Guests:Monica Crowley & Kirsten Powers
"26-year-old Kayla Mueller from Arizona is dead. Apparently ISIS contacted her family, providing proof that she had been killed by them. This makes four Americans executed by the jihadists. Kayla was captured by ISIS on August 4, 2013 in Syria while leaving a hospital staffed by the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders. She was in Syria to help suffering refugees. President Obama said this: 'ISIL is a hateful and abhorrent terrorist group whose actions stand in stark contrast to the spirit of people like Kayla.' The fact that these jihadists have been able to continue to murder civilians with impunity should trouble the entire world. As Talking Points has mentioned, President Obama has received advice about terrorism from two former defense secretaries, advice he has rejected. With all due respect to the president, this country is capable of attending to many issues at the same time and the war in Iraq should not impede effective strategy against Muslim killers. To allow the jihad to continue its reign of terror without a solid plan strikes me as irresponsible and dangerous. Last night I talked with David Axelrod, one of Mr. Obama's closest advisors. He, like Secretary of State Kerry, believes that air power and a paper coalition will eventually 'degrade' the ISIS fanatics. I think Kayla Mueller might disagree."

Monica Crowley and Kirsten Powers reacted to the latest ISIS atrocity and the Talking Points Memo. Crowley accused the president of putting ideology above national security. "He came into office with two firm beliefs," she asserted. "One, he was the anti-Bush, meaning he would not preside over any major intervention. Two, he is a committed leftist who essentially believes that American power has been a nefarious tool for global injustice. He thinks the U.S. should atone by retrenching and apologizing and retreating." Powers leapt to the president's defense. "I don't think the president buys into the idea that putting troops on the ground is going to solve this problem," she said, "and I can't listen to this stuff about how Barack Obama doesn't understand the threat of terrorism. He expanded the drone war, he escalated the war in Afghanistan, and we've been bombing in Iraq every day. I wish that you had spent as much time on the 4,000 soldiers who died in Iraq as you have spent on these beheadings." The Factor took extreme umbrage at Powers' implication: "That's a cheap shot. I went to Iraq and I was there to support the troops who were doing their duty. There was no way anyone could know that the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was faulty."

Guest:Ken Blackwell
The non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center, a well-funded and increasingly left-wing organization, has added neurosurgeon and Republican presidential prospect Dr. Ben Carson to its list of dangerous extremists. The Factor scrutinized the SPLC with black conservative Ken Blackwell. "When I was mayor of Cincinnati," Blackwell said, "we worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center and they were doing fairly decent work. But now they have morphed into an auxiliary operation of the political left. This claim about Ben Carson is ridiculous on its face. He came from a single-parent household, worked himself out of poverty, got a great education, had a tremendous career as a neurosurgeon, and he gives back. He is the prime example of how you break the cycle of dependency, and now you have The Southern Poverty Law Center attacking him as being a 'hater' because he defends traditional marriage. The SPLC perpetuates division in our country."

Guests:Kimberly Guilfoyle & Lis Wiehl
Legal aces Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lis Wiehl examined a mushrooming controversy in Alabama, where Judge Roy Moore is defying the federal government on same-sex marriage. "This judge is saying that the federal government has overstepped its boundaries," Wiehl explained. "But when you have a clash between a state and federal law, federal law wins. I think Judge Moore will be removed by Alabama ethics boards." Guilfoyle turned to Missouri, where a mother and her family staged the kidnapping of her 6-year-old son to teach him not to be so friendly with strangers. "They lured the little boy into a truck," she reported, "showed him a gun, bound his hands and feet, put a jacket over his head, and took him into a basement. All of this was to teach him a lesson about avoiding strangers, and they have been charged with felony kidnapping. Thank God the boy has been removed from the home, this was not a safe environment for any child."

Guest:Gary Sinise
Actor Gary Sinese, who has raised millions of dollars for wounded veterans, expressed his frustration at the lack of consistent government support for wounded warriors. "Obviously the government is a giant bureaucracy," Sinese said, "and a lot of veterans have been served well by the government. But it's infuriating, especially when you see how much money gets wasted by the federal government, to know that there are some wounded veterans who don't even have a bed to sleep in. The private sector has been very good, there are a lot of organizations that have filled the gaps. If they didn't exist it would be catastrophic." The Factor lauded Sinese and concluded with a celestial prediction: "Your career is going very well, and you also give back more than anyone in Hollywood. You're going to Heaven, Sinese!"

Guests:

No one should take joy in the misfortunes of Brian Williams or anyone else.