Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — A Republican senator is making the case in the days after the Paris terrorist attacks that a vote on funding the Syrian refugee resettlement should be included in any government funding bill — essentially raising the threat of a government shutdown in an effort to block the Obama administration’s efforts to accept more Syrian refugees.

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions sent a letter to his colleagues on Monday, asking them to include a measure that would require a vote on the administration’s refugee plans and funding for resettled Syrian refugees in the spending bill that needs to pass Congress by Dec. 11 to keep the government open.

"Absent a change in the way in which Congress provides funds for refugee admissions, processing, and related matters, this ramp-up will occur despite both public and Congressional opposition," Sessions writes of the plan to accept new refugees, outlining several concerns.

He told reporters Monday evening that "the most important thing is that Congress assert itself on this issue" given the "huge impact" it will have taxpayers.

Members of Congress returned to Washington Monday afternoon for the first time since the Paris attacks, which killed at least 129 people, on Friday. Several Republicans have raised concerns about the administration’s plans to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016 after it was discovered that one of the suspected attackers may have entered Europe through Greece with a Syrian passport.

Fifteen House Republicans have also called for tying the issue of Syrian refugees to the spending bill, but their proposal would reportedly go a step further and defund resettlement for refugees all together instead of having a separate up or down vote. House Republicans are scheduled to meet Tuesday morning and will likely discuss plans moving forward on dealing with the administration's plans for Syrian refugees.

But on the Senate side, other than Sessions, Republicans said they haven't had a chance to discuss tying funding for refugees to the government spending bill. Instead, they focused on calling for a more thorough vetting process for refugees and prioritizing bringing in women and children over single men.

"What I'm trying to get them to do is at least prioritize who they bring in," said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "What I want to make sure is that we don't short circuit the vetting process in any way, shape or form. We have to be 100% certain that whoever we let in poses no threat to this country, which is why I'm suggesting women, children, relatives of Syrian-American citizens -- who could also be held responsible for the refugees who came in -- as a pretty reasonable response. It also shows I think the appropriate level of compassion."

Johnson said he is planning on holding a hearing later this week on how the Department of Homeland Security will vet the 10,000 Syrian refugees.

"I think if the administration doesn't have the ability to guarantee that the vetting process is one that has integrity, obviously there'd be a lot of concerns about people coming in," said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, hasn't called for defunding the resettlement program either, but said in a floor speech that he has asked that the spending bill include a "comprehensive plan on how security will be achieved."

"I think considering the fact that it's kind of questionable whether we have a vetting system that's very good to begin with...there is reason to have a pause," Grassley later told reporters.

And although Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he agreed with halting the refugee program until the U.S. can ensure the vetting process is thorough, he criticized those in his party pushing using the funding bill as a vehicle to deal with the issue.

"Our vetting process has to be started all over again," he said, adding that it's too soon for Republicans to block the administration's efforts using the spending bill. "Oh we'll block this! We'll block that!," he said has become the thinking among some of his colleagues.

Earlier in the day, newly-elected Speaker Paul Ryan stressed that House Republicans are looking at all options related to dealing with Syrian refugees.

"Look we’ve always been a generous nation in taking in refugees,” Ryan said in a radio interview with Bill Bennett. "But this is a unique situation. This is a situation where you have single men coming over, which is not women and children. What we’re doing is I’ve asked the committees of jurisdiction in the House to come up with recommendations for how we can immediately address this particular situation. So we’re looking at all of our options about how do we make sure that something like this doesn’t happen coming here to us with refugees.”

When pressed if Congress could use the funding measure, Ryan did not rule it out.

"We have a funding at the end of the year bill, so we’re looking at all of our options,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re protecting ourselves.”

And House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price also released a statement, calling for the suspension of the refugee program.

"It has been confirmed that at least one of the terrorists in Paris used the current refugee system out of Syria as a Trojan horse,” Price said. "We must not allow the United States to experience the same fate and thus must suspend our refugee program until certainty is brought to the vetting process. Common sense must not be trumped by willful ignorance for the sake of dogmatic conformity.”

The Kentucky senator and 2016 presidential candidate says government doesn’t create rights — to health care or pants — and calls Bernie Sanders’ politics “the same philosophy of socialism that lead ultimately to the extermination of people.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Kentucky senator and GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul implored a group of college students to remember that they "don't have a right to pants" last Monday while laying out his criticism of fellow presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' brand of democratic socialism.

"Government was instituted among men to protect your rights, not to create rights," Paul said. "So you don't have a right to a chair, you don't have a right to shoes, you don't have a right to pants, you don't have a right to health care, you don't have a right to water — you have a right to be free."

"And then you have a right to pursue happiness, but nobody guarantees you happiness," Paul added.

Paul made the comments during an address to the "Students for Rand" group at the University of Minnesota.

Earlier in his speech, Paul explained his habit of linking Sanders to mass exterminations carried out by socialist regimes throughout history.

"People say: 'Oh, you're saying that Bernie Sanders is Pol Pot.' No, I'm saying that he's embracing the same philosophy of socialism that lead ultimately to the extermination of people," Paul explained.

"Stalin killed tens of millions of people," he continued. "They say, 'Well, Bernie's not gonna do that.' Probably not."

But Paul argued that Sanders's "democratic socialism" was not meaningfully distinct from other forms of state control.

"You know, it doesn't matter whether a majority takes your rights away, or whether one single authoritarian takes... So if a majoritarian, somebody who gets 51% — does anybody think slavery is less bad if a majority votes for it?" Paul asked. "So what if a democracy says: 'We're gonna have democratic slavery?'"

"No one would say that's right!" Paul concluded. "There are certain rights that are yours, that come to you from your creator, and no majority should take them away."

Here's the video:

View Video ›

“You know, you’ve been a long shot all your life, and it’s all about staying in there and hoping that you can connect with people, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Brian Snyder / Reuters

South Carolina senator and GOP presidential candidate Lindsey Graham said on Friday that he will "reassess" his campaign if he loses the New Hampshire primary.

"I am doing it the New Hampshire way. But if I don't move my numbers, if I can't get traction in New Hampshire, I'll have to reassess." Graham told former Massachusetts senator and current diet pill advocate Scott Brown on Kilmeade & Friends.

"But breaking through in New Hampshire makes me, the odds on favorite in South Carolina then I am in the final four, and I've just got to keep doing what I'm doing," Graham continued. "You know, you've been a long shot all your life, and it's all about staying in there and hoping that you can connect with people, and that's what I'm going to do."

Graham said that his strategy to do better in the polls was "the New Hampshire way," which included attending "weddings, funerals, Bar Mitzvahs, friendly divorces."

Graham added that foreign policy, the centerpiece of his campaign, "is becoming a bigger issue, because the world is literally falling apart."

Brown added that, while he has been critical of Obama on issues such as Syria, he has complimented him on his past success. Brown then reminisced on the time he told President Barack Obama that he had "big balls" following the successful U.S. special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden

"I remember also back when we met the president, we were talking about budgeting at the White House compound there, and they just got bin Laden," Brown said. "I walked up to him and I said, Mr. President, you just got big balls. You know, I'm saying that you took a tough decision and it came through, so congratulations."

w.soundcloud.com

As several state governors announced on Monday that they would refuse to accept Syrian refugees, governors in Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, Washington, and Colorado reaffirmed their willingness to resettle them.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Governors in Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Connecticut reaffirmed their willingness to accept Syrian refugees after the terrorist attacks in Paris on Monday.

"The security work is being done … and I think the people who are coming here are political refugees as opposed to the folks who kind of, have gotten to Europe," Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy told a local news station.

Similarly, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf told PennLive, "We must not lose sight of the fact that families leaving Syria are trying to escape the same violence and unimaginable terror that took place in Paris and Beirut."

More than a dozen state governors announced on Monday that they would take steps to prevent Syrian refugees from being resettled in their states.

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said during a press conference that those governors were "stomping on the qualities that make America great."

"It's the spirit of all Vermonters to ensure that when you have folks who are drowning, who are dying in pursuit of freedom, that Vermont does its part," Shumlin said.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a statement, "We will work with the federal government and Homeland Security to ensure the national verification process for refugees are as stringent as possible. We can protect our security and provide a place where the world's most vulnerable can rebuild their lives."

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee similarly said in a statement his state would continue to accept Syrian refugees.

"Sadly, in the wake of these attacks, many people channel their fear and anger against ISIS into fear and anger against Muslims. At a time when millions of Syrian families are attempting to flee ISIS and seek refuge in safer parts of the world, including the United States, there are some who say it's time to close our doors to people whose lives are in peril," said Inslee.

"Washington will continue to be a state that welcomes those seeking refuge from persecution, regardless of where they come from or the religion they practice."

“Our emphasis is on admitting the most vulnerable Syrians – particularly survivors of violence and torture, those with severe medical conditions, and women and children – in a manner that is consistent with U.S. national security.”

Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty Images

A State Department spokesman says that so-called "military-age males" unattached to families make up just two percent of Syrian refugees admitted to date to the United States.

"Our emphasis is on admitting the most vulnerable Syrians – particularly survivors of violence and torture, those with severe medical conditions, and women and children – in a manner that is consistent with U.S. national security," a State Department spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "Military-aged males unattached to families comprise only approximately two percent of Syrian refugee admissions to date."

Since the start of the Syrian Civil War in March 2011, the United States has taken in about 2,000 refugees from Syria. Last year, Syrians made up only two percent of the 70,000 refugees admitted, according to the New York Times. Of the 18,000 referred refugees cases from the United Nations High Commissioner for possible resettlement (of which the U.S. is taking 10,000) more than 50% are 18 years of age or younger.

The U.S. has a robust system in place for vetting refugees, including multiple high-level security checks, biometric screening, a mandatory interview with the Department of Homeland Security, and a medical screening. The process takes an average of 18 to 24 months.

Still, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and FBI Director James Comey have said that they are concerned about a lack of on-the-ground intelligence in Syria as it relates to the vetting process.

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

CLEVELAND — Rejecting what he called "cheap political talk" in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, Bernie Sanders told a large crowd on the campus of Cleveland State University that he opposes banning refugees from Syria from entering the U.S.

"I am disturbed by some of what I am hearing from my Republican colleagues, and I will just say this: During these difficult times, as Americans we will not succumb to racism. We will not allow ourselves to be divided and succumb to Islamophobia," Sanders said. "We will not turn our backs on the refugees."

Sanders said he supports building an international coalition — including Iran, he said — to fight ISIS on the ground. He said Republicans calling for direct military action are forgetting the lessons of Iraq.

"We will learn the lessons of history. Yesterday, the chairman of the Republican National Committee stated, 'never before have we seen an American president' — meaning President Obama — 'project so much weakness,'" Sanders said. "Well as many of you will remember, back in 2002, we had a president, President Bush. He was very, very tough. But not very smart."

The crowed booed.

"Oh you remember President Bush, do you?" Sanders said, to laughter.

Sanders has expressed concerns about "perpetual war in the Middle East" for months, and he suggested the attacks in Paris had done nothing to shift his focus from that fear.

"Yes, we need to create a worldwide coalition that will defeat ISIS," he said. "But, no, the United States Of America must not be involved in perpetual warfare in the Middle East."

Sanders tacked the refugee remarks to the top of his standard, nearly hour-long stump speech in Cleveland. The setup sent a message as well: Sanders rejected the idea that the terror attacks in France mean Americans are ready for a foreign policy-only campaign.

"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," he said. "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."

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court could revisit the issue of same-sex couples’ rights as soon as this term if the justices take up the appeal of a woman whose Georgia adoption of her former partner’s children was ignored as “void” by the Alabama Supreme Court in September.

The legal issue here, however, doesn't directly relate to marriage or even same-sex relationships — centering instead on whether Alabama violated the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution by not respecting the Georgia court’s adoption ruling.

Warning of the “grave practical harm” of the decision, the lawyers for the woman on Monday asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, in part, because it presents “the ultimate conflict of authority — dueling court orders in different states — and threatens to shatter the legal ties that bind numerous Alabama adoptive parents to their children.”

The complex procedural case involves a now-ended relationship between two women — whose names are presented only as initials V.L. and E.L. in the court filings. The women lived in Alabama, were in a long-term relationship, and had three children. E.L. gave birth to the children, and, eventually, the couple decided it would be smart to have V.L. adopt the children so both mothers would be their legal parents.

Because Alabama would not allow such an adoption, the couple secured the adoption in Georgia. And while questions have now been raised about whether that adoption should have been allowed, both V.L. and E.L. supported it at the time it was sought and granted in 2007. The couple later ended their relationship, though, eventually leading to V.L. going to court in Alabama seeking to have the adoption decree enforced because she claimed that E.L. was denying her access to the children.

While lower Alabama courts sided with V.L., the Alabama Supreme Court sided with E.L. in a ruling that rejected not only the validity of the Georgia adoption — because, the opinion stated, Georgia law only would allow an adoption like the one entered into by V.L. if E.L. had given up all of her parental rights — but the jurisdiction of the Georgia court even to have heard the adoption request.

“The Georgia judgment is accordingly void, and the full faith and credit clause does not require the courts of Alabama to recognize that judgment,” the opinion stated. “Indeed, it would be error for the courts of this State to do so ….”

In contrast, the lower court held, as V.L. argues, that the court had jurisdiction to hear all adoption cases, so the question of whether the adoption should have been allowed is a question on the merits of the issue and, as such, an issue that only Georgia courts could upend. Under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, V.L. argues, Alabama courts must respect that Georgia adoption.

Because it found the Georgia adoption to have been a jurisdictional defect, however, the Alabama Supreme Court reasoned that the Alabama courts should give the Georgia adoption decree no effect. The lower court decisions were reversed, meaning V.L. would not be viewed as a parent in Alabama.

In effect, eight years after the adoption decree was finalized by a Georgia court, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the adoption never could have been approved under Georgia law, and so, now — even though no Georgia court had ever ruled that way — the Alabama Supreme Court could and did refuse to enforce the adoption decree.

The facts of the dispute and ruling led Adam Unikowsky, a partner at Jenner & Block, to join the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Alabama lawyers for V.L. in filing the petition for certiorari in the case at the Supreme Court on Monday. Unikowsky also enlisted the help of fellow Jenner & Block partner Paul Smith — best known in gay legal circles for arguing successfully against sodomy laws at the Supreme Court in 2003.

“The thing about it is, it’s so glaringly, clearly wrong to have a judge in one state decide that the court in the other state got that state’s law wrong — and make it jurisdictional on top of that, for no reason — is just trampling on the basic principles of full faith and credit,” Smith told BuzzFeed News on Monday afternoon. “And, it’s doing it in the adoption context, which is the area where you want to have finality most of all. You can’t tell someone they’re no longer a parent 8 years later based on what state you’re in. It’s a terrible decision.”

Unikowsky, a former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, is the counsel of record in the cert petition to the justices, as well as a request, also filed on Monday, asking for expedited consideration of a request to “recall and stay” the Alabama Supreme Court’s judgement in the case. That request was submitted to Justice Clarence Thomas, who can decide the request on his own or refer the matter tot he full court.

Notably, the cert petition presents the issue as a procedural case — not a “gay rights” case — declaring, “This Court should grant certiorari. The decision of the Alabama Supreme Court conflicts with a century of this Court’s Full Faith and Credit case law and deals a serious blow to the principles of comity and finality underlying the Clause.”

Smith echoed that in talking with BuzzFeed News about the filing, saying simply, “This doesn’t have to do with the identity of the parents; it has to do with finality of judgments.”

Of course, there is no guarantee the justices will take the case — especially when, as here, the ruling is an outlier and not part of a series of conflicting rulings among appellate courts. Discussing the filing on Monday, though, NCLR Family Law Director Cathy Sakimura said that, despite the “unprecedented” nature of the ruling, she hoped the court would take up the case.

“As a result of that serious constitutional violation, the children in this case have been wrongly separated from one of their parents, and the stability of adoption judgments across the country has been called into question,” Sakimura said in a statement. “We are hopeful the Court will review this unprecedented decision and ensure that other states do not go down this dangerous and unlawful path.”

Even in the absence of disagreement among lower courts on the issue, Smith said, “There are times when the court just decides something needs to be fixed even though it’s not a circuit split or something like that. We’ll see. At least we have to give them the opportunity to fix this because it’s such an egregious thing, to take away parenthood in this kind of situation ….”

If the justices decide to take up the case and do so by mid-January, the case likely would be heard by the justices this term — meaning a decision would be expected by the end of June.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

WATERLOO, Iowa — The Cornel West barnstorm of Iowa for Bernie Sanders began here Friday in an off-brand fashion for the famous Princeton professor and activist, best known for fiery speeches and sharp rhetoric delivered with rhetorical flourish and, above all, drawing a crowd.

There was plenty of that to come, but the first stop was a quiet conversation in a room of about a dozen where only three were not committed Sander supporters. It was billed as a press conference at Sanders’s Waterloo HQ, a converted health care office on a quiet downtown street across from a convention center and down the block from a strip club.

Only two reporters showed, and one walked there from the offices of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. Other than West’s 15 year-old daughter (who was travelling with her dad) everyone else in the room was a Sanders staffer.

But If West was frustrated by the turnout, he didn’t show it. In a long interview with BuzzFeed News, he talked about other frustrations, though: with the press, with Hillary Clinton, and and with a black electorate he says has so far ignored the candidate with the sharpest focus on the issues that really matter to them. He spoke of the frustration on college campuses, where students have begun to rise up and demand to be heard on racism and privilege, and said Sanders is the candidate for that movement, too.

“I think it’s a marvelous new militancy of a younger generation engaging in a form of awakening,” he said. “Bernie Sanders’s campaign is a political expression of the moral and spiritual awakening in the country in regard to the power of the 1 percent, regarding Wall Street in regards to the massive surveillance state and so forth.”

“What Bernie Sanders represents not just as an isolated individual but as a powerful voice with a movement behind him is to challenge this righteous indignation and rage through love and justice,” West went on.

West formally endorsed Sanders back in August, while Sanders was still being regularly interrupted on the campaign trail by activists who said they associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. Since then he’s appeared with Sanders at events and spoken on Sanders behalf to the media. This weekend he crisscrossed Iowa solo while Sanders finished up prep for Saturday night’s second presidential debate on the campus of Drake University. He proved he can play the sharp-elbowed surrogate game and is also quite politically adept: He deflected several questions from BuzzFeed News about both his and Sanders’s past frustrations with President Obama. Sanders support for the idea of a progressive primary candidate against Obama in 2011 led to some bad headlines for Sanders, who still actively tries to reach out to mainstream Democrats with promises that his candidacy will be the best for down-ballot Democratic races should he win the nomination. West is among the most vocal Obama critics on the left.

“I’ve said a whole host of critical things about my dear brother Barack Obama,” he said. “But that’s in the past.” The focus now is making sure that working class voters are at “the center of this election.”

Sanders is still doing poorly with the the black vote, according to polls. That’s after real efforts by his campaign to reach out to Black Lives Matter activists and develop policy proposals aimed specifically at addressing ongoing racial injustice. When Sanders called for an end to the federal prohibition on marijuana, he framed the change as necessary to end ongoing racial disparities in War On Drugs that have ripple effects across minority communities.

West seemed confident that Sanders’s support in the black community will rise, especially vs Clinton.

“Once black voters wake up, it’s a new day. It’s a new day. Hillary Clinton knows that,” he said. Reminded of the calendar and the ever-decreasing time Sanders has left to make a move with black voters, West replied, “People wake up at different times.”

West was far harder on Clinton than Sanders ever is throughout the tour, playing the classic role of surrogate attack dog. Hours before the debate Saturday night, West told students at Grinell College in Des Moines that Clinton’s political positions were “Machiavellian calculation.”

On Sunday afternoon while Sanders was in Des Moines drawing his latest policy contrast with Clinton, West took the candidate’s place at a Democratic Party function in Ames where Clinton and Martin O’Malley spoke. His audience was smaller than the one for those two — a lot of reporters and party folks left after Clinton’s speech — but he kept up the pressure on Clinton.

Clinton “is a master of giving lip service to progressive causes but acting like a neoliberal and a example of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party,” West told MSNBC in an interview. “It’s fascinating to see her mastery of the lip service, but there is just no progressive substance there.”

In the speech, he repeated a line about Clinton he used in conversation with BuzzFeed News. He said voters need to judge her with what he calls “The Jane Austen Challenge.”

“You all know the great Jane Austen. One of the greatest novelists who ever put pen to paper in the English language. She talked about 'constancy.' Like Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. Like Anne Elliot, in that great novel, Persuasion,” West said. “And what is constancy except a willingness to act for integrity, sustain moral engagement, and always subordinating political calculation to deep conviction.”

Needless to say, West did not think Clinton passed the Austen test.

“We have to be honest about our dear sister Hillary Clinton. When it comes to my gay brothers and my lesbian sisters, one year, she says marriage is just male and female. Few years later, she says she's evolved,” he went on. “I say, OK, I'm open to evolution. But there's certain issues that should cut so deep that you don't need to be a thermometer. You can be a thermostat.”

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 06: Sen. David Vitter

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The fight over whether to allow Syrian refugees into the United States in the wake of Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris has taken center stage in Louisiana’s tight gubernatorial race, with Sen. David Vitter and State House Minority Leader John Bel Edwards trading barbs over the issue.

On Monday Vitter — once the seemingly sure thing to be Louisiana’s next governor who is now locked in a tight run off with Edwards, a Democrat — released a new web ad on the Syrian refugee crisis.

As the only major election still underway, the Louisiana race has suddenly become a key battle ground between Republicans and Democrats over whether the country should take in refugees.

Opening with the sound of an explosion as footage from the France Germany soccer game targeted by terrorists plays in the background, a narrator gravely says “One of the Paris ISIS terrorists entered France posing as a Syrian refugee. Now, Obama is sending Syrian refugees to Louisiana,” before noting that Vitter had objected to the plan to bring refugees to the U.S. “weeks ago.”

youtube.com

The ad, which will begin running state-wide on television Tuesday, ends with the voice over ominously noting, “He always does.”

Vitter also launched a Facebook petition on the issue, while Edwards also took to Facebook Sunday, telling voters, “As governor, I will continue to be an active participant in the ongoing conversation with federal authorities so that we can be partners in the effort to both assist refugees who are fleeing from religious persecution and ensure that all our people are safe.”

To date, 14 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Louisiana.

The issue was also front and center during the final debate Monday night, with the candidates clashing in person over the refugee crisis.

In a statement Monday night, Vitter slammed the administration’s decision to allow refugees into the country. "President Obama's plan to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to the U.S. — just like his statement made a day before the Paris attacks that ISIS was ‘contained’ — is outrageous and irresponsible. That's exactly how at least one, maybe more of the Paris terrorists got there. These Syrians have already started arriving in Louisiana. That needs to stop immediately, and I will continue to lead that fight and protect the people of Louisiana," Vitter said.

Democrats, meanwhile, charged Vitter of being hypocritical, pointing to the fact that Vitter missed a Senate hearing on the Syrian refugee crisis.

"When he had the opportunity to actually make something happen, he didn't. He has missed every important hearing on this issue. Louisiana already has an absentee governor, and now it seems our absentee senator failed to do his duty as well,” Edwards said in a press release from his campaign Monday afternoon.

“One month ago, David Vitter didn’t even bother to show up for a U.S. Senate hearing on the Syrian refugee crisis. In the real world, if you don’t show up for work, you don’t get a promotion. How can David Vitter ask Louisiana voters to trust him on Syrian refugees when he doesn’t even show up for his day job?” Democratic Governors Association spokesman Jared Leopold said Monday evening.

God, guns, Gitmo, and gravy.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has said it in just about every recent speech, Facebook post, and tweet slamming President Obama after the attacks in Paris: the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba should remain open.

"France has closed its borders and all President Obama wants to do is close Gitmo," Huckabee said in a Tuesday Facebook post.

"Close our borders instead of Guantanamo," Huckabee wrote on his plan in response to the Paris attacks on his website.

"How embarrassing is it the left wing socialist president of France is closing his borders to immigration while our president wants to close Gitmo to turn their terrorists loose so they can come at us again," the former Arkansas said local radio on Monday.

"We need to be beefing up Guantanamo," he added on Breitbart News Radio.

During his first run for the presidency in 2008, however, Huckabee said repeatedly he too wanted to close the facility, because it was a "problematic" symbol to the rest of the world.

"I think the problem with Guantanamo is not in that its facilities are inadequate," the former Arkansas stated. "It's the symbol that it represents. It's clearly become a symbol to the rest of the world as a place that has become problematic for us as a nation. I was quite frankly impressed with the quality of the facilities and even the attention to care that was given to the detainees, but that aside, it doesn't alter that Guantanamo to the rest of the world is a symbol that is not in our best interests to continue pursuing.

And there's video:

youtube.com

Cold weather, hot takes.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee have seized on an odd argument to argue against taking Syrian refugees: The U.S. is too cold for them.

Huckabee and Trump both cited Minnesota as being too cold for refugees.

"A friend of mine lives in Minnesota and he calls me up and he says, 'Can you imagine, it's 130 degrees in Syria and now they want to send some of them up to Minnesota where it's 30 degrees," Trump told supporters in Knoxville, Tennessee on Monday. "These people are going to be very very unhappy," he added. "It's cold, and beautiful, but it's cold."

Former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee said nearly the same thing in an interview with Fox News radio.

"And if you think about it, we would be bringing people in who lived in the desert their entire lives, and they would be completely disrupted, not only in terms of their culture, their language, their religion, my gosh even in terms of their climate," Huckabee said Monday. "Can you imagine bringing in a bunch of Syrian refugees who've lived in the desert their whole lives that are suddenly thrown into an English speaking community? Where it's maybe in Minnesota where it is 20 degrees below zero? I mean just I don't understand what we possibly can be thinking."

Huckabee made the same comments to Breitbart News radio on Monday too.

"Why would we remove people from a desert climate," said Huckabee, again. "There's no reason under god's earth to send people who have lived in a desert their whole life, who may speak Arabic or some other language and put them in Minnesota for the winter. Can anybody tell me that makes any sense, it simply does not."

Minnesota has a rich history of accepting refugees going as far back as the Vietnam War, a tradition which continues to this day.

"According to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, Minnesota received 2,232 refugees from 24 countries during fiscal year 2014," the Minnesota Post wrote earlier this year. Many of those came from Somali and Myanmar.

A good long run.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's old Myspace page is now "restricted."

Myspace.com

LINK: Fusion has a rundown this morning of how it looked during the 2008 election.

View Entire List ›

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — House Republicans have formed a task force to form legislation to deal with the Obama administration’s plans to accept more Syrian refugees amid calls from Republicans across the country to halt the resettlement program in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.

"It's clear that this was an act of war and the world needs American leadership," said Speaker Paul Ryan in a press conference Tuesday morning after a closed-door meeting with House Republicans.

Ryan continued: "Our nation has always been welcoming, but we cannot let terrorists take advantage of our compassion. This is a moment where it's better to be safe than to be sorry. So we think the prudent — the responsible thing is to take a pause in this particular aspect of this refugee program in order to verify that terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population."

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy added during the press conference that the task force, which includes members of several committees — counterterrorism and homeland security, armed service, appropriations, intelligence, judiciary, and foreign affairs — was formed over the weekend to come up with short-term and long-term solutions.

The House could take action on legislation coming out of the task force as early as this week.

Fifteen House Republicans have proposed defunding the settlement program through the government funding bill that Congress needs to pass by Dec. 11, but at this point, there doesn't seem to be enough support for that idea.

"We don't want to wait that long," Ryan said in response to using the spending bill as a vehicle to deal with the refugee issue. "We want to work and act on this faster than that."

Even several members of the House Freedom Caucus, who in the past have pushed for using spending bills as leverage, said they didn't want to endorse using the spending bill just yet.

"I think there are a lot of options on the table," said Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona, a member of the Freedom Caucus. "I think it's really clear that we're not going to go home without take some kind of action. Our first responsibility is to protect our American people. Of course, we're a country that welcomes people who are oppressed across the world. But right now we're in very unique circumstances and the president can't guarantee that there's even a vetting process much less an effective one."

"I think in the next 48 hours, we will galvanize around a solution or a series of solutions," he said.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, another member of the caucus, said he wanted to wait for the intelligence briefing from the administration on Tuesday evening and look at other options before deciding on what he would support.

"We have a long ways to go," he said.

An idea a few members coming out of the meeting said they could support deals with funding "safe zones" within Syria and the region.

"That would be the best for Syria and Syrians," said Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon. "The leadership has to work with our partners there to create the safe zones."

Salmon also brought up the idea.

"My personal feeling is I like the idea of 'safe zones' within Syria itself or nations close by," the Arizona Republican said. "There's a lot of reasons for that. We can provide the funding — or a lot of the funding — for that kind of thing. We can also ensure that when those people decide to go back and fix their country when it's safe to do so that they are in close proximity."

"Gov. Kasich is entitled to equal opportunity because Mr. Trump's appearance on 'Saturday Night Live' is not exempt as a 1) bona fide newscast; 2) bona fide news interview; 3) bona fide news documentary; or 4) on-the-spot coverage of bona fide news events," his lawyer writes.

Bona fide!

“[W]e should have known that she was going to go on and just stall, debate, filibuster, on these answers to make it go as long as possible, so we would look cruel.”

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a member of the House Select Committee On Benghazi, said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid "a trap" for the committee by making her Oct. 22 appearance go "as long as possible."

Last month, Clinton testified before the GOP-led committee investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The hearing stretched 11 hours and was widely seen as a bust for Republicans.

"As you know, some of you may have watched the marathon Hillary Clinton fiasco, and I say that because Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the committee, wanted to interview her in private, and she said, 'No, I want to do this in public,'" Westmoreland said in a recent speech uploaded to YouTube.

"Now to me, that was us stepping in a trap because we should have known that she was going to go on and just stall, debate, filibuster, on these answers to make it go as long as possible, so we would look cruel," he continued.

Westmoreland went on to question those who said Clinton came out of the hearing unscathed.

"You know, a lot of people have said, 'she did great, you know, no harm, she did really good, she handled the committee.' I don't know where in the world you can be proven a liar on national TV and think you had a good week, but they think that is having a good week, that she was caught in a lie," Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland said the committee will be traveling to Germany and Italy to continue researching Benghazi.

"Next week we'll be going to Germany and to Italy to do some more research, on the Benghazi," he said. "So this thing is not over, and I promise you one thing: We are going to tell you what really happened, and all the consequences that went with it, and to let you know if we are prepared for another situation that can possibly come up in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world where we have our men and women working for this country."

This video was deleted from YouTube (BuzzFeed News) has archived it.

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

“…he represents big banks, he represents the war profiteers, the people in the military-industrial complex. And he represents world government, because we have to take care of the world.”

Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

Former congressman Ron Paul, the father of Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, said Friday that he'd "like to send" Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and politicians like him "to outer space" because of his "crazy" proposals for military spending.

Paul made the remarks on an episode of the Ron Paul Liberty Report in response to a question about Rubio's call to "modernize our forces to remain on the cutting edge of the land, sea, air, cyberspace, and outer space domains."

Paul's son Rand and Rubio have been in a war of words since the Republican presidential debate last week on Fox Business Network in which they sparred over military spending.

"Well, it's good for jobs. Think of how many jobs he's going to create," the elder Paul said. "And then we can send them all to outer space. I'd like to send – like I once said – send all these politicians that promote these ideas to outer space. That's where they belong, because it's crazy! You know, where's he going to get the money?"

"I mean, the country is broke, we're in the middle of a recession, half the people are unemployed, half of the young people live with their parents, and the medical care system is breaking down – I mean, it's so precarious that he's proposing a trillion-dollar increase," he continued. "Of course, he wouldn't agree with that, because what he's saying is he has to restore the original budget. But there was some proposed decreases in the increases – he doesn't even want to do that! It really is a net increase in a trillion dollars over a period of time."

"And he represents big banks, he represents the war profiteers, the people in the military-industrial complex. And he represents world government, because we have to take care of the world," Paul added. "Look how many things are going on in the Middle East, NATO, we're the one that supply the manpower, and all the money, and all the bombs, and stirring up all the troubles, and support all the coups."

"So, this is representative of runaway spending, and I think right now that the people are waking up, because we're out of money, and we're gonna have to end it," Paul concluded.

You can watch the exchange here:

View Video ›

The Ron Paul Liberty Report / Via youtube.com

“The oil and gas industry is the lifeblood of Louisiana’s economy.”

Via youtube.com

This shot of an oil rig...

Via youtube.com

...is this "aerial shot of off shore oil platforms"...

Via istockphoto.com

View Entire List ›

“We should not be admitting either Muslims or Christians, and you’ll say, ‘whoa why won’t you want to admit Christians, because in so doing we would be accomplishing exactly what ISIS wants to accomplish, which is to rid the area of Christians.”

Hello.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Republican presidential candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum says the United States shouldn't take any refugees from Syria.

"We should not be admitting either Muslims or Christians, and you'll say, 'whoa why won't you want to admit Christians, because in so doing we would be accomplishing exactly what ISIS wants to accomplish, which is to rid the area of Christians," Santorum said Tuesday on Rose Unplugged. "Which is to rid the area of moderate Muslims. By bringing them here to the United States, they will resettle here and they will never go home. Which is exactly what ISIS wants. They want to decimate the Christian communities and take them over and them have controlled by the more radical Muslim elements.

One of Santorum's presidential rivals, Texas senator Ted Cruz, has said we should only take Christian refugees, not Muslims, from Syria . Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said on Sunday the U.S. should accept any refugee that can be properly screened, but added that the focus should be on Christians.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

CLEVELAND — Bernie Sanders is as synonymous with the push for a federal $15 minimum wage as any candidate running for office today.

Yet when the Democratic political powerhouse Service Employees International Union — which has led the push for a $15 minimum wage — chose to make a presidential endorsement Tuesday, it backed Hillary Clinton, a candidate who's backed setting the federal wage floor at $12 per hour.

The response from the Sanders campaign: We still have plenty of labor support from SEIU members, and SEIU was always going to back Hillary Clinton on the national level.

"We are gratified that hundreds of thousands of workers are part of the growing grassroots movement supporting Bernie's campaign to help working families by raising the minimum wage, providing health care for all and making college affordable," Sanders's top communications adviser, Michael Briggs, told reporters in a statement.

Sanders's chief presidential political strategist, Tad Devine, sent a simple "no" in an email to BuzzFeed News when asked if the SEIU endorsement surprised him.

Some have suggested that Sanders's low recognition and support among people of color foretold the outcome of the endorsement — a high percentage of SEIU members are minorities. SEIU officials said Tuesday their endorsement reflects the will of the rank-and-file members. In a release announcing the endorsement, a union spokesperson wrote of massive outreach efforts from union leadership to get the sense of which candidates members support. That included "three national member polls" and more than a hundred local level executive board debates and discussions.

The union is an immensely powerful force in Democratic politics, and its 2 million members create a potent grassroots network for the candidates the union supports. Clinton has been very successful in earning support from labor unions despite Sanders's career street cred with the labor left, which few in Democratic politics dispute. Politico reported Tuesday that the endorsement from SEIU meant Clinton "now has the support of unions representing about 9.5 million union members, or nearly two-thirds of the U.S.’ 14.6 million union workers."

That Sanders has struggled to get the support of national unions, with their millions of dollars and millions of volunteer campaign workers, has made it even harder for his startup campaign to build out national infrastructure to compete with Clinton's.

Sanders has benefited throughout his campaign from a grassroots army that tends to get very loud when national organizations they're a part of endorse Clinton. When the League Of Conservation Voters endorsed her as a champion of climate change advocates, Sanders backers from the green left inundated the group's Facebook page with criticisms, forcing the group's leaders to clarify why Clinton was the chosen candidate. The process leading to the NEA teachers union endorsement of Clinton included public infighting between union leaders and rank-and-file members who supported Sanders.

Union locals have backed Sanders in New Hampshire and other states, and some rank-and-file SEIU members who back Sanders are already telling reporters they're not happy with the Clinton endorsement.

Thierry Chesnot / Getty Images

Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday in Paris that the terrorist attacks there last week were "something different" than the shootings at Charlie Hebdo earlier this year.

"There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that," Kerry told the staff and families of the U.S. Embassy in Paris. "There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that."

"This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate," he continued. "It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration."

In January, terrorists shot and killed 11 people in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, which had satirized Islam and other religions. Another gunman shot and killed four people at a Kosher supermarket.

The attacks in Paris last week killed at least 129 people, and wounded at least 352 more.

Kerry's full remarks:

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you very, very much, Jane. Merci beaucoup. Bonjour tout le monde. I’m happy to be here, though sad to be here.

Let me first quickly welcome Ambassador Nix-Hines from UNESCO; Ambassador Yohannes from OECD. We’re delighted that they are here also. And this is a busy time for them, obviously, and complicated for everybody. But I’m really honored to be here with all of you. I want to say thank you to every single one of you. Let me just ask quickly, how many of you are local employees who are working for the Embassy? Well, we particularly – so many of you – we really thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We could not do our work here without you, and I know it’s particularly difficult right now, but it’s always difficult because you are working, carrying with you whatever baggage comes with the country you work for, and in our case, there’s very little because of our friendship with France. But nevertheless, we are deeply appreciative for your commitment to helping us to help people to share the values and the interests that we are all working to protect.

In the last days, obviously, that has been particularly put to the test. There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration. It was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, “Here we are.” And for what? What’s the platform? What’s the grievance? That we’re not who they are? They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe. And it’s indiscriminate. They kill Shia. They kill Yezidis. They kill Christians. They kill Druze. They kill Ismaili. They kill anybody who isn’t them and doesn’t pledge to be that. And they carry with them the greatest public display of misogyny that I’ve ever seen, not to mention a false claim regarding Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism – I mean, you name it.

And that’s why when some people – I even had a member of my own family email me and say, “More bombs aren’t the solution,” they said. Well, in principle, no. In principle, if you can educate and change people and provide jobs and make a difference if that’s what they want, sure. But in this case, that’s not what’s happening. This is just raw terror to set up a caliphate to expand and expand and spread one notion of how you live and who you have to be. That is the antithesis of everything that brought our countries together – why Lafayette came to America to help us find liberty, and all of the evolutions of the struggles of France, the governments, to find the liberte, egalite, fraternite, and make it real in life every day. And all of that peacefulness was shattered in the span of an hour-plus on Friday night when people were going about their normal business. And they purposefully chose a concert, chose restaurants, chose places where people engage in social dialogue and exchange, and they object to that too.

So this is not a situation where we have a choice. We have been at war with these guys since last year. President Obama said that very clearly. And every single country – not just in the region, but around the world – is opposed to what they are doing to the norms of human behavior and the standards by which we try to live.

So we are engaged in a struggle here – struggle of a generation. Every generation is given a test, I think. Through the 20th century we saw global wars and nation-states fighting each other. Today the challenge, even though we have differences with nation-states – Ukraine, Iran, different things that are happening – we’re not choosing to randomly go to war. We’re trying to avoid it. We’re trying to find a better path. But it’s non-state actors – individuals, lone wolves and groups, small groups – and if somebody is willing to die – if you want to go die on any given day, unfortunately, you can take some people with you.

So our challenge is to stop the immediate threat, obviously, and destroy it, while we eliminate the people going into the pool by providing those other options – by reaching them before they’re radicalized; by getting people to see there is better governance, there are better opportunities. And globally, we have a lot of work to do that. That’s what’s brought all of you into this place, into this business of diplomacy, of caring and trying to take America’s values and help to spread them around the world. But we don’t force them on people. We give people a choice. Everybody has their choice. We offer them because we believe it’s the best way to provide security, the best way to provide opportunity, and the best way to respect individual rights and the ability of any individual to be able to choose for themselves who they want to be and what they want to be, without disturbing other people, and certainly without killing.

So I want to thank you for the work you’re doing – most important work in the world right now. And I thank all of this Embassy in every regard: RSOs, consular division, individuals who reached out and went to work immediately. I know that some of you were at the – were near the Bataclan and the restaurant and when the shooting took place, you had nowhere to go, and finally a Thai restaurant, Ya Lamai, opened its doors and some of you were housed there till three in the morning. And there are all kinds of stories of individual courage and assistance. People have been working now four nights in a row, through the night. Countless emails, countless phone calls, countless worried parents, family, people calling – “Is my loved one all right? Do you know what’s happened to them? Can you find them?” And you all have been superb in reaching out and some of you going to hospitals to visit with the wounded, to help their families through a difficult, difficult time.

So as far as I’m concerned, you have all behaved in the highest traditions, the highest standards of American willingness to put ourselves at the readiness to help people in distress and to do our duty selflessly to other people, and that’s a great value of our country and France.

So we are locked together in this effort. I will visit with President Hollande shortly, and then with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius we’ll talk about the strategy ahead and the things we need to do together. And I am absolutely confident, my friends, we are going to come out of this where we want. We will end the scourge of Daesh. President Obama has always said it’s going to take a while, because it’s a reflection not just of the things that I described about how they choose to behave, but it’s also a reflection of turmoil in the region, of the clash with modernity, culture versus modern times, distortions. And they’re hard to fight that, particularly when there’s a huge historical, cultural and language and religious divide. So we have our work cut out for us, but we will get there. Because all of the leaders of the Muslim world, the real leaders, all of the leaders of every country in the region that are affected – Jordan and Lebanon and Iran and Turkey and Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and Kuwait and Egypt – they’re all opposed to Daesh and all distressed by the way in which a great religion is being inappropriately presented.

So hang in there. Keep doing what you’re doing. We’ve made gains even in the last weeks. There’s 22 percent less territory that Daesh now has available to it than it had at the beginning. And remember, a year ago right now, we didn’t have a 65-country coalition. We only started putting that together one year ago, and we’re pushing now on the finance lines; we’re pushing against foreign fighters crossing borders; we’re pushing against the distortion of Islam, our public affairs people are working at that. We have a new center in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi, that’s been opened to help in Arabic, instantaneously, gain traction on social media and push back against the lies. We’re presenting stories of disaffected former Daesh people who have come out and said life with them is nowhere near what they pretend it is, and who are telling the real stories of what happens.

So as we come and push back here, I believe that justice will prevail and the vision that the vast, vast majority of the world shares will absolutely prevail. So we will steadily march ahead. Jihadi John is gone, and other top aides are gone. The number two guy in Libya, the top guy is – the top guy in Libya is gone. We’re slowly marshaling the forces and capacity to be able to change this current dynamic.

So hang in there. Stay steady. Stay strong. As the French would say, bon courage. And as President Obama and I would say to you, just a profound thank you. God bless you all. God bless France and the United States of America. Thank you. (Applause.)