Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry reportedly will join 2016 GOP field

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry will announce Thursday that he will seek the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, according to a report.
The Associated Press, citing a senior Perry adviser, said that he would formally declare his candidacy at an event in Dallas. The adviser requested anonymity to speak ahead of the formal announcement.
Perry would become the tenth Republican to enter the race for the White House. He has already made several visits to the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, and will look to erase the memories of his disappointing 2012 campaign.
When Perry entered the Republican race last cycle, he was considered to be among the front-runners. Then, at a November 2011 debate in Michigan, he forgot the name of the third federal agency he said he would close if he was elected, then muttered "Oops." In that moment, he went from from powerhouse to punchline and gradually faded from contention.
However, Perry still has the policy record that made him an early force last time.
Perry left office in January after a record 14 years as governor of Texas. Under him, the state generated more than a third of America's new private-sector jobs since 2001.
While an oil and gas boom fueled much of that economic growth, Perry credits lower taxes, restrained regulation and limits on civil litigation damages. He also pushed offering economic incentives to lure top employers to Texas and repeatedly visited states with Democratic governors to poach jobs.
Perry was thought to be a cinch for four more years as governor in 2014, but instead turned back to White House ambitions. His effort may be complicated this time by a felony indictment on abuse of power and coercion charges, from when he threatened -- then carried out -- a veto of state funding for public corruption prosecutors. That came when the unit's Democratic head rebuffed Perry's demands that she resign following a drunken driving conviction.
Perry calls the case against him a political "witch hunt," but his repeated efforts to get it tossed on constitutional grounds have so far proved unsuccessful. That raises the prospect he'll have to leave the campaign trail to head to court in Texas.
Perry blamed lingering pain from back surgery in the summer of 2011 for part of the reason he performed poorly in the 2012 campaign. He has ditched his trademark cowboy boots for more comfortable footwear and wears glasses that give him a serious look.
Perry also traveled extensively overseas and studied policy with experts and economists at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He met such business moguls as Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch.
Lately, Perry has traveled to Iowa, which kicks off presidential nomination voting, more than any GOP White House candidate.
"People realize that what the governor did in the high-profile debate, stumble, everyone has done at some point in their lives," said Ray Sullivan, Perry's chief of staff as governor and communications director for his 2012 presidential bid. "I think he's already earned a second look, particular in Iowa."
"I think he's kind of been freed up to be Rick Perry again," said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas political consultant who was director of state and federal campaigns for tea party-backed FreedomWorks before managing the re-election campaign of veteran Sen. John Cornyn last year. "That's going to give him a lot of freedom to do what he does best, which is talk to voters one-on-one, shake hands, do the small meetings."
As an underdog, Perry has visited out-of-the-way places in Iowa, often traveling with a single SUV rather than the busloads in his 2012 entourage. Steinhauser said Perry shouldn't "start out trying to be larger than life."
One thing Perry hopes to emulate from 2012 is his fundraising, when he amassed $18 million in the first six weeks. He has strong donor contacts nationwide as a former Republican Governors Association chairman. However, his indictments may cause some to hesitate to write him checks.
Perry's camp notes that many past Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney in 2012, rebounded to win the party's presidential nomination after failing in a previous bid. But GOP strategist Ford O'Connell said the 2016 field is "extremely talented and deep" compared to four years ago.
"For him to win the nomination," O'Connell said, "he's going to have to be great, but a lot of people are going to have to trip and fall along the way."

Texas gov poised to roll back 140-year-old open carry gun ban

The near-certain signing into law of an open-carry gun measure will send Texas back to the days of the Wild West – at least legislatively.
The bill, passed by the state Legislature and expected to earn Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature within the next week, would reverse a 140-year-old ban on carrying handguns in plain sight. Despite its reputation as a pro-gun state, Texas is one of just five with an outright ban on open carry.
“It’s a thumbs up for law-abiding citizens,” said Rep. Debbie Riddle. Riddle, a Republican who represents part of Houston and co-sponsored the bill. “Everywhere there is a denial of Second Amendment rights, crime is through the roof.  It’s a deterrent. If someone is going to rob a convenience store and there are other people inside with guns on their hips, they might think twice.”

“Criminals aren’t afraid of prison, they’re afraid of getting shot."
- C.J. Grisham, Open Carry Texas

After a contentious debate, in which state Second Amendment advocates even clashed with National Rifle Association officials over their tactics, the bill cleared both Republican-majority chambers along party lines. A related bill also awaiting Abbott’s likely signature would allow students and faculty members at public and private universities in Texas to carry concealed handguns into classrooms, dormitories and other buildings.
Texas is currently one of five states that does not allow licensed handgun owners to carry their weapons openly. The others are Florida, New York, Illinois and South Carolina, as well as Washington, DC. Several other states have such strict gun ownership laws that gun rights advocates consider them to have de facto bans on concealed or open carrying of weapons.
Critics say the relaxed gun regulations could spur an increase in crime, or at the least, accidental shootings.

Related Image

Expand / Contract

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signaled he will sign the gun law. (AP)

"As a gun-owning Texas mom, this is not the Texas I want for my family or community," said Sandy Chasse with the Texas Chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
But supporters counter that guns in plain sight will deter crime.
“Criminals aren’t afraid of prison, they’re afraid of getting shot,” said C.J. Grisham, president and CEO of Open Carry Texas.
Grisham’s group held rallies across the state prior to the vote, including events at which members openly carried long guns, which was already legal in Texas. That tactic brought a rebuke from the NRA and cleaved a rift between the two Second Amendment advocacy groups.
"To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one's cause, it can be downright scary," the NRA said in an unusual statement. "It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates."
The fact that the debate prompted the NRA and some Republicans to distance themselves from more hard-core gun-rights advocates in Texas was a victory for gun control, said Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence,
“We saw the open carry debate in Texas this session as a win for gun violence prevention advocates,” said Everitt, who alleged that open-carry activists threatened to shoot legislators. “The goal all along here for Open Carry advocates was permitless open carry of handguns. They have failed at that, and the question now becomes what types of threats and violence are we likely to see before Texas legislators take up business again in 2017?”

Related Image

Expand / Contract

C.J. Grisham, president and CEO of Open Carry Texas, says criminals fear gun owners more than prison. (TheTruthAboutGuns.com)

Like the current concealed handgun law, the bill awaiting Abbott’s signature requires anyone wishing to openly carry a handgun to get a license. Applicants must be 21, pass a background check and get firearms training.
There are 44 other states in the Union with open carry laws already on the books.
Some 850,000 Texans already have permits to carry cooncealed weapons, according to said John Lott, president of the pro-Second Amerndment Crime Prevention Research Center, and a Fox News contributor. Since licensed gun owners commit firearms violations at a very low rate, Lott said, simply allowing them to carry guns openly will not create any new dangers for law-abiding citizens.
The notion that Texans who open carry their guns will start shooting each other is absurd,” Lott said. “Just because those people can now carry openly won’t change that, any more than the 44 other states that already allow open carry.”
A 2013 Texas Department of Public Safety study found only .3 percent of convicted crimes were committed by those holding a Concealed Handgun License.
Abbott, who has 10 days to sign the bill into law, has been a vocal proponent of “expanding the Second Amendment,” even tweeting after the measure passed: “Next destination: My Pen.”
If signed, the law would go into effect Jan. 1, 2016.

Fox News Poll: Bush, Walker, Carson top GOP pack, support for Clinton down

National security is a much bigger issue for Republicans this time than during the last primary.  And more GOP hopefuls make it official -- yet they barely move the needle.  Bernie Sanders nearly doubles his numbers and support for Hillary Clinton dips -- even as Democrats say they’re not concerned about allegations of her dishonesty.
These are some of the findings from the latest Fox News poll on the 2016 presidential election.
There’s no true frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination - and not all the candidates in the poll have declared yet. The new poll, released Wednesday, finds three Republicans receiving double-digit backing from GOP primary voters:  former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker each receive 12 percent and neurosurgeon Ben Carson gets 11 percent.
They are followed by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 9 percent, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 8 percent, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 7 percent, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 6 percent and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 5 percent.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who will make his candidacy official Thursday, and businessman Donald Trump get 4 percent each.
Three Republicans officially threw their hat in the ring recently. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham announced June 1, former New York Gov. George Pataki announced May 28 and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum declared May 27.  Each receives 2 percent.
Businesswoman Carly Fiorina and Ohio Gov. John Kasich also each garner 2 percent.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
The top four favorites among the Tea Party movement are Walker (22 percent), Cruz (17 percent), Carson (12 percent) and Paul (11 percent).
It’s no wonder the GOP race is so splintered.  Of the candidates tested, about one in five Republican primary voters say they would “definitely” vote for six of them: Walker (22 percent), Carson (21 percent), Rubio (21 percent), Bush (20 percent), Cruz (19 percent) and Paul (19 percent).
More than half say they would “never” support Trump (59 percent).  That’s the highest number saying they would never vote for a particular candidate.  Christie comes next (37 percent), followed by Bush and Huckabee (24 percent each) and Paul (20 percent).
Bush alone has the distinction of being in the top five of both the “definitely” and the “never” vote for lists.
Walker, who is still unannounced, looks especially well-positioned among GOP primary voters.  Not only does he have the highest number saying they would “definitely” vote for him (22 percent), but he also has the lowest “never” vote for number of those tested (eight percent).
GOP voters are most likely to “want more info about” Kasich (60 percent), Fiorina (55 percent) and Walker (47 percent).
The priorities of Republican primary voters have changed significantly since last time around.  Forty-six percent say economic issues will be most important in deciding their vote for the GOP nomination.  That’s down 30 percentage points from the 76 percent who said the same in 2011.  And 36 percent now say national security will be their deciding issue -- more than four times the 8 percent that said so four years ago. For 12 percent, social issues will be most important, up from six percent.
On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remains the clear frontrunner for the nomination with 57 percent support among self-identified Democratic primary voters. Still, that’s down from 63 percent last month, and marks only the second time in more than a year that support for Clinton is below 60 percent.  Her highest support was 69 percent in April 2014.
At the same time, support for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders nearly doubled, from six percent last month to 11 percent now.  He was at 4 percent in April.
The most recent Democratic contender to jump in the race, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, garners 4 percent.  That’s a nice bump from the less than one percent support he got before his May 30 announcement.  Vice President Joe Biden (8 percent) and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (7 percent) -- both are undeclared -- still best O’Malley.
Despite Clinton controlling the field, most Democratic voters -- 69 percent -- say someone else could still win the nomination. That’s more than twice the 28 percent who say the race is over.
Most Democratic primary voters, 68 percent, say they are not worried about allegations of Clinton’s dishonesty and unethical behavior.  Thirty-one percent are concerned, including 10 percent who feel “very concerned.”
For the broader electorate, however, recent allegations against Clinton may be more problematic. A 61-percent majority of voters thinks it is at least somewhat likely that the Clintons were “selling influence to foreign contributors” who made donations to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.  A significant minority of Democrats (41 percent) feels that way, as do a majority of independents (66 percent) and most Republicans (82 percent).
Pollpourri
Would you rather the next president be a Democrat or a Republican?  The poll asks voters that simple question and finds … a split!  Forty percent prefer a Democrat and 39 percent a Republican.  The results are also evenly divided among independents: 24 percent say Democrat, 24 percent Republican and 35 percent “other.”
By a 51-39 percent margin, more voters say it would be “a bad thing for the country” if a Democrat wins the presidential election and continues President Obama’s policies.  That includes 88 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of independents and 20 percent of Democrats.
About the same number of voters says they would be “very” interested in watching a presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush (38 percent), as they would between Clinton and Fiorina, the other female candidate (35 percent), or between Clinton and Paul (35 percent).
And women are as likely to want to watch Clinton debate Bush (37 percent) as they are to want to see Clinton debate Fiorina (36 percent).
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,006 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from May 31-June 2, 2015. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. The margin of error is higher among the subgroups of Democratic and Republican primary voters (+/-5%).

Cartoon

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to announce 2016 plans June 24

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will announce his decision on whether to join the crowded field of Republicans running for president later this month.
Jindal, 43, will make the announcement at an event in New Orleans June 24. The two-term governor had previously said that he would wait until the last week of June, after the conclusion of the state's legislative session, before announcing whether or not he would run.
Nine Republicans have already entered the 2016 race. The latest, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, announced his candidacy Monday in his home state. Former Texas governor Rick Perry is expected to become the tenth person to join the field with an official announcement Thursday at an airfield outside Dallas.
Jindal formed an exploratory committee on May 18. In his announcement, Jindal said "Economic collapse is much closer to the door than people realize, our culture is decaying at a rapid rate and our standing in a dangerous world is at an all-time low."
On Tuesday, Jindal was one of the speakers at a GOP economic gathering in Florida that also featured Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, both would-be presidential candidates.

ISIS' frightening arsenal: Remote-controlled sniper rifles, steel plated suicide trucks

KIRKUK, Iraq –  Captured ISIS weapons show the black-clad militants are developing an arsenal of sophisticated arms, and Kurdish fighters told FoxNews.com they fear the terrorist force's expanding manufacturing capability is making it more formidable by the day.
In a dusty outpost near the Kurdish-held northern city of Kirkuk, a Peshmerga commander recently displayed two weapons that show his enemy's increasing adaptability on the battlefield. One was a scoped sniper rifle, customized and mounted on a welded steel platform and built to track targets by computer and fire by remote control. The other was a much different type of weapon - a truck reinforced with two-inch thick steel plates to ensure its load of explosives could crash through checkpoints and make it to its target before detonating.

"They are using high-tech (weaponry), and have the know-how from all over the world."
- Peshmerga Maj. Gen. Sirwan Barzani

"They have more weapons than us, they have mines, C4, sniper rifles, humvees and tanks," said Peshmerga Commander Kemal Kurkuki.
In Anbar Province, where ISIS is fighting the U.S.-equipped Iraqi army, the terrorists are using weapons taken from their vanquished foes. But on the northern front where the Peshmerga clash daily with ISIS, the militant fighters have powerful equipment either modified or built within the so-called caliphate known as Islamic State.

Related Image

Expand / Contract

This customized sniper rifle seized from ISIS weeks ago operates by remote control. (Gavin John)

Kerkuki revealed the captured weaponry along with bullet riddled black flags and photographs of other ISIS munitions captured during a successful Peshmerga operation against ISIS just weeks ago. The gun was operated attached to a computer by four long cables that controlled barrel elevation, gun rotation, the trigger and the camera. An operator could place the weapon at an elevated vantage point, and then hide out of sight while controlling the weapon via the computer screen like a lethal video game.
Kerkuki said it was not clear who built the weapon or where it came from. Controls and labels on the wires were written in English, but the deadly innovation of the device led some to suspect it was built by Chechen fighters, who have poured in to join ISIS.
"[ISIS] has all types of weapons, heavy machine guns, tanks," said Peshmerga Maj. Gen. Sirwan Barzani. "They are using high-tech (weaponry), and have the know-how from all over the world."

Related Image

Expand / Contract

Peshmerga Commander Kemal Kerkuki says ISIS is developing new weapons to adapt to US air strikes. (Hurbakis.net)

The truck, which looked like something driven off the set of an apocalyptic zombie movie, featured an armored turret on top with space for heavy machine guns. But its cargo left no need for speculation about its true purpose. Packed with hundreds of containers of C4, it was the ultimate suicide vehicle, impervious to small arms and built by ISIS mere miles from the Kurdish lines. The Kurds deemed the bomb-laden truck so dangerous they requested and got an American air strike to destroy it.
Kurdish military sources said the improvised weapons show ISIS is adapting from its use of conventional weapons easily spotted from air and vulnerable to coalition sorties. Peshmerga commanders say that, while coalition air superiority has changed the dynamic of the war, they need weapon for troops on the ground to combat ISIS. To a man, they complain that the central government in Baghdad, which has always eyed the semi-autonomous Kurds suspiciously, is slow to send supplies needed for the fight they share.

Related Image

Expand / Contract

Two-inch thick steel plating on this truck was intended to ensure it delivered its deadly payload past Kurdish checkpoints. (Gavin John)

Advanced weapons in the hands of Kurds, they say, would negate any need for U.S. boots on the ground. As ingenious and frightening as ISIS arsenal in northern Iraq may be, the Kurds say, vehicles such as the suicide truck would be no match for advanced weapons such as the American or European surface-to-surface missile systems.
But the Peshmerga, whose name translates to "Ones who confront death," will fight ISIS with whatever they have on hand.
"Their weapons are strong, but our goals are bigger than theirs," Kurkuki said. "ISIS has no future in Kurdistan."

HRC EMAILS: Federal officials voiced growing alarm over Clinton’s compliance with records laws, documents show

Over a five-year span, senior officials at the National Archives and Records Administrations (NARA) voiced growing alarm about Hillary Clinton’s record-keeping practices as secretary of state, according to internal documents shared with Fox News.
During Clinton’s final days in office, Paul Wester, the director of Modern Records Programs at NARA – essentially the agency’s chief records custodian – privately emailed five NARA colleagues to confide his fear that Clinton would take her official records with her when she left office, in violation of federal statutes.
Referring to a colleague whose full name is unknown, Wester wrote on December 11, 2012: “Tom heard (or thought he heard) from the Clinton Library Director that there are or may be plans afoot for taking her records from State to Little Rock." That was a reference to the possibility that Clinton might seek to house her records at the Clinton Presidential Center, which was largely funded by the Clinton Foundation.
"[W]e need to discuss what we know, and how we should delicately go about learning more about…the transition plans for Secretary Clinton’s departure from State," Wester added. He did not specify why the situation required “delicate” handling, but added that colleagues had “continued to invoke the specter of the Henry Kissinger experience vis-à-vis Hilary [sic] Clinton.”
That was a reference to how the secretary of state during the Nixon and Ford administrations, preparing to leave office in January 1977, stashed large segments of his classified papers on the upstate New York estate of his friend, Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller. It wasn’t until 2001 that Kissinger relented to demands from scholars and the U.S. government and made the documents available for research.
Under the Federal Records Act, NARA is entrusted with official oversight of Executive Branch agencies and their employees, aimed at ensuring that the records they generate in the discharge of their official duties are being properly preserved and stored.
The Wester email and 72 other internal documents released by NARA and the State Department earlier this month show NARA officers repeatedly expressed concerns that Clinton and her office were not observing the federal laws and regulations that govern recordkeeping – but that NARA never did much about it.
The 73 documents from NARA and State were turned over to Cause of Action, a non-partisan government accountability watchdog that had filed a Freedom of Information Act request in March, after the New York Times revealed that Clinton had exclusively used a private email server and domain name during her tenure as secretary of state. Cause of Action shared the documentswith Fox News on an exclusive basis, ahead of Senate testimony by the group’s executive director, Daniel Epstein.
“Given NARA’s stated concerns,” Epstein said in written testimony submitted this week to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, “it either was aware of the failure to preserve Mrs. Clinton’s emails or was extremely negligent in its efforts to monitor [the preservation of] senior officials’ emails.”
The alarm bells sounded fairly early in Clinton’s tenure at Foggy Bottom. In a November 2009 email, written when Clinton had not yet completed her first year on the job, NARA archivist David Langbart wrote to his colleague, Michael Kurtz, about a “huge issue on which there has been little progress” – namely, the proper preservation of “high-level memos” generated by employees at “S/ES.” That is the abbreviation for the office of the secretary of state within the State Department’s Executive Secretariat.
“[Members of a task force] are still working with the Executive Secretariat on the high-level memos issue,” Langbart wrote on November 2. “Earlier it sounded like S/ES was going to rely on SMART [an updated recordkeeping program for the State Department] but it now appears that they will be establishing their own recordkeeping system…”
Previously unpublished notes taken at a conference of NARA and State Department officials in July 2014, after Clinton had left the government, reflect continued concern that recordkeeping practices at Clinton’s agency had never met federal standards.
The handwritten notes, turned over to Cause of Action, refer to employees at State “using gmail with no r/k [recordkeeping] system,” and lamenting the “total disaster” that had apparently occurred when the Department of Interior had adopted a Google app for government use. The notes show the officials discussed “targeting senior leaders” at the State Department, in part by having assistant secretaries of state at each of the department’s bureaus establish “Bureau Records Coordinators.”
The notes show that the officials considered starting such procedures with a test run at the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), which was thought to be an “easy” venue for such trials, then moving to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) and then “into the Office of the Secretary w/ Principles [sic]” on the “7^th Floor” – where the secretary’s office suite is housed.
The most recent private expressions of concern by NARA officials came after Michael Schmidt, the New York Times reporter who broke the Clinton private emails story on March 2, began making inquiries at NARA a few days before his story ran. “I’m working on a story about government employees who use their personal email addresses to conduct government business,” Schmidt wrote, without disclosing initially that his focus was on Clinton, in a February 27 email to NARA general counsel Gary Stern.
Within about two hours, Stern secured approval from NARA Chief Operating Officer William Bosanko (“No objections from me”) for Stern to speak with Schmidt. The two connected on Sunday, March 1, after which Stern privately emailed the National Archivist himself, David Ferriero, and Wester, the agency’s chief records custodian, who had two years earlier expressed fears about Clinton unlawfully taking her records with her when she left office.
“As Paul surmised,” Stern wrote, Schmidt “has learned that when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, she apparently used a personal email account to conduct government business.” Stern, who has served as general counsel at NARA since 1998, added: “NARA does look into allegations of this type, with our interest being to ensure that the agency recovers any alienated [withheld] records and has policies in place to ensure prevent such events from occurring again. This case, if true, would present a concern.”
Particularly stung by the Times’ bombshell was James Springs, the acting inspector general at NARA, who responded to the story with an agitated March 3 email to Wester that asked: “Were we aware the gov[ernment] email system was not being used by Ms[.] Clinton. [sic] If we were not aware why not. [sic] What checks and balances do we have in place to ensure the gov email systems are being used. [sic]”
Wester forwarded Springs’ email to seven NARA colleagues, stating only: “I will talk to James, hopefully later this afternoon or tomorrow.”
Wester did not respond to a message left on his office voice mail by Fox News. Appearing at a National Press Club panel discussion in April, Jason Baron, the attorney who formerly served as the director of litigation at NARA, expressed amazement that NARA officials had not done more to discharge their supervisory duty over Clinton’s recordkeeping practices.
“I remain mystified by the fact that the use of a private e-mail account apparently went either unnoticed or unremarked upon during the four-year tenure in office of the former secretary,” said Baron, now in private practice at the firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath.”Simply put, where was everyone? Is there any record indicating that any lawyer, any FOIA officer, any records person, any high-level official ever respectfully confronted the former secretary with reasonable questions about the practice of sending e-mails from a private account? It is unfathomable to me that this would not have been noticed and reported up the chain.”
Clinton has disclosed that late last year she turned over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department, printed out, and unilaterally deleted another 30,000 emails she deemed “personal.” Her spokesman, Nick Merrill, told reporters when the controversy first erupted that the secretary had obeyed the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

Police kill Massachusetts man, arrest another in anti-terror investigation

Authorities in Massachusetts arrested a man in connection with a counterterror investigation late Tuesday, hours after another man under surveillance by the Joint Terrorism Task Force was shot and killed after he refused to put down a military-style knife while approaching two officers.
Authorities identified the deceased man as 26-year-old Usaama Rahim, who was shot outside a CVS Pharmacy in Roslindale, Mass. at approximately 7 a.m. local time Tuesday. A law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told the Associated Press that Rahim had been making threats against law enforcement personnel.
Boston Police Commissioner William Evans told reporters that members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force approached Rahim to question him about "terrorist-related information" they had received when he moved toward officers with the knife.
Evans said officers repeatedly ordered Rahim to drop the knife but he continued to advance. He said task force members fired their guns, hitting Rahim once in the torso and once in the abdomen. Rahim was taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
WFXT reported that three different Joint Terrorism Task Force teams had been carrying out 24-hour surveillance on at least three different people in the Boston area, though it was unclear how long that had been going on. One source told the station that they had been investigating an "active plot" centered around harming law enforcement officials, although it is unclear if it was operational. The plot may have been inspired by the terror group ISIS, who have repeatedly called on followers in the United States to attack law enforcement officials or military installations.
Vincent Lisi, special agent in charge of the Boston FBI office, said authorities "don't think there's any concern for public safety out there right now."
Evans did not comment on the report that Rahim had been radicalized by ISIS, but said "Obviously, there was enough information there where we thought it was appropriate to question him about his doings ... He was someone we were watching for quite a time."
Evans later said authorities knew Rahim "had some extremism as far as his views."
Evans said the officers didn't have their guns drawn when they approached Rahim. He said police have video showing Rahim "coming at officers" while they are backing away. That account differs from one given by Rahim's brother Ibrahim Rahim, who said in a Facebook posting that his youngest brother was killed while waiting at a bus stop to go to his job.
"He was confronted by three Boston Police officers and subsequently shot in the back three times," he wrote. "He was on his cellphone with my dear father during the confrontation needing a witness."
The officer and the agent involved in the shooting weren't physically injured but were evaluated at a hospital for what Evans described as "stress."
WFXT reported that Rahim worked in loss prevention at several CVS stores in the Boston area. However, it was not clear that the store where he was killed was among them. Boston voter registration records seen by the Associated Press list Rahim as a student. Other records indicate that as recently as two years ago he was licensed as a security officer in Miami, but don't specify in what capacity.
The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center said its security firm hired Rahim as a security guard for a month in mid-2013. Executive director Yusufi Vali said Rahim didn't regularly pray at the center and didn't volunteer there or serve in any leadership positions.
Later Tuesday, the FBI and local police arrested a man at a home in Everett, Mass., in an action authorities said was related to the Roslindale shooting. Christina Diorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, said David Wright was taken into custody from his home in suburban Everett. She said Wright will face federal charges and is expected to appear in U.S. District Court on Wednesday.
The Boston Globe reported, citing a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case, that the charges against Wright will related to an alleged plot to kill a member of law enforcement.
The FBI and Rhode Island State Police also searched a property in Warwick, R.I. in relation to the Roslindale shooting. Police sealed off a street, requiring anyone who lived there to show identification to pass the police cordon, but it was not clear if they had anyone in custody.
A 17-year-old told the Boston Globe that police had asked him about a neighbor in his mid-20s named Nick. The teen told the paper Nick often wears long robes and prays in his front yard.