Ryan wins support of key conservative bloc for speaker run

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan gained support from a key group Wednesday night for House speaker when a supermajority of the House Freedom Caucus announced it was backing him.
In a statement, the group said Ryan "has promised to be an ideas-focused Speaker who will advance limited government principles and devolve power to the membership."
While the group held off an official endorsement of Ryan, the announcement of support could get him to officially enter the race for House speaker, and lock down the votes to win in elections next week.
Ryan said in a statement Wednesday night the move by the Freedom Caucus "is a positive step toward a unified Republican team.”
Ryan had met behind closed doors with members earlier in the day. When he left the meeting, he told reporters, “Nice meeting. We had a good chat.”
Support from the caucus was not certain, since they've repeatedly opposed GOP leaders and pushed House Speaker John Boehner to announce his resignation. Before Ryan entered the mix, the caucus previously had endorsed Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida, who said late Wednesday he was still in the running.
On Tuesday, Ryan let his Republican colleagues know that if he's to become the next House speaker, he'll do so on his own terms -- or not at all.
After initially turning down the job, the Wisconsin congressman outlined a set of significant demands that would need to be met in order for him to run:

• He wants broad support across the Republican conference, specifically the endorsement of all the major caucuses.
• He wants House rules changed to overhaul what is known as the "motion to vacate the chair" -- a parliamentary weapon members can use to try and oust a speaker.
• He wants to be able to spend time with his family, and not be on the road as much as previous speakers.

Ryan, outlining these conditions, then gave colleagues until Friday to express their views. And he made clear that if he doesn't get what he wants, he'd be "happy" to stay where he is, as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
The statement put out by the House Freedom Caucus Wednesday night does not technically count as an endorsement, since members fell short of the 80 percent requirement for one. However, about two-thirds of the caucus members did come out in favor of Ryan, leading to the Wednesday night statement.
Boehner told the House Republican Conference on Wednesday that they will vote internally for speaker on Oct. 28, followed by a full floor vote on Oct. 29.
In total, Ryan or any candidate would need roughly 218 votes to win the speakership.
On Tuesday, Ryan said, "My greatest worry is the consequence of not stepping up."
He said the country is in "desperate need for leadership."
At the same time, he made clear he could back out.
"What I told the members is if you can agree to the requests, and if I can be a truly unifying figure, I'll serve," Ryan said. "And if I'm not a unifying force, that will be fine as well. I'm happy to stay where I am."
While his conditions may be steep, multiple sources told Fox News that GOP leaders and others pushed Ryan so hard that he felt he had to at least get to this point, and outline the conditions for a run.
Those same sources also say Ryan has engineered a way out if necessary, by making significant demands that are hard to meet. If Ryan ultimately does not enter the race, it's unclear who might step up to run for the job -- and more importantly, who would be able to muster 218 votes.

GOP, Democrats maneuver for position ahead of Clinton's appearance before Benghazi committee

Both the GOP and Democrats maneuvered for position ahead of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's long-awaited appearance Thursday before the Benghazi panel, where she is expected to be closely quizzed about her actions during the 2012 assault in Libya that left four Americans dead.
While fireworks could erupt, Clinton will certainly try to avoid showing her frustration, as she did before a Senate panel in 2013, saying, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" referring to the motivation of the Benghazi attackers who killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others.
Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy and the six other Republicans on the panel were expected to be equally measured, considering the partisan onslaught that followed House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggestion last month that their investigation had hurt Clinton’s polls numbers.
Additional comments by New York Republican Rep. Richard Henna and a GOP investigator on the committee suggesting an over-focus on Clinton has resulted in her team continuing to say the panel is a partisan tool with “zero credibility.”
Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican and former prosecutor, insists the panel has always been about getting all of the facts related to the four deaths, which includes Clinton’s actions “before, during and after” the assault.
Among the likely questions are whether she properly addressed Stevens’ email request for increased security and told U.S. military units to “stand down” during the attacks.
House Speaker John Boehner, who formed the committee in May 2014, on Tuesday defended the probe, amid accusations that it is a taxpayer waste lasting longer than the congressional Watergate investigation.
“Today, the State Department turned over 1,300 pages of printed documents from Ambassador Stevens' emails.” he told Fox News. “Today. They've been stonewalling us now for three years on giving us the documents that we need.”
He also argued Clinton was the country’s top diplomat during the attack and that the committee was set up to “get to the truth about what happened.”
Boehner, Gowdy and other House Republicans also point out that the committee discovered this spring that Clinton, as secretary of state, used a private server and email accounts for official business. They also say that repeated questions about the controversial setup are related to the attacks, not to create headlines.

Jeb Cartoon

Trump’s 9/11 sparring with Bush: The left piles on Jeb’s brother

Donald Trump’s criticism of Jeb Bush’s brother over the 9/11 attacks is resonating strongly with one group:
Liberals.
They are more than happy to seize the moment and blame George W. Bush for the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history.
Take MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who is pumped up over the Trump offensive: “The Democrats never had the stones to go out and challenge George W… because they probably felt that would be un-nice. Trump isn’t un-nice, he’s willing to be tough.”
Brad Woodhouse, a former Democratic Party spokesman, sent out an email saying “Trump is right about 9/11.” That linked to a liberal piece in the Atlantic with the same headline.
Any fair review of what happened would conclude that the Clinton and Bush administrations shared responsibility for the attacks that claimed the lives of 3,000 Americans. The intelligence failures over the al-Qaeda plot, which had been in the works for years, certainly predate Bush, who had only been in office for eight months. But it’s also true that the classified presidential daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001 warned Bush: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”—and there were other warnings as well.
In pure political terms, Trump has shifted the campaign conversation in a way that hurts Jeb. The more time that Jeb spends talking about 2001, the less time he spends talking about the future. And the more time he spends defending his brother, the more he reminds voters that he is the third Bush to seek the White House—which undermines Jeb’s “I’m my own man” theme.
This has become a Trump specialty, to jab at his rivals with a provocative comment that forces them to spend days counterpunching.
The contretemps began with a television interview on Bloomberg, when Trump said this about the 43^rd president: “I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.”
When anchor Stephanie Ruehl objected, Trump said people could blame Bush or not, but this was a fact: “The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
That prompted Jeb to tweet that the billionaire’s comments were “pathetic.”
Since the Trump line contradicts Jeb’s narrative that his brother “kept us safe,” Bush stepped it up on CNN’s “State of the Union,” saying Trump is not serious when it comes to foreign policy: “Does anybody actually blame my brother for the attacks on 9/11? If they do, they’re totally marginalized in our society.”
But nobody this side of the conspiracy nuts is blaming George Bush for the attacks; some are saying (which was widely reported in the following years, though little remembered now) that his administration missed important signals and that law-enforcement and intelligence agencies failed to share information.
Trump elaborated Monday’s on “Fox & Friends” and Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day,” saying his tougher approach to immigration might have kept most of the hijackers out of the country. (This is debatable, as most of them had valid student and tourist visas.)
And the new focus on what was dubbed the War on Terror enabled Trump to pivot to Iraq, saying on CNN it was “just a disastrous decision” for the former president to launch that invasion and destabilize the Middle East.
Trump also told anchor Alisyn Camerota that “they knew an attack was coming. George Tenet, the CIA director, knew in advance there would be an attack, and he said so.”
It sounded at first glance like Trump might be wading into murky waters, but the key phrase is “an attack.” Tenet was indeed worried about an al-Qaeda attack—he insisted on a meeting with Condi Rice to press the point—but he didn’t know when and where, or that planes would be hijacked.
While liberals are jumping on this Trump bandwagon, some conservatives are upset. Fox’s Dana Perino, Bush’s former press secretary, accused Trump of peddling “liberal conspiracy theories.”
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, a major detractor, ran a piece titled “Trump’s 9/11 Truthing.” The headline is unfair because truthers are those who say the Bush administration was complicit in the attacks.
“Mr. Trump is now trying to blunt that rebuke by distorting the truth about the hijackers and the
Osama bin Laden era…Blaming George W. Bush for the 9/11 attacks is like blaming President Obama for the recession that followed the 2008 financial panic,” the Journal says. “The rise of al Qaeda had been going on for years, and its first attack on U.S. soil was its bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.”
National Review, which is hostile to The Donald, published a column yesterday in which Jeb said Trump “echoes the attacks of Michael Moore and the fringe Left against my brother is yet another example of his dangerous views on national-security issues…
“Donald Trump simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And his bluster overcompensates for a shocking lack of knowledge on the complex national-security challenges that will confront the next president of the United States.”
‎
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but Mike Murphy, an 18-year Jeb adviser who runs his Super PAC, broke a long period of media silence by calling Trump “a false zombie front-runner. He’s dead politically, he'll never be president of the United States, ever. By definition I don't think you can be a front-runner if you're totally un-electable,” Murphy told Bloomberg.
So Jeb World is fully engaged. And since Bush’s interviews tend not to generate much news, maybe this has brought him more media attention than he’s gotten in weeks.
But he’s playing very much on Trump’s turf, and that has hurt. In the latest CNN poll, Trump hit 27 percent, and Bush is at 8—numbers that, however early, Jeb needs to find a way to change.

Ryan to run for House speaker if he gets full party support

Wisc. Rep. Paul Ryan told House Republicans Tuesday he would run for speaker if he gets broad support from all wings of the party and gave colleagues until Friday to express their views.
Speaking to reporters after a closed-door meeting with colleagues, Ryan said he had “made a few requests for what I think is necessary” and said he’d asked to hear back from them by the end of the week.
“What I told the members is if you can agree to the requests, and if I can be a truly unifying figure, I’ll serve,” Ryan said. “And if I’m not a unifying force, that will be fine as well. I’m happy to stay where I am.”
Saying the country was “in desperate need for leadership,” Ryan added, "My greatest worry is the consequence of not stepping up. Of some day having my own kids ask me, when the stakes were so high, 'Why didn’t you do all you could? Why didn’t you stand and fight for my future when you had the chance?"
At the same time, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah said in a tweet he was dropping out of the race for speaker in favor of Ryan.
“I am out and supporting @RepPaulRyan for Speaker. Right person at the right time,” he tweeted.

More on this...

• Exclusive: John Boehner says it's time for him to 'move on'

Ryan, 45, the GOP's 2012 vice presidential nominee, had consistently said earlier he did not want to be speaker and would prefer to stay on as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, which he's described as his dream job.
Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told Fox News’ Bret Baier Tuesday that he thought Ryan “would be a great speaker” and “has the skills to do this job.”

New York City police officer dies after being shot in East Harlem

A New York City police officer was shot and killed late Tuesday in the East Harlem section of the city after he responded to a report of shots fired and an armed robbery.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton identified the murdered officer as Randolph Holder, 33, a five-year veteran of the force. Holder was an officer in the department's Housing Bureau, which polices the city's public housing developments.
"Tonight, he did what every other officer in the NYPD does," Bratton said. "When the call comes, he ran toward danger. It was the last time he will respond to that call."
Bratton said Holder and his partner responded to a report of shots fired at East 102nd Street on the city's Upper East Side. Witnesses told the officers a man had fled on a foot path and the officers encountered another man who told them an assailant had stolen his bicycle at gunpoint. Bratton said the officers confronted the suspect and pursued him to the intersection of East 120th Street and the FDR Drive, where gunfire rang out. One witness told Fox 5 that she heard at least five shots.
Holder was shot in the forehead and rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:22 p.m. Dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers lined the hospital hallway while other officers held each other as they arrived.
"We are humbled by Officer Randolph Holder's example, an example of service and courage and sacrifice," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "Our hearts are heavy. We offer our thoughts and our prayers to his family."
Bratton said the suspect was wounded in the shootout and apprehended four blocks away. The commissioner said the suspect, who has not been identified, was expected to be released from the hospital into police custody Wednesday. Three other man were also taken into custody and questioned.
Holder was a native of Guyana, where his father and grandfather both were police officers, Bratton said.
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said: "New York City police officers every day go out and carry themselves like superheroes. But the reality is when we're attacked, we bleed. When we bleed, we die. And when we die, we cry."
Holder is the fourth NYPD officer to die in the line of duty in the last 11 months.
On May 2, Officer Brian Moore was shot while questioning suspect Demetrius Blackwell in Queens. Moore died of his injuries two days later.
On December 20, detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were gunned down as they sat in their car in Brooklyn by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who stated that he wanted to avenge the police-involved deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner by killing officers. Brinsley later shot himself in the head while fleeing police.
So far this year, 101 police officers have died in the line of duty in the U.S. -- 33 of those deaths caused by gunfire -- according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. By early Wednesday, Holder's name already had been added to the list.

Team Clinton on offense ahead of Benghazi committee hearing

Hillary Clinton and her supporters are blistering the Benghazi committee ahead of her much-anticipated testimony Thursday, repeatedly questioning the GOP-led investigative panel’s “credibility” as the former secretary of state gears up for a potentially confrontational appearance. 
On Wednesday, a super PAC supporting Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign, Priorities USA, will begin running TV ads aimed at bolstering her image ahead of her appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
The effort marks the group’s first TV ad buy of the election cycle. But it is also just part of an all-out offensive that unexpectedly started Sept. 29 when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested the committee -- created to investigate the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya -- has hurt Clinton’s poll numbers. Within days, New York Republican Rep. Richard Hanna and a GOP committee investigator also suggested the committee was too focused on Clinton, giving her and campaign officials an opening to call the panel a partisan tool.
“This committee is basically an arm of the Republican National Committee,” Clinton said to applause during last week’s Democratic primary debate. “It is a partisan vehicle, as admitted by … Mr. McCarthy, to drive down my poll numbers.” A few days earlier, Clinton told NBC the committee was “set up … for the purpose of making a partisan, political issue out of the deaths of four Americans.”
It's an allegation that Republican committee Chairman Trey Gowdy has adamantly denied, telling his Democratic committee counterpart as recently as Sunday that the committee "is not investigating Secretary Clinton" or the allegations surrounding her personal email use.
Whether the pre-hearing charges will lead to fireworks Thursday remains to be seen. Gowdy appears to be at pains to show his committee is only interested in getting at the truth regarding the Benghazi attacks, while Clinton publicly casts the panel as a partisan outfit. Clinton showed visible frustration during her 2013 Benghazi-related appearance on Capitol Hill, where she asked "what difference, at this point, does it make" what motivated the attackers. The Democratic presidential front-runner surely is mindful that such an unguarded moment on Thursday could become fodder for GOP ads in the 2016 cycle.
The committee itself was formed last year to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, while Clinton was secretary of state.
The 12-member bipartisan committee discovered this March that Clinton used a private server and email accounts for official business while in office, which has led to an FBI investigation, several other congressional probes and widespread concerns about whether her unusual setup resulted in national security breaches.
Still, Gowdy says the committee is focused on Benghazi. He and Republican committee member Rep. Mike Pompeo, of Kansas, indicated Sunday they have no intentions of closing the investigation and in fact have dozens more witnesses and more information, including new Stevens’ emails.
“The ambassador asked for more security, and it was ignored,” Bradley Blakemen, former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, said Tuesday.
However, Clinton supporters and others have called for shuttering the 17-month-old committee -- arguing it’s a political sham and a $4.5 million taxpayer waste.
“If you want to get to the truth, you might want to broaden your reach as opposed to … for political reasons, just going after Hillary Clinton,” Democratic strategist David Mercer told FoxNews.com on Tuesday.
Critics have more recently noted that Republican committee members recently summoned long-time Clinton aide-de-camp Huma Abedin to testify while thus far not doing the same for then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, then-CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus and others.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told reporters last week that Clinton would still testify but that Gowdy’s inquiry now has “zero credibility left.”
The counter-attacks have more recently focused on Gowdy. The Washington Post last week found an alleged connection between him and the STOP Hillary PAC that ran a controversial Benghazi ad during the Democratic debate, resulting in Gowdy returning $2,000 in contributions.
The South Carolina Republican and former state and federal prosecutor recently told Politico that the past few weeks have been among “the worst in my life.” In response to Republican non-committee members critiquing their work, he said over the weekend that they should “shut up.”
The hearing Thursday is expected focus in large part on whether Clinton, who in 2013 testified before Congress on Benghazi, adequately responded to concerns by Stevens about security at the Benghazi outpost.
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign has produced several videos ahead of Thursday’s hearing including a five-minute highlight reel that touts Clinton’s "smart leadership” as secretary of state.

EPA Cartoon

GOP senator rips EPA, White House for skipping climate hearing

A top Republican senator is crying foul after the Environmental Protection Agency and a key White House office declined to take part in an upcoming hearing on the administration’s role in international climate negotiations, ahead of a landmark conference in Paris next month.
The Tuesday hearing was initially pitched as a joint hearing between the Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC.) The hearing now is expected to be held only by the SFRC and to feature one witness -- the Obama administration's special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern.
Republican EPW sources told FoxNews.com that Democrats in the SFRC objected to a joint hearing, while invitations to the EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) were both declined. EPW Chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who is well-known for his global warming skepticism, voiced frustration at the response.
“The Obama administration and Senate Democrats have made it extremely difficult to provide necessary and appropriate Congressional oversight to the president’s international climate negotiations,” Inhofe said in a statement.
The hearing will be held in anticipation of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris at the end of November. The conference is a critical summit for an administration that has made cutting carbon emissions a centerpiece of its second-term agenda. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday that President Obama is considering attending the Paris talks.
Considering the summit's importance, Republicans want to question top environmental policy officials in the administration on their intentions.
“The CEQ has always been any administration's filter, and played a leadership role, on environmental issues and international environmental issues. The EPA is responsible for what we can tell to be the vast majority of the 26-28 percent of greenhouse gas reductions and yet we believe that ultimately this hearing will not feature the environmental agencies and will solely feature Mr. Stern,” a Senate EPW majority aide told FoxNews.com.
“We believe a hearing featuring all those witnesses would be useful, as witnesses have a tendency to defer to witnesses who are not in the room and it would be helpful to get a comprehensive perspective from the administration for the Senate of what will be part of this agreement, what has led up to this, what interagency interaction there has been, and the work involved.”
But in a letter responding to Inhofe, the EPA said the hearing would be out of the purview of the agency.
“[The] agency cannot speak to the full suite of domestic policies that are being considered in these negotiations and is not the party responsible for developing the total  emissions reduction numbers for the U.S.,” Associate Administrator Laura Vaught wrote.
While Tuesday's hearing will now be conducted solely by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, EPW Republicans said they want to hold their own hearing with Stern, the EPA and the CEQ later in the year. However, the State Department has informed the committee that Stern would not be able to attend an EPW hearing unless the EPA or CEQ also were in attendance.
The aide told FoxNews.com they consider scrutiny of the upcoming Paris agreement to be important, saying it would mirror the Kyoto agreement – which the U.S. did not ratify – and  require a substantial commitment to the international community.
The White House already has enlisted a number of companies to bolster its push for an international climate pledge
White House officials say 81 companies have signed on to the American Business Act on Climate pledge, including Intel, Coca-Cola, Google and Walmart. By signing, the companies promise to advocate for a strong climate deal ahead of the negotiations in Paris.

Ambassador sought security staffing before Benghazi attack, cable shows

Two months before the fatal 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, then-Ambassador Chris Stevens requested 13 security personnel to help him safely travel around Libya, according to a cable reviewed by Fox News -- but he was turned down. 
In the July 9, 2012 cable, Stevens reported that, "Overall security conditions continue to be unpredictable, with large numbers of armed groups and individuals not under control of the central government, and frequent clashes in Tripoli and other major population centers." The cable said 13 security personnel would be the "minimum" needed for "transportation security and incident response capability."
But a congressional source said Patrick Kennedy, a deputy to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, turned down the request.
The cable sent under Stevens' electronic signature shows that he was advocating for additional security and warning that the set-up did not meet State Department standards, as conditions deteriorated in the run-up to the attack that killed Stevens and three other Americans.
Clinton, now a Democratic presidential candidate, is set to testify Thursday before the congressional Benghazi committee at a hearing where the State Department's security measures in Libya are likely to be a focal point.
In the year leading up to the 2012 attack, records show, there were 234 security incidents in Libya, 50 of which took place in Benghazi -- including a June assassination attempt on the British ambassador in which a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle. The team narrowly escaped.

More on this...

• New documents could shed light on Clinton's State Department

• Ambassador denied security before Benghazi attack

This attack preceded Stevens' July cable. While this intelligence was shared with the State Department, no additional security was added. The same month the British ambassador was targeted, there also was an IED attack on the U.S. Consulate, blasting a hole in the perimeter wall -- but still, security requests were denied.
According to a congressional source, a senior State Department security officer in Libya told Senate investigators that, in September 2012, he had to choose between guarding the Tripoli airport -- their lifeline to the outside world -- and sending security with Stevens to Benghazi.
He chose to reinforce the airport.
"The system is not working well. We've seen that, not on one occasion but on many occasions," said Adam Zagorin, with the Project on Government Oversight. "I'm not aware that it's been fixed as we sit here today."
Zagorin said there is a broader pattern of mismanagement when it comes to security and outside contracts.
"Patrick Kennedy, who is the chief administrator of the department, has testified on quite a number of occasions about this," he said. "And frankly it's not clear -- he has offered assurances and reassurance to members of Congress that this is being taken care of -- and yet the pattern repeats so one has to question what is really being done."
Further, the guard force at the Benghazi consulate, run by a contractor called Blue Mountain Libya, was in such disarray on Sept. 11, 2012, that they did not have a valid license to operate in Benghazi, according to emails obtained through a federal lawsuit.
Documents first obtained by Judicial Watch and reviewed by Fox News show the partnership was dissolved after a dispute between the Libyan license holder and the parent company in Britain. After the terror attack, the Libyan company said it was willing to "put its differences with the security operators, Blue Mountain UK, to the side for the moment, and shall allow the use of its security license. ... Our prayers are with the families of the victims," according to a Sept. 12 email to the State Department.
Despite the emails, the State Department has insisted there was no problem with the license.

George W. Bush reportedly rips Ted Cruz to Jeb Bush donors

Former President George W. Bush reportedly ripped into Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at a weekend gathering of donors to his brother's presidential campaign, according to a published report Monday. 
Politico reported that Bush said of Cruz, "I just don't like the guy," at the event, which was held Sunday night in Denver.
According to the report, which cited at least six donors who were at the event, Bush said he did not like Cruz's de facto alliance with Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who has notably spared Cruz from the criticism he has ladled onto other members of the 15-candidate Republican field.
"He said he found it 'opportunistic' that Cruz was sucking up to Trump and just expecting all of his support to come to him in the end," one donor told Politico when asked to describe Bush's remarks about Cruz. The report added that the former president had been engaging with amiable discussions about the state of the GOP race when Cruz's name came up.
"I was like, 'Holy s---, did he just say that?'" the donor told Politico. "I remember looking around and seeing that other people were also looking around surprised."
The report also said that Bush warned the donors to not underestimate Cruz's strength in the South and in Texas, where his message of religious liberty is expected to play very well with voters.
Freddy Ford, a spokesman for George W. Bush, did not deny that the former president had made the disparaging remarks about Cruz when asked to comment by Politico.
"The first words out of President Bush's mouth [Sunday] were that Jeb is going to earn the nomination, win the election, and be a great President ... He does not view Senator Cruz as Governor Bush's most serious rival."
Ford denied further requests by Fox News to address Bush's reported "I just don't like the guy" remark.
Cruz joined George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser and helped put together the legal team that argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court in the aftermath of the controversial election. He later served as an associate deputy attorney general in the Justice Department before becoming Solicitor General of Texas in 2003.
Cruz issued a statement to Politico late Monday that said in part, "It's no surprise that President Bush is supporting his brother and attacking the candidates he believes pose a threat to his campaign. I have no intention of reciprocating. I met my wife Heidi working on his campaign, and so I will always be grateful to him."

Israel arrests Hamas co-founder, accusing him of inciting recent violence

Israeli forces arrested one of the co-founders of the Hamas militant group Tuesday, accusing him of inciting recent violence that has resulted in the deaths of nine Israelis, many in stabbing attacks. 
The military said Hassan Yousef was arrested near Ramallah. It marks the most high-profile arrest since a wave of unrest swept through the region a month ago.
The military said Yousef had been "actively instigating and inciting terrorism" by encouraging attacks against Israelis. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told the Associated Press, "Hamas' leaders cannot expect to propagate violence and terror from the comfort of their living rooms and pulpits of their mosques."
Yousef's eldest son, Mosab, spied for Israel between 1997 and 2007.
Over the past month, nine Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them stabbings. In that time, 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, including 20 labeled by Israel as attackers, and the rest in clashes with Israeli troops. An Eritrean migrant died after being shot and beaten by a mob that mistakenly believed he was a Palestinian attacker.
Also Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished the Hebron home of Maher Hashlamoun, a Palestinian who rammed his car into 25-year-old Dalia Lemkus in the West Bank and stabbed her several times last year Hashlamon was shot and killed.

More on this...

• Ambassador: Incitement by Palestinian leaders fuels violence

• Is media bias influencing coverage of violence in Israel?

Hashlamoun's wife told Palestinian radio that soldiers evacuated their three story building and demolished the third floor apartment where her family lived. Such demolitions are often carried out by Israeli forces with the aim of deterring future attacks.
Lerner said the demolition "sends a clear message that there is a personal price to pay when you are involved in terror."
Meanwhile, Palestinan Foreign Minister Riyad Malki told Palestinian radio that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would arrive in the region later Tuesday to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Ban has issued a video message ahead of the visit calling for calm on both sides. He said he understood the Palestinian frustration but that violence would only harm their legitimate aspirations. He said to the Israelis that he understood their concerns and fears due to the security deterioration, but added there was no military solution to the situation.
"When children are afraid to go to school, when anyone on the street is a potential victim, security is rightly your immediate priority," Ban said, addressing Israelis. "But walls, checkpoints, harsh responses by the security forces and house demolitions cannot sustain the peace and safety that you need and must have."

Iran Nuclear Cartoon

Obama puts nuclear deal into effect, but Iran still likely months away from sanction relief

President Obama on Sunday signed the Iran nuclear deal, officially putting the international agreement into effect.
The president’s signature opens the way for Iran to make major changes to an underground nuclear facility, a heavy water reactor and a site for enriching uranium.
However, the rogue nation will need months to meet those goals and get relief from the crippling economic sanction that will be lifted as part of deal, despite the pact going into effect Sunday.
The seven-nation deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was reached on July 14, after roughly two years of negotiations.
The so-called “Adoption Day” on Sunday also requires the United States and other participating countries to make the necessary arrangements and preparations for implementation” of the deal, the president said.
"Today marks an important milestone toward preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful going forward," Obama said. "I welcome this important step forward. And we, together with our partners, must now focus on the critical work of fully implementing this comprehensive resolution that addresses our concerns over Iran’s nuclear program."
Senior administration officials said Saturday they understand it's in Iran's best interest to work quickly, but they are only concerned that the work is done correctly.
They insisted that no relief from the penalties will occur until the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency has verified Iran's compliance with the terms of the agreement. They said Iran's work will almost certainly take more than the two months Iran has projected.
The administration officials spoke on a conference call with reporters, but under the condition that they not be identified by name.
As part of the nuclear agreement, Obama on Sunday also issued provisional waivers and a memorandum instructing U.S. agencies to lay the groundwork for relieving sanctions on Iran.
In Iran, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told state TV: "On implementation, all should be watchful that Westerners, particularly Americans, to keep their promises."
Velayati said Iran expects that the United States and other Western countries that negotiated the deal will show their "good will" through lifting sanctions.
Iran's atomic energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, told state TV that Tehran was ready to begin taking steps to comply, and awaited an order from President Hassan Rouhani. "We are hopeful to begin in the current or next week," he said.
The IAEA said Sunday that Iran has agreed to allow greater monitoring of its commitment to the deal, going beyond basic oversight provided by the safeguards agreement that IAEA member nations have with the agency. For instance, it allows short-notice inspections of sites the IAEA may suspect of undeclared nuclear activities.
Even as the terms of the deal begin taking effect, recent developments have shown the wide gulf between the U.S. and Iran on other issues.
Fighters from Iran have been working in concert with Russia in Syria, and a Revolutionary Court convicted a Washington Post reporter who has been held more than a year on charges including espionage. The court has not provided details on the verdict or sentence. Further, two other Americans are being detained, and the U.S. has asked for the Iranian government's assistance in finding a former FBI agent who disappeared in 2007 while working for the CIA on an unapproved intelligence mission.
Also, Iran successfully test-fired a guided long-range ballistic surface-to-surface missile.
But the U.S. officials asserted that those actions would be worse if they were backed up by a nation with a nuclear weapon. The officials emphasized that the seven-nation pact is focused solely on resolving the nuclear issue.
The steps being taken by the U.S. come 90 days after the U.N. Security Council endorsed the deal.

Trump suggests he might have prevented 9/11 attacks, extending feud with Bush

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump suggested Sunday that he could have prevented the 9/11 attacks had he been president in 2001 -- escalating his feud with primary rival Jeb Bush about the fatal terror strikes.
Trump, a first-time candidate, implied his stance on immigration could have kept out the terrorists who slipped into the United States and trained in the country to hijack the four commercial airliners and kill nearly 3,000 people on American soil on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I am extremely, extremely tough on illegal immigration,” Trump told "Fox News Sunday." “I believe that if I were running things,  … I doubt that those people would have been in the country.”
The 19 hijackers crashed one airliner each into the Pentagon and the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City, roughly nine months after Bush’s older brother, President George W. Bush, took office in 2001.
Passengers in one airliner overpowered the radical Islamic hijackers, forcing the craft to crash in Shanksville, Pa., with no survivors.
The Trump-Bush feud essentially started during the second 2016 GOP presidential primary debate when Jeb Bush defended his brother against Trump’s criticism about the attacks.
“You remember the rubble at the World Trade Center? He sent a clear signal that the United States would be strong and fight Islamic terrorism, and he did keep us safe,” Bush said to huge audience applause.
Trump responded: “You feel safe right now? I don’t feel so safe.”
Bush, a former Florida governor, has since shaped his response to suggest his brother united Americans and kept then safer after the attacks.
The exchanges also have put Bush in a challenging position, defending his family while trying to distance himself from Bush political dynasty, included shortcomings in the administrations of his brother and father, George H.W. Bush.
On Friday, Trump returned to his attacks when talking on Bloomberg TV about how and why, if elected, he could best handle national emergencies.
“Blame him or don’t blame him, but (Bush) was president,” said the billionaire New York real estate mogul. “The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Hours later Jeb Bush tweeted, “How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.”
Trump also said Sunday that during the debate he was just responding to Bush saying the country was safe under his brother’s watch.
“I'm not blaming anybody,” Trump said. “But the World Trade Center came down.  So when he said, we were safe, that's not safe.  … It was probably the greatest catastrophe ever in this country.”

Maryland gets okay to recall Confederate flag license plates; Virginia's recall meets defiance

Maryland got the okay from a judge to recall Confederate flag special license plates, joining Virginia -- where a similar recall effort has encountered near universal defiance from owners of the tags to return them.
Both states acted to recall the plates after a self-proclaimed white supremacist killed nine black South Carolina churchgoers in June. The gunman had taken photos of himself with guns and the Confederate flag and posted them online before the shooting.
A federal judge issued an order Thursday allowing Maryland to recall tags featuring the Confederate battle flag after Nov. 17, Reuters reported.
“I look forward to the day when these plates are no longer on the road,” Maryland Attorney General Brian Frost said in a statement. “This flag is a painful symbol that divides us, conjuring images of hate and subjugation. It has no place in any contemporary government use.”
A judge ruled in 1997 that Maryland’s Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates were protected free speech and enjoined the state from recalling them, Reuters reported.
But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court said Confederate flag license plates constituted government speech that could be subjected to regulation.
Virginia announced it would recall the plates in August and as of Oct. 4 it is illegal to drive with Confederate license plates. Violators face prosecution on a misdemeanor if stopped.
But the recall has encountered little cooperation, according to WAVY-TV.
Of 1,600 Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates on the road, only 187 have been returned, the station reported Thursday.
Kevin Collier told the station he is refusing to give up his plates. He is the commander of the Stonewall Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and his great-great-great grandfather fought with the Confederacy.
“I can’t fight on the battlefield like they did, but I can fight however I can in modern times and I will not give them plates up,” he said.
The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles asked the Sons of Confederate Veterans to help design a new plate but the organization did not respond.
“Next thing you know, they’re going to say you can’t wear blue on Monday, you know, or you can’t wear yellow on Thursday,” Collier told WAVY. “Where’s it going to end?”

Gowdy: Benghazi panel's new facts focus on 'four dead Americans,' not Clinton 2016 bid

Hillary Clinton’s upcoming testimony before Congress’ special Benghazi committee is being hyped as the biggest moment in the panel’s controversial existence. But the committee’s Republican leaders said Sunday they are equally, if not more, focused on new evidence and continued pursuit of the facts behind the fatal 2012 attacks.
“We have found new facts that have absolutely nothing to do with her,” South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, told CBS' “Face the Nation.”
“I get that people don't want to talk about that. But the seven [Republican] members of my committee are much more focused on the four dead Americans than we are anyone's presidential aspirations.”
Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner, is scheduled to testify Thursday about her role as secretary of state during the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
Gowdy said Sunday that the 12-member bipartisan committee has acquired Stephens’ emails from that time and suggested dozens more witnesses will be called.
Clinton is "an important witness, but she is one witness,” he also said. “I understand that there's more attention associated with her. But from my perspective, I am much more interested in Chris Stevens' emails, which we just received, than I am her emails, which we just received.”
He also suggested that new emails show Clinton and other members of the administration were too focused on the politics of Benghazi.
Gowdy said Stevens even joked in an email that maybe he and others at the Benghazi outpost “should ask another government to pay for our security upgrades because our government isn't willing to do it.”
“You want to know what happened in Libya, you got to look at his emails,” Gowdy continued.
The special committee discovered that Clinton as the country’s top diplomat used a private server and emails for official business. But since being formed last year, the committee has faced criticism about being a political tool for Republicans to tarnish Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Democrats and other critics say House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., proved the argument a few weeks ago when he suggested that Clinton’s poll numbers have dropped as the committee and others investigate the email controversy.
Their argument and calls to shutter the committee have been further bolstered recently by Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., suggesting the committee is politically motivated and a fired committee investigator suggesting Republican members were overly focused on Clinton.
This weekend, Democrats also argued that the select committee probe has lasted longer than the congressional Watergate investigation.
However, Republican committee member and Rep. Mike Pompeo said Sunday that Democrats “hiding the ball” has slowed investigative efforts and that GOP leaders have no plans to close the committee.
“We’re not done,” the Kansas lawmaker told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We still have many witnesses and many documents. We’re just getting started.”
In addition, Gowdy on Sunday told fellow Republicans uninformed about exactly what the committee is doing to "shut up."
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, still thinks the panel is too focused on Clinton and a waste of taxpayer money.
“After 17 months, $4.7 million and counting of taxpayer money .. Chairman Gowdy is now saying he has another two dozen witnesses to interview,” he told CBS on Sunday.
He also said Gowdy is “now trying to shift back to where we should have been all along -- that is looking at the Benghazi incident.”
As proof, Cummings said the committee has yet to call to testify the CIA director, secretary of defense and head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of the attacks.

Biden Cartoon

Hillary moneyman highlights new Saudi connection

The Saudi government, under increasing criticism over civilian casualties from its airstrikes in Yemen and a harsh crackdown on political dissidents at home, has just hired a powerhouse Washington, D.C., lobbying firm headed by a top Hillary Clinton fundraiser — an arrangement that critics charge raises fresh questions about the influence that foreign government lobbyists could have on her campaign.

The Saudi contract with the Podesta Group, owned by veteran Washington lobbyist and Clinton campaign bundler Tony Podesta, calls for the firm to provide “public relations” and other services on behalf of the royal court of King Salman.

It included an initial “project fee” payment of $200,000 last month and unspecified further sums over the course of the next year, according to documents recently filed with the Justice Department Foreign Agents Registration Act office.

The retention comes at a time when the Saudis are being condemned by United Nations officials over reports that their bombings against Houthi strongholds in Yemen’s civil war have resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of innocent civilians, including children.

Adding to the international pressure, the Saudis are also facing criticism from human rights groups over their continued refusal to allow basic rights to women (e.g., the freedom to drive cars). They are also being criticized for their hard-line domestic suppression of political dissidents, with draconian punishments such as the sentence — by beheading — recently given to a 20-year-old Shiite political protester.

“They are very nervous about an American policy change, and so they are betting on the horse they think will win — Hillary Clinton,” said Ali Al-Ahmad, a Saudi analyst with the Institute for Gulf Affairs, and a frequent critic of the regime, about the hiring of the Podesta Group.

The Podesta Group is now on a roster of a half-dozen D.C. lobbying firms representing the Saudis, including the giant international law firm DLA Piper and the firm Hogan Lovells, whose principal on the Saudi account is former Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who chairs the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super-PAC that is a major source of House GOP campaign funds. (Former Texas congressman Tom Loeffler, a top bundler for Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign, for years represented the Saudis, but his current firm, Akin Gump, now lobbies for the United Arab Emirates, among other foreign clients.)

But the retention of the Podesta Group has gotten attention in Washington lobbying circles because of its unusually close ties to Hillary Clinton’s campaign: Tony Podesta is the brother and former business partner of Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. He is also a prolific Democratic Party fundraiser who is among 43 Washington lobbyists (many of whom also represent foreign governments) listed as Clinton campaign bundlers in reports filed by the campaign with the Federal Election Commission.

The reports disclose that Podesta had raised $140,175 for the Clinton campaign through Sept. 30. Two weeks ago, just days after filing its Saudi contract with the Justice Department, Podesta held a Clinton campaign fundraiser at his home that offered fine Italian food cooked by five gourmet chefs, including himself and his brother, the campaign chairman.

The Podesta Group point man on the Saudi account is David Adams, who previously served as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in 2011 and 2012, making him Clinton’s chief Capitol Hill lobbyist for her last two years as secretary of state, according to Justice Department filings reviewed by Yahoo News.

But Tony Podesta, while calling himself “a proud Clinton bundler,” vigorously denied that the Saudi contract had anything to do with his efforts to elect her president. “I’ve never had a conversation with Hillary Clinton or anybody in the campaign about the work of the firm,” Podesta said when reached by Yahoo News on his cellphone while he was dining at a restaurant in Sicily. “We represent a dozen foreign governments around the world — we do good work for them. And it has nothing to do with the Hillary Clinton campaign.”

Obama's foreign policy could burden Biden if he runs in 2016

When President Barack Obama announced this week that the United States would leave more troops than planned in Afghanistan, his vice president, Joe Biden, stood right at his side.

And for Biden, still mulling a presidential bid, that could pose a problem.

As he calculates all the angles that would influence his candidacy - a decision is reportedly coming within days - Biden has more than the looming obstacle of front-runner Hillary Clinton to consider. As a candidate, he would become the chief defender of a foreign policy that critics say has been incoherent and that gets increasingly low marks in public opinion polls.

Beyond Afghanistan, the White House is under fire for its response to Russian action in Syria, where Vladimir Putin has assumed the superpower role there that the United States has declined to take, for the enduring threat posed by Islamic State, and for the Iran nuclear deal that has spiked tensions with ally Israel.

Biden, who prides himself on being a full partner on Obama’s national security team, would own all of it. “Foreign policy is a liability for Biden,” Democratic strategist Douglas Schoen said.

The Afghanistan shift was a personal setback for Biden, the most influential voice in the administration pushing for hard timelines for the removal of U.S. troops from the country. Clinton, by contrast, favored a more robust military presence there during her tenure as secretary of state during Obama's first term.
Clinton, whose status as the prohibitive front-runner wouldn't change even if Biden jumps in, has distanced herself from Obama by calling for more aggressive action in Syria and opposing the Pacific Rim trade deal. As a sitting vice president, Biden wouldn't have the luxury of distancing himself from Obama's policies, even if he were so inclined.

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President Barack Obama, left, standing with Vice President Joe Biden, right, listen as Diana Caldero …

“How does a presidential aspirant like Joe Biden reach for a bold American foreign policy without fundamentally distancing himself from his boss? It’s tough,” said Aaron David Miller, a former official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who is now with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Obama’s approval ratings with the U.S. public on foreign policy have tumbled since Biden stood at the Democratic National Convention three years ago and pronounced, “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”
According to Gallup, Obama enjoyed about a 50 percent approval rating on foreign affairs during his first term. That number fell to 36 percent this summer.
National security is often overshadowed in U.S. presidential races by domestic issues, most notably jobs and economic growth.
But with the economy on a firmer footing that means it is not drowning out other issues for voters, some Republicans such as U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida are trying to put more of a spotlight on foreign policy.
Rubio regularly blasts Obama on the campaign trail and said of Biden: “He’s been wrong time and again on issue after issue."
“He would be a disastrous commander-in-chief,” Rubio told radio host Hugh Hewitt in August, as speculation about Biden’s intentions began to swirl.
Biden’s reputation took a hit when it was revealed that he had advised against the U.S. military raid that killed bin Laden in 2011.
He was a firm supporter of a reduced U.S. role in Iraq, which the administration’s detractors argue created a vacuum that strengthened the rise of Islamic State. Biden also resisted arming rebel groups in Syria.
Clinton recently called for a "no fly" zone in Syria, which both Obama and Biden oppose.

Should he run, Biden “has to establish his own identity,” but to do so he would have to highlight times when he privately disagreed with Obama, said Anthony Cordesman, an expert on U.S. security policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Biden’s supporters say he could point to his decades in the Senate, especially his years chairing the Foreign Relations Committee, to counter Republican arguments that he would simply be an extension of Obama's world view. For example, Biden has been friends for decades with Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama, by contrast, has a frosty relationship with the Israeli prime minister.

Donald Trump says true thing about 9/11 and Jeb! is having none of it

Last night, things got even more fun when Jeb! decided to come at the Donald via everyone’s favorite social media platform for discussing large complex topics.
What kicked this newest incident off was an interview Trump did with Bloomberg, during which he said:

When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time…He was president, OK?…Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.

This is a 100% factual claim, which is a weird thing to say after a Donald Trump quote, but here we are. Jeb! (whose last name is Bush) wasn’t thrilled with this statement and took to Twitter to let everyone know.
This is similar to a Jeb! quote from the last republican debate, which also made its way into another confusing tweet.
There is a certain morbid hilarity in the idea of a picture of Bush standing atop the rubble of a terrorist attack and proclaiming he “Kept us safe.” This is a weird talking point that Jeb! just refuses to abandon, despite the fact that every time he says it everyone legitimately wonders if he just flat out doesn’t remember 9/11.
By the way, Jeb! should know way more things about his brother. Little things, like his birthday and wife and children’s names should probably be on the list of “things you know for sure about your brother.”
Of course, coming at Trump on Twitter is a risky proposition, because he will respond, and he will be mean, and he will put a period before that @ to make sure everyone sees it.
Once again, these are true statements. It’s an empirical fact that the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 happened during the presidency of George W. Bush. If Jeb! wants to argue to finer points of why his brother shouldn’t be blamed or how his policies in the aftermath of the attack were good (which would be a monumentally difficult task, because they were not), fine, he can do that. But he really needs to stop just saying “he kept us safe,” because it’s way too easy to point to that one day and say “No, I don’t believe he did.”

Jeb responds to Trump comments on George W. Bush and 9/11 attacks

Jeb Bush on Friday night defended brother and former President George W. Bush after fellow GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested that he shares blame for the 9/11 terror attacks.
Bush, a former Florida governor, called Trump’s criticism “pathetic.”
The front-running Trump made his comments earlier Friday while speaking on Bloomberg Television about how and why, if elected, he could best handle national emergencies.
“Blame him or don’t blame him, but (Bush) was president,” Trump said. “The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Jeb Bush responded on Twitter, saying “How pathetic for @realdonaldtrump to criticize the president for 9/11. We were attacked & my brother kept us safe.”
This is not the first time Bush has during his 2016 campaign had to defend his older brother, in trying to distinguish himself from the Bush family political dynasty and be his “own man.”
In the second GOP presidential primary debate, Bush defended similar criticism from Trump, after he acknowledged that his foreign policy advisers would likely come from the administrations of his brother George W. and his father, former President George H. W. Bush.
“You remember the rubble” at the World Trade Center? He sent a clear signal that the United States would be strong and fight Islamic terrorism, and he did keep us safe,” Bush said to huge audience applause.
Trump responded: “You feel safe right now? I don’t feel so safe.”

'How to stab a Jew': Israel at UN condemns Palestinian president for inciting violence

A Palestinian disguised as a photojournalist stabbed an Israeli soldier in Hebron Friday, the same day Palestinians torched a site honored by the Jewish community as the tomb of the biblical figure Joseph.
The latest round of violence and bloodshed came as the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on the fighting. Speaking before the meeting, new Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon displayed a Palestinian diagram meant to incite violence, entitled: "How to stab a Jew."
He blamed the Palestinian government and media for provoking attacks among children and teenagers. “You can see with this picture what incitement looks like,” he added.
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, blamed what he called Israeli "terror" through its occupation of East Jerusalem. He said such actions "will not break the will of our people."
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power condemned the deadly attacks, urging world leaders to tone down harsh rhetoric, or "any actions that can feed the violence."
Friday’s stabbing occurred on the sidelines of fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian stone-throwers. A Palestinian man wearing a T-shirt with the word "press" in large letters stabbed and wounded the Israeli soldier before troops shot and killed the attacker.
At one point, shouts were heard, followed by several gunshots. Troops rushed to the scene of the stabbing, near a military jeep, and administered aid to the injured soldier who was eventually taken away by ambulance. The attacker lay on the ground, clutching a knife in his right hand.
The incident heightened concerns among journalists about their safety. The Foreign Press Association for Israel and the Palestinian territories said it "marks a worrying development" that demands all media operate with greater caution.
"We utterly deplore this violation of press privilege and call on local Palestinian media organizations to immediately verify all media credentials," the FPA said in a statement.
The attacker's name has not been released, but local journalists said they did not know him.
In Nablus, another West Bank city, Palestinians firebombed the tomb, an attack condemned as "irresponsible" by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Flames blackened exterior walls of the small stone structure, a scene of Israeli-Palestinian clashes in the past.
Confrontations also erupted in the biblical town of Bethlehem and the Israel-Gaza border.
In Gaza, hundreds approached a border crossing with Israel, throwing stones and drawing Israeli fire that killed one Palestinian and wounded two, health officials said. In Bethlehem, dozens of Palestinians hurled stones and firebombs at Israeli troops who responded with tear gas, rubber-coated steel pellets and live rounds.
In the past month, eight Israelis were killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them stabbings. During the same period, 34 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire -- 15 labeled by Israel as attackers, and the others in clashes between stone-throwers and Israeli troops.
Many of the Palestinian assailants are from east Jerusalem, the sector of the city captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians as a future capital. The recent attacks have largely been carried out by individuals with no ties to militant groups. The violence comes at a time when a possible partition of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean into two states -- Palestine alongside Israel -- is fading fast.
In response to the stabbings, Israel has taken unprecedented measures, including setting up checkpoints in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem this week despite Israel's long-standing assertion that the city is united.
In one area, men passing through a checkpoint Friday said they lined up and ordered by troops to lift their hands and shirts to show they were unarmed before being allowed to pass.
Israel also imposed restrictions on Muslim worship at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site in Jerusalem's walled Old City. Men under 40 were barred from the shrine, and hundreds of young worshippers spread out prayer mats on streets leading to the Old City.
The Muslim-run shrine, also revered by Jews as the holiest site of their religion, has been at the root of recent tensions. Palestinian and Muslim leaders have alleged Israel is attempting to change long-standing arrangements that bar Jews from praying on the hilltop compound, a claim denied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, several senior members of Netanyahu's coalition have called for Jewish prayer rights at the site, once home to biblical Jewish Temples.
The widespread perception among Palestinians that Al-Aqsa is under threat from Israel has fomented tensions and violence.
Abbas has tried to lower the temperature, telling his security commanders that armed attacks on Israelis counter Palestinian interests. However, he has also told his security forces not to stop Palestinian stone-throwers heading to confrontations with Israeli troops.
Abbas on Friday condemned the Nablus arson as "irresponsible," ordered an investigation into who was behind it and said repairs would begin immediately, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Dore Gold, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, said the site was targeted "just because it is a place in which Jews pray." Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, said the attack violates freedom of worship and that the military will "bring the perpetrators of this despicable act to justice."
For centuries, the site has been identified with the biblical Joseph but some Palestinians say it was a sheikh's grave or used as a mosque. The tomb has become a popular prayer site in recent years among some sects of religious Jews.
The site is located in an area under Palestinian self-rule and visits by Jews are coordinated between Palestinian security forces and Israeli troops.

Hillary Cartoon

Fact Check: Obama claims Afghan combat mission over – despite airstrikes, special ops

Report: US believed Afghan hospital was Taliban base

President Obama may be stretching when he assures the American public that combat operations in Afghanistan ended last year.

The president repeated the claim Thursday as he announced 5,500 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan after 2016. "Last December, more than 13 years after our nation was attacked by Al Qaeda on 9/11, America’s combat mission in Afghanistan came to responsible end," Obama said from the White House, flanked by Vice President Biden, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joe Dunford and Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

But this year alone, the U.S. military has carried out more than 328 airstrikes, dropping 629 bombs since January, according to U.S. Air Force Central Command. That amounts to roughly one U.S. airstrike a day since the president announced that combat operations had ended during his State of the Union address in January. So far this year, 25 U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan.

During his January address, Obama said U.S. troops have moved to a “support role.” He said, “Together with our allies, we will complete our mission there by the end of this year, and America's longest war will finally be over."

Obama backed off his pledge Thursday to end the war by the end of the year, but maintained that the combat mission is over and said the mission of those staying behind will not change. The remaining U.S. forces will be based at three air bases in Bagram, Kandahar and Jalalabad, and will only be authorized to train Afghans and hunt Al Qaeda.

"Our forces engage in two missions -- training Afghan forces and supporting counterterror operations against remnants of Al Qaeda," the president said at the White House.

Carter told reporters the same from the Pentagon: "The combat mission has ended and our mission now, on a day-to-day basis, is train, advise and assist and counterterrorism and only to undertake other kinds of operations, either to protect our own forces or in an extremist situation."

The administration argues that despite sustained airstrikes, that mission nevertheless counts as “counterterrorism” and not “combat.” A Fox News reporter asked Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook on Thursday to clarify Carter's remarks that "combat" is over and the "counterterror" mission remains.

"I think we've talked about it a lot,” Cook said. “It’s clear when we're talking about the counterterror mission – the target is remnants of Al Qaeda."

Yet these restrictions may also be a misrepresentation of the reality on the ground in Afghanistan.

For example, the actions of U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground in Kunduz show U.S. troops are doing more than "training Afghan forces" or targeting Al Qaeda. A U.S. Special Forces team called in the airstrike on Oct. 3 that hit a Kunduz hospital run by Doctors Without Borders. The hospital had been suspected of having a Taliban presence; the head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan Gen. John Campbell told reporters it was the Afghans who requested the airstrike. The U.S. has since called the strike a mistake.

Separately, a press release from U.S. Forces-Afghanistan revealed that beginning Oct. 7, the U.S. military “conducted 63 precision strikes while Afghan forces engaged in several battles on the ground against al-Qaeda networks at two related sites.” A large cache of weapons was seized by 200 U.S. and Afghan ground forces.

The two training sites were located in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the same area where Usama bin Laden set up training camps in the 1990s. According to the statement, one of the camps was 30 square miles, half the size of Washington, D.C.
Jennifer Griffin currently serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel . She joined FNC in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent.