Officials at Odds Over Usama bin Laden

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Published January 25, 2017

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Wanted: Dead or Alive?

Attorney General Eric Holder and the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan are sending mixed signals when it comes to Usama bin Laden. General Stanley McChrystal told reporters Wednesday that U.S. and allied forces are prepared to catch the Al Qaeda leader alive and bring him to justice saying that strategy is: "something that is understood by everyone."

Well apparently, not everyone. One day earlier, when asked whether a captured bin Laden would be Mirandized, Holder responded: "the possibility of capturing him alive is infinitesimal. He would be killed by us or he would be killed by his own people. The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Usama bin Laden."

The Fine Print

As the House pushes forward on health care, a clerical error in the bill listed some lawmakers who oppose the bill as being the chief sponsors of the legislation.

They include Republicans Walter Jones of North Carolina and Ginny Brown-Waite from Florida, who voted no back in November and are still against it. Along with Idaho's Walt Minnick and Missouri's Ike Skelton, both Democrats. Democrat John Tanner of Tennessee voted no the first time, but is now on the fence.

Apparently the error has been corrected on the internal House bill tracking system.

Poison Pill

A top Blue Dog Democrat says the controversial "deem and pass" procedure is poison. The Hill reports South Dakota's Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who is a firm no on the bill itself, says the process would be a disaster because: "it would poison an already terribly partisan atmosphere."

One conservative writer says the so-called fixes, added in to the Senate bill by the House, make the legislation even more politically perilous for Democrats.

Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, and a Fox News contributor, points out the fixes include additional tax increases, deeper cuts to Medicare Advantage, and increases in penalties to employers for non-compliance.

Child's Play

And finally, two government advertisements in Britain that use nursery rhymes to raise climate change awareness have been banned for overstating the risks.

One ad read: "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. There was none — as extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought."

Another read: "Rub-a-dub-dub — three men in a tub — a necessary course of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change."

The advertising standards authority ruled the campaign went beyond the mainstream scientific consensus.

— Fox News Channel's Lanna Britt contributed to this report.

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/officials-at-odds-over-usama-bin-laden