Obama approves guidelines to broaden operation in Afghanistan, officials say

President Obama approved guidelines allowing the Pentagon to target the Taliban in Afghanistan and to conduct air strikes supporting Afghan operations when needed, U.S. officials said Friday.
The move expands on plans originally setup for next year. One U.S. official said the military could only go after the Taliban if it endangered American forces or if it directly supported Al Qaeda.
The U.S. plans to end the American combat mission in Afghanistan and prepare for a much narrower counterterrorism operation in the next two years. Previous plans limited the military to only counterterrorism operations.
"To the extent that Taliban members directly threaten the United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan or provide direct support to Al Qaeda, however, we will take appropriate measures to keep Americans safe," the official said
The Taliban's presence in Afghanistan far exceeds that of Al Qaeda, adding significance to Obama's authorization. The president's came in response to requests from military commanders who wanted troops to be allowed to continue to battle the Taliban, the U.S. officials said.
The New York Times first reported the new guidelines. Officials confirmed details to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss Obama's decisions by name.
The decision to expand authority will not impact the number of U.S. troops that will remain in Afghanistan. The president wants all U.S. troops to be out of Afghanistan a year later, prior to the end of his presidency.
Some of the Obama administration's planning for the post-2014 mission was slowed by a political stalemate in Afghanistan earlier this year. It took months for the winner of the country's presidential election to be certified, delaying the signing of a bilateral security agreement that was necessary in order to keep U.S. forces in the country after December.

Keystone Cartoon

Obama’s speech, ignored by major networks, sparks predictable partisan punditry

The media debate over President Obama’s unilateral action on immigration has been so thunderous that Thursday’s speech almost sounded like an anti-climax.
The president had not only previewed the speech in a Facebook video, he had fresh details leaked to the New York Times Wednesday morning and top White House aides blitzing the airwaves to defend the position he had not yet announced. And the broadcast networks were blowing off the speech, undercutting the notion that this was a major television moment (though it was big as the lead-in to the Latino Grammys, which Univision helpfully postponed in carrying the speech). 
It was a well-delivered address with an emotional ending, as Obama focused on a college student brought here illegally at age 4. But the president spent much of the speech saying what his order was not: It was not amnesty. It did not grant citizenship or permanent residency. It was not an abandonment of border security or deporting criminals. It was not different than what previous presidents have done. The system is broken, and if Congress wants compromise, it needs to pass a bill.
Here is what happened right afterward:
On Fox, Bill O’Reilly interviewed Charles Krauthammer, who said that “I find the president’s audacity here rather remarkable” and that Obama’s message to those seeking legal immigration is that they were “chumps.”
“It becomes somewhat offensive when the president pretends this is about high principle,” Krauthammer said.
On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow echoed what the executive order wasn’t—“It’s not a green card, it’s not permanent residency”—and Chris Hayes said Obama’s refrain of “let’s remember who we are” was “particularly effective.” They then interviewed activist Janet Murguia of the National Council of La Raza.
At the same moment, on CNN, Jay Carney was sounding very much like, well, Obama’s press secretary. “It’s necessary because we have a broken system,” he said, where people “live in the shadows” and “undermine our economic system.” Obama had successfully negotiated a compromise with Senate Republicans, and “I was there.” And “most Republicans in the House are in districts with few Latinos.”
Unfortunately for him, Anderson Cooper played a montage of clips of Obama saying he didn’t have the power to halt deportations.
Carney was on a balanced panel that included Newt Gingrich, who said he thinks Republicans will fight back by refusing to vote on nominations, including Obama’s pick for attorney general.
Other voices emerged. O’Reilly, for instance, conducted a respectful interview with Jose Antonio Vargas, the former Washington Post reporter who now crusades as an illegal immigrant brought to this country when he was 12.
Hayes said that MSNBC had reached out to many congressional Republicans and that none would appear on the network.
Cooper moved on to the monster snowstorm in Buffalo. Television loves extreme weather.
The battle lines were hardened far in advance. On the right, there is anger and consternation that Obama is flouting the Constitution, acting like an emperor, and thumbing his nose at Congress. On the left there is relief that the president is finally acting on illegal immigration and triumphing over Republican obstruction.
On the right, it is amnesty. On the left, it is a temporary path to legalization. On the right, it is dictatorial. On the left, it is a challenge to the Hill to pass a bill.
On the right, Obama is contradicting his repeated statements on not having the legal authority to do this, which is true. On the left, Obama is doing what previous presidents have done, which is sort of true but that was on a much smaller scale and in concert with Congress.
Presidential speeches are usually meant to persuade, but I’m not sure how many people still have open minds in this contentious debate that also defied attempts at reform by George W. Bush (who, by the way, was quoted by Obama). Everyone knew what was coming, and just about everyone—certainly in the media world—had chosen sides.
The fact that ABC, CBS and NBC couldn’t spare 15 minutes from their lucrative prime time—even during sweeps—feels to me like a turning point. Yes, we’ve known forever that they’re primarily in the entertainment business. Yes, they have cut way back on convention and midterm coverage. Yes, Obama’s speech was predictable and partisan.
But it suggests to me that they’ve just collectively punted and said, you want live coverage of big political events, switch over to cable news. And that’s a shift that would have been difficult to imagine a decade ago.

Ferguson police arrest more protesters

Growing unrest in Ferguson led to the arrests of more protesters Thursday night as residents grow wearier ahead of the town’s grand jury decision on whether or not to indict officer Darren Wilson on charges in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Police did not confirm an official tally. The Chicago Tribune reported at least six were arrested.
Protesters blocked the street in front of the police station and taunted police officers until they were pushed back by the officers in riot gear, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A grand jury is expected to return a decision any day now, which is sure to spark a riot in Ferguson. There has not been an official date set for the decision.
As protesters hope for an indictment, a union official told the Associated Press they are not expecting charges to be filed.
"It's fair to say that neither he nor his defense team expect an indictment," Roorda said, offering his impression of the situation based on the meeting with Wilson.
One of Wilson's attorneys, who also attended Thursday's meeting, said there was no specific discussion of expectations.
"We have absolutely no idea -- no more than anyone else -- what may or may not happen," attorney Neil Bruntrager said. "The only expectation that we would have is that the grand jury would be thorough and fair."
For weeks, local and state police have been preparing for a grand jury announcement in anticipation that it will result in renewed protests. Earlier this week, Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to help with security.
Authorities have said Wilson shot Brown, who was unarmed, following some sort of physical confrontation that occurred after Wilson told Brown and a friend to stop walking down the center of a street.
Wilson told authorities that the shooting happened after Brown struggled with him for his gun, according to reports by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York Times that cited unnamed sources. But some witnesses have said Brown had his arms raised -- as if to surrender -- when the fatal shot was fired.

US announces release of 5 Guantanamo prisoners

The Obama administration has released five Guantanamo Bay prisoners after an administration task force determined they no longer posed a threat.
The Department of Defense announced Thursday that three of the men were sent to Georgia and two to Slovakia for resettlement. The Pentagon identified the three now former prisoners resettled in Georgia as Abdel Ghaib Ahmad Hakim, Salah Mohammed Salih Al-Dhabi and Abdul Khaled Al-Baydani. The two sent to Slovakia were Hashim Bin Ali Bin Amor Sliti and Husayn Salim Muhammad Al-Mutari Yafai.
Hakim was the first prisoner from Yemen to be released since 2010. Yemenis make up the majority of men cleared for release because the U.S. is reluctant to send prisoners to the unstable country.
The group was among dozens of low-level prisoners at Guantanamo who were determined to no longer pose a threat by an administration task force in 2009.
Their release brings the total prison population to 143, about 100 fewer than when President Barack Obama took office pledging to close the detention center.
However Obama's vow to close Guantanamo was opposed by many in Congress, and lawmakers imposed restrictions that brought releases to a halt.
Congress eased the restrictions in December, and releases have resumed.  U.S. State Department envoy Clifford Sloan has been trying to persuade countries to accept prisoners and he praised Georgia and Slovakia for their assistance.
"We are very grateful to our partners for these generous humanitarian gestures," Sloan said. "We appreciate the strong support we are receiving from our friends and allies around the globe."
However House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon slammed the releases in a statement Thursday, saying he is concerned former Gitmo detainees will rejoin terror organizations. 
“What the Obama administration is doing is dangerous and, frankly, reckless," McKeon, R-Calif., said. "They have chosen many times to put politics above national security. It’s time they stop playing with fire and start doing what’s right. Until we can assure the terrorists stay off the battlefield, they must stay behind bars."
Georgia took three prisoners from Guantanamo in 2010. Slovakia has now taken a total of eight men from Guantanamo.
 There are now 74 prisoners at Guantanamo cleared and awaiting resettlement. Thirty-six have been designated for detention without charge. There are also 23 slated for prosecution and 10 either facing trial by military commission or have been convicted or sentenced.

Obama heads to Vegas to rally support for immigration overhaul

Determined to go it alone, President Obama will head to Nevada on Friday to sign an executive order granting “deferred action” to two illegal immigrant groups- parents of United States citizens or legal permanent residents who have been in the country for five years, and young people who who were brought into the country illegally as of 2010.
Obama will sign the executive order at the same Las Vegas high school where he unveiled his sweeping blueprint for a national immigration overhaul nearly two years ago. 
Hispanics are a growing and powerful constituency in Nevada and the state serves as fertile ground for the president to rally public support. 
During a 15-minute primetime speech Thursday, Obama said his administration will start accepting applications from illegal immigrants who seek the deferred actions.
Those who qualify will be granted protections for three years, Obama said, as he laid out his sweeping plan to the public Thursday night from the East Room of the White House.
“Mass amnesty would be unfair,” Obama said during the primetime address. “Mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character.”
Obama, who pitched his plan as a “commonsense, middle ground approach,” said “if you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law” but warned “if you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported.”
The president did not specify how many in each "deferred action" group would be granted the new status. According to recent reports, the parental group could involve upwards of 4.5 million immigrants, with those brought into the country illegally making up close to 300,000 new applications. There are an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally.
But Republicans have been quick to criticize and say the executive action is an example of Obama stretching his powers as president.
Even before the speech, conservatives said they were willing to do whatever was necessary to stop Obama’s plan.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who will become the majority leader in January when the new congressional class is sworn-in, said Obama would regret choosing to ignore the will of the American people.
McConnell, who made his statements from the Senate floor Thursday morning, has led the charge against the president and has promised a legislative fight when Republicans take full control of Congress in 2015.
“If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act,” McConnell said.
Utah Rep Jason Chaffetz, who will replace Rep. Darrell Issa as chair of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News that the president’s timing on announcing the plan was “crystal clear.”
“It’s all about politics,” Chaffetz said. “He just got slaughtered in an election.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in an op-ed in Politico Wednesday that if Obama acts, the new GOP majority in the Senate should retaliate by not acting on a single one of his nominees – executive or judicial – “so long as the illegal amnesty persists.”

Republicans ready to do whatever it takes to halt Obama immigration plan

Republicans say they will do whatever it takes to halt a White House plan to use an executive order to prevent millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States from being deported.
Tempers on Capitol Hill have flared to the point where Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., even suggested there might be violence in the streets if President Obama goes through with his plan, which was to be unveiled in a national address at the White House tonight.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in an op-ed in Politico Wednesday that if Obama acts, the new GOP majority in the Senate should retaliate by not acting on a single one of his nominees – executive or judicial – “so long as the illegal amnesty persists.”
Obama has been accused of acting like an emperor with absolute powers, and GOP lawmakers have promised that his actions won’t be met without some sort of political barricade – whether it be at the purse strings, in court, or by filibustering future immigration policy, along with Obama’s nominees. The GOP won enough seats in the midterm elections to take over the majority of the Senate come January, while the House majority grew by 12 seats, giving them a 246-199 advantage over the Democrats, according to the most recent tallies.
“If ‘Emperor Obama' ignores the American people and announces an amnesty plan that he himself has said over and over again exceeds his Constitutional authority, he will cement his legacy of lawlessness and ruin the chances for Congressional action on this issue – and many others,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for Republican House Speaker John Boehner.
According to the plan, the president will use his pen to give “deferred action” status to upwards of four million people, and similar protections to another one million by other means. This means the recipient cannot be deported for at least two years. Immigrants will have to meet certain qualifications and cannot have a criminal record to be eligible.
While such action will not give these immigrants access to federal benefits, like health care tax credits, Medicaid or food stamps, a number of them will be eligible for state services, new federal work permits, and Social Security cards, according to administration officials who have spoken to reporters this week.
The administration and its Democratic backers have argued in recent days that the Republicans’ failure to pass reforms through Congress has forced the president to take action to alleviate the country’s illegal immigration problem. A comprehensive immigration bill passed the Senate in 2013 but has not been taken up by the House since. “We’ve been waiting a year for House Republicans to come to a vote,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.
“We’re confident it would pass with bipartisan support,” he added.
“All Boehner would have to do is bring it up for a vote,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a podcast interview with Univision journalist Fernando Espuelas. But in the meantime, “the president must do this – and he should go big; I want him to go as big as he can.”
If he does, Republicans say there will be equally big trouble.
“This country’s going to go nuts, because they’re going to see it as a move outside the authority of the president, and it’s going to be a very serious situation,” said Coburn in an interview with USA Today. “You’re going to see – hopefully not – but you could see instances of anarchy… you could see violence.”
Republicans see several avenues for stopping the new protections from going forward. They might gum up any appropriations associated with the deferred actions, though it wasn’t clear Thursday what that might be. They might sue the White House in court, though legal scholars differ on whether they would have a case. Texas Gov. Rick Perry said this week that his state, which spends $12 million a year securing the border with Mexico, might sue Obama, too.
Calling the president the “Emperor of the United States,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., suggested that hitting at the funding level might be the first course of action. “Congress should fund the government while ensuring that no funds can be spent on this unlawful action,” he said in a statement Wednesday.
Obama’s move sparked a number of comparisons with monarchies, the Revolutionary War, and tyranny, with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, going so far as to say that not even King George III had such power over the American colonists in 1776. “It is no exaggeration to say the freedom of the American people is at stake,” he said.
Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., predicted doom. “We’re going to be headed for a constitutional crisis that the president’s making,” he told Lou Dobbs on the Fox Business Network on Wednesday. “He’s going to poison this well so much that we’re not going to be able to do the fixes that we really need to do reform the immigration system.”

Sick hit parade: Another Palestinian song praises running over Jews

The hits keep coming in Israel, on the streets as well as the airwaves -- where yet another twisted tune from Palestinians praises the so-called "car intifada," in which Muslim radicals purposely drive into crowds of Israelis.
"Zionist run away, run away Zionist," go the lyrics to the latest song, which is accompanied by a chilling animated video and was first reported in The Jerusalem Post. "You are about to be killed by a car."
The song comes on the heels of another, similarly-themed tune called "Run Over the Settler," which also praises the disturbing trend that began on Oct. 22, when a Palestinian named Abd Al-Rahman Al-Shaloudi slammed his car into a crowded train station in Jerusalem in an apparently intentional act that killed a 3-month-old Israeli-American baby and an Ecuadorean woman in her 20s. It also comes as Israelis reel from a horrific attack Tuesday in a Jerusalem synagogue in which a pair of Palestinian cousins armed with meat cleavers and a gun slaughtered five people as they worshipped, in an incident that was widely celebrated in Palestinian territories.

"Zionist run away, run away Zionist. You are about to be killed by a car."- Hit song in Palestinian territories, celebrating vehicle attacks

The car attacks, coupled with random stabbings that have occurred with frightening frequency in recent weeks, have sparked fears of a new “intifada,” or uprising, in Israel. But in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, the attacks are being glorified in song, and in the words of leaders.
“Run them over, burn the next in line,” goes the song, sung by Anas Garadat and Muhammad Abu Al-Kayed and translated by Palestinian Media Watch. “Don't leave a single settler. Wait for them at the intersection. Let the settler drown in red blood.”
Earlier this month, Palestinian and known Hamas operative Ibrahim Al-Akari rammed a van into a group of pedestrians in Jerusalem, killing a police officer, and on Monday morning, two terrorist attacks occurred hours away from one another. In the first incident, an Israeli soldier died when he was stabbed close to a central Tel Aviv train station. The attacker in the second incident, at a traffic junction in the West Bank, stabbed three people, killing a 26-year-old woman. The victim, Dalia Lemkus, had survived a previous unprovoked stabbing attack at a similar location back in 2006.
In the earlier song, the apparently accidental death of a 2-month-old Palestinian girl is used as justification for the intentional attacks. In that case, the Israeli driver reportedly even called for an ambulance for the stricken child and her brother.
Israeli Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said the attacks have prompted extra measures to safeguard the public.
“Extra police units have been mobilized in different areas with the emphasis on Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, following yesterday’s attack there,” Rosenfeld told FoxNews.com. “We have also stepped up Border Police operations around Palestinian areas such as Nablus, Bethlehem, and Hebron, and there is increased security being implemented on a ground level, including regular patrols and road blocks.”
But stopping Palestinian terrorists from suddenly veering onto sidewalks and striking with easily concealed knives is a daunting task, Rosenfeld acknowledged.
“We’re working both on an intelligence level and an operational level,” Rosenfeld said. “The intelligence level consists of finding potential suspects before they manage to reach the streets, and on an operational level we have larger numbers of undercover officers in public places ahead of time, that can immediately respond and react when necessary.”
He also confirmed that despite the violence of the last few weeks, regular co-operation is continuing between Israeli and Palestinian police.
Not so with Palestinian media and cultural institutions, however. Local newspapers and television programs have used cartoon images to laud the killings, adding fuel to an already combustible situation.

Last week, the Hamas-supported Al Quds University in Jerusalem proudly unveiled an exhibit glorifying Mutaz Hijazi, who attempted to assassinate the controversial Rabbi Yehuda Glick at the Begin Center in Jerusalem on Oct. 29.
Glick, who was shot four times at close range, had been in the forefront of calls for Jews to be allowed to pray freely on the Temple Mount, site of the Golden Dome and Al Aqsa Mosque, and previously of the Second Jewish Temple. Their demands, supported by only a handful of extreme right-wing politicians who have been subjected to heavy criticism in the Israeli media for inflaming religious tensions, seek to change the status quo at the religious site that has existed since Israel gained control of Jerusalem in 1967.
Glick is recovering from his injuries, but Hijazi, a long-standing member of Islamic Jihad, was tracked down by Israeli security services and killed. He is being hailed as a heroic martyr by Palestinian media and by some Palestinian politicians who, in contrast to their Israeli counterparts, appear to be doing little publicly to ease the spiraling situation.
But while Israeli leaders have called for Glick to stifle demands to pray at the sacred site, Palestinian leaders continue to praise violent terrorists. A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently referred to terrorist killers as “heroic martyrs... saturating the land of the homeland with their pure blood and igniting the flames of rage.”

The UN gave millions to Somalia. Where did it go?

EXCLUSIVE: The United Nations for years handed out tens of millions of dollars to non-government organizations involved in humanitarian work in strife-battered Somalia with “no assurance” that the money was used for the intended purposes,” according to a report by the U.N.’s own internal auditing watchdog.
In fact, they concluded, “there was no effective financial monitoring” of the work.
According to the watchdogs, any subcontractors used by the NGOs to help carry out their work were not listed in U.N. agreements, meaning that the U.N. may lack any legal right to find out whether the money it handed over went for the proper purposes. 
And atop all that, the U.N.’s chief humanitarian coordinator, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, lacked any appropriate guidelines for handing out the money in the first place. So instead it handed over more than 80 percent of its project funding in advance of any work done, on a quick-impact emergency basis, a method that the auditors said should be ended “immediately” -- but which apparently is continuing into next year.
Those conclusions vary considerably from what OCHA said at the time about its “accountability” for the money under its care:  that it kept meticulous and carefully supervised records on who was doing what and where, with auditing of all projects to guarantee financial probity, and an elaborate system of reporting on “achievements against planned activities and outcomes.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE OCHA “ACCOUNTABILITY” DOCUMENT
According to the U.N.’s watchdog Office for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), however, that was not the way things were actually working with the Common Humanitarian Fund for Somalia, described as “an important country-level finance tool which provides quick, predictable and strategic funding to U.N. agencies, international and local NGOs working in Somalia.” 
For  at least 2 ½ years, the watchdogs say, the U.N. coordinating agency’s auditing ran far behind schedule on much of the $162 million portion that it managed from the $262 million in the Fund from 2010 through 2013. (Much of the remainder went to other U.N. agencies.)

OCHA handed over more than 80 percent of its project funding in advance of any work done.

In addition, financial reporting requirements for recipients of OCHA’s share of the Fund varied widely, field visits to actually see how work was done were relatively rare, and the performance reports of NGOs who were paid to do the job “could not always be verified.”
According to the U.N. auditors, the coordinating agency’s overall performance as the managing agent for the Fund was “unsatisfactory”— the watchdogs’ highest negative rating, which they blandly say means that “critical and/or pervasive important deficiencies exist” so that  “reasonable assurance cannot be provided with regard to the achievement of control and/or business  objectives under review.”
Translation: problems are big enough that there is no way to tell for sure that the inspected activity is working.
The Common Humanitarian Fund by no means includes all the money that wealthy donor countries, led by the U.S., have sent to Somalia, a country racked for decades by war, terrorism, drought, food supply failures and countless other woes.
In 2013, the year when the U.N. auditors’ examination of the Fund ends, the world gave $714.4 million to Somalia via an OCHA consolidated appeal for various emergencies, with the U.S. aid share amounting to  $184.4 million, or nearly 26 percent.
This year, the U.S. has contributed even more to the same consolidated appeal: $207.6 million, or nearly 38 percent of the total donated so far. Overall, Somalia’s consolidated aid appeal for 2014 is calling for $933 million.
What made the Common Humanitarian Fund different, according to its website, is that it is intended “to support aid agencies in response to the most urgent humanitarian needs” under the direct management of OCHA itself.
Both aspects are a tall order in a country where conditions are often desperate and violent, and where U.N. efforts to provide security programs for the battered citizenry have also suffered from oversight woes made worse by terrorist attacks.
The auditors’ conclusions about the “unsatisfactory” management of the Fund are contained in an internal audit report that was published last August, based on field work that took place a year earlier than that -- an unusually long gestation period.
Perhaps inspired by the auditors’ impending attentions, OCHA’s own concerns about its operations were apparently already percolating. According to the OIOS document, in 2013 -- three years after the Fund was launched -- OCHA started an internal review to determine whether the NGOs it gave money to “had the requisite capacity to receive and manage CHF funds and implement the projects with efficiency and effectiveness.”
Up to that point, according to the auditors, even though key recipients of money “had previously implemented CHF projects,” they had never been asked to provide an assessment of their own capabilities.
The OCHA review of those capabilities, however, mainly amount to a “desk review” of documents submitted by the NGOs, along with opinions offered by clusters of U.N. organizations in Somalia, who all “used the same pool of national and international NGOs” in their work, according to the auditors’ report.
Moreover, OCHA apparently never quite told the participants in its survey everything it was up to. As the auditors put it, “The terms of reference of the review were not shared with participating agencies to ensure that the assessment was comprehensive.”
What the auditors discovered, in fact, was that OCHA never had “specific guidelines” for how it was supposed to hand out money from the Fund, and on what terms, so it simply used rules for emergency handouts—which were never intended for projects running as long (a year or so) as those sponsored by the Fund did.
The quick-and-dirty funding approach gave the green light to handing out 80 percent of project money to recipients up-front, even as the humanitarian coordinator gradually acknowledged that it didn’t have the capability itself to see how well its commissioned projects were faring.
OCHA tried to hire an independent contractor to do that work, but the effort was apparently a fiasco. At the time the auditors had arrived, the coordinating agency was trying to sign up four more contractors to do the same job.
Along with lack of oversight, OCHA apparently got little in the way of financial statements from the NGOs it hired to prove that they had spent the money as the humanitarian agency wanted. According to the auditors, a review of 43 out of 267 projects under the fund’s aegis revealed that none of them had filed certified financial statements about their activities, as required.
Local auditors who had been hired to look at the projects hadn’t provided much insight either. Out of 205 completed Fund projects, only 64 had been audited locally when the investigators arrived. Most of the audits were “desk based,” OIOS noted, and the auditors “did not verify the existence of any activities that took place” under the projects.
In short, “there was no effective financial monitoring of CHF projects,” the watchdogs concluded.
CLICK HERE FOR THE AUDIT
All of that has now changed according to OCHA. In reply to questions from Fox News, the agency reported -- as does the audit -- that the humanitarian coordinator has accepted all OIOS recommendations for improving the situation -- sort of.
All of the backlogged local audits of projects, for example, have been completed, an OCHA spokesman told Fox News. But when it comes to discontinuing its 80 percent up-front payment policy, the agency said, “OCHA is still on track to meet that goal and expects to start rolling out the new policy in the first quarter of 2015.”
Problem is that U.N. auditors recommended that the change occur “immediately,” meaning a still-unknown amount of  time before August 2014, when the audit, with accompanying to-and-fro comments from management, finally appeared after a long period  in the U.N.’s back rooms.
The same goes for “provisions for operational accountability of implementing partners, including the disclosure of main sub-contractors in agreements” -- these are also supposed to take effect in early 2015, OCHA said.
OCHA declined to provide Fox News with a list of all the “implementing partners,” meaning U.N. agencies and non-government organizations that were involved in the Fund’s work during the long, lax period examined by the U.N. audit.
The drawn curtain is necessary “so as not to compromise the security of those partners,” OCHA’s spokesman told Fox News.
Disclosing those beneficiaries of its funding “would be highly irresponsible,” OCHA’s spokesman added. “Somalia remains an extremely difficult and dangerous place for aid workers. Armed groups continue to carry out targeted attacks against aid workers and ongoing military operations disrupt the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”
Yet despite those avowed safety concerns on OCHA’s part, a provisional list of the Common Humanitarian Fund’s projects for 2014 -- including project locations, and the acronyms, and sometimes names,  of implementing partners -- currently appears on the agency’s website.

Gruber's contract with Vermont ends after missteps on ObamaCare pile up

WASHINGTON –  Following an embarrassing string of missteps, Vermont has stopped paying controversial economist Jonathan Gruber for his work on the Affordable Care Act.
A spokesman for Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday that the state would no longer pay the ObamaCare architect.
“As the Governor and I have said, the comments by Mr. Gruber are offensive, inappropriate and do not reflect the thinking of this administration or how we do things in Vermont,” Lawrence Miller, said Wednesday in a statement. “As we have also said, we need solid economic modeling in order to move forward with health care reform.”
Miller continued that he told Gruber, “that I expect his team to complete the work that we need to provide the legislature and Vermonters with a public health care financing plan. I’ve informed Mr. McGruber that we will not be paying him any further for his part in completing that work.”
Gruber’s original contract with the state was worth more than $400,000. He’s already been paid $160,000.
The news about Gruber was made public at an informational session for Vermont’s legislators.
Last week, the state’s Senate Minority Leader, Joe Benning, called on Shumlin to terminate Gruber’s contract following the release of videos showing the MIT professor intentionally deceived the public in drafting the Affordable Care Act.
“I join with my Senate colleague, Sen. Kevin Mullin, in urging the governor to terminate his contract,” Benning, R-Caledonia, told Vermont Watchdog. “If the powers that be attempted to trick them like that, then those people should be immediately removed from positions of authority, be they elected officials or hired contractors.”
Benning is the second member of the Vermont Senate to call for Gruber’s termination. Last week, Mullin, R-Rutland, a member of the Health Care Oversight Committee, told Vermont Watchdog the governor should “terminate his contract immediately.”
Over the weekend, Lawrence Miller, chief of health care reform for the Shumlin administration, announced Gruber would continue to serve as financing consultant for single-payer health care.
According to the contract obtained from the Agency of Administration, Vermont was paying Gruber $400,000 for “policy expertise, research, and economic modeling related to the implementation of Green Mountain Care.” Gruber’s work will be presented to the Legislature on Jan. 15.

'I had promised': Obama to announce executive action on immigration Thursday in primetime speech

President Obama, following through on his vow to sidestep Congress, will announce in a prime-time TV speech Thursday the executive actions he will take to change U.S. immigration law.
Obama will make his announcement, expected to protect roughly 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, from the White House at 8 p.m. EST.
The president will go ahead with his plan despite widespread opposition from Capitol Hill Republicans, who have asked him to wait until next year when the GOP controls the House and Senate to try to reform the country’s broken immigration system.
Obama is also under intense pressure from Hispanics and much of his liberal base to act now, after promising to act by September, then disappointing them by waiting until after the midterms.
Immigration lawyer Margaret Wong released a statement saying that she had been invited to the White House for a holiday party Wednesday night and that Obama had told her "I had promised. I had promised."
"He was actually very proud that he's been able to keep his word," Wong said. 
At least some of the estimated 5 million illegal immigrants who would be spared from deportation are also expected to be made eligible for work permits. But the eligible immigrants would not be entitled to federal benefits -- including health care tax credits -- under the plan, administration officials said Wednesday.
Late Wednesday, the United Farm Workers announced that Obama had told union President Arturo Rodriguez that at least 250,000 unionized farm workers would be eligible for deportation relief, with at least half that eligible number based in California.
The president in 2012 used executive action to delay deportation for some of the millions of young people brought the U.S. illegally by their parents.
House Speaker John Boehner has warned Obama that taking executive action on the immigration issue before January would be tantamount to "playing with fire."
And on Wednesday before the announcement, Boehner aide Michael Steel referred to the president and attempt to govern alone as “Emperor Obama.”
The Democrat-controlled Senate last year passed bipartisan, comprehensive immigration-reform legislation. However, the GOP-controlled House has not passed such a bill.
“We've been waiting for a year for House Republicans to come to a vote,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday. “We're confident it would pass with bipartisan support.”
He also said the president chose to act because the House has indicated it will not address immigration reform in the next Congress.
Congressional Republicans are already working on a strategy to stop Obama from using executive action, including a plan to submit a temporary spending bill that would cut any funding for related efforts like issuing Social Security cards for those to be protected under the Obama change.
The federal government technically runs out of money by December 11. So the president and Congress failing to promptly reach a budget deal could result in a partial government shutdown. However, Republicans have said they do not intend to submit a budget that Obama would veto and result in a shutdown.
"What I'm going to be laying out is the things that I can do with my lawful authority as president to make the system better, even as I continue to work with Congress and encourage them to get a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem," Obama said in a video posted on Facebook on Wednesday.
Obama is scheduled to host a White House dinner before the speech for 18 congressional Democrats to talk about immigration and other second-term priorities, then travel to Las Vegas to tout his changes.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to join the president in his home state of Nevada.
Reid said Tuesday that Obama should take executive action as quickly as possible, a shift from last week when he said the president should wait to act until Congress had completed work on the must-pass spending legislation.
"I believe that when the president decides to do his executive order, he should go big, as big as he can," Reid said, adding that he had spoken with Obama on Monday. "I said he should do something as quickly as he can."
However, other Democrats still want Obama to wait on unilateral action for fear such a move will poison spending-bill negotiations.
"I wish he would let the process work for a few months before he did this," said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana.

Jewish worshippers return to attacked Jerusalem synagogue

JERUSALEM –  Jewish worshippers returned Wednesday to a Jerusalem synagogue that was the scene of a horrific attack that killed five people the day before as Palestinians braced for more punitive home demolitions amid soaring tensions.
At the Kehilat Bnai Torah synagogue in the western neighborhood of Har Nof — attacked Tuesday by two Palestinian cousins wielding meat cleavers, knives and a handgun — people sought comfort in prayer. Those killed included four members of the congregation and an Israeli policeman trying to stop the attack. Israeli security forces killed both assailants in a subsequent shootout.
One of the worshippers, Gavriel Cohen, said Wednesday that the attack showed "that our future in this world is dependent on God."
Also early Wednesday, Israeli security forces demolished the east Jerusalem home of Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi, the Palestinian who killed two people in October in an attack on commuters at a crowded light rail platform in Jerusalem. Al-Shaludi was killed by police after the attack.
The demolition followed angry promises by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would take strict measures to deal with a rising wave of Palestinian attacks that in recent weeks have taken 11 lives — nine in Jerusalem, one in Tel Aviv and one in the West Bank.
Sitting amid the rubble inside the family's destroyed house, al-Shaludi's grandmother said she was proud.
"No one should feel sorry for us, for our demolished home," she said, refusing to give her name for fear of reprisals.
Netanyahu has vowed to revive the controversial policy of home demolitions, which Israel halted in 2005 after determining it wasn't an effective deterrent for attacks.
Much of the recent violence stems from Palestinian anger over stepped-up Israeli visits to a contested holy site in Jerusalem, visits that Palestinians see as a provocation. The site — referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary — is the most sacred place in Judaism and the third holiest site in Islam.

Keystone pipeline bill fails in Senate

A bill to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline failed in the Senate on Tuesday by just one vote, in a setback not only for the energy project but the politically imperiled Democratic senator who pushed the legislation. 
The bill failed on a 59-41 vote. It needed 60 to pass. 
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., had resurrected the legislation ahead of a tough runoff election next month, hoping to show her Washington clout and put Congress on record in support of the pipeline -- even though the White House indicated President Obama would consider vetoing. 
With pipeline backers falling short and the project still stuck in a State Department review process, Republicans already vowed to bring up the legislation in the next session when they have complete control of Congress. 
"This will be an early item on the agenda in the next Congress," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said after the vote. 
Landrieu's intense lobbying effort ultimately wasn't enough to push the legislation through in the lame-duck session. She had been scrambling to corral the needed 60 votes in the final hours of debate, making phone calls and impassioned remarks from the floor.  
The senator was trying to win over Democratic converts to push the pipeline forward, and also help her struggling Senate runoff bid. Landrieu was forced earlier this month into a Dec. 6 runoff against GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy. The House passed its own bill last Friday, with help from Cassidy. 
But while all 45 Senate Republicans backed the Senate bill, Landrieu wasn't quite able to persuade enough Democratic colleagues. 
Landrieu said after the vote that she does not blame anyone in the Senate for the bill's failure, saying it simply proves that "we have to work our muscle a little a more."
"For jobs, for economic opportunity, for independence, for energy independence --- this fight was worth having," she said. 
Her possible road to passage narrowed Monday as Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Carl Levin, D-Mich. -- two potential flips -- reaffirmed they would vote "no." It narrowed even further after Maine independent Sen. Angus King declared Tuesday he would oppose the bill, even though he said he is "frustrated" that Obama has not made a decision. 
Several liberal Democrats actively lobbied against Landrieu on the vote -- Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, for example, blasted an email to supporters on Monday asking them to sign a petition against Keystone. 
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., argued on the Senate floor Tuesday that the project could lead to China-style pollution and other hazards. 
But Landrieu argued that the natural resources are going to be extracted regardless. 
"It's a high-tech, state-of-the-art pipeline that's going to put thousands of people to work," Landrieu said. "This has absolutely nothing to do with climate change." 
The vote nevertheless offers a preview of what is ahead for Obama on energy and environmental issues when the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress next year. 
For six years, the fate of the Keystone XL oil pipeline has languished amid debates over global warming and the country's energy security. The latest delay came after a lawsuit was filed in Nebraska over its route. 
The proposed crude-oil pipeline, which would run 1,179 miles from the Canadian tar sands to Gulf coast refineries, has been the subject of a fierce struggle between environmentalists and energy advocates ever since Calgary-based TransCanada proposed it in 2008.

Gun dealers report brisk sales ahead of Ferguson grand jury decision

Gun dealers in parts of the St. Louis suburbs have reported brisk sales, especially among first-time buyers, as local residents wait for a grand jury decision on whether to indict the Ferguson police officer who fatally shot teenager Michael Brown this past August. 
One shop, Metro Shooting Supplies, located in an area near the city's main airport, reported selling two to three times more weapons than usual in recent weeks — an average of 30 to 50 guns each day.
"We're selling everything that's not nailed down," owner Steven King told the Associated Press. "Police aren't going to be able to protect every single individual. If you don't prepare yourself and get ready for the worst, you have no one to blame but yourself."
The store's waiting list for private lessons and concealed-carry training classes extends into 2015.
Protest leaders say they are preparing for non-violent demonstrations after the grand jury's decision is announced, but they also acknowledge the risk of more unrest if the panel decides not to issue criminal charges against Darren Wilson, the white officer who shot Brown, who was black and unarmed.
Other gun dealers say their sales spikes are comparable to the increases seen soon after Brown's death on Aug. 9.
"I've probably sold more guns this past month than all of last year," said County Guns owner Adam Weinstein, who fended off looters last summer at his former storefront on West Florissant Avenue, the roadway that was the scene of many nightly protests. Weinstein stood guard over his business with an assault rifle and pistol.
The store has since moved out of Ferguson — in part because of concerns about the potential for further violence.
First-time gun owners account for about 60 percent of his recent customers, King said. Among them is Dave Benne, who on Saturday purchased a Smith & Wesson handgun as shoppers swarmed the 8,600-square-foot showroom.
Benne said he's considered buying a gun for some time, but the events in Ferguson, a town that borders his community of Florissant and shares a school district with its neighbor, were the decisive factor.
"Everyone else has one," he said. "I figured I'd better too."
The St. Louis County Police Department reports a sharp increase in the number of concealed-carry permits issued since Brown's death compared with a year ago.
From May through July, the county issued fewer permits compared with the same period in 2013, records show. But from Aug. 1 through Nov. 12, officials issued 600 more permits, including more than twice as many in October as a year earlier. Fifty-three more permits were issued in the first eight business days of November than in all of November 2013.
Police spokesman Brian Schellman said "it would be naive" to say the increase has not been driven by concern over the grand jury decision.
The purchases are not limited to residents. The owner of an online business that sells tactical gear to law-enforcement agencies said his warehouse in the suburb of Chesterfield has been visited by Missouri state troopers and officers from the Department of Homeland Security assigned to help state and local police.
"None of us has ever seen anything quite like this before," said Chad Weinman of Cat5 Commerce, which operates the website TacticalGear.com. "There is an uncertainty in the air that has my entire staff on edge. To say that St. Louis residents are concerned about what will transpire in the coming days is an understatement."
At the Ferguson Wal-Mart, one of more than a dozen stores attacked the night after Brown's death, managers have removed ammunition from shelves as a precaution.
The move to make the ammo less visible apparently did not deter customers. A manager said Monday that the store had sold most of its supply of bullets.

Key ObamaCare official used threats, 'tantrums' to push website launch despite concerns, email claims

A key ObamaCare official engaged in a “cruel and uncaring march” to launch the federal health care website last year and wasn’t open to seeking a delay despite concerns, according to a newly revealed email from her former second-in-command.
The damning email from Michelle Snyder, formerly the No. 2 official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was released to FoxNews.com ahead of a Wednesday House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee hearing on the security and botched rollout of Healthcare.gov. 
In the September 2013 email to Todd Park, the former Chief Technology Officer of the U.S., Snyder characterized her then-boss, CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, as a temper tantrum-throwing, demanding official who vowed the website would launch on time "no matter what." 
Snyder implied that Tavenner had threatened her job if Snyder was unable to deliver.
“Just so you know (Tavenner) decided in January we were going no matter what,” Snyder wrote. “Hence the really cruel and uncaring march that has occurred since January when she threatened me with a demotion or forced retirement if I didn’t take this on.”
Snyder’s words may have been prophetic --- she announced her retirement just a few months later. She told Park that Tavenner did not have a good enough understanding of the risks of launching before the website was ready to fight for a delay. 
“Do you really think (Tavenner) has enough understanding of the risks to fight for a delay --- no and hell no,” she wrote.
She later added: “I appreciate you (sic) belief in the goodness of others but at this point I am too tired to pretend that there is a decision to be made - it is just how much crap my team will have to take if it isn’t sufficiently successful – you haven’t lived through the temper tantrums and threats of the last 9 months.”
Snyder was in charge of the rocky rollout and announced her retirement last December in the midst of the turmoil. Tavenner said at the time that Snyder had actually planned to retire the previous year, but had stayed on in order to help "with the challenges facing CMS in 2013."
The CMS did not respond to an emailed request for comment from FoxNews.com.
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee obtained the email and others through a subpoena to compel Park to testify on how much knowledge he had about security concerns with the website before it launched in October 2013. 
The committee is investigating how much Park and the White House knew about the problems with the website before the launch. 
Park has distanced himself from the website’s problems, telling a House committee last year that he did not “actually have a really detailed knowledge” of the website before the launch and was “not even familiar with the development and testing regimen that happened prior to October 1.”
However, the emails from Park, who briefed the White House on the progress of the website, seem to indicate he had more knowledge of the website than his statements indicate. In the emails, he mentions specific teams, hardware and user targets for the website.
The Wednesday hearing comes after the beginning of the second round of open enrollment for the health care law. The enrollment period began Saturday with few issues compared to the previous period, which was plagued with site outages and other problems.
Committee chairman Rep. Lamar Smith told FoxNews.com in a statement the hearing is especially important because Americans are in the process of signing up for ObamaCare. 
"It’s time for the White House to come clean with the American people about the security of the Obamacare website," Smith, R-Texas, said.

Global Warming Cartoon

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon issues state of emergency ahead of Ferguson grand jury decision

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard Monday in advance of a grand jury decision about whether a white police officer will be charged in the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.
Nixon said the National Guard would assist state and local police as needed, in case there is civil unrest when the grand jury's decision is announced.
There was no indication an announcement is imminent. There is no specific date for a decision to be revealed about whether Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson should face charges for shooting Michael Brown on Aug. 9. The St. Louis County prosecutor has said that he expects the grand jury to reach a decision in mid-to-late November.
Meanwhile, police officials in Ferguson and other cities across America were bracing Monday for possible violence in the wake of the decision, one day after hundreds of people took to the streets of St. Louis briefly to block a major intersection to protest the death of Brown.
Dozens of protesters could be seen lying down in the street outside of a movie theater hosting a film festival, pretending to be shot in an action intended to evoke the memory of Brown, according to Reuters.
"This is a mature movement. It is a different movement than it was in August. Then it just had anger, justifiable anger," DeRay McKesson, a 29-year-old protest leader, told Reuters.
Both protests Sunday, which marked the 100th day of demonstrations, were peaceful.
Residents and officials in the region fear another wave of rioting if the grand jury decides not to indict Wilson.
"We are bracing for that possibility. That is what many people are expecting. The entire community is going to be upset," said Jose Chavez, 46, a leader of the Latinos en Axion community group.
For some cities, a decision in the racially-charged case will, inevitably, re-ignite long-simmering debates over local police relations within minority communities.
"It's definitely on our radar," said Lt. Michael McCarthy, police spokesman in Boston, where police leaders met privately Wednesday to discuss preparations. "Common sense tells you the timeline is getting close. We're just trying to prepare in case something does step off, so we are ready to go with it."
In Los Angeles, rocked by riots in 1992 after the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King, police officials say they've been in touch with their counterparts in Missouri.
"Naturally, we always pay attention," said Commander Andrew Smith, a police spokesman. "We saw what happened when there were protests over there and how oftentimes protests spill from one part of the country to another."
In Las Vegas, police joined pastors and other community leaders this week to call for restraint at a rally tentatively planned northwest of the casino strip when a decision comes.
In Boston, a group called Black Lives Matter, which has chapters in major cities, is organizing a rally in front of the police district office in the Roxbury neighborhood the day after the grand jury's decision.
In Albuquerque, N.M., police are expecting demonstrations after dealing with a string of angry protests following a March police shooting of a homeless camper and more than 40 police shootings since 2010.
Philadelphia police spokesman Lt. John Stanford said he anticipated his city will see demonstrations, regardless of what the grand jury returns.
But big-city police departments stressed they're well-equipped to handle crowds. Many saw large but mostly peaceful demonstrations following the 2013 not-guilty verdict in the case of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed by neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman. In New York, hundreds of protesters marched from Union Square north to Times Square, where a sit-in caused gridlock.
The New York Police Department, the largest in the nation, is "trained to move swiftly and handle events as they come up," spokesman Stephen Davis said.
In Boston, McCarthy said the city's 2,200 sworn police officers have dealt with the range of public actions, from sports fans spontaneously streaming into the streets following championship victories to protest movements like Occupy.
"The good thing is that our relationships here with the community are much better than they are around the world," he said. "People look to us as a model. Boston is not Ferguson."

GAO finds federal health websites not giving Medicare patients enough information

 A congressional investigation has found that federal websites meant to inform Medicare patients about healthcare costs and quality are failing in their mission. 
A report to be released this week by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) find that Medicare lacks clear procedures for getting useful information to consumers.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press before its public release, finds "critical weaknesses" in five consumer-information websites run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that seek to inform how well hospitals, nursing homes, physicians and other Medicare providers are doing.
The GAO said a confusing layout, data gaps and lack of customized information make it virtually impossible for consumers to get the information they need and won't be fixed anytime soon, even as the federal government plans new websites on the quality of hospice, inpatient rehabilitation and long-term care.
It is the latest report to detail problems in the government's health care websites. The Obama administration has already grappled with the technology meltdown experienced last year by HealthCare.gov as well as glitches in the Sept. 30 rollout of data on payments doctors receive from drug companies.
"The GAO report reveals that there is a need to empower patients with better information on health care price and quality," said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., home to the nation's fourth-largest share of residents 65 and older, at roughly 1 in 7. Only Florida, West Virginia and Maine have higher percentages of seniors.
"Armed with the facts, it will be possible for consumers to obtain high quality care and drive down costs," he said.
The GAO cautioned that due to a lack of clear policies or performance measures, CMS will likely continue to have "limited effectiveness in conveying relevant and understandable information on cost and quality to consumers."
It cited a growing need for the information due to rising health care costs.
Jim Esquea, an assistant secretary at the Health and Human Services Department, concurred with the recommendations. He wrote that CMS, an agency of HHS, was planning to expand its star ratings, already in use on its "Nursing Home Compare" website.
He also said HHS was committed to providing detail on estimated out-of-pocket costs "to the extent feasible" and had developed many internal procedures, although GAO said it had found no evidence that was the case.
In the study, GAO compared data on CMS' websites with that of third-party vendors providing similar information on gallbladder surgery, magnetic resonance imaging, or MRIs, of the lower back and maternity care. They also examined documents and interviewed company and government officials and experts on best practices.
In all, the audit found wide variation in charges for the same medical procedures in the same geographic area regardless of quality — information it said was not readily available on the CMS sites. Esquea said there were challenges in providing cost information.
In addition, the CMS sites often lacked critical data on quality of care, such as patient-reported outcomes on common procedures such as a colonoscopy, according to the report. In interviews with the GAO, CMS officials said they plan to add patient-reported outcomes on a number of medical procedures.
The investigators cited a likelihood of continuing problems despite the government's 2011 pledge under the Affordable Care Act to provide consumers complete and understandable information. While CMS has said it will make improvements, GAO pointed to limitations due in part to resistance from medical providers.
In recent months, the American Medical Association has opposed Medicare's release of billing records for 880,000 physicians, citing the danger of data being reported inaccurately or taken out of context; much of that information was eventually released.
"People deserve to know information on the cost and quality of the health care services they need," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., one of the lawmakers who requested the report. "The new GAO study makes important recommendations on how to better empower consumers, and I look forward to working with this bipartisan group of senators to establish more transparency."

Obama orders full review of US hostage policy

President Obama has ordered a complete review of the government's policy regarding U.S. hostages taken overseas, the White House confirmed to Fox News late Monday. 
National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Alistair Baskey said the review was ordered over the summer in response to what he called "of the increasing number of U.S. citizens taken hostage by terrorist groups overseas and the extraordinary nature of recent hostage cases."
The review, which was first reported by The Daily Beast, became public one day after the White House confirmed that American aid worker and former Army Ranger Peter Kassig had been beheaded by ISIS in Syria. The terror group had posted a video claiming that it had beheaded Kassig to various social media sites early Sunday. Kassig is the third American to be beheaded by ISIS since August. The group is also holding an American woman, a 26-year-old aid worker whose identity has not been revealed by U.S. officials out of concern for her safety. 
The Daily Beast quoted a letter written last week by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Christine Wormuth to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., as saying that the review will include "specific emphasis on examining family engagement, intelligence collection, and diplomatic engagement policies."
The beheadings have sparked a fresh debate over the U.S. government's policy of not paying ransom to terror groups. The parents and brother of journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by ISIS in August, told Fox News in September that government officials had told them that they could face prosecution if they attempted to negotiate a ransom. U.S. law prohibits American citizens from paying money to terror groups. 
However, an October article in Foreign Policy magazine reported that U.S. efforts to free hostages held in Syria had become bogged down amid general confusion as to the exact policies of the U.S. government on issues such as ransom payments. 
"No one's really in charge," one person involved in negotiations told the magazine. The article also reported that U.S. officials had acknowledged that family members of hostages, such as the Foleys, had not received frequent enough updates on what the government was doing to free their loved ones. In addition, a lack of actionable intelligence about ISIS activities in Syria has also been deemed responsible for undercutting U.S. efforts. 
According to Foreign Policy, the debate over ransom payments pits the White House, NSC, and State Department against the Justice Department and the FBI. The former entities believe that paying ransoms to terror groups would encourage more kidnappings of Americans abroad. By contrast, the latter offices believe that the issue of whether to pay ransom should be made on a case-by-case basis, and reportedly are willing to aid families if they believe that paying up represents the best method to ensure the hostages' freedom. 
A U.S. policy on hostage negotiations signed by President Bush in 2002 states that ransoms can be paid if officials believe doing so would help gain intelligence about terror groups, but can not be paid for the sole purpose of freeing an American.

'Cruel murder': Terror attack on Jerusalem synagogue kills four, injures six

Four worshippers at a Jerusalem synagogue were killed and six were wounded Tuesday when two Palestinians armed with meat cleavers and a gun stormed the building and began attacking people before they were killed in a shootout with police. 
The attack in the ultra-Orthodox Har Nof neighborhood in the western part of Jerusalem, was the deadliest in Israel's capital since 2008, when a Palestinian gunman shot eight people in a religious seminary school. 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will "respond harshly" to the attack, which he denounced as a "cruel murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by despicable murderers." U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he spoke to Netanyahu after the assault and denounced it as an "act of pure terror and senseless brutality and violence."
Kerry blamed the attack on Palestinian calls for "days of rage," and said Palestinian leaders must take serious steps to refrain from such incitement. He also urged Palestinian leaders to condemn the attack "in the most powerful terms."
Hours after Kerry spoke, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, the first time he has done so since a recent spike in deadly violence against Israelis began. He also called for an end to Israeli "provocations" surrounding the sacred site.
In a statement, Abbas' office said he "condemns the killing of the worshippers in a synagogue in west Jerusalem." The statement called for an end to the "invasion" of the mosque at a contested holy site in the city and a halt to "incitement" by Israeli ministers.
Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the attackers were cousins from east Jerusalem, which has been the scene of relentless clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in recent months. She identified the assailants as Ghassan and Oday Abu Jamal from the Jabal Mukaber neighborhood.
Soon after the attack, clashes broke out outside the Abu Jamals' home where dozens of police had gathered to carry out arrests in connection with the attack. Residents hurled stones at police who responded using riot dispersal weapons.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant group, said the cousins were its members. A PFLP statement did not specify whether the group instructed the cousins to carry out the attack.
Hamas, the militant group that runs the Gaza Strip, praised the attack as retaliation for what it claimed was the murder of a Palestinian bus driver who was found hanged in his vehicle late Sunday. Israeli police, citing autopsy results, have classified the man's death as a suicide, but that has not been accepted by the man's family. 
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said two police officers were among the six wounded, four of whom were reported in serious condition. He said police were searching the area for other suspects.
Associated Press footage from the scene showed the synagogue surrounded by police and rescue workers following the attack.  Wounded worshippers were being assisted by paramedics and a bloodied meat cleaver lay near the scene of the attack. Initially, police had described the weapons used as knives and axes.
The Times of Israel cited witnesses who said the two men shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the attack and entered the synagogue without their faces covered. 
"I tried to escape. The man with the knife approached me. There was a chair and table between us ... my prayer shawl got caught. I left it there and escaped," a man who identified himself as Yossi, who was praying at the synagogue at the time of the attack, told Israeli Channel 2 TV. He declined to give his last name.
Another witness, identified only as Zohar described panic at the scene.
"I heard shooting and one of the worshipers came out covered in blood and shouted 'There’s a massacre,'" he told The Times of Israel. 
A photo in Israeli media from inside the synagogue showed what appeared to be a body on the floor draped in a prayer shawl, with blood spattered nearby.
Jerusalem has seen a spate of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, most of which have involved cars being driven into pedestrians. At least six people had been killed in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Tel Aviv prior to Tuesday.
Jerusalem residents have already been fearful of what appeared to be lone wolf attacks, but Tuesday's early morning attack on a synagogue harkens back to the gruesome attacks during the Palestinian uprising of the last decade.
Israel's police chief said Tuesday's attack was likely not organized by militant groups, similar to other recent incidents, making it more difficult for security forces to prevent the violence.
"These are individuals that decide to do horrible acts. It's very hard to know ahead of time about every such incident," Yohanan Danino told reporters at the scene.
Tensions appeared to have been somewhat defused last week following a meeting between Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Jordan's King Abdullah II in Jordan. The meeting was an attempt to restore calm after months of violent confrontations, with Israel and the Palestinians saying they would take steps to reduce tensions that might lead to an escalation.
The Jerusalem holy site is referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount because of the Jewish temples that stood there in biblical times. It is the most sacred place in Judaism; Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary, and it is their third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
The site is so holy that Jews have traditionally refrained from going there, instead praying at the adjacent Western Wall. Israel's chief rabbis have urged people not to ascend to the area, but in recent years, a small but growing number of Jews, including ultranationalist lawmakers, have begun regularly visiting the site.

Cotton hints at specific GOP spending bill tactic to counter Obama executive action

Arkansas Sen.-elect Tom Cotton hinted on Sunday at exactly what he and fellow Republicans might do in response to President Obama's vow to use executive action on immigration reform: selectively block the president's spending like the GOP did on the Guantanamo Bay prison issue.
Cotton, a House member recently elected to the Senate, told “Fox News Sunday” that the GOP-controlled lower chamber could pass a spending bill that limits the president’s ability to spend on Social Security cards for illegal immigrants, who may be granted some type of U.S. residency status through executive action.
Cotton compared the strategy to House Republicans passing a Defense spending bill in June that included a provision that barred funding for transferring detainees in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, established after the 9/11 terror attacks.
Republicans have opposed Obama’s plan to shutter the facility in part by sending detainees to federal prisons on American soil.
Congressional Republicans have been considering several strategies should Obama proceed before the new year with executive action, as he has vowed to do several times in the past couple of weeks.
Among the most drastic is to submit a spending bill that Obama would assuredly veto, which would temporarily shut down parts of the federal government after Dec. 11.
Cotton and Oklahoma Sen.-elect James Lankford, another GOP House member, each told Fox News on Sunday that they are not pushing for a shutdown, which is largely unpopular with Americans.
“I don’t think anybody wants to shut down government,” Cotton said.
Lankford said: “We’re not pursing some government shutdown.”
The president is expected, by as early as next week, to announce executive action on U.S. immigration law that would protect roughly 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, change federal law-enforcement programs and expand business visas for non-citizens.
Among the other strategies Republicans are pushing are a temporary spending bill into next year when they control the Senate, suing the president to overturn his action, passing a stand-alone bill to try to stop him and House Republicans writing their own immigration bill to show they are serious about acting and pre-empt Obama.
The Democrat-controlled Senate last year passed bipartisan, comprehensive immigration-reform legislation.
The Defense spending bill also imposed a one-year moratorium on moving detainees to a foreign country, a sharp response to Obama’s decision to trade five Taliban leaders who had been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than a decade for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a captive for five years in Afghanistan.
Republicans said Obama broke the law by failing to notify Congress at least 30 days before the swap and increased the terrorism risk to the United States with the exchange.
“President Obama’s recent exchange of five high-level terrorists without notifying Congress illustrates his blatant disregard for its role as a co-equal branch of government,” Cotton said at the time.

Hagel says US speeding up training of Iraqi forces to fight ISIS

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday that the U.S. military is speeding up its training and advising of Iraqi forces who are fighting the Islamic State militants after a recommendation from the commander of U.S. Central Command.
Hagel's announcement came the same day the White House confirmed a third American, aid worker and former Army Ranger Peter Kassig, had been beheaded by members of the militant group.
The Pentagon chief spoke to reporters after observing Army training in California's Mojave Desert on Sunday. He said U.S. special operations troops in Iraq's western Anbar province are getting an early start on the train-and-advise effort.
Hagel said the effort began a few days ago but did not provide any other details.
According to plans laid out last week, the U.S. expects to train nine Iraqi security forces brigades and three Kurdish Peshmerga brigades. Hagel said the speed-up was recommended by Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of U.S. Central Command.
Hagel's spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, said later that Austin believes getting an early start on training Iraqi forces in Anbar may prompt other countries with a stake in the fight against Islamic State to commit trainers to Iraq.
Approaching the problem of ill-trained and poorly motivated Iraqi soldiers as a coalition rather than as a unilateral U.S. undertaking is a key pillar of U.S. strategy. Partnership is seen as a way of undermining the ideological appeal of Islamic State.
Kirby said a number of countries have made verbal commitments to provide trainers, but he said he could not identify them because they have yet to publicly announce their intended contributions.
On Thursday, Hagel told Congress that the U.S. and coalition forces are making progress in the fight against the militant group, also known as ISIS of ISIL, but the American people must prepare for a long and difficult struggle.
"ISIL's advance in parts of Iraq has stalled, and in some cases been reversed, by Iraqi, Kurdish, and tribal forces supported by U.S. and coalition airstrikes," Hagel said in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. "But ISIL continues to represent a serious threat to American interests, our allies, and the Middle East ... and wields influence over a broad swath of territory in western and northern Iraq and eastern Syria."
The testimony of Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came just days after President Barack Obama asked Congress for a new $5.6 billion plan to expand the U.S. mission in Iraq and send up to 1,500 more American troops to the war-torn nation.
Kassig is the fifth Western hostage killed by ISIS in less than three months, and the third American. Previous Western beheading victims were American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as Britons David Haines, a former Royal Air Force engineer, and Alan Henning, a taxi driver from northwest England. The group is also holding British photojournalist John Cantlie, who has appeared in several other videos released by the group functioning as a de facto spokesman.
The group has declared a self-styled Islamic caliphate in areas under its control, which it governs according to its violent interpretation of Shariah law, including massacring rebellious tribes and selling women and children of religious minorities into slavery.
The group's militants have also beheaded and shot dead hundreds of captives, mostly Syrian and Iraqi soldiers, during its sweep across the two countries, and has celebrated its mass killings in extremely graphic videos.
The Islamic State group has its roots in Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate but was expelled from the global terror network over its brutal tactics and refusal to obey orders to confine its activities to Iraq. It became even more extreme amid the bloody civil war in neighboring Syria and grew strong enough to launch a lightning offensive across Iraq.
Syria's war began as an uprising against President Bashar Assad. Activists say that conflict has killed more than 200,000 people.