Marines killed in Tenn. shooting eligible for Purple Heart if gunman had terror ties, report says

The four Marines who were killed when a gunman opened fire at a Navy Operational Support Center reportedly will only be eligible to receive a Purple Heart award if the FBI declares the shooter had ties to a terror organization.
The Marine Corps Times reports Purple Heart packages are being prepared for the Marines who lost their lives in the shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The FBI has only referred to Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez as a “homegrown violent extremist.”
 “Determination of eligibility will have to wait until all the facts are gathered and the FBI investigation is complete,” Marine Corps public affairs officer Maj. Clark Carpenter told the Marine Corps Times.
The Marine Corps is also looking into the requirements for awarding a Purple Heart to Sgt. DeMonte Cheeley, who was injured in the attack, said Capt. Alejandro Aguilera, a spokesman for the 6^th Marine Corps District told the Marine Corps Times.
Cheeley was shot in the leg after Abdulazeez pulled up to his recruiting office and opened fire through the storefront window.
To receive the Purple Heart, it must be demonstrated that active-duty troops were killed or wounded by someone in contact with or inspired and motivated by a foreign terrorist organization.
Marines Lance Cpl. Squire "Skip" Wells, Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, from Hampden, Mass., Sgt. Carson Holmquist, of Polk, Wisc., and Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, of Burke, N.C. were all killed in the July 16 attack. Navy Petty Officer Randall Smith also died in the attack.
Federal officials are still working to determine whether Abdulazeez had been radicalized to attack the recruiting centers.

Clinton denies sending classified information from private email server

Hillary Clinton told reporters Saturday that she never sent or received classified information using her private e-mail server when she served as secretary of state, and that the facts on the issue "are pretty clear."
The Democratic presidential hopeful spoke briefly about the growing controversy surrounding her use of the server after a Democratic gathering at the Madison County Historical Complex in Iowa. Reporters raised the issue during a news conference that followed the event.
"I am confident that I never sent or received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received," Clinton said. "What I think you're seeing here is a very typical kind of discussion, to some extent disagreement among various parts of the government, over what should or should not be publicly released."
Clinton reiterated that she wanted the emails in question to be made public as soon as possible, and expressed no opinion as to whether the Department of Justice should investigate.
"They can fight over it or argue over it. That's up to them. I can tell you what the facts are," she said.
"I think there's so much confusion around this that I understand why reporters and the public are asking questions, but the facts are pretty clear. I did not send nor receive anything that was classified at the time," she said.
The news conference came on the same day as the Clinton campaign announced that the former secretary of state will testify in October before the House committee investigating the killing of four Americans in a 2012 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya
Campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said Clinton will testify publicly before the House’s special Select Committee on Benghazi, after months of negotiations about the terms of her appearance.
A tentative date of Oct. 22 has been set.
Intelligence investigators told the Justice Department in a letter this week that secret government information may have been compromised in the unsecured system she used at her New York home.
Republicans responded to Clinton's denial in a statement released late Saturday.
“Hillary Clinton can't help but continue to mislead the American people," RNC spokesman Michael Short said in the statement. "The facts are clear: independent government investigators found that Hillary Clinton possessed information that was classified at the time on her secret email server and now the matter has been referred to the FBI.
"Hillary Clinton's reckless attempt to get around public records laws has jeopardized our national security.”
Clinton used the server and private email for official business that included some exchanges about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi.
The investigation into the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and the three others has grown into a political fight over Clinton's emails and private server and risks overshadowing her 2016 presidential campaign.
“Friday began with the printing of a story that was false,” Merrill said in a statement. “Entities from the highest levels of two branches of government have now made that clear. … We want to ensure that appropriate procedures are followed as these emails are reviewed while not unduly delaying the release of her emails.”
The inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community on Friday alerted the Justice Department to the potential compromise of classified information arising from Clinton's server.
The IG also sent a memo to members of Congress indicating that "potentially hundreds of classified emails" were among the 30,000 that Clinton had provided to the State Department -- a concern the office said it raised with FBI counterintelligence officials.
Though the referral to the Justice Department does not seek a criminal probe and does not specifically target Clinton, the latest steps by government investigators will further fuel the partisan furor surrounding the 55,000 pages of emails the State Department already has under review.
A spokesman for Democrats on the Benghazi committee told Fox News on Saturday that Gowdy's staff proposed to Clinton's attorney hearing dates in October and that on Friday the attorney accepted the Oct. 22 date.
The letter said none of the emails were marked "classified" at the time it was sent or received but that some should have been handled as such and sent on a secure computer network.
Clinton has said she used the private server at her home as a matter of convenience to limit her number of electronic devices.

Donald Trump FULL Press Conference with families of people killed by ill...

Cry Baby Cartoon

ObamaCare blamed for insurer mega-mergers amid premium hike fears

WASHINGTON –  A new wave of insurance mega-mergers is fueling fears that ObamaCare is crushing competition. Despite initial claims that the law would bring down costs, Republican critics and others say it's driving the industry to consolidate -- which could end up costing consumers more. 
"Without question, the enactment of ObamaCare has prompted increased consolidation in the health care industry," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement Thursday, announcing hearings on health care industry competition.
The concern, growing rapidly, is there may only be a few powerful operators still standing while smaller players are driven out of business. The billion-dollar deals accelerated following the Supreme Court's ruling that kept Affordable Care Act subsidies in place.
Whether that's coincidence remains to be seen. But conservatives worry the health law, which requires companies to insure virtually anyone, puts pressure on firms to join forces. To survive, insurers must spread fixed costs over more customers. The bigger they are, the easier it will be to meet ObamaCare-imposed caps on operating costs and boost profits.
The insurance giants claim the mergers will let them operate more efficiently, but others see the potential for rising premiums.
"[ObamaCare] eliminates many of the essential competitive checks remaining in the American health care system," Christopher Pope, a scholar at The Heritage Foundation, wrote. "Because the law relies so heavily on unfunded regulatory mandates to finance the benefit structure, it is obliged to strengthen the power of incumbent providers to prevent targeted competition from eliminating their profit centers."
The latest announcement came Friday when Anthem Inc. announced it agreed to acquire rival Cigna Corp. for $48.4 billion. If approved, the new insurance giant would have an estimated revenue north of $115 billion and serve the health needs of more than 53 million people.
The Anthem-Cigna news comes on the heels of another mega-merger announced earlier this month, when Aetna Inc. agreed to buy Humana for $37 billion.
If both mergers go through, only three major players in the U.S. insurance industry would be left competing for customers: Anthem, Aetna and UnitedHealth.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., earlier this month pointed the finger at ObamaCare for the developments. Goodlatte's hearings, meanwhile, will explore the role ObamaCare has had in shaping consolidations and the consequences American consumers may face.
"A concern that I have raised time and again is that, in the health care marketplace, the will of the market is being displaced by the judgment of the federal government," Goodlatte said. "That fear was realized when ObamaCare was enacted into law and we are seeing its tangible effects today."
Democrats, though, argue that insurers have been merging since long before the Affordable Care Act. Reps. John Conyers, Jr., D-Mich., and Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said in a statement that the law, "in combination with vigorous antitrust enforcement, can assist in alleviating some of the problems that are the result of decades of too little competition by instead  fostering competition with existing insurers and allowing for new and innovative players to enter the market."
And Edmund Haislmaier, another Heritage scholar, says the companies likely have been looking to trim costs and boost profits since before ObamaCare.
President Obama's health care overhaul was designed to generate more business for insurers because most Americans were required to have health coverage. However, the law also put pressure on industry profits with various mandates.
A recent analysis in The Economist suggested size does matter when it comes to insurance companies. "Scale will be needed to win the best deals from a hospital sector that has already raised its bargaining power through mergers," the report said. "The insurers with the most customers will be able to negotiate the best deals with the providers of care. Big insurers may also be able to negotiate better deals for drugs."
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute, told CNBC it is only a matter of time before participants feel the pinch. "Health insurance costs [to consumers] haven't gone up because the plans are being hollowed out," he said, arguing people are getting less coverage than they used to.
"Eventually, the rising costs because of the monopolization of the hospitals is going to catch up," Gottlieb, who served as an adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2004, said.
Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer, who heads up the Justice Department's antitrust division, told Bloomberg TV that he would assess the industry as a whole and given the surge of deals, would make sure competition is preserved.

Restaurants warn NY push for $15 wage could close hundreds of businesses

Critics are blasting a New York Wage Board decision to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast food establishments that threatens to close hundreds of businesses. 
The International Franchise Association, which represents tens of thousands of major chain restaurants and their franchisees, said that the decision could lead to massive job losses and closed stores.
The "New York wage board decision to discriminate against the quick service food industry will cost jobs and potentially cause small businesses to close," IFA president & CEO Steve Caldeira said in a statement. "Applying a new mandatory minimum wage increase to a narrow group of businesses creates an un-level playing field for owners that provide important entry-level jobs and valuable experience for millions of workers across the state of New York."
A wage board consisting of two labor friendly appointees and one entrepreneur voted to hike the starting wage to $15 -- more than double the $7.25 federal level and a 70 percent increase from the $8.75 statewide wage -- after several weeks of hearings. The board convened after a years-long pressure campaign by labor giant Service Employees International Union (SEIU) targeting McDonalds and other fast food establishments. SEIU spent more than $20 million on front groups that sponsored protests at McDonalds locations across the country in 2014.
The wage hike could have an immediate effect on small businesses. The franchise model relies on entrepreneurs paying licensing fees to parent companies in order to operate under the company umbrella; the typical franchisee takes home about $50,000 each year with one-in-three restaurant owners earning less than $25,000 per year. The new $15 minimum wage would give the average full-time fast food workers a starting salary of more than $30,000.

‘Flat-out lie’: Cruz calls McConnell a liar on Senate floor

An extraordinary scene unfolded on the Senate floor Friday as Republican Sen. Ted Cruz bluntly accused Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying and said he's running the Senate like his Democratic predecessor. 
The charges from the Texas senator and GOP presidential candidate were a rare departure from the Senate's usual staid decorum, even for a politician famous for his fiery speeches.
At issue were assurances Cruz claimed McConnell, R-Ky., had given that there was no deal to allow a vote to renew the federal Export-Import Bank -- a little-known federal agency that has become a rallying cry for conservatives. Cruz rose to deliver his remarks moments after McConnell had lined up a vote on the bank.
"It saddens me to say this. I sat in my office, I told my staff the majority leader looked me in the eye and looked 54 Republicans in the eye. I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie, and I voted based on those assurances that he made to each and every one of us," Cruz said.
"What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again, was a simple lie."
Reports had emerged earlier this year that McConnell privately pledged a vote on the Ex-Im Bank, in exchange for winning support on President Obama's trade agenda. Cruz says he was assured at the time there was no deal.
He also charged that the Senate under Republican control is no different from when Harry Reid of Nevada ran the chamber and was accused by the GOP of shutting down debate and limiting amendments.
"Now the Republican leader is behaving like the senior senator from Nevada," Cruz complained. He also derided an announcement from McConnell that the Senate will vote Sunday to repeal Obama's health care law, calling it "an empty show vote" and "exercise in meaningless political theater" because the legislation will inevitably fail to get the 60 votes needed to advance.
"We keep winning elections and then we keep getting leaders who don't do anything they promised," Cruz said.
The majority leader was not on the Senate floor when Cruz issued his attack, and ignored reporters who tried to ask him about it in the Capitol's hallways. A spokesman said McConnell would have no response.
McConnell and Cruz have never had a thriving relationship. The new majority leader's allies earlier this year derided Cruz's Senate record, complaining that he often speaks out but has skipped important developments.
Some close to McConnell call Cruz, "Mr. 1 percent," referring to his share of support in the crowded race for the GOP presidential nomination. Recent polls have him a few points higher among more than a dozen contenders.
Cruz has grown increasingly outspoken about his contempt for McConnell and other Republicans, using his newly published book, "A Time for Truth," to attack his colleagues on various fronts and accuse them of failing to stand up for their principles.
It is rare for a senator to launch such a heated attack on the floor. Senate rules say, "No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator."

Pentagon wants individuals to stop guarding recruiting stations

The Pentagon asked Friday that individuals not stand guard at the military recruiting offices in the wake of the deadly Chattanooga terror attack.
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement that Secretary of Defense Ash Carter “is currently reviewing recommendations from the services for making our installations and facilities safer - including our recruiting stations” following the July 16 attack that left four Marines and a Navy sailor dead.
“While we greatly appreciate the outpouring of support for our recruiters from the American public, we ask that individuals not stand guard at recruiting offices as it could adversely impact our mission, and potentially create unintended security risks,” Cook added.
In the days following the attack, citizens groups, veterans, local law enforcement and the National Guard have stood watch outside of recruiting offices across the country. It’s also raised questions over a 23-year-old federal policy that leaves service members unable to defend themselves on Pentagon property.
The governors of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma,  Texas and Wisconsin have all signed orders in the last several days to allow National Guard troops to carry loaded guns on bases and at military recruiting centers in their states.

Moral Cartoon

House OKs bill to crack down on 'sanctuary cities,' White House threatens veto

The House approved legislation Thursday to punish so-called “sanctuary cities” for failing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, in the first congressional response to a brazen murder earlier this month in San Francisco allegedly committed by an illegal immigrant.  
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., would penalize jurisdictions that bar the collection of immigration information or don't cooperate with federal “detainer” requests, by blocking them from receiving certain federal law enforcement grants and funding.
It passed 241-179. The Senate is considering similar legislation.
“Sanctuary city policies needlessly endanger American lives by refusing to honor the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration laws,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Obama Administration’s own foolish policies enable rogue local governments to defy federal immigration laws. All too often, these reckless policies create preventable tragedies.”
The legislation already faces a White House veto threat. The White House said the bill “fails to offer” comprehensive reforms and undermines current efforts to remove dangerous convicted criminals and work with local law enforcement.
Angry Democrats accused Republicans of aligning themselves with Donald Trump and his brash anti-illegal immigrant views.
The legislation is the first passed since the July 1 killing of Kathryn Steinle on a California pier.
Steinle, 32, was allegedly shot by Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had been released from city sheriff’s department custody in April.
According to federal immigration officials, Sanchez had already been deported five times and had a lengthy felony criminal record. After serving most of his recent sentence, federal officials turned him over to San Francisco in March on an outstanding warrant – and the city released him weeks later without notifying the feds.
The city argued it had no grounds on which to hold him.
Steinle’s case sparked a fresh round of debate about local jurisdictions – the so-called sanctuary cities – that don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities in order to protect those legally living in the U.S. Steinle’s father Jim testified this week on Capitol Hill in support of changes to the law.
"There are criminals motivated by malice and a conscious disregard for the lives of others, and there are cities more interested in providing a sanctuary for those criminals than they are in providing a sanctuary for their law-abiding citizens," Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said. "This is more than an academic discussion. ... It is quite literally life and death."
But Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said the bill was “not about grabbing criminals” but about “grabbing headlines.”
Members of both parties endorsed Steinle's plea but offered different diagnoses of the problem, with Republicans calling for more enforcement of the law and Democrats calling for a comprehensive immigration overhaul, something House Republicans have blocked for years.
The comments echoed the years-long national debate over immigration, but this latest chapter comes at a moment when immigration has become a hot-button issue on the presidential campaign trail, thanks to Trump's provocative claims about Mexican immigrants being "rapists" and "criminals."
Trump traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday to continue his focus on the issue, to the dismay of many Republicans who fear his campaign risks further alienating Latino voters from the Republican Party. House Republicans rejected Democratic attempts to connect their legislation with Trump's campaign.
"We have a horrible tragedy that was preventable," said Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, when asked about the link. "Cities do not have the right to ignore federal laws that require them to incarcerate people who have committed serious felonies."
Not all House Republicans were backing the bill. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., a supporter of a comprehensive overhaul, said Thursday's bill wouldn't have prevented Kathryn Steinle's death to begin with.
"This is an exercise, this is not a solution," Curbelo told reporters. "This may generate a headline, but it's not going to solve a problem."
But other House Republicans viewed Thursday's vote as just the first step in advancing a slate of enforcement-focused immigration bills centered on beefing up border security and cracking down on immigrants with criminal records. Such an approach would ignore the advice of some Republican Party leaders who've urged the party to reach out to Latino voters by embracing comprehensive overhaul legislation including a path to citizenship for the 11.5 million people in the country illegally.
"The appetite for amnesty has diminished dramatically after we see the carnage in the streets of America at the hands of criminal aliens that should have been removed from the country," said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. "And so that means that now the climate is much better to try to move down the line on enforcement."

Trump threatens independent run, on sidelines of border visit

Donald Trump made a splashy visit Thursday to the U.S.-Mexico border in a bid to draw attention to illegal immigration. But on the sidelines, he was making news for other reasons -- his threat to mount an independent run for the White House if the Republican Party won't welcome him. 
The warning, made in an interview with The Hill, comes as Trump faces some of the toughest criticism yet from fellow Republican candidates. Trump said the Republican National Committee "has not been supportive," and suggested if he does not clinch the nomination and is not "treated" well by Republicans, he'd consider an independent bid.
Asked about the remarks Thursday during his border visit, Trump did not rule out an independent run but said: "I want to run as a Republican. ... I think I'll get the nomination."
Trump's comments immediately raise questions about whether the billionaire businessman and political provocateur -- who is leading several primary polls -- could siphon off votes from a GOP presidential nominee, potentially helping the Democrat. As a self-funded candidate, he would not have to worry about donations drying up if he does poorly in the Republican primaries and caucuses and considers setting out on his own.
Meanwhile, Trump tried to keep the focus Thursday on border security and immigration enforcement. At his border press conference, he said: "I think I'll win the Hispanic vote."
The visit was overshadowed not only by his comments to The Hill but by a local Border Patrol union canceling a scheduled meeting shortly before his arrival.

More on this...

• Trump visits US border in Texas amid uproar over immigration

• Trump gets a tour- and education - at the border

Hector Garza, president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 2455 chapter, issued a statement Thursday morning saying, "After careful consideration of all the factors involved in this event and communicating with members of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) at the National level, it has been decided by Local 2455 to pull out of all events involving Donald Trump."
He said the border with Mexico is "not secure," and an "honest discussion" is needed with the American people. But he expressed concern that a meeting with Trump would have been portrayed as an endorsement. "As Local 2455, our intentions to meet with Mr. Trump was to provide a 'Boots on the Ground' perspective to not only Mr. Trump, but to the media that would be in attendance at this event," he said. "Just to be clear, an endorsement was never discussed for any presidential candidate. Local 2455 does not endorse candidates for any political office."
In a written statement, the Trump campaign said the local union was "totally silenced directly from superiors in Washington who do not want people to know how bad it is on the border --- every bit as bad as Mr. Trump has been saying."
Trump maintained he had been invited by them in the first place.
The campaign said, "It is unfortunate the local union of Border Patrol Agents received pressure at a national level not to participate and ultimately pulled out of today's event."
The Trump campaign's original itinerary said he would meet with the Local 2455 Executive Board. He was also meeting with local law enforcement, including federal agents from several agencies.
The visit comes as Trump both rises in the Republican primary polls and battles criticism from both sides of the aisle for recent comments -- first, for calling some Mexican illegal immigrants "rapists," and then, for questioning Sen. John McCain's "war hero" reputation over the weekend.

State Department, intelligence watchdogs reportedly call for criminal probe of Clinton emails

The inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence community reportedly have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information by using a personal e-mail account while secretary of state.
According to The New York Times, an initial joint memorandum dated June 29 and sent to State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy said that a review of Clinton's e-mail archive contained "hundreds of potentially classified emails".
Clinton, who served as secretary of state during President Barack Obama's first term, has repeatedly denied sending or receiving any classified information on her personal account. However, the inspectors general wrote in a second memorandum last week that at least one of Clinton's emails that had been made public by the State Department contained sensitive information.
Clinton presidential campaign spokesman Nick Merrill issued a statement early Friday denying that Clinton had handled classified materials inappropriately.
"As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails deemed classified by the [Obama] administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted," Merrill said.
The Times reported that senior Justice Department officials had not said whether they will open an investigation.

More on this...

• Hillary Clinton's presidential bid runs into a summer stall

The existence of Clinton's private e-mail account was first revealed in March of this year. Subsequent reports revealed that the account was run through a personal so-called "homebrew" server based at her New York home. The arrangement has raised questions about Clinton's adherence to federal open records laws and whether she used the account to shield herself from information requests by journalists and government transparency groups.
Clinton has maintained that she turned over all relevant federal records before deleting her emails off her sever. Amid heavy public criticism, she later asked the State Department to release 55,000 pages of emails she had turned over to them. An initial batch of 3,000 pages was made public June 30.
The next day, State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed to Fox News that the department had retroactively deemed about 25 of the Clinton emails to be classified. The Times reports that in May, the State Department also acceded to a request by the FBI to retroactively classify a section of emails related to the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The Department's decisions don't mean Clinton knowingly sent classified information during her tenure as America's top diplomat.
The New York Times reports that the inspectors general also criticized the State Department for over-reliance on former Foreign Service officers to determine which information should be classified and failure to consult with the intelligence community on such matters.

Turkey agrees to allow US to use air base for strikes against ISIS

The United States may now launch manned and unmanned military strikes against ISIS from inside Turkey after the government there agreed to allow Washington expanded use of a key air base, a senior defense official confirmed to Fox News Thursday.
Prior U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State have originated from aircraft carriers in the Gulf. However, Turkey has agreed to allow the U.S. expanded use of its Incirlik Air Base, located near the Turkish-Syrian border.
The U.S. military had been using the base in Turkey previously for drone missions and other support operations such as launching and recovering refueling aircraft. Military officials told The Wall Street Journal the agreement also opens up other bases in Turkey for potential use in the campaign against Islamic State.
The Defense Department released a statement Thursday night confirming that there had been discussions with Turkey about counter-ISIS efforts, but did not go into specifics about Incirlik.
"The United States and Turkey have held ongoing consultations about ways we can further our joint counter-ISIL efforts," the statement said. "We have decided to further deepen our cooperation in the fight against ISIL, our common efforts to promote security and stability in Iraq, and our work to bring about a political settlement to the conflict in Syria."
While the U.S. is planning to launch air strikes against ISIS from Turkey, the defense official who spoke to Fox News remained skeptical if Turkey would do the same and said that was the real question.
The news comes amid increasing violence along Turkey’s 560-mile long border with Syria. ISIS is believed to have been behind a suicide attack on Monday that killed 32 and injured 100 mostly Kurdish activists. Kurdish militants, many of whom blame Turkey for not doing more to stop ISIS, reportedly responded by killing two Turkish police officers. A border-area gunfight erupted Thursday between suspected-ISIS extremists and Turkish police, leaving at least one dead on each side.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked about the reported air base agreement during his Thursday briefing but also declined to discuss specifics.
President Obama spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday night in a conversation the White House said focused on Turkey’s border security.
“The two leaders discussed efforts to deepen our cooperation in the fight against ISIL,” Earnest said.

Nuclear Cartoon

Poll shows Clinton trailing Republicans in every swing state tested

A stunning new poll shows trouble brewing for Hillary Clinton in key swing states, with the Democratic presidential front-runner trailing potential Republican rivals in every match-up tested. 
The Quinnipiac University poll put Clinton head-to-head against Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in three states: Colorado, Iowa and Virginia.
In every hypothetical contest, the former secretary of state was either clearly trailing or, as Quinnipiac phrased it, "on the wrong side of a too-close-to-call" race. A majority of voters in all three states also said they found Clinton not honest and trustworthy.
The gap between Clinton and GOP candidates was most pronounced in Colorado and Iowa. She trailed Rubio by 8 points in Colorado, 38-46 percent; and Walker by 9 points, 38-47 percent. She trailed Bush by 6 points in Iowa, 36-42 percent; and Rubio by 8 points, 36-44 percent.
The survey raises troubling questions for the campaign, which has struggled to shed the image of a candidate who is closed off to the media and the public, despite her decisive lead over the Democratic field. The latest results reflect a drop from a similar poll in April.
"She has lost ground in the horserace," Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement.
In another troubling sign for the Democratic candidate, voters gave her poor marks on being trustworthy. In Colorado, for instance, voters said 62-34 percent she is not honest and trustworthy.
Clinton wasn't the only one taking a hit in the latest poll. Though Donald Trump has narrowly led the GOP presidential field in some recent polls, the Quinnipiac survey showed voters, by roughly 2-1, had a negative view of the billionaire real estate magnate. Brown said that means his "growth potential" is lower than that of his GOP rivals.
The polls were taken July 9-20, of 1,231 Colorado voters; 1,236 Iowa voters; and 1,209 Virginia voters. Each had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

Seattle sees fallout from $15 minimum wage, as other cities follow suit

Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law is supposed to lift workers out of poverty and move them off public assistance. But there may be a hitch in the plan.
Evidence is surfacing that some workers are asking their bosses for fewer hours as their wages rise – in a bid to keep overall income down so they don’t lose public subsidies for things like food, child care and rent.
Full Life Care, a home nursing nonprofit, told KIRO-TV in Seattle that several workers want to work less.
“If they cut down their hours to stay on those subsidies because the $15 per hour minimum wage didn’t actually help get them out of poverty, all you’ve done is put a burden on the business and given false hope to a lot of people,” said Jason Rantz, host of the Jason Rantz show on 97.3 KIRO-FM.
The twist is just one apparent side effect of the controversial -- yet trendsetting -- minimum wage law in Seattle, which is being copied in several other cities despite concerns over prices rising and businesses struggling to keep up.
The notion that employees are intentionally working less to preserve their welfare has been a hot topic on talk radio. While the claims are difficult to track, state stats indeed suggest few are moving off welfare programs under the new wage.
Despite a booming economy throughout western Washington, the state’s welfare caseload has dropped very little since the higher wage phase began in Seattle in April. In March 130,851 people were enrolled in the Basic Food program. In April, the caseload dropped to 130,376.
At the same time, prices appear to be going up on just about everything.
Some restaurants have tacked on a 15 percent surcharge to cover the higher wages. And some managers are no longer encouraging customers to tip, leading to a redistribution of income. Workers in the back of the kitchen, such as dishwashers and cooks, are getting paid more, but servers who rely on tips are seeing a pay cut.
Some long-time Seattle restaurants have closed altogether, though none of the owners publicly blamed the minimum wage law.
“It’s what happens when the government imposes a restriction on the labor market that normally wouldn’t be there, and marginal businesses get hit the hardest, and usually those are small, neighborhood businesses,” said Paul Guppy, of the Washington Policy Center.
Seattle was followed by San Francisco and Los Angeles in passing a $15 minimum wage law. The wage is being phased in over several years to give businesses time to adjust. The current minimum wage in Seattle is $11. In San Francisco, it’s $12.25.
And it is spreading. Beyond the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this week also approved a $15 minimum wage.
New York state could be next, with the state Wage Board on Wednesday backing a $15 wage for fast-food workers, something Gov. Andrew Cuomo has supported.
Already, though, there are unintended consequences in other cities.
Comix Experience, a small book store in downtown San Francisco, has begun selling graphic novel club subscriptions in order to meet payroll. The owner, Brian Hibbs, admits members are not getting all that much for their $25 per month dues, but their “donation” is keeping him in business.
“I was looking at potentially having to close the store down and then how would I make my living?” Hibbs asked.
To date, he’s sold 228 subscriptions. He says he needs 334 to reach his goal of the $80,000 income required to cover higher labor costs. He doesn’t blame San Francisco voters for approving the $15 minimum wage, but he doesn’t think they had all the information needed to make a good decision.

Immigrant parents suing Texas for withholding birth certificates to US-born kids

Only in America can stupid stuff like this happen.

Immigrant parents living in Texas without proper identification papers are suing the state for withholding birth certificates from their American-born children, in a tricky case that pits Texas' strict ID laws against the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
The suit was filed in May in U.S. District Court in Austin by a group of Mexican citizen parents living in Texas. The suit claims the state refused birth certificates for 23 children because the parents could not provide the proper photo identification under state law.
But the parents argue Texas is, in doing so, violating the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil regardless of their parents’ status.
The lawsuit does not outright say the parents are illegal immigrants, but strongly suggests it -- at one point alleging the state is denying their kids birth certificates due to their "immigration status."
“We’re trying to resolve this issue once and for all,” Efren Olivares, the plaintiffs' lawyer who also works with the Texas Civil Rights Project, told FoxNews.com. “Our two main objectives: obtain birth certificates for the 23 children and to obtain a clear statement from the state agency as to what people in this situation will have to produce in the future to get their birth certificate.”
The concept of birthright citizenship is controversial in its own right, with illegal immigration foes concerned that undocumented parents are having children inside the U.S. to help the entire family stay in the country.
But the right is nevertheless enshrined in the Constitution. Yet some illegal immigrant parents in Texas have had trouble getting a birth certificate for their kids because they themselves lack the right papers.
In 2013, local jurisdictions stopped accepting consulate cards, called “matriculas,” under state pressure. Immigrants had been able to get matriculas from their home country’s consulate in the state, but since have had to show their foreign driver’s license or border ID card as primary verification. Passports without U.S. visas don’t count.
Advocacy groups point out that many illegal immigrants don’t have these documents and going back home to get them would probably mean they couldn't return.
The state, however, says that blocking matriculas is just a matter of enforcing its own rule.
“Texas has never accepted the consular ID’s,” said Chris Van Deussen, press officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “Birth and death records are filed at the local registrar … so while we’ve never accepted them at the state level, I cannot say that every registrar rejected them.”
Van Deussen emphasized that matriculas weren’t secure forms of identification. He said “the issuer doesn’t verify data or documents that go into them.”
The purpose of enforcing the ID rules is in part to ensure parents are who they say they are. Van Deussen said while the agency is committed to getting people the documents, they also have a duty to ensure people provide valid information to prevent fraud and ID theft.
“This is not a policy that’s based on anybody’s immigrant status, it is based on the ID a person can present.”
Identification restrictions nevertheless have big implications for immigrants.
The suit claims that potentially thousands of Mexican and Central American parents have been denied birth certificates for their children. Families need certificates to register their children in school or enroll in appropriate health insurance and government programs.
Olivares said that children can be denied benefits over certificates, and that even churches sometimes don’t baptize children without their form. Some parents have been unable to get the certificates for several years, according to an NPR report.
Texas’ ID crackdown coincides with a boom in Central American children being born in the state. Last year alone, more than 55,000 families came to the U.S. from Central America. Three-fourths of them went to Texas, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Jennifer Harbury, another lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Texas’ certificate denials are politically motivated. She told the Los Angeles Times that they're part of the pushback to the Obama administration’s 2012 deportation protections and 2014 proposals to protect immigrant parents with American-born children.
Texas’ attorney general is expected to respond to the lawsuit in the coming weeks.

Islamic State bigger threat than Al Qaeda, FBI chief says

Wow, they're just now figgering this out?

The Islamic State terror group’s effort to inspire troubled Americans to extremism is a greater threat to the U.S. than an external attack from Al Qaeda, the FBI director said Wednesday.
FBI Director James Comey told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum that the group, commonly known as ISIS, has influenced a significant number of Americans through a year-long campaign on social media urging Muslims who can’t travel to the Middle East to “kill where you are.”
Twitter handles affiliated with the group have more than 21,000 English-language followers worldwide, Comey said, adding that thousands of those could be U.S. residents.
The FBI has arrested a significant number of people over the last handful of weeks who had been radicalized, Comey said. He also repeated his previous disclosure, without elaborating, that several people were arrested who were planning attacks related to the July Fourth holiday.
Comey said it was too soon to say how Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the Chattanooga gunman who killed five U.S. troops last week, became radicalized.
Abdulazeez's relatives have said he had a history of drug use and depression. Comey noted that "the people the Islamic State is trying to reach are people that Al Qaeda would never use as an operative, because they are often unstable, troubled drug users."
Asked if the threat from the Islamic State group had eclipsed that of Al Qaeda, the rival organization that attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Comey said, "Yes."
The U.S. has tracked dozens of Americans, ranging in age from 18 to 62, who have traveled to Syria or Iraq to fight with ISIS, he said.
"I worry very much about what I can't see," Comey added, because he said ISIS recruiters use encrypted communication software to avoid U.S. eavesdropping.
Comey’s remarks Wednesday signal a deepening concern among U.S. officials about the impact of ISIS efforts to inspire terrorist violence. As recently as September, senior U.S. intelligence officials were downplaying the group’s capacity to attack the U.S. Matt Olsen, then the head of the National Counter Terrorism Center, told Congress last year that the U.S. had "no credible information that ISIL is planning to attack the United States."
Intelligence officials last year were saying they worry about a mass casualty attack against a U.S. airliner by Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate or by the Khorasan Group, a cadre of Al Qaeda operatives in Syria.
But Comey said Wednesday the threat from the Khorasan Group has been "significantly diminished" by U.S. military strikes.
The Pentagon on Tuesday announced that it had killed the Khorasan Group's leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, in a July 8 airstrike in Syria.

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Obama calls for release of Americans held in Iran, after nuke deal omitted them

President Obama called Tuesday for the release of Americans held in Iran, individually naming them during a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention -- a week after his diplomatic team helped strike a nuclear accord with Iran that did not secure the prisoners' freedom. 
The deal's failure to address the prisoners' status has fueled criticism of the Obama administration, though State Department officials have said they raised their imprisonment repeatedly. The president also scolded a reporter last week at a White House press conference for suggesting he was "content" to leave the prisoners out of the deal.
Obama vowed Tuesday to continue to press their case.
“We are not going to relent until we bring home Americans who are unjustly detained in Iran,” Obama said at the VFW convention in Pittsburgh.
Obama mentioned Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Pastor Saeed Abedini and former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati by name, saying all of them "should be released." He also said Iran should help the U.S. find retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who has been missing since 2007.
In his wide-ranging address, the president also took a jab at lawmakers criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, saying negative comments come from “the same people who rushed into war with Iraq.”
Obama accused them of “chest beating” and said they were simply popping off soundbites that could derail the still-delicate deal.
Obama’s comments came one day after the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed the agreement. Since then, the White House has mounted a massive outreach campaign to try to win over skeptics and avoid a veto showdown with Congress, which could play out this fall.
The president also told the crowd of veterans he wasn’t satisfied by the level of medical care they were receiving and called for fast-tracking funding for the Veterans Affairs department.
Obama said he has sent an “urgent request” to Congress that would give the VA more flexibility so it can transfer funds where needed.
“I’m calling on Congress to approve this request quickly,” Obama said, adding, “our vets need it and our hospitals need it.”
House Speaker John Boehner's office, in response, urged Obama to join House Republicans in supporting a new bill to give the VA secretary the authority to fire anyone for misconduct. A spokesman said the public doesn't need more "hollow platitudes."
Obama also addressed growing concerns in the military over Thursday’s massacre in Chattanooga, Tenn., that claimed the lives of five service members at two military facilities.
“We don’t know all the details of the attack in Chattanooga but we do know ISIL (Islamic State) has encouraged attacks on servicemembers,” Obama said, adding that it was difficult to detect ‘lone wolves’ but that the government was working hard to do just that.
Earlier Tuesday, Gen. Mark Milley, tapped to be the next Army chief of staff, said during his nomination hearing that he would support a push to arm soldiers manning recruiting stations if certain legal hurdles were cleared.
Obama’s multi-topic speech included comments on an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, U.S.-Cuba relations and the rise of the Islamic State.
He also announced that the Defense Department is close to finalizing predatory lending legislation that would close loopholes in the law that have “trapped some members of our military in an endless cycle of debt, adding financial strains to families that already bear the burden of defending our country.”
Obama made the announcement on the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank reform bill and said protecting veterans against predatory lenders “is the right thing to do” and that he would “not accept any attempts to roll back this law.”

Appeals court overturns some Blagojevich corruption convictions

A federal appeals court Tuesday overturned some of the corruption convictions that sent former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to prisoner for 14 years for trying to sell President Obama’s vacated Senate seat.
The unanimous ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago means Blagojevich, 58, could serve less than his original sentence, of which he has currently served just over three years in a Colorado prison.
The three-judge panel dismissed five of the 18 counts and ordered that the former governor be resentenced, although it suggested the original sentence wasn’t necessarily extreme.
The panel ruled that Blagojevich’s attempt to obtain a seat in Obama’s cabinet did not cross the line between legal and illegal political wheeling and dealing. However, his attempts to trade the Senate seat for campaign cash did cross the line.
Blagojevich wanted a Cabinet job in exchange for appointing Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to the vacant Senate seat. After Blagojevich's arrest, the seat went to Roland Burris, who served less than two years before a successor was chosen in a special election.
In its ruling, the appeals courts pointed to how President Dwight Eisenhower named Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court allegedly after Warren offered Eisenhower key political support during the 1952 campaign.
"If the (Blagojevich) prosecutor is right, and a swap of political favors involving a job for one of the politicians is a felony, then if the standard account is true both the President of the United States (Eisenhower) and the Chief Justice of the United States should have gone to prison," the ruling said.
Still, the ruling wasn't a resounding win for Blagojevich. The appellate judges upheld allegations that he sought to sell the Senate seat. He had argued that he didn't break the law because he never stated explicitly that he was willing to trade an appointment to the seat for campaign cash.
"Few politicians say, on or off the record, 'I will exchange official act X for payment Y,'" the opinion said. "Similarly persons who conspire to rob banks or distribute drugs do not propose or sign contracts in the statutory language. 'Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you know what I mean' can amount to extortion ... just as it can furnish the gist of a Monty Python sketch."
Prosecutors could appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court or could choose to retry Blagojevich on the dropped counts, though prosecutors often decline to retry a case if most of the counts are upheld. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon declined to discuss the ruling, including prosecutors' next moves.
Despite the ruling overturning a number of the convictions, Blagojevich’s legal team expressed disappointment. Len Goodman, the lead lawyer on the appeal team, said the ruling “doesn’t address the most serious errors in the trial,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Blagojevich’s wife Patti said she was also disappointed with the ruling, and that her husband had never intended to break the law. She did, however, express hope that her husband would be given a more lenient sentence.
“I think most people think the sentence is harsh for someone who never put a penny in his pocket,” she said, adding that her husband was “optimistic that justice will prevail eventually.”
The two-term governor proclaimed his innocence for years. Taking the stand at his decisive retrial in 2011, a sometimes-tearful Blagojevich said he was a flawed man but no criminal.
Jurors eventually convicted him of 18 counts; 11 dealt with charges that he tried to swap an appointment to the seat for campaign cash or a job, once musing about becoming ambassador to India.
Blagojevich was also convicted on other play-to-pay schemes. They include the attempted shakedown of the Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago for a contribution to Blagojevich's campaign.
After his arrest on Dec. 9, 2008, Blagojevich became the butt of jokes on late-night TV, including for his well-coiffed hair and his foul-mouthed rants on FBI wiretaps. The most notorious excerpt was one where he crows about the Senate seat, "I've got this thing and it's f------ golden. And I'm just not giving it up for f------ nothing."

Army chief Odierno, in exit interview, says US could have ‘prevented’ ISIS rise

EXCLUSIVE: The Army’s top officer told Fox News Tuesday it’s “frustrating” to watch the gains he helped achieve in Iraq disintegrate at the hands of the Islamic State, saying in an exit interview that the chaos now unfolding “might have been prevented” had the U.S. stayed more engaged.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, weeks away from retirement after 39 years in uniform, spent more time in Iraq than any other U.S. Army general -- more than four years, the last two as top commander. He is widely viewed as a key architect of the Iraq surge.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News, the general tackled a range of topics, from the Iran nuclear deal to the deep cuts to U.S. Army troop levels. But Odierno had pointed words on the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria – suggesting it didn’t have to be this way.
“It's frustrating to watch it,” Odierno said. “I go back to the work we did in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 and we got it to a place that was really good. Violence was low, the economy was growing, politics looked like it was heading in the right direction.”

Odierno said the fall of large parts of Iraq was not inevitable, reiterating concerns about the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal there.
“If we had stayed a little more engaged, I think maybe it might have been prevented,” he said. “I've always believed the United States played the role of honest broker between all the groups and when we pulled ourselves out, we lost that role.”
In 2009, while still the top commander in Iraq, Odierno recommended keeping 30,000-35,000 U.S. troops after the end of 2011, when the U.S. was scheduled to pull out. The recommendation was not followed.
“I think it would have been good for us to stay,” Odierno said, when asked if it was a mistake to pull out.
Further, when ISIS took over large portions of Iraq last year including its second-largest city, Mosul, the White House apparently didn’t reach out to the Army officer who had spent more time commanding U.S. forces than anyone else.
“All my work was given to [Joint Chiefs] Chairman [Martin] Dempsey,” Odiernio said. “I never talked directly to the president about it at that time, but I talked to the secretary of defense and I'm sure he relayed all of my thoughts,” he added.
Odierno, though, is most worried about the deep cuts to the Army over the past four years – from 570,000 troops in 2010 to near 490,000 today, a reduction of 14 percent. And the cuts are getting deeper.
“In my mind, we don't have the ability to deter. The reason we have a military is to deter conflict and prevent wars. And if people believe we are not big enough to respond, they miscalculate,” Odierno said.
Earlier this month, the Army announced an additional cut of 40,000 troops, which would take the Army down to 450,000 soldiers -- or pre-9/11 levels -- the result of a decision taken two years ago.
"I believed at the time we could do that,” said Odierno. “But I said we were on the razor’s edge that we could actually do our mission at 450.”
He added: “Two years ago, we didn’t think we had a problem in Europe. … [Now] Russia is reasserting themselves. We didn’t think we’d have a problem again in Iraq and ISIS has emerged.
“So, with Russia becoming more of a threat, with ISIS becoming more of a threat, in my mind, we are on a dangerous balancing act right now with capability.”
“When we go to 450, we are going to have to stop doing something," said Odierno.
As for what message these cuts send to adversaries of the United States, Odierno said: “I believe they question whether we will be able to respond and so they're willing to take maybe a bit more risk than they might have just a few years ago.”
While Odierno says he supports the recently announced nuclear deal with Iran, he warned that Iran will not change its behavior in the region.
“Iran has continued to do malign activities throughout the Middle East [and] they will continue,” warned Odierno, who blamed Iran for contributing to the unraveling of Iraq and the rise of ISIS.
Dempsey recently told Congress that Iran was responsible for roughly 500 American deaths, an estimate Odierno did not dispute.
Odierno said of Iran: “We can't be naïve.”

Navy officer, Marine reportedly returned fire at Chattanooga gunman

A Navy officer and one of the Marines murdered in last week's attack on a military center in Chattanooga fired their personal weapons at the gunman, according to a report published Wednesday.
The Navy Times, citing multiple military officials familiar with internal reports on the tragedy, reported that Lt. Cmdr. Timothy White, the commanding officer at the Navy Operational Support Center, fired his sidearm at Mohammed Abdulazeez during Thursday's attack.
The paper, citing a Navy official, also reported that one of the four Marines killed in the attack fired his 9mm Glock at the gunman. A Navy sailor also died in the shootout, as did the gunman. The possibility that the Marine had used his personal sidearm during the shooting was first reported by The Washington Post Monday.
A source close to the investigation told the Navy Times that while the details of the attack's final moments are unclear, authorities have uncovered no information that contradicts the Navy's own reporting.
Law enforcement sources told Fox News Tuesday that the FBI recovered the Glock at the scene and noted it did not belong to either the shooter or police. The sources said the weapon had been fired. Details about what type of weapon White used are unclear.
It is still unclear whether the shots that killed Abdulazeez were fired by White, the Marine, or local police. Fox News has learned that autopsies of the gunman and his victims have been completed and could be released later this week. The Navy Times reported that investigators won't know who fired the shots that stopped the rampage until a ballistics assessment is performed.
It is against Defense Department policy for anyone but military police or law enforcement to carry weapons on federal property. It was not immediately clear whether White would face disciplinary action.
The shooting at so-called “gun-free” military installations in Tennessee has prompted calls for a policy change.
Governors in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Indiana and Florida have ordered National Guardsmen to be armed, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott relocated recruiters to armories.
U.S. military officials have said security at recruiting and reserve centers will be reviewed, but the Army's top officer, Gen. Ray Odierno, said it's too early to say whether the facilities should have security guards or other increased protection. He said there are concerns about accidental discharges and other security issues related to carrying loaded weapons.
However, Gen. Mark Milley, the man tapped as Odierno's replacement as Army chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that if legal issues could be resolved he thinks it would be appropriate, in some cases, to arm soldiers manning recruiting stations.
Tucked in strip malls in rural and suburban communities and in high-traffic city spots like New York's Times Square, military recruiting and reserve stations are designed to be open and welcoming to the public. The troops inside aren't allowed to carry weapons.
The ban is largely due to legal issues, such as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement. U.S. forces don't routinely carry guns when they are not in combat or on military bases. And Pentagon officials are sensitive to any appearance of armed troops within the United States.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported Wednesday that the gunman, 24-year-old Abdulazeez, searched the Internet in the days leading up to the attack for information from Islamic sources about whether martyrdom would to forgiveness for his sins, such as drunkenness. The Hixson, Tenn. native was due in court after being arrested in April on a charge of driving under the influence

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Rubio: It's 'Capitulation Monday' for Obama on Iran, Cuba

Sen. Marco Rubio said Monday, July 20, will go down in history as President Obama's "Capitulation Day," as it marked the day that the United Nations Security Council voted to lift international sanctions on Iran in returning for limits on its nuclear program, and when embassies were opened in Washington and Havana.
"History will remember July 20, 2015, as Obama's Capitulation Monday, the day two sworn enemies of the United States were able to outmaneuver President Obama to secure historic concessions," the Florida Republican said in a statement.
Events at the United Nations, Washington and Havana, he said, are proof that "we have entered the most dangerous phase of the Obama presidency." He accused Obama of "flat-out abandoning America's vital national security interests to cozy up to the world's most reprehensible regimes."
The U.N. Security Council vote took place Monday morning, U.S. time, in Brussels. The Obama administration moved forward with the vote despite sharp bipartisan resistance in Congress. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., have urged the administration not to move forward with the vote, arguing that it undercuts Congress and the Senate's Constitutional mandate to review all international treaties.

Killed in her sleep: Illegal immigrants suspected in Mass. grandma's death faced deportation

A Massachusetts woman killed as she slept in her bed by a bullet fired through her ceiling would be alive today, if the men accused of shooting her had been deported, according to anti-illegal immigration activists.
Mirta Rivera, 41, a nurse and grandmother from Lawrence, was shot July 4 from an upstairs apartment where two illegal immigrants lived despite being under federal deportation orders, according to the Boston Herald. Dominican Republic nationals Wilton Lara-Calmona and Jose M. Lara-Mejia both had long histories of sneaking into the U.S.
The case, as well as a pending murder case in neighboring Connecticut involving an illegal immigrant accused in the stabbing death of a woman, comes after the July 1 murder of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco helped propel illegal immigrant crime into a hot-button national issue.
“This has been happening all over the country for several years,” said Dan Cadman, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a retired federal immigration official. “I hope the American public is stirred up and angry about it.

“There are families all over the country that are grieving because they lost their mother, father, brother, sister, child or spouse needlessly.”
- Dan Cadman, Center for Immigration Studies

“But I hope they realize there are so many more victims,” he added. “There are families all over the country that are grieving because they lost their mother, father, brother, sister, child or spouse needlessly.”
Lara-Calmona, 38, was deported in April 2012 and arrested for re-entering the country last November, the Herald reported. Lara-Mejia, 35, was nabbed crossing the border in August 2013 and ordered deported in April 2014, but apparently ignored the ruling.
The suspects and a third roommate, Christopher Paganmoux, were charged with trafficking heroin and cocaine after police investigating the shooting found drugs in their home. But the bullet hole in Lara-Mejia’s second-floor bedroom, which penetrated the ceiling above Rivera’s bed, and a Sears and Roebuck .270 bolt-action rifle that matched the bullet found in Rivera’s mattress, are expected to lead to murder charges.

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Mirta Rivera was killed as she slept in her bed.

In Norwich, Conn., Jean Jacques, 40, a Haitian illegal immigrant who got out of prison in January after serving 17 years for attempted murder, has been charged with stabbing Casey Chadwick, 25, to death and stuffing her in a closet last month. Jacques’ prison file was marked "Detainer: Immigration," according to the Norwich Bulletin.
But the case seems to have sparked the same sort of finger-pointing between local, state and federal officials as was seen in the aftermath of the Steinle murder. In that case, ICE officials said they had requested that San Francisco hold Steinle’s alleged killer, Francisco Sanchez, until they could pick him up and evict him from the country. San Francisco refused, with its sheriff later saying it was only a “request,” and that he was not allowed to comply with it.
Connecticut officials say Jacques was released in January to the custody of the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but was never deported. While ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer told the newspaper he was barred by law from discussing Jacques' case, Connecticut last year became the first state to enact legislation that prohibited law enforcement agencies from holding people simply because federal authorities asked that they be held for deportation.
The measure was touted as a way to strengthen immigrant families and it does not extend to convicted felons such as Jacques or people with a "final order" of deportation.
Because local and state governments rarely pass comprehensive codes detailing their level of non-cooperation with the federal government on illegal immigration, and because the federal government itself has refused to enforce its own immigration laws, it is difficult to say where the blame lies, said one expert.
“We have two-tiered sanctuary policies,” said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “You have it at the local level, where cities refuse to cooperate, but you also have it at the national level. The Obama administration won’t enforce the laws federally, and the local communities won’t locally.
“You could make the case that America is now a sanctuary country,” Dane said.

UN Security Council endorses Iran deal, Tehran diplomat lashes out at US

The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously endorsed the Iran nuclear deal, though the show of support was interrupted shortly afterward by a war of words between the American and Iranian ambassadors. 
Iran's ambassador lashed out at the U.S. mere moments after the vote, in retaliation for U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power bringing up Tehran's human rights record.
Power, during the session, had raised concerns about Iran's support for terror proxies and reiterated a U.S. demand that Iran release all unjustly held American prisoners. Iran's ambassador fired back, blaming the U.S. for instability in the region and calling Power's criticism "ironic."
"The country that invaded two countries in our region and created favorable grounds for the growth of terrorism and extremism is not well placed to raise such accusations against my country," Iranian U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said, calling past U.S. actions in the region "feckless" and "reckless."
The exchange, which came as Israel's representative continued to assail the deal itself, hung over what was nevertheless the first formal step at the international body toward implementing the deal and rolling back U.N. sanctions.
The movement at the U.N. still faces resistance in Washington, where lawmakers had wanted the Security Council to wait until Congress formally reviews the landmark agreement. The White House says the Security Council's actions won't take effect for another 90 days, but congressional lawmakers had urged President Obama to halt Monday's vote -- and allow Congress to vote first.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on Monday called it an "end-run around Congress."
"I don't know why they're going to the United Nations [first]," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told "Fox News Sunday."
Cardin and Barrasso were joined by several top-ranking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in urging a pause at the U.N.
Congress has 60 days to review the deal -- and then vote for or against it, or take no action. "I think they should have gone to the United Nations after the 60-day review," Cardin said. "They don't gain anything by doing it earlier."
But the Obama administration argued that they were still showing deference to Congress, and that the U.N. shouldn't be hamstrung during that review period.
"They have a right to [vote on the deal], honestly. It's presumptuous of some people to suspect that France, Russia, China, Germany, Britain ought to do what the Congress tells them to do," Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC's "This Week." "They have a right to have a vote.  But we prevailed on them to delay the implementation of that vote out of respect for our Congress so we wouldn't be jamming them."
The vote Monday authorizes a series of measures leading to the end of U.N. sanctions that have hurt Iran's economy. But the measure also provides a mechanism for U.N. sanctions to "snap back" in place if Iran fails to meet its obligations.
The resolution had been agreed to by the five veto-wielding council members, who along with Germany negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. It was co-sponsored, and approved, by all 15 members of the Security Council.
The document specifies that seven resolutions related to U.N. sanctions will be terminated when Iran has completed a series of major steps to curb its nuclear program and the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that "all nuclear material in Iran remains in peaceful activities."
All provisions of the U.N. resolution will terminate in 10 years, including the snap back provision.
But last week the six major powers -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- and the European Union sent a letter, seen by The Associated Press, informing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that they have agreed to extend the snap back mechanism for an additional five years. They asked Ban to send the letter to the Security Council.
Following the endorsement, Israel's ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor blasted the move.
"If the international community refuses to see this as a tragedy, that is a grave strategic error. But if it is aware of the tragedy, and it still chooses to pursue this dangerous path, that is a catastrophe," he said.
U.S. Ambassador Power, in remarks that drew the rebuke from Iran's representative, said the nuclear deal doesn't change the United States' "profound concern about human rights violations committed by the Iranian government or about the instability Iran fuels beyond its nuclear program, from its support for terrorist proxies to repeated threats against Israel to its other destabilizing activities in the region."
She urged Iran to release three "unjustly imprisoned" Americans and to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who vanished in 2007.
"But denying Iran a nuclear weapon is important not in spite of these other destabilizing actions but rather because of them," Power said.
Under the nuclear agreement, Iran's nuclear program will be curbed for a decade in exchange for potentially hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of relief from international sanctions. Many key penalties on the Iranian economy, such as those related to the energy and financial sectors, could be lifted by the end of the year.

Des Moines Register calls on Trump to drop of out 2016 race

They all want Trump To quit, why?

Iowa's largest newspaper has called on Donald Trump to drop out of the 2016 presidential race amid the furor of the real estate magnate's weekend comments about Sen. John McCain's service during the Vietnam War.
At a conservative summit in Iowa Saturday, Trump, whom several polls had shown to be leading the Republican field, dismissed McCain's reputation as a war hero, saying of the Arizona Republican who was held for five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, "I like people who weren't captured."
In an opinion piece published late Monday, the Register said Trump's comments were "not merely offensive, they were disgraceful. So much so, in fact, that they threaten to derail not just his campaign, but the manner in which we choose our nominees for president."
The paper went on to say that if "[Trump] had not already disqualified himself through his attempts to demonize immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, he certainly did so by questioning [McCain's] war record."
The Register, which broke a 40-year run of backing Democrats in presidential elections by endorsing Mitt Romney in 2012, was the latest voice to pile on Trump for his comments, joining veterans groups, Republican colleagues and President Barack Obama's spokesman, who defended McCain and called on Trump to apologize.
Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said Monday that Trump's "asinine comments" were "an insult to everyone who has ever worn the uniform — and to all Americans."
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said veterans "are entitled to an apology."
Trump appeared to back off some of his rhetoric Monday, telling Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that "if there was a misunderstanding, I would totally take that back." However, Trump also said he "used to like [McCain] a lot. I supported him ... but I would love to see him do a much better job taking care of the veterans."