Clinton hedges on hot-button trade deal, amid pressure from left

Hillary Clinton is hedging on whether she will back a bipartisan trade agreement gaining steam on Capitol Hill, fueling accusations that she is playing politics as she courts liberal voters.
The agreement is backed by President Obama and hailed by Democratic and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill as a way to improve the economy and create jobs by expanding U.S. markets for goods and services.
But it is opposed by leading progressives, including figures talked about as possible competitors in the Democratic presidential primary - among them, Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, and Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat.
At issue is the Trade Promotion Authority bill, which would renew the ability of Congress and the president to “fast-track” trade deals, an authority that expired in 2007. In turn, that authority could help expedite two deals: the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
The former, known as the TPP, is a significant deal with 11 Pacific Rim nations, and one Clinton supported while secretary of state.
But Clinton’s camp is now leaving the door open. Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said Clinton wants the final legislation to benefit American workers and she has concerns about such issues as currency manipulation and the impact on national security.
“We should be willing to walk away from any outcome that falls short of these tests,” Merrill said in a statement. “The goal is greater prosperity and security for American families, not trade for trade’s sake.”
But Clinton’s fuzzy position on the new legislation has resulted in an array of critics -- from conservative PACs to potential primary challenger former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley -- suggesting she’s staying mum to gauge the political winds.
They argue Clinton has already changed her positions on gay marriage and immigration reform, and coming out against the trade deal would be a clear reversal just days into her fledgling White House campaign.
“She will soon have to decide whether she will continue standing with the sitting Democratic president on trade, or whether she will flip flop and join the union activists who are vehemently opposed to this bipartisan deal," said Jeff Bechdel, spokesman for the conservative America Rising PAC.
From Clinton’s left flank, Democrats have needled her on the issue.
Sanders called on Clinton to “make it clear” that TPP should be rejected.
O’Malley also sent out an email blasting the Trade Promotion Authority bill, claiming it would give Congress the power to immediately vote on the TPP.
“We must stop entering into bad trade deals that hurt middle class wages and ship middle class jobs overseas,” O’Malley said in the message.
Last week, O’Malley during a speech at the Institute of Politics at Harvard needled Clinton over other recent positions.
"I'm glad Secretary Clinton's come around to the right positions on these issues," O'Malley said, after Clinton expressed support for giving drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants and urged the Supreme Court to rule that gay marriage is constitutional.
"I believe that we are best as a party when we lead with our principles and not according to the polls,” O’Malley continued. "Leadership is about making the right decision and the best decision before sometimes it becomes entirely popular.”
Warren, while denying any interest in a White House run, has been particularly critical of a clause in the new trade bill for disputed trade deals, saying it could tilt “the playing field further in favor of multi-national corporations” and would force American taxpayers to “cough up millions even billions of dollars in damages.”
On Monday, the White House defended Clinton, saying all observers should reserve judgment for now.
“She is going to make up her own mind about what policy positions that she’ll take,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “After all, TPP is something that’s still being negotiated. She, as we’re encouraging everybody to do, is going to withhold judgment.”
The legislation, which is scheduled for a vote Wednesday in the Senate Finance Committee, was hammered out by Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the panel’s top Democrat, along with House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week said he would bring the TPA legislation to the floor “very soon” -- a good indication that the bill has enough bipartisan support in the GOP-led chamber to pass.
Hatch’s office points to World Bank data that finds the two pending trade agreements would further open markets to encompass nearly 1.3 billion customers and about 60 percent of global gross domestic product.
“This bipartisan bill creates what I expect to be unprecedented transparency in trade negotiations, and ensures future trade deals break new ground to promote human rights, improve labor conditions, and safeguard the environment,” Wyden said last week after reaching the bipartisan deal.

US aircraft carrier sent to block Iranian arms shipments to Yemen rebels

A U.S. aircraft carrier was dispatched to the waters off Yemen Monday to join other American ships prepared to block any Iranian weapons shipments to Shiite Houthi rebels fighting in Yemen.
A Navy official confirmed to Fox News that the USS Theodore Roosevelt -- along with her escort ship, the USS Normandy, a guided-missile cruiser -- left the Persian Gulf on Sunday en route for the Arabian Sea, to help enforce the blockade. A massive ship that carries F/A-18 fighter jets, the Roosevelt is seen more of a deterrent and show of force in the region.
The U.S. Navy has been beefing up its presence in the Gulf of Aden and the southern Arabian Sea amid reports that a convoy of about eight Iranian ships is heading toward Yemen and possibly carrying arms for the Houthis.
The deployment comes after a U.N. Security Council resolution approved last week imposed an arms embargo on rebel leaders. The resolution passed in a 14-0 vote with Russia abstaining.
Tensions are rising in the region even as the U.S. and five other world powers scramble to strike a final deal with Iran on its nuclear program by the end of June. The fighting in Yemen, where U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of mainly Gulf Arab countries against the Iran-backed rebels, is complicating matters.

More on this...

• Massive explosions in Yemen as airstrikes target Houthis

Western governments and Sunni Arab countries say the Houthis get their arms from Iran. Tehran and the rebels deny that, although Iran has provided political and humanitarian support to the Shiite group.
The U.S. has been providing logistical and intelligence support to the Saudi-led coalition launching airstrikes against the Houthis. That air campaign is now in its fourth week, and the U.S. has also begun refueling coalition aircraft involved in the conflict.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, without commenting specifically on any Navy movements, said the U.S. has concerns about Iran's "continued support" for the Houthis.
"We have seen evidence that the Iranians are supplying weapons and other armed support to the Houthis in Yemen. That support will only contribute to greater violence in that country," he said. "These are exactly the kind of destabilizing activities that we have in mind when we raise concerns about Iran's destabilizing activities in the Middle East."
He said "the Iranians are acutely aware of our concerns for their continued support of the Houthis by sending them large shipments of weapons."
A written statement from the Navy on Monday said the two ships are joining others in conducting "maritime security operations" in the region.
"In recent days, the U.S. Navy has increased its presence in this area as a result of the current instability in Yemen," the statement said.
"The purpose of these operations is to ensure the vital shipping lanes in the region remain open and safe. The United States remains committed to its regional partners and to maintaining security in the maritime environment."
There are now about nine U.S. Navy ships in the region, including cruisers and destroyers carrying teams that can board and search other vessels, as well as three support ships.
The U.S. Navy generally conducts consensual boardings of ships when needed, including to combat piracy around Africa and the region. So far, however, U.S. naval personnel have not boarded any Iranian vessels since the Yemen conflict began.
Officials said it's too soon to speculate on what the Navy ships may do as the Iranian convoy approaches, including whether Iran would consent to a boarding request, and what actions the Navy would take if its request was refused.

Mutual Cartoon

'Doc fix' done, but Congress still faces tough tasks of cutting debt, entitlements from now bare-boned budget

 

 

“Stick a fork in it. It’s finally done,” exclaimed House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., in a news release.
Congress this week finally put to bed one of the most vexing issues to confound lawmakers in recent years: the dreaded “doc fix.”
The doc fix is a formula the government uses to pay physicians who treat patients on Medicare. The federal government reimburses doctors for accepting seniors on Medicare. People on Medicare pay less than they would otherwise for medical services. The government makes up the difference and pays the doctors. But even after that plan, there was a chasm due to inflation. Congress kept approving Band-Aid’s to fill the gap. Expensive ones, too.
The latest stopgap was about to expire. If Congress didn’t act soon, physicians would face a 21 percent cut in their payments from Washington when caring for those who use Medicare.
If doctors weren’t getting paid, they weren’t going to treat Medicare patients. That could have created a major public health issue.
Health care is expensive. That’s why a fight over ObamaCare lingers to this day. But the role of government in diminishing the cost of health care (through programs such as Medicare and Medicaid) and the national debt crystallized in the debate over the doc fix. It epitomized why Washington struggles to get a grasp on spending.
It’s no surprise that it took a bipartisan deal negotiated at the very top to finish off the doc fix once and for all. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., developed a new system to pay doctors and abandon the antiquated pay schedule that was nothing more than a patch.
The House OK’d the new plan in late March, 392-37. The Senate followed late Wednesday night, 92-8.
One would think that if both houses of Congress adopted the new plan with such robust, bipartisan, super-majorities, there wouldn’t be a problem, right?
Hardly.
Some conservative lawmakers abhorred the new plan and voted nay. The total price tag of the doc fix was more than $200 billion. Only about $60 to $70 billion was offset, which triggered $140 billion of extra deficit spending.
That’s the conundrum that eluded lawmakers for so long on the doc fix. Nobody wants to add such a prodigious chunk of change to deficit spending -- especially fiscal conservatives. But it’s political suicide to cut off seniors from their doctors, too.
Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, a physician by trade who’s worked on the doc fix for years, argued that repeated patches were more expensive than the bipartisan compromise -- which was still not cheap.
“What’s the cost of doing nothing? A billion dollars more than what we’re doing today” Burgess said. “If you don’t fix this formula, you almost can’t move on. This is the first step in that process. Perfect? No. A good step? Yes.”
Conservative groups lambasted the plan as “budget gimmickry” and “fake” spending cuts. They asserted that what doctors are due over the next decade when they treat Medicare patients is about $30 billion above what the Congressional Budget Office anticipates. Some of that’s because they believe the fee schedule for various medical treatments is unrealistic and the costs will multiply.
Naturally, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other conservatives balked at the $200 billion price tag.
The deadline for approving a new doc fix was really April 1. The House finished up well before then. But the Senate was wrestling with adopting a budget. Senators debated and voted well into the wee hours of the morning of March 27 before leaving for a two-week break for Passover and Easter once completing the budget. There was some speculation the Senate may try to handle the doc fix just before dawn that morning. But leaders knew conservatives had major reservations about such a gambit. They didn’t want to face criticism that they “rammed through” such a controversial plan in the dark of night.
After all, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promised an open, thoughtful amendment process when he seized the helm. Pushing through the doc fix at that hour would have diminished that commitment.
So the doc fix sat. And sat. And sat. Right up until the night of April 15. Everyone on Capitol Hill knew that payment reductions to doctors started on April 16th. That’s when the government began writing checks to physicians. If Congress hadn’t acted by then, the government would cut smaller checks.
There was talk about amending the plan in the Senate and shipping it back to the House.
“We all knew the Perils of Pauline that the raft was going over the waterfall,” protested an exasperated Burgess about his Senate colleagues.
Washington Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott, a psychiatrist who also toiled on the doc fix, upbraided conservatives who didn’t like the new proposal.
“The Republicans keep wanting people to believe you can have things without paying for them,” McDermott said. “If they want to pull the medical profession and the public through the rat hole, that’s their privilege.”
Cruz and others pushed to have all of the costs offset. That failed. In an effort to court the votes of skeptics, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, authored an amendment to offset the unpaid portion of the new doc fix plan. Cornyn would make up the difference by using money saved by eliminating the ObamaCare mandate that requires everyone to purchase health coverage. That effort plummeted on the floor, too.
On Wednesday night, the Senate lugged the bill to passage in what proved to be a rare bipartisan moment.
“I want to thank Leader Pelosi for her indispensable leadership,” said Boehner on Thursday morning at a Capitol Hill ceremony to send the legislation to the White House.
“When the American people choose divided government, they’re not saying they don't want anything done,” McConnell said.
While lawmakers managed to extinguish the flames of one lone, smoldering blaze -- even while heaping on some additional deficit spending, they all knew this was nothing compared to the other challenges Congress faces with the books.
“We have a lot more work to do to fix these entitlement programs,” Boehner offered.
And when does Congress intend to start fixing entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the largest drivers of the debt? Well, there hasn’t been a really big effort on this front since the altercation over raising the debt ceiling in 2011. Those negotiations failed. Congress then empaneled what was called the “supercommittee,” a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers to engineer major cuts. The supercommittee failed, too.
In fiscal 2013, the federal government spent a grand total of $3.4 trillion for all programs. Just over $2 trillion of that went toward entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- and some service on the national debt. Entitlement programs are the biggest drivers of federal spending and the national debt. So what is Congress left to do? There are basically three options:
Lawmakers could raise taxes. That is a non-starter in a Republican-controlled Congress.
Lawmakers could cut benefits. That is a non-starter in almost any Congress. Seniors who receive those entitlement programs vote. Atop the Capitol in Washington, construction workers are refurbishing the Dome. If Congress slashed entitlement programs, members of the public would likely storm the Capitol, doing so much damage that they’d have to start the Dome project all over again.
Lawmakers could cover the cost of entitlement programs by cutting spending elsewhere. The idea sounds good. But a set of mandatory spending cuts, known as sequestration (set in motion automatically by the failure of the supercommittee) has already nicked federal spending down to the bone. There’s not a lot of other fat out there to cut. And besides, entitlement spending outpaces all other spending 2:1. So there’s not even a way to make up the difference because the non-entitlement spending pot is half the size of the entitlement pot.
This is why it’s a near-impossible task for Congress to reduce overall federal spending and harness the national debt. Conservatives came to Washington with the promise to reduce federal spending. Well, they can, and have -- on everything but the items that explode the debt the most.
The challenge to solve the doc fix was a microcosm of a riddle. How do lawmakers cut yet maintain benefits? It’s almost an expression in a Zen-like koan – the enigmatic realization of two phenomena that are opposite one another. Like being tense but flexible. Controlled but free. Exerting effortless effort. A sour sweetness. A bankrupt wealth. Things that don’t align – except in the world of Zen and Taoism.
This is the quandary facing Congress when it comes to spending. And it may take a Zen-like effort to figure it all out.

Oklahoma Legislature, like Congress, takes aim at taxpayer-funded wind energy credits

Just outside the small farming community of Tuttle, Okla., the 262-foot-tall wind turbines that dot the horizon are welcome additions -- providing millions of dollars in additional income to farmers and landowners.
The roughly 188 wind turbines erected since 2010 have generated more than $22 million in leases and royalties to them and others across the state, according to a recent study by the Economic Impact Group.
The farmers argue the money helps cover lost income during tough harvest years.
But the local wind-power industry, like those in many other states, is facing challenges from Republican lawmakers and others those who question whether the tax exemptions and credits and other subsidies for so-called “green energy” projects are worth the taxpayer investment.
Roughly 30 bills relating to the Oklahoma wind industry have been filed in the state legislature in the 2015 session, including at least one targeting the tax breaks and others attempting to alter regulatory policies.
Rep. Earl Sears, a Republican and chairman of the House Budget Committee, thinks industry reform is needed.
“We have to take a look at all of these credits we are handing out,” he recently said. “They’re costing the state $36 million to $40 million per year. And we’re glad that most think that reform in the industry is necessary.”
Another bill attempts to eliminate a rarely used new-investment tax credit. And Sears has authored a bill that would require wind facilities to demonstrate further financial security.
Wind energy is coming under fire in other states as well.
An offshore wind project in New Jersey, planned by Fishermen’s Energy, has been running into regulatory obstacles for nearly five years.
In Nantucket, Mass., a $2.5 billion project to build 130 wind turbines failed when backing at the local level waned.
Taxpayer support for wind energy is also losing momentum in Congress.
Capitol Hill lawmakers at the end of last year did not extend the Federal Production Tax Credit (PTC).
And in March, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., failed to rally support behind an amendment that would have put a five-year extension on the PTC.
The Senate rejected the amendment by a vote of 51-47, falling primarily along party lines.
Republicans Sens. Susan Collins, Maine; Chuck Grassley, Iowa; and Mark Kirk, Ill., voted in favor of the extension, while West Virginia’s Joe Manchin was the lone Democratic senator to vote against the amendment.
An Oregon wind facility in southeastern Wasco and southern Sherman counties was one of the first projects to be put on hold after the non-renewal of the PTC, and industry experts say more projects are likely to follow suit.
“We need a balanced approach that protects the taxpayer’s interests but also encourages growth and industry,” Oklahoma state Rep. Leslie Osborn said recently.
The Republican lawmaker thinks pulling support for wind projects will negatively impact too many people, particularly those living in rural areas.
“In those tough years, the wind can certainly be a blessing,” she said. “The wind is a natural resource, and it’s one that we should develop while we’re here on earth.”

O'Malley, Sanders, Webb outline potential path over Clinton to win 2016 Democratic White House nomination

Three potential candidates considered among the most likely to challenge Hillary Clinton’s juggernaut campaign to become the Democratic Party’s 2016 nominee for president expressed confidence Sunday about defeating her, each outlining potential paths to victory.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent-Vermont, questioned whether Clinton or any 2016 GOP presidential candidate would challenge Wall Street for the middle class.
“I do have doubts that Hillary Clinton or any Republican out there will take on big-money interests who control so much of our economy,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “CEOs should not be making 300 times more than their workers. … What we are seeing over the last 40 years is the disappearance of America’s middle class.”
Sanders, the longest-serving member of Congress, suggested higher taxes for the wealthy and cutting the “enormous waste” at the Pentagon.
 Sanders said he would decide “pretty soon” about whether he could raise enough money to mount a “credible campaign.”
“I wouldn’t run unless I thought I could win,” he told Fox News.
Former Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb also challenged Clinton, a former first lady and secretary of state, saying voters want new leadership.
"I think we've got a lot of incumbent fatigue in the country,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “People are looking for fresh approaches in terms of how to solve the problems of the country."
Like Sanders, Web highlighted the huge financial backing likely needed to defeat Clinton, considering backers expect to raise $2.5 billion for her campaign.
"But what we do have is long experience on the issues, in and out of government; strong beliefs about where the country needs to go," said Webb, a populist-style politician, Vietnam veteran and Navy secretary under the Bush administration.
Webb, who recently visited the first-in-the-nation caucus state Iowa and who will return in the coming days, said only that he was “looking … hard” at officially declaring a candidacy.
Right now, Clinton is running uncontested for the party nomination. However, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said recently that she’s planning for a series of sanctioned primary debates.
“I expect the voters who believe we should have a Democratic primary will get their wish,” she told C-SPAN.
Also on Sunday, former Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, considered perhaps the mostly likely to challenge Clinton, continued to argue that his two terms running the state would qualified him to run the country, if he gets into the race.
And like Sanders, he suggested that improving the economy, particularly middle class wages, would be a top priority.
“I believe I have the ideas that will help our country move forward to where our economy is working again, instead of our wages declining,” O’Malley said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Clinton made a similar argument when officially announcing her candidacy April 11 via an online video in which she says: "Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.”
O’Malley, a longtime Clinton supporter, argues he can defeat her but has yet to directly challenge Clinton or her campaign or platform.
“I will let others second-guess her strategies,” he told CBS. “The best campaigns are not campaigns that are against but campaigns that are for.”
O’Malley has vowed to decide by late May whether he will make a White House bid. Vice President Biden is among the other top Democrats being mentioned to challenge Clinton.

Federal authorities arrest 6 in Minnesota, California as part of counter-terror probe

Federal authorities said late Sunday that they had arrested six people in Minnesota and California in connection with an investigation into young men who have traveled or tried to travel to Syria to fight alongside ISIS.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota said the arrests were made Sunday in Minneapolis and San Diego but there is no threat to public safety. A spokesman for the Minneapolis FBI office confirmed the number of people arrested. No further details were available about the identities of the suspects or the specific charges they faced.
KMSP reported that at least three of the arrests happened in Minneapolis and at least one took place in San Diego. The station reported that three of the men arrested in Minneapolis were already known to authorities.
According to the report, the three traveled with a fourth man, 19-year-old Hamza Ahmed, to New York by bus last November, intending to go to Syria. All four were prevented from boarding a flight to Istanbul at JFK International Airport. In February, Ahmed was indicted for lying to the FBI during a terrorism investigation, conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, and attempting to provide material support. He has pleaded not guilty.
Little information had been released about Ahmed's traveling companions. An FBI affidavit said they are all between the ages of 19 and 20 and live in the Twin Cities.
The U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI planned a news conference at 10:30 a.m. ET Monday to announce details. Monday's news conference was billed as an announcement of a joint terrorism task force operation.
Authorities say a handful of Minnesota residents have traveled to Syria to fight with militants within the last year. At least one Minnesotan has died while fighting for ISIS.
Since 2007, more than 22 young Somali men have also traveled from Minnesota to Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabaab.
Four Minnesotans have already been charged in connection with supporting terror groups in Syria, including ISIS.

Kim Cartoon

Valdosta State University

Veteran detained after taking American flag from protesters who were walking on it, report says

A military veteran was reportedly detained and charged by Valdosta State University police in Georgia Friday after she took an American flag from a group of protesters who were walking on it.
The Valdosta Daily Times reports Michelle Manhart, an Air Force veteran, said she wanted to take action after hearing about the group’s demonstrations, but did not want to take the flag from them.
“I did not want anything like this, but I got a call from a student who told me that the flag was on the ground, and they were walking on it,” Manhart told the Daily Times. “I was just going over there to pick up the flag off the ground. I don’t know what their cause is, but I went to pick it up because it doesn’t deserve to be on the ground.”
Manhart said she was taken into custody by campus police who then returned the flag to the demonstrators. Manhart did admit to the paper she was resisting arrest.
The group declined to press charges. The officers who detained her did not press charges either for resisting arrest.
However, Valdosta State police gave Manhart a criminal trespassing warning, which bans her from any university activity, including graduation and foot games, the school’s vice president for enrollment, marketing and communications Andy Clark told the paper.
A VSU student told the paper that a demonstrator said putting the flag on the ground and walking on it was “a symbol of our protest. When a slave understands his situation and understands he doesn’t want to be in slavery, he does not respect or revere anything his slavemaster has put in front of him.”
Manhart said if the cause was racism, then she would have agreed with the cause but opposed the method of which the demonstrators were protesting.
Manhart hopes for an apology from the group and to obtain the flag so it could be disposed of properly.

Texas set to approve open carry of handguns, seen as win for gun-rights activists

Texas is poised to become the largest state in the U.S. to allow citizens to openly carry handguns, a change long sought by gun-rights activists.
The Texas House of Representatives on Friday voted 96-35 to allow residents with concealed-handgun licenses to openly carry their guns in public in holsters. A similar open-carry measure passed the Texas Senate last month; the two open-carry bills must be squared before being sent to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has indicated support for the idea.
In contrast to its reputation for being permissive on firearms, Texas is one of six states, including California, New York and Florida, that currently bars citizens from openly carrying handguns. People who want to carry handguns in public on their person must obtain concealed-weapons permits and keep the weapons hidden.

“We are seeing historic progress in Texas”- Terry Holcomb Sr., executive director of Texas Carry, a gun-rights group

Texas currently allows citizens to openly carry long guns in public, however. That has spurred gun-rights groups to carry assault rifles into restaurants and stores and along the sidewalks adjoining the Texas Capitol, to highlight what they see as a senseless legal distinction.
The push by gun enthusiasts, a powerful constituency within the Texas Republican Party, has helped legislation move through the GOP-controlled Legislature this year after several years of stalled efforts.
Gun-rights groups are also calling for legislation to allow some students and university employees to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. The Texas Senate last month approved a campus-carry measure, as it is known. The Texas House is expected to pass a companion measure, and the idea is also supported in principle by Mr. Abbott.
It would make Texas one of only eight states with laws permitting concealed guns on college campuses, and the largest state to do so.
“We are seeing historic progress in Texas,” said Terry Holcomb Sr., executive director of Texas Carry, a gun-rights group. He noted that open-carry legislation had never even made it out of a Texas legislative committee before this year.

At NH summit, GOP 2016 hopefuls take turns attacking Clinton ahead of her arrival

GOP presidential hopefuls turned up their attacks Saturday on Hillary Clinton -- taking turns piling on the 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner during a party summit in New Hampshire.
The first five 2016 GOP presidential candidates or potential candidates used at least some of their stage time at the Republican Leadership Summit, in Nashua, N.H., to criticize Clinton, who is scheduled to be in the state Monday and Tuesday.
“I’m starting to worry that when Clinton travels she'll need two planes -- one for her and her entourage and one for her baggage,” said Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, particularly critical of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state in which four Americans were killed in Benghazi, Libya, and she used a private server and email address for official business.
“When I think of scandals, the one that bothers me the most is Benghazi,” he continued. “What I fault Hillary most for is for nine months (Americans in Benghazi) pleaded for help.”
Nearly 20 Republican White House prospects were on the program for the weekend conference that ended Saturday afternoon.
Paul was followed by former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, the only high-profile, potential 2016 GOP White House female candidate so far this year.
“Hillary Clinton must not be president of the United States,” said Fiorina, who repeated her criticism that Clinton’s extensive travelogue as the country’s top diplomat is not a marker of success.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal began his remarks by pretending to have mistakenly read a Clinton stump speech, saying he wanted to talk about President Obama’s “great success” in the Middle East.
“I’m sorry, this is Hillary Clinton’s speech, not my speech,” Jindal said to laughter and applause.
He later said: “We can win, we must win, we will win. It is critical we beat Hillary Clinton.”
N.Y. real estate mogul Donald Trump was perhaps the easiest on Clinton, suggesting she was not invincible.
“I know Hillary very well,” he said. “I can beat her. And I think most people cannot.”
South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsay Graham was critical of Clinton’s now 8-day-old campaign in which her interactions with people in Iowa, and those she met along the way in her van, appear to be carefully managed.
“Hillary Clinton couldn't be here today because we didn't ask her,” said Graham, also critical of Clinton before, during and after the Benghazi attacks.
“And the reason she isn't (here) is because you can ask questions. This listening tour is like North Korea. Is there anything you'd like to ask the dear leader? How does she get away with this? I don't know. If you want to meet her you better be able to run 35mph” to catch her van.

GIVING IN? Obama suggests possible compromise on Iran sanctions

President Obama suggested on Friday that Iran could receive significant economic relief immediately after concluding a deal to curb its nuclear program, a gesture towards one of Tehran’s key demands.

Obama said such a move would depend on the final accord allowing international sanctions to be quickly re-imposed if Tehran violated the agreement it is now negotiating with global powers. The administration has said the U.S. prefers sanctions would be lifted in phases as Iran meets certain requirements.
“Our main concern here is making sure that if Iran doesn’t abide by its agreement that we don’t have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops in order to reinstate sanctions,” the president said at a news conference. “It will require some creative negotiations,” Mr. Obama said, adding, “I’m confident it will be successful.”
Such solutions could potentially include a faster timetable for lifting sanctions and also freeing up tens of billions of dollars in Iranian oil revenue that has been frozen, though Obama made no reference to that money.
Later, seeking to clarify the president’s comments, a White House official said Obama “will not accept a deal without phased sanctions” relief.
How sanctions would be lifted under is becoming a flashpoint as Iran and the West try to move from a preliminary agreement made earlier this month to a final deal by a June 30 deadline.
Obama, at the news conference, which came after meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, said the level and timing of sanctions relief are less important to the U.S. than the measures that will determine how quickly sanctions can be re-enacted if Iran breaks any final agreement.
On both the lifting of sanctions and the “snap back” provisions that put them back in place if Iran is in violation, Obama said U.S. negotiators will be seeking “formulas that get to our main concerns while allowing the other side to make a presentation to their body politic that is more acceptable.”

First Lady Cartoon

Fool of the Week: America's lap dog, lamestream media

Well, it was a week filled with fools. But who would be "Fool of the Week"?
Would it be Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for calling Republican’s "losers"?
Or would it be ESPN reporter Britt McHenry for losing her temper?
Or would it be Gwyneth Paltrow for dropping her food stamp challenge after just 4 days?
All viable fools.
But by unanimous decision... the Fool of the Week title goes to, drum  roll, wait for it.. the “lap dog” media who fell over themselves trying to chase down the elusive “Scooby" van carrying the “inevitable" Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. 
By the way, when they finally caught up to her, did the media demand questions answered about Benghazi? How they were supposedly broke when they left the White House? Her emails?
Nope.
They wanted to know what Hillary ordered at Chipotle. It was the lame stream media at their finest.

College apologizes for serving Mexican food at space alien-themed party

Idiots for Apologizing.

A California college has apologized for its “insensitivity” after serving Mexican food at an official school night party whose theme, “Intergalactic,” included decorations featuring aliens from outer space.
In a letter addressed to its student body, Stevenson College - which is part of the University of California, Santa Cruz - said it received complaints from students and others within the university who were offended by the decision to serve Mexican food at the Sci-Fi party because of its perceived connection to the immigration debate.
The term “illegal aliens” is sometimes used to describe people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border without documentation, but many Latinos and immigration advocates consider it pejorative.
“We would never want to make a connection between individuals of Latino heritage or undocumented students and ‘aliens,’ and I am so sorry that our College Night appeared to do exactly that,” reads the letter, which was written by Carolyn Golz, a student life administrator.
Golz said the incident “demonstrated a cultural insensitivity on the part of the program planners,” but called it an “unintentional mistake.”
Now, as a result of this “poor decision,” the university is requiring cultural competence training for all students interested in putting together on-campus programs as well as other safe guards that “will ensure college programs are culturally sensitive and inclusive.”
College Night is a special monthly event designed to bring students together, according to the college’s website, which includes photos from former themed parties, including “Midnight in Paris,” at which French food was served, and “Harry Potter,” which featured turkey, potatoes and stew.
“For [the sci-fi] event, students landed on Mexican food because they weren't sure what food would work with the intergalactic theme,” a college spokesman told Fox News. “It sounds like an honest mistake - choosing a food for college night without thinking about how it could be perceived by others. The students decided on Mexican food as they hadn't had it yet this year. “
Some believe Stevenson College is overreacting with its decision to not only apologize, but to now require cultural competence training of program staff.
“This seems a bit of a stretch,” said Geraldo Rivera on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends on Friday morning.  “This seems like political correctness gone way too far, and now they are going to get much more inferior food at their next gala for fear of offending.”

ISIS continues deadly assault on western Iraq as thousands flee

Iraqi special forces maintained control of the provincial capital, Ramadi, in Iraq's western Anbar province Friday, after Islamic State militants continued to pound the western city with bombings, causing fearful residents to flee their homes.
Anbar provincial council member Athal al-Fahdawi said Thursday the city was "in great danger," the BBC reported. Nine people were killed by militants in the village of Albu Ghanim— four of the victims were police officers, the Kurdish website Rudaw said- and thousands of people fled Ramadi and surrounding areas in recent days.
Sabah al-Karhout, head of Anbar's provincial council, said there were no major attacks on the city Friday but that the militants still maintained control of three villages to the east of Ramadi, which they captured Wednesday.
Suicide bombers attacked government buildings and checkpoints in Ramadi earlier in the week and Friday a series of bombings ripped through Baghdad, mainly targeting public places and killing at least 40 people, Iraqi officials said.
A car bomb went off at a car dealership in the Shiite neighborhood of Habibya in eastern Baghdad, killing 15 people and wounding 26, police said. Several cars were burned in the attack. A half-hour earlier, a car bomb detonated near an outdoor market, killing 13 people and wounding 24.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks but violence has escalated both in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq in the wake of Islamic State group's capture of large parts of the country last year. The Islamic State has taken credit for similar attacks in the past, especially those targeting Shiites, as well as Iraqi security forces and government buildings.
The attacks come as Iraqi government forces and allied Shiite and Sunni fighters-- backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led international coalition-- are battling ISIS militants to retake key cities and territory in northern and western Iraq.
Sabah Nuaman, a special forces commander in Anbar, said the situation had improved early Friday after airstrikes hit key militant targets on the city's fringes.
Also Friday, Iraqi security forces gained full control over a contested area south of the Beiji refinery, as part of their push to secure the rest of Salahuddin province.
General Ayad al-Lahabi, a commander with the Salahuddin Command Center, said the military, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and Shiite and Sunni militias dubbed the Popular Mobilization Forces, gained control of the towns of al-Malha and al-Mazraah, located 1.9 miles south of the Beiji oil refinery, killing at least 160 militants with the Islamic State group.
Al-Lahabi said security forces are trying to secure two corridors around the refinery itself after the Sunni militants launched a large-scale attack on the complex earlier this week, hitting the refinery walls with explosive-laced Humvees.
Extremists from the Islamic State group seized much of Salahuddin province last summer during their advance across northern and western Iraq.
The battle for Tikrit was seen as a key step toward eventually driving the militants out of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the capital of Nineveh province. In November, Iraqi security forces said they had recaptured the town of Beiji from the militant group. The refinery had never been captured by the militants but has been subjected to frequent attacks by the group.

Obama immigration order back in federal court

How many Demonstrators  are Illegal?

Demonstrators gathered outside a New Orleans federal courthouse on Friday as President Obama’s efforts to overhaul the country’s immigration system dangled in legal limbo.
Justice Department lawyers urged a federal appeals court to lift an injunction on a plan that would let up to 5 million illegal immigrants live in the country, obtain work permits and receive other benefits.
In February, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen granted a preliminary injunction at the request of 26 states that oppose Obama's action. Hanen's rulings have temporarily blocked the Obama administration from implementing the policies that would shield illegal immigrants from deportation.
“We have health costs,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose state is leading the lawsuit, said. “We have law enforcement costs. Then there’s additional costs to the federal government, because basically this is a benefits program for people who are not actually supposed to be here.”
Victor Ibarra, a 43-year-old protester from Houston, was with a group of restaurant workers. He said it's time to change immigration policy.
"We are human. We want family to be together. We just want to be OK in this country, cause no trouble and have the opportunity to be in the U.S. all our life,” Ibarra said.
Obama announced the executive orders after the November midterm elections, saying inaction by Congress forced him to make sweeping changes to immigration rules on his own.
A coalition of 26 states, led by Texas, sued to overturn Obama's executive action, arguing that it is unconstitutional and would force them to invest more in law enforcement, health care and education.
Justice Department attorneys  have argued that maintaining the temporary hold harms "the interests of the public and of third parties who will be deprived of significant law enforcement and humanitarian benefits of prompt implementation" of the president's immigration action.
The appellate court is taking up the case at a special hearing. It was uncertain how quickly the panel might rule following the hearing. Each side was to get an hour to argue their case.
The first of Obama's orders — to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — had been set to take effect Feb. 18.
The other major part would extend deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for several years. That provision was slated to begin on May 19.

New VA scandals call into question agency's ability to clean house

Nearly a year after a scandal rocked the Department of Veterans Affairs, revealing that the agency's centers nationwide were manipulating records to hide dangerously long patient wait times, the bad news just keeps on coming -- calling into question the agency’s promise to clean house.
Ignored claims, manipulated records, cost overruns and even one facility infested with insects and rodents are among the latest issues uncovered by a blistering VA Inspector General’s report. The auditor's probe found that more than 31,000 inquiries placed by veterans to the Philadelphia Regional VA office call center went ignored for more than 312 days, even though they were supposed to be answered in five. Perhaps even worse, claim dates were manipulated to hide delays, $2.2 million in improper payments were made because of duplicate records, 22,000 pieces of returned mail went ignored and some 16,600 documents involving patient records and dating back to 2011 were never scanned into the system.

“This report is as bleak as it gets, full of systemic malfeasance and deliberate data manipulation.”- Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.

“This report is as bleak as it gets, full of systemic malfeasance and deliberate data manipulation,” charged Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, in a statement after the story broke April 15. “The Philadelphia VA Regional Office is in crisis, brought on by years of mismanagement and encouraged by VA’s longstanding refusal to hold employees accountable.”
The report also found that more than 150 employees were forced to work in a dilapidated, leaky warehouse infested with insects and rodents.
It wasn’t the only black eye for the VA, which has been trying to pursue system-wide reforms since Robert McDonald took over for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who resigned during last spring’s VA scandal. After reports in April 2014 that some vets may have died waiting for appointments with the Phoenix VA facility, the IG found that wait times for thousands had been electronically manipulated while some 1,700 vets were put on a secret list to cover up their long waits. It was later revealed that 18 of those on the secret ledger died before getting their appointments.

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The damning Inspector General's report found widespread problems at the Philadelphia facility. (Va.gov)

The scandal led to more whistleblowers and investigations, which found that VAs nationwide either sidetracked or manipulated the wait times for more than 57,000 veterans.
This week, lawmakers grilled VA officials on another front: reports that the construction of a new VA facility in Denver, which has been in the works for years, has so far cost a budget-busting $1.7 billion, and is still incomplete. Officials have run out of money to pay for it.
Miller’s committee held a hearing this week at which members asked VA officials why contract specialist Adelino Gorospe, who said he was fired after warning department executives in 2011 that the hospital would cost more than estimated, was fired, but Glenn Haggstrom, the VA’s top construction executive, was able to retire with full pension benefits amid the investigation.
“What’s most disappointing about this situation, however, is that Haggstrom left on his own terms – with a lifetime pension – even though any reasonable person would conclude that he should have been fired years ago,” said Miller, calling the VA’s construction program, “a disaster.”
The VA did not respond to an inquiry by Foxnews.com on Friday.
In response to the Philadelphia IG report, the VA said the findings “reflect conditions a year ago.” Once issues were brought to their attention by whistleblowers, reforms were already in high gear during the IG’s inspection, first and foremost with a new director Diana Rubens, who was brought in to tackle the reforms in July 2014.
"This is not a new thing, this is a last-year thing," Allison Hickey, the VA's official in charge of benefits, told The Associated Press.
But the IG’s report rejects that notion, saying it was getting complaints as recently as last month.
Meanwhile, tensions also mounted over whether VA officials who retaliated against whistleblowers have been held accountable during a subcommittee on oversight hearing this week.
“If you want to send a message that wrong-doers are going to be held accountable, you have to hold at least one person accountable,” charged Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y.
Meghan Flanz, director of the VA’s Accountability Review, responded by saying the agency had myriad investigations open and would take measures when the evidence required it. However, she did not feel that a new whistleblower protection bill mulled in the House would be necessary.

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Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has vowed to turn the agency around.

“We will, whenever the evidence shows retaliation is engaged in, hold them accountable,” Flanz said.
Garry Augustine, executive director of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), agreed that VA’s continued bad press as each scandal is exposed paints a grim picture. But he thinks much of this shows how much more proactive the national office has been since last year.
“For too long, the VA has depended on reports coming into the central office saying everything is fine, with no one taking a closer look,” he told Foxnews.com. “This team is actually sifting through the garbage and finding the nasty stuff… what’s rotten, and what needs to be fixed.”
One success story was reported by the Tribune-Review earlier this month, citing VA data that showed the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare system has all but eliminated its secret waiting list, and cut the number of vets waiting for more than 30 days for an appointment to half.
Hal Donahue, an Air Force veteran who writes about veterans issues and works with the American Veterans Committee, agreed that McDonald – who was confirmed last July -- is on the spot to clean up a huge mess that has put thousands of veterans at risk of missing out on benefits and getting timely health care.
“I’m seeing progress but it's like unraveling a big ball of knots,” he told Foxnews.com. “The VA is so vast it’s going to take a while.”

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House passes bill to repeal death tax

WASHINGTON –  The House voted Thursday to repeal the federal tax on estates, a politically volatile issue that affects few inheritances.
Republicans refer to it as the "death tax." They say it prevents small business owners and family farmers from passing businesses on to their heirs.
"Can you imagine working your whole life to build up a family-owned business and then upon your death Uncle Sam swoops in and takes nearly half of what you spent a lifetime building up for your children and grandchildren?" asked Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who sponsored the bill.
"It is at its heart an immoral tax," he said.
Democrats say repealing the tax is a giveaway to the rich, since the only families that pay it have many millions in assets. The bill now goes to the Senate where Democrats appear to have enough votes to block it.
The White House has threatened to veto the bill in part because it would add $269 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.
"This proposed repeal of the estate tax is nothing more than a massive unfunded tax break for a small sliver of America's wealthiest families," said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. "What are they doing? Shoveling a quarter of a trillion dollars out the door to the richest."
The vote was 240-179.
The House also passed a bill to make permanent a deduction for state and local sales taxes that expired at the beginning of the year. The White House threatened to veto that bill in part because it would have added $42 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.
The federal tax rate on estates is 40 percent, but big exemptions limit the share of estates that pay it to fewer than 1 percent.
This year, the exemption is $5.43 million for a single person. Married couples can exempt up to $10.9 million. Larger estates pay taxes only on the amounts above these thresholds.
A total of 5,400 estates are expected to pay the tax this year — out of about 2.6 million deaths, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides official estimates for Congress. That's 0.2 percent of all deaths in the U.S.
Republicans say that some business owners get hit with the tax because they have valuable assets that don't necessarily generate a lot of cash. They cite family farms, which may sit on valuable land but don't generate enough money to pay hefty estate taxes unless heirs sell some or all the land.
"The super rich? They don't pay this tax. They have a legion of lawyers and tax planners. They have charitable trusts and foundations," Brady said. "These are family-owned, hard-working, risk-taking, determined Americans who are building their business, their farm, their ranch. These are not, as we will hear today, the Paris Hiltons and robber barons of the Teddy Roosevelt days."
The deduction for state and local sales taxes helps people who live in the nine states without a state income tax on wages.
House Republicans say the measure is about fairness because people in states that have incomes taxes can deduct those taxes on their federal returns.
The vote was 272-152.
These seven states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Also, New Hampshire and Tennessee tax income from interest and dividends, but not wages.
The deduction is one of dozens of temporary tax breaks that are routinely extended every year or two. House Republicans are working to make selected ones permanent.

US Marine imprisoned in Iran a victim of torture, cruelty, family says

The family of a U.S. Marine imprisoned in Iran for nearly four years says the American has been drugged, whipped and told a heartbreaking lie that his mother died in a car accident while he awaits a retrial.
The sister and brother-in-law of Amir Hekmati appeared on Fox News Channel's "On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren," where they described in chilling detail the torture that the veteran has endured since his arrest in August 2011. Hekmati, they said, has suffered stun-gun assaults, has been whipped, dosed with lithium and hung by his arms while held in the Islamic Republic.
But the worst abuse of all may have been the emotional torture of being told by cruel guards that his mother had died, according to his sister, Sarah Hekmati.
“He was put in stressful positions for long periods of time,” said Sarah Hekmati. “He had to endure the news that they had told him that his mother was killed in a car accident; just the emotional torture of being told that and not having a way to contact our family.

“He was drugged with lithium for a long period of time and then forcibly it was removed so that he would have to endure painful withdrawal symptoms and then he was whipped on his feet.”- Sarah Hekmati

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• Marine's torture in Iranian prison revealed

“To be told that and not know if that’s true or not,” she also said. “He was drugged with lithium for a long period of time and then forcibly it was removed so that he would have to endure painful withdrawal symptoms and then he was whipped on his feet.”
Sarah’s husband, Dr. Rami Kurdi, also detailed some the other horrific torture that Hekmati has endured.
“The torture we heard of as described by Amir himself was cold water, dirty cold water poured on the ground whenever he’d fall asleep to kind of keep him awake,” he said. “Lights on day and night, just to interrupt his sleep pattern. And these were just the smaller things. He was hung by his arms, Tasered – hung by his arms for an indefinite amount of time.”

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This undated file photo released by his family via FreeAmir.org shows Amir Hekmati. (AP)

Hekmati was arrested in August 2011 on allegations of spying for the CIA while visiting his grandmother and other relatives in Iran. In December of that same year, Iranian state television aired a videotaped confession from the leatherneck in which he had stated that he had sneaked into Iran to establish a CIA presence. His family said at the time that he was coerced into making the statement.
In January 2012, Hekmati was sentenced to death, but the ruling was overturned two months later, after the Iranian Supreme Court ordered a retrial. Two years later, Hekmati is still awaiting a new day in court. His family told FoxNews.com earlier this month that they believe the recent “framework” nuclear agreement between the West and Iran will help to free the Marine.
“Now that Iran has sat at the table next to the United States, working diligently to come to an agreement for a nuclear program, we ask Iran if they still consider the United States a hostile country and if they do not, perhaps it is time they open the prison gates and allow the Red Cross to visit Amir without guard and report on the status of his well-being,” the family said in a written statement to FoxNews.com. “We call on them to show the international community that they are serious about their intentions and as an act of good faith, return Amir to his dying father, his worried mother, and the family that badly needs him.”

Hillary hypocrisy? Why her fundraising reform pitch Is drawing flak

The hypocrisy police are jumping all over Hillary Clinton now that she is vowing to drive “unaccountable money” out of politics.
Her critics scoff at the notion that this wealthy one-percenter, who will probably obliterate the record for presidential fundraising in the 2016 cycle, is positioning herself as a champion of campaign finance reform.
But is that fair?
Well, it’s hard to argue against the dark shadow of unregulated money when your family’s foundation is taking in all kinds of cash from foreign governments and other outfits that want to cozy up to a potential president and first spouse.
The Clinton Foundation has now agreed to limit its contribution from foreign regimes in a compromise that satisfies no one. It’s now okay to take the big bucks from Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia, Norway and the Netherlands, but not from more “controversial” countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman. This sort of backdoor financial channel clearly undercuts any financial reform message from Hillary, who has now resigned from the board. This issue is not going away.
But there’s another level on which I think Hillary is getting a bit of a bum rap. And that is the notion that she shouldn’t call for campaign finance reform while on track to raise well over than $2 billion—with hundreds of millions coming from super PACs.
No candidate can engage in unilateral disarmament. If you’re running under a system that amounts to a financial arms race, you have to play to win. You can talk about your ideas for reform, but you can’t allow the other candidates to bury you on the fundraising front.
The press gave President Obama an utter pass on this issue when he ran as an advocate of public financing, only to renege on the idea when he realized that he could raise massive amounts of money and not have to abide by any spending limits. It was this president who escalated the arms race, and the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision—aimed at a film about Hillary—let corporations and anonymous donors in on the action.
But here’s why I’m skeptical about Clinton’s professed interest in the issue. She declared the other day that she wants to “fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if it takes a constitutional amendment.”
Whenever you hear a politician talking about a constitutional amendment, it’s a punt. They are extraordinarily difficult to pass, requiring two-thirds approval in Congress and then three-quarters of the state legislatures. The process takes years.
When Republican candidates talk about a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, it’s a punt. When George W. Bush campaigned on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, he never pushed it after the election. And for Hillary Clinton to invoke that specter means it’s more of an issue to appeal to good-government liberals than a serious attempt to change the system.
So she’s better start raising truckloads full of dough, because the “dysfunctional” system isn’t changing any time soon.

Security expert pulled off flight by FBI after exposing airline tech vulnerabilities

One of the world’s foremost experts on counter-threat intelligence within the cybersecurity industry, who blew the whistle on vulnerabilities in airplane technology systems in a series of recent Fox News reports, has become the target of an FBI investigation himself.
Chris Roberts of the Colorado-based One World Labs, a security intelligence firm that identifies risks before they're exploited, said two FBI agents and two uniformed police officers pulled him off a United Airlines Boeing 737-800 commercial flight Wednesday night just after it landed in Syracuse, and spent the next four hours questioning him about cyberhacking of planes.
The FBI interrogation came just hours after Fox News published a report on Roberts’ research, in which he said: “We can still take planes out of the sky thanks to the flaws in the in-flight entertainment systems. Quite simply put, we can theorize on how to turn the engines off at 35,000 feet and not have any of those damn flashing lights go off in the cockpit.”
His findings, along with those of another security expert quoted in the Fox News reports, were backed up a GAO report released Tuesday.
“If you don’t have people like me researching and blowing the whistle on system vulnerabilities, we will find out the hard way what those vulnerabilities are when an attack happens,” Roberts said.
With increasingly sophisticated attacks on a number of targets, Roberts has consulted with numerous government and private clients to identify threats to financial and intellectual property, customer data and other protected information. He also has served as both an in-house security expert and consultant on IT security, engineering and architecture and design operations for scores of Fortune 500 companies across the finance, retail, energy and services sectors.
He regularly engages with various government agencies on critical security issues of national importance. Ironically, Roberts met with the FBI at the agency’s request three times after the agency asked for his guidance on protecting airplanes from cyberhackers.
Wednesday night, FBI agents confiscated Roberts’ numerous electronic devices and computer files including his laptop and thumb drives and demanded he give them access to his data. They wanted to forensically image his laptop, but it is a company-owned asset with client information, research and intellectual property, some of which is sensitive in nature and encrypted.
So after consulting with his CEO, Roberts told the agents they would need a warrant, something they still have not presented.
FBI agents disclosed to Roberts that they also had questioned fellow passengers and forensically examined the plane to determine if any areas had been tampered with.
“You have one element in the FBI reaching out to people like me for help, but another element doing a hell of a job burning those bridges,” Roberts said. “Those of us who do threat research are doing it for the right reasons, and we work to build relationships with the intelligence community because we want to help them identify weaknesses before they become a problem.”
Roberts flew from Denver to Chicago to Syracuse at the invitation of a defense contractor to speak an aerospace conference about vulnerabilities in airplane systems, a topic Roberts commented on for Fox News in late March, when he said commercial and even military planes have an Achilles heel that could leave them vulnerable to hackers or terrorists on the ground due to flaws in the entertainment and satellite communications systems.
Roberts’ findings were featured on FoxNews.com, on Fox News Radio and on the Fox News show "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" on March 19, 2015, and again on April 15, 2015.
Ruben Santamarta, principal security consultant for IOActive, told Fox News he also discovered a backdoor that allowed him to gain privileged access to the Satellite Data Unit, the most important piece of SATCOM (Satellite communications) equipment on aircraft.
“These vulnerabilities allowed unauthenticated users to hack into the SATCOM equipment when it is accessible through WiFi or In-Flight entertainment networks,” Santamarta said.
There are “multiple high risk vulnerabilities” such as weak encryption algorithms or insecure protocols in SATCOM technologies manufactured by some of the world’s largest companies, Santamarta found.
“These vulnerabilities have the potential to allow a malicious actor to intercept, manipulate or block communications, and in some cases, to remotely take control of the physical device,” Santamarta reported.
The Government Accountability Office also presented a series of threatening scenarios for passengers, saying the same Internet access now available on most commercial flights makes it possible for hackers to bring down a plane in a report published Tuesday.
"According to cybersecurity experts we interviewed, Internet connectivity in the cabin should be considered a direct link between the aircraft and the outside world, which includes potential malicious actors," the GAO report states.
The worst-case scenario is a terrorist with a laptop sitting among passengers and taking control of the airplane using its passenger Wi-Fi, said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee who requested the investigation.
"That's a serious vulnerability, and FAA should work quickly" to fix the problem, DeFazio told the Associated Press.
Roberts isn’t sure what will happen next. He had to make his presentation to the defense industry Thursday in Syracuse without his electronics. Friday morning, he was scheduled to fly back to Denver, something he hopes he will be allowed to do. He already has been pre-checked through TSA, another irony he pointed out.
“The TSA has already dug into my background and cleared me for the pre-check program,” Roberts said, noting several other government agencies he’s worked with have done the same.
Paul Bresson, the Unit Chief for the FBI National Press Office at the FBI headquarters in Washington D.C., said in response to a Fox News inquiry about the Roberts’ detainment: “We have no comment on this matter.”

Bergdahl's platoon mates: Head of Joint Chiefs knew he walked off base in 2009

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl walked away from his base in Afghanistan June 30, 2009, and by December of that same year, the president's principal military adviser, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, knew those details, according to three of Bergdahl's platoon mates who spoke to Fox News.
"I asked him (Mullen) if he knew about Bergdahl and that he deserted and he (Mullen) told me that he knew of the circumstances surrounding his walking off," former Sgt. Matt Vierkant told Fox,"(and) that they were developing leads and following leads, trying to do everything they could to get him back."
After pulling security duty for the chairman, who was doing a swing through Afghanistan in December 2009, Vierkant, along with Evan Buetow and Cody Full, said they met informally with Mullen and about eight other soldiers. After a pep talk about the mission, the three said Mullen asked the squad leaders and platoon leadership to take a break.
"He sat down with all the lower enlisted guys and the team leaders and basically he said, 'Hey, what do you want to know...You got any questions? He's like, I'm an open book. Let's just have a little question and answer session," Buetow explained.
"So Matt asked him, you know Bergdahl deserted, what's going on with that? And Admiral Mullen said, 'Yes, we know all the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl walking away from the OP (outpost,)and we're still working on getting him back, figuring out where he is and kind of figuring out that whole situation.’"
This account was backed up by a third platoon mate, former Specialist Cody Full. The men were split on whether Mullen singled them out because of the Bergdahl connection or whether it was a chance meeting, but they emphasized that at the time, they appreciated the fact that Mullen seemed to speak candidly and openly.
“I don't remember him being taken aback by it at all, you know, he knew what was going on, he answered not confidently but he didn't have to think about it, he didn't want to give us some political answer,” Buetow explained. “He just gave us an answer.
Asked if there was any ambiguity based on the conversation, Vierkant said no. "Without a doubt, he (Mullen) knew he (Bergdahl) deserted or, you know, was suspected of desertion. There was no doubt in my mind that he fully understood what Bergdahl did."
The three said they felt relieved, and grateful to Mullen for the conversation.
The men's account is significant because Mullen reported directly to President Obama and then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the reported admission comes a full four and a half years before National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Bergdahl served honorably and his parents were called to the White House for a Rose Garden ceremony after he had been swapped for five Taliban commanders.
"If Mullen knew, and now it's alleged that he did know, it would be, it would be unthinkable that he didn't pump this up the chain of command, his chain of command, or, tell the president directly," Brad Blakeman who served in the Bush White House, explained. "At a minimum, this would have been included in the president's daily brief, and at a maximum, it would've been told directly to the President by Mullen."
In a statement to Fox News, Mullen said, "From the moment Sgt. Bergdahl went missing, the U.S. Military was focused on finding him--as it does with any serviceman or woman who goes missing. The exact circumstances were not known then, nor did they drive our decisions. We do not leave our people behind."
Fox has extended an open invitation to the Admiral to explain his recollection of events during the 2009 trip, what he knew in December 2009 about the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl’s capture, and whether he told anything to the president and defense secretary, or if the circumstances were already well understood at senior levels of the White House.
A military official who was travelling with Mullen during the 2009 Afghanistan trip confirmed Bergdahl's teammates did pull security during a leg of the trip,
While not commenting on the claims that they met informally with Mullen, the official said it was common practice for Mullen to ask leadership to take a break so that he could speak directly and candidly with soldiers.
"I want to ask him (Mullen) did they brief the White House? Who knew about it and why would you still do this trade knowing all the information that you knew?" Vierkant said. "We don't leave anyone behind. The thing is, we never left him (Bergdahl) behind. He left us behind. He chose to walk off and do whatever and get captured, that was his fault. Those were his choices."
Bergdahl has not been convicted of any charges, but faces a military court martial in the summer.

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