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Witnesses say a pregnant woman in labor was prevented by authorities from crossing a Los Angeles street to a hospital Wednesday because the road had been closed for President Barack Obama’s impending motorcade. The unidentified woman was barred from walking the few hundred feet to the hospital for at least 30 minutes as authorities waited for the president’s motorcade to pass by, witness Carrie Clifford told TheBlaze early Thursday morning. “I felt bad for her,” Clifford said. “It does happen when Obama comes to L.A. or I’m sure anywhere else. It paralyzes the city, it does make it complicated.” “You...

Why there’s really no chance President Obama will be able to appoint another Justice to the bench, regardless of what happens in November. It’s a question that’s roiled the liberal universe for years: Why won’t 81-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg resign from the Supreme Court and give President Obama the chance to pick her successor, in case the Senate turns Republican after the mid-terms? Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, one of the left’s jurisprudential heroes, had a ready answer to that question when it was posed to him at the University of California Santa Barbara late last month....

SAN FRANCISCO — President Barack Obama went to the West Coast to meet donors from two top Democratic super PACs, but the press wasn’t invited. Tuesday, the reporters and photographers traveling with the president on Air Force One and in his motorcade were left on the gravel path not even within sight of former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal’s house in the Seattle suburbs where Obama sat for a Senate Majority PAC fundraiser with a $25,000 entrance fee. Wednesday morning, when he met with big donors for the House Majority PAC at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown San Francisco, they...

A hipster pro-choice couple from North Carolina created a Tumblr blog dedicated to making fun of pro-life supporters protesting outside of abortion clinics. Called “Saturday Chores,” the blog documents the abortion enthusiasts’ trips to various abortion clinics holding signs they consider “funny” in a form of political counter protest.

Des Moines, IA.—The Republican Party of Polk County will host a Summer Sizzle & Straw Poll on Sunday, August 24 from 5-8 p.m. at the Izaak Walton League Center, 4343 George Flagg Parkway, Des Moines. National, state and local candidates are also invited to participate in this summer fun-filled event. The Special Guest Speaker for the evening will be Dr. Ben Carson in his first public Iowa visit of 2014 as he criss-crosses the nation. The Republican Party of Polk County will also conduct a Presidential Straw Poll as part of the evening’s festivities. As the largest county in Iowa,...

A federal judge in Denver declared Colorado's gay marriage ban unconstitutional Wednesday, but he temporarily put the ruling on hold to give the state until next month to seek an appeal.... Colorado Republican Attorney General John Suthers and Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper had requested a stay so the issue could eventually be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court — though both agreed the state ban should be declared unconstitutional.

Americans who oppose same-sex marriage often face "intolerance" from those who support it, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Wednesday in a speech about values that appeared aimed at wooing social conservatives. In remarks he said were likely to get him criticized as a bigot, the Florida Republican told an audience at Catholic University that a strong America is impossible without Americans who hold strong values. Seeming to seek a debate over those values, he criticized liberals who defend abortion rights for women but not protections for "the unborn."

It's pronounced Pa-koh-tas, like "Dakotas." The "o" sound is long, like the "o" sound in "Joe." The moderator from the League of Women Voters of Pullman asks about half a dozen questions at the League's primary forum on Monday night before she finally gets it right. (SNIP) (McMorris Rodgers, who was campaigning in Spokane on Monday, never responded to the League's invitation. Horne missed the forum in order to crash a Republican shindig and confront McMorris Rodgers in person.) (SNIP) Tom Horne (R): The Obama administration should shut the hell up. This is an Israeli problem. Wars brought to a...

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie launched a radio ad Wednesday featuring President Barack Obama supporting the governor’s bid for re-election. In the ad, Obama uses the Hawaiian word for family, saying Abercrombie is “like ohana to me.” The president says Abercrombie knew his parents “before I was a twinkle in their eye.” Obama says the governor has made gutsy decisions leading Hawaii, tackled a budget crisis, made smart investments in education and fought for middle class and working families. …

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world —W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”Wherever we look today—from the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East to the post-Cold War frontier in Ukraine to the South China Sea to our border with Mexico— our world appears to be falling apart. This naturally raises a serious question in the minds of many people: If America, the indispensable nation, had been doing its job of holding the global system together, couldn’t this chaos and anarchy have been avoided? The simple answer is, yes. But if you listen to Hillary...

Demonstrators fell to the ground as protest leaders read names of Gaza casualties in Operation Protective Edge at rally Saturday.BOSTON – In a corner of America’s oldest public common, some 200 anti-Israel demonstrators held a so-called “die-in” Saturday to protest Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. For the third time in eight days, Boston police were forced to intervene when a small group of student Israel supporters was swarmed by demonstrators screaming anti-Semitic epithets and initiating physical contact, said students involved in the incident. The two-hour “die-in” on the Boston Common climaxed when protest leaders read the names of Palestinians...

Desperate candidates who are way behind in the polls take big swings hoping to hit political home runs. Take Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, trying to hold onto his Congressional seat in Michigan’s 11th District. Being down 22 points against David Trott, he desperately needs to rally his troops by the August 5th primary. So his campaign e-mailed a fundraising pitch pushing the myth that the U.S. Chamber supports amnesty. Rep. Bentivolio whiffed big time. The U.S. Chamber doesn’t support amnesty and never has. Here is what the U.S. Chamber’ immigration reform priorities are: Strengthening border security. Improving E-Verify system and employment...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed into law a measure aimed at reducing deportations of legal immigrants who are convicted of misdemeanors. :snip: The legislation aimed at reducing deportations of noncitizens who are legal residents cuts the maximum possible misdemeanor sentence in California by one day, from one year to 364 days. Under federal immigration law, a felony is a crime punishable by 365 days or more, in which case a noncitizen legal resident can face deportation, according to state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens). Deportable crimes that carry a maximum one-year sentence include theft, fraud and forgery. "As a...

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has offered to house an additional 5,000 undocumented children coming across the border into the U.S. and to extend the leases of three bases while the federal government seeks to determine their status.

Gov. Terry Branstad told The Carroll Daily Times Herald his counterpart in Nebraska is on the right track with a demand to the federal government for identifying details on the unaccompanied, undocumented children who crossed the nation's borders, most from Central America, in the last year and ended up in Nebraska. Branstad said he is outraged by what he described as a lack of communication from the White House on the situation. "I find out through the Omaha World-Herald," Branstad said. "There's no transparency, there's no openness, they never told us. This is not the way the government of the...

President Obama has said most of the undocumented children in the U.S. from Central America will not be allowed to stay. The process of deciding which ones will stay and which ones will go is often decided in court, but Tuesday, 18 of 20 undocumented children failed to show up to their first immigration hearing in Dallas federal court. The judge could have issued immediate deportation orders as far as Tuesday’s no-shows are concerned, but he chose not to, and reset the hearing for next month instead.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Former House Democrat Pat Schroeder predicts that Hillary Clinton would face "a lot of sexism" if she decides to run for president in 2016. Schroeder served in the House from 1973 to 1997 as the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado. Now 73, she appears in "Makers: Women in Politics," a film airing this fall on PBS. She was asked about Clinton on Tuesday at a summer TV critics' meeting. "She's still going to have a lot of sexism," Schroeder said. "I can't believe there's people saying can she still be a grandmother and...

Dead heat. That's what Wisconsin is staring at in the race for governor, with Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Mary Burke neck-and-neck heading into the November election, according to the latest Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday. Among registered voters, Walker led Burke, 46% to 45%. Among likely voters, Burke led Walker, 47% to 46%. "The bottom line is that nothing has statistically changed from May to July," said Charles Franklin, the poll director. "We're seeing a dead heat in the race, well within the margin of error." "As the race really heats up with advertising and back...

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal op-ed by a potential GOP presidential candidate, Ohio senator Rob Portman, brings to mind a quote from the movie Field of Dreams. At the end of the movie, Ray Kinsella angrily confronts the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson when the player refuses to let Ray come with him. “What’s in it for me?” Kinsella cries. I fear that will be the reaction among working-class whites in Ohio and other industrial Midwest states if the agenda the senator lays out is all that’s on offer in 2016. According to exit polls, whites without a college degree easily...

LOS ALTOS HILLS -- President Obama hit the Bay Area for a fast cash-and-grab fundraising drive Wednesday, but there were signs that even in one of the nation's most reliable Democratic ATMs, donor fatigue is setting in. There was no listed price for tickets for Obama's morning appearance at a roundtable in San Francisco for the House Majority PAC - the type of intimate gathering for which admission is usually $32,400 per person, the legal maximum. Some donors said tickets had been offered for a deep discount. And in Los Altos Hills, the heart of Silicon Valley big money, the...

Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter sent a letter to federal officials Wednesday voicing his opposition to using the state as "a destination or a staging area for the influx of unaccompanied and illegal immigrants entering the United States through our southern border." In the letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, Otter blames the federal government for creating the current crisis at the border, and says Congress needs to take action to enforce the law. "Idaho will not open itself to the unwelcome challenges...

MANVEL, Texas -- It's a small rural town stuck in a county that just made it clear undocumented children aren't welcome here, but the possibility they could be moving in to the Shiloh Treatment Center, an older facility along Bahler Avenue in Manvel is very real. "They're trying to squeeze them in anywhere they can," said Manvel resident Brian Priest. We searched federal records and found Shiloh’s received a little over $5 million in grant money. That money is coming from the US Office of Refugee Resettlement. That's the same group in charge of placing thousands of undocumented children crossing...

OAKLAND -- Wednesday was a day off from politics for former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who spent the morning in Oakland with babies, small children and their parents, talking about talking. It was the local kickoff for the "Too Small to Fail" campaign, an early childhood education effort designed to let parents know that talking is teaching when it comes to the youngest children.

House Republicans will call Wednesday for decisive action to end the border crisis, proposing a deployment of National Guard troops and accelerated deportation hearings for unaccompanied children inundating the U.S., said a Capitol Hill aide familiar with the plan. The proposals from a task force will aim to fix the most urgent problems quickly, “stemming the flow of [unaccompanied alien children] and securing the border right now,” the Republican aide said. “This is about solutions right now.” Several of the recommendations focus on expediting the immigration hearing process for the unaccompanied alien children. Otherwise, most of them could stay in...

While President Obama was raising hundreds of thousands of dollars at two Bay Area fundraisers Wednesdays, protesters urged him to keep a promise he made to ensure that the Internet remains a level playing field. Back in 2007, then-candidate Obama said during a campaign stop at Google that as president he would “take a backseat to no one” in terms of his commitment to preserving net neutrality. But Obama’s appointments to the Federal Communications Commission don’t back up that commitment. In May, three Democrats he appointed to the agency voted to allow broadband carriers to provide an online “fast lane”...

Montana Sen. John Walsh's thesis written to earn a master's degree from the U.S. Army War College contains unattributed passages taken word-for-word from previously published papers. The Democrat said Wednesday he was on medication and being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder from his service in Iraq when he wrote the paper. He said he also was dealing with the stress of a fellow veteran's recent suicide. Walsh said he made an unintentional mistake and did not intend to plagiarize. "I don't want to blame my mistake on PTSD, but I do want to say it may have been a factor,"...

Well, it seems “Papergate” just ensnared Montana Democratic Senator John Walsh. Mr. Walsh was appointed by Gov. Steve Bullock to replace outgoing Sen. Max Baucus, who decided to become the Obama administration’s Ambassador to China. Walsh is described by the New York Times as having something the Democrats lack in their political ranks: a seasoned military record. Walsh is a decorated Iraq War veteran, but his reputation might be marred by a final term paper he wrote in obtaining his master’s degree, where a substantial portion was written without crediting anyone (via NYT): An examination of the final paper required...

When writing about politics, it's all too frequent to use terminology that often obscures more than elucidates. That's especially true when it comes to the word "wave"—shorthand for a landslide victory for the winning party. I've argued before that the likelihood of 2014 being a wave election has been rising, given the president's consistently low approval ratings and the fact that Republicans are running evenly on the generic ballot (which usually translates into a clear GOP edge) and that the right-track/wrong-track numbers are near historic lows. All these big-picture signs are ominous for the party in power.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Jim Gilchrist — one of the founders of the Minutemen Project — said he’s reaching out across America to recruit at least 3,500 volunteers who will go to the border to patrol and cover the “porous areas” between San Diego and Brownsville, Texas. The campaign is called “Operation Normandy,” and it’s set for May 1, 2015, Raw Story reported. “If you are familiar with the Normandy invasion of France in 1944, then you have an idea how large and logistically complicated this event will be,” Mr. Gilchrist said, Raw Story reported. “However, there is one difference. We are not going...

Has the Obama administration competently and effectively managed the government? A Fox News poll released Wednesday finds a majority of American voters says no -- including about a third of Democrats. A 58-percent majority says the White House has not been competent at managing the federal government. Some 32 percent of Democrats join 67 percent of independents and 84 percent of Republicans in holding that view.

On Wednesday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin endorsed conservative Tennessee state representative Joe Carr in his primary bid to oust incumbent Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). Carr has been hammering Alexander before the August 7th primary for voting for the Senate's Gang of Eight comprehensive amnesty bill even after he was warned by law enforcement officials that it would exacerbate the border crisis. Even Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) voted against the final bill. Palin thanked Alexander for his service and then promptly said it is time for new leaders who will have the guts to tell the Obama administration, "no mas."...

Democrats were thrilled when John Walsh of Montana was appointed to the United States Senate in February. A decorated veteran of the Iraq war and former adjutant general of his state’s National Guard, Mr. Walsh offered the Democratic Party something it frequently lacks: a seasoned military man. On the campaign trail this year, Mr. Walsh, 53, has made his military service a main selling point. Still wearing his hair close-cropped, he notes he was targeted for killing by Iraqi militants and says his time in uniform informs his views on a range of issues. But one of the highest-profile credentials...

Navi Pillay said Tel Aviv's two-week onslaught on Gaza - which has cost more than 650 Palestinians lives - would be thoroughly investigated. Ms Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the attacks have destroyed houses and hospitals and killed civilians. "These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. "Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated." According to Gaza officials, 475 houses have been destroyed and 2,644 damaged, while 46 schools, 56 mosques...

Not an unusual data point at all, based on the polling trend -- but a timely reality check for the delusional "people love Obamacare!" propagandists. CNN's latest national survey includes a number of noteworthy nuggets, including the "Affordable" Care Act fallout verdict referenced in the headline (via Ed Morrissey): (1) President Obama's job approval rating is mired at (42/55), languishing roughly where it's been for months. He is underwater with men (39/58), women (45/52), young people (45/49), and independents (34/62). Seventy-seven percent of Democrats and nearly two-thirds of non-white voters continue to give Obama high marks, but virtually everyone...

PPP's new Colorado poll finds the exact same numbers in the races for both Governor and the Senate- Democratic incumbents John Hickenlooper and Mark Udall are clinging to 44/43 leads over their challengers Bob Beauprez and Cory Gardner respectively.

LINK ONLY per Freerepublic posting rules.

- The Daily Caller - http://dailycaller.com - Member Of Dem. Campaign Sent Vulgar And Sacrilegious Tweets Posted By Lauren Eissler On 3:48 PM 07/23/2014 [Ben Gagnon with Governors Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Peter Shulmin of Vermont and Congressman Michael Michaud of Maine at fundraising luncheon on the day before Gagnon was suspended for tweeting vulgar statements.] A team member of the Democrat’s nominee for governor of Maine tweeted a lot of sacrilegious and vulgar statements and was suspended for it. Maine Rep. Michael Michaud’s team member Ben Gagnon was suspended after tweeting sexist, expletive-laden statements. The tweets were taken down...

PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds Kay Hagan continuing to grow her lead over Thom Tillis as the legislative session drags on. Hagan now has 41% to 34% for Tillis and 8% for Libertarian Sean Haugh. Her lead is up from 2 points in May and 5 points in June. The protracted legislative session with Tillis at the helm of it can't be doing him any favors. Only 19% of voters approve of the job the General Assembly is doing to 57% who disapprove, and legislative Republicans specifically have a 31/52 favorability rating. Those things are working together to help...

On the day he won a Western Conservative Summit straw poll, Dr. Ben Carson reported he’s “starting to think about” the possibility of a White House bid in 2016. Reporting that hundreds are showing up for his book signing tour, Carson says of the idea it’s one he “cannot simply ignore.” Carson rose to prominence after the public dressing down of Obamacare at a prayer breakfast at which President Obama was in attendance. Since that address, Carson’s star has continued to rise among key GOP constituents fed up with what is perceived as a less-than-aggressive response by House leadership. Despite...

Vladimir Putin just showed the world exactly what he thinks of the President of the United State and NATO allies calls for him to rein in the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. Less than a week after rebels took down a Malaysian passenger plane carrying nearly 300 civilians, the militants loyal to Moscow are not laying low. “Two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down Wednesday in the eastern regions of the country that are controlled by Russian-backed separatists, according to Ukraine’s defense ministry,” USA Today reported on Wednesday. It was the first reported shoot down of a plane over eastern Ukraine...

The head of the IRS confirmed Wednesday that investigators looking into missing emails from ex-agency official Lois Lerner have found and are reviewing "backup tapes" -- despite earlier IRS claims that the tapes had been recycled. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, testifying before a House oversight subcommittee, stressed that he does not know "how they found them" or "whether there's anything on them or not." But he said the inspector general's office advised him the investigators are reviewing tapes to see if they contain any "recoverable" material. The revelation is significant because the IRS claimed, when the agency first told Congress...

Yesterday, Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz appeared on Ralston Reports - a regional Nevada talk show which discusses politics and news. As is so often the case, she presented herself as America’s number one ObamaCare cheerleader. Unfortunately, though, she had no idea what she was talking about. While talking about the recent DC Circuit Court ruling, host John Ralston suggested that most Americans believe ObamaCare is a “shaky mess.” Wasserman-Schultz, he claimed had “to be worried.” The chairwoman disagreed, so she tried to make a point. She failed. “Just take a state like Nevada,” she said. “Where you have...

GOOGLE TRANSLATE: Univision decided to fulfill a single information function, commit and take a stand to defend the children of the border, those who come looking for a dream or reecontrarse with his parents in the United States and were arrested. Within the framework of the Annual Conference of the Council of La Raza (NCLR, for its acronym in English), Vice President of Univision, Bob Llamas, announced that the company would allocate resources to protect children from the border: "We can not let circumstances or the political and economic distract us from helping children. I guarantee that none of these...

(Newser) – Businessman David Perdue has won the GOP nomination for a Senate race the party cannot afford to lose. Perdue, former CEO of Reebok and Dollar General, narrowly beat 11-term Rep. Jack Kingston in a runoff election in Georgia to become the party's Senate nominee, reports the New York Times. He will face Democrat Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn, in a race seen as key to control of the Senate for the last years of President Obama's term. Democrats see Georgia as their best chance of picking up another Senate seat this fall, while Republicans need...

Montana Democrat’s Thesis Presented Others’ Work as His Own Senator John Walsh of Montana Confronts Questions of Plagiarism Democrats were thrilled when John Walsh of Montana was appointed to the United States Senate in February. A decorated veteran of the Iraq war and former adjutant general of his state’s National Guard, Mr. Walsh offered the Democratic Party something it frequently lacks: a seasoned military man. On the campaign trail this year, Mr. Walsh, 53, has made his military service a main selling point. Still wearing his hair close-cropped, he notes he was targeted for killing by Iraqi militants and says...

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a Republican who said he is mulling a run for president in 2016, is a somewhat ubiquitous presence for politicos on Twitter. The Washington Post documented in July how users who search for terms like "GOP" or even just "politics" on Twitter are greeted with ads from Bolton blasting President Barack Obama's foreign policy. For example, Business Insider just did a Twitter search for "Benghazi" and was presented with ads featuring surverys asking if Israel is justified in its conflict with Hamas and if we agree that "Iran is taking America...

More than 15 wasps stung Lucie Roussel's legs near her Quebec home. She became La Prairie's mayor in 2005 and recently won reelection to a third term. ... Paramedics gave her an EpiPen to treat an allergic reaction, but it didn't help, La Prairie spokeswoman Chantal Charron said. The 51-year-old mayor, who was apparently not allergic to bees, died at a nearby hospital from multiple stings and shock ... She leaves behind two teenage children — her daughter, Constance, and her son, Antonin. Her husband died several years ago from a heart attack

The Toronto mayoral race is a dead heat between the three top contenders as Mayor Rob Ford’s support of one-in-four voters remains set in concrete and Olivia Chow has dropped off sharply, a new poll suggests. The latest Forum Poll has Chow with 29% support of respondents, John Tory at 28% and Ford at 27%, all within the poll’s three percentage points margin of error. However, six-in-ten respondents still call for Ford to resign, suggesting little room for growth for the mayor’s campaign. Karen Stintz saw her support rise to 6%, while policy geek David Soknacki’s campaign has yet to...

A major Democratic donor who is funding some of the left’s most politically active electioneering groups was subject to bipartisan condemnation this week in the midst of a federal investigation into his hedge fund’s tax avoidance schemes. Senators from both parties blasted efforts by Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund owned by Democratic mega-donor Jim Simons, to shield itself from federal income taxes during a Tuesday hearing. “Two banks and a handful of hedge funds developed a complex financial structure to engage in highly profitable trades while claiming an unjustified lower tax rate and avoiding limits on trading with borrowed money,”...

Every election cycle tells a story, but the storyline for the 2014 general election is still being written. Republicans have longed believed that 2014 would be a Republican year in Iowa, especially with the absence of a presidential candidate at the top of the ticket. Strong fundraising from Democrats seeking federal office, especially Congressman Bruce Braley who wasn’t challenged for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that Sen. Tom Harkin is vacating, made it look like Iowa was leaning Democrat in the 2014 U.S. Senate race. A month into the general election, Braley’s campaign seems adrift, and Republican...