Grassley steps up Clinton email probe, blocks key nominees

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is putting a hold on top State Department appointments -- including the nominee for the department's fourth-highest post -- until he gets the answers he's seeking from a former top aide of Hillary Clinton tasked with helping determine which of the former secretary of state's emails should be made public.
The Iowa Republican -- who also is investigating the special employment status afforded to Clinton confidant Huma Abedin while at State -- has slammed the department for its "continued intransigence and lack of cooperation" throughout the inquiry, which dates back to June 2013. Critics, including Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, have derided the probe as a politically motivated bid to undermine the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign for the White House.
For its part, the State Department says it has responded to Grassley's questions "in 16 formal letters and many briefings, calls and emails," but remains overwhelmed by the volume of requests.
Grassley, who last week released holds on 20 career Foreign Service Officers, is now turning to bigger fish in a bid for leverage to get more cooperation from the department.
He is blocking the nomination of Thomas Shannon to replace Wendy Sherman as under secretary for political affairs, the No. 4 post in the department. In addition, his office told Fox News he has placed holds on the nominations of Brian James Egan for legal adviser and David Malcolm Robinson for assistant secretary for conflict and stabilization operations and coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization.
A hold is procedural tactic senators often employ to extract information or other concessions from the administration. President Obama himself made use of holds as a senator from Illinois, blocking nominations to the EPA during the Bush administration over objections to lead paint regulations.
Grassley’s holds came as he fired off a letter to former Clinton aide Heather Samuelson, posing 19 questions about the process used to screen the emails for the former secretary of state.
He also asked Samuelson what kind of security clearance she had at the time, given that hundreds of Clinton's emails have been shown to contain classified information.
"Given the importance of securing and protecting classified information ... it is imperative to confirm when, how, and why you, and any of your associates, received a security clearance in connection with your work on behalf of Secretary Clinton and whether it was active while you had custody of Secretary Clinton’s emails," Grassley wrote in the letter, first reported by Politico.
"Further, it is imperative to understand your background in determining what is and what is not a federal record, since you apparently played a major role in assisting Secretary Clinton in making a decision as to which emails to delete."
Clinton has come under heavy fire for routing official emails through a personal server during her time as secretary of state. The Democratic front-runner's aides have also faced scrutiny for their roles in determining which messages to turn back over to the agency, which has been slowly making them public under a court order.
Critics have accused Clinton of putting sensitive government information at risk under the arrangement. Separately, the FBI has been investigating whether the setup resulted in the mishandling of classified information.
The State Department insisted it is trying to work with Grassley’s office.
"Over the course of the last several months, the mounting requests from the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee have contained nearly 200 detailed questions and 65 unique document requests," department spokesman Alec Gerlach said in a statement. "The department is committed to working with the committee and providing responses as quickly as possible, but the growing effort needed to accommodate these requests is overwhelming the resources we have available."
A Grassley spokeswoman described the level of cooperation as “sparse.”
Senate Democrats have urged Grassley to drop his objections.
"The senior Senator from Iowa comes to the floor and talks about the proper use of taxpayer resources," Reid, the Democratic leader, said earlier this month. "He should walk into his bathroom and look into the mirror and find out what he’s doing about the proper use of taxpayer resources. He should be willing to tell us about the resources his committee is spending to investigate Secretary Clinton."

Republican donors, operative fueling new anti-Trump ad blitz

Liz Mair, former communications official for the Republican National Committee

Republican donors with links to several presidential candidates – as well as a prominent GOP operative – are pooling their resources in a new effort to go after Donald Trump and keep the party’s presidential front-runner from winning the nomination.
The most recent bid is a reported “guerrilla campaign” led by a group called Trump Card LLC and run by Liz Mair, former communications official for the Republican National Committee.
The group’s goal, according to The Wall Street Journal, is to collect money from anonymous donors to “defeat and destroy” Trump, who has essentially led the GOP presidential field since declaring his candidacy this summer.
Further, the super PAC supporting fellow GOP candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich is planning to air attack ads against Trump in New Hampshire. And, in a sign of the project’s appeal among donors, it is starting to get funding from donors backing candidates other than Kasich.
Fox News has learned that, as of Sunday, 10 new donors pledged money to the group, New Day for America, since a report Thursday on the super PAC’s plans.
The group confirmed most of those donors are supporting other candidates, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Among them, California donor Jeffrey Le Sage told Reuters, which first reported on the new donations, that he wants to help “stand up to Donald Trump.”
Le Sage, a Bush donor, confirmed to Fox News that he donated to the pro-Kasich group.
Some in the so-called Republican establishment and GOP “donor class” fear the party will lose the general election if Trump wins the nomination, arguing his comments and views are alienating Hispanic and black voters.
The relationship between old guard Republicans and Trump, the billionaire, first-time candidate, has been rocky from the start.
Trump’s laments about being treated unfairly by the Republican National Committee and his threats to mount an independent candidacy eventually led him to sign a pledge stating he wouldn’t run as an independent and would support the nominee if he lost.
However, after news broke about the concerted effort to undermine him, Trump hinted he might consider breaking away.
“We'll see what happens,” he said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I have to be treated fairly. … If I’m treated fairly, I’m fine.”
The anti-Trump effort comes as he continues to dominate the polls. The latest Fox News poll showed him with a record 28 percent support from primary voters.
In addition to the pro-Kasich and Trump Card groups, the super PAC associated with the fiscal conservative Club for Growth is trying to raise money to resume anti-Trump ads, after running a reported $1 million worth earlier this year in Iowa.
Trump Card, which would not have to disclose donors, wants $250,000 from the other GOP presidential campaigns to run anti-Trump TV, radio and web ads and to pitch opposition research to local stations in early-voting states.
Mair, who also used to work for the Scott Walker presidential campaign, wrote, “In the absence of our efforts, Trump is exceedingly unlikely to implode or be forced out of the race,” according to a memo obtained by The Journal.
“The stark reality is that unless something dramatic and unconventional is done, Trump will be the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton will become president,” Mair continued.
Trump has threated to sue New Day for America and reportedly said through a spokesman that Mair “worked for Scott Walker and lost her job -- who can blame her?”

Officials investigate whether Paris terror fugitive abandoned mission

The discovery of a suicide vest in a Paris suburb Monday has heightened the possibility that Europe's most wanted man, Salah Abdeslam, abandoned his murderous mission to cause terror in the French capital before fleeing across the border into Belgium.
The vest was found by a street cleaner in a pile of rubble in Chatillon-Montrouge, on the southern edge of Paris and a considerable distance from the sites of the attacks on the Right Bank of the Seine to the north. However, authorities say data from Abdeslam's cell phone placed him in the Chatillon-Montrouge area on the night of the Nov. 13 attacks, which killed 130 people and injured 350 others.
A police official told the Associated Press that the vest contained bolts and the same type of explosives — TATP — as those used by the ISIS attackers. A police source also told Sky News the vest had "the same configuration" as those found with the seven confirmed assailants.
In addition, the theory that Abdeslam originally planned to join the seven other terrorists would match the claim by ISIS that eight people carried out the attacks, not the seven confirmed by the French authorities. The terror group's statement of responsibility also said that simultaneous attacks were carried out in the 10th, 11th and 18th arrondissements, or districts, of the city. In fact, the assaults on sidewalk cafes and the Bataclan concert hall only took place in the 10th and 11th districts, while no attack in the 18th took place.
What remains unclear to investigators is why Abdeslam apparently ditched his mission before leaving France. One theory, advanced by Abdeslam's brother Mohamed, suggests that the would-be bomber simply had second thoughts about his mission at the last moment. Another theory, held by some authorities, holds that Abdeslam abandoned the vest due to a technical problem.

More on this...

• Terror threat paralyzes Brussels

• Belgian authorities on the hunt for Paris attack suspect

Abdeslam is suspected of playing at least a logistical role in the coordinated shooting and suicide bombings on the night of Nov. 13. He has not been seen since a few hours after the attacks, when he managed to cross into his native Belgium in a car with two friends, both of whom have since been arrested.
Salah Abdeslam's brother, Brahim, blew himself up near the Bataclan concert hall during the attacks, injuring 15 other people.
As authorities hunted Abdeslam Tuesday, Brussels entered the fourth day of its lockdown, which closed the city's schools and subway system. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said Monday that despite the continued high-alert level, schools would reopen Wednesday, with parts of the subway system beginning to operate. He did not say when the system would be completely online again.
"We are very alert and call for caution," Michel said. "The potential targets remain the same: shopping centers and shopping streets and public transport."
"We want to return to a normal way of life as quickly as possible," he added.
Belgian authorities have not announced any details of their investigation into potential attacks nor have they released information about four suspects who have been arrested and charged with terrorism-related offenses. These include one suspect who was arrested as part of a sweep that saw 21 people detained since Sunday night. Fifteen of those detainees have since been released.
Also Tuesday, the only person in France facing potential terrorism charges linked to the Nov. 13 attacks was brought before a judge to be either charged or released.
Jawad Bendaoud was taken into custody Nov. 18 moments after giving a television interview in which he acknowledged he had given shelter to two people from Belgium and said he didn't know who they were or what they planned. Among those killed in the apartment raid were Amdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind, a female cousin and an unidentified man.
  In the interview, Bendaoud, 29, told BFM television "I didn't know they were terrorists. I was asked to do a favor, I did a favor, sir."

College Cry baby Cartoon

Down with Wilson, up with Che: Wimpy colleges surrender to lunatic fringe

In a month when Western Civilization has come under renewed attack from jihadists, that other bastion of opposition to the economic and political freedom the West embodies has gone haywire: college campuses.  While it’s tempting to blame precious students who are demanding safe zones and freedom from unwelcome ideas, the real culprits are wimpy college administrators.
The latest chapter of political-correctness lunacy comes from Princeton’s campus, where a group of students staged an illegal sit-in at the offices of university president Eisgruber.  The students were outraged that the man who ran Princeton before becoming our 28^th president in 1913, Woodrow Wilson, was unable to see a century into the future during his life and comply with our contemporary racial sensibilities.  Despite a tenure that made him commander-in-chief during World War I and which fundamentally changed America’s role in the world, aggrieved students now demand safety from buildings and murals bearing Wilson’s name.
Princeton’s Black Justice League also wants a space on campus for “cultural affinity” groups and and a diversity and “cultural competency” training program.(Incidentally, China had a nationwide version of this beginning in 1966.)
Rather than having the trespassing students arrested and expelled, Eisgruber validated their tactics, signing an agreement that could lead to airbrushing Wilson, and which provided amnesty for the law-breaking students.
This is par for course in a year when college administrators have caved in to a loud minority of perpetually aggrieved students.  In the past month, kids at Yale made headlines for demanding administrators make them safe from potentially insensitive Halloween costumes and an email that dared suggest independent thought.  Instead of standing up for free expression and telling students to buck up, Yale’s president, Peter Salovey, gushed to protesters: “We failed you.  I think we have to be a better university. I think we have to do a better job.”
At the University of Missouri, students protested a lack of handholding after alleged racial incidents.  Ultimately, the school’s president was forced out.  In each of these cases, administrators indulged out-of-line students who should have been rebuked.
Administrators aren’t just kowtowing to fringe students in assaulting free speech and political rights, they’re also attacking economic freedom.  A case in point is the University of California at San Diego, which hosts a Marxist collective that can’t pay its bills.
The Che Cafe—named after communist Che Guevara--has graced its location on Scholars Drive at UCSD since 1980, when the self-styled “collective” began operating the music venue.  Its web site promises that, “Working in our co-op/workers’ collective, and learning to cooperate with others in a non-hierarchical setting can be a very valuable experience.”
Other helpful advice includes: “If you do not wish to be shoved by the mosh, do not stand in or next to the mosh.”  Words to live by.
But what about that mosh known as the real world, for which college is supposed to prepare students?  It can be tough out there, with things like laws and bills.  The Che has been brought to the brink of ruin not only by its pay-whatever’s-cool revenue model—a unique idea they oddly never taught us in business school—but also by a demand that it comply with health and fire regulations, including by installing costly sprinklers and alarms that do nothing at all for the radical-chic vibe.
The Che would very much like to keep bumming subsidies from UCSD—effectively seeking a bailout of about $700,000 from taxpayer funds and tuition.  In a moment of sanity, UCSD moved to evict the collective.  In true California style, the matter is now tied up in court.
Don’t blame PC-crazed kids.  It was actually a student-run committee that voted to cut funding for the Che. One of many reasons was a survey that revealed 83% of UCSD students never go to the place.
Nonetheless, even before a ruling from the court, UCSD has indicated it will back down.  In so doing, administrators would join the morally challenged presidents of Yale and Princeton.
At all of these colleges, PC thugs represent just a tiny minority; the vast majority of American students want to use college as a foundation for success and a good life, not a career of indulging grievances.  The real culprits are weak administrators who, rather than pander to the bottom 5% of future alumni, ought to stand up for the political and economic freedom that made America great—and which are crucial to critical reasoning and the attainment of knowledge.
No one expects students not to do stupid things on occasion, like hanging out at a collective or thinking they’re oppressed by a building named by someone who wasn’t culturally sensitive by standards a century after his death.  But it’s time for college administrators to start reflecting the values and judgment of parents and taxpayers who foot the bill for college—and for that matter the silent majority of students who want to learn to succeed in the great nation that pioneered political and economic freedom. 

FOX News Poll: Majorities say call it 'radical Islam,' oppose Syrian refugees

Most American voters believe Islamic terrorists will strike the U.S. soon.  A Fox News national poll released Sunday also finds Democrats and Republicans united against President Obama’s plan to accept Syrian refugees -- as most voters think at least one will be a terrorist who will launch a successful attack here. 
Here are five findings on the war against terrorism.  Voters feel:
-- The U.S. is at war with radical Islam, and Democrats who refuse to call the enemy by that name are doing the wrong thing.
-- Obama has not fought the war against ISIS aggressively enough, and that war is going badly.
-- Terrorism is now the top problem facing the country, and an attack is likely soon.
-- Bringing Syrian refugees into the U.S. is a bad idea, and a religious test would be shameful.
-- Closing Gitmo is wrong, and Obama should not side step Congress to do so.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
Here are the details behind those findings:
Today 66 percent consider the country “at war” with radical Islam, up from 56 percent in January.
The poll asks about Democratic presidential candidates rejecting terms like radical Islam and Islamic terrorists to describe those who committed the Paris attacks. Fifty-six percent think they are doing the wrong thing by refusing to identify clearly the nature of the threat. Thirty-three percent feel Democrats are doing the right thing by being careful not to blame Muslim ideology.
More than 6 in 10 say the U.S. fight against ISIS is going badly (63 percent).  At the same time, voters continue to oppose sending a “significant” number of U.S. ground troops to fight the extremists (42 percent favor vs. 51 percent oppose).  However, opposition is decreasing; it was 37 percent in favor vs. 57 percent opposed in June.
While 26 percent think the actions of the Obama administration have been “about right” in trying to stop ISIS, most -- 65 percent -- say Obama hasn’t been aggressive enough. That includes 39 percent of Democrats, 61 percent of independents and 91 percent of Republicans.
The current situation has pushed the president’s job rating to a low point for the year. Forty percent of voters approve of the job Obama is doing, while 54 percent disapprove. It was 45-50 percent earlier this month. Some of the decline comes from Democrats: 78 percent approve now, down from 84 percent (Nov. 1-3, 2015).  Overall, Obama’s worst rating was 38 approve vs. 56 disapprove in September 2014.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, terrorism now tops the economy as the most important issue facing the country.  Twenty-four percent of voters say terrorism, up from 11 percent in August.  Currently 21 percent say the economy is the top issue, down from 30 percent this summer.  There’s a substantial gap before foreign policy (7 percent), health care (7 percent), immigration (7 percent) and the deficit (5 percent) are mentioned.  Only three percent say climate change is the priority.
Fifty-six percent think it is “very” likely Islamic terrorists will try to attack the United States soon, up from 50 percent who felt that way in January.
Two-thirds of voters -- and nearly half of Democrats -- oppose the administration’s plan for the U.S. to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, and 77 percent think it’s likely at least one of those coming in through this process will be a terrorist who will “succeed in carrying out an attack on U.S. soil.”
Obama says it’s shameful to have a religious test for bringing Syrian refugees into the country -- and 64 percent agree with him. Fewer than one in four says it makes sense to only allow Syrian refugees who are Christian to come to the U.S. (23 percent).

Views by Party
Forty-nine percent of Democrats join majorities of independents (67 percent) and Republicans (86 percent) in opposing Obama’s plan to bring Syrian refugees into the U.S.
By an overwhelming 91-8 percent margin, Republicans think it’s likely a terrorist will sneak in as a refugee and carry out an attack.  Democrats agree that’s a likely scenario -- just by a smaller 62-35 percent margin.
Republicans (37 percent) are nearly four times as likely as Democrats (10 percent) to think a religious test for Syrian refugees makes sense.  Even so, a plurality of Republicans (49 percent) agrees with the large majority of Democrats (81 percent) who feel it’s a shameful idea.

Guantanamo Bay
Two days after the Paris attacks, the White House announced the transfer of five Guantanamo Bay detainees to the government of the United Arab Emirates.  That’s part of the Obama administration’s ongoing plan to close the facility -- a plan that by a two-to-one margin voters think is the wrong course of action (59-31 percent).
Even more voters, 73 percent, oppose Obama bypassing Congress to close the detention center by executive action. That’s widely seen as the only way he could close Gitmo given lawmakers’ opposition.
While a plurality of Democrats thinks closing Gitmo is the right thing to do (48 percent), a slim majority opposes Obama going around Congress to do it (53 percent).
Most say they would not be willing to have Gitmo detainees moved to a prison in their state (68 percent), however, nearly 3 in 10 say they would be (28 percent).
The Fox News poll is based on live telephone interviews (landline and cellphone) with 1,016 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from Nov. 16-19, 2015. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.

California college newspaper creating 'safe space' for minority students

The “safe spaces” fad popular among many progressive college activists is occupying a new piece of real estate: The pages of a student government-funded newspaper.
The official newspaper of California’s Claremont McKenna College announced this month it would be setting aside some of its column inches to give “people of color” an unfiltered voice in the media.
“So for those who don’t feel all the messages of solidarity are enough, or who feel the mainstream media is misguided in representing people of color, or who feel compelled to speak and be heard, we would like to re-purpose its influence by providing a space in next week’s issue for students of color to voice their experiences,” a Nov. 13 editorial in The Student Life stated. “We will proofread, but we will not edit your voice or content.”

"They’re supposed to be neutral, non-partisan"
- Steven Glick

Junior Steven Glick, the publisher of Claremont McKenna’s Independent newspaper the Claremont Independent, told "Fox & Friends" on Sunday he didn’t feel the stance taken by The Student Life’s editorial board was appropriate.
“So with the school paper, they’re school funded, they’re connected to all the students, they’re designed to be a representative of the whole student body, they’re supposed to be neutral, non-partisan,” Glick said. “So for them to take a stand, side with one group on this issue, is not in the boundaries of what this paper should try to be accomplishing with their opinion section.”
On-campus protests related to perceived issues of race resulted in the Claremont McKenna dean stepping down on Nov. 12. The demonstrations, which included hunger strikes, were similar to ones seen around the country recently, most visibly at the University of Missouri, Yale and Ithaca College.
But Glick said student sentiment is far from one-sided and the protest issue has become contentious.
“It’s clearly a very divisive issue on campus; these protests that have been going on and the way they’ve been handled,” Glick said. “We had the dean of Claremont McKenna College forced to resign; we had the junior class president forced to resign as well. And it’s an issue that students have been very divided on. It’s something that, at a school of 1,200 students for Claremont McKenna College, a letter signed by 300 students in criticism of the protests was sent out. So clearly it’s something where the student body is very divided.”
The Student Life’s planned printable “safe space” is just one example of the trend in the Claremont College system.
The Independent posted a screen shot from the Facebook page of the Motley Coffeehouse at Scripps College purportedly advertising an event “only for people of color and allies that they invite.” The posting has seemingly since been deleted. The Independent also highlighted an event by 5C Students of Color Alliance at Pomona College that publicized a restricted meeting space. “As this is a space for students of color, please respect the space as such,” the Facebook post stated.

NJ mayor rips Trump over claim American Muslims celebrated 9/11 attacks

Jersey City Mayor Fulop, Democratic Party

The mayor of a New Jersey city slammed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Sunday after the real estate mogul repeatedly claimed that he saw people cheering the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks across the Hudson River from where the Twin Towers fell.
Trump first told the story Saturday at a rally in Birmingham, Ala., as he pressed the need for greater surveillance, including monitoring certain mosques, in the wake of the Paris attacks.
"I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering," Trump said.
Trump repeated the claim Sunday in an interview on ABC's "This Week" after host George Stephanopoulos explained that police had refuted any such rumors at the time.
"It did happen. I saw it," said Trump. "It was on television. I saw it."
"There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down," he said.
"I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it," he added, "but there were people cheering as that building came down, as those buildings came down. And that tells you something."
A spokeswoman did not respond to a request for clarification Saturday about Trump's comments.
In a statement, Jersey City Mayor Fulop criticized Trump for his statements.
"Trump is plain wrong, and he is shamefully politicizing an emotionally charged issue," said Fulop. "No one in Jersey City cheered on September 11th. We were actually among the first to provide responders to help in lower Manhattan."
Footage of Muslims in Middle Eastern countries cheering news of the attacks were broadcast often on television, but there is no evidence in news archives of mass celebrations by Muslims in Jersey City, which sits right across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan, with clear views of the World Trade Center site.
While rumors have circulated on the internet for years that American Muslims celebrated the attacks in Paterson, New Jersey, police officials and religious leaders denied it at the time.
"Trump needs to understand that Jersey City will not be part of his hate campaign," said Fulop. "Clearly, Trump has memory issues or willfully distorts the truth, either of which should be concerning for the Republican Party."