Poll: Democrats, Even Clinton Supporters, Warm to Socialism

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Senator Bernie Sanders’s speech on Thursday explaining his democratic socialist ideology carried little risk among supporters and other Democrats: A solid majority of them have a positive impression of socialism, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released this month.

Fifty-six percent of those Democratic primary voters questioned said they felt positive about socialism as a governing philosophy, versus 29 percent who took a negative view.

In an address Thursday afternoon at Georgetown University, Mr. Sanders argued that the redistribution of wealth was at the heart of the American social contract, seeking to link himself with the legacies of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The applause he drew should come as little surprise: Sixty-nine percent of Sanders supporters see socialism in a positive light, versus just 21 percent who view it negatively.

Even most of those supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination approve of socialism, 52 percent to 32 percent . . .

Over all, Democrats are just about as keen on socialism as they are on capitalism. In a Gallup survey from November 2012, 53 percent of all Democrats gave socialism a positive rating, while 55 percent did so for capitalism. (Read more from “Poll: Democrats, Even Clinton Supporters, Warm to Socialism” HERE)

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New ISIS Video Threatens Attack on White House

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The Dijla branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) released a new video depicting unidentified jihadists celebrating the recent attacks on Paris and vowing the attacks would “conclude with the so-called White House.”

In the video – titled “Paris Before Rome” — militants warn French President Francois Hollande, U.S. President Barack Obama “and those who follow in his footsteps” to expect more strikes . . .

“We began with you, and we shall conclude with the so-called White House. We shall turn it even blacker than our fire by the will of Allah,” a militants says in the video. “Better still … we shall blow it up just like we blew up the idols on this good land.”

The video surfaced one day after another ISIS video that makes reference to Times Square. In what appeared to be a threat directed at the U.S., Times Square was shown along with New York City taxis and several Midtown locations, interspersed with what appeared to be a man preparing an explosive device and strapping it to himself . . .

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is warning that St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Milan’s cathedral and La Scala opera house, as well as “general venues” like churches, synagogues, restaurants, theaters and hotels have been identified as “potential targets” in those two cities for terrorist attacks. (Read more from “New ISIS Video Threatens Attack on White House” HERE)

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While DC Debates Religion, Refugees, Iraqi Christians Feel Uncle Sam’s Boot

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Amid Washington’s raging debate over refugees and religion, more than two dozen Iraqi Christians who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico in hopes of joining their friends and families are being deported after their bids for religious asylum were rejected.

A total of 27 Chaldean Christians, driven from their homeland by Al Qaeda and ISIS, entered the country in April and May, hoping to join the thriving Iraqi Christian community in and around San Diego. But the door to America is being slammed on the 17 men and 10 women over what their supporters say are technicalities.

“These are families who were split up because of religious persecution, and now the government – which we love – is preventing them from being reunited,” said Fr. Michael Bazzi, of St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Cathedral, in El Cajon. “We wonder why, for thousands of Muslims, the door is open to America, yet Christians are not allowed to come.”

The Chaldeans are among tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of Christians from Iraq and Syria who have been displaced by fighting and persecuted by Al Qaeda, ISIS and even the Iraqi government. But because some had first gone to Germany before making their way to the border, and in some cases were deemed to not have been forthcoming about it on their applications for religious asylum, they were held at the Otay Detention Center in San Diego since entering the U.S. while their applications were considered. So far, 22 have been ordered out of the U.S. and the other five are awaiting a likely similar ruling.

“We will continue to seek to remove the ones who have been ordered removed,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack told FoxNews.com. (Read more from “While DC Debates Religion, Refugees, Iraqi Christians Feel Uncle Sam’s Boot” HERE)

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This Is What Donald Trump’s Children Say Was ‘Family Time’

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Donald Trump has said managing a multibillion-dollar real estate company meant he was often away from his children as they were growing up, but his kids told Barbara Walters they all have fond memories of spending time with their father on the job.

“We grew up walking construction sites,” Ivanka Trump, 34, told Walters in an interview for ABC News “20/20.” “He found a way that was true to him to connect with us that maybe is a little less traditional because he was working so hard…and we are so comfortable in our relationship with our father.”

“He would always sneak me down to get a candy bar in the lobby,” added Tiffany Trump, 22. “Our times together were learning, playing in his office.”

Donald Trump’s four eldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany, spoke with Walters about what it was like growing up with their dad and what they think about his presidential run. Trump’s youngest, his 9-year-old son Barron, did not attend the interview because he was at school.

Trump’s three adult children, Donald Jr, Ivanka, and Eric, all work in their father’s company, The Trump Organization, as Executive Vice Presidents. His eldest son said he remembers their father stopping whatever he was doing to take phone calls from them. (Read more from “This Is What Donald Trump’s Children Say Was ‘Family Time'” HERE)

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Captagon: The Amphetamine Fueling Syria’s Civil War

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As Syria sinks ever deeper into civil war, evidence is starting to emerge that a brutal and bloody conflict that has left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced as many as two million is now also being fuelled by both the export and consumption of rapidly increasing quantities of illegal drugs.

Separate investigations by the news agency Reuters and Time magazine have found that the growing trade in Syrian-made Captagon – an amphetamine widely consumed in the Middle East but almost unknown elsewhere – generated revenues of millions of dollars inside the country last year, some of which was almost certainly used to fund weapons, while combatants on both sides are reportedly turning to the stimulant to help them keep fighting.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Syria has long been a transit point for drugs coming from Europe, Turkey and Lebanon and destined for the wealthy Gulf states. But the breakdown of law and order, collapse of the country’s infrastructure and proliferation of armed groups have now turned it into a major producer, Reuters says. Production in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley – a traditional centre for the drug – fell 90% last year from 2011, with the decline largely attributed to production inside Syria.

Neither investigation found conclusive evidence that the warring sides were using profits from the drug directly to buy weapons, but both quoted experts and officials as saying this was highly likely. A former US Treasury official, Matthew Levitt, pointed out that the Iranian-funded, Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, which is robustly backing Syria’s Assad regime, “has a long history of dabbling in the drug trade to help with funding”. (Read more from “Captagon: The Amphetamine Fueling Syria’s Civil War” HERE)

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HHS: Bailing out Obamacare Insurers an ‘Obligation’ of the Federal Government

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The Department of Health and Human Services attempted to reassure private insurers on Thursday that they’ll be able to recover losses from participating in Obamacare by claiming it was an “obligation” of the U.S. government to bail them out.

At issue is a provision within the law known as the risk corridors program. Under the program, which runs from 2014 through 2016, the federal government is to collect money from health insurers doing better than expected and use those funds to provide a federal backstop to other insurers who incur larger than expected losses from rising medical claims. The idea was to provide training wheels to insurers in the first years of Obamacare’s implementation, and to take away any incentive for insurers to cherry pick only the healthiest customers.

Republicans, fearing that this could turn into an open-ended government bailout in the event of industry-wide losses, included a provision in last year’s spending bill that limited the program, requiring HHS to pay out only from the pool of money collected, rather than supplementing it with other sources of government funding. President Obama signed that bill.

Now that insurers have been able to look at medical claims, what they’ve found is that enrollees in Obamacare are disproportionately sicker, and losses are piling up. For the 2014 benefit year, insurers losing more than expected asked for $2.87 billion in government payments through the risk corridors program, but HHS only collected $362 million from insurers performing better than expected. Thus, the funds available to the federal government only amounts to 12.6 percent of what insurers argue that they’re owed.

So insurers are not happy. And now the industry lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans — which happens to be helmed by Marilyn Tavenner, who previously oversaw the implementation of Obamacare as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — is aggressively fighting for more money. (Read more from “HHS: Bailing out Obamacare Insurers an ‘Obligation’ of the Federal Government” HERE)

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Mcdonald’s Sued After Costumers Exposed to Disease

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A customer sued the operator of a McDonald’s restaurant in Waterloo, New York, on Wednesday after diners were exposed to food and drinks prepared by a worker with hepatitis A, the virus that causes contagious liver infections.

The lawsuit was filed in New York state court in Seneca County against Jascor Inc. It seeks class-action status for potentially affected customers, who plaintiffs said could number more than 1,000.

Representatives from Jascor could not immediately be reached for comment. Most McDonald’s restaurants are operated by franchisees rather than McDonald’s Corp . . .

Public health officials said diners had a low risk of contracting the illness, but urged those who had consumed food and/or drinks from the restaurant on Nov. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8 to consider treatments if they were not previously vaccinated against hepatitis A.

Christopher Welch, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, purchased and consumed products from the restaurant on at least one day when the infected worker was on duty, according to the lawsuit. (Read more from “Mcdonald’s Sued After Costumers Exposed to Disease” HERE)

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Democrat Declared Winner in Runoff Election for La. Governor

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Democratic state lawmaker John Bel Edwards defeated Republican Sen. David Vitter in Saturday’s runoff election for Louisiana governor.

Edwards will take over the office from former 2016 Republican presidential candidate Gov. Bobby Jindal in January . . .

Vitter entered the race as the early favorite amid a field of lesser known and lesser funded candidates, including state Democratic Rep. Edwards. However, after months of attacks, include those about his 2007 prostitution scandal, Vitter barely defeated his two Republican challengers in last month’s open primary and finished second behind Edwards by roughly 14 percentage points . . .

To be sure, Democrats didn’t expect to win the Louisiana governorship, considering Republicans now control every governorship and state legislature in the Deep South.

And when Vitter entered the race in January 2014 as the frontrunner, he was pulling in tremendous sums of campaign cash and firing up a dominant political machine that he’s used to get himself and his allies regularly elected to Louisiana offices. (Read more from “Democrat Declared Winner in Runoff Election for La. Governor” HERE)

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Minneapolis Shooting: Witness Says Man Was in Handcuffs When Shot by Police

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Smoke tumbled from several small bonfires surrounded by protesters warming their hands outside the 4th Police Precinct in North Minneapolis on Saturday.

The demonstrators are a mixed crowd of black, white, and brown people who say they will not leave until justice is done. At the very least, they want any video that police have to be released in the officer-involved fatal shooting of 24-year-old Jamar Clark . . .

Several witnesses to the shooting or immediate aftermath told CNN the public needs to understand why the protesters are so angry. The witnesses are adamant that there was no reason for police to shoot Clark — they say he was restrained.

One told CNN he is sure Clark was handcuffed. Another said he was unable to move . . .

Wilson said he had just walked out of the Elks Lodge as it was closing when he saw the officers with Clark on the ground. The lodge is across the street, about 35 feet from where the incident happened. It was dark, about 10 minutes before 1 a.m. (Read more from “Minneapolis Shooting: Witness Says Man Was in Handcuffs When Shot by Police” HERE)

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France’s Most-Wanted Man

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Salah Abdeslam — the only one of the suspected Paris attackers known to have survived — is still at large and still very much at the center of a mystery.

Nine days after the terror attacks that killed 130 people, a clearer picture is emerging of his movements — and it seems Abdeslam fled the city late on the night of November 13 in a state of panic.

Information from sources close to the investigation draw a picture of a man on the run, and how that run began. On the evening of the attacks, Abdeslam, 26, was thought to have been the driver of a black Renaut Clio that dropped off three suicide bombers near the Stade de France . . .

Four days later, last Tuesday, the Clio was found abandoned in the Place Albert Kahn in Paris’ 18th arrondissement. It appeared to have been parked hurriedly on a pedestrian crossing.

This is where the mystery begins. Was Abdeslam meant to carry out a separate attack? Or join the men who had already burst into the Bataclan theater? Or return to Brussels, where he lived, to plan another attack? (Read more from “France’s Most-Wanted Man” HERE)

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