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Top U.S. counterterrorism officials say they worry a potential terrorist could be hiding among refugees who are looking to come to the United States after escaping the brutal war in Syria.

"It's clearly a population of concern, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Nicholas Rasmussen, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.

Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, went further, saying it would be a huge mistake to bring refugees from the conflict to the U.S. even as an estimated 4 million children, women and men have been forced to flee Syria and another 7 million have been displaced from their homes there, unable to leave.

Senior officials leading the State Departments refugee efforts say the U.S. government has a long history of caring for the innocent victims of war.

Its not a matter of should we do it, its really a matter of how we do it, Larry Bartlett, the State Departments director of Refugee Admission for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, told ABC News. One of the fundamental principles of our country is that we care about others. We will help others.

Bartlett insisted every refugee is vetted through an intensive system, drawing on information and expertise from several U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Defense Department.

We have a very slow process of moving refugees through our pipeline, and part of it is because of the security vetting component, Bartlett said.

Homeland security officials also testified Wednesday that any potential refugees from Syria would receive the most rigorous screening.

"Any tasking we're given ... will be as thorough as we can make it," said Francis Taylor, the head of the Department of Homeland Securitys intelligence office.

Yet thats not reassurance enough for McCaul and other leading Republicans, who recently penned a letter to National Security Advisor Susan Rice cautioning that the U.S. governments ability to screen refugees from Syria might not be sufficient.

The continued civil war and destabilization in Syria undeniably make it more difficult to acquire the information needed to conduct reliable threat assessments on specific refugees, they wrote in the letter two weeks ago.

With tens of thousands of Syrians joining groups in the region like the Islamic State, the U.S. government cannot allow the refugee process to become a backdoor for jihadists, they added.

At the hearing Wednesday, an FBI official also questioned whether the U.S. intelligence community with few assets on the ground in Syria and little insight into the country from elsewhere can provide authorities with the information they need to properly determine whether any refugee could pose a threat.

"You have to have information to vet, said FBI Assistant Director Michael Steinbach, who heads the bureaus counterterrorism division. Databases don't [have] the information on those individuals, and that's the concern.

Still, Rasmussen vowed the full weight of the U.S. intelligence community would be employed to "unearth" any concerning information about potential refugees. And Bartlett and other State Department officials say the U.S. is far from opening the flood gates.

Of the 7 million of Syrians seeking refuge, only about 500 have been let in the United States. Compare that with Syrias neighbor, Jordan, whose Foreign Minister recently said theyve let in over 80,000 Syrians -- a figure that represents nearly 21 percent of Jordans total population. Or compare it to the response to the Iraq war, with the U.S. admitting over 120,000 Iraqis.

So far Germany and Sweden are leading the charge when it comes to accepting Syrians. Germany has let in nearly 12,000 refugees, not including those who have sought asylum there.

Officials at the State Department were quick to report that overall the U.S. accepts more refugees than the rest of the world combined. Bartlett and others also say they expect the U.S. to steadily increase the number of Syrians it accepts as applications at the United Nations continue to pile up.

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Officials Fear Syrian Refugees Could Pose Threat to US ...

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

Its hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that theyll compensate for todays expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) Its a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for todays disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obamas Waterloo just as healthcare was Clintons in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clintons 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romneys Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise without weighing so heavily on small business without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the doughnut hole and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or more exactly with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

Ive been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say but what is equally true is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office Rushs listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So todays defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, its mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, its Waterloo all right: ours.

Follow David Frum on Twitter: @davidfrum

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HYR brings together 18-40 year old like-minded Republicans to network and equip young leaders with knowledge, resources, and skills to help build the future of the party. We work to grow and expand participation in the Harris County Republican party while assisting and learning from candidates, elected officials, and party leadership read more

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Grassley Statement on President Obamas Executive Gun Control Proposal

WASHINGTON Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley made the following statement regarding President Obamas announcement to use executive authority to tighten firearms controls: Americas response to recent tragedies involving guns should include a thoughtful review of not only how, but also why they happened. It should explore responsible, effective solutions to underlying problems and []

DES MOINES Iowans will have an easier way to register to vote and update their registration information thanks to the new electronic voter registration system unveiledMondayby Secretary of State Paul Pate. The system is housed on the Iowa Department of Transportations website, available for use any time of day, and is accessible on any []

If you are into politics, there will be no better place to be for the next month than the state of Iowa. The holidays are over. The Hawkeye football season is over. We love college basketball, and while conference play is upon us, it doesnt get serious until March. For the next 30 days, the []

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness. Today, it is a great economic engine for our country.Millions of families rely on our farms and ranches for their well-being. Millions of our youth see it as their future, their []

Contrary to popular belief, the 2016 presidential campaign of Texas Senator Ted Cruz does not present socially conservative and evangelical voters their best chance to put one of their own in the White House. Instead, a Cruz presidency may usher in the total demise of social conservative movement in America. Last week, Politico released a []

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

Excerpt from:
The Iowa Republican | News for Republicans, By Republicans

For Immediate Release December 17, 2013

The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board today levied a $100,000 civil penalty against the Minnesota DFL Senate Caucus for illegal campaign coordination with thirteen of their candidates in the 2012 election.

In its ruling, the Board indicated it also plans to fine each of the candidates campaigns, since properly reclassifying the expenditures means that the candidates illegally exceeded their campaign contribution and/or spending limits. A total of over $300,000 in illegal contributions were not reported by the campaigns.

Senate Democrats were so intent on winning at any cost and throwing huge money into the 2012 campaign that they played fast and loose in a big way, said Keith Downey, Chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota. Even though it is over a year too late for the voters in these thirteen districts, and the ruling says nothing about the truthfulness of their ads, todays ruling does at least provide a much needed check on their campaign financing tactics.

Downey continued, Many of the Democratic Senators on this list won their elections by narrow margins. We will never know how this illegal coordination would have impacted the results in these races and ultimately control of the legislature. They cheated, they won, but at least they are being held accountable now.

We look forward to the Campaign Finance Boards continued investigation and expect them to thoroughly examine each of the thirteen campaigns to determine the full extent of this wrongdoing, Downey concluded.

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