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The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is demanding an immediate explanation from the nation’s top intelligence official, James Clapper, for what the chairman says were inconsistent statements to Congress and to the public on who was behind changes to the CIA talking points on the Libya consulate attack in September. Critics say the Obama administration initially minimized the role of terrorism despite evidence of a coordinated attack on the consulate in Benghazi. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the assault. Testimony last week on Capitol Hill raised additional questions about the administration's changing story...

-excerpt- Kelley alerted the FBI about the emails that appeared to be an attempt to blackmail Petraeus, which started the investigation, said the sources, who are close friends of the Petraeuses. In addition, the threatening emails might not have come from biographer Paula Broadwell, as widely reported. Kelley, a Tampa, Fla. resident who is married with three children, and sister Natalie are close friends of the Petraeus' and spent holidays together. And she was not having an affair with the retired, four-star Army general, sources close to the family tell Fox News.

but the president also revealed that he’s a top-notch pool player and avid doodler: “I’m probably a little boring too, but I cook a really mean chili. People don’t know this, but Michelle can testify. Now, she’ll claim that I haven’t cooked it for about 10 years, so I shouldn’t get too much credit for it. I’m a surprisingly good pool player, so if you ever see me in a pool hall … I might end up cleaning your clock. That’s a possibility. And … I’m also a pretty good doodler. See, folks don’t know that about me.”

"A step in the right direction." That's what Barack Obama said in Poland, Ohio, about Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment report, which showed only 80,000 net new jobs and unemployment remaining at 8.2 percent. The thought will occur to many, not all of them Obama detractors, that this was at best a baby step. It's not enough to keep up with population growth, much less to restore the low unemployment rates of most of the 1990s and 2000s. Another thought will occur to professional amateur political strategists: Why did the president's campaign schedule a two-day bus tour of northern...

Report: Dozens pass out from heat at Obama campaign event By Jonathan Easley - 07/06/12 03:14 PM ET Dozens of supporters passed out from the extreme heat at an Obama campaign event in Pittsburgh on Friday. Obama was speaking outdoors at Carnegie Mellon University as part of his two-day campaign swing via bus through the key swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and according to multiple reports on Twitter, people were being carted off on stretchers or leaving the event to seek shade. AccuWeather said the temperature was 98 degrees at the time of the speech, but that it felt...

With an approval rating stuck below 50 percent, a sour national mood, and polls showing him tied or trailing rival Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama's re-election bid faces an uncertain future. Gallup polls show that Obama’s job approval rating in the first week of May averaged just 47 percent and a May 3-6 Gallup poll found only 24 percent of Americans were satisfied with the way things are going. A poll released Thursday in the battleground state of North Carolina showed Romney leading the president, and the same day another poll showed Wisconsin — which Obama won handily in 2008...

President Obama has exercised a tradition of honoring national heroes by inviting the late Steve Jobs’ wife Laurene Powell Jobs, to the State of the Union address on Tuesday, reports Vanguard News. The visionary executive’s widow will join First Lady Michelle Obama in her box in the House of Representatives, according to a release from the White House. Powell will be joined by Warren Buffet’s secretary Debbi Bosanek as a nod to the billionaire’s complaint about the level of taxes paid by his employees being higher than his own, Mark Kelly, the husband of Gabrielle Giffords, a representative who was...

Michelle Obama now holds part of a world record. The first lady announced in an email Monday that her October bid to break the record for the most people doing jumping jacks in a 24-hour period succeeded. Mrs. Obama says 300,265 people participated, shattering the old record. In order to achieve her goal, Mrs. Obama led about 400 elementary and middle-school students from Washington in jumping jacks on the South Lawn of the White House. Other jumping jacks events were held around the world on Oct. 11.

It's on the AP wire ... Anything higher than a .22 is considered a high power rifle in this request

INDIANAPOLIS | Hillary Clinton's campaign on Friday accepted Gary Mayor Rudy Clay's invitation to debate Barack Obama on urban issues in the struggling Steel City -- only to have the mayor promptly rescind the offer he had extended a day earlier. The Democratic presidential contenders squared off for two hours Wednesday night in Philadelphia. But the first half of the ABC News debate was dominated by what Obama decried as "gotcha" issues, including Obama's characterization of "bitter" small town voters and Clinton's faulty recollection of coming under sniper fire during a 1996 visit to Bosnia. Clay, an Obama supporter, said...

08/22/2007 Kerry Statement on Bush Speech to the VFW FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 22, 2007 CONTACTS: Amy Brundage/Vincent Morris, 202-224-4159 BOSTON – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) today made the following statement in response to the speech today by President Bush to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, Missouri in which the President invoked comparisons to the Vietnam War to defend his war policy: “Invoking the tragedy of Vietnam to defend the failed policy in Iraq is as irresponsible as it is ignorant of the realities of both of those wars,” Senator Kerry said. “Half of the soldiers whose...

"We were always playing on the white man's court... by the white man's rules," he writes. "If the principal, or the coach, or a teacher... wanted to spit in your face, he could, because he had the power and you didn't.... The only thing you could choose was withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage. "And the final irony: Should you refuse this defeat and lash out at your captors... they would have a name for that too. Paranoid. Militant." Obama has not expressed any regrets for his candor. In a preface to the new edition, he says...

Kerry: Bush assurance on Iraq a blunder By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago Democratic Sen. John Kerry said Tuesday that President Bush committed "a gigantic blunder" by giving top Iraqi officials assurances that U.S. forces would remain indefinitely in the war-torn country. Kerry argued that his 2004 rival should have pressured Iraqi leaders to set aside their differences and focus on making progress in assuming responsibility for security, a move that could lead to a reduction in U.S. troop levels. "The absence of pressure I find is an enormous blunder that gives the Iraqi politicians a free...

Ward Churchill, the professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims “little Eichmanns,” should be fired because of “repeated and deliberate” infractions of scholarship rules, a University of Colorado committee said today. The recommendation, which came on a 6-3 vote, now goes to university officials for a final decision.

Sen. John Kerry on the fence . . . By Boston Herald editorial staff Saturday, May 20, 2006 Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), fresh from the ongoing Senate debate over an immigration bill, offered the following explanation of his vote in favor of 370 miles of fence at the U.S.-Mexican border (estimated cost $3 million a mile) at yesterday’s New England Council breakfast: “I voted for it because, first of all, a lot of it is the repair of the existing fence. A lot of it is just in the Arizona area, where we have the worst problem, the most numbers...

Billionaire Democratic Sen. John Kerry has finally sent his own aid package to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans more than two weeks after the storm hit - and a week after most of the city had been successfully evacuated by the Bush administration. Kerry traveled to New Orleans on Monday aboard a UPS Boeing 757 loaded with 5,000 bottles of baby formula, 5,000 pairs of sneakers and an array of cleaning supplies, the Associated Press said. "Everything that any of us can do is so welcome, and it provides just a little bit of help at an extraordinary time," the Massachusetts Democrat...

'WASHINGTON - Sen. John F. Kerry's brash offer to meet privately with former foe President Bush [related, bio] to discuss foreign policy before Bush's meetings abroad next week with key European leaders has apparently fallen on deaf ears at the White House. ``We've offered to have Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) meet with President Bush to discuss his trip to Iraq, if the White House is interested,'' Kerry spokesman David Wade said yesterday. ``There are many areas where genuine bipartisanship would make a difference in leading our country forward, whether in national security or children's health care.'' The White House declined comment...

Sen. John Kerry reiterated his pledge on Monday to sign the form that would allow the government to release all his military records, but said he wanted to know exactly what was in his file before doing so. "I have a stack of different material they sent me," Kerry told radio host Don Imus. "Every time they send me something I want to know what they sent me." "I'll get it done," Kerry insisted in the next breath. Last week the 2008 presidential hopeful suggested he wanted to review his full Navy file to make sure of "what is in...

My God Man! My Botox wore off! My Cheeks can touch my ears!!