Two federal agencies put out misinformation and inconsistent explanations of the government’s role in the Gold King Mine blowout and water contamination in Colorado last summer, a congressional report says.

The report specifically faults the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior for their actions related to the Aug. 5 incident, in which 3 million gallons of water laced with mercury, arsenic, and other toxic metals spilled into a creek and rivers near Silverton, Colo., after EPA workers excavated a tunnel entrance to the mine.

“This report peels back one more layer in what many increasingly view as a pattern of deception on the part of the EPA and [Department of Interior],” Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, said in a formal statement.

The report, released Thursday by the House committee, evaluates the two agencies’ explanations of the incident, which contaminated Cement Creek and the San Juan and Animas rivers.

“After almost six months, we are still trying to get to the bottom of the catastrophic spill and find out who to hold accountable,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee, said in the same statement.

According to the 74-page report, concerns about the Gold King Mine date to before 2009, when mine water began destabilizing waste rock dump, reducing water quality in Cement Creek and the Animas River.

The EPA reportedly monitored the mine for years, until September 2014, when it sent workers to investigate drainage problems. After a two-hour excavation, the agency postponed the project for lack of time and resources.

The House report notes that EPA workers incorrectly concluded that the floor of the adit, or tunnel entrance, was six feet below the surface of the accumulated waste rock. The EPA failed to confirm the conclusions, leading the agency to believe “the adit was not pressurized,” the report says.

Despite statements from Hays Griswold, an on-scene coordinator for the EPA, that he knew at least “some pressure” was in the mine, the agency didn’t test for pressure.

Testing “could have revealed that the mine was pressurized and prevented the blowout,” the report says.

Excavations began again last Aug. 4 and continued the next day, when the mine erupted.

The report concludes that explanations offered by the EPA and Interior “offer shifting accounts of the events leading up to the spill and contain numerous errors, omissions, and inconsistencies, some of which are not attributable to error or incompetence alone.”

“EPA must be held responsible for its actions, and this report is an important piece of that accountability,” Katie Tubb, a research associate for the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. Tubb added:

Good environmental policy is primarily an issue of who is best equipped to manage the environment well. As the committee’s report illustrates, the EPA and [Department of Interior] are massive black boxes—accountability is difficult. States and local communities simply can do a better job of reflecting the environmental interests of the people impacted most and can better be held responsible by their constituents.

Bill Gardner, town administrator of Silverton, Colo., told The Daily Signal that a “collection of shortfalls” probably caused the incident.

However, Gardner said, “what is clearly unproductive is to keep talking about whose fault the Gold King Mine blowout was.”

EPA spokeswoman Nancy Grantham told The Daily Signal on Friday that she is “reviewing the report.”

By Kristiana Mork

What a shock.

Now that he’s at the White House—and facing GOP opposition to appointing a new Supreme Court justice in the mere months before a new president is elected—President Barack Obama seems to have changed his tune a decade after serving as a U.S. senator.

As we detail in the above video, Obama used to think it was appropriate for senators (including himself) to block judicial nominees. In fact, he filibustered Justice Samuel Alito’s confirmation to the Supreme Court along with circuit court nominees Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor, and Leslie Southwick.

But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that Obama sees things a little differently now. Speaking about filibustering Alito’s nomination, Earnest said, per The Hill, “That is an approach the president regrets.”

It took only 3,670 days for Obama to reach this conclusion. No doubt that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that he’s now in the White House and the GOP controls the U.S. Senate.

Watch the video above to see then-Sen. Obama’s own words on judicial nominees. And then check out the one below of Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., another liberal politician who was singing a different tune when George W. Bush was president.

By Katrina Trinko

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the judicial standard-bearer of the conservative movement and the court’s most provocative member, died Saturday. He was 79.

‎His death means President Obama could have an unprecedented chance to try to shift the balance of the court during his final year in office — setting up a Senate battle in the heat of an election year.

Obama said he planned “to fulfill my constitutional responsibility to nominate a successor in due time.”

The U.S. Marshals Service in Washington confirmed Scalia’s death at a private residence in the Big Bend area of south Texas.

The service’s spokeswoman, Donna Sellers, says Scalia had retired for the evening and was found dead Saturday morning when he did not appear for breakfast.

“He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues,” Chief Justice John Roberts said on behalf of the high court and retired justices. “We extend our deepest condolences to his wife, Maureen, and his family.”

Scalia used his keen intellect and missionary zeal in an unyielding attempt to move the court farther to the right and to get it to embrace his “originalist” view of judging after his 1986 appointment by President Ronald Reagan.

His 2008 opinion for the court in favor of gun rights was his crowning moment in more than 30 years on the bench.

“President (Obama) and first lady extend their deepest condolences to Justice Scalia’s family,” principal deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said in a statement.

Scalia was a strong advocate for privacy in favoring restrictions on police searches and protections for defendants’ rights.

But he also voted consistently to let states outlaw abortions, to allow a closer relationship between government and religion, to permit executions and to limit lawsuits.

Scalia advocated tirelessly in favor of originalism, the method of constitutional interpretation that looks to the meaning of words and concepts as they were understood by the Founding Fathers.

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill honored Scalia and his contributions to America.

“Justice Scalia did more to advance originalism and judicial restraint than anyone in our time, and it all started with just two words: ‘I dissent,’ ” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. “I knew him. I respected him. I looked up to him. We all did.”

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the next likely Democratic Senate leader, tweeted: “While we disagreed on many issues, Justice Scalia was a brilliant man & a great son of Queens w/ a genuine joy for life.”

GOP presidential candidates, hours before their debate in South Carolina, also remembered Scalia.

“We have lost a great man and a great Supreme Court Justice,” said retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a strong conservative. “For the past three decades, his towering intellect and trenchant wit has characterized the deliberations and decisions of the high court.”

Scalia’s impact on the court was muted by his seeming disregard for moderating his views to help build consensus.

His impact on the court was muted by his seeming disregard or moderating his views to help build consensus, though he was held in deep affection by his ideological opposites Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.

Scalia and Ginsburg shared a love of opera. He persuaded Kagan to join him on hunting trips.

His 2008 opinion for the court in favor of gun rights drew heavily on the history of the Second Amendment and was his crowning moment on the bench.

He could be a strong supporter of privacy in cases involving police searches and defendants’ rights.

Indeed, Scalia often said he should be the “poster child” for the criminal defense bar.

But he also voted consistently to let states outlaw abortions, to allow a closer relationship between government and religion, to permit executions and to limit lawsuits.

He was in the court’s majority in the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, which effectively decided the presidential election for Republican George W. Bush.

“Get over it,” Scalia would famously say at speaking engagements in the ensuing years whenever the topic arose.

Bush later named one of Scalia’s sons, Eugene, to an administration job, but the Senate refused to confirm him.

Eugene Scalia served as the Labor Department solicitor temporarily in a recess appointment.

A smoker of cigarettes and pipes, Scalia enjoyed baseball, poker, hunting and the piano.

He was an enthusiastic singer at court Christmas parties and other musical gatherings, and once appeared on stage with Ginsburg as a Washington Opera extra.

Ginsburg once said that Scalia was “an absolutely charming man, and he can make even the most sober judge laugh.” She said that she urged her friend to tone down his dissenting opinions “because he’ll be more effective if he is not so polemical. I’m not always successful.”

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

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clashed sharply Thursday over who is more progressive, at a debate that saw the former secretary of state ratcheting up her criticism of the Vermont senator on several fronts – even accusing him of engineering an “artful smear” with suggestions she could be “bought” by donors.

The debate, the first since the Iowa caucuses and last before next week’s critical New Hampshire primary, was by far the most confrontational of the Democratic primary race.

Clinton, coming off a narrow Iowa win and trying to shrink Sanders’ huge lead in Granite State polls, stayed on offense for most of the night. She slammed Sanders’ campaign promises as too costly, while standing firm in claiming she’s a true “progressive” despite Sanders’ comments to the contrary.

Sanders, meanwhile, dug in as he questioned whether Clinton really “walks the walk” of the progressive cause – and described her as the candidate of the “establishment.”

“Secretary Clinton does represent the establishment. I represent, I hope, ordinary Americans,” he said, stressing that he, unlike Clinton, doesn’t enjoy super PAC backing and is funded in large part by small-dollar donations.

The verbal jabs flew quickly, and Clinton left few allegations unchallenged, visibly fed up with a campaign trail narrative that has painted her as the candidate of Wall Street. She rebutted Sanders’ “establishment” charge by questioning whether someone running to be the first female president can carry that label.

The most heated moment at the MSNBC-hosted debate in Durham, N.H., came when Clinton told Sanders she rejects the suggestion that anyone who takes donations or speaking fees from interest groups can be bought.

“Enough is enough,” Clinton said, telling Sanders the “attacks by insinuation” are not “worthy” of him. Clinton said if Sanders has something to allege, “say it directly,” but: “You will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received.”

She closed: “I think it’s time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out in recent weeks.”

That line earned a groan from Sanders and some boos from the audience.

Sanders went on to link Wall Street deregulation with billions spent on lobbying and campaign contributions.

“Some people think, yeah, that had some influence,” he said.

Clinton, meanwhile, described herself as a “progressive who gets things done,” and ripped Sanders for suggesting Clinton cannot be a “moderate” and a “progressive” at the same time. She teased Sanders as being the “self-proclaimed gatekeeper for progressivism” and said she doesn’t know anyone who fits his definition.

The fireworks underscored the tight state of the race going into New Hampshire’s contest next Tuesday. Clinton arrived on the debate stage clearly ready to rebut Sanders’ proposals and accusations – notably his oft-repeated criticism that she, as senator, erred by voting to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

“A vote in 2002 is not a plan to defeat ISIS,” she countered.

Yet as Clinton stressed her secretary of state experience and Sanders said that factor is “not arguable,” the Vermont senator noted experience is not the only point.

“Judgment is,” he said, again pointing to the 2002 Iraq vote. “One of us voted the right way, and one of us didn’t.”

As she has at prior debates, Clinton also challenged the senator’s proposals for free college and universal health care. “The numbers just don’t add up,” Clinton said.

She questioned how the country could, for instance, pay for free tuition at public colleges, as Sanders wants, and accused him of wanting to effectively scrap ObamaCare – a charge he denied.

Sanders defended his plans, particularly for universal health care.

“I do believe we should have health care for all,” he said.

The former secretary of state met the Vermont senator on stage in Durham, N.H., after eking out a narrow victory in Monday’s caucuses. While her campaign celebrated the win, Sanders’ strong showing in the state nevertheless has helped boost his fundraising – and he heads into New Hampshire with a steady double-digit lead in the polls.

There remains an ongoing dispute, however, over the Iowa results. The Des Moines Register editorial board earlier Thursday called for an audit of the Democratic caucus results, citing problems and confusion at polling sites.

Asked at Thursday’s debate about the editorial, Sanders said, “I agree with the Des Moines Register.”

He said after speaking with precinct captains, the campaign believes they may have “at least two more delegates.”

Yet Sanders, who has complained how some local delegates were allocated based on coin tosses, also said they should not “blow this out of proportion. “

“This is not the biggest deal in the world,” Sanders said.

Asked if she’d participate in an audit, Clinton said, “Whatever they decide to do, that’s fine.”

Clinton, separately, said she’s “100 percent confident” nothing will come of the FBI probe into her personal email use as secretary of state.

The Democratic debate on Thursday was the first to feature Clinton and Sanders one-on-one, with former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley now out of the race following his distant third showing in Iowa.

The debate was one of four added to the calendar earlier this week, after the Democratic National Committee and the two campaigns agreed to the terms.  The party had come under criticism for its sparse schedule, and was accused of trying to shield Clinton from debates.

The intelligence community has now deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails “too damaging” to national security to release under any circumstances, according to a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding.

The decision to withhold the documents in full, and not provide even a partial release with redactions, further undercuts claims by the State Department and the Clinton campaign that none of the intelligence in the emails was classified when it hit Clinton’s personal server.

Fox News is told the emails include intelligence from “special access programs,” or SAP, which is considered beyond “Top Secret.” A Jan. 14 letter, first reported by Fox News, from intelligence community Inspector General Charles McCullough III notified senior intelligence and foreign relations committee leaders that “several dozen emails containing classified information” were determined to be “at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, AND TOP SECRET/SAP levels.”

The State Department is trying to finish its review and public release of thousands of Clinton emails, as the Democratic presidential primary contests get underway in early February.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, there is an exemption that allows for highly sensitive, and in this case classified, material to be withheld in full — which means nothing would be released in these cases, not even heavily redacted versions, which has been standard practice with the 1,340 such emails made public so far by the State Department.

According to the Justice Department FOIA website, exemption “B3” allows a carve-out for both the CIA and NSA to withhold “operational files.” Similar provisions also apply to other agencies.

Fox News reported Friday that at least one Clinton email contained information identified as “HCS-O,” which is the code for intelligence from human spying.

One source, not authorized to speak on the record, suggested the intelligence agencies are operating on the assumption there are more copies of the Clinton emails out there, and even releasing a partial email would provide enough clues to trace back to the original – which could allow the identification of “special access programs” intelligence.

There was no comment to Fox News from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, or the agency involved. Fox News has chosen not to identify the agency that provided sworn declarations that intelligence beyond Top Secret was found in the Clinton emails.

Reached for comment by Fox News, a State Department official did not dispute that some emails will never be made public.

“We continue to process the next set of former Secretary Clinton’s emails for release under the FOIA process and will have more to say about it later,” the official said. “As always, we take seriously our responsibilities to protect sensitive information.”

The State Department was scheduled to release more Clinton emails Friday, while asking a D.C. federal court for an extension.

FBI investigators looking into the emails are focused on the criminal code pertaining to “gross negligence” in the handling and storage of classified information, and “public corruption.”

“The documents alone in and of themselves set forth a set of compelling, articulable facts that statutes relating to espionage have been violated,” a former senior federal law enforcement officer said. The source said the ongoing investigation along the corruption track “also stems from her tenure of secretary. These charges would be inseparable from the other charges in as much as there is potential for significant overlap and correlation.”

Based on federal regulations, once classified information is spilled onto a personal computer or device, as was the case with Clinton and her aides, the hardware is now considered classified at the highest classification level of the materials received.

While criticized by the Clinton campaign, McCullough, an Obama administration appointee, was relaying the conclusion of two intelligence agencies in his letter to Congress that the information was classified when it hit Clinton’s server — and not his own judgment.

Joseph E. Schmitz, a former inspector general of the Department of Defense, called the attacks on McCullough a “shoot the watchdog” tactic by Clinton’s campaign.

The developments, taken together, show Clinton finding herself once again at the epicenter of a controversy over incomplete records.

During her time as the first female partner at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas during the mid-1980s, she was known as one of the “three amigos” and close with partners Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Hubbell ended up a convicted felon for his role in the failure of the corrupt Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan which cost taxpayers more than $65 million. Hubbell embezzled more than a half-million dollars from the firm.

Foster killed himself in Washington, D.C., in July 1993. As Clinton’s partner in the Rose Law firm, he had followed the Clintons into the White House where he served as the Clintons’ personal lawyer and a White House deputy counsel.

Clinton’s missing Rose Law billing records for her work for Guaranty during the mid-1980s were the subject of three intense federal investigations over two years. Those records, in the form of a computerized printout of her work performed on behalf of Guaranty, were discovered under mysterious circumstances in the Book Room of the private White House living quarters.

The discovery of those records was announced during a  blizzard in January 1996 by attorney David Kendall, who still represents Hillary Clinton. After Clinton testified before a grand jury, prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she committed perjury or obstruction of justice.

Despite Clinton’s recent public statements about not knowing how the technology works, at least one email suggests she directed a subordinate to work around the rules. In a June 2011 email to aide Jake Sullivan, she instructed him to take what appeared to be classified talking points, and “turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure.”

A State Department spokesman could not say whether such a fax was sent.

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

 

The FBI is ready to indict Hillary Clinton and if its recommendation isn’t followed by the U.S. attorney general, the agency’s investigators plan to blow the whistle and go public with their findings, former U.S. House Majority leader Tom DeLay tells Newsmax TV.

“I have friends that are in the FBI and they tell me they’re ready to indict,” DeLay said Monday on “The Steve Malzberg Show.”

At least one of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server contained extremely sensitive information identified by an intelligence agency as “HCS-O,” which is the code used for reporting on human intelligence sources in ongoing operations, according to two sources not authorized to speak on the record.

Both sources are familiar with the intelligence community inspector general’s January 14 letter to Congress, advising the Oversight committees that intelligence beyond Top Secret — known as Special Access Program (SAP) — was identified in the Clinton emails, as well the supporting documents from the affected agencies that owned the information and have final say on classification.

According to a December 2013 policy document released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: “The HSC-0 compartment (Operations) is used to protect exceptionally fragile and unique IC (intelligence community) clandestine HUMINT operations and methods that are not intended for dissemination outside of the originating agency.”

It is not publicly known whether the information contained in the Clinton emails also revealed who the human source was, their nationality or affiliation.

Dan Maguire, former Special Operations strategic planner for Africom, told Fox News the disclosure of sensitive material impacts national security and exposes U.S. sources.

“There are people’s lives at stake. Certainly in an intel SAP, if you’re talking about sources and methods, there may be one person in the world that would have access to the type of information contained in that SAP,” he said.

It is not known what the impact was on the source, nor the findings of a damage assessment by the agency that controlled the source.

Separately, Fox News has learned that the so-called “spillage” of classified information is greater than the “several dozen” emails identified in the January 14 letter to Congress, which also acknowledged for the first time, that the Clinton emails contained intelligence beyond Top Secret, also known as Special Access Programs (SAPs).

The source said that the “several dozen” refers to the main or principal email thread identified by reviewers, not the number of times that classified information was forwarded, replied to or copied to people who did not have a “need-to-know” using unsecured communication channels — in this case a personal server.  More than one Special Access Program was affected.

“It’s pretty tough to have SAP program material out in the public domain. I mean, it’s a huge foul if that occurs,” said Maguire, who retired after 46 years of service, and who was involved with Special Access Programs throughout his career.  Maguire says a damage assessment to the program is mandatory and immediate.

“It’s a fairly laborious investigation. Once you know something was out to one person, that person sends it to 15, 15 send it to someone else — so it’s very difficult to ascertain where it all went but that’s all part of the damage control aspect to get all the information back in the box.”

The two declarations provided to the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence committees — as well as the leadership of Senate Foreign Affairs with oversight for the State Department — include the emails containing SAP intelligence, as well as supporting documents from the agency affected, showing how they reached the determination it came from one of its sources, and not from publicly available information.

When the inspector general’s letter was first reported by Fox News, Hillary Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said, “This is the same interagency dispute that has been playing out for months, and it does not change the fact that these emails were not classified at the time they were sent or received.”

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

 

A public high school in Maine was caught red-handed trying to recruit students to work on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as a “community service opportunity” – without the knowledge or consent of parents.

Could you imagine the national media firestorm had the school been recruiting for Donald Trump’s campaign?

Students at Marshwood High School in South Berwick received an email from the Clinton campaign – urging them to sign up for positions as unpaid “fellows”.

“Hillary for New Hampshire is looking for smart, energetic winter fellows who are committed to winning the New Hampshire primary for Hillary Clinton,” read the email from a campaign staffer. “Everyone working on the campaign now started off as a fellow at some point so it is a great way of getting a different skill set whilst helping an important cause.”

Tim and Elita Galvin were furious that their teenage son had received the solicitation – calling it “disingenuous and sneaky.”

“My son didn’t appreciate being targeted by anybody via his school email for a political campaign,” Mrs. Galvin told me. “I’ll be honest – he’s not a fan of Hillary Clinton to begin with. He’s done his homework and he doesn’t like her.”

The Galvins reached out to Paul Mehlhorn, the principal of the high school. They provided me with a copy of his emailed response.

“We often receive information from outside sources regarding opportunities for students to get involved in their communities,” he wrote. “We pass on this information to provide students with ways they may meet the requirement to perform 50 hours of community service to graduate.”

Mehlhorn went on to explain that students are not obligated to volunteer for Clinton’s campaign, “nor does it suggest the school supports a particular political candidate, religious doctrine or branch of military.”

“If other ‘campaigns’ were to seek volunteers, we would pass that on also,” he noted.

The principal went to say that the email solicitation sounded like a great way to have a conversation with their children about understanding their choices in getting involved or not.

As you might imagine, Mr. and Mrs. Galvin were not all that thrilled with the principal’s explanation.

“Politics doesn’t belong there – Republican, Democrat, green, purple, white, whatever,” Mrs. Galvin told me.  It doesn’t belong in the schools. The kids get, we get so much of this — we get bombarded during the political campaigning season, which now is almost never ending. Those kids should be able to go to school and learn without having that noise around them or targeted at them.”

I reached out to Mary Nash, the superintendent of schools. She told me it was a mistake to send out the email.

She said a school staffer had forwarded the email to students without providing “additional information regarding this community service opportunity.”

However, the intentions were pretty well explained in the email. They wanted minors to pound the pavement for Hillary Clinton.

She directed the principal to send a letter to moms and dads.

“In general, all staff must refrain from sending out any solicitations supporting any non-school organization,” the principal wrote.

Mrs. Galvin said there is absolutely nothing wrong with students getting involved in political campaigns. However, the school overstepped its boundaries.

“If you want to campaign for someone – that’s fine – but that’s between the child and the parents,” she said. ‘That’s not for the campaign to target you at school and it’s not for the school to suggest to you. That’s between you and your parents.”

Well said, Mrs. Galvin.

_________

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is “God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values.” Follow Todd on Twitter@ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.

 

It seems to be the question Democratic Party figureheads don’t want to answer: What’s the difference between a Democrat and a socialist?

Hillary Clinton, in an otherwise friendly interview on MSNBC, struggled to answer that question Tuesday when asked by host Chris Matthews.

At first, the Democratic presidential front-runner seemed to suggest the question should be directed at her rival in the race, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist.

“You see, I’m asking you,” Matthews countered.

Clinton simply replied, “I’m not one.”

Beyond that, she declined to explain the differences between the two.

“I can tell you what I am, I am a progressive Democrat … who likes to get things done,” Clinton said. “And who believes that we’re better off in this country when we’re trying to solve problems together. Getting people to work together. There will always be strong feelings and I respect that, from, you know, the far right, the far left, libertarians, whoever it might be, we need to get people working together.”

The awkward exchange was reminiscent of an interview the same host had in July with Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also struggled to explain the Democrat-socialist distinction.

Clinton and Schultz’ reluctance to answer the question could reflect a reluctance to rile the millions of Democrats supporting Sanders’ socialist-tinged campaign.

Matthews spoke to this undercurrent in the interview Tuesday, saying he understands Clinton wants to keep the left and center-left united.

Despite conservative charges of socialism against the Obama administration, there are still significant differences between the policies espoused by the Democratic Party and the massive welfare programs enacted in social democracies in places like Scandinavia.

But Clinton’s interview nevertheless fueled allegations that the distinctions are narrowing. “It is obvious Secretary Clinton didn’t want to get into the differences between a Democrat and a socialist, and the reason is simple: there aren’t any,” Jeff Bechdel, spokesman for the conservative America Rising PAC, said in a statement.

Foxnews.com

President Obama is set to use his White House powers to tighten gun control next week, including placing more restrictions on gun sellers, according to a new report.

Obama will use executive actions to expand licensing requirements for small-scale sellers, Politico reported.

Such a change would result in more sellers having to conduct background checks but wouldn’t completely close the so-called “gun show loophole,” which allows for firearm purchases at such venues without a check.

The White House declined a request by Fox News late Thursday to comment on the story.

However, principal deputy press secretary Eric Schultz acknowledged that the president has asked his team to “scrub existing legal authorities” to see whether he can take additional administrative action” and that Obama expects the work to be completed soon.

Schultz also essentially repeated what the White House has previously said about trying to end gun violence in the absence of action on Capitol Hill.

“The president has made clear the most impactful way to address the crisis of gun violence in our country is for Congress to pass some common sense, gun-safety measures,” Schultz told Fox News. “The president has made clear he’s not satisfied with where we are.”

The proposed action follows a recent flurry of gun violence including an allegedly racially-motivated June 2015 incident in which a 21-year-old gunman killed nine people inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, S.C., and last month a husband-wife Muslim couple fatally shooting 14 people at a holiday party in San Bernardino, Calif.

The most recent efforts to tighten gun-ownership laws were largely sparked by a 2012 incident in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults inside Sandy Hook elementary school, in Newtown, Conn.

Politico reports the president is trying to make changes before his presidency ends in January 2017 and before the 2016 White House race further dominates the news and Americans’ attention.

The administration is also expected to impose tighter rules for reporting guns that get lost or stolen on their way to a buyer, according to Politico.

Obama also reportedly will tighten the definition of being “engaged in the business” of selling guns.

Existing law states those who sell guns with the “principal objective of livelihood and profit” have to get a dealer’s license through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That means they also have to conduct a background check on buyers no matter where they sell, including online or at a gun show.

Everytown, the pro-gun control group led by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has reportedly recommended adding to the definition the selling guns in their original packaging and reselling a gun shortly after acquiring it.

Another new, likely requirement is that licensed dealers and manufacturers will have to report to federal authorities guns that are stolen in transit to a buyer.

ATF first proposed the new regulation in August 2014, but the gun industry successfully argued that voluntary reporting program was sufficient.

FoxNew.com

Trigger warning! This story and video may be unsuitable viewing for the “safe space” crowd.

Looking to understand just how controversial the debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak directly to students.

“I decided to take this campus free speech debate to its logical conclusion,” said Horowitz, who asked students if they’d sign a petition calling for an outright repeal of the First Amendment. “The result was this unbelievable display of total stupidity.”

In fact, Horowitz discovered a solid majority of the students asked willingly signed the petition, with several expressing their enthusiastic approval for his anti-First Amendment efforts.

“I think it’s really awesome that you’re out here,” said one student.

Watch the video to find out just how many supported the petition, and how willing many students were to sign away their more basic rights of free speech and expression.

FoxNews.com

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz convened a subcommittee hearing Tuesday to dispute the validity of research from climate “alarmists,” whose findings have become central to crafting environmental policy.

Cruz used his opening remarks to detail the 2013 expedition where a ship of 74 people sent into Antarctica to research climate change got stuck in ice, forcing an airlift rescue a week later.

“This expedition was there to document how the ice was vanishing in the Antarctic, but the ship became stuck,” Cruz said before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. “It had run into an inconvenient truth, as Al Gore might put it.”

Cruz, who chairs the subcommittee, also noted Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2009 claim that the Arctic would be “ice-free” by the summer of 2013—which was the same year the researchers became trapped in ice.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz convened a subcommittee hearing Tuesday to dispute the validity of research from climate “alarmists,” whose findings have become central to crafting environmental policy.

Cruz used his opening remarks to detail the 2013 expedition where a ship of 74 people sent into Antarctica to research climate change got stuck in ice, forcing an airlift rescue a week later.

“This expedition was there to document how the ice was vanishing in the Antarctic, but the ship became stuck,” Cruz said before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. “It had run into an inconvenient truth, as Al Gore might put it.”

Cruz, who chairs the subcommittee, also noted Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2009 claim that the Arctic would be “ice-free” by the summer of 2013—which was the same year the researchers became trapped in ice.

Republicans on the committee said the hearing was intended to shed light on “opposing viewpoints in the field of climate science,” which Cruz said are “reflexively” brushed aside by policymakers.

He repeatedly pointed to satellite data that found no significant global warming during the past 18 years, a slowdown often referred to as the warming “pause.”

“Global warming alarmists don’t like these data. They are inconvenient to their narrative,” Cruz said. “But facts and evidence matter.”

Judith Curry, former chair of Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, testified that while climate scientists uniformly agree that surface temperatures have increased during the past century, there is “considerable” disagreement about whether humans drive global warming and if warming is dangerous to the planet.

Curry’s research led her to findings that natural causes could be playing a larger role in warming than human activity, challenging what many consider “settled” conclusions in the climate debate.

But instead of leading to reignited deliberation, Curry said the science community quickly branded her a “heretic” for challenging the status quo.

“In their efforts to promote their ‘cause,’ the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously understating the uncertainties associated with the climate problem,” she said, adding: “This behavior risks destroying science’s reputation for honesty and objectivity. Without this objectivity and honesty, scientists become regarded as merely another lobbyist group.”

Democrats denounced the four witnesses Republicans called to testify as climate change “deniers” in a press conference held prior to the hearing.

“This hearing doesn’t make a lot of sense, given the challenges we are facing,” said Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the subcommittee. “When it comes to climate change, the science is pretty clear. It is basically settled.”

As reason to close debate on the issue, Democrats routinely float the statistic that 97 percent of scientists agree that human activity causes climate change. But those on the right have pushed back on the number, arguing it’s contrived from vague surveys.

“Any time you hear people say scientists should not question the conventional wisdom, you are hearing someone advocating essentially for the abolition of science,” Cruz said.

The hearing took place days before diplomats in Paris are expected to finalize an international climate pact as the United Nations summit comes to a close Friday.

U.S. diplomats have been working with representatives from nearly 200 other nations for the past week to broker an agreement aimed at cutting global carbon emissions.

Kerry told The New York Times Cruz’s hearing would not deter negotiations.

“One professor is not going to negate peer-reviewed science.”

Natalie Johnson / @nataliejohnsonn /

‘Spinning up as we speak’: Email shows Pentagon was ready to roll as Benghazi attack occurred

As the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was unfolding, a high-ranking Pentagon official urgently messaged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s top deputies to offer military help, according to an email obtained by Judicial Watch.

The revelation appears to contradict testimony Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave lawmakers in 2013, when he said there was no time to get forces to the scene in Libya, where four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.

“I just tried you on the phone but you were all in with S [apparent reference to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton],” reads the email, from Panetta’s chief of staff Jeremy Bash. “After consulting with General Dempsey, General Ham and the Joint Staff, we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.”

” … we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.” – Jeremy Bash, Pentagon chief of staff

The email was sent out at 7:19 p.m. ET on Sept. 11, 2012, in the early stages of the eight-hour siege that also claimed the lives of Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith and two former Navy SEALs, Ty Woods and Glen Doherty, private CIA contractors who raced to the aid of embattled State Department workers.

Although the email came after the first wave of the attack at the consulate, it occurred before a mortar strike on the CIA annex killed Woods and Doherty.

“This leaves no doubt military assets were offered and ready to go, and awaiting State Department signoff, which did not come,” Judicial Watch, a nonprofit government watchdog said in a statement.

Parts of the email from Bash were redacted before release, including details on what military forces were available.

In defending the Obama administration’s lack of a military response to the attack, Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee nearly two years ago that “time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response.”

The first assault occurred at the consulate at 3:40 p.m. ET. The second attack on the CIA annex a little over a mile away began three hours later. Bash’s email was sent approximately 40 minutes after that attack began.

Bash’s email, which bore the subject line “Libya,” was sent to Clinton’s then-deputy chief of staff Jacob Sullivan, Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Thomas Nides.

The attack came in three waves at two locations. It began when a handful of attackers scaled the wall of the diplomatic post at dusk and opened a gate, allowing dozens of armed men inside who then set the building on fire. Stevens and Smith died after breathing in smoke while hiding in a safe room, and later died.

Hours later, a nearby CIA annex was attacked twice. Woods and Doherty died there while defending the annex from the rooftop. A team of six security officials summoned from Tripoli and a Libyan military unit helped evacuate the remaining U.S. personnel who were taken to an airport and flown out of Benghazi.

The Obama administration later falsely claimed that the attack was triggered by an Internet video that insulted Islam.

Lawmakers investigating the events surrounding Benghazi already had acquired the e-mail, along with tens of thousands of others related to the probe, according to Matt Wolking, spokesman for the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

“The Select Committee has obtained and reviewed tens of thousands of documents in the course of its thorough, fact-centered investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attacks, and this information will be detailed in the final report the Committee hopes to release within the next few months,” Wolking told FoxNews.com. “While the Committee does not rush to release or comment on every document it uncovers, I can confirm that we obtained the unredacted version of this email last year, in addition to Jake Sullivan’s response.”

FoxNews.com/

Law enforcement authorities are concluding terrorism as a motive for an attack in Southern California that left 14 dead and was carried out with cold precision by a “devout” Muslim and his wife, who were killed hours later in a shootout with police.

Dressed in tactical gear and toting assault rifles, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, burst into a San Bernardino social services facility and shot up a conference room where Farook’s employer, the county health department, was hosting a holiday party. The pair escaped in a black SUV after the attack, which authorities said was over within minutes, only to resurface four hours later and less than 2 miles away in a fierce gun battle on the city’s main drag.

“They came prepared to do what they did, as if they were on a mission,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said.

Farook, who Burguan said was born in the U.S. and had worked at the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health for five years, was described by co-workers as a “devout” Muslim, who is believed to have lived in nearby Redlands. The nationality of Malik, who reportedly recently had a baby with Farook, was not identified. Family members told The Associated Press the couple was married.

Law enforcement officials said late Wednesday they could not rule out terrorism as a possible motive. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force was aiding in the investigation.

A law enforcement source told Fox News that the couple were each carrying an AR-15 rifle and a pistol when they were shot and killed by police after a brief chase in their black SUV about 2 miles from the initial shooting site. The source said the vehicle also contained so-called “rollout bags” with multiple pipe bombs, as well as additional ammunition. The couple also had GoPro cameras strapped to their body armor and wore tactical clothing, including vests stuffed with ammunition magazines.

“That’s a military tactic for a sustained fight,” the source told Fox News of the rollout bags.

In addition to the explosives found at the SUV, authorities discovered and detonated three pipe bombs late Wednesday at the Inland Regional Center, the complex where the initial shooting took place about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

Another source described a house in Redlands that was being searched in connection with the shooting as “an IED facility.” The source said investigators discovered multiple pipe bombs in the house, as well as small explosives that were strapped to remote-controlled cars.

The initial shooting happened shortly before 11 a.m. local time at the state-run center, which includes three buildings where developmentally disabled people of all ages are treated. The conference area had been rented out by Farook’s colleagues for a holiday banquet, according to authorities. The chief said that Farook had angrily left the party before returning with Malik. However, other investigators doubted the alleged dispute had taken place or whether the shooting could solely be chalked up to a workplace dispute due to the apparent planning behind the attack as well as the heavy weaponry used.

Patrick Baccari, a co-worker of Farook who suffered minor wounds from shrapnel slicing through the building’s bathroom walls, told the Associated Press he had been sitting at the same table as Farook at the banquet before his colleague suddenly disappeared, leaving his coat on his chair.

Baccari also said that Farook had traveled to Saudi Arabia for about a month this past spring. When Farook came back, word spread that he had gotten married and the woman he described as a pharmacist joined him shortly afterward. The couple had a baby later this year. Baccari added that the reserved Farook showed no signs of unusual behavior, although he grew out his beard several months ago.

The couple dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with relatives Wednesday morning, saying they had a doctor’s appointment, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said after talking with family. Farhan Khan, who is married to Farook’s sister, told reporters he last spoke to his brother-in-law about a week ago. He said he was in shock, condemned the violence, and had “absolutely no idea why he would do this.”

“They came prepared to do what they did as if on a mission.” – San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan

FBI spokesman David Bowdich acknowledged that “adjustments” had been made in the investigation with an eye on the possibility terrorism was involved.

“It’s a possibility, but we are not willing to go down that road yet,” Bowdich said.

About four hours after the shooting, with police looking for a dark SUV, officers staking out the Redlands home saw a vehicle matching that description. Authorities pursued the SUV, and a gun battle broke out around 3 p.m., authorities said. One officer suffered a minor injury.

The aftermath of the shootout was captured live by television news helicopters.

It was unclear where the suspects may have been during the nearly four hours following the lightning-quick attack, but they did not get far. A police spokeswoman said police came across the SUV while “doing follow-up work,” and several reports said the car was at a nearby home police were staking out when the suspects got in and tried to flee. It was not immediately clear if that home was the one searched later in Redlands.

Word that police were hot on their trail came even as emergency responders were treating the wounded on the scene, and sparked a flurry of law enforcement racing to the scene just blocks away. The gunfight, caught on cellphone video by a bystander, was a furious exchange of bullets in which a passenger in the SUV blasted at police through the shattered rear windshield before the vehicle was disabled in a hail of return fire.

Center employees, who undergo monthly training drills to prepare for active shooter situations, initially thought the incident was a drill, according to the Los Angeles Times. But when real bullets flew, several hid in closets, barricaded themselves in rooms or fled for their lives.

The Inland Regional Center is one of 21 facilities serving people with developmental disabilities run by the state, said Nancy Lungren, spokeswoman for the California Department of Developmental Services. The social services agency administers, authorizes and pays for assistance to people with disabilities such as autism and mental retardation. On an average day, doctors at the regional centers would be evaluating toddlers whose parents have concerns and case workers meeting with developmentally disabled adults.

The San Bernardino facility consists of three buildings, and employs approximately 600 workers. Inland Regional Center Executive Director Lavinia Johnson told Reuters the shooting happened at a conference center her group rented out for a San Bernardino Health Department county personnel holiday party.

Glenn Willwerth, who was near enough to the scene to hear shots being fired, told Fox News after the massacre that he saw a black SUV that matched the description of the one in the subsequent shootout leaving afterward, driving slowly and deliberately. He later told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that vehicle was “identical” to the one involved in the shootout.

Witnesses described passing bodies on the ground as they fled, and a makeshift triage center was set up outside the facility. A local NBC videographer reported there were not enough ambulances to transport victims, and that people were using pickup trucks to carry victims to triage areas. Hours later, busloads of employees from the center were taken to a nearby church where authorities planned to interview them.

At nearby Loma Linda Medical Center, a spokeswoman said the hospital was treating five adult patients, two of whom were in critical, but stable condition; two in fair condition and one still being assessed.

Other victims were being treated at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, where Kathy Hotetz waited for information about her sister, Denise Peraza, 27, who was shot in the leg.

“She’s alive. That’s all I know,” said Hotetz, 37. “Not knowing any more than that is the scariest part.”

Kevin Ortiz, 24, was shot twice in the leg and once in the shoulder during the attack, but managed to call both his wife of two weeks and his father to tell them he was alive.

“Kevin said he had been shot three times and that he was in pain but he was all right,” his wife, Dyana Ortiz, 23, said. ” Then he said ‘I love you’ and I said ‘I love you.'”

Wednesday’s bloodshed was the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since the attack at a school in Newtown, Conn., three years ago that left 26 children and adults dead.

President Obama was briefed on the situation by his Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco and asked to be updated on the situation as it develops. In Washington, House Speaker Paul Ryan called for a moment of silence before that city’s annual tree lighting.

Fox News’ Adam Housley and the Associated Press contributed to this report.