Ryan to run for House speaker if he gets full party support

Wisc. Rep. Paul Ryan told House Republicans Tuesday he would run for speaker if he gets broad support from all wings of the party and gave colleagues until Friday to express their views.
Speaking to reporters after a closed-door meeting with colleagues, Ryan said he had “made a few requests for what I think is necessary” and said he’d asked to hear back from them by the end of the week.
“What I told the members is if you can agree to the requests, and if I can be a truly unifying figure, I’ll serve,” Ryan said. “And if I’m not a unifying force, that will be fine as well. I’m happy to stay where I am.”
Saying the country was “in desperate need for leadership,” Ryan added, "My greatest worry is the consequence of not stepping up. Of some day having my own kids ask me, when the stakes were so high, 'Why didn’t you do all you could? Why didn’t you stand and fight for my future when you had the chance?"
At the same time, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah said in a tweet he was dropping out of the race for speaker in favor of Ryan.
“I am out and supporting @RepPaulRyan for Speaker. Right person at the right time,” he tweeted.

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Ryan, 45, the GOP's 2012 vice presidential nominee, had consistently said earlier he did not want to be speaker and would prefer to stay on as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, which he's described as his dream job.
Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told Fox News’ Bret Baier Tuesday that he thought Ryan “would be a great speaker” and “has the skills to do this job.”

New York City police officer dies after being shot in East Harlem

A New York City police officer was shot and killed late Tuesday in the East Harlem section of the city after he responded to a report of shots fired and an armed robbery.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton identified the murdered officer as Randolph Holder, 33, a five-year veteran of the force. Holder was an officer in the department's Housing Bureau, which polices the city's public housing developments.
"Tonight, he did what every other officer in the NYPD does," Bratton said. "When the call comes, he ran toward danger. It was the last time he will respond to that call."
Bratton said Holder and his partner responded to a report of shots fired at East 102nd Street on the city's Upper East Side. Witnesses told the officers a man had fled on a foot path and the officers encountered another man who told them an assailant had stolen his bicycle at gunpoint. Bratton said the officers confronted the suspect and pursued him to the intersection of East 120th Street and the FDR Drive, where gunfire rang out. One witness told Fox 5 that she heard at least five shots.
Holder was shot in the forehead and rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:22 p.m. Dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers lined the hospital hallway while other officers held each other as they arrived.
"We are humbled by Officer Randolph Holder's example, an example of service and courage and sacrifice," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "Our hearts are heavy. We offer our thoughts and our prayers to his family."
Bratton said the suspect was wounded in the shootout and apprehended four blocks away. The commissioner said the suspect, who has not been identified, was expected to be released from the hospital into police custody Wednesday. Three other man were also taken into custody and questioned.
Holder was a native of Guyana, where his father and grandfather both were police officers, Bratton said.
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said: "New York City police officers every day go out and carry themselves like superheroes. But the reality is when we're attacked, we bleed. When we bleed, we die. And when we die, we cry."
Holder is the fourth NYPD officer to die in the line of duty in the last 11 months.
On May 2, Officer Brian Moore was shot while questioning suspect Demetrius Blackwell in Queens. Moore died of his injuries two days later.
On December 20, detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were gunned down as they sat in their car in Brooklyn by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who stated that he wanted to avenge the police-involved deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner by killing officers. Brinsley later shot himself in the head while fleeing police.
So far this year, 101 police officers have died in the line of duty in the U.S. -- 33 of those deaths caused by gunfire -- according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. By early Wednesday, Holder's name already had been added to the list.

Team Clinton on offense ahead of Benghazi committee hearing

Hillary Clinton and her supporters are blistering the Benghazi committee ahead of her much-anticipated testimony Thursday, repeatedly questioning the GOP-led investigative panel’s “credibility” as the former secretary of state gears up for a potentially confrontational appearance. 
On Wednesday, a super PAC supporting Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign, Priorities USA, will begin running TV ads aimed at bolstering her image ahead of her appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
The effort marks the group’s first TV ad buy of the election cycle. But it is also just part of an all-out offensive that unexpectedly started Sept. 29 when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested the committee -- created to investigate the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya -- has hurt Clinton’s poll numbers. Within days, New York Republican Rep. Richard Hanna and a GOP committee investigator also suggested the committee was too focused on Clinton, giving her and campaign officials an opening to call the panel a partisan tool.
“This committee is basically an arm of the Republican National Committee,” Clinton said to applause during last week’s Democratic primary debate. “It is a partisan vehicle, as admitted by … Mr. McCarthy, to drive down my poll numbers.” A few days earlier, Clinton told NBC the committee was “set up … for the purpose of making a partisan, political issue out of the deaths of four Americans.”
It's an allegation that Republican committee Chairman Trey Gowdy has adamantly denied, telling his Democratic committee counterpart as recently as Sunday that the committee "is not investigating Secretary Clinton" or the allegations surrounding her personal email use.
Whether the pre-hearing charges will lead to fireworks Thursday remains to be seen. Gowdy appears to be at pains to show his committee is only interested in getting at the truth regarding the Benghazi attacks, while Clinton publicly casts the panel as a partisan outfit. Clinton showed visible frustration during her 2013 Benghazi-related appearance on Capitol Hill, where she asked "what difference, at this point, does it make" what motivated the attackers. The Democratic presidential front-runner surely is mindful that such an unguarded moment on Thursday could become fodder for GOP ads in the 2016 cycle.
The committee itself was formed last year to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, while Clinton was secretary of state.
The 12-member bipartisan committee discovered this March that Clinton used a private server and email accounts for official business while in office, which has led to an FBI investigation, several other congressional probes and widespread concerns about whether her unusual setup resulted in national security breaches.
Still, Gowdy says the committee is focused on Benghazi. He and Republican committee member Rep. Mike Pompeo, of Kansas, indicated Sunday they have no intentions of closing the investigation and in fact have dozens more witnesses and more information, including new Stevens’ emails.
“The ambassador asked for more security, and it was ignored,” Bradley Blakemen, former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, said Tuesday.
However, Clinton supporters and others have called for shuttering the 17-month-old committee -- arguing it’s a political sham and a $4.5 million taxpayer waste.
“If you want to get to the truth, you might want to broaden your reach as opposed to … for political reasons, just going after Hillary Clinton,” Democratic strategist David Mercer told FoxNews.com on Tuesday.
Critics have more recently noted that Republican committee members recently summoned long-time Clinton aide-de-camp Huma Abedin to testify while thus far not doing the same for then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, then-CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus and others.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told reporters last week that Clinton would still testify but that Gowdy’s inquiry now has “zero credibility left.”
The counter-attacks have more recently focused on Gowdy. The Washington Post last week found an alleged connection between him and the STOP Hillary PAC that ran a controversial Benghazi ad during the Democratic debate, resulting in Gowdy returning $2,000 in contributions.
The South Carolina Republican and former state and federal prosecutor recently told Politico that the past few weeks have been among “the worst in my life.” In response to Republican non-committee members critiquing their work, he said over the weekend that they should “shut up.”
The hearing Thursday is expected focus in large part on whether Clinton, who in 2013 testified before Congress on Benghazi, adequately responded to concerns by Stevens about security at the Benghazi outpost.
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign has produced several videos ahead of Thursday’s hearing including a five-minute highlight reel that touts Clinton’s "smart leadership” as secretary of state.

EPA Cartoon

GOP senator rips EPA, White House for skipping climate hearing

A top Republican senator is crying foul after the Environmental Protection Agency and a key White House office declined to take part in an upcoming hearing on the administration’s role in international climate negotiations, ahead of a landmark conference in Paris next month.
The Tuesday hearing was initially pitched as a joint hearing between the Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC.) The hearing now is expected to be held only by the SFRC and to feature one witness -- the Obama administration's special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern.
Republican EPW sources told FoxNews.com that Democrats in the SFRC objected to a joint hearing, while invitations to the EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) were both declined. EPW Chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who is well-known for his global warming skepticism, voiced frustration at the response.
“The Obama administration and Senate Democrats have made it extremely difficult to provide necessary and appropriate Congressional oversight to the president’s international climate negotiations,” Inhofe said in a statement.
The hearing will be held in anticipation of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris at the end of November. The conference is a critical summit for an administration that has made cutting carbon emissions a centerpiece of its second-term agenda. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday that President Obama is considering attending the Paris talks.
Considering the summit's importance, Republicans want to question top environmental policy officials in the administration on their intentions.
“The CEQ has always been any administration's filter, and played a leadership role, on environmental issues and international environmental issues. The EPA is responsible for what we can tell to be the vast majority of the 26-28 percent of greenhouse gas reductions and yet we believe that ultimately this hearing will not feature the environmental agencies and will solely feature Mr. Stern,” a Senate EPW majority aide told FoxNews.com.
“We believe a hearing featuring all those witnesses would be useful, as witnesses have a tendency to defer to witnesses who are not in the room and it would be helpful to get a comprehensive perspective from the administration for the Senate of what will be part of this agreement, what has led up to this, what interagency interaction there has been, and the work involved.”
But in a letter responding to Inhofe, the EPA said the hearing would be out of the purview of the agency.
“[The] agency cannot speak to the full suite of domestic policies that are being considered in these negotiations and is not the party responsible for developing the total  emissions reduction numbers for the U.S.,” Associate Administrator Laura Vaught wrote.
While Tuesday's hearing will now be conducted solely by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, EPW Republicans said they want to hold their own hearing with Stern, the EPA and the CEQ later in the year. However, the State Department has informed the committee that Stern would not be able to attend an EPW hearing unless the EPA or CEQ also were in attendance.
The aide told FoxNews.com they consider scrutiny of the upcoming Paris agreement to be important, saying it would mirror the Kyoto agreement – which the U.S. did not ratify – and  require a substantial commitment to the international community.
The White House already has enlisted a number of companies to bolster its push for an international climate pledge
White House officials say 81 companies have signed on to the American Business Act on Climate pledge, including Intel, Coca-Cola, Google and Walmart. By signing, the companies promise to advocate for a strong climate deal ahead of the negotiations in Paris.

Ambassador sought security staffing before Benghazi attack, cable shows

Two months before the fatal 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, then-Ambassador Chris Stevens requested 13 security personnel to help him safely travel around Libya, according to a cable reviewed by Fox News -- but he was turned down. 
In the July 9, 2012 cable, Stevens reported that, "Overall security conditions continue to be unpredictable, with large numbers of armed groups and individuals not under control of the central government, and frequent clashes in Tripoli and other major population centers." The cable said 13 security personnel would be the "minimum" needed for "transportation security and incident response capability."
But a congressional source said Patrick Kennedy, a deputy to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, turned down the request.
The cable sent under Stevens' electronic signature shows that he was advocating for additional security and warning that the set-up did not meet State Department standards, as conditions deteriorated in the run-up to the attack that killed Stevens and three other Americans.
Clinton, now a Democratic presidential candidate, is set to testify Thursday before the congressional Benghazi committee at a hearing where the State Department's security measures in Libya are likely to be a focal point.
In the year leading up to the 2012 attack, records show, there were 234 security incidents in Libya, 50 of which took place in Benghazi -- including a June assassination attempt on the British ambassador in which a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle. The team narrowly escaped.

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This attack preceded Stevens' July cable. While this intelligence was shared with the State Department, no additional security was added. The same month the British ambassador was targeted, there also was an IED attack on the U.S. Consulate, blasting a hole in the perimeter wall -- but still, security requests were denied.
According to a congressional source, a senior State Department security officer in Libya told Senate investigators that, in September 2012, he had to choose between guarding the Tripoli airport -- their lifeline to the outside world -- and sending security with Stevens to Benghazi.
He chose to reinforce the airport.
"The system is not working well. We've seen that, not on one occasion but on many occasions," said Adam Zagorin, with the Project on Government Oversight. "I'm not aware that it's been fixed as we sit here today."
Zagorin said there is a broader pattern of mismanagement when it comes to security and outside contracts.
"Patrick Kennedy, who is the chief administrator of the department, has testified on quite a number of occasions about this," he said. "And frankly it's not clear -- he has offered assurances and reassurance to members of Congress that this is being taken care of -- and yet the pattern repeats so one has to question what is really being done."
Further, the guard force at the Benghazi consulate, run by a contractor called Blue Mountain Libya, was in such disarray on Sept. 11, 2012, that they did not have a valid license to operate in Benghazi, according to emails obtained through a federal lawsuit.
Documents first obtained by Judicial Watch and reviewed by Fox News show the partnership was dissolved after a dispute between the Libyan license holder and the parent company in Britain. After the terror attack, the Libyan company said it was willing to "put its differences with the security operators, Blue Mountain UK, to the side for the moment, and shall allow the use of its security license. ... Our prayers are with the families of the victims," according to a Sept. 12 email to the State Department.
Despite the emails, the State Department has insisted there was no problem with the license.

George W. Bush reportedly rips Ted Cruz to Jeb Bush donors

Former President George W. Bush reportedly ripped into Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at a weekend gathering of donors to his brother's presidential campaign, according to a published report Monday. 
Politico reported that Bush said of Cruz, "I just don't like the guy," at the event, which was held Sunday night in Denver.
According to the report, which cited at least six donors who were at the event, Bush said he did not like Cruz's de facto alliance with Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who has notably spared Cruz from the criticism he has ladled onto other members of the 15-candidate Republican field.
"He said he found it 'opportunistic' that Cruz was sucking up to Trump and just expecting all of his support to come to him in the end," one donor told Politico when asked to describe Bush's remarks about Cruz. The report added that the former president had been engaging with amiable discussions about the state of the GOP race when Cruz's name came up.
"I was like, 'Holy s---, did he just say that?'" the donor told Politico. "I remember looking around and seeing that other people were also looking around surprised."
The report also said that Bush warned the donors to not underestimate Cruz's strength in the South and in Texas, where his message of religious liberty is expected to play very well with voters.
Freddy Ford, a spokesman for George W. Bush, did not deny that the former president had made the disparaging remarks about Cruz when asked to comment by Politico.
"The first words out of President Bush's mouth [Sunday] were that Jeb is going to earn the nomination, win the election, and be a great President ... He does not view Senator Cruz as Governor Bush's most serious rival."
Ford denied further requests by Fox News to address Bush's reported "I just don't like the guy" remark.
Cruz joined George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser and helped put together the legal team that argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court in the aftermath of the controversial election. He later served as an associate deputy attorney general in the Justice Department before becoming Solicitor General of Texas in 2003.
Cruz issued a statement to Politico late Monday that said in part, "It's no surprise that President Bush is supporting his brother and attacking the candidates he believes pose a threat to his campaign. I have no intention of reciprocating. I met my wife Heidi working on his campaign, and so I will always be grateful to him."

Israel arrests Hamas co-founder, accusing him of inciting recent violence

Israeli forces arrested one of the co-founders of the Hamas militant group Tuesday, accusing him of inciting recent violence that has resulted in the deaths of nine Israelis, many in stabbing attacks. 
The military said Hassan Yousef was arrested near Ramallah. It marks the most high-profile arrest since a wave of unrest swept through the region a month ago.
The military said Yousef had been "actively instigating and inciting terrorism" by encouraging attacks against Israelis. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told the Associated Press, "Hamas' leaders cannot expect to propagate violence and terror from the comfort of their living rooms and pulpits of their mosques."
Yousef's eldest son, Mosab, spied for Israel between 1997 and 2007.
Over the past month, nine Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them stabbings. In that time, 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, including 20 labeled by Israel as attackers, and the rest in clashes with Israeli troops. An Eritrean migrant died after being shot and beaten by a mob that mistakenly believed he was a Palestinian attacker.
Also Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished the Hebron home of Maher Hashlamoun, a Palestinian who rammed his car into 25-year-old Dalia Lemkus in the West Bank and stabbed her several times last year Hashlamon was shot and killed.

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Hashlamoun's wife told Palestinian radio that soldiers evacuated their three story building and demolished the third floor apartment where her family lived. Such demolitions are often carried out by Israeli forces with the aim of deterring future attacks.
Lerner said the demolition "sends a clear message that there is a personal price to pay when you are involved in terror."
Meanwhile, Palestinan Foreign Minister Riyad Malki told Palestinian radio that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would arrive in the region later Tuesday to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Ban has issued a video message ahead of the visit calling for calm on both sides. He said he understood the Palestinian frustration but that violence would only harm their legitimate aspirations. He said to the Israelis that he understood their concerns and fears due to the security deterioration, but added there was no military solution to the situation.
"When children are afraid to go to school, when anyone on the street is a potential victim, security is rightly your immediate priority," Ban said, addressing Israelis. "But walls, checkpoints, harsh responses by the security forces and house demolitions cannot sustain the peace and safety that you need and must have."