Fiorina: Obama 'delusional' about magnitude of climate change as security threat

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Sunday called President Obama “delusional” to think climate change is the country’s biggest terror threat and criticized liberals and others trying to make a political statement about the recent Planned Parenthood shootings.
“That’s delusional for President Obama, Hillary Clinton or anyone else to say that climate change is the biggest security threat,” Fiorina told “Fox News Sunday.”
Obama has made several speeches in which he has said climate change is “an urgent and growing threat,” including his 2015 State of the Union address in which he said: "No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change."
Fiorina spoke one day before world leaders meet in France to try to reach a global pact to reduce carbon output and about two weeks after 130 people were killed in terror attacks in Paris.
“Terrorists don’t care that we’re going to Paris, other than it provides a target. President Obama is delusional on this,” continued Fiorina, with 3.5 percent of the popular vote and sixth in the GOP primary field of 13, according to the most recent averaging of polls by the nonpartisan website RealClearPolitics.com.
Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, also condemned the fatal attack Friday on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., saying the shooter is “deranged’ and should be tried for murder.
However, she said trying to link the killings to those who support the pro-life movement or oppose Planned Parenthood selling fetal tissue for research is “typical left-wing tactics.”
“The vast majority think what they’re doing is wrong,” Fiorina said.
She also addressed reports that the alleged shooter, Richard Lewis Dear, said “no more baby parts,” an apparent reference to the non-profit research sales.
Fiorina said Planned Parenthood stating recently that it would not long continue the practice “sounds like an indication they were.”

Supreme Court justice blocks Native Hawaiian vote count

HONOLULU –  A U.S. Supreme Court justice on Friday issued a temporary stay blocking the counting of votes in an election that would be a significant step toward Native Hawaiian self-governance.
Justice Anthony Kennedy's order also stops the certification of any winners pending further direction from him or the entire court.
Native Hawaiians are voting to elect delegates for a convention next year to come up with a self-governance document to be ratified by Native Hawaiians. Voting ends Monday.
A group of Native Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians is challenging the election, arguing Hawaii residents who don't have Native Hawaiian ancestry are being excluded from the vote. It's unconstitutional for the state to be involved in a racially exclusive election, they say.
The ruling is a victory on many fronts, said Kelii Akina, one of the Native Hawaiian plaintiffs and president of public policy think-tank Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.
"First, it's a victory for Native Hawaiians who have been misrepresented by government leaders trying to turn us into a government-recognized tribe," he said in a statement. "Secondly, it is a victory for all people of Hawaii and the United States as it affirms racial equality."
Nai Aupuni, the nonprofit organization guiding the election process, is encouraging voters to continue casting votes, said Bill Meheula, an attorney representing the group.
"Reorganizing a government is not easy and it takes the courage and will of the candidates to take the first step to unify Hawaiians," he said in a statement. "Help them by voting now."
Attorneys representing the state have argued that the state isn't involved in the election.
"The state has consistently supported Native Hawaiian self-governance," state Attorney General Doug Chin said in a statement. "This is an independent election that may help chart the path toward a Native Hawaiian government. Today's order does not prevent people from voting in this election. It only places a hold on counting those votes until the Supreme Court determines how to proceed."
Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka spent about a dozen years trying to get a bill passed that would give Native Hawaiians the same rights already extended to many Native Americans and Alaska Natives.
When it became clear that wouldn't happen, the state passed a law recognizing Hawaiians as the first people of Hawaii and laid the foundation for Native Hawaiians to establish their own government. The governor appointed a commission to produce a roll of qualified Native Hawaiians interested in participating in their own government.
Some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit say their names appear on the roll without their consent. The non-Hawaiians in the lawsuit say they're being denied participation in an election that will have a big impact on the state.
The lawsuit points to nearly $2.6 million from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a public agency tasked with improving the wellbeing of Native Hawaiians, as evidence of the state's involvement.
Nai Aupuni is a private, nonprofit corporation whose grant agreement specifies the Office of Hawaiian Affairs won't have any control, Meheula said.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright in Honolulu ruled last month the purpose of the private election is to establish self-determination for the indigenous people of Hawaii. Those elected won't be able to alter state or local laws, he said.
The challengers appealed and also filed an emergency motion to block the votes from being counted. Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the emergency motion, prompting the challengers to appeal to the high court.
The election is a divisive issue among Native Hawaiians. University of Hawaii law professor Williamson Chang is one of about 200 candidates vying for 40 delegate positions representing Native Hawaiians across the state and those living on the mainland. Chang doesn't agree with the process, but said he's running because it's an opportunity to fight federal recognition.
Those who support the election say it's an opportunity to create their own government for the first time since 1893, when American businessmen — backed by U.S. Marines — overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Clinton opened State Department office to dozens of corporate donors, Dem fundraisers

WASHINGTON –  As secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton opened her office to dozens of influential Democratic party fundraisers, former Clinton administration and campaign loyalists, and corporate donors to her family's global charity, according to State Department calendars obtained by The Associated Press.
The woman who would become a 2016 presidential candidate met or spoke by phone with nearly 100 corporate executives and long-time Clinton political and charity donors during her four years at the State Department between 2009 and 2013, records show.
Those formally scheduled meetings involved heads of companies and organizations that pursued business or private interests with the Obama administration, including with the State Department while Clinton was in charge.

The AP found no evidence of legal or ethical conflicts in Clinton's meetings in its examination of 1,294 pages from the calendars. Her sit-downs with business leaders were not unique among recent secretaries of state, who sometimes summoned corporate executives to aid in international affairs, documents show.

But the difference with Clinton's meetings was that she was a 2008 presidential contender who was widely expected to run again in 2016. Her availability to luminaries from politics, business and charity shows the extent to which her office became a sounding board for their interests. And her ties with so many familiar faces from those intersecting worlds were complicated by their lucrative financial largess and political support over the years -- even during her State Department tenure -- to her campaigns, her husband's and to her family's foundation.

In its response to detailed questions from the AP, the Clinton campaign did not address the issue of the candidate's frequent meetings with corporate and political supporters during her State Department tenure. Instead, campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said "Secretary Clinton turned over all of her work emails, 55,000 pages of them, and asked that they be released to the public.áSome of that will include her schedules.áWe look forward to the rest of her emails being released so people can have a greater window into her work at the department."

The State Department turned the Clinton calendars over to AP under the federal Freedom of Information Act earlier this month after censoring many meeting entries for privacy reasons or to protect internal deliberations. The State Department's release of Clinton emails has so far turned up at least 155 planning schedules, called "mini schedules," but they account for about only 7 percent of the 1,159 days covered by those email releases.
Merrill said Clinton was not sent the planning "mini-schedules" every day or when she traveled, "which would account for why you see some on some days and not on others."

The AP found at least a dozen differences between Clinton's planners and calendars involving visits. A June 2010 Clinton planning schedule that the State Department released uncensored shows a 3 p.m. meeting between Clinton and her private lawyer, David Kendall. But Clinton's formal calendar lists the 20-minute session only as "private meeting -- secretary's office," omitting Kendall's name.

The Clinton campaign could not explain those discrepancies but said the candidate had made a good-faith effort to be transparent by giving her work-related emails to the State Department for public release.

American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten met Clinton three times, in 2009, 2010 and 2012. She saw Clinton for a half hour in October 2009, the same year the union spent nearly $1 million lobbying the government. The union also spent at least $1 million on lobbying in 2010 and 2012.

Weingarten's union endorsed Clinton's 2016 presidential bid in July, and Weingarten is on the board of Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting Clinton in 2016. The union has also given $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

PepsiCo Inc. CEO Indra Nooyi also had at least three scheduled contacts with Clinton. In February 2010, Nooyi and General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt met Clinton as part of the State Department's efforts to secure corporate money for an American pavilion in China's Shanghai Expo in May of that year. Nooyi talked twice with Clinton by phone in 2012, a year when PepsiCo spent $3.3 million on lobbying, including talks with State Department officials.

PepsiCo's foundation pledged in 2008 to provide $7.6 million in grants to two water firms as a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. The Clinton charity also listed a PepsiCo Foundation donation of more than $100,000 in 2014, the same year the soda company's foundation announced a partnership under the charity to spur economic and social development in emerging nations.

A PepsiCo spokesman declined to discuss conversations it said its senior leaders may have had.

obama climate change cartoon

Carson says Syrian refugees don't want to come to US

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson finished touring Syrian refugee camps in Jordan Saturday and suggested that camps should serve as a long-term solution for millions, while other refugees could be absorbed by Middle Eastern countries.
“I did not detect any great desire for them to come to the United States," Carson told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Jordan. "You've got these refugee camps that aren't completely full. And all you need is the resources to be able to run them. Why do you need to create something else?"
Carson toured the Azraq camp in northern Jordan under heavy Jordanian security. The tour was closed off to journalists. Carson’s campaign also limited access, not providing his itinerary.
Upon finishing his tour, Carson reiterated his opposition to allowing any Syrian refugees to come to the U.S., saying he didn’t learn anything that gives him confidence in authorities’ ability to screen potential terrorists.
"What I learned is that you're going to get a different answer from everybody depending on what their slant is," he said. "I always oppose doing unnecessary things, particularly dangerous and costly unnecessary things.”
Carson also urged Americans to launch a “humanitarian drive” to raise billions of dollars that officials say is needed to improve the conditions for refugees settled across several countries in the Middle East. Carson told the Associated Press said all the refugees needed is “adequate funding.”
“They were quite willing to stay there as long as it takes before they can get back home."
Carson has often taken a harsh tone when discussing the refugee crisis, including how the U.S. handle resettling the refugees on American soil, amid concerns about terrorists foiling the vetting process.
Last week, he likened blocking potential terrorists posing as Syrian refugees to handling a rabid dog.
He also suggested Saturday that it would be best to absorb Syrian refugees in Middle Eastern host countries, which have given temporary shelter to most of the more than 4 million Syrians who have fled civil war in their country since 2011.
In a separate statement, he described Syrians as "as very hard working, determined people, which should only enhance the overall economic health of the neighboring Arab countries that accept and integrate them into the general population."
And he broadened his call for financial support beyond Americans: "The humanitarian crisis presented by the fleeing Syrian refugees can be addressed if the nations of the world with resources would provide financial and material support to the aforementioned countries as well as encouragement."
More than 4 million Syrians fled their homeland since 2011, after a popular uprising erupted against President Bashar Assad and quickly turned into a devastating civil war. Most initially settled in neighboring countries, but conditions there have become increasingly difficult.
Carson and his GOP rivals have criticized the administration’s plan to welcome 10,000 Syrian refugees this budget year.
The retired neurosurgeon has repeatedly struggled to discuss international affairs as they become a greater focus in the 2016 presidential contest.
Those close to him concede his foreign policy fluency isn't yet where it needs to be. And they hope missions like this will help change that.
"I'd say he's 75 percent of the way there," Armstrong Williams, Carson's longtime business manager and closest confidant, said last week of the candidate's grasp of foreign policy. "The world is a complex place, and he wants to get it right."

Obama to Paris for climate summit amid global terror concerns, GOP vow to pull deal money

President Obama arrives Sunday in Paris to finalize a global climate-change pact that if completed would be a legacy-defining part of his presidency. But he awaits challenges at home and abroad, including questions about who will pay for the changes and whether terrorism is a more imminent concern.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans suggested last week that the GOP-led chamber must approve the Paris deal, or it will withhold billions that the U.S. has pledged, as part of the pact, to help poor countries reduces their carbon output.
“Congress will not be forthcoming with these funds in the future without a vote in the Senate on any final agreement as required in the U.S. Constitution,” Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and 36 other GOP senators said in a letter to Obama.
They also made clear that any deal including taxpayer money and a binding timetable on emissions must have Senate approval. And they argue that Obama has already pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund “without the consent of Congress.”
The United Nations talks will take place on the outskirts of Paris, where 130 people were killed roughly two weeks ago in terror attacks, which has also sparked concerns about whether world leaders should now be more focused on stopping terror groups.
Obama said Tuesday at a White House press conference with French President Francois Hollande that the summit will be a “powerful rebuke” to terrorists, including the Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.
“The world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children,” Obama also said.
Still, Paris and the surrounding area will essentially be locked down for the 12-day summit. And climate-change activists have reportedly agreed to cancel a march Sunday, after an appeal from French leaders.
“I have to salute the responsibility of the organizations who would have liked to demonstrate but who understand that if they demonstrate in a public place there is a security risk, or even a risk of panic,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told The Guardian.
About 150 heads of state are set to join Obama for talks on Monday and Tuesday as the deal nears the finish line. The goal is to secure worldwide cuts to emissions of heat-trapping gases to limit the rise of global temperatures to about another 2 degrees from now.
The concept behind a Paris pact is that the 170 or so nations already have filed their plans. They would then promise to fulfill their commitments in a separate arrangement to avoid the need for ratification by the U.S. Senate.
Such dual-level agreement could be considered part of a 1992 treaty already approved by the Senate, said Nigel Purvis, an environmental negotiator in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
But it's not just about whether or not to ratify.
Latin America countries attending the negotiations reportedly will demand that the wealthiest countries and those that pollute the most pay for the reduction of carbon emissions.
In the United States, the talks are entangled in the debate about whether humans really are contributing to climate change, and what, if anything, policymakers should do about it. Almost all Republicans, along with some Democrats, oppose the steps Obama has taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions, arguing they will hurt the economy, shutter coal plants and eliminate jobs in power-producing states.
Half the states are suing the administration to try to block Obama's unprecedented regulations to cut power plant emissions by roughly one-third by 2030. The states say Obama has exceeded his authority and is misusing the decades-old Clean Air Act. If their lawsuit succeeds, Obama would be hard-pressed to deliver the 26 percent to 28 percent cut in overall U.S. emissions by 2030 that he has promised as America's contribution.
Opponents also are trying to gut the power plant rules through a rarely used legislative maneuver that already has passed the Senate. A House vote is expected while international negotiators are in Paris.
And Republicans running for president are unanimous in their opposition to Obama's power plant rules; many say that if elected, they immediately would rip up the rules.
The administration mostly has acted through executive power: proposing the carbon dioxide limits on power plants, which mostly affect coal-fired plants; putting limits on methane emissions; and ratcheting up fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, which also cuts down on carbon pollution.

Trump insists he didn't insult reporter with disabilities, now wants an apology for the accusation

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said again on Saturday that he didn’t mock a New York Times reporter with physical disabilities, but this time called for an apology from the newspaper and said the reporter is taking advantage of the allegation to a “horrible degree.”
“I don't mock people that have problems, believe me,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Sarasota, Fla.
The controversy began last weekend when Trump said at a rally in Alabama that thousands of people in New Jersey celebrated terrorist-hijacked airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, toppling of the World Trade Center towers across the Hudson River in Manhattan.
Trump used a story by the reporter, Serge Kovaleski, then at The Washington Post, that included details about authorities detaining people for such alleged activity.
After Kovaleski essentially said his reporting didn’t justify Trump’s claims, Trump attack him at a rally in South Carolina, apparently imitating Kovaleski by using awkward arm motions and saying, “Uhh, I don’t remember.”
The front-running Trump has since said he never met, or at least doesn’t recall meeting Kovaleski, even after the New York Daily News published a story Friday that appeared to show they met in the late 1980s.
“The reporter took back what he said 14 years ago,” Trump continued Saturday. “Everybody knows it's true that Muslims were cheering. … The Muslims worldwide were celebrating during 9/11. And all of sudden I was mocking somebody?”
To be sure, this is not the first time Trump has faced accusations of mocking people, which now appears to have the Republican establishment and fellow 2016 GOP candidates concerned enough to mount a concerted ad-campaign effort to stop Trump from winning the nomination.
Since announcing his campaign this summer, Trump has in part suggested that the Mexican government is sending “rapists” and “drug dealers” across the border and has called primary rivals Jeb Bush and Ben Carson “low energy.”
Still, the billionaire businessman leads the GOP primary with 27.5 percent of the vote, according to the most recent averaging of polls by the nonpartisan website RealClearPolitics.com. His closest primary challenger, Carson, trails by 7.7 percentage points, according to the website.

Lynch calls Planned Parenthood shooting crime against women

Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood Saturday a crime against women receiving health care services.
Lynch said in a statement the attack was not only a crime against the local community but a crime against law enforcement seeking to protect and to serve, against other innocent people, and against the rule of law as well as Americans’ right to safety and security.
The nation's top law enforcement officer said federal officials stand ready to offer any and all assistance to the district attorney and state and local law enforcement in Colorado as they move forward with their investigation.
Lynch also says her thoughts and prayers are with the shooting victims, including police officer Garrett Swasey. She said Swasey gave his life in order to keep others safe.
Robert Lewis Dear, 57, a North Carolina native, allegedly killed three people, including officer Swasey, and wounded nine others after storming the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. Dear was wearing a trench coat and carrying a rifle.

More on this...

• What's next in Colorado Springs shooting investigation?

• Police: Shooter took suspicious items to Planned Parenthood

• Officials: 3 deaths confirmed in Colorado shooting

Dear surrendered to police following a five-hour siege that included several gun battles with police as patients and staff members took cover under furniture and inside locked rooms.
Although Colorado Springs mayor John Suthers said that authorities weren’t ready to discuss a possible motive for the attack, an unnamed law enforcement official told the Associated Press that Dear apparently made a “no more baby parts” remark following his arrest.
The official said he could not elaborate about the comment, and spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.
Planned Parenthood said late Saturday that witnesses said the gunman was motivated by his opposition to abortion
The attack thrust the clinic to the center of the ongoing debate over Planned Parenthood, which was re-ignited in July when anti-abortion activists released undercover video they said showed the organization's personnel negotiating the sale of fetal organs.
Planned Parenthood has denied seeking any payments beyond legally permitted reimbursement costs for donating the organs to researchers. Still, the National Abortion Federation says it has since seen a rise in threats at clinics nationwide.
The anti-abortion activists, part of a group called the Center for Medical Progress, denounced the "barbaric killing spree in Colorado Springs by a violent madman" and offered prayers for the dead and wounded and for their families.
The regional head of Planned Parenthood Vicki Cowart said Saturday that Dear "broke in" to the clinic but didn't get past a locked door leading to the main part of the facility.
Cowart said there was no armed security on Friday when Dear launched his attack but she defended the level of security in place at the time, saying people going to a health clinic shouldn't have to walk through metal detectors.
Those who knew Dear told the AP Saturday he seemed to have few religious or political leanings. He also was described as a longer who lived in a mountain cabin in the North Carolina woods without electricity or running water.
"If you talked to him, nothing with him was very cognitive -- topics all over place," said James Russell, who lives a few hundred feet from Dear in Black Mountain. A cross made of twigs hung Saturday on the wall of Dear's pale yellow shack.
Neighbors of Dear’s in North Carolina said the man kept mostly to himself and Russell said that two topics he never heard Dear talk about during his ramblings were religion or abortion.
Dear's cabin is a half-mile up a curvy dirt road about 15 miles west of Asheville, N.C. He also had a trailer in the nearby town of Swannanoa.
Other neighbors knew Dear but didn't want to give their names because they said they were fearful he might retaliate, the Associated Press reported.
In the small town of Hartsel, Colorado, about 60 miles west of Colorado Springs, about a dozen police vehicles and fire trucks were parked outside a small white trailer belonging to Dear located on a sprawling swath of land. Property records indicate Dear purchased the land about a year ago.
A law enforcement official said authorities searched the trailer Saturday but found no explosives. The official, who has direct knowledge of the case, said authorities also talked with a woman who was living in the trailer. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.
Dear was in jail Saturday on what officials said were "administrative holds." Charges apparently won't be lodged until he appears in court Monday.