Trump calls for surveillance of some mosques, attempts to clarify remarks on Syrian database

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump repeated his call Saturday for surveillance of mosques and a database on Syrian refugees coming into the United States, following a series of overseas terror attacks connected to Islamic extremist groups.
“I want surveillance of these people and of certain mosques,” the front-running Trump said at a campaign event in Birmingham, Ala. “We’ve had it before, we will have it again.”
The New York police department kept surveillance on mosques after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But the controversial program was ended in 2014.
Trump also said he witnessed thousands of people across the Hudson River in New Jersey cheered when Islamic extremist hijackers during the 9/11 attacks crashed two U.S. airlines into the twin World Trade Center towers, toppling the skyscrapers in lower Manhattan and killing thousands.
“Something is going on,” he said.
Trump also said he wants a database on all Syrians refugees coming into the U.S., following the recent, deadly attacks in Paris in which one suicide bomber allegedly came from war-torn Syria and entered France by foiling Europe’s refugee vetting system.
He appeared to clarify a comment earlier this week about such a database, making clear it would apply to all Syrian refugees being resettled in the U.S.
Trump, among the most outspoken of the 2016 presidential candidates on illegal immigration, also said that if elected he would make Syrians resettled in the U.S. leave the country.
“They’ll go back,” he said.
When announcing his White House bid this summer, Trump vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants including “rapists” and “drug dealers.”
Despite the backlash, Trump continues to tout the plan, to the support of his conservative base, especially in the wake of the recent terror attacks.
President Obama says his administration will continue to accept Syrian refugees, include 10,000 more through 2016. However, Congress doesn’t appear to fully support the plan, amid voter fears that the refugee vetting process is not as thorough as needed.
On Thursday, the GOP-led House, with the support of 47 Democrats, voted in favor of tighter regulation on allowing refugees into the country.

Democrat John Bel Edwards declared winner in runoff election for La. governor

Democratic state lawmaker John Bel Edwards

Congratulations Louisiana, take a look at your new governor.

Democratic state lawmaker John Bel Edwards defeated Republican Sen. David Vitter in Saturday’s runoff election for Louisiana governor.
Edwards will take over the office from former 2016 Republican presidential candidate Gov. Bobby Jindal in January.
After the results were announced, Vitter said he will also not run for re-election to the Senate.
Vitter entered the race as the early favorite amid a field of lesser known and lesser funded candidates, including state Democratic Rep. Edwards. However, after months of attacks, include those about his 2007 prostitution scandal, Vitter barely defeated his two Republican challengers in last month’s open primary and finished second behind Edwards by roughly 14 percentage points.
Edwards thanked voters in a statement late Saturday. He reiterated that Louisiana didn’t belong to a political party, but to all Louisianans.
To be sure, Democrats didn’t expect to win the Louisiana governorship, considering Republicans now control every governorship and state legislature in the Deep South.
And when Vitter entered the race in January 2014 as the frontrunner, he was pulling in tremendous sums of campaign cash and firing up a dominant political machine that he's used to get himself and his allies regularly elected to Louisiana offices.
But the race ultimately shifted to a referendum on Vitter, particularly his 2007 prostitution scandal, in which he apologized for a "serious sin" after he was linked through phone records to Washington's "D.C. Madam."
He's also faced criticism for his campaign tactics, and he's been unable to unify GOP support, which has also hurt his fundraising during the runoff.
In the final days leading up to the election, Vitter sought to rally Republican voters who stayed home in the primary by drawing distinctions with Edwards and making Syrian refugee resettlement an issue in the state campaign. It didn’t work.
Edwards is taking over a state awash in financial problems.
Neither Edwards nor Vitter offered detailed roadmaps for tackling the budget woes, and the general outlines they touted were largely similar in approach.
Rather than a race about the state's deep financial troubles, the contest for governor largely became a referendum on Vitter, who has been in elected office, first as a state lawmaker and then in Congress, for more than 20 years.
The race has also been a slugfest of attack ads and one of the most expensive governor's races in Louisiana history, with at least $30 million spent by candidates and outside groups.
Edwards, who began his gubernatorial bid as a little-known lawmaker from rural Tangipahoa Parish, responded to the spike in Vitter's disapproval ratings with a campaign built on personal integrity, a resume that includes a West Point degree and a tenure as an Army Ranger, and pledges that he'd run a moderate administration built on bipartisanship.
"This election is too critical. The stakes are too high. We cannot have someone who comes from a dysfunctional Washington political environment," Edwards said.
Edwards is the first Democrat elected statewide since 2008 in a state that favors Republicans in those races.

Obama says US 'will not relent' in fight against Islamic State

How many times have you heard him make this statement?

President Barack Obama said Sunday the U.S.-led coalition “will not relent” in the fight against the Islamic State and was confident the terror group would be defeated, insisting the world would not accept the extremists’ attacks on civilians in Paris and elsewhere as the “new normal.”
Speaking at the end of the ASEAN summit in Malaysia, Obama also pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to align himself with the U.S.-led coalition, noting that the Islamic State has been accused of bringing down a Russian airliner last month, killing 224 people.
"He needs to go after the people who killed Russia's citizens," Obama said of Putin
The president was wrapping up a nine-day trip to Turkey and Asia, where he met with Putin on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit.
Despite Russia ramping up its air campaign in Syria against ISIS, Obama said Moscow has focused its attention on the rebel forces fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, a Russian ally. He called on Russia to make a “strategic adjustment” and drop its support for Assad. Obama said violence in Syria will not be stopped as long as Assad is in office. 
"It will not work to keep him in power," Obama said. "We can't stop the fighting." 
Nearly five years of fighting between the Assad government and rebels has created a vacuum that allowed the Islamic State to thrive in both Syria and Iraq. The militant group is now setting its sights on targets outside its stronghold, including the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more.
French President Francois Hollande is scheduled to meet with Obama at the White House Tuesday to discuss ways to bolster the international fight against ISIS. Hollande will then meet with Putin in Moscow.
The discussions about a military coalition to defeat the Islamic State come amid parallel talks about a diplomatic solution to end Syria’s civil war. The violence has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions, sparking a refugee crisis in Europe.
Foreign ministers from about 20 nations agreed last week to an ambitious yet incomplete plan that sets a Jan. 1 deadline for the start of negotiations between Assad's government and opposition groups. Within six months, the negotiations are to establish a "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian" transitional government that would set a schedule for drafting a new constitution and holding a free and fair U.N.-supervised election within 18 months. 
The Paris attacks have heightened fears of terrorism in the West and also sparked a debate in the U.S. about accepting refugees from Syria. It's unclear whether any of the terrorists in the Paris attacks exploited the refugee system to enter Europe, though Obama has insisted that's not a legitimate security threat in the United States. 
"Refugees who end up in the United States are the most vetted, scrutinized, thoroughly investigated individuals that ever arrive on American shores," Obama said.
Still, the House passed legislation last week that would block Syrian and Iraqi refugees from entering the U.S. Democrats in large numbers abandoned the president, with 47 voting for the legislation. Having secured a veto-proof majority in the House, supporters are now hoping for a repeat in the Senate, while Obama works to shift the conversation to milder visa waiver changes that wouldn't affect Syrian refugees. 
Obama has focused his ire on Republicans throughout the trip, harshly criticizing GOP lawmakers and presidential candidates for acting contrary to American values. He took a softer tone Sunday, saying he understands Americans' concerns but urging them not to give into fear. 
He said the Islamic State "can't beat us on the battlefield so they try to terrorize us into being afraid."
Speaking dismissively of the Islamic State's global prowess, Obama said, "They're a bunch of killers with good social media."

ISIS Junior Varsity Team Cartoon

Trump causes firestorm with Muslim registry remarks – but what did he really say?

Donald Trump’s latest media and political firestorm stems from ambiguous answers to a reporter's question: Whether he would support making Muslims register in a national database.
But his comments are not quite as cut-and-dried as the headlines declaring his support for the registry would make them seem. And by Friday, Trump clarified -- on Twitter, his favorite forum for taking on the media -- that he never suggested such a thing.
Trump continued to clarify his comments on Fox News’ “On The Record” telling host Kimberly Guilfoyle late Friday that he was “really responding to a totally different reporter.”
“He was responding to that reporter where basically the suggestion was made and it’s certainly something we should start thinking about but what I want is a watch list, I want surveillance programs,” Trump said. “I want a database for the Syrian refugees that Obama is going to let in.”
Trump told Guilfoyle that letting Syrian refugees into the United States is a “Trojan horse” and that “plenty of problems are going to be caused.”
“We are very, very foolish in this country and we have a lot of problems and the biggest problem we have no leader.”
The headlines started after Yahoo News published an article Thursday based on an interview with the Republican presidential candidate. The reporter apparently asked Trump whether new security measures might involve a database to register Muslims in the U.S.
When he replied, “We’re going to have to — we’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely” including mosques, Yahoo News reported that Trump did not “rule [the database] out.”
He was then asked by CNN whether he would rule out such a database, to which Trump said he “never responded to that question” during the Yahoo News interview.
But a separate exchange with NBC News muddied the picture of his position further.
The reporter initially asked Trump whether there should be a database to track Muslims.
“We should have a lot of systems,” Trump responded, but then went on to tout the importance of a strong border and a border wall. Asked whether he would like to implement that, Trump responded:
“I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.”
That single line was swiftly interpreted in several news stories as Trump’s endorsement of a database for Muslims, in turn prompting a widespread backlash. Some stories even stated that Trump had proposed a “plan” to register Muslims in a database.
However, in the NBC News exchange, Trump appeared to be referring in that single line to border and immigration security measures, because he then said the effect would be, “It would stop people from coming in illegally.”
Yet the reporter went on to ask Trump directly, once again, about a database for Muslims, and Trump did not dismiss the idea.
Instead, when asked how to do it, Trump said: “It would be just good management.”
Asked if those running it would have to go to mosques, he said: “Different places. You sign them up … but it’s all about management.”
Asked for clarification, the campaign referred FoxNews.com on Friday to Trump's latest tweet.
Trump has meanwhile been the subject of heated and bipartisan criticism since the remarks were published.
Hillary Clinton tweeted a link to a New York Times story reporting that Trump said he “absolutely” would require Muslim registration.
"This is shocking rhetoric. It should be denounced by all seeking to lead this country," she tweeted.
Republican candidates also slammed Trump. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called the plan “abhorrent.” Former New York Gov. George Pataki tweeted that the “idea for a Muslim registry is as revolting as it is un-American.”
Ben Carson, meanwhile, reacted to Trump’s comments by saying: "I think we should have a database on everybody ... hopefully we have a database on citizens here."
He then clarified that, “I don't think it's a good idea to treat anybody differently or pick people out based on religion or race."
The notion of a Muslim database also faced ridicule from a constitutional standpoint.
“There are unconstitutional ideas, and then there are ideas that are so patently unconstitutional that they really ought not to even merit a response,” Stephen I. Vladeck, law professor with the American University Washington College of Law, told FoxNews.com.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations also issued a statement condemning Trump for "Islamophobic and unconstitutional" comments.

While DC debates religion, refugees, Iraqi Christians feel Uncle Sam's boot

Amid Washington’s raging debate over refugees and religion, more than two dozen Iraqi Christians who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico in hopes of joining their friends and families are being deported after their bids for religious asylum were rejected.
A total of 27 Chaldean Christians, driven from their homeland by Al Qaeda and ISIS, entered the country in April and May, hoping to join the thriving Iraqi Christian community in and around San Diego. But the door to America is being slammed on the 17 men and 10 women over what their supporters say are technicalities.
“These are families who were split up because of religious persecution, and now the government – which we love – is preventing them from being reunited,” said Fr. Michael Bazzi, of St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Cathedral, in El Cajon. “We wonder why, for thousands of Muslims, the door is open to America, yet Christians are not allowed to come.”

“We wonder why, for thousands of Muslims, the door is open to America, yet Christians are not allowed to come.”
- Fr. Michael Bazzi, St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Cathedral

The Chaldeans are among tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of Christians from Iraq and Syria who have been displaced by fighting and persecuted by Al Qaeda, ISIS and even the Iraqi government. But because some had first gone to Germany before making their way to the border, and in some cases were deemed to not have been forthcoming about it on their applications for religious asylum, they were held at the Otay Detention Center in San Diego since entering the U.S. while their applications were considered.  So far, 22 have been ordered out of the U.S. and the other five are awaiting a likely similar ruling.
“We will continue to seek to remove the ones who have been ordered removed,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack told FoxNews.com.
Not all of those marked for deportation have been sent out of the country yet, and where they will go is not even clear.  As part of any removal operation, ICE must obtain a travel document for the individual they are removing.  Officials say the process can cause delays, sometimes for a very long time. If the country named on an immigration judge’s removal order refuses to accept the individual back, ICE must continue the process, while seeking to find another “safe country.”

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Father Michael Bazzi grew up new Mosul, but came to the U.S. in 1974. He says the Christian community in his homeland has been devastated by Muslim radicals. (PBS.org)

San Diego is home to one of the largest Chaldean populations in the country and several of the 27 were seeking reunification with other family members willing to take them in.
Their supporters say that holding the Iraqi Chaldeans responsible for mistakes made navigating the U.S. immigration bureaucracy is unjust given that the U.S, is currently considering fast-tracking the resettlement of 10,000 mostly Muslim refugees from Syria.
In September, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) introduced the Refugee Resettlement Oversight and Security Act. If enacted, it would help to mandate priority migration of victimized religious factions. But for the Chaldeans awaiting deportation or already deported, it may all be too little, too late.

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An Iraqi child works on a temporary mosaic of Pope Francis' face made from wheat, beans and lentils in Alqosh, a village of some 6,000 inhabitants about 31 miles north of Mosul, northern Iraq. (AP)

President Obama has objected to prioritizing Christians or other religious minorities over Muslims amid the current refugee wave, sparking a major debate with critics. Republicans and Christian leaders say persecuted religions should be afforded extra protection, while some in the GOP also say Islamic terrorists could hide among legitimate Muslim refugees from the Middle East.
“If the particular security threat you are concerned about is jihadist terror, there are no Christian jihadist terrorists,” Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, told FoxNews.com. “But for the purpose of asylum analysis, the question is likelihood of persecution. There is no question that Christians face more persecution in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East than Muslims do. We should acknowledge that Christians are being subjected to genocide and take steps to protect them.”
Although one of the most ancient civilizations in the world, Iraq’s Christian population has fallen from around 1.5 million in 2003 to far below 200,000 now in what many scholars condemn as tantamount to genocide.

Some University of Missouri students want to help choose school's next chancellor, president

Glen Beck

University of Missouri Terrorist?

Some University of Missouri students told the system’s governing body Friday they want some say in deciding who will become the next chancellor and president at the school’s main campus in Columbia and raised the argument the university needs more faculty of color.
The Board of Curators meeting was the first open for student input since protests over the administration’s handling of racial issues and the subsequent resignations of Columbia campus Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin and President Tim Wolfe. The upheaval caused the football team to strike and pushed the university into the national spotlight.
Concerned Student 1950 organizer Shelbey Parnell said the students, faculty and staff should have a role in who will succeed Loftin and Wolfe. Parnell said members of the system’s other campuses also need a voice in picking leaders.
She added that "implementation is worth more than advertisement ploys."
The board invited student input on Thursday, saying members wanted to hear about their experiences. Several students slammed the meeting’s timing, saying it was long overdue and scheduled too close to Thanksgiving, which begins Saturday.
"You should have had this meeting a long time ago," said Timothy Love, a graduate fellow in the English department. He added that he's interested in discussions "that end in effective results."
Chairman Donald Cupps said Friday was the first day board members could meet and that he had not realized the timing of the university break. He said the board has received requests the past few weeks from students wanting to address its members, and the meeting was the result of that.
Other suggestions from students centered on the need for more students of color and the treatment of graduate students. Requests from members of some graduate student organizations included higher stipends, affordable housing, paternity and maternity leave, and adequate health care.

Belgium raises terror alert to highest level in Brussels

Belgium’s capital was placed on a security lockdown as the national crisis center raised its terrorism alert Saturday to its highest level and at least one suspect from the Paris attacks remains at large.
The terrorism alert for Brussels was raised to Level 4, which indicates a “serious and immediate threat.”
Prime Minister Charles Michel said the decision to raise the alert level was taken "based on quite precise information about the risk of an attack like the one that happened in Paris...where several individuals with arms and explosives launch actions, perhaps even in several places at the same time."
Authorities across Europe, the Middle East and Washington are trying to determine how a network of French and Belgian nationalists with links to Islamic extremists in Syria plotted and carried out the deadliest violence in France since World War II – and how many may still be on the loose.
Brussels was home to the suspected organizer of the Nov. 13 terror attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and Belgium has filed charges of “participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization” against three suspects relating to the Paris attacks.
Heavily armed police and soldiers patrolled key intersections of the Belgian capital Saturday morning, a city of more than 1 million that is home to the headquarters of the European Union, the NATO alliance and officers of many multinational corporations. Residents were recommended to avoid gatherings, train stations, airports and commercial districts. Service was halted on the Brussels Metro, as well as on streetcar lines that run underground, and residents were urged to stay indoors.
 In Turkey, authorities detained three suspected Islamic State militants, including a 26-year-old Belgian of Moroccan descent.
The state-run Anadolu Agency said Saturday that the two Syrians and the Belgian national — identified as Ahmet D. — were detained near the Turkish coastal city of Antalya. The private Dogan news agency identified the Belgian as Ahmet Dahmani and said he is suspected of having explored areas in Paris that were targeted in the attacks.
Parisians across the French capital honored the 130 victims Friday night with candles and dancing, marking one week since attackers opened fire on sidewalk cafes and exploded suicide vests at the national stadium and an iconic rock venue.
Prosecutors said Friday that they had determined through fingerprint checks that two of the seven attackers who died in the bloodshed Nov. 13 had entered Europe through Greece, an entry point for many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking asylum in Europe.
The five other attackers who died had links to France and Belgium. One of the seven dead has not been identified, while a manhunt is underway for one suspect who escaped, Salah Abdeslam, 26. French police stopped Abdeslam the morning after Friday's attacks at the Belgian border but then let him go.
French officials said Saturday they could not ascertain for certain whether Abdeslam might be in France or Belgium. His brother Brahim, blew himself up in the Paris attacks.
The suspected ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed in a raid early Wednesday on an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, along with Hasna Aitboulahcen, a 26-year-old woman who officials said had described herself as Abaaoud's cousin. Prosecutors said Friday that a third person was killed in the raid but did not release the identity.
They also said Aitboulahcen had not blown herself up with a suicide vest, as it was initially believed, which suggests the body parts collected in the rubble after Wednesday’s anti-terror raid belonged to a third person who has yet to be identified.
Marking a week since the carnage, some Parisians lit candles and paid tribute to the victims with silent reflection. Others decided that enjoying themselves was the best way to defy the extremists. They sang and danced on Place de la Republique, in the heart of a trendy neighborhood where scores of people were killed, most of them in the attack on the Bataclan concert hall.
Demonstrations have been banned in the city since the attacks, but Parisians have been spontaneously gathering all week outside the restaurants, cafes and concert hall hit in the attacks to leave flowers, light candles or hold quiet vigils.
France's Senate on Friday voted to extend for three months a state of emergency, which expands police powers to carry out arrests and searches and allows authorities to forbid the movement of persons and vehicles at specific times and places. France's lower chamber has already approved the measure.
French President Francois Hollande is also going to Washington and Moscow next week to push for a stronger international coalition against ISIS.