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US President Barack Obama has said he will not spy on EU leaders or conduct economic espionage, but will continue snooping on ordinary US and EU citizens.He made the pledge in a TV speech on Friday (17 January) in reaction to the Edward Snowden leaks. “I’ve made clear to the intelligence community that unless there is a compelling national security purpose, we will not monitor the communications of heads of state and government of our close friends and allies,” he said. “We do not collect intelligence to provide a competitive advantage to US companies or US commercial sectors,” he added....

Dear Friend, As our campaign has gained momentum, our opponents have gotten more and more desperate. But now they’ve stooped to a new low by attacking my family, my education, and my personal story – playing politics with the journey that has been my life. Mine is a story about a teenage single mother who struggled to keep her young family afloat. It’s a story about a young woman who was given a precious opportunity to work her way up in the world. It’s a story about resiliency, and sacrifice, and perseverance. And you’re damn right it’s a true story.

(CNSNews.com) - "We're still a country very much addicted to tobacco," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a news conference last Friday, as she urged communities, schools and businesses to "help make the next generation a tobacco-free generation." A transcript of that news conference runs around 8,300 words, but there isn't a single word about the adverse health effects of marijuana smoking -- even as more states jump on the pot-legalization bandwagon. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana smoke is an irritant to the lungs, and "frequent marijuana smokers can have many of the same...

David Remnick of The New Yorker showed up on PBS’s Charlie Rose Monday night to discuss his long, mostly sympathetic profile of Barack Obama from the January 27 issue of the magazine. Near the end of the interview, Rose focused in on the president’s reported desire to be “big.” The host wondered, “[W]hat's his definition of 'big,' and does he believe in his deep recesses of his own mind that the chance of that has slipped away?” Remnick replied that no, Obama does not think his chance of being “big” has slipped away. The editor then rattled off a laundry...

Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, has admitted that a number of key details in her public personal narrative do not match up with the reality of the facts. The Texas state senator who rose to national fame for her successful 13-hour filibuster against new abortion restrictions, acknowledged to The Dallas Morning News that there are some chronological errors and incomplete details in what she and her advisers have said about her life. "My language should be tighter," she told the paper. "I'm learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the...

Hillary Clinton might have a pretty hefty scandal brewing. It turns when she was an attorney working on the Watergate investigation, she was fired by her supervisor for “lying, unethical behavior.” Jerry Zeifman, who said he is a lifelong Democrat, was a supervisor for 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. When the investigation was complete, Zeifman said he fired Hillary and refused to give her a recommendation. “Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of...

Phil Griffin, head of the MSNBC cable television channel, told Marisa Guthrie of the Hollywood Reporter that he accepts responsibility for recent embarrassments that led Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir to leave the network and Melissa Harris-Perry to offer a tearful on-air apology. "These were judgment calls made by some of our people. We handled them. We were transparent. That is our philosophy: Be factual, and step up when you make a mistake,” Griffin asserted. “We took responsibility for them and took action. They were unfortunate,” but “I don't think it hurt us in any way.” While known as a...

Minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi came under assault on Sept. 11, 2012, the nation's top civilian and uniformed defense officials -- headed for a previously scheduled Oval Office session with President Obama -- were informed that the event was a "terrorist attack," declassified documents show. The new evidence raises the question of why the top military men, one of whom was a member of the president's Cabinet, allowed him and other senior Obama administration officials to press a false narrative of the Benghazi attacks for two weeks afterward. Gen. Carter Ham, who at the time was head of...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi corrected a reporter Thursday who called Democrats’ health care law “Obamacare.” “First of all, it’s called the ‘Affordable Care Act,’ ” the California Democrat said after a reporter asked about House GOP efforts to try to tweak the law. Democrats, who just a couple of years ago were happy to call President Obama’s signature achievement Obamacare,...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was unequivocal in his condemnation of the actions taken by some of his staffers last fall to exact political retribution by closing George Washington Bridge traffic lanes and causing major backups, but he continued to deny any prior knowledge of the plot in a press conference Thursday. Christie began by apologizing to the people of Fort Lee and New Jersey, and said he would be traveling to Fort Lee later Thursday to repeat his sentiment directly to the most affected community. "I am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on...

Sebelius: No more ObamaCare delays Published December 31, 2013 FoxNews.com Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, on the eve of the ObamaCare launch, told Fox News she doesn't anticipate any more delays for the health care law. The secretary voiced confidence in the law as her department announced what it claimed was a "surge" in enrollment. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Tuesday that more than 2.1 million people have enrolled through the federal- and state-run marketplaces. "I'm thrilled that we're going to have millions of people for the first time that have health security, and it...

In the 100 E-MAILS released by the Obama administration relating to Benghazi, THERE WAS NO MENTION OF THE YOUTUBE VIDEO IN ANY OF THEM.

Friend -- On January 1st, our nation turns a corner on health care -- and we're never going back. From here on, no American should have to go broke just because they get sick. You can't be dropped from your plan when you need it most. Pre-existing conditions will never prevent someone from getting coverage, and women can't be charged more than men for their plans. And for millions of Americans, affordable, quality coverage is finally within reach. I am so proud of that. And I have people like you to thank, truly. Fundamental change like this doesn't happen just...

Actor Andy Serkis is set to direct an upcoming movie adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel Animal Farm. But there will be a slight deviation from the story’s original focus: rather than serve as a cautionary tale about Communist totalitarianism, this updated version will address Hollywood’s predictable, go-to embodiment of evil, the Darth Vader of our time: corporate greed. Orwell’s brilliant allegory Animal Farm was written during World War II as a satire on Soviet Communism (and very nearly wasn’t published, critical as it was of our Russian ally). It has since been adapted to film twice, a British animated...

Although Mayor Annise Parker has vowed that she and her longtime partner, Kathy Hubbard, will not wed until gay marriage is legal in Texas, in recent interviews the mayor has softened her stance. "The world is changing so fast, maybe I won't wait that long," Parker said last week in a year-end interview with CultureMap when asked when she would marry. "I'm no longer worried that (gay marriage in Texas) is not going to happen in my lifetime. After the Supreme Court ruling and the number of states that now have equal marriage, it's coming." Since then CultureMap has learned...

According to the Chinese calendar, 2013 was the Year of the Snake. For Americans, however, the year just drawing to a close will be known as the Year of the Lie. Not since the Nixon Administration -- which ended with Richard Nixon resigning in order to avoid being impeached -- has the credibility of a President been held in such low esteem. Mired in more scandals than fingers and toes on which to count, it seems President Barack Obama and his defenders spent more time this year fibbing to the American people than actually running the executive branch. From the...

The obligatory follow-up to Ed’s post earlier. When they said O was planning to enroll today, I thought they meant he’d take a break from the links for half an hour to punch in his info on the D.C. exchange website. Upon reflection, though, that was silly. Of course the president’s not going to entrust his vital info to one of these tinpot online exchanges. He knows better than anyone how vulnerable they are; the one he built himself was so grotesquely flawed, his own security team wouldn’t sign off on it. Special procedures would be needed. I think it’s...

Judge Robert J. Shelby, whom President Barack Obama appointed to the U.S. District Court in Utah last year, issued an opinion on Friday declaring that a right to same-sex marriage is "deeply rooted in the nation’s history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty."

From 60 Minutes last night: Susan Rice: Lesley, it’s been worth what we’ve done to protect the United States. And the fact that we have not had a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11 should not be diminished. But that does not mean that everything we’re doing as of the present ought to be done the same way in the future.

December 13, 2013, 02:41 pm Carney bristles at 'Lie of the Year' designation By Justin Sink The White House on Friday said President Obama had "in a very honest way addressed" questions over his statement that individuals could keep their health care plans under ObamaCare, named by fact-checker PolitiFact as "Lie of the Year." "The president, in an interview earlier this fall, took this question head-on and expressed his concern for those individuals, those Americans, who received cancellation notices and were potentially adversely impacted by or affected by that," White House press secretary Jay Carney said. But the White House...