Feds order random searches at airports, after Al Qaeda publishes new bomb recipe on Internet

A terrorist group’s call for new attacks on U.S. airliners, an online “recipe” for detection-proof bombs and recent events in France and elsewhere have prompted federal authorities to order random searches of travelers and carry-on bags at U.S. airports.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson met with airline security officials to brief them about the elevated threat, which came in the latest issue of Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine. The online publication provided a guide to making the explosives, getting through security and even instructed suicide bombers on where to sit on the plane.

“We have no specific, credible intelligence of an attack of the kind in Paris last week being planned by terrorist organizations in this country,” Johnson said in a statement. “But, the reasons for these measures should be self-evident to the public: the recent attacks in Paris, Ottawa, Sydney, and elsewhere, along with the recent public calls by terrorist organizations for attacks on Western objectives, including aircraft, military personnel, and government installations and civilian personnel.”

“[T]he reasons for these measures should be self-evident to the public: the recent attacks in Paris, Ottawa, Sydney, and elsewhere … ” – Jeh Johnson, DHS secretary

The Transportation Security Administration has already stepped up random searches of travelers and carry-on luggage in addition to the enhanced screening that was ordered this summer at key airports.

The bomb-making recipe, published last month in the most recent edition of Inspire, the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) English-language magazine, sent a chilling message to the West.

“We spared no effort in simplifying the idea in such we made it ‘another meal prepared in the kitchen’ so that every determined Muslim can prepare,” states the magazine article, titled, “How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

Experts have said the bomb-making instructions are highly sophisticated and could pose a problem, especially in smaller airports that don’t employ high-tech body-imaging security devices. The terror network is constantly seeking new ways to get explosives onto planes, according to Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst at Clarion Project, a New York-based research institute that monitors the threat of terrorism.

“The chief Al-Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim Al-Asiri is innovative in his designs and isn’t to be underestimated,” Mauro told FoxNews.com. “For Al Qaeda, it is still somewhat of a victory if they can get an explosive on an airliner or even just inside an airport, regardless of whether the device ignites properly.

“Counter-terrorism personnel mention him to me even more than they mention Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri,” he added.

AQAP was behind the failed “underwear bomb” attack on Christmas Day, 2009. In that case, Farouk Abdulmuttalab tried to take down a Michigan-bound plane in U.S. airspace, but the bomb did not detonate.

Last week the State Department updated its Worldwide Caution travel alert to all Americans abroad.

“Recent terrorist attacks, whether by those affiliated with terrorist entities, copycats, or individual perpetrators, serve as a reminder that U.S. citizens need to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness,” the alert said.

Inspire magazine has previously published several “how-to” articles, including one on making bombs out of pressure cookers. That article ran prior to the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, in which two radicalized immigrants used two of the modified kitchen devices to kill three people and injure more than 200.

FoxNews.com

Muhammad will be back on the cover of the next edition of Charlie Hebdo, along with a message of forgiveness from surviving staffers at the French satirical magazine where 12 people were killed last week by a pair of Islamist brothers angered over the publication’s penchant for showing images of the prophet.

The decimated, but uncowed magazine upped its usual print run of 60,000 copies to 3 million for the magazine, due out Wednesday but released to the French newspaper Liberation. Fierce bidding on eBay had editions commanding as much as $500 following the outpouring of support for Charlie Hebdo, whose four top cartoonists were among the dozen killed. Editor-in-chief Gérard Biard said in a Tuesday radio interview the decision to run a cartoon if Muhammad holding a a “Je Suis Charlie” sign with the caption “Tout est pardonne,” or “All is forgiven,” and said the message was not that Muhammad was offering forgiveness, as some initially assumed.

“It is we who forgive, not Muhammad,” he told France Info.

“It is we who forgive, not Muhammad.” – Gérard Biard, editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo

Eight Charlie Hebdo staffers were killed in the attack, including the magazine’s editorial director, Stephane Charbonnier, who drew under the name “Charb.”

Biard said tomorrow’s issue is meant as both a memorial to fallen co-workers and proof that the magazine’s mission of irreverence has not been compromised.

“We needed to figure out how to continue laughing and making others laugh,” he said. “We wanted to analyze, say something about the events. This drawing made us laugh.

He continued: “We did not want masked men on the cover. We didn’t want more of that. That’s not us. We didn’t want to add to the gravity. It helps to be able to breathe a little.”

The cover was created by cartoonist Renald Luzier, who draws under the name “Luz,” and created what Biard called a “moving but not sad” work.

“Seen by Luz, Mohammed is much more sympathetic than even the Muslims see him. He’s a ‘nice little guy’ as Luz, puts it. Those assassins killed people who draw nice little guys. We wanted to show the ludicrousness of it.”

The New York Times reported late Monday that when Luz showed the drawing to staffers, he was greeted with laughter, applause and ironic shouts of “Allahu akbar!”

But one of Egypt’s top Islamic authorities has warned Charlie Hebdo against publishing the cartoon.

Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, which is in charge of issuing religious edicts, on Tuesday called the planned cover an “unjustified provocation” for millions of Muslims who respect and love their prophet.

The statement said the cartoon is likely to cause a new wave of hatred in French and Western societies and called on the French government and others to reject “the racist act” by Charlie Hebdo.

Charlie Hebdo’s past caricatures of the Muslim prophet appear to have prompted last week’s attacks, part of the worst terrorist rampage in France in decades. A total of 12 people were killed at the newspaper’s offices by Said and Cherif Kouachi, French-born brothers who had trained with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Some witnesses reported that the attackers at the paper’s offices shouted “We have avenged the prophet.” Many Muslims believe all images of Muhammad are blasphemous.

French police said Monday that as many as six members of a terrorist cell involved in the attacks may still be at large.

France saw its biggest demonstrations in history Sunday as millions turned out to show unity and defend freedom of expression.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

French police kill Paris massacre suspects, hostage-taking ally in separate raids

DEVELOPING: Sky News reports Paris police are hunting a second suspect who may have escaped hostage siege at kosher supermarket before police raid.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Near-simultaneous raids by French police Friday evening at locations 25 miles apart took out the Islamist brothers behind Wednesday’s massacre at a Paris satirical magazine, and a cop-killing crony who had seized hostages at a Paris grocery on their behalf, but also left at least four hostages dead, according to authorities and reports from the scene.

The lightning-quick strikes ended two tense, hours-long standoffs, one at a printing plant north of the city and the other at a kosher supermarket on Paris’ east side, where four hostages were killed and as many as four more were injured. A hostage held north of the city by the brothers, who killed 12 in a commando-style attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, was reportedly freed. The fast-moving developments, signaled by explosions and gunfire at a printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goele, followed by similar sounds at Hypercacher (Hyper Kosher), a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris, brought to a climax a three-day terror ordeal and manhunt involving nearly 90,000 police and military personnel.

“France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty — and thus of resistance — breathed freely. – French President Francois Hollande

Cherif and Said Kouachi, the radicalized French-born slackers whose attack on Charlie Hebdo left two police officers among the dozen dead, were both killed in the first raid. The brothers, 32 and 34, respectively, are believed to have ties to Al Qaeda in Yemen, and military experts who viewed footage of their bloody, late-morning raid on Wednesday said they appeared to be well-trained terrorists. Charlie Hebdo had long angered Muslim radicals with its penchant for publishing cartoon images of Prophet Muhammed.

In Paris, police said Amedy Coulibaly, who is believed to have know the brothers and was suspected of killing Paris Police Officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe Thursday, as she attended to a routine traffic accident in the city, was killed in a raid moments later, ending his supermarket siege. Police had identified him and his longtime girlfriend, Hayat Boumeddiene, as suspects in the police killing, but her whereabouts were not immediately known.

Coulibaly, 33, and Cherif Kouachi were committed followers of convicted terror kingpin Djamel Beghal, according to Le Monde.

Earlier Friday, a French security official told the AP that shots were fired as the brothers stole a car in the town of Montagny Sainte Felicite in the early morning hours. French officials told Fox News that the suspects threw the car’s driver out at the side of the road. The driver, who recognized the suspects, then called police and alerted them to the suspects’ whereabouts.

On Thursday, U.S. government sources confirmed that Said Kouachi had traveled to Yemen in 2011 and had direct contact with an Al Qaeda training camp. The other brother, Cherif, had been convicted in France of terrorism charges in 2008 for trying to join up with fighters battling in Iraq. The sources also confirmed that both brothers, who had been orphaned as youngsters and spent years committing petty crimes and doing menial jobs, were on a U.S. no-fly list.

Fox News was told the investigators have made it a priority to determine whether he had contact with Al Qaeda in Yemen’s leadership, including a bomb maker and a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.

French President Francois Hollande called for tolerance after the country’s worst terrorist attack since 1961, in the middle of the conflict over Algerian independence from France.

“France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty — and thus of resistance — breathed freely,” Hollande said.

Charlie Hebdo had long drawn threats for its depictions of Islam, although it also satirized other religions and political figures. The weekly paper had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, and a sketch of Islamic State’s leader was the last tweet sent out by the irreverent newspaper, minutes before the attack. Nothing has been tweeted since.

Eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor were killed in the attack.

Charlie Hebdo planned a special edition next week, produced in the offices of another paper. Editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb, who was among those slain, “symbolized secularism … the combat against fundamentalism,” his companion, Jeannette Bougrab, said on BFM-TV.

“He was ready to die for his ideas,” she said.

Authorities around Europe have warned of the threat posed by the return of Western jihadis trained in warfare. France counts at least 1,200 citizens in the war zone in Syria — headed there, returned or dead. Both the Islamic State group and Al Qaeda have threatened France — home to Western Europe’s largest Muslim population.

The French suspect in a deadly 2014 attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium had returned from fighting with extremists in Syria; and the man who rampaged in southern France in 2012, killing three soldiers and four people at a Jewish school, received paramilitary training in Pakistan.

Fox News’ Greg Palkot, Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Black-clad gunmen shouting “Allahu Akbar!” stormed the Paris offices of a satirical publication known for lampooning Islam Wednesday, killing 12 and injuring as many as 15 before escaping, French officials said.

As many as three Kalashnikov-toting shooters were being sought following the 11:30 a.m. attack at Charlie Hebdo, the publication known for challenging Muslim terrorists with a 2011 caricature of Prophet Muhammed on its cover and which recently tweeted a cartoon of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Two policemen and several journalists – including the cartoonist behind the weekly publication’s provocative images, were among the dead.

“We’ve avenged the honor of the prophet!” the killers shouted, according to witnesses who spoke to Sky News. Other witnesses said the men shouted “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.” The gunmen spoke French without any accent, according to Le Monde.

“We’ve avenged the honor of the prophet!” – Gunmen who stormed Paris satirical newspaper

As the killers fled, they shot at arriving policemen. Video, believed to be cellphone footage, quickly emerged of the men getting out of a car and shooting a prone police officer in the head in cold blood as he begged for his life on the sidewalk, then getting back in and fleeing.

French President Francois Hollande branded the attack an act of terrorism and claimed that several other potential terror attacks had been thwarted “in recent weeks.” Hollande added that the publication had been threatened in the past and was already under police protection and surveillance.

“This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt about it,” Hollande told reporters.

Officials said the men walked into the ground floor of the publication’s offices and began shooting before making their way up to the first floor. Cartoonist Corine Rey, aka “Coco,” told the weekly Humanité that she let the men inside the building of Charlie Hebdo after being ordered at gunpoint.

“They spoke perfect French,” said Rey, who said the rampage lased about five minutes. “They said they were Al Qaeda.”

Witnesses said the attack was carried out with military precision, with the gunmen demanding the names of those they encountered, indicating that they had specific targets in mind.

“It was a real butchery,” Rocco Contento, a spokesman for the Unité police union, told The Guardian.

Benoit Bringer, a journalist from the agency Premieres Lignes Tele, whose offices are next door, told the Telegraph he took refuge on the building’s roof.

“Three policemen arrived by push bike, but they left naturally as the attackers were armed,” he said.

The publication’s offices are in the trendy 11th arrondissement of Paris, which includes posh restaurants and retail shops. It is one of the most densely populated districts in all of Europe and is home to a large, mostly Algerian, Muslim community. Schools in the area were closed and newspaper offices, shopping centers, museums and stations were placed under police protection.

Charlie Hebdo first gained notoriety in 2006, when it reprinted a dozen cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that appeared in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, in defiance of Islam’s forbidding of any image attempting to portray its most important prophet. Its offices were firebombed in 2011 after a spoof issue featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on its cover. Nearly a year later, the magazine published crude Muhammad caricatures, drawing denunciations around the Muslim world. One of the dead in Wednesday’s attack was satirical cartoonist Stephane Charbonnier, the publication’s editorial director and the artist behind the caricatures that offended jihadists. He was the subject of a fatwah, and there is a Facebook page called “Execute Stephane Charbonnier.”

Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor,told The Associated Press another cartoonist known by the pen name Cabu was killed. A police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said one of the two police officers killed was one assigned as Charbonnier’s bodyguard after prior death threats against him.

Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has faced death threats after several newspapers published his images of Muhammad, recently presented Charlie Hebdo with his “Gold Dog” prize, said the attack, in spite of security for Charlie Hebdo staffers, shows it is “impossible to guard [them] when it comes to attackers armed to the teeth.”

“The publication [of the Muhammed cartoons] happened a few years back in time and one could imagine that it would have been forgotten, but it is not,” he told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. “There are obviously people who take their time and wait for the right moment.”

President Obama condemned the attack and vowed to help France bring the killers to justice.

“France is America’s oldest ally, and has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the fight against terrorists who threaten our shared security and the world,” Obama said in a statement. “Time and again, the French people have stood up for the universal values that generations of our people have defended. France, and the great city of Paris where this outrageous attack took place, offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful vision of these killers.  We are in touch with French officials and I have directed my Administration to provide any assistance needed to help bring these terrorists to justice.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron also condemned the attack and vowed solidarity with France.

“The murders in Paris are sickening,” Cameron said. “We stand with the French people in the fight against terror and defending the freedom of the press.”

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cops across the country are mad. Mad as hell. Mad because some of America’s leaders have reinforced for months the dreadful lie that black people in America should fear the police. That cops are dangerous. That cops are racists.

Cops are mad because for all the sympathy shown for the lives of recent victims of police conduct — tragic and exceptional as they are — none was shown for the men and women who go to work each day to protect us from bad and often dangerous people.

None, that is, until two New York City cops were murdered in Brooklyn four days before Christmas. Until then, there was not a word of understanding for the tough situations cops respond to every day. Not a word about the risks they take with their lives, particularly those who work on the streets of our most dangerous neighborhoods.

“This is personal to me,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told the nation after the Eric Garner grand-jury decision was announced. De Blasio went on to describe the fears he and his wife, Chirlane, have for their biracial son’s safety: “So, I’ve had to worry over the years, Chirlane’s had to worry: Was Dante safe each night? There’s so many families in this city who feel that each and every night. Is my child safe? And not just from some of the painful realities of crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods, but are they safe from the very people they want to have faith in, as their protectors? That’s the reality.”

That’s why cops are mad. Because the narrative being pushed by Mayor de Blasio, Attorney General Holder, President Obama, and many civil-rights leaders is personal. Very personal. And the narrative is awful, because it’s incomplete — and untrue. Cops are essentially thrown into the same category as street thugs and gang members. As if cops were killing young black men at anywhere near the rate that young black men are killing each other in America’s biggest cities.

And three of these men — de Blasio, Holder, and Obama — lead the two biggest police forces in America: the NYPD and the FBI.

New York cops are mad at Mayor de Blasio in particular because he failed to mention that 2013 ended with the lowest number of fatal shootings by the police in 40 years in their city. Only eight people died from police gunfire, with a police force of over 30,000. And all of the victims were armed with either a gun or a cutting instrument. But none of those leaders bothered to report these narrative-busting facts — nor did the media.

And no one bothered to mention that New York City is on track in 2014 to have the fewest murders in 50 years. As of the beginning of December, there had been 290. That’s down from 2,200 in the early 1990s. The majority of lives saved were black, because the overwhelming majority of murder victims in the city are black. Do the math. Tens of thousands of black lives have been saved in the past two decades by cops in New York, but Mayor de Blasio couldn’t manage to share that fact in his heartfelt speech.

Mayor de Blasio, Attorney General Holder, and President Obama could have noted that in 2013 there were 6,261 black murder victims in the United States. Almost all were killed by black civilians, and not a single one of those deaths triggered mass-media hysteria or mass protests.

“Why are you killing us?” a protester recently asked Sergeant Harry Dilworth, a black cop from Ferguson, Mo. Dilworth told a New York Times reporter that he responded by naming three names, and asked the protester if he had heard of any of them. The protester hadn’t. Dilworth told him they were black men recently killed in St. Louis by other black men. “We’re not killing you; you’re killing yourselves,” Dilworth told the man.

Indeed, the worst kind of racism is the kind the media exhibit every day, because they seem to care about dead black people only when they are killed by white people. Or a “white Hispanic,” in the case of Trayvon Martin.

When white people get killed in a movie theater or a school by other white people, the media cover it, ad nauseam. But on the streets of our nation’s inner cities it’s Columbine every week — and the media yawn. And white America yawns, too. That’s a disgrace.

In 2013, 97 percent of all shooting victims in New York City were black or Hispanic and resided in low-income neighborhoods, and the shooters were almost exclusively black or Hispanic, according to NYPD statistics. That, our nation’s law-enforcement leaders could have explained, is why cops are involved in more altercations with minorities than with whites. That’s what gives the appearance of systemic racism.

The numbers are tragic, and they merit a big national dialogue about race and poverty — including a discussion of everything from the legacy of slavery and segregation, to our failing public schools and the 21st-century economy that is leaving poorly trained Americans further and further behind, to prison reform, with a focus on the groundbreaking work happening in red states like Texas and Georgia.

And, last, the elephant in the room: fatherlessness, which does more harm to minorities than perhaps all other social ills combined, and is an ever-growing social problem in white America too.

That’s why cops are mad. Because they are being blamed for problems they didn’t cause, and because not one of those leaders tried to exhibit any sympathy for cops. Given their empathetic powers — de Blasio nearly cried in his presser, and Obama conjured up an imaginary son in his talk with People magazine and then imagined the indignities that son would have experienced if he had actually existed — you would think that one of these men could have mustered a bit of emotion for cops and their families.

They could have asked us to imagine what it would be like to be the spouse of a cop working in New York City, or Detroit, or Los Angeles. Or some of the tough crime areas in white rural America.

What’s it like for the spouses and children of cops to watch their loved ones head off to work in dangerous neighborhoods, a gun in their holster and a bulletproof vest around their chest?

Most Americans have no idea what it’s like to be a cop — what cops worry about, what their families worry about. How easily a simple disturbance can get out of hand. How dangerous a domestic-violence case can turn. How tragically even a routine traffic stop can end.

What every cop I know tells me is this: What they worry about most is doing no harm to innocent people and getting home safe each night, and getting their partners home safe, too. And what they tell me over and over is this: What throws everything upside down is when the person being questioned or stopped doesn’t comply with the instructions of police — or, worse, when he or she resists — that’s when bad things happen. It doesn’t matter what the infraction is. When a citizen resists arrest, it is a danger signal. That’s when everything can head south.

And here’s something else that any of our leaders could have explained to the nation: Grand juries don’t often indict cops because cops are different. Citizens put cops in harm’s way, and when cops make mistakes or exercise bad judgment, we can’t criminalize those errors, any more than we can criminalize the bad decision of doctors. That’s what civil proceedings are for, and big monetary jury verdicts. Or there would be no cops. And no doctors.

When really bad cops — think of Abner Louima’s brutal treatment by sadistic cops in New York in 1997 — are dragged before grand juries, not only are they indicted, they are prosecuted and thrown in jail. And the folks happiest about it are cops.

That’s what any one of our leaders could have told the nation.

They could then have turned to the media and asked why it is that over 50 percent of Americans think crime rates have risen when in fact they have plummeted to historic lows. We know the answer, the leaders could have added: You people in the media hate good news. And you secretly liked seeing those flames in Ferguson, and were hoping for some in New York and other American cities, too, because it would have made for great ratings.

After saying all that, any one of them could have ended his press conference with a simple challenge: Ask Americans to spend a week with cops. Do ride-alongs in the toughest streets in town. Walk a mile in their shoes. You’ll learn that cops may not be who you think they are. You’ll probably come to respect them, and like them. A substantive outreach like that might go a long way toward healing a city.

Black people’s lives matter, a speech by any of those men could have ended. But cops’ lives matter, too.

Read more at the National Review.

N. Korea blames US for internet shutdown, hurls racist comment toward Obama–

North Korea called President Barack Obama “a monkey” and blamed the U.S. on Saturday for shutting down its Internet amid the hacking row over the comedy “The Interview.”

North Korea has denied involvement in a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures but has expressed fury over the comedy depicting an assassination of its leader Kim Jong Un. Sony Pictures initially called off the release citing threats of terror attacks against U.S. movie theaters. Obama criticized Sony’s decision, and the movie has opened this week.

On Saturday, the North’s powerful National Defense Commission, the country’s top governing body led by Kim, said that Obama was behind the release of “The Interview.” It described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.

“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” an unidentified spokesman at the commission’s Policy Department said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It wasn’t the first time North Korea has used crude insults against Obama and other top U.S. and South Korean officials. Earlier this year, the North called U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a wolf with a “hideous” lantern jaw and South Korean President Park Geun-hye a prostitute. In May, the North’s news agency published a dispatch saying Obama has the “shape of a monkey.”

The defense commission also accused Washington for intermittent outages of North Korea websites this week, which happened after the U.S. had promised to respond to the Sony hack. The U.S. government has declined to say if it was behind the shutdown.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Saturday.

According to the North Korean commission’s spokesman, “the U.S., a big country, started disturbing the Internet operation of major media of the DPRK, not knowing shame like children playing a tag.” DPRK refers to the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The commission said the movie was the results of a hostile U.S. policy toward North Korea, and threatened the U.S. with unspecified consequences.

North Korea and the U.S. remain technically in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The rivals also are locked in an international standoff over the North’s nuclear and missile programs and its alleged human rights abuses. The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea as deterrence against North Korean aggression.

By Associated Press

The Obama administration can expect a knock-down battle with the next Congress over its announced $3 billion contribution to the United Nations-affiliated Green Climate Fund, a centerpiece of talks over a new treaty on greenhouse gas emissions held in Lima, Peru, last week.

“If they think they are going to get all that money for the fund, they’re mistaken,” a senior aide to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., told Fox News. “You’re going to see us being more aggressive about not sending more money to the U.N. and elsewhere for climate change.”

Inhofe is the incoming chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee in the Republican-controlled Senate that will be take office in January, and a vocal skeptic about the administration’s drastic climate policies.

He is not a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee that actually decides how U.S. taxpayer money is doled out. But aides point out that climate skepticism shared with other Republicans, and a hoped-for end to the cliff-hanger process of  funding the government through catch-all legislation like the $1.1 trillion “Cromnibus” bill that passed late Saturday,  give a real edge to the climate fund threat.

Skepticism about climate change funding, the aide indicated, would be a “top priority” of Inhofe.

Failure to honor the Green Climate Fund commitment would deal a huge blow to the aggressive climate strategy of an administration that has already announced that it will double down on its own cuts to carbon emissions by 2025, with 26 percent to 28 percent reductions beyond what it has already achieved.

“If they think they are going to get all that money for the fund, they’re mistaken.” – Senior aide to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

Blocking the money also would give a possibly mortal wound  to the increasingly Rube Goldberg business of organizing a global climate deal in the face of economic austerity, resistance from rising industrial powers such as India, and virtually no evidence that global temperatures have risen in the past two decades.

The Lima climate session that closed Sunday was already teetering on the edge of failure due to tensions between developing nations that want both drastic carbon cuts from developed nations and mountains of cash to pay for green projects on their own territory.

In the end, organizers hailed the nebulous outcome, built on as-yet unrevealed “national commitments” to reduce carbon emissions, as a solid step toward creating a successor to the now defunct Kyoto Protocol. The intention is to make the final deal at a climate summit scheduled for Paris late in 2015.

One of the few quantifiable achievements at Lima, however, was the growing size — at least in terms of pledges — of the Climate Fund, or GCF. It topped $10 billion, including the U.S. contribution, about $1.5 billion from Japan, and a spate of smaller pledges by other Western nations.

The fund is intended to help finance green projects that cut carbon emissions in the developing world; developing countries expect it to grow to enable green investments worth more than $100 billion annually by 2020.

But that depends, among other things, on whether the Obama administration’s $3 billion check bounces — a question that will not be fully answered until early next year, after the White House submits a budget request for fiscal 2016. The Green Climate pledge money will be included in that request.

The administration got a foretaste of the likely resistance read in the Cromnibus bill itself. It contained a stopper to prevent money from the catch-all funding from being dedicated to the Green Fund, while acknowledging that the White House had not yet asked for the $3 billion it announced for the Fund in mid-November.

“The 2015 budget is not relevant for GCF funding,” a Fund spokesman told Fox News, “since we understand that the U.S. administration will first submit a budget request for the GCF as part of the 2016 budget.”

When that happens, the rules of the game for getting a congressional stamp of approval on GCF money are likely to have changed considerably.

While the Cromnibus bill wrapped up funding for 11 sections of the government into one massive piece of legislation, Inhofe’s senior aide said that the Republican Senate next year will return to a more regular order of business — allowing senators to “really get into the weeds at each agency” — and thus selectively cut and add funds through budget amendments.

“For the past eight years, Senate Majority Leader [Harry] Reid prevented lots of amendments from going forward, and limited members’ ability to engage in the process,” the Inhofe aide said.

That engagement, he implied, was likely to put a major chill on climate change funding.

By George Russell

Sony execs Obama emails: White liberal hypocrisy revealed in all its glory

White liberal hypocrisy on race is so delightful for conservatives.

White conservatives are always on defense against charges of hating President Obama because he is black; suppressing minority voters and indifference to the difficulty minorities have living everyday with the legacy of slavery and a culture filled with stereotypes of black inferiority.

This week white conservatives can take a break, step out of the dock and make way for white liberals.

I know from personal experience at National Public Radio that white liberals can be very intolerant if they suspect they are dealing with a black person who is not afraid from depart from liberal orthodoxy.

Hacked emails from Hollywood’s white, liberal elite show them belittling the president by assuming his taste in movies is confined to racial stereotypes fitting just another black guy.

“Should I ask him if he likes’ DJANGO?’” asked Amy Pascal, a Sony Pictures’ co-chair. Scott Rudin, a movie producer, responds: “Or ‘The Butler’… or ‘Ride-Along. ‘ I bet he likes Kevin Hart.”

Where to begin unpacking that powder keg of race and class bigotry?

Pascal is one of Hollywood’s most powerful people and certainly at the top of the movie industry’s list of most influential women. She must have a penetrating intellect and tremendous business savvy.

So how is it possible for her to think that a 53-year-old, Harvard trained constitutional lawyer who is now president of the United States, is to be solely defined by his race?

She assumes that he is sure to share the working-class, juvenile delight of Hart’s racial slapstick. And it does not make much sense in her racial construct but she also thinks the president must also be interested in movies about the weighty topics of slavery and the civil rights movement.

Pascal and Rudin, on their way to meet the president at a Democratic fundraiser, have no hesitation about painting Obama into this limited, one-dimensional personality. What they have revealed is how demeaning and patronizing their liberal minds can be even when the man is the leader of the nation.

Chris Rock, the comedian and actor, recently said Hollywood is a “white industry… it just is.” He added they don’t hire black men.

I imagine they do hire some black people. But those black people have to color inside the lines of what white liberals think is the right kind of black person. Black conservatives have no chance in that world.

Black intellectuals and even black left wingers have no chance either. But that is a different story. In the restrictive confines of the white liberal world they would be seen as threatening black people.

Pascal and Rudin have both apologized for the content of their private emails.  “The content of my e-mails to Scott were insensitive and inappropriate but are not an accurate reflection of who I am. Although this was a private communication that was stolen, I accept full responsibility for what I wrote and apologize to everyone who was offended.”

Rudin gave a statement to Deadline.com, explaining that his emails were “written in haste and without much thought or sensitivity,” he understood the notes were out of line. “I made a series of remarks that were meant only to be funny, but in the cold light of day, they are in fact thoughtless and insensitive,” he said.

I know from personal experience at National Public Radio that white liberals can be very intolerant if they suspect they are dealing with a black person who is not afraid from depart from liberal orthodoxy. In my case I was fired and afterwards described as a bigot in need of a psychiatric care.

In Pascal’s moment of crisis she is, even today, sticking to the game of racial boxes by taking calls from Al Sharpton as if he is the president of black America. Sharpton will no doubt end up with a contract in exchange for not staging phony demonstrations or challenging Sony on their lack of honesty about race.

Malcolm X, during his Nation of Islam radicalism, once said white conservatives are not friends to black people but “at least don’t try to hide it.” The separatist minded Malcolm X had even harsher words for white liberals. He judged them to be “more hypocritical than the conservative.” He accused white liberals of “perfecting the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor” while using black people as a “pawn or tool” in their political fight with white conservatives.

One word of caution is due as conservatives enjoy this moment of white liberal hypocrisy.

These emails were obtained as the result of a malicious act of cyber-criminality. The conversation was a private exchange and protected under all laws governing private communications.

The paltry benefit of skewering Sony executives should not obscure the danger of criminals gaining access to every e-mail you and I have sent or received and then posting it in the public domain for the entire nation to read. Confidential health information on Sony employees was also disclosed. Would you want all of your private, unfiltered communications with friends, family and co-workers plastered all over the web for people to make judgments about you?

So while the contents of the emails are a dazzling display of white liberal hypocrisy it should not distract anyone from the need for the nation to condemn this intrusion as criminal, unacceptable behavior and punished to the fullest extent of the law. Congress needs to move cyber-security to the top of their agenda next year.

But for the moment, let’s take a long look at white liberals revealing themselves so nakedly,  condescending to even the president of the United States because he’s black.

Juan Williams is a co-host of FNC’s “The Five,” where he is one of seven rotating Fox personalities. Additionally, he serves as FNC’s political analyst, a regular panelist on “Fox News Sunday” and “Special Report with Bret Baier” and is a regular substitute host for “The O’Reilly Factor.” He joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 1997 as a contributor. Click here for more information on Juan Williams.

Gunman who has up to 15 people hostage in Sydney cafe is a self-styled sheik from Iran who is on bail over the murder of his ex-wife, has been charged with multiple sexual assaults and sent hate-filled letters to families of dead soldiers

A suspected jihadist’s standoff inside a Sydney cafe entered its fifteenth hour with as many as 15 people still held inside, as police and news crews surround the shop watching the frightened hostages through the front window.

Television footage shot through the Lindt Chocolat Cafe’s windows showed several people with their arms in the air and hands pressed against the glass, and two people holding up a black flag associated with Islamic fanaticism. Australian broadcaster Network Ten reported that the unidentified gunman, seen wielding a shotgun and a machete, has forced hostages to call him “The Brother” and demanded to speak directly with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Sky News Australia reported that one of the hostages had contacted a radio broadcaster twice during the siege. Ray Hadley said he had spoken to a “remarkably calm” male hostage and that the hostage taker had demanded the hostage speak live on the radio, a demand Hadley refused.

“I told the hostage it would not be in his best interest or my best interest to allow that to happen because I’m not a trained negotiator, I don’t have any expertise in this, there are people who will talk to both the hostages and the person holding the hostages and they will be knowing what to do,” Hadley told 2GB Radio.

The drama began during the Monday morning rush hour and was heading into night time in Australia’s largest city. Five hostages escaped some six hours into the ordeal, running out a side door and into the arms of police, who have the shop surrounded as the transfixed nation watches live on television. The shop is in Sydney’s central business district in Martin Place, a plaza in the heart of the city’s financial and shopping district that is packed with holiday shoppers this time of year. Area shops were closed and people were ordered to stay out of the area.

A journalist on the scene tweeted that the unidentified terror suspect appeared to fly into a rage after the hostages escaped.

“The gunman could be seen from here getting extremely agitated, shouting at remaining hostages,’ tweeted journalist Chris Reason.

Reason described the gunman as unshaven, wearing a white shirt and a black cap, and holding what appeared to be a pump-action shotgun. The gunman could be seen pacing back and forth past the cafe’s four windows. Sky News said the gunman appears to be bearded, middle-aged and wearing a black and white headband. Sky cited reports that he is known to police and media outlets.

“Just two hours ago when we saw that rush of escapees, we could see from up here in this vantage point the gunman got extremely agitated as he realized those five had got out. He started screaming orders at the people, the hostages who remain behind,” Reason reported.

As night descended on Sydney, the lights inside the shop went off, but it was unclear if that was by the suspected jihadist’s choice or if the police made the cafe go dark as a negotiating tactic. Earlier, the gunman appeared to be rotating frightened hostages in front of the window, holding up the black Islamist flag “Shahada” flag, an emblem of Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda-linked terror group fighting – sometimes with, sometimes against – Islamic State in Syria.

The gunman was reportedly relaying threats and demands through two hostages, and claimed to have planted two bombs inside the cafe and two others elsewhere in Sydney’s central business district. New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione told reporters Monday evening that authorities were concentrating their efforts solely on the cafe and were not concerned with any other location

Late Monday, Abbott released a pre-recorded statement calling the attack “very disturbing” and “profoundly shocking.” His office has not responded to the gunman’s demands.

Three men were seen running from a fire exit of the cafe approximately six hours after the hostage situation began at 9:45 a.m. local time. Moments later, two women believed to be employees, followed suit. It was not immediately clear how the hostages escaped.

New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner for Specialist Operations Catherine Burn said negotiators had made contact with the unidentified gunman and believe he is the lone suspect inside the cafe. Burn also said that fewer than 30 people were held inside the cafe, though she did not give an exact number. Local reports put the number at between 10 and 15, and witnesses said they do not believe any children are inside.

“We do not have any information that suggests that anybody is harmed at this stage,” she said.

The U.S. Consulate, located just south of the cafe, was also evacuated and a warning issued urging Americans in Sydney to “maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security.” A White House official told Fox News that President Obama had been briefed on the situation.

Lindt Australia posted a message on its Facebook page thanking the public for its support.

“We are deeply concerned over this serious incident and our thoughts and prayers are with the staff and customers involved and all their friends and families,” the company wrote.

The government raised Australia’s terror warning level in September in response to the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group. Counterterror law enforcement teams later conducted dozens of raids and made several arrests in Australia’s three largest cities — Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. One man arrested during a series of raids in Sydney was charged with conspiring with an Islamic State leader in Syria to behead a random person in downtown Sydney.

The Islamic State group, which now holds a third of Syria and Iraq, has threatened Australia in the past. In September, Islamic State group spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani issued an audio message urging so-called “lone wolf” attacks abroad, specifically mentioning Australia. Al-Adnani told Muslims to kill all “disbelievers,” whether they be civilians or soldiers.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press

The House narrowly approved a sweeping spending bill Thursday night despite deep misgivings among liberals and conservatives alike, sending the measure to the Senate as lawmakers averted a partial government shutdown.

The bill passed on a 219-206 vote, following an intense lobbying effort by House Republican leaders and the White House.

Current government funding technically runs out at midnight Thursday, but lawmakers late Thursday approved a stopgap measure to keep the government running through midnight Saturday as the Senate considers the main $1.1 trillion spending package. That debate could last through the weekend and potentially into Monday.

“We will not have a government shutdown,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., pledged.

Passage in the House followed hours of urgent appeals from an unlikely alliance: President Obama and House GOP leadership.

Obama and Vice President Biden worked the phones to sway Democratic lawmakers. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough also met on the Hill with the Democratic caucus. Despite sources inside the meeting initially saying he did little to persuade lawmakers, a rift emerged in the Democratic leadership late Thursday. As House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi continued to oppose the bill, her deputy, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., urged passage.

Meanwhile, House GOP leaders did what they could to sway conservative members who, for different reasons, were opposed to the package.

In the end, 67 Republicans defected, but 57 Democrats voted for it.

Many conservatives opposed the bill because it does not attack Obama’s immigration executive actions, while liberal Democrats were angry over provisions dealing with campaign spending and financial regulation.

The debate saw Pelosi flexing her clout, recognizing that House Speaker John Boehner needed Democrats to pass the bill.

She pushed back not only against GOP leaders but Obama’s lobbying effort.

In a rare public rebuke of the president,  Pelosi said she was “enormously disappointed” he had decided to embrace the bill, which she described as an attempt at legislative blackmail by House Republicans.

Pelosi, D-Calif., sent an email note to colleagues in the afternoon saying they had “leverage” to make demands — namely, to remove two provisions her party doesn’t like. They are: a provision rolling back one of the regulations imposed on the financial industry in the wake of the economic collapse of 2008, and one that permits wealthy contributors to increase the size of their donations to political parties for national conventions, election recounts or the construction of a headquarters building.

Right before the vote, according to a source in the room, Pelosi told lawmakers: “We have enough votes to show them never to do this again.”

But perhaps an overriding desire on both sides not to risk another government shutdown prevailed.

The current plan would fund the government through September 2015, but immigration services only through late February, teeing up a battle over immigration for early 2015.

Earlier in the day, the bill narrowly cleared an important procedural hurdle, on a 214-212 test vote. But the tight vote, which almost failed, exposed serious problems. GOP leaders then delayed a final vote and spent hours trying to round up support, as the White House did the same with Democrats.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said earlier that Obama supports the bill and would sign it — despite having reservations about certain provisions.Hoyer ultimately took a similar position.

The bill’s fate in the Senate remains unclear.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., now a member of leadership, has fought the bill in an effort to preserve the financial regulatory policy known as Dodd-Frank. Debate in the Senate on the main spending bill could easily last several more days.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and Ed Henry and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Few American voters feel their family is better off under ObamaCare, and a record number would repeal the law if they could.

In addition, if comments by one of the health care law’s authors about lying to “stupid” Americans are true, over half of voters think President Obama or other administration officials are responsible for that deception.

These are just some of the findings from a Fox News poll released Wednesday.

Click here for the poll results.

Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who helped develop the health care law, has said several times that a lack of transparency and the stupidity of American voters were critical to getting the law passed.

The new poll finds 56 percent of voters are at least somewhat bothered by Gruber’s comments.

Gruber apologized for his “insensitive” comments during testimony before a House oversight committee hearing Tuesday. One night of the poll’s interviewing was conducted after he testified.

If Americans were lied to about the law, people are most likely to think President Obama (37 percent) or his administration (16 percent) is responsible for that. Another 32 percent blame Congress and 15 percent are unsure.

By a narrow 49-43 percent margin, voters think Gruber’s comments prove the administration intentionally lied about the law. That includes 26 percent of Democrats. Twice as many independents (54 percent) and nearly three times as many Republicans (72 percent) believe Gruber’s comments prove the White House lied.

Insurance plans under the new health care law took effect January 1, 2014. So far, 14 percent say their family is better off under ObamaCare, up from 9 percent in February.

Twice as many people say their family is worse off (28 percent), yet the pain may be all in their head. Consider this: 47 percent of Republicans say their family is worse off compared to just 9 percent of Democrats. And 62 percent of those who are part of the Tea Party movement say their family is worse off under ObamaCare.

Democrats are more than six times as likely as Republicans to say they are better off under ObamaCare (26 percent vs. 4 percent).

Over half — 57 percent — say the health care law hasn’t made much of a difference to their family. That’s down from 65 percent who said the same in February.

The poll includes a hypothetical vote question that asks people to choose between only two options: keeping ObamaCare in place and repealing it. A 58-percent majority would vote to repeal the law, while 38 percent would keep it. That’s up from 53 percent a year ago — and a record high number backing repeal (and a record low number in favor of leaving it in place).

The results follow predictable partisan lines: 67 percent of Democrats would vote to keep the law, while 88 percent of Republicans would repeal it.

Similarly, 60 percent wish President Obama had spent more time on the economy during his first years in office instead of reforming health care versus 37 percent who don’t feel that way. Those sentiments are unchanged since the question was first asked in July 2012.

Thirty-eight percent of voters approve of the job Obama is doing handling health care. That’s two points above the record low 36 percent approval he received last November.

What do voters want Obama to work on right now? The economy is the top priority at 38 percent, followed by ISIS at 21 percent. Next on the list is health care at 12 percent, immigration at 10 percent and race relations follows at 9 percent.

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,043 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from December 7-9, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

By Dana Blanton

Economist Jonathan Gruber apologized profusely before a House committee on Tuesday for his controversial comments boasting about how ObamaCare’s authors took advantage of the “stupidity of the American voter,” admitting his remarks were “mean and insulting.”

Gruber, himself a well-paid consultant during the drafting of the law, was hammered by Republicans on the House oversight committee at his first appearance on Capitol Hill since videos of his remarks surfaced. Lawmakers also grilled Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, for allegedly inflating enrollment numbers.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Gruber: “You made a series of troubling statements that were not only an insult to the American people, but revealed a pattern of intentional misleading [of] the public about the true impact and nature of ObamaCare.”

Gruber delivered a mea culpa of sorts in his opening remarks, while trying to take some of them back. After once saying a lack of transparency helped the law pass, Gruber said Tuesday he does not think it was passed in a “non-transparent fashion.”

He also expressed regret for what he called “glib, thoughtless and sometimes downright insulting comments.”

“I sincerely apologize for conjecturing with a tone of expertise and for doing so in such a disparaging fashion,” Gruber said. “I knew better. I know better. I’m embarrassed and I’m sorry.”

He said he “behaved badly” but stressed that “my own inexcusable arrogance is not a flaw in the Affordable Care Act.”

Gruber’s appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Tuesday marked one of Issa’s last, high-profile shots at the health care law before he hands over his chairmanship next year. Issa, R-Calif. — who has led the committee through controversial probes of the Benghazi attacks, the IRS scandal and more — led the questioning of Gruber, an MIT economist.

The videos of Gruber’s remarks have renewed Republican concerns over the health care law, and the way in which it was drafted and passed. Lawmakers also have obtained videos that show Gruber saying the act was written in a “very tortured way.”

Issa also slammed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for allegedly inflating their enrollment numbers. The agency initially claimed enrollment of 7.3 million, but later revised that down to 6.7 million. Issa suggested this was an attempt to “doctor the books.”

Like many congressional hearings, Tuesday’s session may provide partisan fireworks without much movement toward changing the law. The president says he will veto any effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act, should such a bill reach his desk after Republicans add Senate control to their House majority next year.

Gruber has worked as a health care adviser in several states, including to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The federal government paid Gruber nearly $400,000 for his work.

Also testifying Tuesday was Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In an effort to distance Tavenner from Gruber’s remarks, the administration asked Issa to put her on a different witness panel. They appeared on the same panel on Tuesday.

The hearing comes as prominent Democrats debate the wisdom of devoting much of 2009 — Barack Obama’s first year as president — to the bruising battle for the health care legislation, which finally passed without a single Republican vote. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is among those Democrats now criticizing the timing. Top liberals are defending Obama, creating new divisions among Democrats right after major losses in this year’s elections.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press

U.S. diplomatic and military posts overseas are being put on alert over the potential backlash from a looming Senate report examining the alleged use of torture by the CIA, with one top lawmaker warning its release could cause “violence and deaths.”

An official from the State Department and another from the intelligence community confirmed to Fox News early Monday that an advisory has been sent urging U.S. personnel overseas to reassess security measures.

The message directs all overseas posts, including those used by CIA personnel, to “review their security posture” for a “range of reactions that might occur.” A similar statement is being sent to military combatant commands to assess their readiness.

In Washington, tensions grew over the expected release of the report, with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., saying America’s allies are predicting “this will cause violence and deaths.” He said U.S. intelligence agencies and foreign governments have said privately that the release of the Senate intelligence panel report on CIA interrogations a decade ago will be used by extremists to incite violence that is likely to cost lives.

“I think this is a terrible idea,” Rogers said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Foreign leaders have approached the government and said, ‘You do this, this will cause violence and deaths.’ Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and deaths.”

Rogers is regularly briefed on intelligence assessments. He questioned why the report needed to become public, given that the Justice Department investigated and filed no criminal charges.

The comments by Rogers came after Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday urged Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the senator in charge of the report on CIA interrogations, to reconsider the timing of the release. Obama administration officials said they still support making the report public.

In addition, a U.S. intelligence official, who was not authorized to be quoted discussing classified intelligence assessments, told the Associated Press that Congress had been warned “of the heightened potential that the release could stimulate a violent response.”

The 480-page report, a summary of a still-classified 6,000 page study, is expected to be made public this week. It amounts to the first public accounting of the CIA’s alleged use of torture on suspected Al Qaeda detainees held in secret facilities in Europe and Asia in the years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

CBS News reported Sunday that the report contains evidence that the CIA went beyond what was “legally allowable,” and that the agency lied to the White House, the Department of Justice and Congress about the effectiveness of the program.

The CIA told Fox News it would not comment until the report is released, but former agency officials have told Fox News that the agency’s program provided it with foundational intelligence about the Al Qaeda network after the Sept. 11 attacks. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden has previously told Fox News that it is not feasible to believe that three different CIA directors and three different deputy directors of the agency conspired over a seven-year period to lie about the program’s effectiveness. Hayden and former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo also have claimed that the program provided evidence that helped direct the 2011 raid that killed Al Qaeda Usama bin Laden.

U.S. officials who have read the report say it includes disturbing new details about the CIA’s use of such techniques as sleep deprivation, confinement in small spaces, humiliation and the simulated drowning process known as waterboarding.

President Obama has previously acknowledged, “We tortured some folks.” The report also says the alleged torture failed to produce life-saving intelligence, a conclusion disputed by current and former intelligence officials, including CIA director John Brennan.

A congressional aide noted to the Associated Press that the White House has led negotiations to declassify the report since April, and that both the president and his director of national intelligence have endorsed its release.

Feinstein has not responded to reports of the Kerry call, though she told the Los Angeles Times in a story published Sunday that “We have to get this report out.”

She told the Los Angeles Times that the harsh interrogations undermined “societal and constitutional values that we are very proud of. Anybody who reads this is going to never let this happen again.”

Fox News’ Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The defeat Saturday of Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu was essentially the final act in the Republican Party’s control this fall of the South — a transition expected to have a significant impact on the 2016 White House races.

The victory by Republican challenger and Louisiana Rep. Bill Cassidy means that Democrats in January will be left without a single U.S. senator or governor across nine states — stretching from the Carolinas to Texas.

And GOP runoff victories Saturday in two Louisiana House districts ensure the party of at least 246 seats, the largest Republican advantage since the Truman administration after World War II.

Furthermore, Republicans in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas will control nearly every majority-white congressional district and both state legislative chambers.

But will the conservative-leaning voters who appeared this year to have written a closing chapter for the white Southern Democrat have the same impact on the 2016 presidential races?

“The Republican presidential nomination will run through the South,” says Ferrell Guillory, a Southern politics expert based at the University of North Carolina. “As Mitt Romney found (in 2012), that…makes it harder to build a national coalition once you are the nominee.”

Democrats on Sunday argued that the GOP’s control of the South is not an insurmountable problem for Hillary Clinton, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or any other liberal member of their party who makes a 2016 presidential run.

“Right now, there are really two electorates — the midterm and the presidential. It’s a different math,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael Czin told FoxNews.com, pointing out that voter-turnout within his party is expected to be significantly higher in 2016.

Democratic strategist and pollster Ben Tulchin said the 2008 and 2012 elections prove that “Democrats don’t need the Deep South to win.”

In 1976, former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter became one of the last true Southern Democrats to win the White House. He won every Southern state except Oklahoma and Virginia. In 1992 and 1996, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, considered a more conservative Democrat, won only a handful of Southern states in winning the presidency.

Tulchin also argued a moderate Republican will likely have more problems in 2016 in the Deep South than a liberal Democrat, considering the early South Carolina primary, followed by those in other states across the region, could hurt somebody like New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie.

“His best hope there is the conservative candidates split that vote,” said Tulchin, president of San Francisco-based Tulchin Research.

The region also is home to GOP Sens. Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Kentucky’s Rand Paul, both Tea Party favorites and popular presidential hopefuls.

Other Democrats argue that an election without Obama and his widely unpopular agenda in that region also improves their chances.

“The No. 1 thing to be competitive in the South is to have Barack Obama not be president anymore,” North Carolina pollster Tom Jensen, who runs the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, told Politico. “It’s just a simple reality that Southern whites really, really despise him in a way they have not despised any other president.”

Democrats also argue that changing demographics, such as the growing minority populations in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, will help.

Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere rejects the notion that Southerners could complicate Republican electoral fortunes in the long-term.

“Whether it was the old Southern Democrats or Republicans now, we’ve pushed the liberal wings of the parties for a long time,” he said. “I think it’s good for the party and for the country.”

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

$25,000 for a Christmas party.

$11,000 for premium coffee services.

Millions more for questionable construction costs.

All this was billed to taxpayers by an obscure federally funded science group, according to a scathing new inspector general report.

The audit, conducted by the National Science Foundation inspector general and the Defense Contract Audit Agency, detailed spending by the Colorado-based National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The nonprofit, designed to operate a network of ecological observatories across the continent, is solely funded by the National Science Foundation.

The report found that spending at the group has gotten out of control.

“Given the present lack of controls, there is virtually no accountability over the contingency funds … NSF does not have sufficient safeguards over the significant and unsupported contingency costs included in NEON’s award budget,” the report said.

The report, and the spending, was the subject of a House science committee hearing Wednesday morning.

Among the spending was a slew of items billed to the National Science Foundation between mid-September 2012 and mid-April 2013, under a so-called “management fee.” They included the lavish Christmas party, the coffee services, $3,000 for alcohol-fueled Board of Directors dinners, $3,000 for T-shirts and more. It also included $112,000 for lobbying, according to the report. According to a whistle-blower document, the Christmas and holiday party costs included more than $12,000 for expenses at a Westin.

“Why did NSF allow this to happen?” Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said Wednesday at the hearing. “The NSF needs to be held accountable for how they spend taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.”

Though it wasn’t in the IG report, Smith also alleged trips to a “high-end resort in France.”

Asked for comment, an NSF spokeswoman said the agency has initiated a review of “management fee policies and controls.”

“Consistent with government-wide regulations that govern audit resolution, NSF has policies and procedures for resolving and following up on and recommendations contained in audit reports issued by the Office of the Inspector General,” the spokeswoman said, adding the agency will post its final decision online.

NEON Board Chairman James Collins also defended the organization. “NEON, Inc. has always spent all funding in strict compliance with our understanding both of the guidelines provided to the organization and the law,” he said in a statement.

The audit stemmed from concerns dating back to 2012 over a NEON construction budget, where more than $150 million in costs were questioned.

This is not the first time the NSF has come under scrutiny for its spending.

In 2011, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., released a report on wasteful spending at the NSF, identifying more than $1.2 billion in losses from waste, fraud, duplication and mismanagement.

This included an $80,000 study on why the same teams always dominate March Madness; $1 million for an analysis of how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names; $2 million to figure out that people who often post pictures on the Internet from the same location at the same time are usually friends; and $581,000 on whether online dating site users are racist.

Doug McKelway and Judson Berger contributed to this report.