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National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily” that the Republican attacks on him are “painfully ridiculous” and attacks on “science and the truth.” Anchor Chuck Todd said, “I want to get to the political attacks. You have become— you’ve been sort of become a character on the right. There is some really wild conspiracies. I got to play one because it’s a sitting United States Senator Marsha Blackburn. I think we have a sound of this. Let’s play that one.”

Those MSNBC folks have a natural talent for appearing to be all wrapped up in partisan Democratic politics. Could this just be Chris talking to a suburban friend? Even if so, he doesn't seem troubled by the possibility of a photo like this. Matthews has also been quite friendly toward Hillary on MSNBC, naturally. On Wednesday's Hardball, he touted her e-mail shredding scandal might help: "the unintended consequences, maybe the e-mails will end up helping her but I can't believe anybody will vote against her because of the e-mail issues. There are larger issues in the world." New York Times...

Scandal: The Justice Department says Lois Lerner, who used her IRS office to target the Tea Party, didn't waive her Fifth Amendment rights before Congress and won't be prosecuted for contempt over her missing emails. Until former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is called to testify under oath before Congress about her multiple private email accounts on a personal server kept in her Chappaqua, N.Y., home, she won't get a chance to plead the Fifth Amendment as former IRS official Lois Lerner did in May 2013 before the House Oversight Committee regarding her division's targeting of Tea Party groups.

(CNSNews.com) – In a surprise admission, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler acknowledged that an Internet tax – which he had previously said would not be imposed – could be imposed in the future. Wheeler’s remarks came during a Tuesday appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where he was asked to shed light on the process by which the FCC passed rules last month regulating the Internet. Wheeler’s admission came after Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) asked him to go on the record with his previous assurances that there would be no new taxes. “Can you guarantee...

Scandal: The former secretary of state's use of a personal account to exclusively conduct government business and to protect her political future in violation of the law ought to disqualify her from the presidency. 'Witch hunts" sometimes find a witch, and those who dismissed the establishment of the House Benghazi Select Committee, chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., as just another witch hunt are eating their words. The existence of a personal account that Hillary Clinton used to conduct government business as secretary of state was discovered by the committee and reported by the New York Times. Clinton's use of...

Hillary Rodham Clinton is facing a new set of questions about ethics and transparency - the sort that have dogged her and husband Bill for decades. The latest disclosure, that Clinton used a personal email account while serving as secretary of state, comes on the cusp of her likely second bid for president. Combined with recent news about her family foundation raising money from foreign governments while she was at the State Department, it added fresh fuel Tuesday to the longstanding charge the Clintons play by their own rules. "Does she believe that leadership means acting outside the law?" said...

On Tuesday, three Republican Senators joined three Democrats to introduce legislation that would expand the number of guest-workers for the tech industry even though there is a surplus of American high-tech workers. The Immigration Innovation (“I-Squared”) bill, introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would also enable companies to hire an unlimited number of workers with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions in science, technology, engineering and math, which critics have said would turn some universities into diploma factories for foreign students. Currently, the first 20,000...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I don't know, folks. Some days I just feel swamped. I just feel overwhelmed. I feel smothered by the left. I mean, look. Here we are almost at 2015, and this is the day that Jonathan Gruber is testifying before a House committee on all the things he said about the American people and Obamacare, and what's happening instead? The Democrats are blaming the Bush administration. The Democrats, the main story, the lead story today, by design, is the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, dumping on the Bush administration on "Jonathan Gruber...

The University of Pennsylvania which had originally posted this has now pulled down the video from their site. But this is an attempt on the part of Jonathan Gruber and company to pull their pants up after they got caught. I think it's comical that these people still believe they can say whatever they want in public, but then flip out if anyone quotes them. It also appears that the Snopes.com mafia has been called in to cast doubt upon the incident as conservatives have reported it. They call this claim a Mixture of true and false. Here's their lame...

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO (Congressional Budget Office) did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. … So it’s written to do that,” Gruber said, suggesting “it would not have passed” if the law “made it explicit” that healthy people would “pay in” and the sick would get money. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber continued. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. I wish...

Judicial Watch: DOJ Admits Lois Lerner’s Emails Exist By Joel Gehrke August 25, 2014 3:11 PM A Justice Department official admitted that former IRS official Lois Lerner’s apparently missing emails actually exist on a backup server, but the government doesn’t plan to retrieve them. “A Department of Justice attorney told a Judicial Watch attorney on Friday that it turns out the federal government backs up all computer records in case something terrible happens in Washington and there’s a catastrophe, so the government can continue operating,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told Fox News’ Shannon Bream. “But it would be too...

The GOP-led House Select Committee on the Benghazi terror attack shows no sign of backing down despite a report from another congressional panel that, according to a top Democrat, found no intelligence failures around the deadly 2012 assault. "There is more work to be done and more to be investigated," a spokeswoman for House Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told CNN on Wednesday. Shortly before beginning its August recess, the House Intelligence Committee, also led by Republicans, approved its report on the militant attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in eastern Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other...

Disgraced ex-IRS official Lois Lerner actually printed out some of her missing emails, according to a statement by her attorney. Lerner’s lawyer Bill Taylor initially claimed that Lerner did not print out and file her emails, as the Federal Records Act required her to do, before they allegedly went missing in a 2011 computer crash and her hard drive was “recycled” by the IRS. Taylor also claimed that Lerner “did not think it was required,” despite clear instructions for employees on the IRS website. But now the story is changing. Taylor told a Virginia-based publication Wednesday that Lerner printed out...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was forced to explain — and recast — what she meant when she complained of her family’s financial struggles after leaving the White House. The subject was broached on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” when host Robin Roberts asked Mrs. Clinton if she could understand America’s head-scratching reaction to her claim that the Clintons were “dead broke” upon leaving the White House and needed to hit the lucative speaking circuit to build their bank accounts. “Yes I can, but everything in life has to be put into context,” she said, The Hill reported. “As I...

Hillary Rodham Clinton retains broad public support for her performance as secretary of state, a sign that President Obama’s struggles abroad and Republican attacks over Benghazi have not been a major drag on her reputation. “More people blame the White House than they blame the secretary of state, and that strikes me as quite appropriate,” said Kori Schake, a former State Department official during the George W. Bush administration. The public “admires Secretary Clinton’s toughness and how much she got out there and tried to do stuff.” With many of the Obama administration’s foreign policy priorities still unresolved, Clinton has...

Hillary Clinton offers a detailed account of the deadly attack on the American embassy in Benghazi — and a pointed rebuttal to Republican critics who’ve laced into her over the incident — in a much-anticipated chapter of her forthcoming book, “Hard Choices,” obtained by POLITICO. “Those who exploit this tragedy over and over as a political tool minimize the sacrifice of those who served our country,” Clinton writes in the gripping chapter, “Benghazi: Under Attack.” Casting doubt on the motivations of congressional Republicans who have continued to investigate the attacks, including with an upcoming House select committee, Clinton continues: “I...

Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida, has a plan to become Republicans' "worst nightmare" if he is indeed appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the select committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. (clip) Grayson said he would use the Benghazi hearings as an opportunity to draw attention to other issues important to "ordinary Americans" that have not received as much attention. (clip) Following DeLauro's proposal, liberal groups hatched another idea: send Grayson. A petition on the CREDO group's website has already garnered more than 65,000 signatures. (clip) Grayson said it's up to Pelosi to determine...

Secretary of State John Kerry says people around the world have a fundamental right to the Internet. He is denouncing authoritarian governments that place restrictions on web access and social media. Speaking from Washington to an online freedom forum in Estonia, Kerry said Monday that open and unrestricted communication helps make governments accountable. He said autocratic rulers therefore see a free, open and inclusive Internet as a threat to their power. …

WASHINGTON (AP) — AP source: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigning after rocky health care law rollout.

New Hillary Clinton memoir set for June 10 release AFP 1 hour ago Washington (AFP) - Hillary Clinton, the former US secretary of state who is contemplating a second run for the White House, will release a new memoir on June 10, her publisher announced Wednesday. A website owned by Simon & Schuster was allowing users to sign up and pre-order the book, which the publisher said would consist of "candid reflections about key moments during her time as secretary of state as well as her thoughts about how to navigate the challenges of the 21st century." The book, and...