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The Black Lives Matter Movement Is About To Jump Into The 2016 Marijuana Battle

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Phil McCarten / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Leading up to his meeting with the Black Lives Matter group Campaign Zero at the Frederick Douglass House in September, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders steeled himself for an argument.

He’d only previously come face-to-face with Black Lives Matter protesters who wanted to interrupt him. But over the course of the meeting, the activists spoke authoritatively on policy recommendations to curb racial disparities in the criminal justice system, while Sanders impressed by synthesizing their talking points on police militarization, community empowerment, and systematic oppression.

The activists brought up one issue, however, that Sanders hadn’t considered: creating pathways for black Americans to take part in the emerging legal marijuana economy, which they said represented unprecedented wealth-building opportunities for people of color.

"He acknowledged that he hadn't thought about ways to ensure black people had access to the legalized marijuana economy," Campaign Zero’s policy analyst and data scientist Samuel Sinyangwe told BuzzFeed News. "But he said he was willing to start thinking about strategies to do this."

Since the meeting, Sanders has introduced legislation to remove marijuana from the federal government’s list of controlled substances and said rolling back the drug war would improve the lives of black Americans.

Campaign Zero’s push on legalized marijuana that day was a precursor to a more formal alliance being forged between Black Lives Matter — the diffuse civil rights movement that grew out of protests following the police shootings of young, unarmed black men last year — and drug policy groups heading into big, election-year ballot fights over marijuana in states like California, Massachusetts and Missouri.

Drug war opponents agree that marijuana prohibition has disproportionately affected black Americans — and they also acknowledge that their movement is too white. Leaders attempting to bridge this gap have turned to Black Lives Matter.

National drug policy advocates will appear on Thursday alongside Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, in a town hall during the Drug Policy Alliance’s (DPA) International Drug Policy Reform Conference.

But the prospect of joining forces for the marijuana policy debate in 2016 is fraught with philosophical and tactical dilemmas for both movements.

Black Lives Matter activists ultimately believe legalization is inevitable and are eager to start discussing how legal marijuana can change the lives of black Americans. Legalization advocates are, above all, concerned with getting state ballot initiatives passed in 2016 and continuing to build on the momentum they established in 2012 and 2014.

Daunasia Yancey, a prominent Black Lives Matter organizer in Boston, said her chapter's involvement would require measures to address mass incarceration and retroactive changes in drug laws. The “wait-and-see” approach to legislation after a successful ballot initiative isn’t enough, she said.

“That’s exactly how everything happens,” Yancey said. "They’ll say, ‘Oh, we just need to get what we want and then we’ll put you in it.’ But we know that if we’re not in it from the jump, we’re not going to be included. And at the end of the day, they don’t owe anything to anyone. If they’re serious about making sure black people get involved, they need to say how, explicitly.”

Black Lives Matter Boston will push Boston-based marijuana legalization advocates to talk about creating lucrative opportunities for black people to legally grow marijuana, oppose against mandatory land-ownership requirements, and demand any changes in the law apply retroactively to people with criminal records related to marijuana.

According to the Marijuana Arrest Research Project, 210,000 people who were arrested for marijuana possession in Colorado between 1986 and 2010 are still in prison behind bars.

“In many ways the imagery doesn't sit right,” said Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, in a conversation with the Drug Policy Alliance's asha bandele last March.

“Here are white men poised to run big marijuana businesses, dreaming of cashing in big—big money, big businesses selling weed — after 40 years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed," Alexander continued. "Now, white men are planning to get rich doing precisely the same thing?”

Legalization advocates are not colorblind, however. Advocates say the inclusion of people of color in the fight for legalization is necessary if, for nothing else, than the fact that black communities were victims of the drug war.

"The voices of the communities of color who have been disproportionately targeted and punished under failed marijuana prohibition laws could not be more important in the emerging national debate about legalization,” Tom Angell, the founder of Marijuana Majority, told BuzzFeed News in a statement. “We should absolutely make sure that those individuals who have been victimized by the drug war are able to participate in a meaningful and prosperous way in the newly-legal economy that is now being brought aboveground.”

The DPA released policy recommendations in a June 2015 report titled “The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race.” The report recommended decriminalization of marijuana possession, elimination of "broken windows" police tactics that lead to disproportionate arrest and incarceration of black people, and called for an end to policies that exclude people with a prior felony conviction from the rights to vote.

Part of the initial conversations with Black Lives Matter is to draw out what the two movements’ shared ideals can accomplish in the short- and long-term, bandele said.

“Our challenge is how can we deepen that conversation between such a vibrant new movement and a growing, more established movement," she told BuzzFeed News.

That marijuana activists are looking for allies in the Black Lives Matter movement — and not, say, through black clergy or lawmakers — means the movement has toppled traditional leadership pathways, said Decker Ngongang, senior fellow at Frontline Solutions, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm. “One of the things the debate over legal marijuana has done is that it not only forces us to think about how policy is made, but it makes us think differently about what leadership looks like.”

But drug policy advocates who want Black Lives Matter involved say state ballot initiatives require — in addition to expensive, high-level organization and the sway of popular opinion — single-mindedness from supporters.

Art Way, the DPA's Colorado state director, who is black, suggested that while he and others wanted to work with Black Lives Matter, some were leery that the movement is focused on more than just policy.

“It’s one thing to call out white people, but it’s another thing to get involved with policy change,” he said. Working together successfully, he said, means “making sure their approach doesn’t impact what we’re trying to do and vice versa.”

Way said the primary goal of legalization advocates in Colorado, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, was to get the ballot initiative passed and then take steps afterward to ensure fairness and inclusion.

“States don’t allow ballot initiatives that create a tax and regulatory structure for marijuana, and simultaneously end collateral relief for people charged with marijuana crimes and set aside avenues for black people to join the economy," he said. "That kind of expansive change usually has to go through the legislature.”

Black Lives Matter activists said they were concerned about the effect of a drug charge on an individual’s economic prospects later in life.

"Simply talking about making marijuana legal or decriminalizing it is not enough," Sinyangwe said. "Ending the criminalization and incarceration of black people for marijuana is essential, but it is not enough, either. We really have to be thinking about who has access to the economy and asking ourselves if the same people who had been criminalized for participating in the informal marijuana economy are going to have access to the formal marijuana economy?"

The regulated marijuana economy is already rife with barriers, Way said. Depending on the state, poorer communities of color are blocked from joining the economy — which could be an $11 billion industry by 2019, according to many estimates — by background checks that reveal a felony conviction, the large amounts of financial capital needed to get started, and minimum land-ownership requirements.

Pro-marijuana advocates are split on whether the legal marijuana industry has an unwritten mandate, on moral or other grounds, to ensure it includes black people.

“The industry needs to be social-justice minded and remain partners with the social justice community to help set a new tone of inclusion when it comes to hiring former felons, poor people, black and brown people folks as well as drug testing," Way said.

The successful campaign to legalize marijuana in Washington, D.C. in 2014 focused heavily on social justice issues surrounding the drug war. However, basing whole arguments around legalization on racial grounds can be a tricky proposition for other parts of the country, Way said. For example, he questioned whether a hypothetical initiative in Colorado that ensured at least 20% of the legal marijuana economy went to the groups most affected by marijuana prohibition — low-income people of color — would pass.

“The rural dude in Pueblo might want to legalize marijuana, but he’s not trying to do all of that,” Way said.

However, bandele is not so worried about impediments. She said there’s plenty that Black Lives Matter and drug policy organizations can rally around, because they have something in common: They both agree black lives matter.

Both movements, she said, opposed a failed ballot initiative in Ohio that would have legalized recreational and medical marijuana but restricted entry into the industry to a handful of wealthy investors.

“At its core the Black Lives Matter movement demands and recognizes the fullness of someone’s humanity be honored,” bandele said. “And the beauty of its marriage with the drug law policy reform movement is that at its best, it demands that, too."

Heading into 2016, the challenge is clear for both movements: "Now how do we pull that apart and mix it back up so that it becomes policy?" bandele asked.


Bobby Jindal Drops Out Of The GOP Presidential Race

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Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced on Tuesday evening that he is dropping out of the GOP race for president.

"This is not my time. I've come to the realization that this is not my time. So I came here to announce that I'm suspending my campaign for president of the United States," Jindal said on Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier.

After launching his campaign in June, Jindal struggled to gain traction in a crowded Republican field. Lagging in national polls, Jindal never participated in a prime time presidential debate and instead was relegated to the undercard stage.

A former Rhodes scholar tasked with running Louisiana's state university system at age 28, Jindal was once billed as a top prospect in the Republican Party.

He won the governorship of Louisiana, a state with a long history of political corruption, on a reform campaign in 2008 that catapulted him to the national stage. National Republicans recognized Jindal as a young, smart, conservative figure — who, as the son of Indian immigrants, was also part of a newer, more diverse generation of Republican senators and governors.

But Jindal never quite recovered his political momentum after his disastrous response to the first State of the Union address of Barack Obama's presidency. And while Jindal has followed through on his promise to make significant changes to the way education looks in Louisiana, his governorship has not been particularly popular at home.

In a statement released Tuesday evening, Jindal reiterated that now wasn't his time and said he would go back to work at the think tank he started, AmericaNext.

"One of the things I will do is go back to work at the think tank I started a few years ago — where I will be outlining a blueprint for making this the American century," Jindal said.

"I realize that our country is off on the wrong track right now. Everyone knows that, but don’t forget, this is still the greatest country in the history of the world — and every single one of us should start every day by thanking God that we are fortunate enough to be US citizens," Jindal said.

Texas Set To Execute Man Who Says His Lawyers Have "Abandoned" Him

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Michael Graczyk / AP

A Texas man is slated to be executed Wednesday for burning three children to death — including his 18-month-old daughter — despite his claims that his court-appointed attorneys have "abandoned" him.

In March 2000, Raphael Holiday moved out of the house he shared with Tami Lynn Wilkerson and their 18-month-old daughter, Justice, along with Wilkerson's two other daughters — Jasmine DuPaul, 5, and Tierra Lynch, 7 —

Wilkerson had filed charges against Holiday and sought a protective order against him after she learned he had sexually assaulted Tierra, according to court documents.

On Sept. 5, Holiday returned with a gun and threatened to "burn the house down with everyone it it." He then ordered everyone to sit on the couch and made Wilkerson's mother, Beverly Mitchell, pour gasoline all over the house, court records show.

Mitchell said she saw Holiday "bend down," after which the fire started. All three children died in the fire, while Holiday stood outside and watched, court documents stated.

Holiday has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution on the grounds that his two court-appointed attorney abandoned him when he wanted to pursue avenues of legal appeal that had not yet been exhausted.

His appeal, filed by a pro-bono lawyer, claims that Holiday's two lawyers, appointed under the Criminal Justice Act (CJA), announced that they were through with the case "and then actively blocked Mr. Holiday's efforts to substitute" them, despite having instructed him to look for other death penalty lawyers.

Holiday says his execution should be stopped for new counsel to be appointed. He also claims that after the two lawyers, James “Wes” Volberding and Seth Kretzer, refused to file petitions seeking clemency — on the "cynical assumption that clemency has no chance" — they eventually "threw together" a "sham clemency application" in 48 hours without Holiday's knowledge.

"We decided that it was inappropriate to file [a petition for clemency] and give false hope to a poor man on death row expecting clemency that we knew was never going to come,” Volberding told The Dallas News.

Kretzer said in a court letter that they also recognized the "political realities" of Texas.

Last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion to replace the two attorneys.

Holiday's most recent appeal states that "irreparable harm" will occur if he is executed without him having a "meaningful opportunity to seek clemency and develop unexhausted constitutional claims."

The state responded by saying Holiday's appointed counsel have "sworn their commitment" to represent him and that he had failed to propose alternative counsel to take their place.

After the Supreme Court denied a petition to review the case in June, Volberding and Kretzer informed Holiday in a letter that they would not file additional appeals or seek clemency from the governor, Dallas News reported.

They also opposed a motion filed by an appellate lawyer who helped Holiday by asking the court to assign him new attorneys and threatened her with sanctions.

Holiday could become the 13th person to be executed by Texas this year.











Feds Push Back On Governors Over Syrian Refugees

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Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder

Paul Sancya / AP

WASHINGTON — Governors don't have any real control over the federal government's decision to accept and place Syrian refugees — but they could frustrate the efforts of federal officials to do so, administration officials acknowledged on Tuesday.

Over the past 48 hours, more than half of the nation’s governors have called for a halt to allowing Syrian refugees into the country for now, a response to this past weekend’s terrorist attacks in Paris that left more than 120 people dead.

Those calls to halt the program have varied in key ways — some governors have tacitly or explicitly acknowledged that they lack the authority to prevent the federal government from taking action, something the federal government affirmed on Tuesday.

“This is a federal program carried out under the authority of federal law, and refugees arriving in the U.S. are protected by the Constitution and federal law,” a senior administration official told reporters on a conference call.

“While state and local governments have an important consultative role to play in the resettlement of refugees, the resettlement program is, as you're hearing, administered by the federal government,” the official said.

But the states could affect those plans by refusing to cooperate with the government or with the non-governmental organizations that actually administer resettlement programs; states could also possibly refuse federal funds. How much states could affect what are mostly federal decisions carried out by local communities is also unclear.

The rapid movement toward stopping the resettlement program began on Sunday when Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder first announced that he had directed that state officials “put on hold our efforts to accept new refugees” until the federal government undertook a “full review” of security clearances and procedures.

In Tuesday's call, the senior officials appeared to have no intention for any such full review, with one official noting that "refugees of all nationalities considered for admission to the United States undergo intensive security screening" and that "Syrian refugees go through additional forms of security screening." The official did acknowledge that "options for further enhancement for screening refugees" were being considered.

The move was a shift for Snyder, who established the Michigan Office for New Americans a year earlier and had been supportive of efforts to increase the number of refugees being resettled in the state before the weekend’s attacks in Paris. The men behind those attacks included several French and Belgian nationals, but at least one had passed through Greece this year with a possibly fake Syrian passport, according to French authorities.

Within a day of Snyder's comments, half of all U.S. governors made similar statements — including one Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan.

The language used by the governors has varied widely, but several acknowledged in their statements that the federal control of the refugee resettlement program limits their options.

While Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey called “for an immediate halt in the placement of any new refugees in Arizona” on Monday, for example, he focused on asking the federal government to consult with the states and “take into account the concerns and recommendations of the state of Arizona” in making its decisions about refugee resettlement. Additionally, he asked for changes in the law “to provide states greater oversight and authority in the administration of the placement of refugees.”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott went further, directing his statement — in the form of a letter sent on Monday — to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While writing that his state “will not support the requests” from organizations for state assistance with the relocation of “425 possible Syrian refugees,” he also wrote that it was his “understanding that the state does not have the authority to prevent the federal government from funding the relocation of these Syrian refugees to Florida even without state support.” He called on Congress “to take immediate and aggressive action” to bar federal funds from being used to do so.

While many other governors made clear that they were asking the federal government not to place refugees in their state, other governors forewent that subtlety. “As the governor of Texas,” Greg Abbott wrote to President Obama on Monday, “I write to inform you that the State of Texas will not accept any refugees from Syria in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack in Paris.”

In Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s executive order issued Monday, he authorized everyone in the state government “to utilize all lawful means to prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the State of Louisiana while this Order is in effect.” Going further, Jindal also directed the Louisiana State Police to take action against Syrian refugees previously resettled in the state, authorizing the police “to utilize all lawful means to monitor and avert threats within the State of Louisiana.”

While an extreme example, Jindal’s order does show how the governors and their statements and policies can have an effect on the resettlement process — a point acknowledged on Tuesday by the administration.

“We don't want to send refugees anywhere where they would not be welcomed,” the official said, adding, though, “we find that refugees are welcomed almost everywhere in the United States.”

Even there, though, it’s not exactly clear how much a governor could truly disrupt the process. The administration official detailed that much of the process — once a person has been approved for resettlement — actually is implemented by NGOs and communities.

The heads of two NGOS said on Tuesday that they still intend to place refugees in states that oppose resettlement.

"We are proceeding with our plans to resettle refugees in all of the states," said Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS. Stephan Bauman, president and CEO of World Relief, likewise said, "We don’t plan to stop resettlement in the states that are in question.”

Some governors, in their statements, did suggest they would attempt to get NGOs and local groups to stop supporting resettlement within their states. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, in fact, sent his statement in the form of a letter to resettlement agencies, writing, "I am requesting that your organization and all resettlement agencies in our state decline to participate in potential resettlement efforts."

Beyond the initial placement, as legal residents, refugees are free to move — although some benefits might not follow them. No governor, as of yet, has made any statement about attempting to prevent the interstate travel of Syrian refugees — a move that would appear to be clearly unconstitutional.

“This is a program that is very much dependent on the support of local communities,” the official said. Once refugees are approved for resettlement in the United States, the State Department, in coordination with nine resettlement agencies, place refugees in approximately 180 communities throughout the United States. The department and agencies make placement decisions based on a variety of factors, including employment levels in individual communities and the location of any relatives a refugee might have.

Once a specific community is selected, the official continued, “a lot of people are involved through their community associations, through their churches, in providing assistance — from picking refugees up at the airport when they first arrive, taking them to their homes, finding those homes. Volunteers contribute furniture to furnish their first apartment, providing school equipment, things that kids need to start in school, and helping the able-bodied adults find a job.”

One final area where governors’ policies could have an effect is money. Some federal funds aimed at helping resettled refugees are doled out through the states.

Asked on Tuesday if states could frustrate resettlement efforts by refusing those funds, State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said, “We hope it never comes to that, but theoretically, they could say, ‘No. We don't accept refugee resettlement funds.’”

LINK: How The United States Screens Syrian Refugees


Trump: ISIS Is Using The Internet Better Than The U.S. Government

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Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Donald Trump said on Wednesday that ISIS is using the internet better than the US government.

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"They're using the internet better than we use the internet," the real estate tycoon said on New Hampshire Today. "And we just don't have a clue. I mean, our people don't have a clue."

Trump, who did not use a computer or send e-mail as recently as 2007, further argued that this was because the U.S. has "political hacks in charge of programs."

"We developed the internet, right?" he said. "And we’re the best in the world at it. And we don’t have the right people—we have political hacks in charge of programs.,We have people that made contributions to the campaign, to Obama’s campaign, which frankly happens with the Republicans, too, you know?"

New Mexico Lawmakers Sue Albuquerque: Stop Seizing Cars

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Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden

Susan Montoya Bryan / AP

Two New Mexico state senators are suing Albuquerque after the city has refused to stop seizing residents’ cars, despite a law passed earlier this year ending the practice of civil asset forfeiture.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, New Mexico state senators Lisa Torraco and Daniel Ivey-Soto said Albuquerque is defying the new law and “has continued to take property using civil forfeiture without requiring that anyone—much less the property owner—be convicted of a crime.”

“I have no problem taking property from people who are convicted of crimes,” Torraco told BuzzFeed News. “The problem lies in the fact that the city refuses to stop taking property from innocent people.”

Under civil asset forfeiture laws, police can seize property — cash, cars, and even houses — if they suspect the property is connected to a crime. The property owners don’t have to be convicted of a crime, or in some cases even charged with a crime, for police to seize their property.

The laws were created in the 1980s to combat drug trafficking. However, civil liberties groups say the laws create perverse incentives for police to seize property from average citizens and afford little due process to property owners.

Based on such concerns, the New Mexico legislature unanimously passed a bill earlier this year, spearheaded by Torraco and Ivey-Soto, that barred state and local law enforcement from using civil asset forfeiture to seize property, except in large drug trafficking cases, and redirected any forfeiture funds back into the state’s general fund.

New Mexico’s ban on civil asset forfeiture went into effect in July, but Albuquerque and several other cities in the state have resisted dismantling their programs.

Albuquerque has a particularly aggressive program to seize vehicles from drivers suspected of DWI. According to the Albuquerque Journal, the city has seized 8,369 vehicles and collected more than $8.3 million in forfeiture revenues since 2010.

“Our ordinance is a narrowly-tailored nuisance abatement law to protect the public from dangerous, repeat DWI offenders and the vehicles they use committing DWI offenses, placing innocent citizens' lives and property at risk,” city attorney Jessica Hernandez said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “The ordinance provides defenses to forfeiture to protect innocent owners and has been upheld by the courts.”

But the program does not just snare drunk drivers. In many cases, the city seized cars from owners even if someone else was driving it.

“The cases I’ve seen are usually where parents own a car, their kid goes out and does something stupid, and then the parents end up getting their car seized,” Torraco, a practicing attorney, said.

This is backed up by the city as well.

“Half the vehicles (seized) are not owned by the drunks we take them from,” said Stan Harada, the chief administrative hearing officer for the city.

The Albuquerque Journal highlighted several such cases where people loaned cars to relatives or friends, only to have their cars seized when the driver was pulled over.

The car owners must then pay $50 for an administrative hearing, plus $10 a day for lot fees for their impounded car. Public defenders aren’t available in civil cases. Defendants must then prove their innocence, but in many cases they enter into settlements with the city to pay a minimum fine of $850 in return for their car.

That money then goes to pay for the salaries of prosecutors and police who administer the program. The Albuquerque city council approved a $2.5 million bond to build a bigger parking lot for cars seized under the DWI program. The revenue to pay for the bond will come from the DWI program.

“The profit incentive created by civil forfeiture is so strong, officials charged with upholding the law are now the ones breaking it,” said Robert Everett Johnson, a staff attorney for the Institute for Justice, in a press release. “Albuquerque’s law enforcement officials seem to think that they are above the law. But if they won’t listen to the state legislature, they’ll have to answer to a judge.”

According to Wednesday’s lawsuit, Albuquerque forecasts how many vehicles it will not only seize but sell at auction. The city’s 2016 budget estimates it will have 1,200 vehicle seizure hearings, release 350 vehicles under agreements with the property owners, immobilize 600 vehicles, and to sell 625 vehicles at auction.

“How is anyone supposed to believe they’re walking into a fair process when the city has already determined how many cars they’re going to auction off?” Ivey-Soto told BuzzFeed News.

Wednesday’s lawsuit is not the first time Albuquerque’s seizure program has been challenged. In 2013, several residents filed a class-action lawsuit against the city.

That year, a state district judge found Albuquerque’s forfeiture ordinance unconstitutional because it didn’t provide an adequate appeals process, although the state Supreme Court later limited the ruling to apply only to the vehicles in that case.

Trump: Paris Attacks Could've Been Stopped By "A Guy Like You Or Me" With A Gun

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Stringer . / Reuters

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Donald Trump said on Wednesday that, if he or somebody else with a gun had been present during last Friday's attacks in Paris, things would have gone differently.

"So they were just shooting people: ‘Next! Next!’" the former reality TV star told Boston radio host Jeff Kuhner. "Just people were totally defenseless. If you had a guy like you or me, or some other guys in that room that had guns, it wouldn’t have been that way, Jeff. You know. It wouldn’t have been that way."

Trump made the comments after saying that, because of French gun laws, "nobody had a gun" to shoot the attackers, adding that "the only ones that had the guns are the bad guys."

Earlier in his answer, he objected to the characterization of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who reportedly plotted the attacks and was reported dead on Wednesday, as a "mastermind." Trump said that he should be referred to instead as a "nutjob." He further called Abaaoud a "wacky guy," who "looks like ten cents."

"What’s the mastermind?" Trump said. "Guys who walked into rooms and they started shooting people. Is that a mastermind? I don’t think so. And most of them were shot and killed ultimately. You know, an interesting — and just to finish off —they walk into a room. Lot of people in those various rooms. Nobody has a gun because Paris and France has the strongest gun laws in the world practically."

In the interview, Trump concluded his answer by calling the attack a "very, very sad thing," before alluding to his popularity in New Hampshire and adding that he was "a Second Amendment person. Big league."

"It’s a very, very sad thing that happened,so I’m a big second amendment person," he said. "And that’s one of the reasons they like me in New Hampshire. I’m a second amendment person. Big league."

Santorum: "It Sounds Like President Obama Is In Cahoots With The Strategy Of ISIS"

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“The president is helping ISIS every single day by the policies we have, and he doesn’t even know it because he refuses to accept the reality that ISIS is a caliphate.”

Steve Pope / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said on Wednesday that President Obama's rhetoric about containing ISIS "sounds like" Obama "is in cahoots with the strategy of ISIS to maintain their territorial integrity."

"This president has been following, this president makes excuses for not acting, and if you look at what this president has done with ISIS, it is the worst foreign policy in the history of America," the former senator told Brian Kilmeade during an episode of his program Kilmeade and Friends. "The president's policy toward ISIS is to contain ISIS. ISIS's policy in order to gain credibility as a caliphate, in the Middle East, and around the world, is to maintain their territorial integrity."

"Let me repeat that: The president's policy is to keep ISIS within their bounds; ISIS's objective is to keep their territorial integrity," continued Santorum. "Now, what does that sounds like? It sounds like president Obama is in cahoots with the strategy of ISIS to maintain their territorial integrity."

"And he doesn't realize, by having this strategy he provides the greatest recruitment tool for ISIS, which is: America is fighting us, and we are maintaining our territorial integrity, and we are winning this battle," he added. "The president is helping ISIS every single day by the policies we have, and he doesn't even know it because he refuses to accept the reality that ISIS is a caliphate."

"ISIS is using a seventh-century textbook to operate this war," said Santorum, "and unless we understand it, and we find a strategy against it, we are going to lose this battle."

You can listen to the audio here:

Kilmeade and Friends


Rand Paul Still Using Debunked Patrick Henry Quote

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Can’t stop, won’t stop.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Speaking in New Hampshire on Friday, Republican presidential candidate and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul once again employed a debunked quotation attributed to founding father Patrick Henry.

"You see the Constitution wasn't written to give you stuff," Paul said. "It wasn't written to restrain you and tell you what to do. The Constitution was to tell your government what you can and can't do. It was to limit and restrict your government. But Patrick Henry said, he said 'it's not, the Constitution wasn't about restraining the people, it was about restraining the government, and making sure government didn't get too large.'"

Paul has cited this specific quotation at least two times in the past. As BuzzFeed News has previously reported, a scholar of Patrick Henry believes the quotation to be completely fabricated.

Here's Baylor professor Thomas Kidd, author of Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots:

Another widely cited "Henry" quotation is: "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." This is a more complex misquotation, because it sounds like something Henry might have said — maybe during the 1790s, after he opposed the Constitution's adoption, when he was hoping to restrict the new government's powers? The problem is that this quotation seems to have been entirely fabricated, and quite recently at that. The earliest reference I have found to this quotation is in two books published in 2003. But why create a bogus quotation when Henry actually said similar things about the need to restrain government? In any case, this is also frequently cited on social media sites and in political books. On Facebook the quotation has its own "common interest" page.

As noted before, the earliest use of the quote in Google Books is 1999.

LINK: Rand Paul’s First Two Books Are Full Of Fake Founding Fathers Quotes

LINK: A Letter To Rand Paul: Stop Using Fake Founding Fathers Quotes


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Roanoke Mayor Off Clinton Campaign's Leadership Team After Refugee Remarks

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“The internment of people of Japanese descent is a dark cloud on our nation’s history and to suggest that it is anything but a horrible moment in our past is outrageous,” said Josh Schwerin, a Clinton campaign spokesman.

Following comments that his city should reject refugees in the way the U.S. interned Japanese-American citizens during World War II the mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, has lost his spot on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's Virginia Leadership Council.

Davis Bowers had been on the Virginia committee since early October, but a Clinton source confirmed he is no longer on the committee.

A Clinton campaign spokesman slammed Bowers' comments in a statement.

"The internment of people of Japanese descent is a dark cloud on our nation's history and to suggest that it is anything but a horrible moment in our past is outrageous," said Josh Schwerin, a Clinton campaign spokesman.

How The WWII Internment Camps That Virginia Mayor Approves Of Actually Happened

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NARA / Via en.wikipedia.org

The mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, cited the internment camps established by the federal government during World War II — as a good thing — in a statement that called for stopping the relocation of Syrian refugees following terror attacks.

"I'm reminded that President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor," Mayor David A. Bowers, a Democrat, wrote, "and it appears that the threat of harm to America from Isis [sic] now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then."

Two months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Roosevelt did, in fact, authorize military officials to exclude individuals from certain areas, as determined by the military officials.

Under Executive Order 9066, issued on Feb. 19, 1942, the military officials also were granted the authority "to take such other steps as he ... may deem advisable to enforce compliance" with the exclusions.

Here's President Roosevelt's executive order that allowed for the internment camps:

Here's President Roosevelt's executive order that allowed for the internment camps:

The full text of the executive order:

Executive Order No. 9066

The President

Executive Order

Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas

Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220, and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C., Title 50, Sec. 104);

Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas.

I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area hereinabove authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.

I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services.

This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas hereunder.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The White House,

February 19, 1942.

A month later, Congress backed up Roosevelt, passing a law that made it a jailable misdemeanor offense to disregard an order to leave an area designated under such an executive order.

Via docsteach.org


Three days later, on March 24, 1942, the first of several military orders was issued — implementing the forced relocation of "all persons of Japanese ancestry" from much of the West Coast.

The first — Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1 — affected those on Bainbridge Island in Washington state:

The first — Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1 — affected those on Bainbridge Island in Washington state:

Via cdn.calisphere.org

In May, this posted notice followed Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, which implemented a later relocation from areas of northern California:

In May, this posted notice followed Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, which implemented a later relocation from areas of northern California:

Via nps.gov

In all, 10 "relocation centers" — internment camps — were set up:

In all, 10 "relocation centers" — internment camps — were set up:

Via nps.gov

Here is an archival photo of people arriving at one of the camps:

Here is an archival photo of people arriving at one of the camps:

NARA (Photo by Clem Albers) / Via nps.gov

The rapid pace at which all of this happened, according to the government's own later-issued report, Personal Justice Denied, meant that the camps weren't even ready for those arriving:

NARA (Photo by Clem Albers) / Via nps.gov

As Personal Justice Denied details, conditions, even by the government's own acknowledgement, could be poor. Just one, of countless examples:

Fred Korematsu — who lived within the area covered by Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 — attempted to avoid going to the camps. On June 12, 1942, he was charged with violating the congressional law backing Roosevelt, a charge he fought with support from the ACLU of Northern California.

Two-and-a-half years later, Korematsu's conviction was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on a 6-3 vote.

Justice Hugo Black wrote the decision for the court, asserting, "But hardships are part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships. All citizens alike, both in and out of uniform, feel the impact of war in greater or lesser measure."

Justice Frank Murphy, one of three dissenting justices, called out the policy as unconstitutional racism.

Roosevelt announced the exclusion would be ending at the close of 1944, on Dec. 17, 1944, and the last camp was closed in 1945. For those who returned home, the return was often troubling, and some faced violence. In Personal Justice Denied, it details the return:

More than 30 years later, in 1976, President Gerald Ford issued a proclamation declaring internment to be one of "our national mistakes," and formally "terminat[ing]" the authority of Executive Order 9066. Issued on the anniversary of Roosevelt's executive order, Ford noted that "Over one hundred thousand persons of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes, detained in special camps, and eventually relocated," under the order. In detailing this, Ford proclaimed, "Learning from our mistakes is not pleasant, but as a great philosopher once admonished, we must do so if we want to avoid repeating them."

Via ford.utexas.edu

It would not be until Ronald Reagan was president that a formal government apology was issued. Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law on August 10, 1988, formally apologizing and authorizing restitution to those who were sent to the camps during World War II.

Nearly 40 years after the Supreme Court ruled against him, Korematsu's conviction was tossed out in 1984. The move came after a scholar's Freedom of Information Act request revealed that, as U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel put it, "evidence was suppressed or destroyed in the proceedings that led to his conviction and its affirmance."

The documents showed that Justice Department officials had known that evidence — from the Navy, FBI, and Federal Communications Commission — about the policies was withheld in Korematsu's case, as well as in other key cases upholding the policies. The Solicitor General's Office has since acknowledged the error of its statements about the underlying facts of the policy.

Patel granted Korematsu's requested request to reopen his case because of the withheld evidence, vacating his conviction.

In her opinion, she wrote of the case's legacy, "Korematsu remains on the pages of our legal and political history. As a legal precedent it is now recognized as having very limited application. As historical precedent it stands as a constant caution that in times of war or declared military necessity our institutions must be vigilant in protecting constitutional guarantees. ... It stands as a caution that in times of international hostility and antagonisms our institutions, legislative, executive and judicial, must be prepared to exercise their authority to protect all citizens from the petty fears and prejudices that are so easily aroused."

Martin O’Malley Likely To Accept Public Funding, Campaign Says

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Scott Olson / Getty Images

Martin O’Malley is poised to become the first major candidate in eight years to publicly finance his presidential campaign.

The former Maryland governor will likely accept matching payments once the Federal Election Commission deems him eligible in a decision expected as early as this week, an O’Malley aide confirmed. “We’re likely to be deemed eligible and likely to accept,” the aide said.

The move reflects a campaign up against its own limitations, short on time and money, yet pressing forward. After five months in the race, 18 trips to Iowa and 10 to New Hampshire — after trying again and again to will the polls upward, to find his footing and finally take off — O’Malley is still trying, though now with equal parts resolve and resignation. His team is pursuing a public funding option that would keep them afloat in the short term, while locking the campaign into a set of restrictions that would almost certainly guarantee failure in the long term.

The taxpayer-funded system for presidential primaries, designed to match contributions up to $250 per person, would help sustain the O’Malley operation into the early caucuses and primaries. But should he agree as planned to receive matching funds, O’Malley will also submit to severe spending limits, curbing resources overall and in each state.

The public finance spending rules would cripple any candidate. But the state limits would pose a particular challenge for O’Malley, whose advisers announced a plan this week to redirect staff and resources to the early states, with an emphasis on Iowa, as reported first by MSNBC. If the election were held this year, under the public finance system, his campaign would not be able to spend more than $1.8 million in Iowa and $960,000 in New Hampshire, according to the FEC’s current estimate of the annually adjusted limits.

The matching program also limits a campaign’s primary spending to $48 million — about half the $100 million fundraising goal Hillary Clinton's campaign set for 2015 alone.

The last major candidate to adhere to such strict spending limits was John Edwards, the former U.S. senator and vice presidential nominee who opted into the matching program in the fall of 2007.

His campaign manager, Joe Trippi, now likens a publicly financed candidate to a terminally ill person on life support. If O’Malley goes through with his plan to accept matching funds, “that is effectively the end of his campaign,” said Trippi. “No campaign that is serious can win taking that money.”

“It is a brutally tough decision to make,” he said. “They know this — it’s akin to a doctor sitting down a patient and telling them they are terminally ill, informing them that they have days to live and there is nothing that can be done to save them, but there is something that can be done to give them another few months of life.”

And given the choice, “who wouldn’t pick extending the inevitable?” said Trippi.

The matching system would likely afford O’Malley the very same opportunity. Aides have maintained that his is a “lean” campaign, designed with sustainable overhead costs and built to carry the candidate through Iowa, New Hampshire, and onto the Super Tuesday states.

But O’Malley has raised and spent money on a vastly smaller scale than his rivals. In the last fundraising quarter, Bernie Sanders brought in $26 million, right behind Clinton’s $30 million. O’Malley, meanwhile, raised $1.3 million and reported having just $800,000 in the bank. Worse, disclosures showed that O’Malley effectively began the next quarter with even less money: At the time of the filing deadline, his campaign had yet to pay some of its September expenses, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in payroll.

An O’Malley spokesperson declined to comment on the thinking behind the decision to pursue public financing.

Eight years ago on the Edwards campaign, as Trippi recalled, they knew they were done either way: “We had to make the decision to either leave the race or take public funding and stay in, knowing that if we took the funds we were dead.”

The week they went public with the decision, Edwards worked to cast the move as “a principled stand,” not a “money calculation”; his aides tried to calm questions and concerns about the spending limits; and Trippi found himself trying to explain negative comments he’d made years earlier about public finance, unearthed and reprinted by reporters.

He offered his best defense at the time: “It’s a different time, a different year,” he told the Washington Post in 2007. But he now admits that was only “the best spin I could come up with.” Eight years later, he said, the matching payments system remains untenable. “I actually thought Edwards would be the last candidate to do it.”

“I have no glee in saying any of this... It’s a horrible way for a campaign to die.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown: Mostly "White Males" Who Have Committed Terrorism In U.S. Since 9/11

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“They are generally white males, who have shot up people in movie theaters and schools. Those are terrorist attacks, they’re just different kinds of terrorists.”

Alex Wong / Getty Images

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Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown says most terrorist attacks in the country since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks have been committed by "generally white males."

"I think most of us recognize, we're concerned but we also know that we trust the FBI and our security forces to do this right," the senator from Ohio said on WAKR radio on Thursday morning. "Since the beginning of the Bush administration when we were attacked, September 11th, we've not had any major terrorist attacks in this country. We've had individual crazy people, of normally, they look more like me than they look like Middle Easterners. They are generally white males, who have shot up people in movie theaters and schools. Those are terrorist attacks, they're just different kinds of terrorists."

Brown said the U.S. government does a good job at keeping us safe from foreigners seeking to attack the country, but not "crazy gunmen" who perpetrate mass shootings in schools and other public spaces.

"But we have since the early Bush days, when September 11th happened, through the rest of the Bush years, and through the almost six years of the Obama administration, we've kept this country safe," said Brown.

"Individual people shouldn't be fearful, because by and large our government, the federal government — people always talk obviously they don't trust the feds, whatever. The federal government and local communities have done a pretty good job at keeping us safe. Not keeping us safe from crazy gunmen coming into schools and movie theaters sometimes but certainly keeping us safe from foreigns attacking this country."

Clinton: More Air Strikes, More Special Operators To "Smash" ISIS

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Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images

Calling for a “second Sunni awakening,” Hillary Clinton outlined her strategy to fight ISIS on Thursday in New York City: more air strikes, more intelligence assets, the immediate deployment of special operators, and additional operators to combat ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Clinton described her approach as “in many ways, an intensification and acceleration” of President Obama’s ISIS strategy following prepared remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

Though she said that we should be “honest” that “airstrikes will have to be combined with ground forces actually taking back more territory from ISIS,” Clinton did not specify how many ground forces she would deploy to the region, and emphasized that action must be undertaken by a coalition.

“Like President Obama, I do not believe that we should again have 100,000 American troops in combat in the Middle East,” Clinton said. “That is just not the smart move to make here. If we have learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's that local people and nations have to secure their own communities.”

She was forceful about the goal in her remarks, though: to “smash the would-be caliphate” of ISIS, whose members “persecute religious and ethnic minorities; kidnap and behead civilians; murder children… systematically enslave, torture and rape women and girls”; and to disrupt terror networks and radicalization, particularly in Europe and online.

Clinton maintained her call for a no-fly zone to be established — something that would be more about Bashar Assad than ISIS — and talked about the establishment of "safe areas" inside Syria with "material support" from the coalition.

In the speech, Clinton called out Turkey twice (for not properly securing its border from ISIS and for focusing more on the Kurds than on countering ISIS), and said that Vladimir Putin is hindering rather than helping efforts to defeat ISIS — though she added that there is a role for Russia to play in Syria.

The policy framework Clinton outlined for combatting international or expanding terror networks involves more action and security from European countries (and social media providers). European countries, Clinton said, need to communicate better about the travel of terror suspects and stolen passports within the continent, “It seems like after most terrorist attacks, we find out that the perpetrators were known to some security service or another, but too often the dots never get connected.” European countries likewise, she said, need to better police their own banks for the funding of terrorism. And social media companies need to be “swiftly shutting down terrorist accounts, so they're not used to plan, provoke or celebrate violence.”

Clinton was light on the details of how she would lean on Europe (or the social media companies) to actually do this.

And on the question of Islamic extremism, Clinton said that the debate over using the term was a “distraction,” again rejecting as she did last week the Republican argument that the ideology should be identified that way.

“In the end, it didn't matter what kind of terrorist we call bin Laden, it mattered that we killed bin Laden,” she said.

Fiorina Cites Misleading Migrant Data To Argue U.S. Shouldn't Take Syrian Refugees

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Fiorina says “the vast majority of refugees leaving Syria are able bodied young men.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says about half the registered Syrian refugees are women.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

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Speaking on the radio on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said the U.S. should not resettle Syrian refugees.

"First, you know, I gave a speech about this on Saturday," Fiorina told radio host Mike Gallagher on Wednesday. "Let's start: Mrs. Clinton, President Obama, global warming is not our greatest national security threat. They have said it is. It is not. Secondly: of course we are a compassionate people, but the vast majority of refugees leaving Syria are able bodied young men. And our own government has told us that we cannot properly vet these people, so of course we can not be letting them in."

The statistic Fiorina is citing — that the majority of refugees leaving Syria are mostly young men — is misleading in the context of the U.S. refugee resettlement process.

Here's the demographic breakdown of registered Syrian refugees from the United Nations. The UN refers prospective refugees from this pool of people to the U.S. for resettlement. About half of them are women:

Here's the demographic breakdown of registered Syrian refugees from the United Nations. The UN refers prospective refugees from this pool of people to the U.S. for resettlement. About half of them are women:

data.unhcr.org / Via United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees


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Lindsey Graham: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul Won't Stop ISIS By "Yelling About Refugees"

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“President Obama has taken his eye off the ball and some of my Republican colleagues are yelling about refugees, but here’s the question back to them: Are you willing to do what it takes to destroy ISIL?”

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

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Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham took a shot at his presidential rivals on Wednesday over Syrian refugees, saying that "yelling" about the issue won't do anything to defeat ISIS.

"Well number one, many of these attackers apparently were citizens of France," Graham said on Concord News Radio. "The problem is as follows: two thousand jihadists are flowing into Syria every month to join jihad from all over the world. Many of them with western passports. You know, the refugee problem needs to be responsibly dealt with. I am calling for a time out until we can figure out a what kind of system works."

Both Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky have introduced bills related to stopping Syrian refugees from being resettled in the United States.

"But Senator Cruz and Paul, you're not gonna destroy ISIL by shutting down refugee flows, there's 20 different ways to get here as you just described," continued Graham. "The goal is to destroy ISIL. The refugees are a symptom of the problem. My plan would make sure you don't have to leave Syria. There'd be a no fly zone, a safe haven, where people could go without being raped and killed so they don't have to leave their own country."

"My plan relies on a regional army, western nations, not just the United States, to go in and destroy the caliphate," he continued. "The only way America can be safe is to destroy ISIL before they hit us. Now that's just a fact I've come to understand after 35 trips to the region. Radical islam has to be confronted, it can't be allowed to grow this large. It will be with us for a long time, but not like this."

Graham said those not willing to commit troops to fight ISIS aren't ready to be president.

"There are too many weapons, too many organizations, with the capability to hit our homeland," said Graham. "President Obama has taken his eye off the ball and some of my Republican colleagues are yelling about refugees, but here's the question back to them: Are you willing to do what it takes to destroy ISIL? Are you willing to commit American ground forces in support of a regional army to destroy the caliphate? If you're not, then you're not ready to be the commander-in-chief, in my view, and you're really no different than Obama."

House Passes Bill Pausing Syrian Refugee Program Until Security Verified

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Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — House Republicans, along with a sizable number of Democrats, passed a bill Thursday afternoon to halt the resettlement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the country until key federal agencies can certify that they have been properly vetted.

The measure passed, 289-137, with 47 Democrats voting in favor, even after the Obama administration, which has already threatened to veto the legislation, made an effort Thursday morning to convince Democrats to vote against the legislation. Based on the large number of Democrats who voted for the bill, the House should have the two-thirds majority it needs to override a presidential veto.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and White House chief of staff Dennis McDonough made their case against the measure in a closed-door meeting hours before the vote, but members coming out said their pitch wasn't effective.

"I've seen better presentations in my time here," said Democratic Rep. Steve Israel of New York, who ended up voting in favor of the measure. "They may have strong arguments on their side, but they're not expressing those strong arguments sufficiently."

"There's no question that the Republicans have expertly politicized this," Israel, who runs House Democrats' messaging strategy, added.

A Bloomberg poll released Wednesday found the majority of those surveyed do not want the administration to continue with its plans to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.

During the meeting with administration officials, some Democrats expressed concern about a backlash from their constituents if they voted against the Republicans' bill. According to a Democratic aide in the room, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York said the party could lose seats if they voted against the bill.

And Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who voted in favor of the bill, told reporters it was "carefully crafted" and the administration should work with Republicans on the legislation instead of urging Democrats to vote against.

"(The bill) adds more of a burden in the screening, but it's not a devastating added burden and it does give assurance that those coming into the country are properly screened and not a threat to anybody."

A bipartisan vote on the bill makes it more likely for the Senate to take up similar legislation, which Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is expected to block — potentially creating a messaging problem for Democrats with voters potentially concerned about the nation's security after the attacks in Paris which killed 129 and wounded hundreds. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has introduced a similar bill in the Senate.

Besides calling on the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and National Intelligence director to certify the refugees, the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act would require the FBI to conduct a thorough background investigation and provide monthly reports to Congress on the program.

"Right now, the government can’t certify these standards, so this plan pauses the program," said Speaker Paul Ryan just before the vote. "It’s a security test—not a religious test. This reflects our values. This reflects our responsibilities. And this is urgent. We cannot and should not wait to act—not when our national security is at stake."

House GOP leadership, which created a task force the day after the Paris attacks to come up with legislation on the refugee program and related issues, has stressed the bill is "just the start."

When questioned how his bill would strengthen the vetting process which already takes 18 months to two years, North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, one of the sponsor's of the bill told reporters: "We've got to put some infrastructure in place before we can do a background check, and we've got to figure out how to do that. Maybe we deal with folks who have relatives in the country who we know something about, but I don't think Congress ought to tell the FBI how to do that. But there's got to be a process in place and today there isn't. Today we're bringing 10,000 people in without vetting them properly."

"What we do now to vet them — my understanding is — we look at all the databases of all the federal agencies in our country and if they aren't in there and if there's no information that they're a threat, we let them in," Hudson. "That's not good enough."

Currently, the U.S. refugee screening program takes, on average, 18 to 24 months for a potential refugee to clear. So far, fewer than 2,000 have been accepted. The process involves multiple security checks, a biometric screening, a medical screening, and an interview with the Department of Homeland Security. Some of the checks only remain current for a period of time (for example, most security checks expire after 15 months) — but to be accepted, a refugee must have all checks cleared concurrently.

Still, top administration officials have identified a "challenge" in screening Syrian refugees, because "if the person has never crossed our radar screen, there won’t be anything to query against." The federal government is also using a secret security program to vet refugees called the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program, or CARRP, as BuzzFeed News reported on Wednesday.

Fifteen House Republicans had pushed for defunding the resettlement program in the government funding bill Congress has to approve by Dec. 11. But those members, including Rep. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania, have held off on calls for leveraging the threat of a shutdown in recent days.

However, that could change with the Senate Democrats expected to block the bill and President Barack Obama expected to veto.

"This should be bipartisan," Barletta said. "It shouldn't be Democratic or Republican on whether we want to roll the dice on the safety of the American people."

And Mark Meadows, a member of the House Freedom Caucus -- which has urged using must-pass legislation for leverage in the past, said the House bill was a "pragmatic, middle-of-the-road approach." And although there is "a real desire to keep the appropriations process as unencumbered as possible, the American people are going to demand that we do something."

"For most of us, we're very hopeful that the Senate will act...But it's too early to tell whether there would be a groundswell of support to attach it to the appropriations process," Meadows said.

LINK: The U.S. Is Using A Secret Program To Vet Refugees

LINK: How The United States Screens Syrian Refugees

Ted Cruz: Obama Administration Support For Trans School-Aged Children Is "Lunacy"

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“Now listen – I’m the father of two daughters, and the idea that the federal government is coming in saying that boys, with all the god-given equipment of boys, can be in the shower room with junior high girls – this is lunacy!”

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

During an appearance on conservative radio show Louder With Crowder, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz addressed transgender rights — saying it was "lunacy" for the federal government to mandate that "boys with all the god-given equipment of boys" share a shower room with school-aged girls.

Cruz was talking about Islamic extremism during his appearance posted online Thursday, when host Steven Crowder pivoted to the issue of "genetically proper pronouns."

"Well listen, senator – I don't mean to say you're out of touch, because you're dealing with it politically, but we're talking about a generation of people who get offended if you use the genetically proper pronouns," said Crowder. "So getting to the point of calling something Islamic terrorism is a little further down the trail."

"Look, these guys are so nutty that the federal government is going after school districts, trying to force them to let boys shower with little girls," Cruz replied. "Now listen: I'm the father of two daughters, and the idea that the federal government is coming in saying that boys, with all the god-given equipment of boys, can be in the shower room with junior high girls – this is lunacy!"

"And I bet you there are a whole lot of parents – particularly parents of daughters – that are not eager to have the federal government saying 'Guess what? Your daughter has to shower with a boy, if he wants to be in there,'" added the senator.

Cruz added later in the interview, "You know, the funny thing is, my five-year-old knows there's a difference between boys and girls. And yet modern Leftists can't figure that out."

You can watch the exchange here:

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Via youtube.com

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Democratic Campaigns To Join Black Lives Matter Forum

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Tami Chappell / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Staffers from all three Democratic campaigns for president will participate in a panel discussion the role Black Lives Matter has played the 2016 election cycle, organizers of the event told BuzzFeed News.

LaDavia Drane, Hillary Clinton’s black outreach director, as well as Yvette Lewis, Martin O’Malley’s campaign co-chair, and Symone Sanders, Bernie Sanders’ national press secretary, will participate.

The event is being hosted by Democratic GAIN, a recruiting and development organization that places diverse political operatives inside progressive campaigns. The event will take place on Dec. 3 in Washington at the National Education Association.

"In light of growing concerns regarding racial justice policies and economic empowerment, we can think of no more appropriate time for a serious conversation about what this all means to our movement and to our country, especially as we approach a presidential election year, where so much is at stake,” Kouri Marshall, Democratic GAIN's executive director, told BuzzFeed News.

The organization is also encouraging the operatives to collect resumes of people who want to work in the 2016 election cycle.

Derrick Robinson of the political and public affairs consulting firm Smoot Tewes will moderate the panel.

"I think at the beginning of this movement people didn’t quite expect Black Lives Matter to be where it is now," Robinson said. "I think their impact in this election speaks a lot to their effectiveness in ensuring that certain conversations are happening among our elected officials and now our presidential candidates.


Bernie Sanders Tries To Answer Two Big Questions About His Candidacy At Once

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Mark Wilson / Getty Images

This year, even as he surged in the polls, Bernie Sanders still hadn’t done several things in a dedicated speech: define democratic socialism, the specifics of his health care policy, or how he would approach foreign policy.

Those questions have hung over Sanders’s candidacy. And on Thursday, he tried to answer one of them — and shoehorned in some foreign policy in for good measure.

So, does Bernie Sanders, the self-described Democratic Socialist, want to nationalize businesses if he becomes president?

“The next time you hear me attacked as a socialist, like tomorrow, remember this: I don't believe the government should take over the grocery store down the street, or own the means of production,” Sanders said in a speech he delivered at Georgetown University Thursday. “But I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal.”

What about terrorism? Sanders doesn’t have a lot of foreign policy experience and he applied to be a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. Can he take on ISIS?

“To my mind, it is clear that the United States must pursue policies to destroy the brutal and barbaric ISIS regime, and to create conditions that prevent fanatical extremist ideologies from flourishing. But we cannot — and should not — do it alone,” Sanders said in the second portion of the speech’s prepared text, which he largely stuck to at Georgetown save for a few ad-libs.

“We must create an organization like NATO to confront the security threats of the 21st century — an organization that emphasizes cooperation and collaboration to defeat the rise of violent extremism and importantly to address the root causes underlying these brutal acts,” he went on. “We must work with our NATO partners, and expand our coalition to include Russia and members of the Arab League.”

The United States and Russia have been increasingly at odds over the last decade.

The speech was designed to answer those two major questions about Sanders as the Democratic presidential nomination race prepares to enter the homestretch to the Iowa caucuses in early February.

The senator was wildly successful in the early months of Democratic race despite not being an official member of the party and being one of the few unabashed socialists in American politics. He has tried on several occasions to say his ideology is not fundamentally different than that of many Democratic voters.

Back in September, Sanders used a joke to make the point.

"Does anyone here think I am a strong adherent of the North Korean form of government?" Sanders said at a town hall in New Hampshire. "I want all of you to be wearing similar colored pajamas! That's my campaign — I don't like all these colors that we got here. Flannel pajamas for everyone. Same color!"

On Thursday, he tried wrapping himself in the legacy of one of the Democratic Party’s most revered figures.

FDR “acted against the ferocious opposition of the ruling class of his day, people he called economic royalists,” Sanders said, according to his prepared remarks. Roosevelt used massive government spending and new programs in a way that “redefined the relationship of the federal government to the people of our country,” Sanders said, creating a new political power for the middle class.

“And, by the way, almost everything he proposed was called ‘socialist,’” Sanders said.

Anecdotal evidence on the ground in early states as well as some polling has shown the “democratic socialist” label may not be as tough a sell to Democratic voters as the party establishment might think. Democrats overwhelmingly favor entitlement programs and new laws mandating paid leave for illness and childbirth. The Sanders campaign is pretty confident both publicly and privately that “democratic socialism” can be easily turned into an asset.

And his team also feels that Sanders’s grasp of foreign policy — set against a foreign policy experience candidate, Hillary Clinton, who spent an hour talking about no fly zones, European banking, and the Turkish-Syrian border in New York on Thursday morning — isn’t viewed properly by the media when it comes to Democratic voters.

Hours after the Paris attacks, the senator’s campaign quietly uploaded video of Sanders’s floor speech urging Congress to vote against the Iraq war in 2002 to the campaign’s YouTube account. On the debate stage with Clinton, Sanders deployed the contrast with Clinton on Iraq (she voted for the war) in a moment seen inside the campaign as successful.

But it’s clear foreign policy is not what Sanders wants to talk about. At a campaign rally in Cleveland last week, Sanders tacked on a chunk about the refugee debate onto his normal, economically-focused stump speech.

“There are those, including many Republicans, some in the media, who say that because of this horrific attack that the only thing that we should focus on is defeating ISIS,” Sanders told the Cleveland crowd. “And what I say is, yes, we will lead the world in defeating ISIS. But at the same time, we will rebuild the disappearing middle class of this country.”

At Georgetown, Sanders tried to put the foreign policy question to bed again, this time tacking talk of ISIS on the end of his long speech about democratic socialism. His call for a new NATO was a freshly-formulated version of an idea he’s been talking about for months, and his foreign policy message remained essentially the same: namely that he won’t make the mistakes that politicians in the recent past (read: Clinton) made. As Sanders is wont to do, he went deep into progressive criticism of American foreign policy to make the case that he has a different sensibility than establishment picks.

“Our response must begin with an understanding of past mistakes and missteps in our previous approaches to foreign policy. It begins with the acknowledgment that unilateral military action should be a last resort, not a first resort, and that ill-conceived military decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq, can wreak far-reaching devastation and destabilize entire regions for decades,” Sanders said in the prepared text. “It begins with the reflection that the failed policy decisions of the past – rushing to war, regime change in Iraq, or toppling Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, or Guatemalan President Árbenz in 1954, Brazilian President Goulart in 1964, Chilean President Allende in 1973. These are the sorts of policies do not work, do not make us safer, and must not be repeated.”

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