enough evidence that hellman should have been fired over conditions at phoenix. the judge upheld her firing anyway on the ground she received favors from a health care industry consultant. leland, back to you. >> stunning as this continues to develop. doug mckelway live in washington. thanks, doug. >> another possible hack attack on christmas morning stopping kid from playing their brand new pray stations and xboxs. we have a report on this. >>> dangers journalists face in war zones. what one new report is revealing. leland: new report shows journal system becoming increasingly dangerous overseas especially in the middle east. according to a media advocacy group at least 60 journalists have been killed this year alone, including americans james foley, steven sotloff. isis terrorists beheaded both of them and put them online. joining us judith miller, pulitzer-prize-winning investigative author and fox news contributor. and. judith, i want to start with you, in the sense that for so long, journalists were considered independent observers. both sides of any conflic

molly. >> what's the latest with sharon hellman's efforts to get her job back? well, the times also reports that just this week an administrative law somewhere found that it was -- this is a quote "more likely than not that at least some senior agency leaders were aware or should have been aware of nationwide problems getting veterans scheduled for timely appointments." the judge, steven mish, also found that the v.a. didn't provide enough evidence that hellman should have been fired over the conditions of phoenix. he did uphold her firing anyway for an apparent conflict of interest. she accepted an eight-day trip to disneyworld with her family from a health care industry consultant. molly. >> all right. doug, thank you for an update. the v.a. scandal. we appreciate it. >> obama care is, of course, presenting a very tempting target for republicans as they prepare to take control of congress, but should the g.o.p. go after it or does it have a big potential to backfire? plus, the interview, that movie proving the old adage that any publicity is good publicity. ho

they said in their own court documents, 50% of the people were buying hellman's.kroger, safeway. i think, you know, companies do what they do. i do say that unilever is full of good people. they are. they have come to fall in line with who they are. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. let me ask you this question. is there any chance that unilever will be owning it at any point? >> there is absolutely no point at all. there is no sort of underground you'll hear. they just realized that this is not him. we think it is a pretty powerful thing. we are not in this business to be acquired. >> what happened that they just called you up and said never mind? >> they called us up and said we decided to withdraw the lawsuit. the truth is that we have $21 million in free media for this. over 100,000 people supported us. retailers far and wide did by us. unilever actually is addressing these and pour it needs as a business. sometimes, you end up going with who you are and they decide to withdraw it. there is nothing else to the story. >> it is a fascinating story. thank you very much. he br

the judge, steven mish, also found the va didn't provide enough evidence that hellman should have been fired over conditions in phoenix but upheld her firing anyway on the ground she took favors from a health care industry consultant. leah? leah: doug mckelway in washington. thank you, doug. eric: seems america's struggling labor unions are getting set to take advantage of president obama's executive action on immigration. labor leaders are launching a new recruiting push, possibly offering work permits to some four million immigrants who entered our country illegally. who until now are reluctant to join out of fear or retaliation. so is the president's executive order a big christmas gift to his union supporters? brian york, chief washington correspondent for the "washington examiner" joins us and fox news contributor. byron, always great to see you. >> good morning, eric. eric: do these soon to be i guess legals offer a big recruiting pool for american labor? >> they do. unions have been traditionally ambivalent about immigration. on one hand admitting large numbers of unskilled immi

many of us have been saying for a long time that this wasn't just phoenix, it wasn't just sharon hellman, it wasn't just the visiting director. if you take multiple medications, a dry mouth can be a common side effect. that's why there's biotene. it comes in oral rinse spray or gel so there's moisturizing relief for everyone. biotene, for people who suffer from a dry mouth. is my name's louis, and i quit smoking with chantix. i had tried to do it in the past. i hadn't been successful. quitting smoking this time was different because i got a prescription for chantix. along with support chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. the fact that it reduced the urge to smoke helped me get that confidence that i could do it. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. some people had seizures while taking chantix. if you notice any of these stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems, which could

hellman's and pain. why do you like it? >> primarily, north america does poses 4 billion revenue derived from north america. a state-of-the-art platform and grilling rig exposure across the united states. as a result it's a much more efficient user on the part of producers in terms of being able to not only extract energy but move to where energy sites might be more productive. it's been beaten up clearly, share price was half from the highs in july of this year until recently touching $60. rallied here to $67 a share. we think earnings while there's a big trend for 2015 should still support its dividend payout which is over 4% 4.1% right now to be precise. it's a track in terms of having a high current di dend income and the process of stabilization coming to oil prices which is our base case later in the second half of 2015 and share prices depressed in that space. >> okay. >> mark you make a bet on home builders in 2015. they're all still kind of waiting to build in earnest. you do this through an etf. why are you doing

thetory this week about sharon hellman with the board upholding her firing because they took some giftssome pretty outrageous gifts. but i was so happy to see any coverage howie what happens with the va is an absolute outrage. americans everywhere should be outraged. we tell people would go in the military, we have all these bias things we say to them and we don't give them coverage. worse, the administrators are crooks. they don't do their jobs. >> this happened over and over and over again. there is an ig report covering 2006, 2007. these kinds of stories are going to come and go. i was not upset that this one went away. guess what? it will be back in a year or two. >> but you experienced this when you were a network reporter. and then it sort odd vanishes. >> i in part blame the idea that i think the administration when they decide the story is done, they quit putting information out about it. the media tends to follow their lead. if they're not handed something on a platter, too often they're nod digging for the information when the agenda is not set before them, they're letting the

unilever and hellman's said you can't call that mayonnaise. creek can afford to drag the issue through court. it got another $90 million of funding on wednesday. perhaps unileaver wants to buy them, i'm just speculating here. wall street was supposed to be a pretty big day. the dow was mildly lower this morning, about 25 points. but if we look overs last couple of days, the dow has been up hundreds upon hundreds, after the fed said it would raise interest rates eventually. eventually means the party ain't over. >> keep everybody in limbo. exactly what investors want to hear. >> one final check of the day's top stories. we have just learned a 6-year-old boy has died from injuries suffered after an alleged drunk driver hit a crowd of people outside of a southern california church. three adults were pronounced dead shortly after wednesday night's crash. the man is expected to answer to dui and manslaughter charges in court today. >> and chevron says this was on flairing but people across the bay area called us asking about it. chevron says the fl

it wasn't just sharon hellman.t wasn't just the director and miss bowers this goes all the way as alleged to the va secretary. >> hellman was fired last month and filed an appeal to get her job back. judge upheld her firing siting a conflict of interest. make shift memorial for mychal brown is restored in ferguson, missouri. the memorial was damaged after it was hit by car. supporters rebuilt the memorial but there's still no word on who hit. brown was shot and killed by police officer darrin wilson back in august. >> this morning let's take look back at some of the biggest stories of 2014. who can forget the terrible nearly seven week manhunt for eric frein the suspect accused of of ambushing a state trooper back in september. >> armed and dangerously obviously. if he's going to kill cops obviously he'll kill anyone. >> the search cost nearly $10 million and put frein on the fbi's top 10 most wanted list. >> he's been stripped of his guns, his bombs noun his freed freedom. >> that's dave schratwieser he cover this

and an attack down south in the hellman province. in all this fall has been one of the bloodiest since the war started 13 years ago. >> right. there's a judicial leader that was shot as well recently and, of course, this comes at a critical time for this country with u.s. combat forces leaving and it seems that the taliban is trying to prove that it has not been weakened and it's not going anywhere. >> reporter: exactly. i think that is the main message to take from this, from the taliban. it comes also at a time where the afghan government has invited the taliban to participate in peace talks, and the new president repeatedly calls the taliban a political opposition. and some people in this country don't agree with that description of the taliban, and recent action of the taliban also changes the mind that description from the president. definitely it seems like more of a signal from the taliban than anything else. >> right. understand the new government trying to find some sort of avenue to get the taliban to stand down, but unders

i was in the south last week in hellman's province. usually by winter, the fighting has died down, but the fighting rages on. the taliban control many parts of the countryside. if that's an indication of how things are going here, the afghans poised for a difficult 2015 ahead. they know that it's going to be very, very challenging. >> it has been called the grave yard of empires, united states, great britain russia, the taliban saying there is going to be no end to fighting until foreign troops are gone. they're not buying the transition. >> they're not actually. we spoke to the taliban spokesman, and he said basically a change of name means nothing to him until all of the westerners have left afghan soil, the fight will continue. we he heard from other taliban just in the last day or so saying it's not just about fortune ears it's about a regime fighting for an islamic state. while nato's combat mission ends signalinging the end to america's longest war the fighting is not over yet. >> have you seen a difference in the way that you're

unilever has withdrawn its lawsuit against hampton creek the maker of hellman's mayonnaise which accused them of false advertising because their just mayo product was built as mayo and didn't have eggs. here is what the founder and ceo told jim last night on "mad money." >> part of the reason this lawsuit strikes a deep chord with us, our philosophy, the reason we exist, the reason people have invested in us, the reason why is because we believe the good things should be more affordable. we didn't want just mayo to be a nice alternative substitute product. we want it to be the only thing. >> it was shame on him, i felt. this is a very interesting product. one of the things we talked about was how unilever has, i can't believe it's not butter. so the duplicity. we were promoting the piece. unilever pulled the lawsuit. i think it made sense because a lot of people never heard of just mayo until unilever decided to sue them. it is a very well run company right down the block from us. they were like everest my dog. >> that's the name of your dog? >> everest. the dumb as a bag of hammers dog.

that powerful encription has been around since 1975 when it was invented in the public system difeon hellman. because of in my view the over reach of well-intentioned but flawed strategies, the encription capability is becoming more and more availability. >> do you like these kinds of services that are encrypted so thoroughly that the companies themselves can't get into them? do you think this is a good idea or a terrible idea for the reasons you mentioned? >> you are asking me an emotional question as opposed to a factual question. the fact is that the p.d.p. authentication has been possible for many years. the thing that has held it back has been key management, the ability to handle the keys. because of what the government did, all of the services are getting a lot easier. my opinion is that you will see more and more of these essentially proxied keselowskied and otherwise communication systems. historically if you go back to the small towns of the world 200 or 300 years ago there was notice anonymity like that. you worry that that could be misused, and you never want it to be misused. on

. >> i'm definitely not asking john hellman this question.nd of a cool suit. >> isn't it great? sweater suit. >> a christmas sweater suit. >> all right. i'm going to go to business before the bell. i dare you to wear that, okay. >> if i could get it by this morning, i would. >> let's go to cnbc's sara eisen for that. >> ugly sweaters are actually in this holiday season, i will tell you. they're coming back. >> ugly sweaters. >> ugly sweaters. it's a thing. >> i want to mention some new data that just broke on the economy. we just learned that companies across the u.s. added 208,000 jobs during the month of november. it's a solid number. it's not as much as economists were looking for. they were hoping for a number like 221 still. as long as it's above that 200,000 level, it signals improvement in the job market. small businesses hired the most last month, followed by medium, followed by harm. of course, that sets us up for another big job reports on friday. economists are looking for improvement. 5.8% unimprovement rate. and 230 jobs added du