Iranian dissidents seeking meeting with Trump

Trump promises to expand US nuclear capability

President-elect Donald Trump infuriated the Chinese by breaking with years of protocol in accepting a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Now, members of the Iranian opposition are seeking a similar phone call – even a sit-down – with the incoming president, hoping he keeps to his campaign vows to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal and get tough with Tehran.
Fox News has exclusively obtained a letter being presented soon to Trump from a group of influential Iranian dissidents, asking him to follow through on reconsidering the deal, even as President Obama has cautioned against ripping it up.
"During the presidential campaign, we and millions of Iranians followed your forthright objection to the nuclear agreement reached between the Obama administration and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the letter reads. “We sincerely hope that with your election, the new administration and the United States Congress will have the opportunity for the first time to review the regional and international outcomes of that disastrous agreement without any reservations, as was promised to the voters."
Signatories include several former Iranian political prisoners and human rights activists such as former political prisoners Ahmad Batebi and Siavash Safavi, also a member of the Iranian Liberal Students & Graduates.
"We hope under your leadership the United States helps the Iranian people to take back their country from the Islamist gang which has been in charge for the last four decades," they wrote.
Although not party to the letter, The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is widely seen as the most organized opposition group – and also is welcoming engagement with Trump.
"Obviously, the president-elect is preoccupied with forming his Cabinet and laying out a roadmap to meet the challenges his administration will be facing once he is sworn in. But the expectation is that the new administration would pursue a decisive policy vis-à-vis the Iranian regime and impose sanctions, as they relate to Tehran's gross violations of human rights of its citizens as well as its involvement in terrorism, including its role in the bloodbath we have been witness to in Aleppo in recent weeks. Any engagement should be with the Iranian people and not their oppressors," said Ali Safavi, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI.
While the Iranian government calls the group terrorists, the NCRI’s network of supporters in Iran helped the U.S. with intel during the Iraq invasion, and the group also helped expose Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Over the past several years, the pro-Iran nuclear deal lobby led by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) had the Obama administration’s ear. Now, some are now hoping Trump will reach out to the myriad Iran opposition groups, ranging from the Monarchists to the Liberals.
The NCRI has supporters among some in Trump's circle, according to a source close to the Trump campaign and team.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source told Fox News that senior Trump advisers such as Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and former ambassador John Bolton have "very close ties to the strongest component of the Iranian opposition, the NCRI."
"These advisers, though, will be pushing a cooperation with the Iranian opposition to force Iran to cooperate," he said.
It’s unclear whether Trump has any plans to take a meeting with Iran dissidents and groups. The transition team has not responded to a request from Fox News for comment on whether any meetings had been held or scheduled.
The regime likely would be outraged by any such discussions, according to Saeed Ghasseminejad of the Foundation for Defense and Democracies in Washington D.C.
"In the short term [the mullahs] will show some anger and will test the new administration, but in the medium term, they understand the Trump administration is serious and will have to adjust their behavior knowing that [Trump] means business,” Ghasseminejad said. “Meeting with a diverse group of representatives of major opposition parties sends a strong message to the regime and Iranian people that the new administration supports democracy and human rights for Iran."
Lisa Daftari, an Iran and foreign affairs analyst and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, believes it would be a positive move for Trump to meet opposition members from other groups so he can "get an accurate read on the people of Iran."
"In cutting a deal with Iran, President Obama went straight to the mullahs, leaving out the Iranian people,” she said. “It would be a strategically strong move for President-elect Trump to include the Iranian people -- a force of almost 80 million that continues to be the Achilles’ heel of its government."

Ex-campaign aides building pro-Trump 'superstructure' outside White House

President-elect Donald Trump is rewriting the rules of the presidency, but he is stealing a page from his predecessor’s playbook -- with allies creating an outside political operation to communicate and generate support for his agenda.
“It is almost exactly the model used by Obama,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told FoxNews.com. “There is a lot to be said for having people out there fighting for your agenda.”
Serious talk of forming a group modeled after Organizing for America, the network founded in 2009 by President Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe, was sparked earlier this month after Kellyanne Conway raised the issue on Twitter.
“West Wing welcome mat is out, but we need a superstructure like the one Plouffe built,” she tweeted.
Until she joined the administration as counselor to the president -- a move announced Thursday -- Conway looked like a front-runner to head up the so-called “Trump superstructure.” But speaking Thursday with Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo, Conway again advocated for the idea, calling the outside network "incredibly important to help the president in pushing through his legislative agenda and his Cabinet nominees, ultimately his Supreme Court nominees."
THE WEEK IN PICTURES
The "structure" appears to be forming, even if the planning remains in its infancy and Conway is not at the top.
While Gingrich told FoxNews.com he will not be involved with the emerging outside network -- focusing instead on his new mission to develop a strategic plan to shrink and modernize government -- former Trump campaign digital director Brad Parscale confirmed to The Associated Press he was forming a nonprofit focused on “supporting the conservative agenda and what the Trump movement stands for.”
Parscale is not the only former Trump insider to set up shop on the periphery of Trump World.
Former campaign manager and onetime CNN contributor Corey Lewandowski announced this week that he and former Trump campaign strategist Barry Bennett were launching Avenue Strategies, a political consulting firm down the street from the White House.
The firm will cater to clients, but Lewandowski also told "Fox & Friends" he wants to be helpful in advancing Trump’s economic agenda.
Meanwhile, Parscale, who has a firm in San Antonio, Texas, lacks Washington experience but like Lewandowski possesses something more important -- Trump’s trust and an understanding of how the president-elect thinks.
“[Parscale] is a capable political operative who also is someone trusted by the Trump inner circle and understands the uniqueness of the Trump organization and Trump himself,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and former aide to Mitt Romney.
While there is agreement that an external organization is needed, Politico reports there is dissension within the Trump orbit about who should control it.
Williams told FoxNews.com an outside political operation is an important component of a successful administration because it can raise the funds needed to support GOP candidates and also defend the Trump agenda from well-funded liberal groups.
“The president will want to ensure there is an outside organization to support his agenda that won’t cannibalize resources from the established party structure,” he said.
Largely self-financed, Trump did receive support from large donors through the Great America super PAC, the political action committee led by veteran GOP strategist and one-time Reagan aide Ed Rollins. While it's unclear what Rollins plans to do next, the PAC spent nearly $30 million on ads during the campaign, and post-election has concentrated its efforts on raising money to support Trump’s agenda, according to The Washington Post.
Any concerns that big-dollar Republican donors will balk at backing such an effort are misplaced, Gingrich said.
“These people are so delirious that Hillary Clinton was not elected that they will do anything to get on board, particularly with Republicans in control in the House and in the Senate,” he said.
Expectations for such organizations can be high. The Obama-allied OFA came under intense criticism from Democratic insiders after the 2010 midterm elections when Republicans gained 63 seats and the majority in the House. Some Democrats complained the wave was a result of OFA’s decision not to play an active role in the midterms.
Well before the ages of Obama and now Trump, Ronald Reagan also recognized the benefit of having an arm outside the West Wing to rally the grassroots.
Shortly after Reagan’s first successful campaign for the White House, wealthy Republican businessman Lewis E. Lehrman created Campaign for America, which was described at the time as a “nonpartisan civic group banded together in the common interest of building a stronger America.”

Putin reaches out to Trump, while thumping Dems

Putin: Don't blame me for Democrats' election loss

Russian President Vladimir Putin followed up a warm letter to Donald Trump with a more terse message for U.S. Democrats Friday: Don't blame me for your November drubbing.
President-elect Trump on Friday released the Dec. 15 note from Putin, who Democrats blame for tilting the election Trump won against Hillary Clinton, and called it a "very nice letter."
In it, Putin wished Trump "warmest Christmas" greetings and expressed hope that Trump would "bring our level of collaboration on the international scene to a qualitatively new level."
In addition to praising the tone of the letter from Putin, Trump said, "His thoughts are so correct. I hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts, and we do not have to travel an alternate path."
But Putin, in a year-ending address from Moscow Friday, had a different message for Democrats as he offered his analysis of the American political scene.
“Democrats are losing on every front and looking for people to blame everywhere," he said. "They need to learn to lose with dignity.
“The Democratic Party lost not only the presidential elections, but elections in the Senate and Congress. .…Is that also my work?” he said.
He went on to ridicule Democrats for never-say-die efforts to overturn the Nov. 8 presidential election, first by calling for recounts, then trying to get electors to flip.
"The fact that the current ruling party called Democratic has blatantly forgotten the original definition of its name is evident if one takes into consideration unscrupulous use of administrative resource and appeals to electors not to concede to voters’ choice," Putin said, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
THE WEEK IN PICTURES
The former KGB officer even invoked President Ronald Reagan, the staunch anti-communist who worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War in the 1980s.
"I think Reagan would have been glad to see representatives of his party winning everywhere," the president said. "And he would have been happy for the newly elected president [Donald Trump], who was sensitive enough to feel the moods of the society and worked exactly within that paradigm, going to the end, though nobody but you and I believed that he would win."
"Outstanding figures in American history from the ranks of the Democratic Party would likely be turning in their graves. [Franklin D.] Roosevelt certainly would be."
Supporters of defeated Democratic standard-bearer Hillary Clinton have cited alleged Russian “hacking” of the election for her surprising loss on Nov. 8.
Putin moved back his news conference a day to attend the funeral of his ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, who was assassinated at an Ankara art gallery in a brazen public shooting by a Turkish policeman shouting slogans about the war in Syria.

Muslims in the United States Cartoons

Obama ditches registry focused on immigrant men from Muslim countries

The Obama administration announced Thursday it is formally scrapping a once-mandatory registry for immigrant men from predominantly Muslim countries, amid speculation over whether the incoming Donald Trump administration may try to renew it.
The U.S. already had stopped using the program in 2011.
The original National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERs, launched about a year after 9/11, requiring men and boys from a variety of mostly Middle Eastern countries to register with the federal government upon their arrival in the U.S. Registration, which also applied to immigrants from North Korea, included fingerprints and photographs and a requirement to notify the government of any address changes.
But after the Obama administration suspended the program in 2011, the Department of Homeland Security put out a notice Thursday officially removing what it called “outdated regulations” pertaining to the “obsolete” system.
The notice stated:
“DHS ceased use of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) program in 2011 after finding that the program was redundant, captured data manually that was already captured through automated systems, and no longer provided an increase in security in light of DHS’s evolving assessment of the threat posed to the United States by international terrorism. The regulatory structure pertaining to NSEERS no longer provides a discernable public benefit as the program has been rendered obsolete. Accordingly, DHS is removing the special registration program regulations.”
The notice, though, comes amid growing international terror fears and Trump's suggestions that he could ban some Muslim immigrants from the United States. After a truck attack killed 12 in a Christmas market in Berlin this week, Trump told reporters, "You know my plans."
While the registration program had been widely derided by civil libertarians as an effort to profile people based on race and religion, the international terror threat led to multiple calls for tougher policies during the Republican presidential primary race. Trump in particular made a far-reaching and controversial call to temporarily ban Muslim immigrants from coming to the U.S., though he later shifted to focus on temporarily halting immigration from an unspecified list of countries with ties to terrorism.
He also seemed, during the campaign, to open the door to a Muslim registry before backing off that idea to focus more on refugees.
However, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Trump immigration adviser during the campaign, said last month that Trump should renew the DHS database.
Meeting with Trump in New York, Kobach carried a document labeled "Department of Homeland Security Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days." It listed an NSEERS reboot as the top priority. The document was visible in a photograph by The Associated Press.
The list suggested the U.S. government "update and reintroduce" the program for all foreigners from "high-risk" areas.
The president-elect, when asked Wednesday if the attack in Berlin would cause him to evaluate the proposed ban or a possible registry of Muslims in the United States, said "You know my plans. All along, I've been proven to be right, 100 percent correct."
Trump spokesman Jason Miller said the president-elect's plans "might upset those with their heads stuck in the politically correct sand." He added that Trump has been firm on a plan to suspend admission to the U.S. for people "from countries with high terrorism rates" and subject some others to strict vetting.
When the Obama administration abandoned the DHS system in April 2011, it said a newer data collection program would be sufficient to collect biometric information for all foreigners coming into the country. At the time, more than 80,000 foreigners were registered.

Attorney: FBI singling out Chinese-Americans with insider-threat program

The FBI has singled out Chinese-Americans as part of a controversial insider-threat reduction program that has sought to flag alleged efforts to manipulate polygraph tests, according to a leading national security defense attorney.
"The government reacts with this sledgehammer instead of laser precision to determine who would be an insider threat which is very difficult to predict," said Mark Zaid, who has several clients with ongoing disputes involving intelligence agencies including the FBI. "They're sacrificing tons, dozens and dozens of Americans who're doing nothing but their jobs, and the FBI is one of the worst to do this."
Zaid argues the program is flagging potentially innocent people based on a questionable standard.
One of Zaid's clients -- who asked not to be identified for fear of further retaliation – explained how it works. The client said, in their case, an evaluator alleged during a routine polygraph that the FBI employee had used "counter measures" to affect the accuracy of the test.
The National Center for Biotechology Information describes "counter measures" as changes in behavior designed to manipulate the test results. They include the use of a "physical countermeasure (biting the tongue or pressing the toes to the floor) or a mental countermeasure (counting backward by 7) among others."
Tom Mauriello, an adjunct lecturer and laboratory instructor for the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland, further explained that, “No one in the polygraph community has really agreed on a specific definition, but I would say a countermeasure (CM) is the intentional manipulation of the polygraph subject's physiology by the subject with the explicit intent to distort their reactions.”
Agencies have sought to flag the use of “counter measures” amid the fear of an insider threat from China, in the wake of high-profile breaches including the compromise of more than 21 million records at the Office of Personnel Management.
Mauriello said the greatest concern is security-clearance applicants "intentionally trying to beat the test in order to gain access to sensitive and classified information for purposes of espionage, etcetera. That is the person the process is trying to identify, not an overly nervous person who is just trying to pass the test."
But critics suggest ordinary workers are getting caught up in the process. Zaid said once a government employee is accused of countermeasures, it becomes difficult to prove a negative.
"All this device is doing is measuring your breathing, your heartrate, your galvanic sweat response. And it's determining based on that if you're telling the truth or not,” he said. “And it's determining are you telling the truth depending on where your physiological response falls."
Mauriello said there is room for confusion. "It is my opinion that when a subject is being told that they are not passing their polygraph test, their attempt to try to help themselves is being labeled as them using countermeasures rather than them just trying to pass the test," he said.
Asked if the tool is open to abuse, Mauriello emphasized, "I don't think there is any intentional abuse by anyone in the polygraph community in regards to this matter. They are trying to use the polygraph effectively for what it is, just an ‘investigative tool.’ I believe it is a lack of collective understanding and definition of what a countermeasure is and maybe overzealous examiners looking for something that is not there."
After being accused of using countermeasures, the federal employee who spoke with Fox News said they were placed on unpaid leave -- and with a suspended clearance, could not seek other work in the national security sector. Both Zaid and the employee said there is no timeline on when an appeal should be resolved. In the individual's case, the first level of review took more than a year.
"You don't see any leadership inside the agencies or on the Hill to take a look at this. There's still thankfully a small number of cases," Zaid said. "They are on unpaid leave for two or three years. There's no voice for these people. When you look at it you have anything but utter disappointment and sadness and pathetic feelings for how our system works."
Polygraphs are given every five years to most security-clearance holders. As a way to mitigate the risk, some employees are polygraphed on a more frequent basis due to factors such as birth outside the U.S., foreign-born parents, frequent overseas travel or financial trouble.
Fox News was told that about 18 months ago, the FBI changed its procedures, and those accused of countermeasures were given the opportunity to take at least one more polygraph. Whether their clearance was suspended, and they were placed on unpaid leave, was decided on a case-by-case basis.
Fox News asked the FBI for comment on the allegation that the review process was slow, and the use of countermeasures was too subjective. Fox News also asked the bureau if there is publicly available data to test whether Asian Americans are being wrongly singled out.
The FBI did not provide data so the claim could not be tested. An FBI spokesperson told Fox News in a statement: “All employees undergo a periodic reinvestigation to determine whether a person’s continued access to classified information is clearly consistent with national security. The polygraph examination augments the FBI security process as one of many tools utilized when collecting information through investigation for making access eligibility determinations. Such determinations are not based solely on the result of a polygraph examination.”
With his client now in a second year of unpaid leave, Zaid said the issue appears much larger. "As much as we are supposed to be protecting these ethnic groups from discrimination," Zaid said, "once you start seeing that, you have to raise your eyebrows and ask ‘are we racially profiling these individuals’?”

Turkey restricts internet access after release of ISIS video

ANKARA, Turkey –  A monitoring organization says Turkey restricted access to social media websites after the Islamic State group released a video purportedly showing two Turkish soldiers being burned alive.

ISIS released the video late Thursday, which purports to show the killing of two soldiers captured while fighting the militants in or around the northern Syrian town of al-Bab last month.

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Turkish officials have not commented on the video.
Turkey Blocks, an internet monitoring website, said it had detected the "throttling of Twitter and YouTube," affecting many users in Turkey.
Turkey frequently restricts access to social media websites to prevent the spread of graphic images and other material authorities say would harm public order or security.

Israel reportedly asked Trump for help to avoid UN vote on settlements

The Israeli government asked President-elect Donald Trump to apply pressure on the Obama administration and the United Nations to prevent a Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Reuters reported late Thursday.
The news agency, citing a senior Israeli official, reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government contacted "high level" members of Trump's transition team after failing to persuade the Obama administration to veto the resolution. Allowing the resolution to pass would have reignited a dispute with a key Middle Eastern ally in the waning days of Obama's tenure.
The Israeli official told Reuters Obama's intended abstention from the vote was "a violation of a core commitment to protect Israel at the U.N."
Multiple White House officials declined comment on the Reuters report. There was no immediate comment from the Trump transition team.
Hours before the planned Security Council vote, Trump released a statement urging that the U.S. veto the resolution.
"As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations," the statement read, in part. "This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis."
Later Thursday, Trump spoke to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. A transition official told Reuters the two leaders had spoken about the Middle Eastern peace process.
Then, around two hours before the vote was set to take place Thursday afternoon, Sisi abruptly postponed the planned vote on the settlement resolution, which his country had proposed.
The U.S., as a permanent member of the Security Council, has traditionally used its veto power to block resolutions condemning Israeli settlements, even though it sees them as an obstacle to a peace settlement. But in recent weeks, the Obama administration had been especially secretive about its deliberations, which included what one official described as an unannounced meeting between Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this month.
Israel has expressed concern that Obama, who has had an icy relationship with Netanyahu, would take an audacious step in his last weeks in office to revive the peace process, but U.S. officials have said he has nearly ruled out any major last-ditch effort to pressure Israel.
A Security Council resolution would be more than symbolic since it carries the weight of international law. In the past, Obama has refused to endorse anti-Israel resolutions in the council, saying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be resolved through negotiations.
Trump, who takes office in less than a month, has indicated a more sympathetic approach to Israel and appointed an ambassador, David Friedman, who has been a supporter of the settler movement.

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Israel's Netanyahu calls on US to veto UN's anti-settlement resolution

UN's anti-settlement resolution

Published December 22, 2016

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This March 14, 2011 file photo shows a general view of a construction site in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Modiin Illit.  (AP/Oded Balilty, File)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the U.S. to use its veto power to block a United Nations resolution demanding a halt to Israeli settlement activities in Palestinian territory and declares that all existing settlements "have no legal validity" and are "a flagrant violation" of international law.
The draft resolution, circulated by Egypt, also stresses that "the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-state solution" which would see Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side in peace.
The U.S. vetoed a similar resolution in 2011, but it was not immediately clear how U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power would vote Thursday.
The U.N. Security Council has scheduled a 3 p.m. ET meeting to vote on the resolution. The U.S., along with China, France, Great Britain and Russia, is one of five permanent Security Council members with the power to kill any resolution.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said the resolution "will do nothing to promote a diplomatic process, and will only reward the Palestinian policy of incitement and terror."
"We expect our greatest ally not to allow this one-sided and anti-Israel resolution to be adopted by the council," he said.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, has said a cessation of all Israeli settlement activities and an end to its nearly 50-year occupation of Palestinian territory are necessary for a comprehensive peace agreement. Netanyahu has rejected those terms, saying negotiations should take place without conditions.
In September, the international diplomatic "quartet" of Mideast peacemakers called for Israel and the Palestinians to take steps to resume stalled peace talks.
But the gaps between Israeli and Palestinian leaders remain wide, preventing any meaningful talks since 2009.
The draft resolution calls for intensified and accelerated international and regional diplomatic efforts "aimed at achieving, without delay a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."
New Zealand, a non-permanent council member, has been pushing a separate resolution that would set out the parameters of a peace settlement.

Showdown looms between Trump administration, sanctuary cities

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, a major showdown looms between his administration and cities across the country over one of his hallmark campaign issues: illegal immigration.
At the Southern border, agents are on pace to apprehend almost 600,000 illegal immigrants, the highest number in eight years. The surge is coming largely from Central American migrants, far outpacing those from Mexico.
"They're mobilizing because they don't know what tomorrow will bring, but know today they can cross,” said Chris Cabrera, of the National Border Patrol Council.
Many illegal immigrants from Central America indeed have been motivated to make the trek after word traveled under the Obama administration that some could request asylum, claiming a “credible fear” of persecution should they return home.
But another driver is the knowledge that certain major cities offer “sanctuary” protections from deportation. Those same cities are now gearing up to fight on their illegal immigrant residents’ behalf against the incoming president.
In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the creation of the L.A. Justice Fund, a multi-million dollar fund to provide legal assistance to immigrants facing deportation.
“The reason it was important for us to act is we will have a change in government next month,” he said. “We expect there could be actions right away.”
In announcing the fund, Garcetti vowed to fight for the “good and law-abiding immigrants of Los Angeles.” Asked if those with a criminal record would be excluded, however, he said no.
But such cities could be in for a major battle with the Trump administration, following campaign vows to deny federal funds to sanctuary cities.
Texas GOP Rep. John Culberson says federal law prohibits local and state law enforcement from refusing to share immigration status information with federal authorities. He believes the law will give Trump the power to follow through in denying funds to sanctuary cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
“The president can cut off their money at noon on January 20, 2017 if they do not change their sanctuary policy and hand over criminal illegal aliens in their custody to be deported,” Culberson told Fox News.
Culberson, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Department of Justice, added that President Obama’s attorney general not only is aware of the policy, but signed off on tying suspected violations to potential financial penalties.
“I quietly persuaded Attorney General Loretta Lynch to implement this new policy this past July,” he said. “So it’s already done.”
The Immigration Legal Resource Center disagrees, arguing that certain sanctuary policies do not violate federal law.
This gap in interpretation sets up a battle with 100 or so cities that stand to lose substantial federal funds should they refuse to cooperate in the Trump administration’s promised deportation efforts.
The traffic at the border, meanwhile, continues to surge.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that last month alone, agents arrested 7,406 unaccompanied children and 15,573 families from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, a significant surge compared with the same month one year ago, when the agency apprehended 5,604 children and 6,471 families.
Under current policy for those seeking asylum, Border Patrol agents are required to process the immigrants for their day in court, which entitles them to a work permit and a plane or bus ticket to stay with relatives until it’s time to see an immigration judge. The typical wait-time is four to five years and, according to government data, up to 80 percent never show up.
The federal agency that handles deportations is spending, on average, $665 per juvenile to pay for travel to relatives in the U.S. or back home if they’re deported, according to calculations by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a government watchdog group. That puts the current taxpayer cost at roughly $5 million a month.
With monthly apprehensions at a five-year high, border agents say they are slammed.
"We're not a deterrent because they're looking for us, so we can be standing there and [the smuggler will] still send them across," said Texas-based agent Marlene Castro. "It's been a group, and then maybe five minutes later another group, and then half an hour later you'll see another one."

Trump’s Team: Who’s who in president-elect’s Cabinet, White House

President-elect Donald Trump has quickly announced his picks for key Cabinet and White House positions since the November election. The following are his selections so far – Cabinet nominees are subject to Senate confirmation.

Cabinet-level positions

Individuals Trump intends to nominate

Rex Tillerson

Secretary of State

CEO, ExxonMobil

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Rick Perry

Secretary of Energy

Former Texas governor; former Texas agriculture commissioner, two-time presidential candidate

• Trump announces Perry as pick for energy secretary

Ryan Zinke

Secretary of Interior

U.S. representative, Montana; member of House Natural Resources Committee; former Navy SEAL

• Trump announces Rep. Zinke as choice for Interior secretary

James Mattis

Secretary of Defense

Retired Marine general; former commander of U.S. Central Command

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Steven Mnuchin

Secretary of Treasury

Trump campaign finance chairman; former Goldman Sachs partner; Hollywood producer

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Jeff Sessions

Attorney General

U.S. senator, Alabama

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Ben Carson

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital; 2016 candidate for president

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Wilbur Ross

Secretary of Commerce

Investor; former banker

Tom Price

Secretary of Health and Human Services

U.S. representative, Georgia; chairman of House Budget Committee; orthopedic surgeon

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Betsy DeVos

Secretary of Education

Charter school advocate; philanthropist; Republican donor

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Elaine Chao

Secretary of Transportation

Former Labor secretary

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Nikki Haley

U.S. Ambassador to United Nations

Governor of South Carolina

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Andrew Puzder

Secretary of Labor

CEO, CKE Restaurants Inc.

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John Kelly

Secretary of Homeland Security

Retired Marine general; former commander of U.S. Southern Command

Scott Pruitt

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Oklahoma attorney general; former state senator

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Mick Mulvaney

Director of Office of Management and Budget

U.S. representative, South Carolina; former South Carolina state senator and representative

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Linda McMahon

Administrator of the Small Business Administration

Former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment

White House

Individuals Trump has appointed

Reince Priebus

Chief of Staff

Chairman of Republican National Committee

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Michael Flynn

National Security Adviser

Former director of Defense Intelligence Agency; retired Army lieutenant general

Stephen K. Bannon

Chief Strategist

Executive chairman of Breitbart News

Donald McGahn

White House Counsel

Former member of the Federal Election Commission

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Boeing CEO vows to build new Air Force One for less after Trump complaints

The CEO of Boeing told President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday that his company can build a new Air Force One for less than originally quoted -- after Trump complained about the cost.
Earlier this month, Trump made headlines for blasting the company on Twitter for alleged cost overruns with the new fleet of Air Force One planes.
Trump called on the government to cancel the contract and called the supposed $4 billion price tag out of control.
Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg, who met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., addressed the media after the meeting and said, “We’re going to get it done for less than that, and we’re committed to working together to make sure that happens.”
Anthony Scaramucci, a Trump adviser the founder of SkyBridge Capital, tweeted about the price reduction and called it a “big win for taxpayers.”
Trump also met Wednesday with Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Marillyn Hewson after he criticized the cost of its F-35.
"Trying to get the costs down, costs. Primarily the F-35...we're trying to get the cost down. It's a program that's very, very expensive,'' Trump told reporters.

Dumb Democrat Cartoons

BIAS ALERT: Slate switches from defense of Electoral College to calling it a tool of white supremacy

What a difference four years and Donald Trump's victory make for the liberal site Slate.
Slate published a piece in November 2012 called "In Defense of the Electoral College" that lists five reasons why the system, which allows state electors to ultimately select the future president whether or not that person won the popular vote, is actually great for democracy.
Those reasons include the "certainty of outcome" and being able to avoid run-off elections.
Of course, that was published in the wake of President Obama's victory over Mitt Romney. The left-leaning site is singing a very different tune this year.
Slate published a new piece a few days after this year's election calling the Electoral College an "instrument of white supremacy and sexism."
The writer claims that the Electoral College was used to both perpetuate slavery, through the Three-Fifths Clause that was eventually abolished, and delay the advancement of women's suffrage.
How do the folks at Slate justify this about-face?
They don't, of course. But they do encourage readers to embrace the idea of abolishing the Electoral College entirely.

'Next idea?' After Electoral College fail, anti-Trump forces look for new cause

Idiots

A last-ditch effort by die-hard Donald Trump foes to derail the president-elect’s victory in the Electoral College fell flat Monday, leaving the never-Trump movement licking its wounds and looking to 2017 for ways to thwart Trump’s presidency and agenda.
The push to deny Trump the requisite 270 electors and send the election to the House of Representatives seemingly was doomed from the start, though it received significant media attention. In the end, only two Republican electors broke ranks – more defected on the Democratic side from Hillary Clinton.
What comes next for anti-Trumpers isn't entirely clear.
Some are preparing to attack him over his business ties, while the "I" word already is being bandied about.
Liberal filmmaker and activist Michael Moore tried to crowdsource ideas after the Electoral College flop, asking, “He's not president for four and a half weeks. Next idea?”
The Hamilton Electors – the group of electors behind the push to deny Trump 270 votes – published a statement Monday indicating their fight was not over, urging supporters to "stay tuned."
“Hamilton Electors hope this watershed moment will lay the groundwork for the emerging grassroots resistance to Trump’s agenda,” the statement read.
Texas Republican elector Chris Suprun, who voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Monday, hinted that a push for Trump's impeachment could be in the works.
“As a person who has always played fast and loose with the law, Trump will likely be impeached within the first year of his Presidency by responsible Republicans in Congress. For the rest of us Americans, his presence in the Oval Office represents a crisis for the Constitution, the economy and the country,” he said in the statement.
Republican lawmakers and mainstream conservative voices for the most part have indicated they're ready to work with Trump. Some were buoyed by conservative picks in his Cabinet such as Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., for Health and Human Services secretary and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for attorney general.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton, too, signaled immediately after the election that Democrats should give Trump a chance.
But some Trump critics remain, if nothing else, on high alert for any constitutional violations from the Trump presidency.
Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin tweeted Tuesday what he called a “call to action” from Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter. Gerson called on citizens to defend the legislature and judiciary from “any encroachment,” and defend people from “organized oppression, including Muslims and refugees.”
With Trump's inauguration now inevitable, his foes may turn next to battling his Cabinet picks.
Some dissent has been bubbling over the choice of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of State, with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., warning that Tillerson’s relationship with Russia is “a matter of concern for me.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other Democratic allies also are eyeing a fight over Trump’s business interests. Last week, five Democratic senators including Warren announced they would introduce legislation to require Trump to divest assets that could be a conflict of interest, and put them into a blind trust.
Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., Chris Coons, D-Del., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., are all backing the bill, which would deem a violation of conflict-of-interest laws “a high crime or misdemeanor under the impeachment clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
"The American people do not want the President encumbered by conflicts of interest that put him in violation of the Constitution or US law," Cardin said in a statement.
This isn’t the only sign Democratic lawmakers are gearing up for an impeachment threat sometime in the future. Politico reported Wednesday that House Democrats have held a mock hearing on Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest, using staging, television cameras and testimony from witnesses.
The narrative that Trump could run afoul of the Emoluments Clause -- which bars government officials from receiving gifts from foreign states -- is gaining support from some progressive voices.
GQ’s Keith Olbermann said in a video that Trump is a “moving, breathing conflict of interest who will likely be guilty of impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors within hours if not minutes of his inauguration.”
Olbermann went one step further, advising Americans: "Never address Trump as president. He is Trump. Just Trump. Never president."
Former 2000 Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader also wrote an open letter (published in the Huffington Post) earlier this month telling Trump to divest or face impeachment.
“The only appropriate response is to completely divest on December 15 and therefore avoid potentially becoming a walking Article of Impeachment beginning on January 20,” he said.
Republican officials, meanwhile, argue it's time for those fighting his presidency to stand back.
After the Electoral College decision on Monday, RNC Co-Chair Sharon Day said in a statement:
“This historic election is now officially over and I look forward to President-elect Trump taking the oath of office in January. Our unified Republican government will hit the ground running next year so we can deliver real change and make America great again. For the good of the country, Democrats must stop their cynical attempts to undermine the legitimacy of this election, which Donald Trump won decisively in the Electoral College with more votes than any Republican since 1988.”

FBI warrant released in Clinton email case

Judge orders FBI to unseal search warrant against Clinton

A federal court on Tuesday released the search warrant documents filed by the FBI to access a laptop used by disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, revealing new details about why the bureau revisited the email case just days before the presidential election.
The FBI’s earlier investigation found “27 email chains containing classified information” that were exchanged between Clinton and Abedin, and investigators wanted to see what was also on the Abedin-Weiner laptop, according to the government affidavit unsealed Tuesday. That laptop, the FBI noted, “was never authorized for the storage or transmission of classified or national defense information,” according to the application for the warrant, which was partially redacted.
The October re-opening of the Clinton investigation sprung from an unrelated case involving Weiner allegedly sexting with an underage girl. During the course of that inquiry, agents discovered the joint laptop and later found emails addressed to and sent from Clinton.
READ THE DOCUMENTS
U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel on Monday ordered the warrant and accompanying documents released, which he said were secretly filed with the court on Oct. 30.
In the aftermath of Clinton’s Election Day defeat, many of her top supporters – including husband former President Bill Clinton – have publicly blamed FBI Director James Comey for her loss.
“James Comey cost her the election,” Bill Clinton said earlier this month during remarks which were recently published in the Bedford-Pound Ridge Record Review.
Just days after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, Hillary Clinton also took Comey to task. “Our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum,” Clinton said during a Nov. 12 conference call with donors.
Comey was criticized not just for revisiting the case but for announcing that decision, in an Oct. 28 letter to Congress, only to confirm two days before the Nov. 8 vote that the inquiry uncovered no new evidence of wrongdoing.
On Tuesday, Clinton's attorney David Kendall said that the affidavit "highlights the extraordinary impropriety" of Comey's letter, which he called "legally unauthorized and factually unnecessary."
The unsealed search warrant files, however, may help explain why Comey decided to revive the Clinton investigation despite the pending election.
“Out of the 27 email chains, six email chains contained information that was classified as the Secret level at the time the emails were sent, and information in four of those email chains remains classified at that level now,” the application stated.
Agents also were looking “to determine if classified information was accessed by unauthorized users or transferred to any unauthorized systems.”
The affidavit clearly states that the warrant relates to a “criminal investigation” of Clinton, terminology Clinton’s team previously had disputed.