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President Barack Obama laid the blame for the U.S. government's partial shutdown at the feet of House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Thursday...With 800,000 federal government employees forced into taking leave, some agencies have almost entirely shuttered, including NASA, the Commerce Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Disappointment. Insulted. Outraged. That's how some residents described their feelings after President Barack Obama left Auburn Friday morning without stopping by the Harriet Tubman Home. The president, who stayed overnight at the Holiday Inn in Auburn, worked out at the Auburn YMCA before leaving the city to begin the second day of his two-day tour of upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania. While in Auburn, Obama did not visit the Harriet Tubman Home or Seward House Museum. A large crowd gathered Friday morning outside of the Tubman Home in anticipation of a presidential visit. But it never happened. Harriet Tubman...

The White House will hold a roundtable event on issues facing the bisexual community next month, according to a report in the Washington Blade. The closed-door meeting is likely the first of its kind in the Obama administration, the paper reported. According to the event's invitation, it will take place Sept. 23 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street from the West Wing. “Participants and administration officials will discuss a range of topics including health, HIV/AIDS, domestic and intimate partner violence, mental health, and bullying,” White House LGBT liaison Gautam Raghavan said.

President Barack Obama on Thursday will unveil a broad plan to lower the cost of college, the highlight of which involves a new ratings system that ties the federal government's allocation of financial aid to the ratings system. Obama's plan would instruct the Department of Education to rank colleges with their peers, according to new measures that evaluates their success and affordability. Some of these measures, according to the White House, include the following: * Access, such as percentage of students receiving Pell grants; * Affordability, such as average tuition, scholarships, and loan debt; and * Outcomes, such as graduation...

"Obama’s Former Bodyman: President Left Situation Room to Play ’15 Games’ of Cards During Day of Bin Laden Raid" On the day Navy SEALs were raiding Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and killing the 9/11 mastermind, President Obama didn’t spend every moment in the White House situation room. Instead, the commander in chief played cards in a private dining room that day, too — about 15 games of spades, in fact, his former personal assistant Reggie Love recently told a UCLA forum. “Most people were like down in the Situation Room and [Obama] was like, ‘I’m not going to...

Obama, a sports fan who seems to relish every chance to encounter star athletes, will welcome the undefeated 1972 Super Bowl Champion Miami Dolphins to the White House on Aug. 20. It will be the first White House ceremony honoring their historic season. The ceremony no doubt will draw a crowd of South Florida fans, including members of Congress. Everyone likes to be associated with a winner.

OAK BLUFFS, Massachusetts (Reuters) - It rained on President Barack Obama's island vacation on Tuesday. After spending the first two days of his August vacation on the golf course, Obama made the most of a rainy day on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard. First, his motorcade carried him across the island to Oak Bluffs, where he stopped at Nancy's restaurant, picking up a variety of fried delicacies: Shrimp, oysters, onion rings and french fries. SNIP The restaurant is a favorite of his senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, who is staying at a waterfront home nearby with a sweeping view of...

“Why would the president do this for the cameras? It’s one thing to take a vacation but is this pose shoving it down the throats of the American people?” she asked. “Many are out of work. They can’t afford to spend the day working on their golf game in one of the most expensive places to vacation. Is this what leadership looks like?”

Umm, that’s early. The Boston Globe is reporting that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will land on Martha’s Vineyard August 10 and stay there until August 18. The girls are expected to be with them. That’s not a lot of vacation by Obama standards. Traditional vacation time for Washingtonians is the last two weeks of August, through Labor Day. And the Obamas must certainly think they’re owed some vaca time since they had to skip the Vineyard last year because it would look bad to take a swank while you’re criticizing your opponent for being down with the...

No, this is not Watergate or Iran-Contra. Nor is it like the sex scandal that got Bill Clinton impeached. The AP, IRS and Benghazi matters represent a scandal not of presidential wrongdoing, but of presidential indolence, indifference and incompetence in discharging the duties of chief executive. The Barack Obama revealed to us in recent days is something rare in our history: a spectator president, clueless about what is going on in his own household, who reacts to revelations like some stunned bystander. Consider. Because of a grave national security leak, President Obama's Department of Justice seized two months of records...

Obama Golfs—Third Weekend in a Row Daniel Halper April 13, 2013 12:59 PM For the third weekend in a row, President Obama is hitting the links. CBS's Mark Knoller reports on Twitter: On a mild Spring day in DC, Pres Obama is playing a round of golf at Andrews. Third Saturday in a row. This weekend the Masters is being held in Augusta, Georgia, where Obama's golf buddy, Tiger Woods, has once again found himself at the center of attention. Via the pool report: On a cloudy but quite nice day, POTUS is hitting the links. At 12:11 pm, he...

Jay Carney jokingly conceded that perhaps the leader of the free world needs to spend some more time on the court. "The president doesn’t get to practice probably as much as he would like to," he said, adding "Having done a few shoot-arounds with him, he’s a pretty good shot." When a reporter noted that there's a basketball court on the White House grounds, Carney replied, "These are busy times."

In the first three months of the year, members of the first family have been on three vacations, averaging a vacation a month. And now it's being reported that the first daughters are on a spring break vacation in the Bahamas. Obama Photo AP / Steven Senne The Obamas began the new year in Hawaii. "President Obama departed Hawaii this morning for Washington, after spending NINE days vacationing with family and friends in his native state. Here’s a quick look at how he spent his vacation," ABC reported on January 6, 2013. "Obama played FIVE rounds of golf with SEVEN...

Residents living near the beachfront homes where President Barack Obama and First Family vacation with their friends every year since 2008 were alerted on Monday to some specifics of the Obamas' holiday vacation plans. The report delivered to residents living along the ocean and canal that surrounds the multi-million dollar homes at Kailuana Place where the President stays, informed them of restrictions that will be implemented for 20 days beginning December 17 and running through January 6. In a matter of weeks, Kailua residents will see the familiar street barricades fronted by U.S. Secret Service agents and Navy Seals and...

They fought for their lives for seven hours. 9/11/ 2012. Benghazi. The White House watched. No help was sent and they died. Four Americans died in the jihadi attack on our consulate in Benghazi. Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, two retired SEALS who were working as civilian security specialists in Benghazi, learned that Ambassador Stevens and nine other people at the consulate were under attack and rushed to their defense. The fourth man was Sean Smith, father of three, an Air Force veteran, working for the State Department in Libya. The White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and our...

The Blog Michelle Obama: 'On Nov. 7 We're Going to Party Hard' 2:00 PM, Oct 17, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER Single Page Print Larger Text Smaller Text Alerts At a fundraiser today in New York, First Lady Michelle Obama expressed confidence in her husband's chances for reelection. "On Nov. 7 we're going to party hard," she said. Election Day this year is November 6. From the pool report: "After hearing my husband talk about his values and his vision at the debate last night, I'm pretty fired up," she said. "Let me tell you, I am so glad last...

On a day when Hillary Clinton fell on her sword and took "responsibility" for the lack of security in Libya, President Barack Obama's Twitter account (@BarackObama) frivolously tweeted a picture with his arm around a life-size cardboard cutout of himself. "You look familiar," the tweet said. Humility is not Obama's strong suit, and a person who replied to Obama's tweet may have said it best, in reference to the cardboard cutout and Obama's first debate in which he barely showed up: "Just don’t let him stand in for you at the debate tomorrow, OK?"

"Can you repair the relationship with Mariah Carey and Nikki Minaj on 'American Idol'?" Yo asked. "I think that they are going to be able to sort it out, I am confident," the president reassured. "I'm all about bringing people together, working for the same cause, I think both outstanding artists are going to be able to make sure that they're moving forward and not going backwards." Not letting the president get off too easily, Yo asked Obama the hard-hitting question about whether he has a favorite between the two. "Mariah, she's actually done some events for us. I've gotten...

On Saturday, Nov. 3, Chris Mecham and Michael Bellavia will likely be holding signs in Washington D.C.'s National Mall that read, respectively, "I am Bert" and "I am Ernie." They hope you join them. VIDEO:  It's Official: Big Bird Was the Star of the First Presidential DebateThe duo were brought together after Mitt Romney infamously uttered the words "Big Bird" during the first presidential debate. Now they're organizing the Million Muppet March to show solidarity for "keeping full employment for all Muppets" by continuing public broadcasting funding -- which Romney plans to axe if elected.  Bellavia and Mecham described to The Hollywood Reporter their impromptu...

Full title: Ground Reports from the “Depression that Shall Not Be Named” — things we notice that the corrupt media won’t report that show this is indeed a Depression On my desk, just under the computer monitor, I have a little box full of slips of scrap paper. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid because the nuns who taught me in Catholic School refused to ever waste paper. Anything that comes into my home that’s blank on one side and has outlived its usefulness is drawn and quartered and spends some time as scrap paper in that...