings provided to Fox News by the source in the hacker community – whose professional resume also boasts extensive experience in the U.S. intelligence community – lists rather similar, but nonetheless different, email addresses, including hdr@clintonemail.com, hdr18@clintonemail.com, hdr19@clintonemail.com, hdr20@clintonemail.com, and hdr21@clintonemail.com.
Also unearthed by the hacking tool were email addresses of a slightly varied structure, including h.clinton@clintonemail.com, Hillary@clintonemail.com, contact@clintonemail.com, and mau_suit@clintonemail.com.
It’s not known how many of these multiple addresses the secretary herself may have used, nor whether some may have been assigned to close aides entrusted to communicate with her on the clintonemail.com domain.

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• Clinton blasted Bush admin's 'secret email accounts' in 2007

“Given the sequential similarities to hdr22@ I suspect some others found by my search may also have been used by HRC,” the hacker told Fox News. “I suspect hdr18 -hdr21 may have been used by HRC as well as h@clintonemail.com and hillary@clintonemail.com....I’d also be interested to learn if there were ever hdr1@ thru hdr17@.”
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told POLITICO on March 4: “Secretary Clinton used one email account when corresponding with anyone, from Department officials to friends to family.”
However, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the House select committee investigating the Benghazi terrorist attacks, has issued a statement saying the panel “is in possession of records with two separate and distinct email addresses used by former Secretary Clinton and dated during the time she was secretary of state.”
Contacted by Fox News, neither Merrill nor Philippe Reines, another longtime aide to Clinton who is believed to remain in close contact with her, responded to messages left via telephone and email. Nor did Eric Hothem, the mysterious former Clinton aide who has been identified as having registered the internet server in Chappaqua, New York – the Clintons’ hometown in upstate New York – that hosted the clintonemail.com domain.
“I'm in the process of determining if any of those accounts have been compromised by hackers in the past,” the source told Fox News. “We know that hdr22 has been.”