Ferguson protesters rally across US for second day

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Protests took place across the nation for the second straight day in wake of a grand jury declining to indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on charges for killing 18-year-old Michael Brown in an August shooting.
Demonstrations in Ferguson quieted down Tuesday night into early Wednesday evening. There was not as much chaos in the town as there was Monday night after the announcement.
In California, Oakland protesters vandalized police cars, smashed windows at car dealerships, restaurants and convenience stores as well as setting fire to trash in the middle of city streets.
The crowd also shut down two major freeways before police forced the crowds to disperse.
Protesters in Los Angeles crowded U.S. 101 freeway barricading lanes stopping traffic. Police cornered the protesters on an overpass, but one protester managed to toss a barricade off the overpass onto the freeway.
Thousands of people marched in Manhattan gathering in Union Square and holding up traffic on FDR Drive, Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges and the Queens Midtown Tunnel.
Commissioner William Bratton said police were giving protesters "breathing room."
"As long as they remain nonviolent, and as long as they don't engage in issues that cause fear or create vandalism, we will work with them to allow them to demonstrate," he said.
A car struck a pedestrian early Tuesday afternoon at a rally. The car then continued to burst through the pack of demonstrators. The driver called the police immediately after the incident. The woman suffered minor injuries.
Several hundred people marched down a Cleveland freeway ramp to block rush-hour traffic while protesting the Missouri developments and Saturday's fatal shooting by an officer of 12-year-old Tamir Rice of Cleveland, who had a pellet gun that looked like a real firearm.
"The system wasn't made to protect us," said one of the protesters, 17-year-old Naesha Pierce. "To get justice, the people themselves have to be justice."
Riot police arrested several demonstrators in St. Louis on Interstate 44 near the Edward Jones Dome. Protesters disrupted traffic for several hours before they were dispersed by police with pepper spray.
Several hundred people from historically black schools Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University in Georgia held peaceful demonstrations. But as the night wore on, some groups split off and tried to block a freeway, and police said some windows were broken.
Police said 21 people were arrested, mostly for failure to disperse when asked, but one person faces a weapons charge.
In Portland, Oregon, a rally drew about 1,000 people who listened to speeches then marched through downtown. A splinter group of about 300 people kept going, marching across a Willamette River bridge. Bus and light rail traffic was disrupted, and police used pepper spray and made several arrests.

13 Facts About Ferguson the Media Will Never Tell You

According to protesters who erupted in violence after a grand jury declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., this was the case of a white policeman shooting an unarmed black teenager with his hands in the air in a community plagued by racial tension
That's an account promoted by many in the mainstream media as well. But here are several facts about the case that are harder to find:

1. Surveillance video showed that shortly before the confrontation, 18-year-old Brown stole cigarillos from a convenience store and shoved a clerk who tried to stop him.

2. The autopsy report showed that Brown had marijuana in his system when he died.

3. Officer Wilson, driving to the call of a medical emergency, first encountered Brown walking in the middle of a street and told Brown and his friend to walk on the sidewalk. Brown responded with an expletive.

4. Wilson chose to confront Brown only after he saw the cigarillos in his hand and recalled the radio report of a robbery at the convenience store.

5. Wilson said when he tried to open his car door, Brown slammed it back shut, then punched Wilson in the face.

6. Fearing another punch could knock him out, Wilson drew his gun, he told the grand jury, and Brown grabbed the gun, saying "you are too much of a pussy to shoot me."

7. An African-American witness confirmed that Brown and Wilson appeared to be "arm-wrestling" by the car.

8. Another witness saw Brown leaning through the car's window and said "some sort of confrontation was taking place."

9. After Wilson fired a shot that struck Brown's hand, Brown fled and Wilson gave chase. Brown suddenly stopped. An unidentified witness told the grand jury that 6-foot-4, 292-pound Brown charged at Wilson with his head down. Wilson said Brown put his hand under the waistband of his pants as he continued toward Wilson. That's when Wilson fired.

10. A witness testified that Brown never raised his hands.

11. Gunpowder found on the wound on Brown's hand indicated his hand was close to the gun when it fired. According to a report, the hand wound showed foreign matter "consistent with products that are discharged from the barrel of a firearm."

12. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the autopsy for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said the gunpowder "supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has particulate matter in the wound."

13. Wilson said Brown was physically uncontrollable and "for lack of a better word, crazy." He said that during the confrontation, he was thinking: "He's gonna kill me. How do I survive?" Legal experts say police officers typically have wide latitude to use deadly force when they feel their safety is threatened.

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Dreamers pushed the boundaries on immigration reform – and now seem to control the narrative

They were criticized for being too provocative and too critical in demanding immigration reform.
When some of them arranged for youths who had been deported to try to come back across the Mexican border, setting up a showdown with the Obama administration over whether they would be allowed to return to the U.S., even the most enthusiastic immigration activists balked at their strategy.
And when these group of young activists, undocumented youths who had grown up in the United States and are known as Dreamers, locked horns with even some Democrats who were leading the push for immigration reform – particularly President Barack Obama himself – immigration activists grew frustrated, claiming it was wrong to direct criticism at the president, someone who sympathized with their cause.
The so-called Dreamers, however, did not back down – in fact, they pushed back harder when immigration reform failed to materialize.
And so when Obama delivered his prime-time speech last Thursday, announcing that he was issuing an executive order that would suspend deportation for up to 5 million undocumented immigrants, the Dreamers felt vindicated.
It was their single biggest victory so far – the largest change in immigration in many years. And with that, they recaptured the driver’s seat in the fight for comprehensive immigration reform.
“We got a lot of backlash for going after Obama,” said Erika Andiola, one of the most prominent Dreamers pushing for immigration reform, to Fox News Latino. “But he is the president of the United States, he said he supported immigrants, but Dreamers were saying he was getting them and their families deported.”
“At the end of the day, it was that pressure that created a moral crisis” and played a part in pushing the president to issue the executive order.

“[President Obama]’s leaving in two years, and he’d done nothing [about immigration]. This is historic, and it’s the result of our lobbying, going to Congress, holding vigils, civil disobedience. We took risks to make sure our stories were heard, we tried to put them in our shoes.

- Lucy Allain, immigrant activist

Since 2009, the Dreamers have taken a fledgling campaign that was focused on getting a law that would provide young undocumented immigrants with a chance to live and work in the United States, and turned it into the engine of immigration advocacy that has broadened to include legalization for many groups of people who are here illegally.
Obama’s executive action in large part echoes what the Dreamers – often to the chagrin of older, long-established immigration activists and advocacy groups who had preferred a more cautious, diplomatic approach – have been demanding to one degree or another for years.
Obama said he was expanding a 2012 initiative, which originally gave a two-year reprieve from deportation to immigrants who had come to the United States illegally before they were 16, who were no older than 31, had no criminal record, and met other criteria. The new executive order lifts the age cap of 31, and extends the deportation relief, as well as the accompanying eligibility to get a work permit, to many other undocumented immigrants, including parents of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.
“When I heard the announcement, I was watching TV, and many people were saying ‘Thank God Obama finally did this, he finally realized it needed to be done,’” said Lucy Allain, a leader in the Dreamer movement who gained national attention when she confronted then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a campaign event in New York City about his hard-line stance on immigration.
“It wasn’t that he finally realized it on his own. The [Dreamer] community doesn’t get appreciated. The whole executive action would not have been possible if there had not been a big push [by activists] for him to do it,” she said. “…This is historic, and it’s the result of our lobbying, going to Congress, holding vigils, civil disobedience. We took risks to make sure our stories were heard, we tried to put them in our shoes.”
The Dreamers are named after a congressional measure – the Dream Act – that calls for providing undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children a path to legal status. It has been introduced several times, but has failed to pass.
To be sure, many advocates of all ages have worked diligently to push for an overhaul of immigration laws that would give opportunities to many of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States to legalize their status.
“Let's be clear,” wrote immigration attorney Marty Rosenbluth wrote on a Facebook page for human rights activists, “We shouldn't just be thanking Obama. We should be thanking the tens of thousands of immigrants and others who picketed, protested, laid down in the streets, wrote letters, and drove time and time again to D.C. and to other cities to get their voices heard.”
“Yup, he finally did it,” Rosenbluth said. “But this is a victory for mass organizing, not for politics as usual.”
In an interview with Fox News Latino, Rosenbluth said Obama responded to pressure. He said the executive order – which Obama had threatened to issue multiple times over the last several years, citing a lack of will by Republicans in the House to move forward an immigration reform bill – capped a sweeping and persistent grassroots effort by undocumented immigrants, their U.S. citizen and legal permanent resident relatives, and other supporters.
Obama, after all, he said, presided over the largest number of deportations – more than 2 million people since he’s been in office – of any administration.
“We have to see this as not that Obama kept his promise” to reform immigration, Rosenbluth said, “but that the immigrant community kept him to his promise. They made him keep his promise.”
But the Dreamers, arguably, maintained an energy and remained vocal and visible, even when many other activists seemed to grow weary. Often, when hope for immigration reform or executive action dimmed, and activists grew exasperated and stopped to evaluate their strategies, the Dreamers got bolder, and pushed boundaries.
In one case that drew criticism from some of the older immigrant advocates, one group of dreamers even coordinated with deported immigrants in Mexico to try to cross back into the United States; they did, approaching Border Patrol agents, who arrested and detained them. Some got released and are awaiting hearings on their political asylum claims, others were deported.
Andiola, a 27-year-old from Arizona who got a two-year reprieve from Obama’s 2012 initiative, has frequently pushed the boundaries to bring attention to the plight of undocumented immigrants.
This summer, she and Cesar Vargas, another undocumented immigrant and activist, went up to Republican lawmakers Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rep. Steve King of Iowa at a fundraiser in Iowa and introduced themselves as beneficiaries of the 2012 program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
King, who has one of the most hardline views on immigration in Congress, has been a vocal opponent of DACA and any other kind of break given to undocumented immigrants.
Andiola reminded King of a notorious comment he had made about how Dreamers smuggle drugs.
King suggested that perhaps Andiola had not understood his comment.
“I spoke of drug smugglers,” he said in the encounter, which was videotaped. “Now, you’re not going to tell me you’re one of them are you?”
Andiola didn’t miss a beat and responded: “Do I look like a drug smuggler to you?”
“For many years, others spoke for us,” Andiola said. “The big non-profits spoke for us. We decided to come out of the shadows, to speak for ourselves, to tell our story directly, to come out of the shadows.”
The Dreamers made it part of their modus operandi to publicize and humanize the story of people facing deportation. They put faces in front of cameras, they gave their full names, they wore shirts that said “Undocumented and Unafraid.”
“We were called all kinds of things,” she recalled. “But the more we spoke out, the more we controlled the narrative, and the more we saw people were connecting with us. We also started seeing we could stop deportations, publicizing someone’s story actually protected them rather than hurt them.”
Adds Allain, “We took risks to get our point across. Our story is powerful, people can relate to it.”
The Dreamers say they are glad the president finally fulfilled a part of his promise to take action on immigration unilaterally because Congress has failed to bring a reform bill for a vote.
But they say they want deportations suspended for more people, they say too many people are still being left in the shadows, too many families are being separated after an undocumented relative is put in deportation after a traffic stop, or a raid by immigration officials.
“We need to move forward, we need to keep fighting, for the people who have been left out of this executive action,” said Andiola, whose home immigration agents raided. “We celebrate wins like DACA and the executive order, but we also know that our Mom or Dad didn’t qualify.”

Veterans Affairs Department fires Phoenix hospital director

The head of the troubled Phoenix veterans' hospital was fired Monday as the Veterans Affairs Department continued its crackdown on wrongdoing in the wake of a nationwide scandal over long wait times for veterans seeking medical care and falsified records covering up the delays.
Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System, was ousted nearly seven months after she and two high-ranking officials were placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into allegations that 40 veterans died while awaiting treatment at the hospital. Helman had led the giant Phoenix facility, which treats more than 80,000 veterans a year, since February 2012.
The Phoenix hospital was at the center of the wait-time scandal, which led to the ouster of former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and a new, $16 billion law overhauling the labyrinthine veterans' health care system.
VA Secretary Robert McDonald said Helman's dismissal underscores the agency's commitment to hold leaders accountable and ensure that veterans have access to high-quality, timely care.
An investigation by the VA's office of inspector general found that workers at the Phoenix VA hospital falsified waiting lists while their supervisors looked the other way or even directed it, resulting in chronic delays for veterans seeking care. At least 40 patients died while awaiting appointments in Phoenix, the report said, but officials could not "conclusively assert" that delays in care caused the deaths.
About 1,700 veterans in need of care were "at risk of being lost or forgotten" after being kept off the official waiting list at the troubled Phoenix hospital, the IG's office said.
"Lack of oversight and misconduct by VA leaders runs counter to our mission of serving veterans, and VA will not tolerate it," McDonald said in a statement late Monday. "We depend on VA employees and leaders to put the needs of veterans first."
Helman is the fifth senior executive fired or forced to resign in recent weeks in response to the wait-time scandal.
Helman did not immediately respond to telephone messages Monday from The Associated Press.
Helman, who has worked at the VA since 1990, has been on paid leave since May 1, shortly after a former clinic director at the Phoenix site alleged that up to 40 patients may have died because of delays in care and that the hospital kept a secret list of patients waiting for appointments to hide the treatment delays.
Dr. Samuel Foote, who had worked for the Phoenix VA for more than 20 years before retiring last December, brought the allegations to light and says supervisors ignored his complaints for months.
In an interview with the AP in May, hours before being placed on administrative leave, Helman denied any knowledge of a secret list and said she had found no evidence of patient deaths due to delayed care.
Helman told the AP that she takes her job seriously and was personally offended by the claims of misconduct.
"I have given over 20 years of service to this mission. I am proud to lead this hospital," Helman said. "I have never wavered from the ethical standards that I have held my entire career, and I will continue to give these veterans what they deserve, which is the best health care."

Labor union work by federal employees on ‘official time’ costs taxpayers millions

Unionized federal employees spent 2.48 million hours working for their labor unions while getting paid by taxpayers during 2013, and more than 360 workers who are on the federal payroll spent 100 percent of their time working for their union.
Under federal rules, employees who are members of a labor union are entitled to so-called “official time,” where they are dismissed from their duties as a government employee to engage in labor union organizing activities. A new report from the Government Accountability Office shows the use of official time has increased over the past several years as the size of the federal workforce has grown.
And it’s costing taxpayers plenty. According to the Office of Personnel Management, which tracks federal employees’ time, federal employees were paid more than $157 million during 2012 while doing work for labor unions.
The GAO says the price tag may be even higher, since some federal agencies are not adequately tracking their employees’ official time.
“Since agencies are most often managing the use of official time using an approach that has no specified number of hours, they could be at greater risk for abuse,” auditors warned in the report, released last week.

Grand jury in Ferguson case does not indict officer in Michael Brown shooting

There were 29 arrests made after protesters fired more than 100 gunshots, burned dozens buildings, looted stores and vandalized police cars in Ferguson, Mo. after a grand jury did not indict a police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in August, St. Louis Unified Command said in a press conference Tuesday morning.
Heavily armed police fired pepper spray and smoke canisters to disperse the crowds of protesters. Police seized a .45 mm automatic handgun as well.
"We have no loss of life, but I am disappointed the night turned out this way," St. Louis Police Department Chief Jon Belmar said.
Belmar said he heard more than 150 shots ring off in the night. 
"What I've seen tonight is probably worse than the worst night we had in August," Belmar said.
Gov. Jay Nixon ordered more Missouri National Guardsmen to provide security at the Ferguson Police Department.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch announced the decision not to indict Darren Wilson on Monday evening. A grand jury of nine whites and three blacks had been meeting weekly since Aug. 20 to consider evidence in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, 18. The panel met for 70 hours and heard from 60 witnesses.
McCulloch stressed that the grand jurors were "the only people who heard every witness ... and every piece of evidence." He said many witness presented conflicting statements that ultimately were inconsistent with the physical evidence.
"These grand jurors poured their hearts and soul into this process," he said.
Brown's family immediately issued a statement following McCulloch's announcement.
"We are profoundly disappointed that the killer of our child will not face the consequence of his actions," the family said. "While we understand that many others share our pain, we ask that you channel your frustration in ways that will make a positive change. We need to work together to fix the system that allowed this to happen."  
Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, was sitting atop a vehicle when the decision was announced, and burst into tears and began screaming before being whisked away by supporters.
President Obama addressed the nation less than an hour after the decision was announced, pleading with protesters to remain peaceful.
"I join Michael's parents to ask anyone who protests this decision to do so peacefully," Obama said. "Let me repeat Michael's father's words: 'Hurting others and destroying property is not answer. I do not want my son's death to be in vain.'"
But soon after McCulloch's statement, a crowd gathered in Ferguson erupted in anger, throwing things at police and knocking down a barricade after McCulloch's announcement. Several gunshots were heard on the streets.
The St. Louis County Police Department announced that shots were fired across from the Ferguson Police Department, though it was not immediately clear if anyone was injured.
The crowd converged on a barricade where police in riot gear stood along the street. They pushed the barricade down and began pelting police with items, including a bullhorn. Officers in armored vehicles lobbed canisters of irritants that made people's eyes and lungs burn, dispersing crowds after a police car was vandalized, business windows shattered and gunshots rang in the streets.
Protesters hugged a barricade and taunted police, sometimes with expletives. Some chanted "murderer." Gunshots were heard down the street and somebody threw a water bottle that bounced off a police shield.
Some in the crowd reportedly tried to stop others from taking part in vandalism and other violent reactions.
Early Tuesday, the FAA activated a temporary flight restriction over Ferguson for safety reasons. Only police aircraft would be allowed to fly over the area, the FAA said in a statement.
Wilson, 28, shot and killed Brown on a Ferguson, Mo. street following a scuffle on Aug. 9 as the teenager and a friend walked back from a convenience store. Brown's body lay in the street for four hours in the summer heat, and neighbors later lashed out at authorities, saying they mistreated the body.
According to testimony released by McCulloch's office Monday night, Wilson said Brown hit him in the face after. Wilson drew his gun in fear that Brown would knock him out. Wilson said Brown nearly dared him to shoot Brown.
Wilson said he managed to pull the trigger, and the gun "clicked" twice without firing before a shot went through the window. Wilson said Brown stepped back and then looked at him with the "most intense, aggressive face."
"The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that's how angry he looked. He comes back towards me again with his hands up."
Brown took off running and Wilson followed him. Wilson said Brown eventually stopped and approached him. Wilson yelled to Brown to get on the ground. Wilson alleges Brown kept coming toward him and put his hand under his waistband of his pants.
Wilson said Brown was looking like he was going to tackle him. Wilson then fired shots toward Brown's head, killing him.
The grand jury testimony includes the accounts of many witnesses whose names are not listed in the transcripts.
One testified that he was working in a nearby building and saw Brown leaning through the police vehicle window and "some sort of confrontation was taking place." He said a shot rang out and Brown fled as the officer chased him with his gun drawn. The witness said Brown stopped and turned but never raised his hands. He said Brown "ran towards the officer full charge." The officer then fired several shots, but Brown kept rushing toward him, the witness said.
The shooting triggered riots and looting in and around the Ferguson area, and police responded to protesters with armored vehicles and tear gas. Protests continued for weeks -- often peacefully, but sometimes turning violent, with demonstrators throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails and police firing smoke canisters, tear gas and rubber bullets.
At times, the debate surrounding the shooting has focused as much on authorities' response -- which also featured officers equipped with military style gear, including armored vehicles, body armor and assault rifles -- as the shooting itself.

Grand jury in Ferguson case reaches decision, prosecutor's office says

A grand jury reached a decision Monday in the case against the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in August, touching off nationwide protests and cries of police brutality.
The Office of the Prosecuting Attorney in St. Louis County, Mo., made the announcement shortly before 3 p.m. CT, but did not say when the decision would be revealed and gave no indication whether Darren Wilson would be charged in the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Wilson, 28, shot and killed Brown on a Ferguson, Mo. street following a scuffle on Aug. 9 as the teenager and a friend walked back from a convenience store. Brown's body lay in the street for four hours in the summer heat, and neighbors later lashed out at authorities, saying they mistreated the body.
Witnesses later said that Brown had his hands raised and was trying to surrender when Wilson approached with his gun and fired repeatedly. Several media organizations, citing sources they didn't identify, have reported Wilson told grand jurors Brown was coming at him aggressively.
The shooting triggered riots and looting in and around the Ferguson area, and police responded to protesters with armored vehicles and tear gas. At times, much of the debate surrounding the shooting has focused as much on authorities' response -- which also featured officers equipped with military style gear, including armored vehicles, body armor and assault rifles -- as the shooting itself.
Officials had expressed concern that the widespread and sometimes violent protests would occur again, and authorities had stepped up security in the St. Louis area in anticipation of renewed protests leading up to the grand jury's decision.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stepping down, Fox News confirms

WASHINGTON –  President Obama will announce Monday that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is resigning, in a development that seemed abrupt yet came amid growing pressure from the White House over his handling of several international issues, Fox News has confirmed.

The Vietnam veteran and former Republican senator took office less than two years ago, and was charged with overseeing the winding down of decade-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hagel, 68, also steered the military during sweeping changes involving gays and women in the military. But in recent months, the Pentagon has taken on new challenges, including fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and deploying military personnel to Africa to fight Ebola.

Sources told FoxNews.com that Obama's dissatisfaction with Hagel, as well as a desire to shake up the cabinet following the devastating midterm elections, played a role in the president seeking Hagel's ouster.  

“Make no mistake, Secretary Hagel was fired,” a senior U.S. official with close knowledge of the situation told Fox News.

“Make no mistake, Secretary Hagel was fired.”

- Senior U.S. official

This same official discounted Pentagon claims it was a mutual decision claiming President Obama has lost confidence in Hagel and that the White House had been planning to announce his exit for weeks.

“The president felt he had to fire someone. He fired the only Republican in his cabinet. Who is that going to piss off that he cares about?"

In a swipe at the resume of Hagel, who served as U.S. Army sergeant in Vietnam and received two Purple Hearts, the official added, “This is why you don’t send a sergeant to do a secretary’s job.”

Hagel took office Feb. 27, 2013, five years after retiring from the Senate. Prior to his political career, Hagel co-founded Vanguard Cellular, worked for an investment banking firm and ran American Information Systems, a company that makes computerized voting machines. He also taught at Georgetown University after stepping down frm the Senate.

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President Obama meets with Chuck Hagel, then co-chairman of the president's Intelligence Advisory Board, in this 2009 file photo. (AP) (Reuters)

A senior defense official said that Hagel submitted his resignation letter to Obama Monday morning and that the president accepted it. Hagel agreed to remain in office until his successor is confirmed by the Senate, the official said.

The president is not expected to nominate a new Pentagon chief Monday, according to one official.

The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter by name ahead of Obama's official announcement.

Hagel, the only Republican on Obama’s cabinet, served as senator from Nebraska for two terms, beginning in 1996, and became a critic of U.S. involvement in Iraq. Obama nominated him to succeed Leon Panetta as Defense Secretary in his second term.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,  a fellow Vietnam veteran who sometimes clashed with Hagel while the two served in the Senate, praised his former colleague's character and dedication.

“Secretary Chuck Hagel and I have had our differences over many years, but I have always considered him a friend, a patriot, and a dedicated public servant who has always put our country first and the needs of our men and women in uniform above his own," McCain said.

McCain said the real problems at the Pentagon are due to what he called Obama's "misguided policies." 

"... ultimately, the President needs to realize that the real source of his current failures on national security more often lie with his Administration's misguided policies and the role played by his White House in devising and implementing them," McCain said. "That is the real change we need right now.”

Recent questions about Hagel's future at the Pentagon were prompted in part by his decision to postpone a long-planned trip this month to Vietnam. At the time, officials said he needed to remain in Washington for congressional consultations, but that did not stop speculation that the White House might be looking for a replacement for the final two years of Obama's term.

Just last week, Hagel was asked about the speculation during an interview on the Charlie Rose show. He was asked whether he's concerned by the speculation.

"No. First of all, I serve at the pleasure of the president," Hagel said. "I`m immensely grateful for the opportunity I`ve had the last two years to work every day for the country and for the men and women who serve this country. I don`t get up in the morning and worry about my job. It`s not unusual by the way, to change teams at different times."

King Obama Cartoon

Fools of the Week: Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News

A full two weeks have passed since the accidental whistleblower MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber outed the Obama administration’s underhanded way of getting ObamaCare past the American people.
The lying and cheating that it took to pass was deplorable.
Well, you know about the Gruber tapes (all seven and counting) ... because we, here at Fox News, told you about them. 
We showed you the tapes because ObamaCare was a game-changer. It changed the way we interpret the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. And gave the federal government new powers over what they can impose on Americans and you needed to understand how the administration perpetrated the Big Hoax.
In the very prescient words of Vice President Joe Biden: “This is a big F***ing deal!”
But if you’re one of the remaining  few viewers to watch mainstream media, you probably never heard of Jon Gruber or his comment that are lighting up the news world.
Because Brian Williams and his NBC Nightly News has NEVER once mentioned Gruber…
They had time for things like Hello Kitty lollipops at McDonalds...
The dress code for Kate and Prince William’s U.S. visit...
And drones carrying mistletoe!
But no Gruber.
Because you are showing your media bias -- like Madonna shows her lingerie --Brian Williams and the NBC Nightly News, you are the Fools of the Week!

GOP, Democrats spar over legality of executive orders, as lawsuits begin

Democrats and Republicans sparred Sunday over whether President Obama violated the Constitution by using his executive power to change U.S. immigration law, with Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz calling the president’s actions “stunning and sad.”
Obama on Thursday announced that he would suspend deportation for roughly 5 million illegal immigrants, garnering support from much of his base and outrage from critics -- including two elected officials who are mounting separate legal challenges to the president’s executive actions.
Cruz  told “Fox News Sunday” that Obama refuses to accept that only Congress has the authority to establish federal immigration laws and that members should block the president’s nominees and some funding until he rescinds his executive actions.
“This is a stunning and sad display by the president,” Cruz said. “We need to impose real consequence.”
He was joined on the show by Greg Abbott, the governor-elect of Texas, which borders Mexico and deals with many illegal immigration issues.
Abbott, the state’s attorney general, intends to sue, arguing the executive actions create the same financial hardships for Texas as those in 2012 that now shield from deportation more than 1 million young people brought to the United States illegally through no fault of their own.
“We think we have standing better than any other state to be able to assert this claim against the president,” Abbott told Fox. “We have a president who feels completely unrestrained by the Constitution of America.”
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Arizona’s Maricopa County, has already filed a similar suit and called Obama’s moves “unconstitutional.”
California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra on Sunday defended Obama’s executive orders, saying they are no different than what Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. did.
“He cannot change a law,” Becerra told Fox. “He can only secure them. The Supreme Court as recently as two years ago said the president has broad discretion to execute the laws.”
New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “absolutely” sure the executive actions will pass constitutional muster.
“As a result of the president's actions more felons will be deported, more border patrol would be at the southern border, more people will pay taxes and more families will be able to stay together,” he added. “I think those are the goals that are worthy of being achieved.
Cruz also suggested, as he has since Obama announced the executive action, that Congress should take action next year when Republicans, who already control the House, will also have the majority in the Senate.
He said Congress, which confirms or votes down presidential nominees for judgeships and top administrative posts, should block all of Obama’s judicial and executive nominations for two years, except for those of “vital, national” importance.
The outspoken, first-term senator would not directly say whether Congress should try to block the nomination of Loretta Lynch, Obama’s pick to be the next U.S. attorney general.

Obama: Americans want 'new car smell' in 2016

HENDERSON, Nev. –  President Barack Obama says voters want a "new car smell" in the 2016 White House race and that Hillary Rodham Clinton would be "a great president."
But would Clinton pass that particular smell test?
In a nationally televised interview broadcast Sunday, Obama seemed to suggest that any Democrat other than him would provide the turn of the page that he says voters are interested in. He acknowledged the "dings" to his own political standing during nearly six years of sometimes bruising battles with Congress and said Americans will want something new.
"They want to drive something off the lot that doesn't have as much mileage as me," Obama said in the interview with ABC's "This Week," which was taped Friday in Las Vegas following a public appearance there by the president.
He said a number of possible Democratic candidates would make "terrific presidents," but Hillary Clinton is the only one he mentioned by name. He said she would be a "formidable candidate" and make "a great president" if she decides to run a second time.
But if she does run -- which she is considering, with a decision expected to be announced early next year -- would she have that "new car" scent for voters?
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill declined to comment on the ABC interview.
Hillary Clinton has been a powerful force in Democratic politics for many years, beginning as Arkansas' first lady before she became America's first lady after her husband, Bill Clinton, was elected president in 1992. When his two terms were up, she ran for and won a U.S. Senate seat from New York.
She later sought and lost the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination to Obama, then cemented her worldwide profile by serving Obama as secretary of state in his first term. The Democratic political establishment is now awaiting word on whether she will take on the challenge of another national political campaign.
New car smell or not, Democratic voters hold her in such high regard that she outdistances anyone else in polling of possible Democratic candidates for 2016. One of them is Vice President Joe Biden, who has not ruled out a third run for the White House.
Eight in 10 Democrats held positive views of Clinton in an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in late July. Biden had a 71 percent favorable rating in the survey.
Obama acknowledged that Hillary Clinton won't agree with him on everything, suggesting that such a stance would be a welcome break for voters after eight years of Obama. A benefit of running for president, he said, "is you can stake out your own positions."
The 2016 presidential race could feature a repeat face-off between a Clinton and a member of another leading American political family: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is considering entering the 2016 race. His father and brother both were elected president.
Three of the past four presidents dating to the 1988 election have been named Bush or Clinton.
Jeb Bush's father, George H. W. Bush, was elected president in 1988. He lost re-election in 1992 to Bill Clinton, who served two terms. Jeb Bush's brother, George W., then defeated Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, in 2000 and was re-elected in 2004. The elder Bush also served two terms as vice president to Ronald Reagan.
In the AP-GfK survey, Jeb Bush was most popular among potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates, with 56 percent of Republicans viewing him favorably. Majorities also held positive views of outgoing Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

Obamaland Cartoon

Al-Shabab militants hijack bus in Kenya, kill 28 non-Muslims on board, police say

NAIROBI, Kenya –  One gunman shot from the right, one from the left, each killing the non-Muslims lying in a line on the ground, growing closer and closer to Douglas Ochwodho, who was in the middle.
And then the shooting stopped. Apparently each gunman thought the other shot Ochwodho. He lay perfectly still until the 20 Islamic extremists left, and he appears to be the only survivor of those who had been selected for death.
Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, attacked a bus in northern Kenya at dawn Saturday, singling out and killing 28 passengers who could not recite an Islamic creed and were assumed to be non-Muslims, Kenyan police said.
Those who could not say the Shahada, a tenet of the Muslim faith, were shot at close range, Ochwodho told The Associated Press.
Nineteen men and nine women were killed in the bus attack, said Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo.
Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the killings through its radio station in Somalia, saying it was in retaliation for raids by Kenyan security forces carried out earlier this week on four mosques at the Kenyan coast.
Kenya's military said it responded to the killings with airstrikes later Saturday that destroyed the attackers' camp in Somalia and killed 45 rebels.
"The United States condemns in the strongest terms today's horrific attack in Kenya by the terrorist group al-Shabab against innocent civilians," said Bernadette Meehan, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council in Washington.
"The United States stands with our Kenyan partners in the effort to counter the threat of terrorism and affirms our ongoing commitment to working with all Kenyans to combat these atrocities," her statement said.
The bus traveling to the capital Nairobi with 60 passengers was hijacked about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the town of Mandera near Kenya's border with Somalia, said two police officers who insisted on anonymity because they were ordered not to speak to the press.
The attackers first tried to wave the bus down but it didn't stop so the gunmen sprayed it with bullets, said the police. When that didn't work they shot a rocket propelled grenade at it, the officers said.
The gunmen took control of the vehicle and forced it off the road where they ordered all the passengers out of the vehicle and separated those who appeared to be non-Muslims-- mostly non-Somalis-- from the rest.
The survivor, Douglas Ochwodho, a non-Muslim head teacher of a private primary school in Mandera, said was travelling home for the Christmas vacation since school had closed.
Ochwodho told AP that the passengers who did not look Somali were separated from the others. The non-Somali passengers were then asked to recite the Shahada, an Islamic creed declaring oneness with God.  Those who couldn't recite the creed were ordered to lie down. Ochwodho was among those who had to lie on the ground.
Two gunmen started shooting those on the ground; one gunman started from the left and other from the right, Ochwodho said. When they reached him they were confused on whether either had shot him, he said.
Ochwodho lay still until the gunmen left, he said.  He then ran back to the road and got a lift from a pick-up truck back to Mandera. He spoke from a hospital bed where he was being treated for shock.
Seventeen of the 28 dead were teachers, according to the police commander in Mandera County.
A shortage of personnel and lack of equipment led to a slow response by police when the information was received, said two police officers who insisted on anonymity because they were ordered not to speak to the press. They said the attackers have more sophisticated weaponry than the police who waited for military reinforcements before responding.
Kenya has been hit by a series of gun and bomb attacks blamed on al-Shabab, who are linked to al-Qaida, since it sent troops into Somalia in October 2011. Authorities say there have been at least 135 attacks by al-Shabab since then, including the assault on Nairobi's upscale Westgate Mall in September 2013 in which 67 people were killed.  Al-Shabab said it was responsible for other attacks on Kenya's coast earlier this year which killed at least 90 people.
Al-Shabab is becoming "more entrenched and a graver threat to Kenya," warned the International Crisis Group in a September report to mark the  anniversary of the Westgate attack. The report said that the Islamic extremists are taking advantage of longstanding grievances of Kenya's Muslim community, such as official discrimination and marginalization.
Kenya has been struggling to contain growing extremism in the country. Earlier this week the authorities shut down four mosques at the Kenyan coast after police alleged they found explosives and a gun when they raided the places of worship.
Some Muslims believe the police planted the weapons to justify closing the mosques, Kheled Khalifa, a human rights official said Friday warning that methods being used to tackle extremism by government will increase support for radicals.
One person was killed during the raid on two of the mosques on Monday. Police said they shot dead a young man trying to hurl a grenade at them.
The government had previously said the four mosques were recruitment centers for al-Shabab.

Federal watchdogs uncover thousands of lost Lerner emails, decoding to take weeks

As many as 30,000 lost emails from Lois Lerner -- the ex-IRS official at the center of the agency's targeting scandal -- have been recovered by federal investigators.
The IRS has already turned over thousands of Lerner emails to congressional investigators but has said the remainder are gone forever because Lerner’s hard-drive crashed in 2011. And in June, agency Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress that back-up tapes containing the missing emails have been destroyed.  
“The IRS has continually dragged its feet, changed its story, and been less than forthcoming with information related to its egregious violation of Americans’ First Amendment rights,” said Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has spearheaded congressional probes on the issue.
“These e-mails are long overdue, and underscore again why we need a special prosecutor to conduct an unhindered investigation. Hopefully these e-mails will help us get to the truth,” he continued.
Lerner led the IRS division that targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups for excessive scrutiny during the 2012 presidential election cycle when they applied for tax-exempt status.
Lerner in March refused to testify before the GOP-led House investigative committee, saying she was protected under the Fifth Amendment, and has since retired.
VIDEO: Did IRS bother to look for emails?
Some of the recovered emails might be duplicates. And it could take weeks to learn their content because they are encoded, said Frederick Hill, a spokesman for Republicans on the Oversight committee.
In addition, the IRS would also have to delete information about taxpayers that is considered private before it can be released to the committee, which is headed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
The federal investigators are from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which audits the IRS. A spokeswoman for the inspector general, Karen Kraushaar, declined to comment, saying the investigation was continuing.
The investigators ignited a political firestorm in May 2013 with the initial report about the exceptionally close scrutiny.
The IRS said Saturday that it remains "committed to fully cooperating with all of the pending investigations."
The agency also said that it learned after the June report that the TIGTA had began an investigation of the hard-drive crash and a search for additional emails. 
Senate Finance Committee aides said the investigators will assess if the newly recovered data can be made readable before it can be turned over to the committee.
They said their committee, which has been conducting a bipartisan investigation of the IRS's treatment of groups, including liberal ones, expects to complete its work early next year.

Ferguson grand jury decision unlikely this weekend, sources say

The grand jury considering whether to indict the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed teenager Michael Brown is unlikely to meet and render a decision this weekend, sources told Fox News on Saturday.
Those same sources say it is likely the grand jury will wait until Monday to reconvene.
The 12-member grand jury has been considering whether charges are warranted against Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed the 18-year-old Brown on Aug. 9 during a confrontation on a street in Ferguson. Wilson is white and Brown, who was unarmed, is black.
There have been many demonstrations in the months since Brown's death, including some that were violent. Police arrested three protesters on Friday night -- the third straight night of unrest in the St. Louis area.
The FBI confirmed Saturday that they had arrested two men accused of buying explosives, that they reportedly planned to use in protests in the area.
On Saturday, the authorities set up barricades around the Buzz Westfall Justice Center in Clayton, which is where the grand jury has been meeting.
Barricades also went up in the shopping center parking lot on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, which was where police set up a makeshift command center in the immediate aftermath of Brown's death.
Several businesses in both Ferguson and Clayton have put boards on their windows.
Residents were on edge, too.
Jamie Freeman of Ferguson, 38, a registered nurse and mother of four, said she was especially concerned since her 20-year-old son lives in the neighborhood where Brown was shot.
"I just hope it stays peaceful," Freeman said of protests that will follow the grand jury decision. "We all have human emotions, bit there's a way to do things, and violence, you can't get peace from violence."
Crump, the Brown family attorney, seemed doubtful that Wilson would be charged, saying the grand jury process is weighted against those shot by police officers.
"Ninety-nine percent of the time the police officer is not held accountable for killing a young black boy," Crump said. "The police officer gets all the consideration."
The FBI has sent nearly 100 additional agents to Ferguson to help law enforcement agencies, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the FBI plans.

Few signs of movement as deadline for Iran nuclear agreement nears

Talks between Western diplomats and their Iranian counterparts appeared to be at a stalemate Sunday as the deadline to reach a comprehensive agreement about the fate of Tehran's nuclear program crept closer. 
The Wall Street Journal, citing a senior Western diplomat, reported late Saturday that reaching a final agreement by a Monday deadline was "impossible," though a deal setting out the key principles of a final agreement is not out of reach.  
"We have reached a point in the talks where probably we can’t have an agreement without some very significant moves from the Iranians," the diplomat told the Journal. "No one can say this is finished ... The only thing is we can’t do the job for the Iranians."
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency quoted a member of that country's negotiating team who also said an agreement by Monday was "impossible."
"Considering the short time left until the deadline and number of issues that needed to be discussed and resolved, it is impossible to reach a final and comprehensive deal by Nov. 24," the official is quoted as saying. "The issue of extension of the talks is an option on the table and we will start discussing it if no deal is reached by Sunday night."
On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that "serious gaps" between the two sides existed, while his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said the success or failure of the talks is "still completely open at this point."
Kerry spoke by telephone on Saturday to Arab foreign ministers in the Gulf, whose countries fear Iran's potential abilities to make nuclear arms, and with his Canadian and Turkish counterparts, the U.S. State Department said. He also talked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone.
Officials from the so-called P5+1 countries -- the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China are seeking guarantees that Iran cannot produce enough material for a nuclear weapon in exchange for lifting economic sanctions on Tehran. An interim agreement reached last year between the parties put curbs on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for some sanctions. The agreement was extended again this past July, giving both sides the new deadline of Monday. 
The Journal reports that the two key sticking points in the talks appear to be the speed of sanctions relief and the amount Iran would reduce its production of nuclear fuel. Iran wants most U.S., E.U., and U.N. sanctions to be lifted if and when a deal is reached, but the West has said that sanctions levied by the U.N. in response to Iran's nuclear program can't be lifted before Iran has proven it is sticking to the agreement. 
As for enrichment, Western officials have told the Journal that any permanent agreement must ensure that Iran is at least a year away from producing enough nuclear material to build a nuclear bomb. 
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported late Saturday that Western intelligence agencies are attempting to insert language into the text of a proposed deal that would ensure inspections tracking the parts and fuel to and from any Iranian nuclear complex. Iran has three major "declared" nuclear facilities. However, there is at least covert facility in Iran, and U.S. officials believe that any nuclear bomb made by Iran would likely come from those places. 
One of those covert facilities, known as Fordo, was outed by President Obama in 2009. The second such facility, at the city of Natanz, is believed to contain thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges  In the interim, Western intelligence agencies have looked for signs of another such facility, with no luck so far.

Emperor Obama Cartoon

Obama signs executive action delaying deportations for millions of illegal immigrants

President Obama signed two executive actions on Friday that would delay deportation for millions of illegal immigrants. The president, who signed the controversial policies aboard Air Force One, then spoke about his action at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas.
Del Sol is the same school where he laid out his blueprint for immigration overhaul nearly two years ago.
Several hundred protestors lined the streets holding “No Amnesty” and “Impeach Obama” signs.
Others chanted “worst president ever,” as he drove by.
"Our immigration system has been broken for a very long time and everybody knows it," he said in his remarks. "We can't afford it anymore."
But he cautioned that his actions are limited and that only broader legislation would permanently change immigration laws and help the more than 11 million immigrants illegally in the United States.
"The actions I've taken are only a temporary first step," he said.
As if to underscore that point, a heckler interrupted Obama, chiding him for not doing enough with his executive actions to help more immigrants in the country.
"Not everyone will qualify," Obama conceded. "That's the truth. Listen, I heard you and what I'm saying is we're still going to have to pass a bill."
His action will grant “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.
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.
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.”

Palestinian Authority accuses Hamas of plotting against it from Turkish headquarters

All Women?

Israel and Egypt have Hamas pinned inside Gaza after destroying hundreds of tunnels leading out of the Palestinian enclave, but the terrorist group is coordinating its efforts in the West Bank with logistical help from a command center more than 500 miles away in Turkey, according to Palestinian Authority officials.
The PA and the Jewish State are mutually convenient bedfellows in their opposition to Hamas, which has conducted a campaign of terror against Israel and seeks to destabilize the West Bank.  While the PA officially remains Hamas' so-called "governing partner" in the Palestinian territories, new accusations that Hamas' efforts are guided by its Turkey-based commander Salah al-Aruri have exposed the growing and violent rift between the two groups.
Now, the PA has gone on record as accusing al-Aruri of planning multiple attacks that have been foiled recently by Israel, resulting in the arrest of dozens of Hamas operatives in the West Bank. Those arrests, likely coordinated with PA security services who themselves allegedly foiled a planned coup by Hamas in the West Bank this summer, may have included the cell which, it was revealed on Thursday, had been planning to assassinate Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman in August in an RPG missile attack.

“The officials added that several Hamas operatives connected to the recently uncovered network were also being held in PA detention facilities.” - Times of Israel

“The officials accused Turkey as well as Qatar — the current home of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal — of enabling Hamas to operate freely within their territories to carry out attacks against Israel and undermine the Palestinian Authority,” Friday’s Times of Israel revealed. “The officials added that several Hamas operatives connected to the recently uncovered network were also being held in PA detention facilities.” 
Despite the recent serious escalation in lethal incidents in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and further afield in Israel, including this week’s brutal murder of four rabbis and a policeman at a synagogue in the capital, Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces still have shared mutual interests in combating radical Islamist terrorists groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others.  
“There is regular cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian police which is continuing despite the terrorist attacks that have taken place,” Mickey Rosenfeld, spokesman for the Israeli Police, told FoxNews.com.  
It was Al-Aruri who on Aug. 20, speaking at the World Conference of Islamic Sages in Turkey, admitted that Hamas had instigated the “heroic action carried out by the al-Qassam Brigades [the military wing of Hamas], which captured three settlers in Hebron.” The three teenage boys were kidnapped and brutally murdered by Hamas operatives, an incident that triggered the spiral of violence - including the retaliatory murder of a Palestinian teenager by Jewish settlers - that led to the vicious 50-day war in Gaza this summer.
Hamas appears to have been given a free hand to operate out of Turkey and Qatar, both of whom are close U.S. allies, and neither of whom deem Hamas a terrorist organization. Regional critics say the Obama administration has allowed its efforts to broker peace in the Middle East to be consistently undermined by its own Turkish and Qatari allies, who provide safe haven for Hamas leaders and funding for terrorists bent on undermining a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. 
Talking to the Al Monitor website in August, a Turkish diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested that Turkey’s support for Hamas is basically because the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed diplomatically some time ago to influence its neighbors in the region, so has decided to find other ways in which to wield power. 
“Trying to be a major actor in the Middle East and having felt betrayed multiple times, the Erdogan administration decided we have to be Middle Eastern, which means non-state entities should be considered as serious actors, partners, enemies, and allies.” Al Monitor’s Turkish correspondent, Pinar Tremblay, added, “Turkey’s support for Hamas - along with Qatar - hampers Israel’s ability to isolate Hamas. The Turkish government has been rather frank and “proud” of its engagement with the organization, despite all [the] financial and political repercussions.” 
The policy of siding with Hamas, experts suggest, may also be a way for both Turkey and Qatar to continue their campaign against Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has clamped down hard on the Muslim Brotherhood, parent organization of Hamas, declaring the Brotherhood an illegal organization and arresting countless of its members.  
El-Sisi has taken firm action against Hamas in Gaza, closing the key Rafah crossing and establishing a buffer zone on Egypt’s northern Sinai border with Gaza in an attempt to stop infiltration into Egypt by Hamas terrorists – backed by Turkey and Qatar - and the trafficking of weapons, missiles, and Islamic extremists in both directions.

CIA gathered intelligence on weapons to Syria: Benghazi report

A leading Republican wants to expand the House investigation into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack by adding a Senate probe, as a new House Intelligence Committee report Friday concluded that the initial CIA assessment found no demonstrations prior to the assault and a primary purpose of the CIA operation in eastern Libya was to track the movement of weapons to Syria.
The report described the attack as "complex" with the attackers affiliated with Al Qaeda. It also said the initial CIA assessment concluded there were no demonstrations outside the State Department Consulate in Eastern Libya.
Referring to the House Select committee Chairman, and the Democratic ranking member, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said the current House investigation should be expanded.
"(Republican) Trey Gowdy and (Democrat) Elijah Cummings have done a good job,” he said. “I can't imagine the U.S. Senate not wanting to be a part of a joint select committee. We'll bootstrap to what you've done, but we want to be part of discussion," Graham told Fox News. "What I would suggest to (incoming Senate majority leader) Mitch McConnell is to call up Speaker Boehner and say 'Listen, we want to be part of this’."
Graham, along with his two Republican colleagues, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, have been outspoken advocates of a special investigation, because they say then-acting director of the CIA Mike Morell misled them about his role in crafting the so-called media talking points that blamed an opportunistic protest gone awry for the assault. 
"Number one, Mike Morrell misled three senators," Graham said of their November 2012 meeting on Capitol Hill, where Morell accompanied then UN Ambassador Susan Rice to explain her flawed explanation on national television five days after the attack.
"I think it's important that for future CIA personnel to understand, that if you come to Congress and you’re asked a question and you give a deceptive answer, you tell half the story, not the entire story, you play word games, it will follow you and will be unacceptable," Graham said.
On Friday, with little fanfare, the House Intelligence Committee released the findings of its two year, bi-partisan investigation into the terrorist attack. The 37 page report found that the first, internal CIA assessment was accurate -- that no protests were involved -- but then-CIA Director David Petraeus, Morell and the administration latched onto information that supported the flawed demonstration scenario.
Fox News was first to report on September 17, 2012, one day after Rice's controversial Sunday talk show appearances, that there were no protests when the attack unfolded.
"One day after the assault, on 9/12/12, the first CIA assessment about the attacks, a September 12th Executive update, said ‘the presence of armed assailants from the incident’s outset suggests this was an intentional assault and not the escalation of a peaceful protest,” investigators found.  And while intelligence gaps remain, "No witness has reported believing at any point that the attacks were anything but terrorist acts,” the report added.
On Saturday September 14, 2012, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes wrote in an email titled "PREP CALL with Susan," that one of the goals for the administration's public statements should be "To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."  The House report says these conclusions were "incorrect." 
Judicial Watch, not Congress, obtained the Rhodes email as the result of a federal lawsuit.
The Obama White House did not move away from the protest explanation for the attack that killed four Americans - Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, and former Navy Seals and CIA contractors Ty Woods and Glenn Doherty - until September 20, when then White House Spokesman Jay Carney told reporters 'It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” and the State Department did the same much later.
The report found the CIA's Office of Public Affairs made three “substantive” changes to the talking points that included the removal of references to Al Qaeda and swapping the word "attacks" with "demonstrations."  It is not clear from the publicly available, and heavily redacted emails exactly who made the changes and who directed them, since the CIA public affairs office would be unlikely to make these changes unilaterally.
When Morell retired from the CIA last year, he told The Wall Street Journal he hoped to advise a presidential campaign, with anonymous sources telling the paper Morell was close to Hillary Clinton. Morell now works as a counselor at Beacon Global Strategies, a Washington D.C. firm closely aligned with the former secretary of State. He is also a national security analyst for CBS News. The President of CBS News is David Rhodes, the brother of Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.  
An appendix filed by Democrats did not find evidence of “political motivations,” and Morell is praised for testifying “freely and openly” about the process.  Four Republicans, including chairman Mike Rogers, concluded “Mr. Morell operated beyond his role as CIA Deputy Director and inserted himself into a policy making and public affairs role….It is simply unfathomable that the White House’s policy preferences, or the concerns of the State Department senior officials, did not factor into his calculation about what was fair.  For these reasons, we believe that Mr. Morell’s testimony was at time inconsistent and incomplete.”
The House report leaves no doubt that the attack drew heavily on “those affiliated with al-Qai’da,”  including AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb), AAS (Ansar al-sharia), AQAP (Al Qaeda in Yemen), AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) as well as the Egypt based Jamal Network.  As Fox News was first to report, and the committee investigation affirms, at least two long time Al Qaeda operatives, Faraj al-Chalabi, and former Guantanamo detainee Sufian bin Qumu, were significant players in the assault.
House investigators concluded that "CIA accurately assessed on September 12, and 13, 2012 that members of AAS (Ansar al-Sharia) and of various al-Qai'da affiliates perpetrated the attacks."  And that as more was known about the attacks the "CIA gained corroborating reporting to support their previous assessments."
The House report adds more weight to the conclusion that the attack was pre-meditated because it pulled together more than 80 operatives -- some from outside of Libya --for the assault and it drew on a skilled mortar team.  "The Tripoli security chief recalled that the mortar fire was far more accurate than anything he had seen during his tour in Afghanistan," it said.
The report also shed new light on the CIA operation in Benghazi. Morell said the CIA annex was in eastern Libya “collecting intelligence about foreign entities that were themselves collecting weapons in Libya and facilitating their passage to Syria. The Benghazi Annex was not itself collecting weapons.” 
Newly declassified testimony before the House Intelligence Committee attached to the House report from the Director of National intelligence, James Clapper, as well as Morell, confirmed to lawmakers that the weapons shipments were known at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Rep. Devin Nunes: Are we aware of any arms that are leaving that area and going into Syria?
Mr. Morell: Yes, sir.
General Clapper: Yes
Nunes:  And who was coordinating that?
Mr. Morell: I believe the (redacted) are coordinating that.
Nunes: And were the CIA folks that were there, were they helping to coordinate that, or were they watching it, were they gathering information about it?
Mr. Morell: Sir, the focus of my officers in Benghazi was (redacted) to try to penetrate terrorist groups that were there so we could learn their plans, intentions and capabilities (redacted.)
The discussion is cut short by Rogers, who says not all members present have sufficient security clearances to hear further details.  Fox News was first to question in October 2012 the significance of weapons shipments from Libya to Syria via Turkey, and who in the administration was read in on the program.
In a joint statement, the committee's Republican chairman Mike Rogers of Michigan, and ranking member, Dutch Ruppersburger, D-Md., said "...there was no intelligence failure prior to the attacks but the early intelligence assessments and the Administrations’ public narrative on the causes and motivations for the attack were not fully accurate. A mixed group of individuals, including those affiliated with al-Qa’ida, participated in the attacks. Finally, the Committee found no evidence that CIA conducted any unauthorized activities in Benghazi and CIA did not intimidate any officer or otherwise dissuade them from telling their stories to Congress"