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DENVER, July 9 (UPI) --President Obama turned down a hit of marijuana during a visit to a Denver bar with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. The man who offered the president some weed posted video on Instagram to document his story. The presidential motorcade also passed two people holding up signs offering Obama free marijuana but did not stop. During his evening out, Obama also ate at a pizzeria with several people who had written him letters.

Buried deep in a section of President Obama's budget, released this week, is an eye-opening fact: This year, 70% of all the money the federal government spends will be in the form of direct payments to individuals, an all-time high. In effect, the government has become primarily a massive money-transfer machine, taking $2.6 trillion from some and handing it back out to others. These government transfers now account for 15% of GDP, another all-time high. In 1991, direct payments accounted for less than half the budget and 10% of GDP. What's more, the cost of these direct payments is...

President Barack Obama proposed raising about $100 billion in revenue over the next decade through new taxes and restrictions on U.S. multinational companies. The changes, included in his budget plan for fiscal 2015, would affect digital goods, deductions for "excessive" interest and so-called hybrid arrangements that can lead to income that isn't taxed in any country, according to the budget. Obama also wants to make it tougher for U.S.-based companies to move to other countries.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined President Obama for his second closed-door dinner with Senate Republicans on Wednesday. Rubio had been invited but had not committed for most of the day of the dinner. The Florida Republican's office said immigration meetings might get in the way of him going to the dinner, but later said he would attend. Besides Rubio, Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), John Boozman (Ark.), Susan Collins (Maine), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Deb Fisher (Neb.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Johnny Isackson (Ga.), Pat Roberts (Kan.), John Thune (S.D.) Roger Wicker (Miss.) dined with Obama. Obama's first meeting with...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s decision to launch his own political organization has some Democrats wondering: Is he just in it for himself? Obama’s new group, Organizing for Action, will focus on his policy agenda – not on electing Democratic candidates – by raising unlimited amounts of cash and accessing the president’s secret list of 20 million supporters, volunteers and donors. The operation won’t share money, resources or the priceless Obama email list with the Democratic National Committee or campaign committees that help elect members of Congress, governors and legislators. And it has no plans to coordinate efforts, leading some...

State officials say they have found more than 1,100 inmates who they believe improperly collected unemployment benefits totaling more than $2 million while jailed in Illinois sometime in about the last year. One Cook County inmate collected almost $43,000, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security, though most were paid far less. Nearly all of the fraud occurred in mid-2012 from county jails across the state.

This grant was brought to you by the letters “A” and “R” — as in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the “stimulus bill.” Sesame Workshop, the independent nonprofit corporation that produces the popular childrens’ program Sesame Street, received a $1,067,532 stimulus bill grant in August 2010, via the Department of Health and Human Services. The funding was to promote healthy eating according to the federal Recovery.gov website: SW [i.e., Sesame Workshop] will carry out an expansion of its highly successful Healthy Habits for Life initiative, which promotes improved nutrition and increased physical activity, targeting low-income preschool-aged children and their...

On Wednesday, an enthusiastic Obama supporter protesting Mitt Romney near Cleveland, Ohio, explained why she is voting for the president. “Everybody in Cleveland, low minorities, got Obama phone. Keep Obama in president, you know. He gave us a phone, he gonna do more (sic),” the unidentified Obama supporter said in a video posted to YouTube. When asked how the President gave her a phone, she explained that all she had to do was sign up for it. "You sign up! If you on food stamps, you on social security, you got low income, you disability...,” she explained. The video cut...

"Wherever Barack Obama goes, he is accompanied by a huge entourage of aides, Secret Service and campaign staff. But when the President goes shopping, he still has to handle his own cash, as he showed on Saturday when he bought sausages from a Wisconsin store following a campaign stop in key swing state. Mr Obama pulled out a wad of bills that looked almost large enough to make a dent in the national debt as he browsed for pork treats alongside Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett"

Government worker: “Do you have a disability?” Man: “No.” Man’s wife: “What does he get if he’s disabled?” Government worker: “His monthly payments will [double].” Man’s wife: “Well, then he’s disabled.” Government worker (to man): “What’s your disability?” Man: “I’m stressed.” An attorney friend of mine recently overheard the above conversation in a Florida government building. The man, who had just turned 65, was signing up for retirement benefits while his wife stood over his shoulder. I relay the story to illustrate how our government is expanding the definition of the term “disability.” Howard Rich explains in his recent Wall...

David Myers, a former Worldcom executive who served 11 months in prison after being convicted of fraud, received a $7.5 million loan that was guaranteed by the federal government with money from the 2009 stimulus. Worldcom filed the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. history 2002, after three years of “falsely professing financial growth and profitability to increase the price of WorldCom’s stock.” As Worldcom controller, Myers was one of the three executives most intimately involved in perpetrating the fraud, which exaggerated that company’s value by $11 billion.

Obama green-tech program that backed Solyndra struggles to create jobs A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show. The program — designed to jump-start the nation’s clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies. President Obama has made “green jobs” a showcase of his recovery plan, vowing to foster new jobs,...

(VIDEOS AS THE LINK) ‘Obama Money’ Rumor Has People Lining Up In NYC...Again Remember in the fall of 2009 when thousands turned out in Michigan try and get free “Obama money?” Well, it’s happened again — but this time it could be a scam. Responding to a local rumor, people are standing in line for hours, turning over valuable personal information and expecting to receive a government handout in New York City. If this sounds familiar, it is. Back in the fall of 2009, thousands of people stood in line in Michigan expecting to be given some Obama money. It...

One of the three Mega Millions jackpot winners says her winning ticket remains stashed away inside the Baltimore McDonald's where she works. But some of Marlinde Wilson's co-workers think she is telling a Big Lie. "I left my ticket there, and it's somewhere safe that only I know about," Wilson told the New York Post. "I'm waiting for things to calm down so I can go back to McDonald's and get it. The people [at McDonald's] are too excited. I want their heads to cool down before I go back." Wilson claims to have purchased one of the three winning...

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CEO and founder of politically connected company questioned on day of raid. Now some Democrats wonder if they'd been misled Federal agents have expanded their examination of the now-bankrupt California solar power company Solyndra, searching the homes of the company's chief executive, a founder, and a former executive, examining computer files and documents, the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News and ABC News have learned. Agents visited the homes of CEO Brian Harrison and company founder Chris Gronet. Agents also visited the home of a third executive involved in the company from the start, according to a source who agreed...

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and fellow Americans: Tonight we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless, and a political crisis that has made things worse. This past week, reporters have been asking “What will this speech mean for the President? What will it mean for Congress? How will it affect their polls, and the next election?” But the millions of Americans who are watching right now: they don’t care about politics. They have real life concerns. Many have spent months...

Officials from the Department of Energy have for months been sitting in on board meetings as "observers" at Solyndra, getting an up-close view as the solar energy company careened towards bankruptcy after spending more than $500 million in federal loan money. Word of the Energy Department's unusual arrangement came as federal agents on Thursday converged on the California headquarters of the failed solar company, focusing fresh attention on the first corporate beneficiary of President Obama's stimulus program to create new clean energy jobs. The company, which closed its doors last week and laid off 1,100 workers, has been a subject...

One of the many taxes in Obamacare is a 2.3% excise tax on medical device manufacturers. While 2.3% doesn't sound like much, you have to remember that this 2.3% is taken from the revenue line, not the bottom line, magnifying it's impact as net margins for the medical device industry are in the teens. According to the Advanced Medical Technology Association, the industry had $13.7 billion in net income in 2006, paying $3.1 billion in taxes for an effective tax rate of 22.6%. When this new tax goes into effect, they estimate they will have to pay an additonal $2.67...