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Senator Chuck Grassley has sent two letters to the State Department to ask about Huma Abedin's special government status when she was a government employee--and for information on Abedin's email use while working for the government. Abedin is a close aide to Hillary Clinton, and worked for the consulting firm Teneo (under a special government employee status) while working for Clinton. "I am writing to follow up on inquiries I have been making since June 13, 2013 and August 15, 2013 regarding the State Department’s use of Special Government Employee (SGE) designations, and in particular, what steps the Department took...

I received this e-mail from our Faithful Navigator this morning. Dear Knights and friends of the Knights of Columbus, It was recently announced that Gov. Terry McAuliffe was selected as the Grand Marshall for this year's Norfolk St. Patrick's Day Parade (March 14th) which is sponsored by the Knights of Columbus Council 3548. http://norfolkparade.com This was against the directive of Holy Trinity Pastor, Fr. Dan Beeman. Please read Fr. Beeman's letter below. It appears that the KofC State Deputy, Steve Burnley, first agreed to immediately replace Terry McAuliffe, but later he reversed his decision. It is totally unacceptable that Terry...

University of Miami President Donna Shalala says she will retire next year. Shalala informed members of the school's board of trustees of her decision Monday. The 73-year-old Shalala has led Miami since 2001, overseeing two major fundraising campaigns that will eventually bring a total of $3 billion to the school....

Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh philanthropist and reclusive heir to the Mellon banking fortune, whose support for right-wing causes laid the foundations for America’s modern conservative movement and fueled the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, died on Friday. He was 82. Mr. Scaife’s death was reported by the The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a newspaper he owned. He had announced recently that he had cancer. Decades before David and Charles Koch bankrolled right-wing causes, Mr. Scaife and Joseph Coors, the beer magnate, were the leading financiers of the conservative crusade of the 1970s and ’80s, seeking to reverse the liberal traditions...

I stand by every word of it. And it’s even worse today. Of the thousands of Clinton presidential records released to the public last week, one among them has received of the bulk of attention: a 332-page memo from 1995. The memo, which offers an in-depth analysis of the right-wing media, describes how conservative conspiracy theories about the Clintons passed from the fringes to the mainstream. (...) Let’s go all the way back to the summer of 1995. At the time, my then colleague (and current business partner) Mark Fabiani and I were working at the White House as lawyers...

RICHMOND, Va. – With just one more day to go in the campaign, there is one group of voters that Republican Ken Cuccinelli needs to win over to become the next governor of Virginia: Female voters. He currently trails his Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe by 16 points among women. Carol Noggle, legislative coordinator of the League of Women Voters of Virginia, believes that women are likely to have a significant impact this year. “There were more women than men who are registering to vote,” Noggle said in a phone interview. “The higher turnout may be among women than men,” said...

President Barack Obama cast Republican Ken Cuccinelli on Sunday as part of an extreme Tea Party faction that shut down the government, throwing the political weight of the White House behind Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the final days of a bitter race for governor. “Nothing makes me more nervous than when my supporters start feeling too confident,” Obama said during the rally. “So I want to put the fear of God in all of you.” Seeking an upset, Cuccinelli cast this week’s Virginia gubernatorial election as a referendum on Obama’s troubled national health care law. National issues that have divided...

ANNANDALE, Va. — Vice President Joe Biden on Monday delivered a closing pitch for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, painting the Virginia race as a major test of the mainstream electorate’s answer to a resurgent tea party. ”This race has captured the attention of the entire nation,” Biden said. “Not just because it’s a … race in a bellwether state that has become the face of progress in this country. But because it’s the first major race between the forces and faces of the new Republican tea party — a tea party whose social recidivism is only outgunned by its...

Terry McAuliffe (D) opens a double-digit lead over Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) among likely voters in a Washington Post/Abt SRBI poll, as majorities say both candidates are running negative campaigns.

Bob Lewis, the Associated Press political reporter who last week published an erroneous report about Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, has been temporarily suspended, POLITICO has learned.Lewis, a highly respected veteran on the Richmond political scene, will no longer cover the race between McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli, and may be suspended through the election. His last story on the race was published Oct. 14.Lewis did not respond to a request for comment regarding the suspension. The Associated Press declined to comment on personnel matters.On Oct. 9, Lewis published an exclusive report for the AP alleging that McAuliffe had lied to...

By itself, Terry McAuliffe’s failure to announce his resignation as chairman of GreenTech Automotive Inc. would not raise many eyebrows. But when the news was reported last week — four months after McAuliffe quietly resigned — it added to questions about the gubernatorial candidate’s ties to the electric car company he founded in 2009, and claims he has made about it on the campaign trail. McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee by default, promotes himself as a job-creating entrepreneur. He has used GreenTech to try to burnish that image. He should have a clear explanation why GreenTech chose Mississippi, not Virginia, for...

Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, confronted by pro-Serbian protesters who called her a war criminal during a recent book signing in her native Prague, pushed them aside as "disgusting Serbs" in a confrontation going viral on the internet. Displaying her trademark feistiness, Albright is seen in the video as sternly shouting "get out, get out," to the protesters who arrived with a film crew. As they closed in on her, she stood up and said, "That's it! Get out," and soon walked away with an aide after saying, "they are disgusting Serbs." Albright, on a book tour to tout...

The Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright involved in a verbal altercation with pro-Serb activistsFormer US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called protesters "disgusting Serbs" when they confronted her at a book signing in Prague. Two videos showing Albright in a verbal altercation with a group of activists contesting her role in the Yugoslav Wars were posted on YouTube. Prague-born Albright was at a bookstore in the Czech capital to sign copies of her memoir 'Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948.' The videos show Albright being approached by members of the group Friends of Serbs...

Please spare us all the sanctimoniousness about getting “political,” because whether or not the president of the United States and his administration are equipped with the capabilities to deal with serious threats to our national security sure seems like kind of a big deal that voters deserve to know about.

Streisand: 'Obama More Fiscally Conservative Than Any Other President in Recent History Except Clinton' By Noel Sheppard Created 09/19/2012 - 12:32pm "Compared to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Obama has been more fiscally conservative than any other president in recent history, with the exception of President Bill Clinton." Despite over $5 trillion in new debt created by the 44th president, so hysterically wrote Barbra Streisand at the Huffington Post Tuesday. "In this election," Streisand began, "the people of America have to make a choice between two candidates with very different values, visions and solutions to the most pressing problems...

The New York Times is reporting that, in the wake of the overturn of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, prominent homosexuals are gearing up a "war room" in order to try to finish the job of destroying the natural family and one-man one-woman marriage in America. "The new group, Equality Matters, grew out of Media Matters, an organization backed by wealthy liberal donors — including prominent gay philanthropists — that has staked its claim in Washington punditry with aggressive attacks on Fox News and conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. It will be run by Richard Socarides, a former...

People talk about wanting to get the money out of politics, but fundraising totals can tell us a lot about who's hitting their stride and who will soon be hitting the bench. We are now within striking distance of November 2, so much so that Muse’s “Uprising” is my ringtone. “Rise up and take the power back/It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack … .”As we get down to the wire, polls matter, block walks matter, enthusiasm matters — and money matters. In fact, money tells us a lot about the health of a candidate and where he...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has expressed a willingness to ban protesters from burning the Koran as the modern day equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater.The Supreme Court has ruled burning the American flag in protest is protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.Breyer spoke to George Stephanopoulos on ABC's Good Morning America today:But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on "GMA" that he's not prepared to conclude that -- in the internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning.“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theater,” Breyer...

Interpol, the international law enforcement cooperation organization with 188 member states, has explicitly warned Americans to not provoke terrorists this September 11th, the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States mainland by the Muslim terrorist group al Qaeda.The warning was made as part of a statement requested by Pakistan that was issued Thursday by Interpol regarding the global threat of violent reaction by Muslims to the planned burning of Korans this Saturday by a small, formerly obscure Christian church in Gainesville, Florida that is seeking to draw attention to the evil, violent nature of radical Islam. However,...

With the release of the campaign finance material from Gov. Rick Perry, we find that Democratic challenger Bill White is leading in the cash on hand amount by almost $3 million. Perry will report $5.8 million in cash, according to his campaign. White earlier today said he would report more than $9 million in the bank. "Texans for Rick Perry Raises Over $20 Million for '09-'10 Election Cycle Doubles Number of Contributors from 2006 Election More than $7 Million raised since Feb. 21; Reports almost $6 Million Cash On Hand" (from Rick Perry campaign press release)