Pentagon recommends sending 400 additional US troops to Iraq

The Pentagon has recommended sending 400 more U.S. troops to Iraq to aid in the fight against ISIS, a senior U.S. military official told Fox News late Tuesday.
The official said that the White House had not made a final decision on the recommendation, which would bring the total number of American troops in Iraq to approximately 3,400. That number includes trainers, advisers, security and other logistical personnel.
 The Pentagon also plans to open a sixth training base in Iraq's Anbar province, a vital battleground against the terror group.
The Pentagon says that the additional forces are aimed at bolstering the participation of Sunni tribes in the fight, but the plan is not likely to include the deployment of U.S. forces closer to the front lines to either call in airstrikes or advise smaller Iraqi units in battle. Currently, there are 2,598 Iraqi forces being trained by U.S. forces. Of that number, about 800 are Kurds and the rest are Shiite Muslims.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him in Israel that it's not clear yet whether opening new training sites would require additional American forces.
"To be determined," Dempsey said. He added that Gen. Lloyd Austin, the U.S. Central Command chief who is responsible for U.S. military operations across the Middle East, had not yet given Dempsey his assessment of whether more resources would be required to implement the proposed changes.

More on this...

• Amb. Burns: Current US strategy 'cannot defeat ISIS'

• ISIS steps up propaganda war with plans to take Baghdad

"And that's appropriate, because I want to first understand that we have a concept that could actually improve (Iraqi military) capability," he said.
Dempsey said he has recommended changes to President Barack Obama but he offered no assessment of when decisions would be made. He suggested the president was considering a number of questions, including what adjustments to U.S. military activities in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world might be needed if the U.S. does more in Iraq.
Dempsey said the Pentagon also is reviewing ways to improve its air power in Iraq, which is a central pillar of Obama's strategy for enabling Iraqi ground forces to recapture territory held by ISIS.
Obama said Monday that the United States still lacks a "complete strategy" for training Iraqi forces. Obama also urged Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to allow more of the nation's Sunnis to join the campaign against the violent militant group.
Dempsey said Obama recently asked his national security team to examine the train-and-equip program and determine ways to make it more effective. Critics have questioned the U.S. approach, and even Defense Secretary Ash Carter has raised doubts by saying the collapse of Iraqi forces in Ramadi last month suggested the Iraqis lack a "will to fight."
Carter, during a recent trip to Asia, also said it's crucial to better involve Sunnis in the fight, and that will mean training and equipping them.
The viability of the U.S. strategy is hotly debated in Washington, with some calling for U.S. ground combat troops or at least the embedding of U.S. air controllers with Iraqi ground forces to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of U.S. and coalition airstrikes. Dempsey was not specifically asked about that but gave no indication that Obama has dropped his resistance to putting U.S. troops into combat in Iraq.
"What he's asked us to do is to take a look back at what we've learned over the last eight months of the train-and-equip program, and make recommendations to him on whether there are capabilities that we may want to provide to the Iraqis to actually make them more capable, ... whether there are other locations where we might establish training sites," and look for ways to develop Iraqi military leaders, he said.
Dempsey said there will be no radical change to the U.S. approach in Iraq, he said. Rather, it is a recognition that the effort has either been too slow or has allowed setbacks where "certain units have not stood and fought." He did not mention the Ramadi rout specifically, but Dempsey previously has said the Iraqis drove out of the city on their own.
"Are there ways to give them more confidence?" This, he said, is among the questions Obama wanted Dempsey and others to answer.
Dempsey said recommendations on how to improve and accelerate the Iraq training efforts were discussed at a White House meeting last week and said follow-up questions were asked about how the proposed changes would be implemented and what risks they would pose to U.S. troops and to U.S. commitments elsewhere in the world.
He stressed that the U.S. military is deeply involved across the globe, even as its budget is shrinking.
"You know our capabilities are in high demand to reassure European allies," he said. "We've got additional issues in the Gulf related to reassuring allies against Iranian threats."
Dempsey added that the U.S. is "still hard at it in Afghanistan," doing more in South Korea and accounting for the fact that some U.S. allies in Asia are "unsettled" by China's building of artificial islands in the South China Sea.

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Clinton Family Foundation donated $100G to NYT group same year paper endorsed Hillary

A little-known private foundation controlled by Bill and Hillary Clinton donated $100,000 to the New York Times' charitable fund in 2008, the same year the newspaper's editorial page endorsed Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary, according to tax documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Clinton Family Foundation, a separate entity from the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, has been the family's vehicle for personal charitable giving since 2001.
It is funded directly by the Clintons and distributes more than $1 million a year to civic and educational causes.
The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund is a charity affiliated with the newspaper that assists underprivileged New Yorkers. It is run by members of the New York Times Company's board of directors and senior executives.
The Times' editorial board endorsed Clinton against Democratic challengers John Edwards and Barack Obama on January 25, 2008, writing that she was "more qualified, right now, to be president."
At the time, there were reports that the Times board had leaned toward endorsing Obama, but was overruled by then-chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., whose family controlled the paper. Sulzberger's cousins and Times Company directors, Lynn Dolnick and Michael Golden, chaired the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund in 2008.
The Clinton Family Foundation did not list the specific date the donation was made in its public tax disclosure forms. Neither the Times nor a representative of the Clintons responded by press time to a request for comment. Clinton ended her presidential campaign on June 7, 2008.
The CFF's $100,000 contribution to the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund is larger than its typical donations.

Obama under fire for saying no ‘complete strategy’ yet for training Iraqis

President Obama took heat Monday for admitting he doesn't yet have a "complete strategy" in hand for training Iraqis to fight the Islamic State -- months into the coordinated campaign to defeat the deadly terrorist network.
"When a finalized plan is presented to me by the Pentagon, then I will share it with the American people," Obama said, adding, "We don't yet have a complete strategy."
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in a statement: "It is no surprise this administration does not have a 'complete strategy' for training Iraqis to fight ISIS. What is surprising is that the president admitted it."
The president addressed the ISIS fight during a press conference on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Germany. He appeared to be speaking specifically to a new strategy for accelerating the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. "We're reviewing a range of plans for how we might do that," Obama said.
A U.S. official afterward stressed to Fox News that Obama was indeed talking only about optimizing that train-and-equip mission, "including integration of Sunni fighters," and not "overall strategy." State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke also said Obama was not speaking to overall strategy.
But the comments nevertheless fueled critics' concerns about the direction of the U.S. mission, particularly on the heels of ISIS gains in Ramadi, and the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.

More on this...

• Obama meets with Iraqi PM to discuss ISIS strategy

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tweeted: "Pres Obama admits: 'We don't yet have a complete strategy' to combat #ISIS"
Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short cited a similar comment Obama made 10 months ago, saying in a statement, "the fact he still doesn't have a final plan for the deteriorating situation in Iraq is unacceptable."
A military official also took issue with Obama's claim that he was waiting for options from the Pentagon. "What the f--- was that? We have given him lots of options, he just hasn't acted on them," the official told Fox News.
Obama, similarly, said last August that the U.S. did not "have a strategy yet" for confronting ISIS in Syria. The administration later approved airstrikes in Syria.
Underscoring the work to be done training Iraqi forces, a Pentagon official told Fox News that zero soldiers are being trained at the al-Asad Air Base in Anbar -- the province where ISIS seized the city of Ramadi last month.
However, the Pentagon says 2,598 are in training at other locations in Iraq. And 8,920 Iraqi soldiers have been trained to date by the U.S. military.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren backed up the president on his assertion he was still awaiting a "finalized plan" from the Pentagon. He said Defense Secretary Ash Carter has assembled a group of "experts" to develop courses of action to "increase support" to Iraqi forces. Warren would not give a timeline on when this "finalized plan" would be presented to the White House.
A separate defense official told Fox News that any potential increases in the size of the U.S. military presence would likely be in the "train-and-equip" mission and not tactical air controllers to call in close air support against ISIS forces by U.S. aircraft flying overhead.
Echoing the president, the official said, "the problem is the number of recruits" that the U.S. military can train. "We are sending weapons as quickly as we can to Iraq, I don't think we can send anymore," he said.
Obama put some of the responsibility on the Iraqis themselves, urging them to be more inclusive. Speaking Monday, shortly after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Obama said a "big part" of the solution is "outreach to Sunni tribes."
"We've seen Sunni tribes who are not only willing and prepared to fight ISIL, but have been successful at rebuffing ISIL. But it has not been happening as fast as it needs to," he said. "And so, one of the efforts that I'm hoping to see out of Prime Minister Abadi and the Iraqi legislature when they're in session is to move forward on a national guard law that would help to devolve some of the security efforts in places like Anbar to local folks and to get those Sunni tribes involved more rapidly."

US Army website hacked, Syrian Electronic Army takes credit

WASHINGTON –  The U.S. Army's official website was hit Monday by hackers claiming to be with a group known as the Syrian Electronic Army, Fox News has learned.
The site, which was down Monday afternoon, is a declassified public website.
Various screenshots that appeared on Twitter reportedly showed pro-Assad propaganda on the site before it crashed.
"Today an element of the Army.mil service provider's content was compromised," Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm Frost said in a statement. "After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website temporarily."
The SEA is a hacker group that has claimed in the past to disrupt major news websites, including the New York Times, CBS News, the Washington Post and the BBC.
The SEA website launched its website in May 2011 stating the group’s mission: to attack the enemies of the Syrian government, mainly those who “fabricated” stories about the Syrian civil war. They wrote that they were not officially affiliated with the government but were a group of Syrian youths.
In April 2013, the SEA successfully hacked the AP’s Twitter page, sending out a false message that there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Obama had been injured.

ISIS captures 86 Eritrean Christians in Libya, US official confirms

The ISIS terror group kidnapped 86 Eritrean Christians from a people-smugglers' caravan in Libya last week, a U.S. defense official confirmed Monday.
The defense official confirmed initial reports of the mass kidnapping to Fox News after seeing a recent intelligence report. The independent Libya Herald newspaper reported that the convoy was ambushed by militants south of Tripoli before dawn this past Wednesday morning.
Meron Estafanos, the co-founder of the Stockholm-based International Commission on Eritrean Refugees, told the paper that the group of migrants included "about 12 Eritrean Muslims and some Egyptians. They put them in another truck and they put 12 Eritrean women Christians in a smaller pick-up".
Estafanos said that the militants had initially stopped the truck and demanded that the Muslims on board make themselves known. Everyone who responded was asked about the Koran and their religious observance in an attempt to catch Christians pretending to be Muslims.
The main body of the group was put back on the original truck. As the militants drove the vehicle away, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that at least nine men attempted to escape by diving off the back of the truck. Estefanos said three of those who had escaped were safe, but still trying to get out of Libya. The fate of the others was not known.
Libya has become a jumping-off point for thousands of migrants from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa who attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to southern Europe. However, Libya's ongoing instability has led to an increased presence by ISIS and other terror groups, increasing the risk for Christians and other non-Muslims attempting the crossing.
In February, Libyan militants proclaiming loyalty to ISIS released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Two months later, another video showed the militants shooting and beheading an indeterminate number of Ethiopian Christians. Estefanos told the Libya Herald that the video released in April had been edited and that 64 people had been massacred, including several Eritreans.
"Ever since the kidnapping by ISIS in Libya last February," she said,  "many are taking different routes. Some go from Khartoum [Sudan] to Turkey, then Greece. Others are now leaving via Khartoum to Cairo, then Alexandria and from there by boat to Italy. I think we will see an increase towards Turkey and Cairo instead of Libya".
Libya is divided between rival governments and hundreds of militias in the aftermath of its 2011 civil war that ousted dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The violence has impacted the country's oil revenues heavily. U.N. envoy to Libya Bernardino Leon has warned that the country only has enough money to pay salaries for another six weeks, urging warring parties to agree on a unity government. Negotiators are currently meeting in Morocco to discuss a power-sharing agreement.

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Superintendent not backing down, defends warrants for 'excessive cheering' at graduation

A group of people in Senatobia, Miss., have been charged with disrupting a high school graduation ceremony by hootin’, hollerin’ and carryin’ on like their mommas didn’t raise ’em right.
Three family members were served warrants for allegedly disturbing the peace at the Senatobia High School graduation ceremony on May 21. The warrants threaten jail time and a $500 bond. A fourth excessive shouter is still on the loose and has not been served.
“It’s crazy,” Henry Walker told television station WREG. “The fact that I might have to bond out of jail, pay court costs or a $500 fine for expressing my love, it’s ridiculous, man. It’s ridiculous.”
Ursula Miller got collared after she gave her niece a shout-out.

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Now Playing Commencement crime? Family charged for cheering at ceremony

“I can understand they can escort me out of the graduation, but to say they going to put me in jail for it. What else are they allowed to do?”
CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW TODD FOR CONSERVATIVE NEWS AND COMMENTARY.

Foster has been castigated in both the mainstream media and the conservative media. But he said he believes he did the right thing – and I guarantee you that folks will think about misbehaving in the future.

Well, there’s a bit more to this story, according to Jay Foster, the superintendent of the school system – and the man who swore out those warrants.
Four years ago the high school graduation ceremony in Mississippi’s Five Star City resembled an episode of “The Jerry Springer Show.”
“That’s what we felt like our graduation ceremony had been turned into,” Foster told me. “It was who can be the loudest – who can take the attention away from the kids the most.”
That was Foster’s first year on the job, and what happened during that ceremony left an indelible mark.
“There was yelling and catcalling and people would get up and leave while we were calling out students’ names,” he said. “A family came up to me afterwards and said they had enjoyed their 12 years here but it was a shame that their last impression of Senatobia High School was graduation. They didn’t even get to see their daughter or hear their daughter because of all the noise and the way people acted.”
The district implemented a number of policies and procedures meant to restore order and decorum to high school graduation.
“We feel an obligation to all our graduates – not just the ones whose parents decide they want to excessively celebrate,” Foster said.
But that still did not stop a group of four individuals from disrupting this year’s festivities.
“They would get up and move around the coliseum and holler out – knowing someone was coming to get them – but basically they were saying to us, ‘There’s nothing you can do – we’re going to disrupt it anyway,’” he said. “It was a blatant disregard for authority.”
Some folks have tried to make the issue about race, but Foster pointed out that two of the individuals are black and two are white.
Foster has been castigated in both the mainstream media and the conservative media. But he said he believes he did the right thing – and I guarantee you that folks will think about misbehaving in the future.
“I am compelled to do what I think is right for all our graduates,” he said. “That’s part of what’s wrong with our society today. Everything is about ‘me.’ ‘I have a right to disrupt if it’s for my child.’
“But you are not thinking about the other 102 kids sitting there. They have every right to be heard and seen and recognized.”
Remember, folks … It’s a high school graduation ceremony – not a professional wrestling match. So stop acting the fool.

GOP-led states trying bolster budgets by limiting government assistance programs

WASHINGTON –  Kansas is bleeding money.
Lawmakers in the Sunflower State have been scrambling for years to make up a $400 million revenue gap following a 2012 income tax cut that left deep holes in the state budget.
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback wants recover some of the money by placing limits on government assistance.
Starting in July, people in Kansas who collect government assistance will be limited to a single ATM withdrawal not exceeding $25 per day. The Kansas law also prohibits public-assistance spending at swimming pools, tattoo parlors and video arcades.
Though it might sound extreme to some, Kansas is just the latest GOP-led state to launch campaigns to cut or limit public assistance.
A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that 73 percent of Republicans and 32 percent of Democrats believe the government can’t afford to spend much more on assistance programs. The number of families receiving cash through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program stood at 1.5 million at the end of 2014.
When Brownback signed the bill in April he defended it by saying the primary focus isn’t a handout but instead to “get people back to work, because that’s where the real benefit is – getting people off public assistance and back into the marketplace with the dignity and far more income there than the pittance that government gives them.”
Shannon Cotsoradis, president of the advocacy group Kansas Action for Children, told Bloomberg News that state lawmakers “acted on anecdotes” about TANF cards being used on cruise ships and casinos and that the information used to sway lawmakers isn’t “data-driven.”
But lawmakers in a growing number of states believe chipping away at a budget shortfall can be done by limiting the amount of government assistance being doled out.
In Michigan, the state Senate recently passed a bill that would put families on the welfare chopping block if their children are regularly absent from school. The “Parental Responsibility Act” would give the state the ability to cut off assistance if a child whose parents are receiving assistance is chronically truant.
If the child is younger than 16, the whole family could lose its cash benefits.
“During the recession there were lots of blue states, for fiscally driven reasons, that were cutting welfare,” Liz Schott, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank, told Bloomberg News. “This year’s cuts feel more ideologically driven.”
In May, Missouri’s Republican legislature overrode a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, to enact a bill that would take away assistance from more than 6,400 children -- 2,600 of them below the age of 5, his office said in published reports.
Nixon described the bill “a misguided measure that punishes poor children” in a “zeal to reduce reliance on government assistance.”
And in Arizona, lawmakers slashed the amount of time residents could stay on assistance to 1 year – the shortest window in the nation.
The Associated Press described the cuts as a reflection of the “prevailing mood” among lawmakers who believe that public assistance programs are what keeps the poor from getting back on their feet permanently.
But not everyone subscribes to the sentiment.
Jessica Lopez, 23, said cutting off benefits isn’t fair.
Lopez, who gets $133 per month, gave birth to her son while living in a domestic violence shelter and has struggled to hold onto jobs because she has dyslexia and didn’t finish high school.
“We’re all human,” she told the AP. “Everybody has problems. Everybody is different. When people ask for help, we should be able to get it without having to be looked at wrong.”

CBP confirms US chopper shot down at Texas border, no injuries

Just going to get worst.

WASHINGTON –  A U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter was fired at and forced to make an emergency landing near the river banks of Laredo, Texas, officials confirmed to Fox News on Saturday.
The incident took place around 5:30 p.m. Friday when the aircraft was patrolling the Rio Grande near the far northwest corner of the border city of Laredo.
“The helicopter was impacted by gunfire, hitting the side of the aircraft and the rotor blade,” a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told Fox News. “The pilot was able to make a safe landing, there were no injuries.  There is an on-going search for the suspects on both sides of the border.”
Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar told the Laredo Morning Times that out of five shots believed to have been fired at the helicopter, only two were confirmed to have hit their target.
Authorities are still investigating on whether the gunfire came from the Mexican side of the river or the U.S. side.

Social Security overpaid nearly half on disability, watchdog says

WASHINGTON –  Social Security overpaid nearly half the people receiving disability benefits over the past decade, according to a government watchdog, raising questions about the management of the cash-strapped program.
In all, Social Security overpaid beneficiaries by nearly $17 billion, according to a 10-year study by the agency's inspector general.
Many payments went to people who earned too much money to qualify for benefits, or to those no longer disabled. Payments also went to people who had died or were in prison.
Social Security was able to recoup about $8.1 billion, but it often took years to get the money back, the study said.
"Every dollar that goes to overpayments doesn't help someone in need," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. "Given the present financial situation of the Social Security Disability Insurance trust fund, the program cannot sustain billions of dollars lost to waste."
The trust fund that supports Social Security's disability program is projected to run out of money late next year, triggering automatic benefit cuts, unless Congress acts. The looming deadline has lawmakers feuding over a solution that may have to come in the heat of a presidential election.
The program's financial problems go beyond the issue of overpayments -- Social Security disability has paid out more in benefits than it has collected in payroll taxes every year for the past decade. But concerns about waste, fraud and abuse are complicating the debate in Congress over how to address the program's larger financial problems.
"Overpayments are bad for everyone -- they are bad for the beneficiary and they are bad for the taxpayer," said Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security. "With the disability program going broke next year, it is especially troubling that Social Security is failing to protect precious taxpayer dollars."
A spokesman for the Social Security Administration said the agency has a high accuracy rate for its payments and a comprehensive debt collection program for overpayments.
"Social Security provides services to over 48 million retirement and survivors beneficiaries and about 15 million disability beneficiaries," Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle said in an email. "The agency will issue nearly $1 trillion in payments this year. For fiscal year 2013 -- the last year for which we have complete data -- approximately 99.8 percent of all Social Security payments were free of overpayment, and nearly 99.9 percent were free of underpayment."
"That same year, we also achieved high levels of payment accuracy in the (Supplemental Security Income) program despite the inherent complexities in calculating monthly payments due to beneficiaries' income and resource fluctuations and changes in living arrangements," he said.
The inspector general's office examined a randomly selected sample of 1,532 people who were receiving either Social Security disability or Supplemental Security Income in October 2003. SSI is a separately funded disability program for the poor.
Auditors followed the group for 10 years, until February 2014. They determined that 45 percent of the beneficiaries were overpaid at some point during that period. The overpayments totaled $2.9 million, the study said.
They used the results to estimate that Social Security made a total of $16.8 billion in overpayments during the 10-year period.
The study concluded that "the agency could do more to prevent the most common overpayments."
Social Security paid out $142 billion in disability benefits last year. Unless Congress acts, the trust fund that supports the disability program will run dry sometime during the final three months of 2016, according to projections by the trustees who oversee Social Security. At that point, the program will collect only enough payroll taxes to pay 81 percent of benefits.
That would trigger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefit payments. The average monthly payment for a disabled worker is $1,165, or about $14,000 a year.
An easy fix is available. Congress could redirect payroll tax revenue from Social Security's much larger retirement program, as lawmakers have done before. But Republicans in Congress are balking, saying they want to address the program's long-term finances.
About 11 million disabled workers, children and spouses currently receive Social Security disability benefits. About 8.3 million people receive Supplemental Security Income, which is funded separately, through the government's general revenues.
SSI paid out about $54 billion in benefits last year.

Iraqi troops reportedly advance against ISIS in key refinery town

Iraqi troops and Shiite militias recaptured key parts of the refinery town of Beiji from ISIS Sunday, a general said.
The victory comes a day after Iraqi forces were able to withstand two attacks from ISIS in the hotly contested Anbar province Saturday.
The commander of the Interior Ministry's Quick Reaction Forces, Brig. Gen. Nassir al-Fartousi, told state TV that the Iraqi flag was raised on a local government building in Beiji and that troops were advancing to other areas, without elaborating.
The spokesman of Joint Operations Command, Brig. Gen. Saad Maan Ibrahim, said the security forces "are now controlling" the downtown Beiji area, describing the advance as an "important victory."
"The enemy has suffered a defeat and has sustained heavy losses and we hope that the whole city will be cleared within few days," Maan told The Associated Press in a brief interview, saying "dozens" of IS militants had been killed.
Beiji, some 155 miles north of Baghdad, fell to ISIS during its blitz across northern Iraq nearly a year ago, but parts of the town and nearby refinery have since been retaken by government forces. The town is strategically significant as it lies on the road to ISIS-held Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.
Iraqi and Kurdish forces have managed to roll back ISIS in many parts of the country with the help of U.S.-led airstrikes, and recaptured the northern city of Tikrit in April. But last month ISIS captured Ramadi, the provincial capital of the western Anbar province, in the extremists' most significant advance since last year.
ISIS has declared an Islamic caliphate in the territories it controls in Syria and Iraq, and has used oil facilities and smuggling to finance much of its operations.
In neighboring Syria, the U.S.-led coalition carried out airstrikes against ISIS positions in the northern town of Souran, which ISIS captured last week from Syrian rebel groups and members of Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front.
The Local Coordination Committees and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrikes occurred Saturday night. The Observatory said the airstrikes killed eight ISIS members, including a local Syrian commander, and wounded 20.
The coalition airstrikes against ISIS in Souran were the first in the area since the extremist group launched an offensive last month on the northern parts of Aleppo province close to the border with Turkey. IS has captured several villages and towns from the Nusra Front and Syrian rebels.
Since September, the coalition has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. The coalition has also carried out a handful of airstrikes against the Nusra Front. The U.S. says it has targeted a Nusra Front cell plotting attacks on Western interests.
The main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, says government warplanes have been attacking rebels in Aleppo province, claiming that the "terrorist interests" of President Bashar Assad's government and the IS group are aligned.
In the northeastern city of Hassakeh, government forces have launched a counteroffensive and regained ground lost to IS last week, state media said. State news agency SANA said government forces have retaken the power station south of Hassakeh as well as the juvenile prison that had been recently seized by the ISIS.
In Saturday's attack, government forces and Shiite militiamen used anti-tank missiles to stop four would-be suicide car bombers, officials said.
ISIS fighters attacked the government held town of Husseiba with heavy mortar fire early Saturday, police and military officials said. They say attackers retreated after an hours-long battle, leaving behind three destroyed vehicles and five dead fighters. At least 10 troops and militiamen were wounded in the clash.
Elsewhere in the Anbar province, officials said Iraqi troops using Russian anti-tank Kornet missiles destroyed four incoming suicide car bombs during an attack in the Tharthar area.

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Hawaii abandons troubled state ObamaCare exchange

The State Obama was born in drops ObamaCare Exchange, What the ##!!?

Hawaii is taking its troubled ObamaCare insurance exchange off life support, the governor’s office announced Friday, the latest addition to a growing number of state exchanges forced to close after operations became unsustainable.
The once-highly praised Hawaii Health Connector has been “unable to generate sufficient revenues to sustain operations,” Gov. David Ige’s office said in a statement. The federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) informed the exchange last week that federal funds were no longer available to support long-term operations.
“The state is working with the Connector and CMS to determine what functions can be transitioned to state oversight to ensure compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by the next Open Enrollment in November 2015,” Ige said.
Ige said that Hawaii will maintain a Supported State-based Marketplace in which the state would provide local customer support.
Grant funds had been restricted in March after the exchange told officials it was not in compliance with the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, due to fiscal instability and tech issues.
The shutdown comes after federal taxpayers dropped more than $200 million into the exchange, which critics called a waste of taxpayer money.
"The $200 million was a complete waste of tax dollars that could have been used for much more productive efforts," Reg Baker, a well-known CPA in Hawaii who for many years was the chief financial officer for the health insurance plan, HMAA, told FoxNews.com last month.
While many of the state's Democrats praised the ObamaCare exchange when it launched in October 2013, it was riddled with trouble from the start. The web portal never worked properly despite the state spending $74 million on a contract with CGI to build and maintain it.
The exchange experienced tremendous staff turnover, with three executive directors appointed in two years. Enrollment reached just over 8,500 in the first year, and as a result, Hawaii was ranked the most costly exchange in the nation at more than $23,899 per person.
Enrollment never reached the 300,000 number then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, enthusiastically predicted at the opening press conference launching the Connector. The enrollment number also never hit 70,000, the minimum needed to stay financially solvent. At its peak, enrollment reached 37,000, a fraction of the state's 1.4 million people. Hawaii's uninsured population, at 8 percent when the exchange opened, dropped just 2 percent.
“The state remains committed to offering health care coverage through the Prepaid Health Care Act as it has for the past 40 years,” Ige said Friday. “The state continues to provide millions of dollars to serve 300,000 Hawaii adults and children who receive health care coverage through Medicaid.”
Hawaii is not the only ObamaCare exchange to be plagued by troubles. Despite the government investing $4.5 billion into state-run exchanges, Oregon, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, New Mexico and Nevada have also shut down their operations.

Bias Alert: NY Times under fire for ‘scoop’ on Rubio traffic citations

The New York Times was being accused of a hit-and-run Friday after swerving at Sen. Marco Rubio with a detailed exposé of sorts -- on his family's traffic violations. 
The nearly 700-word article, accompanied by 10 pages of court documents, detailed how the Republican presidential candidate and his wife have been cited 17 times for traffic infractions -- everything from speeding to careless driving.
"Senator Marco Rubio has been in a hurry to get to the top," the newspaper quipped. "... But politics is not the only area where Mr. Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has an affinity for the fast track."
Beneath the eye-catching headline and opening, however, the Times clarified that most of those tickets were for his wife Jeanette. The records dating back to 1997 showed Rubio himself only got four.
That's roughly one traffic ticket every five years.
What a scofflaw?

More on this...

• Rubio: I'm glad Republicans have so many good candidates

The Rubio campaign, however, quickly turned the story into a fundraising opportunity.
"If the press is going to park its attention on silly stories like this one, we have to pass them and talk directly to voters" said a statement from campaign headquarters that then offered a link to click on for donations "to help Marco get this message straight to voters."
The report was widely mocked by fellow Republicans on social media Friday, as the Rubio campaign offered a brief statement from his traffic attorney Alex Hanna in response.
"Senator Rubio's license has always been in good standing. This matter was resolved by the court system and at no point was the license suspended by the D.M.V.," Hanna said.
Meanwhile, The Washington Free Beacon reported that a Democratic opposition research firm's fingerprints appeared to be on the story. The Free Beacon reported the group American Bridge pulled the citations mentioned in the article in late May, according to Miami-Dade County court records.
The Times reporters' names did not show up on those docket records, according to the Free Beacon.
Politico, though, reported that The New York Times denied the claim, with the newspaper saying they "came across this on our own."
"We hired a document retrieval service in Florida and got copies of the paper records ourselves," Times Washington bureau chief Carolyn Ryan told Politico. A Times representative confirmed the statement to FoxNews.com.
The article itself provided a detailed history of the Rubios' traffic stops. "On four separate occasions they agreed to attend remedial driving school after a violation," the Times reported.
Rubio reportedly was cited for careless driving in 1997, and was ticketed for speeding in 2009. There were two other incidents, in 2011 and 2012.
Rubio's wife, meanwhile, reportedly was stopped in 2010 for driving 23 m.p.h. in a 15 m.ph. school zone -- and fined $185, for driving eight miles over the speed limit. Hanna apparently helped get some citations dismissed in recent years.
This rich history of the Rubios' driving troubles provided a springboard for an avalanche of snarky tweets and blogs Friday afternoon.
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham mocked the Times' "scoop," saying they made those four tickets sound "quite serious."
"So we've already reached the bottom of the oppo barrel, have we?" Republican strategist Rick Wilson tweeted.

'Dividing Americans': Potential GOP rivals assail Clinton over fiery voting law speech

Accusing her of "dividing Americans" and political pandering, several of Hillary Clinton's potential Republican rivals fired back Friday after the Democratic frontrunner accused them of trying to make it more difficult for Americans -- particularly minorities and young people -- to vote. 
Clinton spoke Thursday at Texas Southern University, an historically black institution in Houston. In one of her most partisan speeches as a White House candidate, she directly criticized Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
She described them as members of a GOP vanguard that has made it more difficult for students to vote, cut the numbers of days set aside for early voting and demanded voter ID provisions.
In perhaps her most pointed line, she said: "We have a responsibility to say clearly and directly what's really going on in our country -- because what is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican considering a presidential run, accused Clinton on Friday of "demagoguery."
"Don't be running around the country dividing Americans," he told Fox News.
Kasich's state is also on the other end of a related lawsuit filed in part by Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias.
That suit claims Ohio's voting restrictions are designed to suppress minority and young voters. It calls for halting a number of measures including laws that restrict the casting of absentee and provisional ballots and limit the times and locations for early voting -- such as abolishing an early voting period known as "Golden Week" in which voters could register and cast an in-person ballot the same day.
However, Ohio has an extensive early-voting period of nearly a month. And Kasich noted Clinton's state of New York doesn't even offer that kind of early-voting period.
"Don't come in and say we are trying to keep people from voting when her own state has less opportunity for voting," Kasich told Fox News. "And she is going to sue my state? That's just silly."
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted also said Ohio is a "national leader in voter access," urging Clinton to "tell her attorneys" to drop the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is not officially connected to the Clinton campaign, though the candidate has since made voting laws a big issue in her run.
In Thursday's speech, she alleged, "Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting." She also called for automatic voter registration for all Americans when they turn 18, unless they opt out, and for 20-day early voting in all states.
Directly challenging Republicans by name, which Clinton has largely avoided until now, she plunged into a partisan debate over voting rights that has roiled statehouses across the country. Democrats contend restricting voter access and registration purposely aims to suppress turnout among minority and low-income voters. Republicans say the voting changes are crucial to guard against voter fraud.
Under Walker, for example, Wisconsin requires proof of residency except for overseas and military voters. The state shortened the early voting period and increased residency requirements.
In a statement, Walker responded to the criticism leveled by the Democratic candidate: "Hillary Clinton's rejection of efforts to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat not only defies logic, but the will of the majority of Americans. Once again, Hillary Clinton's extreme views are far outside the mainstream."
Clinton said that in New Jersey, Christie had vetoed a bill to extend early voting. She said as Florida's governor, Bush had conducted a "deeply flawed" purge of eligible voters, by having the names of people who were mistakenly thought to be felons removed from voting rolls.
Perry, who announced his presidential campaign earlier Thursday, approved laws in Texas that discriminated against minority voters, Clinton said.
Christie, at a stop in New Hampshire Friday, said, "Secretary Clinton doesn't know the first thing about voting rights in New Jersey ... or in the other states that she attacked." He said she just wants "an opportunity to commit greater acts [of] voter fraud around the country."
Perry, speaking with Fox News on Friday morning, defended voter ID laws.
"When I got on the airline to come up here yesterday I had to show my photo ID. Now, Hillary Clinton may not have had to show a photo ID to get onto an airplane in a long time," he quipped. "The people of the state of Texas is who she's taking on. Because that was a law that was passed by the people of the state of Texas. She just went into my home state and dissed every person who supports having an identification to either get onto an airplane or to vote."
Perry declared his presidential campaign Thursday. Bush, Walker and Christie have not yet formally announced a 2016 bid, though Bush's announcement is set for June 15.

Death Plunge: ISIS throws gay men off buildings under guise of Sharia law

The Islamic State has released a series of horrifying photos showing blindfolded men tossed head-first off a building because, ISIS claimed, they were gay.
In photos obtained by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), ISIS militants are shown publicly executing the unidentified men for violating Sharia law.
A crowd of spectators, including children, was gathered below the 100-foot building in Mosul as the men were held by their ankles and then sent plunging to their deaths. The photos were believed to be recent.
The photos were released by ISIS on Wednesday via social media and in a report by the terror group entitled, “Implementation of the Punishment of Those Who Have Committed Acts of Homosexuality” on the jihadist online forum Shumoukh Al-Islam, according to the research group.
Warning: extremely graphic images
The terror group also recently has employed “flirt squads,” in which militants pose as homosexuals in an attempt to lure gay men out into the open for death by public execution.
“ISIS wants the Muslim world to know that it is executing gays because it displays their credentials as enforcers of Sharia law,” Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst for The Clarion Project told FoxNews.com. “There is widespread anti-homosexual sentiment in the Muslim world because of the belief that Sharia requires the execution of gays. Homosexuals are often not only seen as harming themselves but as dire threats to society as a whole.”
The extremist group’s hatred of gays has been widely known, with reports of public executions coming as early as last December.
In recent months, ISIS has publicly executed men accused of homosexuality in both Iraq and Syria by not only throwing them off tall buildings, but by burning them alive or stoning them to death. The accused are often shot if they happen to survive the brutal methods, according to MEMRI.
“You won't see a significant backlash to ISIS' crimes because there is no gay rights movement in the Muslim world and the gay rights advocates in the West are usually silent when it comes to persecution overseas,” Mauro said. “From ISIS' perspective, they only stand to gain from executing gays and telling the world about it.”
Horrified activists in Syria have said in recent reports that ISIS fighters have taken their intolerance to a new low. Photos on social media show the doomed, blindfolded men being hugged just before they are executed.
"ISIS has never forgiven one person," Abu Mohammed Hussam, of the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said to FoxNews.com in May. “They kill people and then say... God will forgive. They hug the men to show the people who are watching that ISIS is not at fault."
In addition to homosexuality, ISIS considers several so-called offenses punishable by execution including blasphemy and consorting with the enemy. The Islamic State also publicly stoned a woman to death after she was accused of adultery.

US considering harder stance on Russia, report says

Putin sees that Obama's words 'mean nothing.

The White House is reportedly considering new ways to discourage Russia from meddling in Europe, in what some officials are saying is an updated version to Cold War-era containment.
The Wall Street Journal reports the approach involves beefing up militaries of allies and potential partners and weeding out corrupt governments, which Russia could potentially exploit to gain more influence.
Administration officials also want to expand NATO’s reach to limit Moscow’s orbit. Although including Ukraine or Georgia in the organization remains off the table, the Pentagon would be open to consider the small Balkan country of Montenegro to solidify its ties with the West and to show that Russia does not have veto power over alliance expansion.
The latest policy talks comes as President Barack Obama meets with world powers in Germany, where he is expected to push the topic of more Russian sanctions as the tension in Ukraine escalates even further.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that the latest sanctions have not made President Vladimir Putin change his ways, and they have voiced concerns about escalating violence in Ukraine and the use of heavy artillery that was supposed to be restricted by the cease-fire deal.
“It’s clear the sanctions are working on the Russian economy, but what is not apparent is that that effect on his economy is deterring Putin from following the course that was evidenced in Crimea last year,” said Defense Secretary Ash Carter, noting that Russian aggression would be “an enduring challenge.”
Officials say the long-term measures being discussed stem from Moscow not backing down after its territorial grab in Ukraine last year. The measures would include increasing training for European allies to resist Russia’s training of surrogate forces and conducting surprise border exercises.
The Pentagon is also drafting plans for where to position different stocks of military equipment for use in a crisis or for an advance in training exercises, the newspaper reports. That would entail an increase presence of U.S. troops in the region. However, Washington is still opposed to rebuild troop formations in Europe.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that there are different views between Europe and NATO on how to approach Russia’s aggression. Gen. Martin Dempsey told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that Russia has a whole host of capabilities to threaten its neighbors.
Dempsey said the U.S. must work with its European allies to fend off Russia’s pressure.
Others within the Obama administration do not necessarily agree how powerful Russia is.
The Journal, citing current and former officials, reports Obama is more skeptical that Moscow represents a long-term challenge and is wary of making Putin a bigger enemy than it has to be.
Secretary of State John Kerry said after a meeting with Putin last month that the two sides will work on issues of common interest.
Officials within the Pentagon reportedly have begun using harsher military terms such as deterrence instead of reassurance, the newspaper reports.
Some officials believe the U.S. must counter Russian moves in Europe. Others believe the U.S. should weaken Russia’s ability to use economic leverage to gain influence in eastern and southern Euroep.
If the U.S. can strengthen democratic institutions, professionalize militaries and curb corruption in countries, The Kremlin will have fewer ways to extend its influence, officials say.
The latest U.S. approach to expanding the NATO alliance can demonstrate the U.S. has more allies and Moscow has few friends than it believes. Such approach puts Montenegro in the spotlight of such debate.
Montenegro defense minister Milica Pejanovic-Djurisic said in an interview in her country that it is ready to join NATO.
“In the face of all the instability that is appearing in the East of Europe, strengthening security in the Balkans is part of the solution for the overall situation we are all in right now,” she said.

Overall, the U.S. main goal is to help restore post-Cold War security in Europe.

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Attention, pundits: If the polls confirm Hillary’s slide, it must be true

The conventional wisdom on Hillary Clinton turned in an instant.
But the evidence was hidden in plain view.
For many weeks now, it’s been clear that Hillary has had an awful campaign launch, that she has been submerged by an array of negative stories, and that her message has been underwater as well.
But when I’ve brought this up—on the air, in print, at social gatherings—what I’ve heard again and again is: It doesn’t matter. It’s not a problem. This is media-bubble stuff. She’s emerged unscathed. It’s not hurting her in the polls.
But now it is.
The pundit class is so poll-addicted that if something doesn’t show up in fav/unfav, or right track/wrong track, or cares-about-people-like-you, it didn’t happen. I know that journalists were just as aware as I was that Hillary has been hammered since the day her listening tour began. But most of them couldn’t believe their own eyes because, well, it wasn’t there in the data.
Of course, polls can be a lagging indicator, and the barrage had to be chipping away at Clinton’s image—especially among independents. And that’s exactly what happened.
In the CNN poll, 57 percent say she’s not honest and trustworthy, compared with 42 percent who say she is.
In the Washington Post/ABC poll, 52 percent say she’s not honest and trustworthy, compared with 41 percent who think she is.
Now polls bounce around, of course, but those are troubling numbers.
They show the combined impact of the private emails scandal, the ethical questions swirling around the Clinton Foundation, the six-figure speaking fees, and one more thing: the constant avoidance of the press.
It’s not that people are up in arms about journalists getting stiffed. We aren’t very popular either.
But by barely responding to questions about the negative stories, she ceded the turf to all the damaging headlines. Her operation seemed antiseptic and orchestrated. And by having bland conversations with small groups of voters, Hillary made no competing news. She left a vacuum filled by all the financial and email stories.
Perhaps that will change after Hillary does her Roosevelt Island kickoff in New York next week. But impressions about trustworthiness are hard to change, especially with a figure as well known as Hillary Clinton.
There is some truth to the spin that Hillary was always going to slip in the polls when she descended from the lofty perch of secretary of State to the grubby reality of campaigning. But that doesn’t fully explain her slide on the honesty question in just the last couple of months.
Most political journalists are smart. They can see when a presidential candidate is struggling. And they don’t need the latest pollster’s survey to report what they’re seeing and hearing.

Obama struggling to sway Dems on trade push, as unions crank up opposition

President Obama, despite launching a full-court press to woo skeptical Democrats, is struggling to cobble together the votes for his trade agenda in the House -- as union leaders ramp up their own pressure campaign to kill it. 
The so-called fast-track trade bill -- which would limit Congress' ability to amend future trade deals negotiated by the White House -- cleared the Senate last month with the help of 14 Democratic senators.
But the White House faces an even bigger lift in the House, where progressive lawmakers aligned with labor groups are urging their colleagues to oppose the Trade Promotion Authority bill. The issue has flipped the script in Congress, with Republican leaders backing it and rank-and-file Democrats largely opposed. Democratic leaders remain officially undecided, as the president fights for the 218 votes needed to pass.
House GOP leaders have said they are confident they'll be able to push TPA through this month. But even Speaker John Boehner acknowledged this week that supporters are still short of the necessary votes.
"I don't think we're quite there yet," the Ohio Republican said Wednesday in an interview on Fox News Radio's "Kilmeade & Friends," adding that he expects to see TPA on the floor in the next couple weeks and predicting it will eventually pass.
While Republican leaders expect most of their caucus to vote for fast-track, they stand to lose several dozen votes and are relying on House Democrats to make up the difference.

More on this...

• Rep. Ryan working with Dems to approve Obama trade deal

"The president could have done more over the past couple of years to bring Democrats along, but the unions, frankly, have outflanked him," Boehner said.
"Fast-track" is a major priority for the president, who hopes to soon complete work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation free-trade agreement that would need to be ratified by Congress. Obama has been burning up the phone lines and top administration officials have lobbied Hill Democrats in person during repeated briefings.
While House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi remains officially undecided on TPA, she has not whipped her members against the bill.
But her members are facing heavy pressure from labor groups, including public criticism by AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka.
The AFL-CIO has been particularly critical of California Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, who has come out in favor of fast-track. The group is running a television ad against the two-term lawmaker, accusing him of being willing "to do anything to keep his job, including shipping your job overseas."
In a statement, Trumka said the ad is "a message to Ami Bera and every other politician that the trade debate is enormously important to working families ... we expect our representatives in Congress to vote against rubber stamping a corporate-driven trade policy that delivers extra profits for global corporations at the expense of good-paying jobs for working people."
The pressure, though, is starting to stir a backlash among Democrats.
"I think labor is going a little overboard," Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana Democrat, told reporters Wednesday. "The more Trumka talks, the more I lean yes."
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., earlier this week said he and Pelosi have asked "our friends in labor to have respect for the decisions of members," noting that Democratic lawmakers have been strong supporters of workers. The Maryland Democrat has said he is still undecided on the measure.
According to a whip list being maintained by The Hill, 112 House Democrats oppose fast-track, while 60 won't say which way they are voting.
Rep. Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat being lobbied by Obama, said the president believes he has the support of 20 House Democrats, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The exact number of Democratic votes that will be needed depends on how many Republican defections there are.
For their part, GOP criticism of fast-track has involved arguments ranging from an alleged encroachment on legislative power -- TPA would guarantee an up-or-down vote on a free-trade deal with no amendments -- to fears that future deals could include immigration provisions. Republican leaders have done their best to assuage those concerns by stressing that the streamlined negotiating authority lasts six years and will benefit a future administration, not just the current one.
"We've got some Republicans that don't trust the president to do anything and don't want to give him any authority at all for anything," Boehner told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. "This isn't about the president, frankly. This is about the country."
The business lobby and GOP-aligned political groups are also pitching in to help Boehner and other leaders limit Republican fallout. The American Action Network on Thursday announced a $900,000 ad blitz in favor of TPA.
"If we don't pass a bill that allows America more access to trade, then China will have a bigger share of the market and keep rigging international trade," the group's president, Mike Shields, said in a statement announcing the campaign. "It's a question of who you want to lead: the U.S. or China."

Medicaid enrollment under ObamaCare soars, raising cost concerns

Several states that chose to expand Medicaid eligibility under ObamaCare now are facing deadline pressure to pay for it, the result of more signups than anticipated -- and, a looming reduction in how much of the bill the federal government will cover. 
At least seven of the 29 states (and the District of Columbia) that expanded coverage have experienced significantly higher-than-expected enrollment. The expansion of Medicaid, the government health care program for low-income people, now allows most low-income adults making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level to qualify. An estimated 1.4 million more people than expected have signed up in those seven states since enrollment opened in October 2013 -- with Illinois, Kentucky and Washington state more than doubling their projected numbers.
The experience is serving as a cautionary tale for states, including Florida, still debating whether to take the plunge and green-light the Medicaid expansion, which is optional.
The enrollment interest is definitely there -- but so is a ballooning taxpayer bill.
Florida Republican state Rep. Paul Renner told the Florida Times-Union he worries about the potential, long-term effects expanding Medicaid might have on the state budget.
"It's really not a free proposition for us to expand coverage here," Renner told the newspaper. "We're going to have to give up things that are very important, like education."
Right now, federal funds cover 100 percent of the costs through 2016 for people now eligible for insurance through the Medicaid expansion.
However, the federal commitment decreases to 95 percent in 2017, 94 percent in 2018, 93 percent in 2019 and 90 percent in 2020 and beyond.
Florida is fiercely divided over the potential expansion, and Republican Gov. Rick Scott -- a former supporter, now foe, of the move -- told Politico it would cost his state $5 billion over a decade. A new, Senate-approved plan calls for using federal money to buy private insurance for poor residents who agree to work or attend school and share in the coverage costs -- it's unclear whether the federal government would go along.
States that already expanded enrollment and are seeing a surge, meanwhile, are trying to deal with the challenge. In Washington state, officials are optimistic they can meet budget costs, despite the growing rolls and the prospect of less federal money in the coming years.
"The decision ... was a bipartisan decision," Washington state Medicaid Director MaryAnne Lindeblad told FoxNews.com on Tuesday. "It has been an unqualified success. Expansion enrollment surpassed our 2018 projections within months of implementation."
Lindeblad added:  "Our state saved about $350 million in state funds the first 18 months of expansion, and even with the move to a 90/10 match level, we continue to project continued savings in the out years."
The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, initially enacted the Medicaid expansion for all 50 states. It was expected to insure roughly 17 million more Americans that way.
However, a June 2012 Supreme Court ruling found the mandate unconstitutional, which then gave states the option to expand Medicaid.
With 29 states and D.C. opting to take the federal money to expand Medicaid through ObamaCare, 12 million Americans have signed up since open enrollment started nearly two years ago.
The other states, largely with either a Republican governor or GOP-controlled legislature, have said no.
In Illinois, more than 540,000 people have enrolled under the Medicaid expansion, nearly 342,000 more than projected for the first year, according to state records.
In Washington state, roughly 530,000 adults have enrolled in Apple Health Medicaid, more than double the 245,000 projected in 2012, which has increased total enrollment in the state program to 1.8 million, a state official told FoxNews.com.
Kentucky estimated that 161,055 newly eligible residents would enroll in the Medicaid expansion by June 30, and enrollment is already at roughly 375,000, according to state records.
As a result, Kentucky cut its uninsured rate more than any other state except Arkansas, according to a 2014 Gallup survey, with Washington state coming in fourth.
"Can we afford not to do this?" Audrey Haynes, secretary of Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which made the early projection, asked during a recent interview with Politico.
Colorado, Maryland, Michigan and Ohio also have reported enrollment exceeded projections.
A major ObamaCare objective was providing health coverage for more Americans so that others will pay less for the uninsured, including the cost of expensive but sometimes unnecessary urgent-care visits.
A Department of Health and Human Services report shows that the ObamaCare and Medicaid expansion as of last year had reduced the cost of "uncompensated" hospital visits by $7.4 billion, or 21 percent.
Heritage Action, the conservative group that often leads the charge to repeal ObamaCare, suggested states that expanded Medicaid should have expected the double-whammy of less federal money and increased costs associated with increased enrollment.
"From our vantage point, states that accepted [federal money] made a mistake," group spokesman Dan Holler told FoxNews.com. "But there's no way to really fix this except to get rid of the law that created the expansion."

US believes China behind cybersecurity breach affecting at least 4M federal employees

Hackers based in China are believed to be behind a massive data breach that could have compromised the personal data of at least 4 million current and former federal employees, U.S. officials said late Thursday.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Associated Press that investigators suspect the cyberattack was carried out by the Chinese. She said the breach was "yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances."
If confirmed, the incident would be the second major breach by Beijing in less than a year. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington called such accusations "not responsible and counterproductive."
"Cyber attack is a global threat which could [sic] only be addressed by international cooperation based on mutual trust and mutual respect," Zhu Haiquan said in a statement late Thursday. "We hope all countries in the world can work constructively together to address cyber security issues, push forward the formulation of international rules and norms in ... cyberspace, in order to build a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative cyberspace."
On Friday, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry said the allegations were "irresponsible and unscientific." Hong Lei said at a regularly scheduled news briefing that Beijing hoped that the U.S. would be "less suspicious and stop making any unverified allegations, but show more trust and participate more in cooperation."
China routinely dismisses any allegation of its official involvement in cyberattacks on foreign targets, while invariably noting that it is often the target of hacking attacks and calling for greater international cooperation in combating cybercrime.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a statement confirming the breach Thursday, saying that it had concluded at the beginning of May that data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Interior Department had been compromised.
DHS said its intrusion detection system, known as EINSTEIN, which screens federal Internet traffic to identify potential cyber threats, identified the hack of OPM's systems and the Interior Department's data center, which is shared by other federal agencies.
It was unclear why the EINSTEIN system didn't detect the breach until after so many records had been copied and removed.
"DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion," the statement said.
The OPM, which acts as the human resources department for the federal government and conducts more than 90 percent of federal background checks, said in a statement that it detected a “cyber-intrusion” into its systems in April.
A well-placed intelligence source told Fox News that names, addresses and social security information were compromised, and that the breach involved an "advanced persistent threat" designed to harvest information covertly without crippling systems.
Sources told Fox News that the investigators were considering the possibility the attack was linked to another attack in October involving the White House. Fox News has also learned that the attack bears similarities to those carried out by nation-states, not by criminal syndicates.
The OPM announced Thursday that it was sending notifications to approximately 4 million individuals whose personally identifiable information (PII) may have been accessed. However, the agency acknowledged that more individuals could have been affected.
“Since the investigation is on-going, additional PII exposures may come to light; in that case, OPM will conduct additional notifications as necessary,” the agency said in a statement.
“Protecting our Federal employee data from malicious cyber incidents is of the highest priority at OPM,” OPM Director Katherine Archuleta said in a statement. “We take very seriously our responsibility to secure the information stored in our systems, and in coordination with our agency partners, our experienced team is constantly identifying opportunities to further protect the data with which we are entrusted.”
The agency advised those affected to monitor their bank accounts for unusual activity, and to request a credit report along with other safeguards against fraud.
The Associated Press, which first reported the breach, cited officials saying that the breach could potentially affect every federal agency. One key question is whether intelligence agency employee information was stolen.
"This is an attack against the nation," said Ken Ammon, chief strategy officer of software security company Xceedium, who added that the stolen information could be used to impersonate or blackmail federal employees with access to sensitive information.
The FBI said in a statement that it was working with interagency partners to investigate the breach, while the DHS said it was continuing to monitor federal networks for suspicious activity and is "working aggressively" to investigate the extent of the breach.
Responding to news of the breach, Congressman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called on the Senate to pass cybersecurity legislation passed by the House earlier in the year.
"This bill will not be a panacea for the broad cyber threats we face, but it is one important piece of armor in our defenses that must be put in place – now,” Schiff said.
In November, a former Department of Homeland Security official disclosed another cyberbreach that compromised the private files of more than 25,000 DHS workers and thousands of other federal employees.

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FIFA executive committee member Chuck Blazer admits bribes

NEW YORK –  Former FIFA executive committee member Chuck Blazer told a U.S. federal judge that he and others on the governing body's ruling panel agreed to receive bribes in the votes for the hosts of the 1998 and 2010 World Cups.
Prosecutors unsealed a 40-page transcript Wednesday of the hearing in U.S. District Court on Nov. 25, 2013, when Blazer pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges.
Blazer, in admitting 10 counts of illegal conduct, told the court of his conduct surrounding the vote that made South Africa the first nation on that continent to host soccer's premier event.
"Beginning in or around 2004 and continuing through 2011, I and others on the FIFA executive committee agreed to accept bribes in conjunction with the selection of South Africa as the host nation for the 2010 World Cup," Blazer told U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie.
Blazer was the No. 2 official of soccer's North and Central American and Caribbean region from 1990-2011 and served on FIFA's executive committee from 1997-2013. South Africa defeated Morocco 14-10 in the host vote.
South African Football Association president Molefi Oliphant sent a letter to FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke in 2008 asking FIFA to withhold $10 million from the budget of the 2010 World Cup organizers and to use the money to finance a "Diaspora Legacy Programme" under the control of then CONCACAF President Jack Warner. South Africa Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula denies the money was a bribe and says it was an "aboveboard payment" to help soccer development in Caribbean region.
Blazer also said he was involved in bribes around 1992 in the vote for the 1998 World Cup host, won by France over Morocco 12-7.
Warner was among 14 soccer officials and businessmen named in an indictment announced last week, and those charges said a Moroccan bid representative offered a $1 million bid payment. Blazer, whose guilty plea was made public last week, said he agreed with others "to facilitate the acceptance of a bribe."
He also admitted to corruption involving the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the region's top national team tournament which he helped launch in 1991.
"Beginning in or about 1993 and continuing through the early 2000s, I and others agreed to accept bribes and kickbacks in conjunction with the broadcast and other rights to the 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2003 Gold Cups," Blazer said.
While many of the allegations were made public last week, the transcript of the closed-court hearing in Brooklyn more than 1 1/2 years ago put them in the first-person voice of Blazer, once the most powerful soccer official in the United States. Blazer's allegations have assisted an investigation by U.S. prosecutors, who foresee additional people being charged.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who has run the governing body since 1998, said Tuesday he will be resigning, an announcement made six days after the indictments were unsealed and four days after he was elected to a fifth term. A new president will be chosen by FIFA's 209 member nations and territories, likely between December and March.
Now 70, Blazer was wheelchair-bound at the hearing, according to Dearie. Blazer told the court he had received chemotherapy and radiation for rectal cancer, and he also suffered from diabetes and coronary artery disease.
Dearie said prosecutors "identify FIFA and its attendant or related constituent organization as what we call an enterprise, a RICO, enterprise."
"RICO is an acronym for, and don't overreact to this as I am sure most people do, Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization," the judge said.
Blazer forfeited over $1.9 million at the time of his pleas to racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, income tax evasion and failure to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts. He agreed to pay a second amount to be determined at the time of sentencing.
Four sections of the transcript were redacted by prosecutors, presumably to protect avenues of their investigation.