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".......A day that was supposed to bring Washington to the edge of resolving the fiscal showdown instead seemed to bring chaos and retrenching. And a bitter fight that had begun over stripping money from the president’s signature health care law had essentially descended in the House into one over whether lawmakers and their staff members would pay the full cost of their health insurance premiums, unlike most workers at American companies, and how to restrict the administration from using flexibility to extend the debt limit beyond a fixed deadline.............."

#BREAKING: Police arrest airport employee in connection with dry ice explosions at LAX. @ABC News -Headline only. Still developing.

<p>Klein — who wrote a provocative biography about Obama last year entitled “The Amateur” — said White House insiders refer to Jarrett as “The Night Stalker” because she is the only presidential aide who frequently spends time in the family quarters and dines with the Obamas.</p>

It's a new poll, but the numbers are much the same. An automated telephone survey conducted last month found 51 percent of potential West Virginia voters would pick Rep. Shelley Moore Capito over Secretary of State Natalie Tennant in the race for retiring U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller's seat. The poll found 34 percent of potential voters would support Tennant, while 15 percent are not sure who would get their vote. Pennsylvania-based Republican polling firm Harper Polling conducted the survey, which included 640 likely voters. The poll has a 3.9 percent margin of error. In a question directed only to potential...

PAYSON, AZ - Republican Rep. Brenda Barton of Payson compared President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler on her Facebook page Monday in a post urging county sheriffs to revoke authority from the National Parks Service “thugs” who are enforcing the federal shutdown on national parks lands. “Someone is paying the National Park Service thugs overtime for their efforts to carry out the order of De Fuhrer… where are our Constitutional Sheriffs who can revoke the Park Service Rangers authority to arrest??? Do we have any Sheriffs with a pair?” she wrote. Fuhrer is a German term for leader that is...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Tuesday he would vote for a “clean CR” to end the government shutdown. “I’ll vote for a clean CR," Issa told CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. “Republicans in the House have always been for a clean CR increase if it meant we began the serious negotiations on the kinds of reforms that need to happen…entitlements as a shortcut for it. That's what the deal is about right now.” Democrats have pressed Republicans to bring a continuing resolutio to the floor that funds the government and does nothing else for weeks. GOP leaders have...

We’ve written extensively of late regarding the widening divide between fiscally conservative Republicans and the “neoconservative” fiscally liberal wing of the party – led by U.S. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn. In fact according to the website Mississippi PEP, they’ve censured him. For those of you unfamiliar with this aging RINO, Cochran is one of several Southern “Republicans” who habitually caves to U.S. President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats (along with Graham, North Carolina’s Richard Burr, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander and Georgia’s Johnny Isakson). “When any official continues to engage repeatedly in a course of conduct that violates...

House Republican leaders are preparing legislation that would fund the government until Dec. 15, extend the debt ceiling until Feb. 7 and strike the health care subsidies that members of Congress, White House appointees and staff were set to receive under the new health care law, a GOP lawmaker said. Under the new House GOP proposal — the second one they proposed Tuesday — union workers would also remain subject to a $63 health insurance tax from which they had sought an exemption. The proposal also would give the House and Senate until mid-December negotiate a new, long-term budget. "The...

Lurking at the very bottom of Conn's summary of the House's (final?) counter-offer to the Senate is this intriguing nugget: If the bill passes, House Republicans may adjourn leaving Senate Democrats and President Obama with a final take-it-or-leave-it offer. First, "if the bill passes" is an open question, though it's sounding like House Republicans have mostly rallied around the Speaker's plan. They opened their meeting this morning by singing "Amazing Grace," then telegraphed their next volley. Whether they have the votes to pass it without any Democratic support -- Pelosi will likely whip hard against it -- remains to be...

Ex-ACORN operatives helping roll out ObamaCare By Perry Chiaramonte Published October 15, 2013 FoxNews.com A group formed from the ruins of ACORN is hard at work signing people up for ObamaCare, and may be collecting taxpayer cash for their work despite Congress' efforts to cut the organization and its affiliates off from government funding, a watchdog group charged. The United Labor Unions Council Local 100, a New Orleans-based nonprofit, announced last month it would take part in a multi-state "navigator" drive to help people enroll in President Obama's health care plan. The labor council was established by ACORN founder Wade...

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., is no fan of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. The New York congressman made it clear on Monday’s "Morning Joe" that he will work to stop Cruz and his allies in their tracks. “I’ve been speaking out against Ted Cruz and this whole crazy movement since it started,” King told MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski. King also said he thought that “there’s no doubt that the Democrats are winning,” and that President Obama needed to play “a more aggressive role” in the negotiations to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling. King also warned that Cruz and...

On the House floor on Monday, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) argued that President Barack Obama’s activities during the government shutdown over Obamacare are a sign to him that Obama would act nefariously to attack the full faith and credit of the United States of America by taking the country into a default in a debt ceiling crisis if the president does not get everything he wants in negotiations. “Given the ruthless and vindictive way the shutdown has been handled, I now believe that this president would willfully act to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States unless...

House Republicans will vote Tuesday on a more conservative version of the Senate fiscal deal that would include a delay of Obamacare's medical device tax and scrapping of subsidies for members of Congress and top Cabinet officials, lawmakers and aides said. The bill would modify an emerging Senate plan crafted by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), but retain that deal's extension of the debt ceiling through Feb. 7. It would also keep the Senate measure's plan of funding the government through Jan. 15 and immediately end the shutdown. That's a shift from last weekend,...

The basic framework of the deal Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid have hammered out is coming to light. The provision the GOP is crowing over — that the Obama Administration will check the income levels of those who receive a subsidy — is already the law. Meanwhile, the GOP will let the rest of the year proceed above sequester level spending, give the unions another carve out of Obamacare, and extend the debt limit to February. I’m sure at the last minute they’ll also delay the medical device tax so it looks like Harry Reid caved on something. Really, it’ll...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Republicans have a chance to take back the majority in the Senate in 2014 only if the party boldly differentiates itself from Democrats. “I think 2014 can and should be a very good Republican year and I think if Republicans stand for principle, we’re going to win in 2014," Cruz said in an interview with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network. Cruz argued that the 2006, 2008, and 2012 election cycles were "disastrous for Republicans," because in "all three of those cycles Republicans followed the philosophy of keep your head down, don’t rock the...

(CNSNews.com) - If Congress passes legislation deferring a decision on the debt ceiling and stopgap government funding, Republicans should anticipate another crisis in six to eight weeks, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said on Monday. "We have to anticipate Ted Cruz is going to try to do this again. Ted Cruz and 30 or 40 people in the House. And we have to start going after him by name. I've been doing it all along. I wish I had more company on it." King said "we just can't have" Republicans or Ted Cruz second-guessing the final outcome of the current stalemate....

The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

As Cory Booker looks set to win the junior Senate seat in New Jersey Wednesday, his supposed neighbors in Newark say Mayor Booker doesn’t live in the Gateway City. Multiple residents of Newark told The Daily Caller that the longtime mayor doesn’t live at any of the addresses he has claimed as home. The mayor is believed to live in New York even though he is registered to run for New Jersey’s special senate election. Booker, who filed to run for the U.S. Senate from a B.O. Box in Newark, is registered to vote at 435 Hawthorne Avenue but his...

Sarah Palin Obama’s Debt Default is on His Shoulders While We Shoulder His Impeachable Offenses Apparently the president thinks he can furlough reality when talking about the debt limit. To suggest that raising the debt limit doesn’t incur more debt is laughably absurd. The very reason why you raise the debt limit is so that you can incur more debt. Otherwise what’s the point? It’s also shameful to see him scaremongering the markets with his talk of default. There is no way we can default if we follow the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 4, requires that we service our...

House Democrats are fuming about a rule change adopted by Republicans just before the government shut down on Oct. 1, arguing it shows GOP leaders closed agencies intentionally. Under long-standing House rules, any member of the chamber can bring a measure to the floor. But Republicans altered the rule governing legislation to fund the government so that only House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) holds the power to make such a motion. The practical effect of that change became apparent on Saturday, when Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, tried to bring the...

As I mentioned yesterday, the medical device tax that went into effect last January is just one of the many insidious job-killing measures contained within ObamaCare, but it is an especially terrible one. The 2.3 percent excise tax is meant to raise a handsome $30 billion to pay for ObamaCare over the next decade, except that, added bonus: It’s going to stifle innovation and competition in an industry that provides all manner of life-saving medical devices, from MRIs to pacemakers to blood tubes. And this hasn’t just been a Republican refrain, by the way. Thursday night, the Senate voted overwhelmingly...

At a tea party rally in Washington Sunday billed as the “Million Vet March,” one idiot decided to bring Confederate flag, which was enough for liberals to paint the entire Republican Party as racist.

In an October 10, 2013 story, Politico noted that the columnist and television personality Charles Krauthammer continued to criticize Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas for pursuing a strategy to attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Krauthammer, among other establishment Republicans, has suggested the Cruz and his allies were being quixotic by pushing for the defund strategy, that there was no way that the Senate would accept such a move or that the president would sign it. He has also suggested that the government shutdown, which followed, has not redounded to the benefit to Republicans. Cruz has,...

Increasingly desperate New York Republicans, seeking the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, are trying to get Donald Trump to run against Gov. Cuomo next year…. They’re seeking to make the case that while Trump is only an apprentice politician, he’s the only Republican on the horizon who has the name recognition, guts and money to tell Cuomo, “You’re fired!” They’re also arguing that Trump could launch a 2016 presidential run — which he has clearly been eyeing with his criticisms of President Obama and Washington — by first winning the election for governor. So far, Trump, who only...

WASHINGTON — Several Republican senators said Sunday a Democratic request to increase government spending is hurting chances of a deal to end the 13-day-old shutdown. Leaders of the Democratic-led Senate were dismissive of a proposal Saturday, in part, because it kept in place for too long the automatic spending cuts that went into effect earlier this year. Another round of those decade-long cuts -- dubbed the sequester and approved by Congress and the White House in 2011 -- is expected in January. The Republican complaints came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke...

Liberals have the Democrat Party, Establishment Republicans have the GOP and conservatives have no party that represents them in Washington. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of Republicans who say they’re conservative. There are even plenty of Republicans who will vote like conservatives when it doesn’t matter. But, how many conservatives are actually willing to fight for conservative principles the way Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi fight for liberal principles? In the House and Senate combined, there are a few dozen, tops and the establishment Republicans are incessantly bemoaning the fact that anyone stands up for conservatism. So when...

House Republicans are no longer a part of negotiations to end the standoff in Washington, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Sunday. “We’ve reached the point where House Republicans and their leadership have stepped to the sidelines,” the Illinois Democrat said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” knocking the House GOP for what he characterized as shifting demands. “They’re not part of this,” he said. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), meanwhile, blamed President Barack Obama for the standoff over reopening the government and raising the debt limit. “The president has refused to negotiate,” Portman said. “It’s unbelievable.” Portman also echoed other Republicans...

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has called President Obama a “pathetic leader” for his lack of involvement in negotiations to end the government shutdown. He slammed the president’s unwillingness to compromise with Republicans as “immature.” Today on America’s News HQ, Graham told anchor Doug McKelway, “For [Republicans] to suggest to the American people that we could defund ObamaCare or delay it for a year by shutting down the government, I think was unrealistic.” With the debt limit just four days away, Sen. Graham said, “I’m not going to vote for any deal coming out of the Senate that doesn’t have a...

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday he would not vote for a deal to reopen the government and raise the debt limit if it cannot attract support in the Republican-led House, arguing there is little point in claiming victory if a deal does not pass muster in the other chamber of Congress. If the deal cannot attract the majority of House Republicans, “that really does compromise Speaker Boehner’s leadership,” Mr. Graham told ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, adding he understands that defunding or delaying Obamacare is not a viable option. Mr. Graham said the last thing Mr. Boehner needs...

President Obama, speaking in 2007 and 2008, explains why he was very much against an individual mandate... Time to give an opt-out for the individual mandate, and hold Congress to the same rules that they enact over others - as to ObamaCare.

On Saturday, at a little before 9:30 a.m., citizens determined to break through the “barrycades” around the Lincoln Memorial moved the government barricades aside and proceeded to enter the Memorial. According to Taylor Hemness from KLTV 7: [The protesters] went completely up those steps, past the National Parks Service members who didn’t do anything to stop them as they made their way up to the Lincoln monument asking people to come with them, begging them to make people in DC listen to what they were doing.

<p>Need evidence of Cruz's gains of late? He won the 2016 straw poll at the Values Voter Summit on Saturday with 42 percent of the vote and his speech at that gathering of social conservatives was received very warmly. He has become the center of gravity for a certain not-insignificant element of the Republican party. Cruz has proven that he will be “the Tea Party’s one true standard-bearer in the Republican presidential primary,” according to Evan Smith,the CEO and editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune,a independent media outlet covering the Long Star State.</p>

[posting from cell]

Ron Paul has endorsed Republican Ken Cuccinelli for Virginia governor, turning away from Libertarian Robert Sarvis, who many feel could bleed away GOP votes. Paul, a former Republican Texas congressman with libertarian leanings who ran for the presidency three times, did not mention Sarvis in his letter supporting Cuccinelli, reports Politico. Instead, he praised Cuccinelli as someone who will "stand up to the politicians of both parties in Washington." Polls show Cuccinelli trailing Democrat Terry McAuliffe, however the GOP candidate questioned the survey which showed the biggest gap — nine points behind his opponent. Sarvis is seen as a potential...

I found a live link to the Million Vet March going on now!

(excerpt) Al-Qaida has come roaring back in Iraq since U.S. troops left in late 2011 and now looks stronger than it has in years. The terror group has shown it is capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks several times a month, driving the death toll in Iraq to the highest level in half a decade.

Karen Santoro heard co-workers chattering about her psychological care in 2010. An Air Force veteran and surgical services scheduler at the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh hospital in Oakland, Santoro asked officials with the VA and the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the source of the gossip. It seemed to violate the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, that prohibits release of medical information. SNIP A two-month Tribune-Review investigation found VA workers or contractors committed 14,215 privacy violations at 167 facilities from 2010 through May 31, victimizing at least 101,018 veterans and 551 VA employees. Photos...

China's official news agency has called for the creation of a "de-Americanised world", saying the destinies of people should not be left in the hands of a hypocritical nation with a dysfunctional government. Heaping criticism and caustic ridicule on Washington, the Xinhua news agency called the US a civilian slayer, prisoner torturer and meddler in others' affairs, and said the 'Pax Americana' was a failure on all fronts. The official news agency of China, which is seen as the pretender to the world's superpower crown, then rubbed in more salt, calling American economic pre-eminence just a seeming dominance. "As US...

We are constantly told that the Constitution’s First Amendment mandates “a separation of church and state,” on the basis of which prayers are forbidden in public schools, and the Ten Commandments removed from court houses across America. So why is it that an agency of the United States federal government — the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service — has produced a series of videos defending and extolling the Islamic religion? ______________________ Note: The words “separation of church and state” are not in the First Amendment, but are words from the phrase, “wall of separation between church and state,”...

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who has been rumored as being considered to replace Janet Napolitano to head the Department of Homeland Security, used some very strange language earlier this week to characterize a sentiment for a clean resolution to end the government shutdown. She labeled it a form of “martial law.” Yes, we have heard Ms. Lee say some whimsical and ridiculous things in her time in office, which I’m sure embarrass her fellow Texans, but this has to be one of the most ridiculous ones to date. She pushed that the measure was bi-partisan, including Democrats and...

.....The Maryland Health Connection enrolled just more than 1,120 people in the first 10 days — compared with more than 9,000 in Kentucky, which has fewer uninsured, and tens of thousands in California and New York. Other states have had similar problems, and the federal site, which serves 36 states, has been bogged down. But Maryland is now being targeted for criticism by conservatives on Capitol Hill and publications such as the Weekly Standard, which highlighted the fact that consumers could not search Maryland Health Connection to see if their doctors participate in the program. Some Obamacare supporters are also...

Beijing (AFP) - While US politicians grapple with how to reopen their shuttered government and avoid a potentially disastrous default on their debt, the world should consider 'de-Americanising', a commentary on China's official news agency said Sunday. "As US politicians of both political parties (fail to find a) viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world," the commentary on state news agency Xinhua said.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced that she will travel to Washington, D.C. on Sunday to support and honor the veterans who will be arriving for the "Million Vet March" on the memorials. Speaking at a rally for New Jersey Republican Senate candidate Steve Lonegan along with Mark Levin on Saturday, Palin denounced the Obama administration for dishonoring veterans by barricading the World War II Memorial during the federal government shutdown. She said it was "heart-wrenching," "atrocious," and "not right."

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Friday that will allow children in California to have more than two legal parents, a measure opposed by some conservative groups as an attack on the traditional family.

Food stamp users across Mississippi and neighboring states were being declined Saturday morning as they tried to use their EBT, or Electronic Benefit Transfer, cards at grocery, dollar and convenience stores. A Sam's Club member services representative, however, said the cards would work if purchases were broken down into smaller increments worth less than $90, but one food stamps user said his card wouldn't work for a $4 purchase.

Video at link: The Air Force’s two star general in charge of the units responsible for its 450 nuclear missiles has been fired “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment.” Maj. Gen. Michael Carey has been removed from command of the 20th Air Force, according to an Air Force statement. That command is responsible for the three wings that maintain control of the 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles scattered in missile silos across the northern plains. Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, made the decision because of what the...

Governor Sarah Palin to Attend Tea Party Express Rally Sacramento, CA – Tea Party Express, the nation’s largest Tea Party political action committee, is excited to announce that Sarah Palin will be attending the Tea Party rally this Saturday!Rally Details: New Egypt Speedway 720 County Road 539 New Egypt, NJ 08533 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Saturday October 12th)Guests: Governor Sarah Palin and U.S. Senate Candidate Steve LoneganTea Party Express Chairman Amy Kremer said, “We are excited to have Governor Sarah Palin join us this Saturday. The momentum for Steve Lonegan continues to grow and Governor Palin’s voice will...

(excerpt) "Until Iran dismantles its military nuclear program, sanctions must not be eased - on the contrary. Only the pressure brought Iran to this point, and only the continuation of pressure and its strengthening can bring them to dismantle their nuclear program," Netanyahu was quoted as saying.

Sen. Ted Cruz trounced the competition in the presidential straw poll at the 2013 Values Voters Summit, with Dr. Ben Carson and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum coming in a distant second and third places — highlighting how Mr. Cruz has become a rock star with grassroots conservatives. Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, which hosted the three—day event, announced that Mr. Cruz won 42 percent of the vote, while Mr. Carson and Mr. Santorum each captured 13 percent. “I just spoke with Senator Cruz and he wanted me to convey to you his deep appreciation for...