President Obama said in his weekly address that he opposes a travel ban and Americans must not give in to the hysteria or fear, but Judge Jeanine disagrees. In her monologue on “Justice” Saturday night, Judge Jeanine Pirro said “it’s time” to be worried about Ebola spreading in the U.S., and questioned whether America’s health care infrastructure is truly prepared to confront the threat.
“Meeting a public health challenge like this isn’t just a job for government,” the president said prior. “All of us — citizens, leaders, the media — have a responsibility and a role to play. This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need.”
Oct. 18, 2014: Pope Francis, right, arrives with bishops and cardinals to attend an afternoon session of a two-week synod on family issues at the Vatican. (Photo: AP)
Gay rights groups are up-in-arms after Catholic Church bishops decided against softening their stance on same-sex marriage at the end of a two-week synod called by Pope Francis. The meeting was geared toward exploring a more merciful approach to ministering to Catholics on various family issues.
“Unfortunately, today, doctrine won out over pastoral need,”the Boston-based DignityUSA organization said in a statement late Saturday. “It is disappointing that those who recognized the need for a more inclusive Church were defeated.”
The drafted measure that failed to win two-thirds support was essentially a watered-down version on ministering to homosexuals, which excluded language from a prior document drafted earlier in the week. Rather than considering gays as those who have gifts to offer to the church, the revised language instead referred to homosexuality as one of the challenges Catholic families have to confront.
It reads “people with homosexual tendencies must be welcomed with respect and delicacy,” but reaffirmed church doctrine that holds marriage is a God-approved union only between one man and one woman. The paragraph failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass.
New Ways Ministry, another U.S.-based pro-gay Catholic group, said it was “very disappointing” that the final language had excluded a softer stance on gay marriage. However, it also said the Catholic Church’s “openness to discussion provides hope for further development down the road, particularly at next year’s synod, where the makeup of the participants will be larger and more diverse, including many more pastorally-oriented bishops.”
The synod’s focus was not gay marriage per se, in fact, two other paragraphs dealt with whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion. The two issues have long been in contention among bishops and, they too, also failed to pass.
Pope Francis reportedly insisted the paragraphs that failed to pass be published with the voting tally, which will serve as the base document for future debate leading up to another meeting of bishops next October that will produce a final report to be sent to Francis.
“Personally, I would have been very worried and saddened if there hadn’t been these animated discussions or if everyone had been in agreement or silent in a false and acquiescent peace,” Francis told those in attendance after the vote.
The draft was written by Monsignor Bruno Forte, a theologian and Francis appointee known for pushing the limits on what is considered acceptable pastoral duties, and ministering to people in “irregular” unions. The draft was supposed to have been a synopsis of the bishops’ interventions, but many claim that it reflected a small minority view.
Conservatives criticized the draft and claimed it was an attempt to restate church doctrine, which officially says that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered,” but that gays themselves are to be respected.
Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa, who assisted in drafting the revised document, told Vatican Radio the final document found a “common vision” that was lacking in the first draft, but also had harsher words.
He said a key sticking point was a concern that the words in the first draft were “presenting homosexual unions as if they were a very positive thing.” It also suggested that divorced and remarried Catholics should be able to receive Communion without an annulment, which is also not the consensus.
He said there was an attempt to present the first draft as the opinion of the whole synod, when in fact it was the opinion of “one or two people.”
Dr. Ben Carson, the head of neurosurgery at John Hopkins University, said on the Hugh Hewitt Show that he would refuse to serve as surgeon general under Obama because he doesn’t trust him. Carson, who appears to be gearing up for a 2016 presidential run, rose to notoriety after making public statements of opposition to ObamaCare standing no more than 10 feet from the president at the National Prayer Breakfast.
HUGH HEWITT, HOST: I am joined by Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Carson, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show.
DR. BEN CARSON: Thank you. Always good to be with you.
HEWITT: Dr. you’re such a well-established and well-regarded national figure, the professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University. You’ve won the Presidential Medal of Freedom. You did the National Prayer Breakfast. You wrote One Nation. If President Obama called you up right now and said Dr. Carson, we need a surgeon general who will command respect and will generate calm, would you please serve, would you accept that?
CARSON: No. No, because I would, if I were going to serve in that position, I would have to serve under someone that I trusted.
HEWITT: If he said I will not interfere with the guidance you give, we need someone to rally the country around being calm and appropriately prepared, you really, you’d say no to the president of the United States?
CARSON: Yes. Absolutely.
HEWITT: I’m shocked.
CARSON: (laughing) Well, you shouldn’t be, because it doesn’t, you know, I look at some of the other people, and I know them, you know, who are speaking on behalf of the administration. And I feel that they’re being constrained in what they’re saying.
Charles Krauthammer (left) said Obama’s appointment of Ron Klain (right) as the new Ebola czar was “a PR move from beginning to end.” (Photos: FOX/AP)
Critics are questioning the president’s decision to appoint Ron Klain, a former advisor to Al Gore and Joe Biden with no medical background, as Ebola czar. Republicans are calling Klain a figurehead.
“This is what Obama specializes in,” Charles Krauthammer said Friday night. “You have a VA scandal, an IRS scandal, Secret Service scandal. You fire the guy at the top so you have the appearance of motion.”
“I don’t think he’s going to make any difference whatsoever,” he added. “It’s a PR move from beginning to end.”
The Obama administration is expressing full confidence in Klain, who they say steps into the position with “strong management credentials, extensive federal government experience overseeing complex operations and good working relationships with leading members of Congress, as well as senior Obama administration officials, including the president.”
But House Republicans aren’t so sure. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), a physician, said Obama was “making an unserious gesture at an incredibly serious moment.”
Meanwhile, Republican Reps. Tim Murphy (R-CA), chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and Fred Upton (R-MI), the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, have both called for immediate travel on individuals traveling from West African countries in order to halt the spread of the disease.
President Obama said this week during a press conference that he “didn’t have a philosophical objections to a travel ban” if he thought it would be effective. But he continued with the narrative — which doesn’t make a distinction between chartered flights and commercial flights — that halting travel from these nations would hinder the ability of the U.S. to confront and contain the epidemic.
Obama on Saturday repeated his argument against a travel ban on West Africa where Ebola is an epidemic and urged Americans not to give into hysteria about the deadly virus.
“We have to be guided by the science,” Obama said in his weekly radio and online address. “We’re a nation of more than 300 million people. To date, we’ve seen three cases.”
The president’s argument has come under heavy fire as public polling shows the vast majority of Americans feel the U.S. should implement such as ban. Chairman Murphy said this week that Obama administration officials told him they did not want to implement the travel ban because they didn’t want to negatively impact the economies of West African countries, as well as stigmatize those from the region already in the United State.
Dr. Manny Alvarez, the Senior Managing Editor for Health News, said the argument is simply not a valid one. In an op-ed to the new Ebola czar, he addressed the issue of the travel ban.
“I would hope that you see that those of us who are calling for a travel ban have a legitimate argument,” Alvarez wrote. “I understand the counter argument, but I think that the world is different today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Borders are more porous, financial crises around the planet have disseminated communities and people in areas of the world are ravaged by war and terrorism, and humans are in desperate search for new homes.”
Western European countries, including the United Kingdom and France, have implemented travel bans already, with the U.K. ban being in place for over a month. Still, some detractors of the ban have suggested it is impossible to implement, a suggestion Alvarez disputes.
“Therefore, the stricter control of West African borders is important,” he added. “This is why neighboring countries have instituted tighter border controls for West African immigrants. This is why many countries around the world and now also here in the Americas, including some Caribbean islands and countries in South America have imposed a travel ban in West African migration. Is everybody wrong?”
Yet, Republicans say the Ebola czar appointment is telling of the administration’s strategy, which according to them, is not one that includes a travel ban or serious action.
“This appointment is both shocking and frankly tone-deaf to what the American people are concerned about,” Rep. Murphy said in a statement. “Installing yet another political appointee who has no medical background or infectious disease control experience will do little to reassure Americans who are increasingly losing confidence with the administration’s Ebola strategy.”
While it would appear that House Democrats are backing the president’s Ebola strategy and his new appointment, a request for a comment was not answered by the minority leader. Leader Pelosi (D-CA) has been relatively silent on the issue, even as some House Democrats expressed concern the president did not respond to the crisis quickly enough.
Putting the politics to the side, medical professionals believe the travel ban is a good start.
“I think that the facts speak for themselves,” Dr. Alvarez said.
President Obama again affirmed his opposition to a travel ban to combat the spread of Ebola despite increasing pressure and public opinion, telling Americans not to be hysterical in his weekly address.
“We have to be guided by the science,” the president said in his weekly radio and online address. “We’re a nation of more than 300 million people. To date, we’ve seen three cases.”
While that’s certainly true, there would not have been even one case if the president had implimented a travel ban on individuals holding West African passports in the first place. Ebola patient and Liberian national Thomas Duncan, lied on his screening form about having contact with individuals infected with the deadly virus, and the president has thus far trusted the honor system going forward still.
“Meeting a public health challenge like this isn’t just a job for government,” the president said. “All of us — citizens, leaders, the media — have a responsibility and a role to play. This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need.”
According to PPD’s tracking on the question of whether the president “should implement a travel ban,” nearly three-quarters of the American people now say they want the ban in place.
“When the question was first posed, only 53 percent of Americans said they thought a travel ban would be effective and supported the measure,” said PPD’s senior political analyst Rich Baris. “Although it was a majority still, it was a slim one.”
He said fear whether warranted or not is contributing to the support for the ban, but that there was more at play.
“What people are saying is that the president and officials have misled them on a host statements,” he added. “We are really seeing a lack of confidence contribute to those fears.”
Critics are questioning the president’s decision to appoint Ron Klain, a former advisor to Al Gore and Joe Biden, who has no medical background, as the new Ebola czar. President Obama said this week during a press conference shortly before the appointment that he “didn’t have a philosophical objections to a travel ban” if he thought it would be effective.
But he continued with the narrative — which doesn’t make a distinction between chartered flights and commercial flights — that halting travel from these nations would hinder the ability of the U.S. to confront and contain the epidemic. Some of the president’s allies have said it would be a logistical nightmare, while his critics point to the bans in place already in the United Kingdom and France.
Republican Thom Tillis is looking to take capitalize of his late momentum with a new ad that underscores how Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) funneled stimulus money to herself and her family.
“Days after Kay Hagan took office, she pushed Obama’s stimulus bill,” the narrator says in the beginning of the 30-second ad “Tucked Away.”
“This bill will help this country move forward,” Hagan says in a clip from 2009.
“It didn’t, but it did help Kay Hagan move forward — personally,” the narrator says before a clip from a local reporter explains how Hagan supported the stimulus bill, which appropriated money that ended up in the Hagan family bank account.
“Kay Hagan’s husband Chip and his brother own a company called JDC that got a $390,000 grant in stimulus funding,” the reporter says in the ad.
“Grants, tucked away in Obama’s stimulus, paid the Hagans,” the ad says. “She’s 96 percent for Obama, 100 percent for herself.”
Hagan had managed to hold on to a very small, tenuous polling advantage for most of the month of September and early October, thanks in large part to a money advantage and massive ad buy that damaged Tillis’ image. However, her numbers have once again tumbled, with just 35 percent of North Carolina voters approving of her job as senator in PPD’s latest tracking. Now, her Republican challenger has pulled ahead slightly this week as previously undecided voters who were leaning toward Hagan are now giving him another look.
Tillis will get a little help in mainstreaming this potentially damning narrative.
The Freedom Partners Action Fund, a pro-Tillis group supported by the billionaire philanthropist Koch brothers, doubled-down on the line attack in their latest ad “Family Business.”
“Kay Hagan claimed Obama’s failed $800 billion stimulus would help North Carolina, but now we know it was Kay Hagan’s family who profited,” a female narrator says. “The Hagans’ business got nearly $400,000 of stimulus cash – our tax dollars! And what did the company do? It funneled the money to another company owned by the Hagan’s to do the work.”
As potent as the line of attack may be, Hagan’s success has come from running as a moderate. President Obama lost to Mitt Romney in North Carolina and is even more unpopular than he was in 2012. The president remains the biggest drag on the Democratic incumbent. Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit arm of the Crossroads groups, also launched two fresh ads in the state Friday, but they aim to link Hagan with President Barack Obama.
“When North Carolina needed Kay Hagan to stand up to Barack Obama’s bad policies Kay Hagan stood with Obama,” the narrator says. “When we needed Hagan to stop ObamaCare Hagan voted with Obama.”
The ad depicts a group of four voters changing faces by rotating between holding up a placard of Sen. Hagan in front of their face with another placard of President Obama. The goal is less than colorful, but it is a clear and effective strategy — tie Hagan to Obama.
Hagan’s campaign disputed the truthfulness in the ads, but a review of stimulus grants clearly shows the Hagan family business did, in fact, receive a grant from a bill that she voted for when North Carolinians were widely opposed to her doing so. Further, this isn’t the first instance of Hagan using her vote to support bills that benefit those around her.
During the fight over the Export-Import Bank, PPD revealed that Hagan helped to funnel money from the Ex-Im Bank in 2013 to supporter and small business owner, Jenny Fulton, of Miss Jenny’s Pickles.
While Hagan stated in a press release in March 2014 that the original justification for funding the company was so Ms. Fulton could “start shipping [her] product label to countries overseas,” the timeline just doesn’t add up.
When introducing Vice President Joe Biden at the Bank’s annual conference, Fulton admitted her company had already been exporting pickles for over two years to countries abroad, including China and the United Kingdom. She went on to say her company was on pace to do $1,000,000 in gross sales by the end of 2013.
So, why exactly did she need taxpayer money from the Export-Import Bank?
As it turns out, Sen. Hagan previously met Ms. Fulton at an event she hosted, which was a campaign/fundraiser event disguised as a small business exporter forum.
Meanwhile, Hagan retained her fundraising edge over Republican Thom Tillis in the final stretch of the campaign, but the National Republican Senatorial Committee reserved more than $6 million in additional airtime last week. The Republican candidate will have the money to close the deal, to be sure, but voters tell us in PPD’s tracking that they have largely tuned out advertising at this stage.
At this point, news headlines on the economy, ISIS, Ebola, and immigration are voters’ top concerns.
This image made from AP video shows smoke rising from airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants near the Khazer checkpoint outside of the city of Irbil in northern Iraq, Friday, Aug. 8, 2014. The Iraqi Air Force has been carrying out strikes against the militants, and for the first time on Friday, U.S. war planes have directly targeted the extremist Islamic State group, which controls large areas of Syria and Iraq.(AP Photo via AP video)
DEVELOPING – Iraqi pilots who have defected and joined the Islamic State are training Islamic terrorist pilots to fly in three captured fighter jets, MIG 21 or MIG 23, in what is the first time the terror army has taken to the air.
Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the group is flying planes over al-Jarrrah, a military airport east of Aleppo, Syria.
“They have trainers, Iraqi officers who were pilots before for (former Iraqi president) Saddam Hussein,”Abdulrahman told The Jerusalem Post.
“People saw the flights, they went up many times from the airport and they are flying in the skies outside the airport and coming back,” Abdulrahman added.
It was not clear whether the jets were equipped with weaponry or whether the pilots could fly longer distances in the planes, which witnesses said appeared to be MiG 21 or MiG 23 models captured from the Syrian military.
Shoppers look over the offerings at the new Trader Joe’s store in Boulder, Colorado February 14, 2014. (Photo: REUTERS/RICK WILKING)
U.S. consumer sentiment rose in October to the highest in more than seven years, fueled by views people’s personal finances and the national economy are improving.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary October reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment, which is contradictory to the vast majority of public opinion polls, came in at 86.4. The reading was the highest since July 2007. The gains were unexpected — raising the potential the survey was an outlier — as a Reuters survey showed a forecast for a slip to 84.1 from last month’s 84.6 reading.
“The data show absolutely no signs that fear and panic is about to overtake the consumer sector,” survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement, pointing to “broader concerns about the global economic meltdown, escalating military conflicts, and rising concerns about Ebola.”
The survey’s gauge of consumer expectations also rose to hit 78.4, which is also the highest measured since October 2012 and up from 75.4. Economists forecast a reading of 74.4.
The survey’s barometer of current economic conditions was unchanged at 98.9 and also beat its forecast of 98.0.
The survey’s one-year inflation expectation fell to 2.8 percent from 3.0 percent, while the survey’s five-to-10-year inflation outlook held steady at 2.8 percent.
Permits for new housing starts in the U.S. rose in September, a positive signal the floundering housing market is showing growing strength in the economy.
Groundbreaking rose 6.3 percent to an annual 1.02 million-unit pace, while economists polled by Reuters had forecast a slightly smaller gain.
Housing is trying to make a comeback after it imploded during the 2007-2009 financial crisis and recession, but has been lacking the ability to suffer any rise interest rate rises. It suffered a setback last year when interest rates spiked, but rates have been falling lately.
The average 30-year mortgage rate dropped last week to its lowest level since June 2013, and the level of housing starts is not far from a seven-year high.
New housing starts for single-family homes, the largest part of the market, rose 1.1 percent in September, while the more volatile multi-family homes segment jumped 16.7 percent.
Permits advanced 1.5 percent to a 1.02 million-unit pace last month.
FILE: Vice President Joe Biden points to some faces in the crowd with his son Hunter as they walk down Pennsylvania Avenue following the inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama in Washington. (Photo: REUTERS)
Hunter Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, says he is “embarrassed” now that it has been revealed he was kicked out of the Navy for cocaine use. While it was known that Biden’s son was discharged from service, the Wall Street Journal reported the discharge came only after testing positive for cocaine.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the late Thursday report claimed that Hunter Biden’s short-lived military career ended because he failed a drug test, which was administered after he failed to report to his unit in 2013. The Navy discharged him in February of this year.
Biden said in a statement to that he respects the Navy’s decision, but did not specify why he was discharged.
“It was the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy, and I deeply regret and am embarrassed that my actions led to my administrative discharge,” he said. “I respect the Navy’s decision. With the love and support of my family, I’m moving forward.”
However, Biden was given a drug test after finally reporting to his unit at Navy Public Affairs Support Element East in Norfolk, Virginia, and tested positive for cocaine. Still, the Navy refused to tell PPD the nature of the discharge — honorable or dishonorable.
Vice President Biden spoke about his son’s decision to join the Navy late in life at the American Legion’s Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball in 2013, joking that his son’s decision was a result of poor judgment.
“We have a lot of bad judgment in my family,” Biden said. “My son over 40 just joined the Navy to be sworn in.”
And, yes, the vice president is seriously considering yet another run for president in 2016.
Hunter Biden was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy Reserve in 2013 only one year after he decided to join as a public affairs officer. He is a lawyer and managing partner for a Rosemont Seneca Partners, an investment firm. He made headlines earlier this year when he was hired to be a director and lawyer for a Ukraine company promoting energy independence from Moscow.
Of course, the headline was surprising, considering Vice President Biden and others in the Obama administration have attempted to influence energy policies and other issues of the Ukrainian government as it battles Russia and pro-Russian separatists to control the county.
A person claiming to have a video that reportedly shows Ashley Biden snorting cocaine, who is the vice president’s youngest child, has been attempting to sell the footage to various news organizations. A lawyer, who describes himself as a “friend” of the seller, says a man is seen on the video cutting five lines of cocaine for Ms. Biden, who jokingly says they aren’t big enough before she pulls her hair back to bend over and use the drugs.
Ashley Biden was arrested twice in the past — once for possession of marijuana and another for a disorderly person charge — both of which, were later dropped.
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