Obama faces new criticism on refugee program after 2 terror arrests

The arrest of two Iraq-born refugees on terror-related charges has recharged Capitol Hill calls for the Obama administration to pull back on plans to welcome thousands more refugees from Middle East warzones. 
“It is disturbing, though not surprising, that terrorists have succeeded in exploiting our refugee system to come to the U.S. and aid ISIS,” Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said Friday.
Officials announced the arrests on Thursday, in California and Texas; it’s unclear if they’re related.
One of the criminal complaints accused 23-year-old Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, of Sacramento, Calif., of traveling to Syria to fight alongside terrorist organizations and lying to government investigators about it. He originally came to the U.S. from Syria in 2012. Investigators said he discussed plans to return, and wrote that he was "eager to see blood."
Almost simultaneously in Houston, authorities announced the arrest of Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, 24, on charges of attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
Republicans, in Washington and on the campaign trail, seized on the arrests to renew their push for immediate security changes to minimize the risk of ISIS and other fighters exploiting the expanded refugee program.
“While I commend the FBI for their hard work, these arrests heighten my concern that our refugee program is susceptible to exploitation by terrorists,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement. He touted House-passed legislation that would require top security officials to certify to Congress that every refugee accepted is not a security threat.
Smith proposed going further, and temporarily halting “all admission and resettlement of refugees until we can verify that every single ‘gap’ in our security screening has been addressed.”
Smith also is pushing legislation to protect states that refuse to participate in the resettlement program, and to halt the resettlement entirely until the administration submits reports on safety and costs to Congress.
On the campaign trail, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was quick to cite the arrests in calling for changes.
Speaking in Iowa, he called for a retroactive review of all refugees who have come to the United States from what he calls "high-risk countries."
“We need to systematically examine the national security threats,” the Republican presidential candidate said.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, while saying he could not discuss the specifics of the two latest terror-related cases, on Friday defended the refugee program as secure.
“No one’s allowed to short-circuit this system,” Earnest said, adding that refugees are subject to the “most rigorous screening” of anyone entering the U.S. He said this includes a “careful review of biographic and biometric information,” in-person interviews and other steps.
The Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks last year already had complicated the administration’s plans to take in more refugees, particularly from Syria.
Obama wants to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. in 2016 – the decision followed mounting international pressure for the U.S. to do more to shoulder the burden of the refugee crisis that has spilled into countries like Lebanon and Jordan, and nations across Europe. Heart-breaking images of children and families struggling to flee the violence in Syria fueled those calls – but U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have voiced concerns about whether the government can properly vet applicants, particularly from war-torn Syria where effective background checks are difficult to conduct.
Officials at the state level also have tried to fight back against the administration’s plans, and revived their concerns after the two latest arrests.
"This is precisely why I called for a halt to refugees entering the U.S. from countries substantially controlled by terrorists," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. "I once again urge the President to halt the resettlement of these refugees in the United States until there is an effective vetting process that will ensure refugees do not compromise the safety of Americans and Texans."
According to the complaint, Al-Jayab traveled to Syria from Chicago via Turkey in November 2013. He remained in Syria until the following January and fought alongside several terror groups, including Ansar al-Islam, which merged with ISIS in 2014 after Al-Jayab had returned to the United States. He settled in Sacramento following his return to the U.S.
U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner said in a statement that while Al-Jayab posed a potential safety threat, “there is no indication that he planned any acts of terrorism in this country.”
In the Texas case, the indictment of Hardan states that beginning in May 2014, Hardan "did unlawfully and knowingly attempt to provide material support and resources ... training, expert advice and assistance, to a foreign terrorist organization, namely the Islamic State of Iraq."
The indictment claims that Hardan, who arrived in the U.S. in 2009 and became a legal permanent resident in 2011, concealed his association with ISIS on his citizenship application in August 2014 and lied about receiving machine gun training when he was interviewed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Fox News Poll: Sanders up by 13 points in New Hampshire

Bernie Sanders is ahead of Hillary Clinton by a 50-37 percent margin among New Hampshire Democratic primary voters.
That’s according to the latest Fox News poll, released Friday.
Martin O’Malley receives three percent.
CLICK TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
Sanders has increased his advantage over Clinton since mid-November, when he was up by just one point (45-44 percent).
The senator from neighboring Vermont continues to do well among the younger crowd.  Voters under age 45 pick him over Clinton by a 24-point margin (55-31 percent).
Men back Sanders by 23 points, while women give him the edge by seven.
In addition, Democrats in the Granite State would be much more satisfied with Sanders as the party’s nominee: 85 percent would be satisfied with him, while 68 percent would feel the same if Clinton wins.
While 79 percent of Clinton supporters would be happy with Sanders as the nominee, only 56 percent of his supporters would feel that way about a Clinton win.
The Fox News Poll is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R). The poll was conducted January 4-7, 2016, by telephone (landline and cellphone) with live interviewers among a sample of 800 New Hampshire registered voters selected from a statewide voter file.  Results based on the sample of 386 Democratic primary voters have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points. 

Fox News Poll: Trump, Cruz top GOP race nationally

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz lead the pack in the GOP nomination race.  They are also the two candidates Republicans think would be best at reversing Barack Obama’s agenda.
Here are the numbers from the latest Fox News national poll on the 2016 presidential election.
Trump leads with 35 percent among Republican primary voters.  Next is Cruz with 20 percent support -- his personal best in the Fox News poll.
CLICK TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
Marco Rubio is third at 13 percent, while Ben Carson is at 10 percent.  Jeb Bush gets four percent, Carly Fiorina three percent, and Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul each get two percent.
Last month, it was Trump 39 percent, Cruz 18 percent, Rubio 11 percent, and Carson 9 percent (December 16-17, 2015).
Cruz (33 percent) has the advantage over Trump (26 percent) among self-described “very” conservative voters.
The race is much closer among white evangelical Christians: Trump 28 percent vs. Cruz 26 percent.
Almost half of GOP primary voters think Trump (48 percent) would be most effective at reversing Obama’s policies.  That’s more than twice as many as the 21 percent who say the same about Cruz.  Again, Rubio comes in third at nine percent.
Priorities of GOP primary voters have flipped since the Paris and San Bernardino attacks.  Now 43 percent say national security issues will be most important in deciding their vote for the nomination, followed by economic issues at 27 percent.  The last time the question was asked, before those attacks, voters prioritized economic issues over national security (38 percent and 26 percent respectively).
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton commands 54 percent support for the nomination among Democratic primary voters, far outperforming Bernie Sanders at 39 percent.  Martin O’Malley gets 3 percent.
While most Democratic primary voters are satisfied with their candidate choices (62 percent), many wish they had other options (38 percent) -- including 42 percent of Sanders supporters, and even 33 percent of Clinton supporters.
If the two current front-runners were to prevail as their respective party’s nominees, voters would watch both with a high degree of suspicion:  62 percent say Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, and 55 percent think the same of Trump.
Democratic primary voters want the next president to be someone “who knows how to get things done in Washington” (70 percent) rather than someone “who is ready to shake things up in Washington” (28 percent).
Views among Republican primary voters are more divided:  51 percent get things done vs. 45 percent shake things up.

Hypothetical head-to-head matchups
Clinton currently ties or trails the Republicans in each of the possible 2016 matchups tested.
Rubio (50-41 percent) and Cruz (50-43 percent) perform best against the presumptive Democratic nominee.  Rubio has a nine-point advantage and Cruz is up by seven.
Trump tops Clinton by three points (47-44 percent) and Bush ties at 44 percent each.

Pollpourri
Trump accused former President Bill Clinton of having a “terrible record of women abuse.”  Trump claimed that nobody has more respect for women than he does.
Voters don’t see it that way.  By a 50-37 percent margin, voters think Bill Clinton is more respectful of women than Trump.  Women say Clinton is more respectful by 55-31 percent.
Eighty-five percent of Democrats think Clinton is more respectful, while 68 percent of Republicans say Trump is -- including 66 percent of Republican women.  Among independents, 41 percent say Clinton, 34 percent say Trump and another 20 percent think there’s no difference.
Overall, voters are twice as likely to say Bill Clinton’s sex scandals have done more to hurt Hillary’s political career:  46 percent say hurt vs. 21 percent help.  Another 29 percent say they haven’t made a difference.
Men and women are about equally likely to say the scandals have done more to hurt than help.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,006 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from January 4-7, 2016. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters, and 5 points for the Democratic primary voter sample (360) and 4.5 points for the Republican primary voter sample (423).

IRS Cartoon

Public school recruits students to work for Hillary Clinton campaign

A public high school in Maine was caught red-handed trying to recruit students to work on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as a “community service opportunity” – without the knowledge or consent of parents.
Could you imagine the national media firestorm had the school been recruiting for Donald Trump’s campaign?
Students at Marshwood High School in South Berwick received an email from the Clinton campaign – urging them to sign up for positions as unpaid “fellows”.
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“Hillary for New Hampshire is looking for smart, energetic winter fellows who are committed to winning the New Hampshire primary for Hillary Clinton,” read the email from a campaign staffer. “Everyone working on the campaign now started off as a fellow at some point so it is a great way of getting a different skill set whilst helping an important cause.”
Tim and Elita Galvin were furious that their teenage son had received the solicitation – calling it “disingenuous and sneaky.”
“My son didn’t appreciate being targeted by anybody via his school email for a political campaign,” Mrs. Galvin told me. “I’ll be honest – he’s not a fan of Hillary Clinton to begin with. He’s done his homework and he doesn’t like her.”
The Galvins reached out to Paul Mehlhorn, the principal of the high school. They provided me with a copy of his emailed response.
“We often receive information from outside sources regarding opportunities for students to get involved in their communities,” he wrote. “We pass on this information to provide students with ways they may meet the requirement to perform 50 hours of community service to graduate.”
Mehlhorn went on to explain that students are not obligated to volunteer for Clinton’s campaign, “nor does it suggest the school supports a particular political candidate, religious doctrine or branch of military.”
“If other ‘campaigns’ were to seek volunteers, we would pass that on also,” he noted.
The principal went to say that the email solicitation sounded like a great way to have a conversation with their children about understanding their choices in getting involved or not.
As you might imagine, Mr. and Mrs. Galvin were not all that thrilled with the principal’s explanation.
“Politics doesn’t belong there – Republican, Democrat, green, purple, white, whatever,” Mrs. Galvin told me.  It doesn’t belong in the schools. The kids get, we get so much of this -- we get bombarded during the political campaigning season, which now is almost never ending. Those kids should be able to go to school and learn without having that noise around them or targeted at them.”
I reached out to Mary Nash, the superintendent of schools. She told me it was a mistake to send out the email.
She said a school staffer had forwarded the email to students without providing “additional information regarding this community service opportunity.”
However, the intentions were pretty well explained in the email. They wanted minors to pound the pavement for Hillary Clinton.
She directed the principal to send a letter to moms and dads.
“In general, all staff must refrain from sending out any solicitations supporting any non-school organization,” the principal wrote.
Mrs. Galvin said there is absolutely nothing wrong with students getting involved in political campaigns. However, the school overstepped its boundaries.
“If you want to campaign for someone – that’s fine – but that’s between the child and the parents,” she said. ‘That’s not for the campaign to target you at school and it’s not for the school to suggest to you. That’s between you and your parents.”
Well said, Mrs. Galvin.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter@ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.

IRS nixes controversial plan to collect Social Security numbers of charity donors

A wave of complaints forced the IRS on Thursday to withdraw its controversial plan to have nonprofit charities report the Social Security numbers of donors who give just $250 in any given year. 
Under the proposed rule, the IRS would have created a voluntary system for nonprofits to collect and send the IRS personal donor information in their yearly report. The idea was to simplify the process for nonprofits – ranging from traditional charities to churches – and donors alike.
But lawmakers and nonprofits cried foul, and warned even a voluntary program could scare off donors who don’t want to give out their Social Security numbers. Plus there were concerns that nonprofits would need to beef up data security to protect the information from hackers.
A new IRS notice to be published in the Federal Register says that, in the wake of these complaints, the proposal is being pulled.
“The Treasury Department and the IRS received a substantial number of public comments in response to the notice of proposed rulemaking,” the notice said. “Many of these public comments questioned the need for donee reporting, and many comments expressed significant concerns about donee organizations collecting and maintaining taxpayer identification numbers. … Accordingly, the notice of proposed rulemaking is being withdrawn.”
An IRS official confirmed to FoxNews.com that the plan was withdrawn in reaction to the public comments.
The relationship between certain nonprofits and the IRS already suffers from trust issues in the wake of the controversy over officials subjecting conservative groups to additional scrutiny – and data breaches. The reporting proposal revived some of that tension.
“There's a big caution here. There's a big yellow light that should be flashing,” Illinois Republican Rep. Peter Roskam told Fox News last month. “… Number one, the IRS has not demonstrated its capacity to hold this type of information from confidentiality and a security point of view.”
Tea Party Patriots, which had opposed the rule, cheered the latest decision on Thursday.
“This is a huge victory for American democracy, the First Amendment and our grassroots supporters. President Obama’s IRS is abandoning its blatantly heavy-handed regulation to ask charities to disclose the Social Security numbers of donors giving $250 or more annually,” TPP President Jenny Beth Martin said in a statement.
The IRS earlier described some of the pushback as “misimpressions and inaccuracies.”
The agency said the change was proposed in September in part because some taxpayers who were being audited said they lost their donation records – and if charities had a record, it would help them verify deductions.
“[S]ome … organizations and donors were interested in using this option,” the agency said. “This proposal would impose no mandatory changes to existing rules.”
Some were concerned, though, that the voluntary option could eventually become mandatory.
As it stands, nonprofits are required to send any contributor of $250 or more a “contemporaneous written acknowledgement (CWA)” that includes the amount of the donation and any services or gifts received in return. This document is used by the donor when filing for deductions from income taxes.
The proposed rule would have allowed nonprofits to send all that information – along with Social Security numbers – directly to the IRS on a single form.

Eligibility questions causing headaches for Cruz camp, as McCain piles on

A casual jab by Donald Trump over Canada-born Ted Cruz’ eligibility for president has snowballed into a campaign trail headache for the Iowa GOP caucus front-runner.
The Texas senator was born in Calgary, Canada, a fact he’s hardly kept secret. Despite some questions last year about his eligibility to run, legal scholars have said Cruz indeed is a “natural born citizen” and eligible because his mother is American. Plus he renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014.
But Trump, who famously challenged President Obama’s birthplace and eligibility years ago, dredged up the same issue with Cruz earlier this week, warning it could lead to a drawn-out court case.
Cruz tried to brush it off. But other lawmakers – most recently, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. – have kept the questions alive.
McCain, who is not exactly a Cruz ally, needled his Senate colleague in a radio interview with Phoenix-based KFYI. He said Cruz’ case is different from his own situation – McCain was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone.
“I think there is a question. I am not a constitutional scholar on that, but I think it’s worth looking into. I don't think it's illegitimate to look into it," McCain said.
Pelosi, asked about Cruz on Thursday, said it’s a matter for Republicans to decide but added: “I do think there is a distinction between John McCain being born to a family and serving our country in Panama than someone born in another country.”
Following McCain’s interview, Trump tweeted:
The Cruz campaign hit back at McCain Thursday, with communications director Rick Tyler suggesting the senator is just trying to boost Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
“I imagine that the Gang of Eight will stay together and he’ll be for Rubio, so … why not help?” he told Fox News, referencing the 2013 “gang” that worked on an immigration reform bill.
Pro-Cruz super PAC Keep the Promise 1 also said in a statement: "As Cruz rises in the polls, his opponents are looking for anything to stop his momentum. Raising a matter of law shows there is nothing else to attack him on, and that he's gotten into their heads. Let's end these sideshows and get back to talking about who is going to restore peace and prosperity to our nation."
Whether the Canada questions fade or flare from here is an open question.
Trump has claimed he was only posing an “innocent question” when he first discussed Cruz’ eligibility in an interview with The Washington Post. But he’s urged Cruz to get out in front.
“I will say, though, that the Democrats, if they bring a lawsuit on it … you have to get it solved,” Trump told Fox News on Wednesday. “I would like to see Ted do something where maybe he goes in a preemptive fashion into court to try and get some kind of an order because I would not like to see that happen.”
Cruz has tried to stay above the fray.
He initially responded to Trump’s questions with a tweet referencing the episode of “Happy Days” where Fonzie jumps over a shark on water skis, equating it to the Trump campaign “jumping the shark.”
But he was peppered with questions at a press conference Tuesday in Iowa. He wouldn’t criticize Trump directly and tried to turn the tables on the media.
“One of the things the media loves to do is gaze at their navels at hours on end by a tweet from Donald Trump or from me or from anybody else—who cares? Let’s focus on the issues.”
He added, “The best way to respond to this kind of attack is to laugh it off.”
In the past, Cruz supporters have pointed to an article last year in the Harvard Law Review by Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, and Paul Clemente, former solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration.
“There is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a ‘natural born Citizen’ within the meaning of the Constitution,” they wrote.  
The lawyers wrote that the Supreme Court has long used British common law and enactments of the First Congress for guidance on defining a “natural born citizen.”
“Both confirm that the original meaning of the phrase ‘natural born Citizen’ includes persons born abroad who are citizens from birth based on the citizenship of a parent,” they wrote.
For Cruz, the questions might not have gained much steam if not for the fact that Obama and his allies spent years battling allegations from “birthers” that he wasn’t really born in Hawaii.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest invoked that controversy on Wednesday.
“It would be quite ironic if after seven or eight years of drama around the president’s birth certificate, if Republican primary voters were to choose Senator Cruz as their nominee -- somebody who actually wasn’t born in the United States and only 18 months ago renounced his Canadian citizenship,” Earnest said.
GOP candidate and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul also piled on Wednesday, joking on Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade & Friends” that, “I think without question he is qualified and would make the cut to be Prime Minister of Canada.”
He later said, “I am not enough of a legal scholar to say the court will decide one way or another.”

Latest batch of Clinton emails contains 66 more classified messages

The latest batch of emails released from Hillary Clinton's personal account from her tenure as secretary of state includes 66 messages deemed classified at some level, the State Department said early Friday. 
All but one of the 66 classified emails have been labeled "confidential", the lowest level of classification. The remaining email has been labeled as "secret." The total number of classified documents found on Clinton's personal server has risen to 1,340 with the latest release. Seven of those emails have been labeled "secret."
In all, the State Department released 1,262 messages in the early morning hours, making up almost 2,900 pages of emails. Unlike in previous releases, none of the messages were searchable in the department's online reading room by subject, sender or recipient.
Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has repeatedly maintained that she did not send or receive classified material on her personal account. The State Department claims none of the emails now marked classified were labled as much at the time they were sent.
However, one email chain from June 2011 appears to include Clinton giving advice to her top adviser Jake Sullivan about how to send secure information through insecure means.
In response to Clinton's request for a set of since-redacted talking points, Sullivan says, "They say they've had issues sending secure fax. They're working on it." Clinton responds "If they can't, turn into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure."
Another message includes a condolence email from the father of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl following the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
The note from Bob Bergdahl, which was forwarded to Clinton by  Sullivan, reads in part, "Our Nation is stumbling through a very volatile world. The 'Crusade' paradigm will never be forgotten in this part of the world and we force our Diplomats to carry a lot of baggage around while walking on eggshells."
After seeing the email, Clinton directed her assistant Robert Russo to "pls [sic] prepare [a] response." Bowe Bergdahl was freed from Taliban capitivity in May 2014 as part of a prisoner swap. He faces a court-martial for desertion in August.
The State Department made the emails public after failing to meet a court-ordered goal of releasing 82 percent of the 55,000 pages of emails Clinton turned over to the department last year. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday the latest release would bring the department in line with that goal.
The messages had previously been released in batches at the end of each month. A federal judge has ordered that the email release be completed by Jan. 29.
The latest document drop came one day after the State Department was criticized by its independent inspector general for producing "inaccurate and incomplete" responses to public records requests during Clinton's time as secretary of state.
The report underscored inherent problems for public responses to records requests when government employees use a private email account, as Clinton did.
The federal public records law "neither authorizes nor requires agencies to search for federal records in personal email accounts maintained on private servers or through commercial providers" such as Gmail or Yahoo, the report stated. "Furthermore, the [Freedom of Information Act] analyst has no way to independently locate federal records from such accounts unless employees take steps to preserve official emails in department record-keeping systems."