2016 Iowa Caucuses Unexpected Results Are in

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By Zeke J. Miller, Alex Altman and Charlotte Alter. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the Iowa Republican caucuses Monday night, cementing his status as the conservative front-runner and top rival to Donald Trump in the first contest of the 2016 presidential election. The Democratic race was locked in “a virtual tie” early Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of Iowans cast the first votes of 2016, with reports of record turnout on the Republican side and high turnout in the Democratic race. The contest was set to winnow a wide and fractured Republican field and provide a key test in the Democratic race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

With about 99% of precincts reporting in the Republican race, Ted Cruz had 28% of the vote, compared to 24% for Trump.

“The Republican nominee and the next President of the United States will not be chosen by the media,” Cruz, who is running as a proud scourge of GOP leaders, told cheering supporters in Des Moines. “Will not be chosen by the Washington establishment. Will not be chosen by the lobbyists.” (Read more from “2016 Iowa Caucuses Unexpected Results Are in” HERE)

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Iowa Caucuses: Ted Cruz Wins; Clinton, Sanders Tied

By Stephen Collinson. One thing is clear after Monday night’s Iowa caucuses: there’s a long, volatile election season ahead before two deeply fractured parties can unite behind a nominee.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are leaving the Hawkeye State in a virtual tie — a vote that underscores the Democratic party’s debate over whether it should solidify behind President Barack Obama’s legacy or move forward with more radical health care and economic reforms.

Republican Ted Cruz bested Donald Trump, raising questions about the billionaire’s reliance on his celebrity instead of traditional political organization. And Marco Rubio’s stronger-than-expected showing could mark him as the establishment’s best hope against a grassroots revolt in next week’s New Hampshire primary and beyond . . .

Claiming victory, Cruz fired immediate shots at both Trump and the party elites he has so infuriated by waging an anti-establishment crusade that has nevertheless endeared him to the GOP’s rank and file. (Read more from “Iowa Caucuses: Ted Cruz Wins; Clinton, Sanders Tied” HERE)

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Former U.S. Spies Are ‘Horrified’ by Clinton’s Email Scandal – Here’s Why

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By Deroy Murdock. Three veterans of American intelligence are horrified by the havoc that they believe former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton caused through her epic abuse of state secrets in the E-Mailgate scandal . . .

In the anonymous words of this one-time American intelligence professional, here is some of the devastation likely caused by Clinton’s exposure of SAP secrets:

1. Intel officers responsible for those programs must be alerted.

2. Once alerted that SAP was mishandled and on a system that has been attacked, it is only prudent to end those programs.

3. What does ending those programs mean? Depending on the SAP involved, it could mean redoing war plans, terminating ongoing covert actions, rethinking how the exposed covert actions must be done and executing on that new plan, or, if it reveals a source, removing that source from his environment.

(Read more from “Former U.S. Spies Are ‘Horrified’ by Clinton’s Email Scandal – Here’s Why” HERE)

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‘I Take Classified Information Seriously,’ Boasts Hillary, Despite Evidence

By John Hayward. “I take classified information seriously,” Hillary Clinton declared on CNN. “People are selectively leaking and making comments that have no basis in anything I’m aware of.”

Doubling down on this is shrewd politics, because Clinton’s guilt has been laid bare by the latest round of email revelations.

Her hope now is for pure political immunity, making herself too big to prosecute by sewing up the Democratic presidential nomination. Her highest priority is to reassure nervous Democrat voters and power brokers that she’ll survive the email scandal.

There is no real question that she violated security protocols, repeatedly, and a strong case to be made that she put lives in danger by doing so. (Read more from “‘I Take Classified Information Seriously,’ Boasts Hillary, Despite Evidence” HERE)

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White House Won’t Say If It’s Behind Facebook Gun Ban

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By Nicole Duran. The White House on Monday refused to say whether Facebook’s recent decision to ban users from facilitating the sale of guns, parts and ammunition was the result of pressure from the Obama administration.

“We welcome this step,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday, just days after Facebook’s Friday announcement. “We talked about how the Internet is a loophole” for people seeking to buy guns without undergoing background checks, he said. It’s a “common-sense effort to prevent guns from easily falling into the hands of criminals or other individuals who shouldn’t be allowed to access guns,” he said.

(Read more from “White House Won’t Say If It’s Behind Facebook Gun Ban” HERE)

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Facebook and Instagram Are Banning Private Gun Sales

By Dave Smith. Facebook has decided to ban the private sales of firearms on its social network.

Instagram, Facebook’s photo-sharing platform, is doing the same.

“Over the last two years, more and more people have been using Facebook to discover products and to buy and sell things to one another,” Facebook’s head of product policy said in a statement to The New York Times . . .

Facebook says it will rely on its 1.6 billion users to report any violations of these new rules — this especially goes for Facebook’s private messaging service Facebook Messenger, since Facebook does not read the content of messages sent on that platform. Facebook already bans the private sales of pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs like marijuana. (Read more from “Facebook and Instagram Are Banning Private Gun Sales” HERE)

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National Debt Hits $19 Trillion

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The national debt hit $19 trillion for the first time ever on Friday, and came in at $19.012 trillion . . .

That’s a slightly stepped-up pace compared to the last few $1 trillion mileposts. It took about 14 months for the debt to climb from $17 trillion to $18 trillion, and about the same amount of time to go from $16 trillion to $17 trillion.

The federal government has been free to borrow as much as needed for the last several years. Years ago, Congress passed legislation to increase the debt ceiling to a certain level of debt, and borrowing had to stop once that limit was hit.

But increasingly, Congress has instead allowed more borrowing by suspending the debt ceiling for long periods of time. That allows the government to borrow any amount it needs until the suspension period ends. (Read more from “National Debt Hits $19 Trillion” HERE)

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‘This Was All Planned’: More Unbelievable Revelations Made About Hillary, State Department

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By Paul Sperry. The State Department is lying when it says it didn’t know until it was too late that Hillary Clinton was improperly using personal e-mails and a private server to conduct official business — because it never set up an agency e-mail address for her in the first place, the department’s former top watchdog says.

“This was all planned in advance” to skirt rules governing federal records management, said Howard J. Krongard, who served as the agency’s inspector general from 2005 to 2008.

The Harvard-educated lawyer points out that, from Day One, Clinton was never assigned and never used a state.gov e-mail address like previous secretaries.

“That’s a change in the standard. It tells me that this was premeditated. And this eliminates claims by the State Department that they were unaware of her private e-mail server until later,” Krongard said in an exclusive interview. “How else was she supposed to do business without e-mail?” (Read more from “‘This Was All Planned’: More Terrifying Revelations Made About Hillary, State Department” HERE)

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State Won’t Release 18 Emails Between Clinton and Obama That Were on Her Private Server—but Says They Are Not Classified

By CNSNews.com Staff. State Department Spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing on Friday afternoon that the State Department will not be releasing 18 emails exchanged between President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state that have been found on Clinton’s private email server.

Kirby, however, said that these emails between the president and secretary of state “have not been determined to be classified.”

The government emails that were on Clinton’s private server have been requested in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

In the same briefing, Kirby said that the State Department also would not be releasing seven email chains including 37 pages because these emails contain what he called “a category of top secret information.” (Read more from “State Won’t Release 18 Emails Between Clinton and Obama That Were on Her Private Server—but Says They Are Not Classified” HERE)

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Something Major Was Just Revealed About Ted Cruz’s Iowa Mailers

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By Ryan Lizza. Ted Cruz’s Presidential campaign prides itself on being data-centric and on integrating insights from political science into its tactics. In 2008, academics at Yale published an influential paper showing that one of the most effective ways to get voters to the polls was “social pressure.” Researchers found that registered voters in a 2006 primary election in Michigan voted at a higher rate if they received mailers indicating that their participation in the election would be publicized. The mailer that had the biggest impact included information about the two previous elections and whether the recipient and his or her neighbors participated or not. “We intend to mail an updated chart,” the mailer warned. “You and your neighbors will all know who voted and who did not” . . .

After looking at several mailers posted online, I was more curious about how the Cruz campaign came up with its scores. On all the mailers I saw, every voter listed had only one of three possible scores: fifty-five per cent, sixty-five per cent, or seventy-five per cent, which translate to F, D, and C grades, respectively. Iowans take voting pretty seriously. Why was it that nobody had a higher grade?

In Iowa, although voter-registration information is free and available to the public, voter history is not. That information is maintained by the secretary of state, who licenses it to campaigns, super PACs, polling firms, and any other entity that might want it. So was the Cruz campaign accurately portraying the voter histories of Iowans? Or did it simply make up the numbers?

It seems to have made them up. Dave Peterson, a political scientist at Iowa State University who is well-acquainted with the research on “social pressure” turnout techniques, received a mailer last week. The Cruz campaign pegged his voting percentage at fifty-five per cent, which seems to be the most common score that the campaign gives out. (All of the neighbors listed on Peterson’s mailer also received a score of fifty-five per cent.) (Read more from “Something Major Was Just Revealed About Ted Cruz’s Iowa Mailers” HERE)

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Donald Trump: ‘Ted Cruz Is a Total Liar’

By Jeremy Diamond. Donald Trump on Sunday repeatedly slammed his chief presidential rival Sen. Ted Cruz as a “total liar” as the Texas senator and his allies have claimed in the final stretch to the Iowa caucuses that Trump favors government-run, universal health care.

Cruz, meanwhile, pressed forward Sunday with the line of attack, proclaiming: “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Obamacare.”

“Look, Ted Cruz is a total liar. I am so against Obamacare. I’ve been saying it for two years in my speeches, I’m going to repeal and replace Obamacare,” Trump said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I don’t even know where he gets this.”

The back-and-forth comes as Trump has pulled ahead of Cruz in the final days of campaigning in Iowa, where Cruz had been surging until Trump began lobbing attacks at Cruz, most notably raising the issue of Cruz’s Canadian birthplace. (Read more from “Donald Trump: ‘Ted Cruz Is a Total Liar'” HERE)

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Trump, Cruz Trade Shots on Eve of Iowa Caucus

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By Fox News. Leading Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz traded shots Sunday on the eve of the Iowa Caucus, hoping to persuade the remaining undecided voters in the first-in-the-nation voting.

Both candidates hammered on familiar points, with Trump again questioning Cruz’s citizenship and financial records. Cruz, meanwhile, asked whether Trump is indeed a conservative and suggested that his bluster covers his weakness on issues.

“He’s the height of chutzpah,” Cruz told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s astonishing. He’s not honest.”

The Texas senator trails the front-running Trump by 5 percentage points, 28-to-23, with the caucus on Monday, according to a Des Moines (Iowa) Register poll released Saturday . . .

With Cruz and Trump essentially battling for the social conservative vote to win Iowa, Cruz told Fox News that he’s “thrilled” to be in second place, despite having led Trump in Iowa just a few weeks earlier. (Read more from “Trump, Cruz Trade Shots on Eve of Iowa Caucus” HERE)

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Cruz: ‘A Vote for Marco Rubio Is a Vote for Amnesty’

By Curt Mills. Republican presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz ratcheted up his rhetoric Sunday against Sen. Marco Rubio, claiming a vote for his primary rival is tantamount to support for amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

“A vote for Marco is a vote for amnesty,” Cruz said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Cruz in a tight race with the Florida senator and frontrunner Donald Trump for the conservative vote and ultimately the party nomination also said “This race is a simple choice. A vote for Marco Rubio is a vote for amnesty. And a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for ObamaCare.The reason conservatives are uniting behind our campaign is because I am the only candidate in the race who has been a consistent conservative.”

Cruz has hit Rubio for months on the issue, saying he sided with Senate Democrats on comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

Rubio originally supported the bill, then essentially distanced himself from the measure when conservatives did not support it. (Read more from “Cruz: ‘A Vote for Marco Rubio Is a Vote for Amnesty'” HERE)

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Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Marco Rubio Are Money Race Winners

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For all the complaints from Democrats about the amount of big money in politics, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have raised a staggering amount of cash.

Clinton’s campaign raised $112 million in 2015, and top Democratic billionaire donor George Soros recently gave $6 million to her super PAC, according to new figures filed with the Federal Election Commission Sunday night. Sanders, for his part, raised roughly $73 million last year, but as his insurgent candidacy gains momentum, he continues to bring in cash. The Vermont senator raised more than $20 million in January, his campaign said Sunday.

On the Republican side, front-runner Donald Trump has lent his campaign more than $12 million through the end of 2015. Yet while he consistently states he is not raising money, his campaign recorded donations worth over $2 million in the fourth quarter, according to the filing. Trump boasted at the end of the year he would begin spending $2 million per week — that spending is not included in Sunday’s report.

Trump can easily self-fund his campaign, but GOP contenders Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz still must hit the donor circuit. Rubio did well in the fourth quarter, raising $14 million — twice that of his Florida rival, Jeb Bush. His super PAC also won major donations from conservative hedge fund billionaires Paul Singer and Ken Griffin. And Cruz ended the year in a strong position. He raised $20.5 million in the last three months of 2015, ending with $18.7 million. (Read more from “Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Marco Rubio Are Money Race Winners” HERE)

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‘Eyewash’: How the CIA Deceives Its Own Workforce About Operations

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Senior CIA officials have for years intentionally deceived parts of the agency workforce by transmitting internal memos that contain false information about operations and sources overseas, according to current and former U.S. officials who said the practice is known by the term “eyewash.”

Agency veterans described the tactic as an infrequent but important security measure, a means of protecting vital secrets by inserting fake communications into routine cable traffic while using separate channels to convey accurate information to cleared recipients.

But others cited a significant potential for abuse. Beyond the internal distrust implied by the practice, officials said there is no clear mechanism for labeling eyewash cables or distinguishing them from legitimate records being examined by the CIA’s inspector general, turned over to Congress or declassified for historians.

Senate investigators uncovered apparent cases of eyewashing as part of a multi-year probe of the CIA’s interrogation program, according to officials who said that the Senate Intelligence Committee found glaring inconsistencies in CIA communications about classified operations, including drone strikes.

At least two eyewashing cases are cited in the classified version of the committee’s final report, according to officials who have reviewed the document. In one instance, leaders at CIA headquarters sent a cable to the agency’s station in Pakistan saying operators there were not authorized to pursue a potentially lethal operation against the alleged al-Qaeda operative known as Abu Zubaida . But a second set of instructions sent to a smaller circle of recipients told them to disregard the other message and that the mission could proceed. (Read more from “‘Eyewash’: How the CIA Deceives Its Own Workforce About Operations” HERE)

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Secret Fed Docs Show Obama Misled Congress, Public During Debt Limit Crises

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Federal Reserve Bank of New York officials secretly conducted real-time exercises during the 2011 and 2013 debt-limit crisis that demonstrated the federal government could function during a temporary shutdown by prioritizing spending, even as Treasury Secretary Jack Lew publicly claimed many times that such efforts were “unworkable,” according to a new report by the House Financial Services Committee obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The staff report, to be released Tuesday, charges that Lew and other Obama administration officials deliberately misled Congress and the public during the federal budget and debt limit showdowns in both years. The committee will convene a public hearing on the report Feb. 2.

The report also states that the Obama administration crafted actual contingency plans to pay for Social Security and veterans benefits, as well as principal and interest on the national debt if the government was temporarily unable to borrow more money. The Committee concludes that over the last two years the Treasury Department has “obstructed” congressional efforts to get to the bottom of the administration’s real-time policy during the two showdowns.

The Constitution stipulates that only Congress can determine how much money the federal government can borrow. Presidents thus cannot unilaterally spend beyond congressional debt ceiling limits set. The committee — chaired by Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas — charged that during both confrontations, the Obama administration held the country’s creditworthiness “hostage” by claiming default was the only possibility if the debit ceiling was not raised. (Read more from “Secret Fed Docs Show Obama Misled Congress, Public During Debt Limit Crises” HERE)

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