Meet Ben Carson: First Republican to Throw His Hat in 2016 Ring

Yes, the 2016 race for the White House has already gotten started — and it looks like Dr. Ben Carson is first in the ring.

Carson, a famous pediatric neurosurgeon and conservative political star, will air a nearly 40 minute-long ad introducing himself to the American people this weekend, an aide to Carson confirms to ABC News.

The documentary titled “A Breath of Fresh Air: A New Prescription for America” will air in 22 states and Washington, DC. The paid video will detail some of his biography and family life, including his rise from being born to a single mother with a poor childhood in Detroit to director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins for almost 40 years, known for his work separating conjoined twins, to potential 2016 presidential candidate.

Carson first became a conservative star when last year he created a buzz at the National Prayer Breakfast when in front of an audience that included President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden spoke out about political correctness, health care and taxes.

He also called for a private health care savings plan and a flat tax in a speech that went viral and led to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal titled Ben Carson for President. He is known as a fierce opponent of the president’s health care law known as Obamacare.

In an ABC News/Washington Post poll from last month of the potential 2016 presidential candidates showed Carson in seventh place garnering seven percent of the vote after other notables including Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio.

Carson has a grassroots effort to draft him for a 2016 presidential run that has raised millions for the effort. In an interview last month with Jorge Ramos on our sister network, Fusion he said he’s considering a White House run.

“No, I don’t want to be president. Why would any sane person want to do that?” Carson said, acknowledging he has noticed the support. “I think I have to consider that, with so many clamoring for me to do it.”

The Washington Times first reported the news of Carson’s video. A production company run by Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, is paying for the airtime. They also filmed the documentary. Williams is Carson’s business manager.

By SHUSHANNAH WALSHE

House Speaker John Boehner issued a stern warning to President Obama not to use executive action to bypass Congress on immigration, telling the president on Thursday “he’s going to burn himself” and “poison the well” if he goes down that path.

The warning comes ahead of a major summit at the White House where Obama will meet Friday with congressional leaders of both parties. The meeting is the first chance since Republicans won a majority in the Senate — and built their majority to historic levels in the House — for all sides to sit down and discuss a potential agenda for next year.

Boehner and presumptive Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell began to lay out their agenda items on Thursday, but the House speaker blasted Obama for a day earlier vowing to pursue executive action on immigration before the end of the year.

“If he acts unilaterally on his own, outside of his authority, he will poison the well and there will be no chance of immigration reform moving in this Congress,” Boehner said.

Obama said Wednesday he still wants Congress to pass legislation and promised that if Congress passes a bill, it would make any executive actions “go away.”

But Boehner said the issue has become a “political football.” Obama is said to be looking at suspending deportations for millions. To the president, Boehner said: “When you play with matches, then you take the risk of burning yourself, and he’s going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.”

Boehner, meanwhile, said the House once again would vote next year to repeal ObamaCare. With Obama already having vowed to veto any such repeal, Boehner said there might still be bipartisan support for undoing parts of the law — like the unpopular medical device tax.

He laid out several other agenda items, including approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline, overhauling the tax code, addressing the debt and more. He and McConnell outlined several of these items in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Boehner and McConnell both will have to run for their leadership posts next year and have been touting their successes in recent days.

Boehner has the more unwieldy caucus; in the last party election, nine rank-and-file Republicans defected on the vote.

According to his political office, though, Boehner helped raise $102 million for the cycle; visited 175 cities and held 150 “road events” for candidates and members; and headlined several rallies and fundraisers in the closing weeks of the campaign.

His office also noted the historic gains made by House Republicans — under Boehner — echoing predictions that when all the races are counted, the House GOP will have their biggest majority since 1930.

The full House will vote for speaker at the start of the new Congress in January. The last time, Boehner narrowly missed having the vote go to a second ballot for the first time since the 1920s — both parties vote on the floor for speaker, and the winner must get an absolute majority of all ballots cast.

FoxNews.com

Voters handed control of the Senate to Republicans for the first time in eight years on Tuesday, putting the GOP in charge of Congress for the remainder of President Obama’s term.

Republicans swept to victory in a string of contests across the country, retaining every one of the GOP-held seats up for grabs and picking up more than the six seats needed to take control of the Senate. Republicans enjoyed a banner night after mounting campaigns from coast to coast that, almost without exception, sought to cast their opponents as rubber stamps for the unpopular president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who fended off a Democratic challenge in Kentucky, is now poised to ascend to majority leader next year.

Republicans also are projected to retain control of the House — and gain at least 12 seats, expanding their majority beyond their post-World War II record of 246 seats set in 1946.

The landscape means Republicans will have new powers to challenge Obama’s agenda in the final two years of his term, able to launch investigations and hold hearings from both chambers; hold up key appointments; and pass GOP-favored legislation, if only to force the president to employ his veto pen. The division of power also could yield areas of agreement, on areas ranging from immigration to energy — though the Affordable Care Act and efforts to undermine it could continue to sour talks on other issues.

Obama plans to hold a press conference at the White House, at 2:50 p.m. ET on Wednesday, on the heels of the election results.

McConnell, after winning his own race, said some things won’t change next year — but stressed that lawmakers and the White House don’t have to be in “perpetual conflict” and “have an obligation to work together.”

“Tomorrow, the papers will say I won this race, but the truth is … tonight we begin another one, one that’s far more important than mine — and that’s the race to turn this country around,” McConnell said in Louisville.

In a written statement, current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid congratulated McConnell and said he looked forward to working with him as the next majority leader.

So far, Republicans have gained seven Senate seats. In North Carolina, Thom Tillis, a Republican member of the state legislature, is projected to oust U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a first-term Democrat, in a closely fought race that saw spending top $100 million. Republican Joni Ernst also beat Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley in Iowa.

Echoing a campaign ad about hogs that helped her gain attention early on in her race, Ernst declared, “We are heading to Washington, and we are going to make ’em squeal.”

Republicans picked up seats in territory all over the country Tuesday night. In Montana, Republican Steve Daines defeated Democrat Amanda Curtis, flipping control of the seat to the Republican Party for the first time since 1913. In Colorado, GOP Rep. Cory Gardner ousted first-term Democratic Sen. Mark Udall.

South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds also won the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson. Further, GOP Rep. Tom Cotton unseated two-term Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas and Shelley Moore Capito beat Democrat Natalie Tennant for an open Senate seat in West Virginia.

In a vital set of victories that helped put the party on the path to the majority, Republicans also held onto all three seats that were in contention this year.

In Kentucky, McConnell defeated Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state. Republican David Perdue, former CEO of Dollar General, beat Democrat Michelle Nunn for the open Georgia Senate seat; and three-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts survived the political scare of his life by beating independent challenger Greg Orman in Kansas.

In a setback for Republicans, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen beat Republican challenger Scott Brown, despite Brown’s late-surging campaign.

But Republicans’ momentum was undeniable.

A handful of other races remain too close to call — most notably, in Virginia, where Republican Ed Gillespie is running a late-surging campaign against Democratic Sen. Mark Warner.

According to Fox News exit polls, this race is looking much closer than it did in pre-election polling, in which Warner, a former Virginia governor, held a months-long, 20-point lead over Gillespie, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Gillespie eventually cut that lead in half, but the race now appears even closer.

The Senate race in Alaska also is not yet called.

Fox News, though, can project that the Louisiana Senate race will go to a runoff on Dec. 6, meaning there will be no winner from Tuesday night. Based on exit polling, Fox projects that three-term Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican challenger Bill Cassidy will both fail to exceed 50 percent of the vote, sending both into a runoff, this time without competition from candidates such as Republican Rob Maness.

At stake Tuesday night were 435 House seats, 36 Senate seats, and another 36 gubernatorial races.

The U.S. Senate battle, with control of Capitol Hill at stake, was the most closely watched.

The following Republican incumbents also won Tuesday: Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi; Sen. Lamar Alexander in Tennessee; Sen. Susan Collins in Maine; Sen. Mike Enzi in Wyoming; Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Tim Scott in South Carolina; Sen. Jim Risch in Idaho; Sen. John Cornyn in Texas, Sen. Jeff Sessions in Alabama; and Sen. James Inhofe in Oklahoma. Republican James Lankford won the seat being vacated by Republican Tom Coburn. And university president Ben Sasse, a Republican, beat Democrat David Domina for an open Nebraska Senate seat.

The following Democratic senators also won: Sen. Dick Durbin in Illinois; Sen. Cory Booker in New Jersey; Sen. Brian Schatz in Hawaii; Sen. Jeff Merkley in Oregon; Sen. Tom Udall in New Mexico; Sen. Al Franken in Minnesota; Sen. Ed Markey in Massachusetts; Sen. Chris Coons in Delaware; and Sen. Jack Reed in Rhode Island.

In Michigan, Democrat Gary Peters won an open seat.

The Obama factor may have weighed heavily over the vote Tuesday night. Fox News Exit Polls show more than a third of voters — 34 percent — said they voted to show they’re opposed to Obama’s policies. That number was a bit higher in 2010.

By contrast, just 20 percent voted to show support for Obama. Forty-five percent said it was not a factor.

The economy was by far the biggest issue for voters; 43 percent said it was the most important issue. Of those worried about the direction of the economy, they voted for the Republican candidate by a 20-point difference, exit polls show.

Most of the campaigning and the big money in recent months concentrated on roughly 10 competitive contests. Seven were for the seats held by Democrats: in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, New Hampshire and North Carolina. Three were for the seats held by Republicans: in Georgia, Kansas and Kentucky.

Surprise developments colored the elections in several states — perhaps most notably, the Democratic candidate’s decision to drop out of the race for Senate in Kansas. His decision immediately boosted independent Orman in his race against Roberts, who until that race shakeup was leading in the polls. Roberts ultimately survived.

In Kentucky, Grimes also suffered a PR blow after she repeatedly refused to say whether she voted for Obama. In the final days of the race, both campaigns turned to accusing each other of putting out inappropriate mailers.

At the state level, nearly a dozen U.S. governors were considered in political peril, making it one of the toughest years for incumbent governors in decades. However, most of them held on, and Republican candidates did well in several races — including in Wisconsin, where GOP Gov. Scott Walker survived yet another challenge.

FoxNews.com

Republican Senate candidates are pulling away in the final days of key races, according to polls released this weekend.

Republicans are either leading in Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana or will likely win runoff elections, according to a NBC/Marist poll released Sunday.

In addition, the Republican nominee in Iowa, Joni Ernst, now has a 7-point lead over Democratic challenger Rep. Bruce Braley, according to a Des Moines Register poll released Saturday.

Most polls have shown until now that the four races have essentially been deadlocked in the closing weeks.

The GOP needs to win a net total of six Senate seats to take control of the chamber, with essentially only the West Virginia and Montana contests apparently in hand.

In Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appears to be pulling away from Democratic challenger Alison Lund Grimes, reaching the critical 50 percent mark with Grimes now at 41 percent.

At a campaign stop Saturday night in Sterling, Ky., McConnell said that Grimes falsely accusing him of trying to privatize Social Security was proof that she was running a losing campaign.

“The last gasp of … every Democratic campaign that is losing brings up Social Security at the end,” the four-term senator said.

A victory in the battleground state of Iowa is as critical for Democrats and it is for Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday hinted that an Ernst victory would essentially throttle Washington Democrats’ agenda.

“Mitch McConnell would be leader of the United States Senate, who agrees with her on everything,” Reid said on a conference call to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, trying to rally the liberal group to help make a final push for Braley. “Think of what [that] would mean for our country.”

In Georgia, Republican nominee David Perdue is now ahead of  Democrat Michelle Nunn, 48-to-44 percent, which suggests Perdue could get 50 percent of the vote on Tuesday and avoid a runoff.

In Louisiana, three-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu has 44 percent of the vote in a three-way race with GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy, at 36 percent, and Republican Rob Maness, at 15 percent.

However, in the likely scenario that Landrieu gets less than 50 percent of the vote and advances with the second finisher, Cassidy, he would likely get most of Maness’ votes and ultimately win.

By FoxNews.com

The mayor of Houston, TX, has withdrawn subpoenas she issued to a group of local pastors demanding copies of their sermons and other communication in which they may have expressed their political views.

Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the five pastors, says the subpoenas should never have been served in the first place.

“The entire nation – voices from every point of the spectrum left to right – recognize the city’s actions as a gross abuse of power,” says ADF senior legal counsel Erik Stanley. “We are gratified that the First Amendment rights of the pastors have triumphed over government overreach and intimidation.”

According to a Houston Chronicle report, the mayor met with local and national pastors – and that those meetings persuaded her to withdraw the legal notices.

ADF says the actions of Mayor Annise D. Parker were just one part of the city’s push to impose a “deeply unpopular” ordinance on citizens at any cost.

Stanley explains: “The scandal began with another abuse of power when the city of Houston arbitrarily threw out the valid signatures of thousands of voters” in opposition to the ordinance. “… The city should now do the right thing and allow the people of Houston to decide whether to repeal the ordinance.”

The citizen-led petition drive seeks to reverse a so-called “bathroom bill” passed by the Houston City Council that favors homosexuals and the transgendered.

By Jodi Brown

BUSTED–AGAIN  As we reported last week, voting machines around the country are automatically switching GOP votes to Democratic Party votes, without informing the voters of the switch. (Voting Machines: GOP Votes Changed to Dem in Illinois, Oct 22, 29014)

Now, voting machines that switch Republican votes to Democrats are being reported in Maryland.

“When I first selected my candidate on the electronic machine, it would not put the ‘x’ on the candidate I chose — a Republican — but it would put the ‘x’ on the Democrat candidate above it,” Donna Hamilton said.

“This happened multiple times with multiple selections. Every time my choice flipped from Republican to Democrat. Sometimes it required four or five tries to get the ‘x’ to stay on my real selection,” the Frederick, Md., resident said last week.

Queen Anne County Sheriff Gary Hofmann said he encountered the problem, too, personally.

“This is happening here as well. It occurred on two candidates on my machine. I am glad I checked. Many voters have reported this here as well,” Hofmann, a Republican, wrote in an email Sunday evening.

Two other Maryland voters reported the same in Anne Arundel County on Friday.

Illinois Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan went to the Schaumburg Public Library last Monday to vote for himself. “Instead, it cast the vote for my opponent,” Moynihan told Watchdog.org.

“You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat,” Moynihan said.

He notified the election judge at his polling place and demonstrated that it continued to cast a vote for the opposing candidate’s party. Moynihan was eventually allowed to vote for Republican candidates, including his own race.

Back in Maryland, two voters in Anne Arundel County experienced the same problem: A Diebold touchscreen voting machine switched their Republican votes to Democrats. The voters had to cancel their votes and start over.

Joe Torre, election director in Anne Arundel, called it a “calibration issue” involving a single machine.

Hamilton said she notified officials of the problem she encountered at the Frederick County Center, where she voted. “I’m not sure what was done about it. If someone is not paying close attention, they could end up voting for the wrong candidate,” she said.

 

Republicans have an excellent opportunity to win enough seats next Tuesday to control the United States Senate.

That’s good news because a Republican Senate is the only way Washington is going to actually get anything significant done for the American people in the next two years.

If Americans listen to President Obama and Democrats, they might believe a Republican controlled House and Senate means the atmosphere in Washington will become even more toxic.  The only way to break the gridlock in Washington is with a Republican majority in the Senate.

We are going to do everything possible to transfer the power back from Washington to the American people .

 

Six years into the Obama presidency, Americans understand that a flashy messaging campaign doesn’t deliver real change.  In the midst of the ISIS threat, the Ebola outbreak, the Veterans scandal and other serious crises, people are looking for steady and effective leadership.

As former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole once said, “Leadership entails responsibility; above all, the responsibility to be responsible.”

The president has relied upon Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid to serve as his legislative barricade on Capitol Hill.  This partnership has not benefited the President’s approval ratings, his legacy or more importantly the American people.  Under Reid’s leadership, the Senate has become a place where good ideas go to die. He doesn’t hold real votes, he micromanages Committee Chairmen, and backtracks on his promises that his Senate will show up to work.

Republicans are focused on getting Congress working again and forcing the President to make decisions on the important policy issues that matter most to Americans.

We will show that we can govern.

We will deliver action, competence and accomplishment – and repeat the process again and again.  We will hold consequential votes. We will pass appropriations bills. And we will conduct valuable oversight.

Jobs will be our first priority.  A clear, bipartisan majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a long list of bills to help Americans get back to work. We will send jobs bills to the President for his signature. If he wants to veto them, he’ll have to explain why he doesn’t support measures to help put Veterans back to work, lower our highest corporate tax rate in the world and roll back red tape that stifles economic growth.

In the middle of so much international turmoil, we know that we must take action to strengthen our energy security. We’ll send bills to the president that empower domestic energy producers to explore responsibly offshore, on public lands and in Alaska.  And after six years of delay, we’ll force President Obama to finally give Americans an answer on the Keystone XL pipeline.

There is already bipartisan support for the administration to move quickly to export American liquefied natural gas to other countries.  Washington should finally let allies across the world buy American energy instead of being held hostage by thugs like Vladimir Putin.

Republicans will stand up for Americans who are demanding that Washington finally improve our healthcare system.

Republicans will work to fully repeal ObamaCare, we understand the reality of President Obama holding his veto pen for two more years.  Meanwhile, we’ll do everything we can to systematically strip away the very worst pieces of ObamaCare that have hurt patients, providers and our economy.  We will vote to repeal the employer and individual mandates that prevent Americans from choosing the care that’s right for them.

There is also bipartisan agreement that we must restore the 40 hour work week so the law does not continue to target the take home pay of part-time workers.

We will vote to abolish the medical device tax that threatens jobs and life-saving innovation. And a Republican Congress will look out for taxpayers who are currently facing a $1 billion tab to bailout insurers that lose money offering ObamaCare coverage.

Our overarching goal will be to focus on what Americans wanted all along – access to quality, affordable health care.  Instead of another legislative monstrosity with endless negative consequences, we will offer step by step reform bills.

We are going to do everything possible to transfer the power back from Washington to the American people so they can choose the care they need, from a doctor they want, at a lower cost.

We will lead on trade with our international allies.  The President mentioned the benefits of increased trade in five of his State of the Union Addresses.  If he is serious, he should welcome Republicans’ commitment to expanding trade.  The next time the president calls on Congress to approve Trade Promotion Authority legislation – he’ll hear a resounding “yes” from the new majority party.

It will be better for the country if the American people wake up next Wednesday morning to a new reality in Washington.  President Obama should get ready for a real year of action.

By John Barrasso, M.D. (R), represents Wyoming in the U.S. Senate. He serves in the Senate as a member of both the Energy and Environment Committees. Follow him on Twitter@Sen.JohnBarrasso.

At a Democratic rally in Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton’s attempt to attack “trickle-down economics” resulted in a spectacularly odd statement.

Clinton defended raising the minimum wage saying “Don’t let anybody tell you that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs, they always say that.”

She went on to state that businesses and corporations are not the job creators of America. “Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” the former Secretary of State said.

Clinton’s comment will likely be used frequently to attack her as another big-government Democrat. She is seen by many as already running for president in 2016.

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff

We recently heard an elderly Black woman express why so many Black voters are staying home, or switch their voting allegiance this election.

The woman called into C-Span during the time when Barack Obama was doing his early voting. She identified herself as Joyce and indicated that she is an 82-year old black grandmother who has been a Democrat her entire life, but voted straight down the Republican ticket this year. Her voice is filled with both anger and passion as she explains why she has left the Democratic Party.

It is worth listening to the entire two-minute segment. She begins by saying, “First, let me start by saying that I am an 82-year old, black, senior citizen grandmother and I voted straight Republican because I have been noticing for years what the Democrat party have done to my people.”

Joyce unleashes a long string of facts on the devastation the Democrat Party has unleashed on blacks and how her eyes became opened to their ways. She’s in Texas and had some choice words for Democrat candidate for governor Wendy Davis that I’m sure the Davis campaign will not want to use in a campaign ad.

By Jennifer Burke

 

The suspect alleged to have shot three northern California sheriff’s deputies Friday, killing two, was deported twice and has a criminal record, federal officials said late Saturday.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said that the fingerprints of the suspected shooter match those of a man named Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte. Monroy-Bracamonte was initially deported to Mexico in 1997 after being convicted of drug possession in Arizona. Four years later, he was arrested and deported again for an unspecified offense.

“The fingerprints were the basis for our request for an immigration detainer,” ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice told The Associated Press. The detainer requests that local authorities transfer him to federal custody after his case is adjudicated so ICE can purse his deportation, Kice said.

The suspect initially identified himself as Marcelo Marquez, 34, of Salt Lake City. He is charged with two counts each of murder, attempted murder and carjacking. The suspect’s wife, Janelle Marquez-Monroy, was also arrested Friday and charged with carjacking and attempted murder.

Investigators spent Saturday at the multiple crime scenes “trying to kind of sort through the chaos so we can methodically rebuild this,” Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner said.

The shootings began when Sacramento County sheriff’s Deputy Danny Oliver, 47, was shot in the forehead with an assault rifle at close range as he checked out a suspicious car in a motel parking lot.

The suspects have talked to investigators, Bonner said, but what sparked the shootings remained unclear.

“‘Why,’ I guess, will remain a question for a long time,” he said. “Why was his reaction so violent?”

It was also unclear what brought the heavily armed suspects from Utah to California, Bonner said. There were no indications they had been sought by authorities.

No attorneys were listed for either suspect in jail records.

Krista Sorenson of Salt Lake City was confounded by the arrest of the Marquez. He and his brother had mowed her lawn about four years ago.

“They were just super nice, decent hard-working, trying to figure out how to make a living,” she said.

Oliver, a 15-year veteran of the department, left a wife and two daughters. After he was killed, the gunman shot Anthony Holmes, 38, of Sacramento at least twice, including once in the head, during an attempted carjacking. He was in fair condition.

The attackers then stole a pickup truck and fled about 30 miles northeast into neighboring Placer County.

Two deputies who approached the pickup while it was parked alongside a road were shot with an AR-15-type assault weapon and never had a chance to return fire, Erwin said. The gunman fled into a neighborhood near a high school and ran into a home. Police used tear gas to force him to surrender.

Homicide Detective Michael David Davis Jr., 42, died at a hospital 26 years to the day after his father, for whom he was named, died in the line of duty as a Riverside County deputy.

Deputy Jeff Davis was treated for a gunshot wound to the arm. The two deputies are not related.

The gunman fled into a neighborhood near a high school and ran into a home. Police used tear gas to force him to surrender.

Several dozen law enforcement vehicles, with lights silently flashing, escorted a hearse carrying Michael Davis’ flag-draped casket to a funeral home as bystanders and law enforcement officials hugged, saluted and wiped away tears.

“It’s a nightmare for all of us,” Bonner said.

He recalled Davis as a well-liked investigator who once took it upon himself to organize a funeral for an abandoned baby.

“He saw it, his heart ached, and he did something about it,” Bonner said. “That’s who he was.”

Davis’ wife works as an evidence technician for the department and his brother is a sergeant.

“Mike was quite a character,” Erwin said. “He was very funny. He didn’t take things very seriously, maybe because he was a homicide detective for so long.”

A search of Utah court records under Marcelo Marquez’s name shows a history of about 10 tickets and misdemeanor traffic offenses between 2003 and 2009. Those records list one speeding ticket for Monroy in 2009 and three small claims filings attempting to collect outstanding debts.

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

A doctor who treated Ebola patients in West Africa has tested positive for the virus in New York City, officials said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, along with other city officials, said at a Thursday evening press conference that preliminary tests have confirmed the first case in the city. The CDC will conduct another test to confirm the official diagnosis.

“We want to state at the outset that there is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed,” de Blasio said.

The New York Times was the first to report that the patient, identified as Dr. Craig Spencer, had tested positive for the virus after he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital in New York Thursday.

Spencer, a 33-year-old emergency room doctor, was working with Doctors Without Borders and returned from Guinea more than a week ago. Officials were contacted after he reported a fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, according to a statement from the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Cuomo said that New York City was “as ready as one can be for this circumstance.” He said the city is much more prepared than a Dallas hospital was when the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. was admitted there last month.

“The more facts you know, the less frightening the situation is,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo said New York officials spoke earlier in the day with the White House’s new Ebola czar Ron Klain, who immediately dispatched a CDC Ebola response team to the city.

City officials say Spencer acknowledged riding multiple subway lines and taking a cab to a Brooklyn bowling alley called “The Gutter” in the past week before he started showing symptoms. He also visited the High Line park and went on a three-mile jog.

The city’s health commissioner, Mary Bassett, said Spencer’s fiancé and two friends had been quarantined. The city has also been in contact with an Uber driver who drove Spencer, but said the two did not have direct contact.

According to a rough timeline provided by city officials, the doctor’s symptoms developed Wednesday, prompting him to isolate himself in his apartment.

When he felt worse Thursday, he and his fiancé  made a joint call to authorities to detail his symptoms and his travels. EMTs in full Ebola gear arrived and took him to Bellevue in an ambulance surrounded by police squad cars.

His Harlem apartment was cordoned off, and his fiancé , who was not showing symptoms, was being watched in a quarantine ward at Bellevue. Bellevue Hospital is one of eight hospitals designated by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to treat Ebola in the state.

“As a further precaution, beginning today, the Health Department’s team of disease detectives immediately began to actively trace all of the patient’s contacts to identify anyone who may be at potential risk,” New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene commissioner Mary Bassett said in an earlier statement. “The Health Department staff has established protocols to identify, notify and, if necessary, quarantine any contacts of Ebola cases,” she said.

Spencer works at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, but had not seen any patients or been to the hospital since his return, the hospital said in a statement.

The doctor is a “dedicated humanitarian” who “went to an area of medical crisis to help a desperately under-served population. He is a committed and responsible physician who always puts his patients first,” it said.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has killed about 4,800 people. In the United States, the first person diagnosed with the disease was a Liberian man, who fell ill days after arriving in Dallas and later died, becoming the only fatality. Two nurses who treated him were infected and are hospitalized.

Four American aid workers, including three doctors, were infected while working in Africa and were transferred to the U.S. for treatment in recent months. All recovered.

Health care workers are vulnerable because of close contact with patients when they are their sickest and most contagious. In West Africa this year, more than 440 health workers have contracted Ebola and about half have died.

The New York doctor is from Michigan and attended Wayne State University School of Medicine and Columbia’s University Mailman School of Public Health.

According to his Facebook page, he left for West Africa via Brussels in mid-September. A photo shows him in full protective gear. He returned to Brussels Oct. 16.

“Off to Guinea with Doctors Without Borders,” he wrote. “Please support organizations that are sending support or personnel to West Africa, and help combat one of the worst public health and humanitarian disasters in recent history.”

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

More registered Republicans than registered Democrats have cast a ballot during early voting in Iowa for the first time in a modern-day election, according to a GOP memo.

The memo stated that as of Wednesday, the cumulative number of registered Republican early and absentee voting returns surpassed those of the Democrats by 305 ballots.

An Iowa Democratic Party spokeswoman told FoxNews.com that the numbers of early ballots cast are in flux, saying the numbers will continue to change over the coming days. She added that the party believes they “have a significant advantage on the ground.”

“Democrats are expanding the midterm electorate and are turning out non-midterm voters, while Republicans are simply encouraging their base to vote early,” Christina Freundlich said in a statement. “In requests alone, Democrats hold a 18,000 vote advantage relative to the Republican ballots, and we expect those ballots to flood in over the final days.”

The Wednesday numbers were the first time the GOP has led in Iowa in modern early voting history, according to Republicans. There are 13 remaining days of early voting in the state.

“The momentum has been building for a long time, but this development means Republicans have crossed a major Democrat firewall that had given them a boost going into Election Day in previous election cycles,” Republican Party of Iowa chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement. “Democrats are nowhere near where they need to be, and they are quickly running out of time.”

Absentee voting for this November’s midterm election began in Iowa in late September. The most competitive race in the state by far is the contentious battle between Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley and Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat, which is currently held by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin. The two candidates are in a dead heat, though Ernst is slightly leading in a Real Clear Politics polling average.

According to the memo, at this point in 2010 the Democrats led in early and absentee voting returns by 16,426 ballots. In 2008, they led by 56,908.

The Associated Press reported last month that the number of Iowa voters who had requested an absentee ballot 43 days out from the election nearly doubled that of 2010. Requests for absentee ballots for registered Republican voters were also up by 145 percent.

The GOP said in the report that the party has been engaging in a concentrated effort to increase its number of early voters this year.

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

THE THRILL IS GONE – President Barack Obama and Maryland Gubernatorial Democrat candidate Lt. Governor Anthony Brown campaign at an Early Vote Rally at Dr. Henry Wise High School in Upper Marlboro, Md., Sunday, Oct. 19, 2014. This is Obama’s first major campaign appearance of the midterm elections. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Many attendees of an Obama campaign rally headed for the exits shortly after the president began speaking Sunday evening.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Maryland for Democratic candidate for governor Anthony Brown, Obama either ignored or didn’t notice the movement of attendees out of the event.

The White House pool report described the mass exodus as “unusual” and one reporter present tweeted it was “weird.”

Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason tweeted that the steam of rally attendees leaving early was “noticeable and noisy.”

Reports were unclear if attendees left due to unhappiness with President Obama. Disapproval of the president is currently at an all-time high.

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff

 

America’s top infectious disease expert on Sunday again acknowledged that the safety protocols used for the nation’s first Ebola patient were inadequate, and that the Obama administration overstated the country’s readiness for the deadly virus, amid concern that Americans have already lost faith in the government.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told “Fox News Sunday” that the adopted World Health Organization protocol for handling an Ebola patient was better suited for field work than confined hospital care.

As a result, two nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas were infected with Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who arrived from West Africa with the virus and later died.

“It was very clear … that is not the optimal way,” Fauci said.

Fauci said he wasn’t sure how nurse Nina Pham became infected, but it was “likely” because “she was not completely covered.”

As many as 4,500 people in West Africa so far this year have died from Ebola.

Fauci also tried to quell some of the fear and criticism over President Obama and other administration officials overstating U.S. readiness, including White House adviser Lisa Monaco suggesting every U.S. hospital is fully prepared to treat an Ebola patient.

“Nothing is risk free,” Fauci told Fox News. He said that what U.S. health officials need to do now is not talk about things in “absolutes.”

Fauci also announced revised guidance for health care workers treating Ebola patients, which will include using protective gear “with no skin showing,”

Fauci said those caring for an Ebola patient in Dallas were left vulnerable because some of their skin was exposed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working on revisions to safety protocols.

Ebola’s incubation period is 21 days, and Fauci noted that mark was being reached Sunday for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital workers who first treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who later died of the disease.

“The ones now today that are going to be ‘off the hook’ are the ones that saw him initially in the emergency room,” Fauci said.

Duncan was seen at the hospital on Sept. 26 and sent home with antibiotics. He returned by ambulance on Sept. 28, was admitted and died of Ebola on Oct. 8.

Judge Clay Jenkins, the chief executive in Dallas County, said that the protective order that has kept Duncan’s family isolated expires Sunday at midnight.

“That’s going to be a good thing for those families. They’ve been through so much, and we’re very happy about that,” Jenkins said.

But, Jenkins continued, “At the same time, we’re extremely concerned about these health care workers and we continue to make contingency in the event that there are more cases.”

Rep. Tim Murphy, a psychologist and founding member of the GOP Doctors Caucus, said the hysteria about Ebola reaching the epidemic level in the U.S. that President Obama is trying to calm is the result of people wanting answers and getting wrong information, which is typical in such situations.

“So many of those assurances have been inaccurate,” the Pennsylvania lawmaker told Fox News. “What creates panic is when people are given information that is proven to be false.”

Murphy, as chairman of a House subcommittee on oversight and investigations, led a hearing last week on Ebola.

He supports a proposed travel ban on West African countries that the administration opposes, saying some of its arguments are “absurd.”

Murphy also said the so-called Ebola czar that the president appointed to oversee the federal response, Ron Klain, will not calm fears.

“The American people are looking for knowledge and expertise,” he told Fox News. “He has none in these fields.”

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

Not exactly a Bush vindication, but a reminder that no one was really giving us the whole story.

The last thing you expect is for the New York Times to publish a story vindicating the Bush Administration report that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, thus justifying the invasion that overthrew him.

And the story published by the Times yesterday does not exactly do that. Instead, it tells the tale of the Pentagon’s secrecy over the course of many years in dealing with older chemical weapons stashes found by U.S. troops – sometimes bringing harm to these troops – and revealing that even Congress often did not get the truth about what the military was finding in Iraq.

As the Times story says:

Congress, too, was only partly informed, while troops and officers were instructed to be silent or give deceptive accounts of what they had found. “ ’Nothing of significance’ is what I was ordered to say,” said Jarrod Lampier, a recently retired Army major who was present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war: more than 2,400 nerve-agent rockets unearthed in 2006 at a former Republican Guard compound.

Jarrod L. Taylor, a former Army sergeant on hand for the destruction of mustard shells that burned two soldiers in his infantry company, joked of “wounds that never happened” from “that stuff that didn’t exist.” The public, he said, was misled for a decade. “I love it when I hear, ‘Oh there weren’t any chemical weapons in Iraq,’ ” he said. “There were plenty.”

That raises an interesting question about the entire Iraq venture: When the government tells us anything about what happened there, how would we know if it’s true?

It seems the Obama Administration was reluctant to let it be known that any chemical weapons were found – even old, obsolete ones – out of fear that this might undermine the Democrat narrative that “Bush lied about WMDs.”

Of course, George W. Bush did no such thing. He acted on the same information that the Clinton Administration trusted concerning Saddam’s weapons programs. The mistake the Bush Administration made was in pinning so much of its rationale for the war on the assertion that Saddam not only had active weapons programs, but that U.S. troops would surely find them, and that this would justify everything.

It did not need to go that way. Under terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease fire agreement, Saddam was obligated to file reports with UN weapons inspectors that proved he had destroyed his weapons of mass destruction. He continually violated this agreement. He was also obligated to grant unfettered access to UN weapons inspectors. He routinely kicked them out. He was also obligated to respect no-fly zones set up by the U.S. and our allies. He constantly pushed the envelope.

During the Clinton Administration, the only price he paid was the occasional pin-prick missile strike. Saddam knew that Clinton had little interest in going back to war, and both sides were content to play cat-and-mouse rather than move toward any sort of permanent resolution to the problem.

Once the Bush 43 administration was in charge, and we were all taking the threat of Middle Eastern-based terrorism more seriously post-9/11, it no longer seemed so plausible to let Saddam keep defying us. The obligation was Saddam’s to prove he had destroyed the weapons. It wasn’t on us to find them and prove he hadn’t.

The Bush team understood that even the presence of older, obsolete weapons proved the defiance of a man who could, at any time, restart his weapons programs – whether to use them against his own people (as he had done in the past) or to use them in posing a threat to others.

So why did they base so much of their selling of the war on the promise of active WMDs they were sure they’d be able to find? Looking back, you’ll recall that the Bush Administration wanted very badly to get the United Nations behind the invasion – even though they already had the legal right to resume hostilities based on the 1991 Gulf War cease fire. They felt they needed this politically. Those at the UN had little appetite for an invasion, but the Bush White House thought WMDs would get their attention, so they sent Colin Powell to present the evidence they had.

That actually did result in a 9-7 vote in favor of authorizing the invasion, but because the French and others had veto power as permanent members of the Security Council, the resolution was not passed. It didn’t matter. We invaded anyway because President Bush rightly declared he would not ask for a permission slip to protect America’s interests.

Except that he did kind of sort of ask for one. He just went ahead anyway when he didn’t get it. And in the process of asking, he set himself up for a political narrative – there are WMDs and we will find them – that came back to bite him.

I think the Bush Administration didn’t want to make announcements about old, obsolete weapons that would just prompt Democrats and the media to argue they had found nothing current. And the Obama Administration didn’t want to admit there were any WMDs at all.

The result was that our troops found lots and lots of chemical weapons in Iraq, and we didn’t hear about any of it because the actual facts always presented a problem for someone’s narrative.

Any way you look at it, politics is trumping strategic reality in our national security decisions. That needs to stop.

UPDATE: Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades gives an absolutely outstanding review of the real case Bush made for the invasion of Iraq, and demonstrates how liberals – especially those at the New York Times – have been lying about it ever since and really are lying about it in this story as well. As Malor points out, one of the most astonishing things about this whole story is that much of it is easy to remember. I remember most of it, although he did a better job than I did of going back and researching the contemporaneous facts, quotes, etc.

The narrative that’s been developed since then is built completely on lies, and Malor does a great job of demonstrating that. If you’re at all interested in the truth about the Iraq War, you need to read what Malor wrote here.

By: Dan Calabrese

DALLAS, TX – A second female health care worker at the Dallas hospital where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was treated has tested positive for the virus, Texas health officials confirmed Wednesday, as the state prepares for the possibility of more cases.

“We are preparing contingencies for more and that is a very real possibility,” Jenkins said in a press conference.

Officials did not specify what position the worker held at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, but they did say she was among those who provided care for Duncan, who died from the virus Oct. 8.

“Like Nina Pham [a nurse, and the first  health care worker at the hospital to test positive for Ebola], this is a heroic person, a person who is dedicating her life to helping others and is a servant leader,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in press conference Wednesday morning.

Officials confirmed that within 90 minutes of reporting a fever, the health care worker’s temperature was taken and she was placed in isolation.

Preliminary tests were run at the state public health lab in Austin and results came back at approximately midnight Wednesday. A separate test will be done this morning at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

Officials have said the health care worker was interviewed quickly to identify any contacts or potential exposures, and that others will be monitored. The type of monitoring will depend on the nature of their interactions with the health care worker, and the potential of exposure to the virus.
Jenkins said health officials are currently monitoring more than 70 others who treated Duncan. These workers are employed but not working.

“You can imagine the anxiety of the families of these 77 people,” said Jenkins. “You can imagine the gut shot that this is to the family that is Presbyterian hospital has done a great job taking care of this community in many, many years.”

During the press conference, officials did not confirm the number of possible contacts with the worker.

The second worker has not been identified by name, but officials confirmed she lived alone on the 6000th block of Village Bin Drive and without pets.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said the city has sent a team to her apartment to disinfect the patient’s home and the inside of her car, which will be removed this afternoon.

On Sunday, officials confirmed that Pham, 26, had tested positive for the virus. Pham received a blood transfusion from a recovered Ebola patient and has moved from “stable” to “good” condition, Jenkins said. Pham’s dog has also been isolated.

More than 70 people who may have had contact with Duncan at the hospital are currently being monitored. The 48 contacts outside of the hospital who may have had contact with Duncan are asymptomatic, and Sunday marks the end of the 21-day incubation period, during which Ebola symptoms can arise after direct contact.

Officials have not said when or how the second healthcare worker or Pham may have had contact with Duncan. But the second case pointed to lapses beyond how one individual may have donned and removed personal protective garb.

“There’s clear there was an exposure somewhere, sometime in the treatment of Mr. Duncan,” Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer for Texas Health Presbyterian, said during the conference. “Let’s be clear, we’re a hospital that may have done some things different with the benefit of what we know today. But make no mistake, no one wants to get this right more than our hospital first to diagnose and treat this insidious disease that’s now attacked two of our own.”

The Ebola virus is transmitted when a person comes in direct contact with an infected, symptomatic Ebola patient’s bodily fluids, such as blood, sweat, saliva and tears.

News of the latest positive test comes one day after the largest U.S. nurses’ union charged that Duncan’s caregivers worked for days without proper protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols.

A statement from National Nurses United also says Duncan was left in an open area of an emergency room for hours.

A spokesman for the group says nurses were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments. It’s said that the patient had explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting.
In a conference call with reporters executive director RoseAnn DeMoro says the allegations are based on revelations from “a few” nurses and that the claims were vetted.

The nurses also said that Duncan’s lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospital’s pneumatic tubes, opening the possibility of contaminating the specimen delivery system. The nurses also alleged that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling.

A hospital spokesman told the Associated Press that the facility had not received similar complaints.

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

We already told you earlier today that folks are willing to use the gay rights movement as a pretext to go after those who live by the Word of God. Then we were talking about some lunkhead at a Canadian tourism company. I bet you didn’t think the attorneys for a major American city would ever try to subpoena pastors’ sermons to see if they had dared to speak any criticisms of the city’s lesbian mayor.

Well. They did. Houston, we have . . . yeah, OK, it’s an overused cliche. But if it ever applied, it would be here:

Houston’s embattled equal rights ordinance took another legal turn this week when it surfaced that city attorneys, in an unusual step, subpoenaed sermons given by local pastors who oppose the law and are tied to the conservative Christian activists that have sued the city.

Opponents of the equal rights ordinance are hoping to force a repeal referendum when they get their day in court in January, claiming City Attorney David Feldman wrongly determined they had not gathered enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. City attorneys issued subpoenas last month during the case’s discovery phase, seeking, among other communications, “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.”

The subpoenas were issued to several high-profile pastors and religious leaders who have been vocal in opposing the ordinance. The Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a motion on behalf of the pastors seeking to quash the subpoenas.

The back story is that in June the Houston City Council passed, and Mayor Parker signed, a “human rights ordinance” that panders in numerous ways to activists pushing for gay and “gender identity” rights, including a requirement that men be allowed to use women’s bathrooms and vice versa. Not surprisingly, many local pastors opposed the ordinance, and more than 17,000 residents filed referendum petitions to get it repealed – which the city blatantly threw out alleging “irregularities”.

But lest you thought Houston politicians were done playing hardball with their critics, not a chance. The subpoenas are supposedly to see if pastors had in any way violated the law by using the pulpit to preach about the law. Aside from the obvious First Amendment problems here, the pastors weren’t even involved with the petition drive, so the city had no basis for issuing them subpoenas.

Not that this would stop them. The secular cultural left smells blood when it comes to gay rights, and they think they are now free to take any action – no matter how unconstitutional or illegal – against those who oppose the gay agenda because the cultural winds are blowing in their direction.

Big picture: If a city can subpoena a pastor’s sermons just because the pastor preaches from the book that includes 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and other passages that call homosexuality sin, then we no longer have freedom of religion. At all. Period. Any pastor at any time could find himself in legal jeopardy if he preaches something not in agreement with the political, social or cultural orthodoxy of the moment.

It’s a mistake to think the left has no god. They do. Their god is government, and specifically their own attainment of government power to use in shaping America’s economic, social, cultural and political institutions to their liking. Those who preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ threaten the left’s god, so no method of taking them down is off the table.

It’s not just Houston that has a problem.

Published by: Dan Calabrese

Craig Bergham hopes his new documentary will provide a powerful platform to urge fellow Americans to join the growing movement to abolish the IRS. “Unfair: Exposing the IRS,” which he wrote and produced, delves deep into the alleged abuses of power and cover-ups  at the Internal Revenue Service, including its apparent targeting of conservative groups.

“The national conversation needs to be the start of an abolitionist movement. The IRS is over the line and has got to go,” the nationally-syndicated radio host told FOX411. “We have to take this into a political movement where the tax policy becomes one of the main issues. It has to be black and white. You are either for an income tax system or you are not.”

Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is featured in the documentary, echoed such Bergham’s sentiments – stating that the IRS has become a “criminal enterprise that shakes down innocent people, harasses them out-of-business and does so without accountability.”

Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, David Barton and Grover Norquist are just some of the prominent figures featured in the film.

Bergman insisted that the IRS is still targeting right-leaning groups, even though there was a lot of backlash last year when certain IRS practices were made public. Lois Lerner, who has since stepped down as IRS Director, made headlines and was held in contempt of congress earlier this year in association with the scandal. But ultimately, Bergman doesn’t think she or any other employee will have the book thrown at them.

“I believe none of them will go to jail,” he predicted. “They are going to get away with it. The IRS never allowed a case to go to the Supreme Court. They have the resources to push back, but they know what they do is unconstitutional.”

The film features several members of Tea Party groups and others who claim to have been targeted by IRS officials, but Bergman told us that getting people to talk on camera about their experiences proved to be a challenge.

“We met hundreds of people and made hundreds of phone calls. I was calling good Americans and yet they were so paranoid about their government having been targeted that they didn’t want to talk about it,” he continued.

“Unfair,” the first theatrical documentary to expose the negative impact the IRS has supposedly had on our liberties, businesses, religious, charitable and civic organizations, seeks to make both a moral and economic case for ending the service. In doing so, it brings to light numerous stories of betrayal seemingly enacted by the government faction.

Perhaps in perfect timing, 2014 also marks the 100th anniversary of United States citizens paying income tax.

“The idea of progressive tax on what people earn not what they spend – income tax – came out of the 1850s with Karl Marx and the communist manifesto. The way to destroy and to enslave the free people is go down this route and have class division and take money from people before they even see it,” Bergman added. “The IRS is out-of-control and people should care.”
The IRS could not immediately be reached for comment.

“Unfair: Exposing the IRS” opens in theaters nationally on Oct. 14.

By Hollie McKay

 

The number of cases in the Ebola outbreak has risen to nearly 9,000, with the number of dead climbing to nearly 4,500, as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Tuesday that there could be up to 10,000 new cases a week in two months.

For the last four weeks, there’s been about 1,000 new cases per week – including suspected, confirmed and probable cases, WHO assistant director-general Dr. Bruce Aylward said, adding that the U.N. health agency is aiming to get 70 percent of cases isolated within two months to reverse the outbreak.

WHO increased its Ebola death toll tally to 4,447 people on Tuesday, nearly all of them in West Africa, from 8,914 cases. The death rate has risen to 70 percent— previously the WHO estimated the death rate at around 50 percent.

Aylward said the 70 percent death rate was “a high mortality disease” in any circumstance and that the U.N. health agency was still focused on trying to get sick people isolated and provide treatment as early as possible.

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have been hardest hit nations in the current outbreak. Aylward said WHO was very concerned about the continued spread of Ebola in the three countries’ capital cities -Freetown, Conakry and Monrovia.

He said the agency was still focused on trying to treat Ebola patients, despite the huge demands on the broken health systems in West Africa.

“It would be horrifically unethical to say that we’re just going to isolate people,” he said, noting that new strategies like handing out protective equipment to families and setting up very basic clinics – without much treatment – was a priority.

In Berlin, a U.N. medical worker infected with Ebola in Liberia died despite “intensive medical procedures.” The St. Georg hospital in Leipzig said Tuesday that the 56-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died overnight of the infection.

The man tested positive for Ebola on Oct. 6, prompting Liberia’s U.N. peacekeeping mission to place 41 other staff members under “close medical observation.”

He arrived in Leipzig for treatment on Oct. 9. The hospital’s chief executive, Dr. Iris Minde, said at the time there was no risk of infection for other people, since he was kept in a secure isolation ward specially equipped with negative pressure rooms that are hermetically sealed.

He was the third Ebola patient to be flown to Germany for treatment. The first man recovered and returned home to Senegal. A Uganda aid worker is still being treated in Frankfurt.

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