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Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Thursday morning slammed a provision in the pending spending bill that would repeal a piece of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and expressed doubt that enough Democrats could support the package if that rider remains. “I just spoke to Nancy Pelosi. The Democrats believe this is an odious provision that should not be included. Many of us feel the same way,” said Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “[Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)] can take it out in the bat of any eye, and I hope he will....

The government funding debate might last until next week. House Republicans are warning Democrats that if they cannot pass the long-term government funding bill Thursday, they will pass a one-week stopgap bill and come back next week to pass a three-month funding bill. The warning from GOP leadership has been delivered to congressional Democrats. Republicans still want to pass a deal today. “We expect the bill to pass with bipartisan support today, but if it does not, we will pass a short-term CR to avoid a government shutdown,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for John Boehner. “The length and other details...

A lawsuit against a former Ohio abortionist could reveal violations of the state abortion clinic law, so he set up shop in Michigan while the suit moves forward. A West Virginia woman traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, to a clinic owned by Martin Ruddock for a second trimester abortion which didn’t turn out the way she expected. Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue says that the woman later filed suit for a number of reasons. “The patient had undergone part of the abortion — he had actually started it,” Sullenger explained. “She found it too painful and frightening.” The terrified woman then...

Opposition by an anti-abortion group probably has killed a bill designed to protect thousands of Ohioans, most of them elderly, from abuse and neglect by their court-appointed guardians. House Bill 624, which for the first time in Ohio would codify a “bill of rights” for residents who are under guardianship, was scheduled for a floor vote last Friday during the legislature’s lame-duck session. House leadership referred it back to committee hours before a vote, however, after legislators received a letter opposing the bill from Ohio ProLife Action, an anti-abortion lobbying group. Barry Sheets, spokesman for the group on this issue,...

No one knows if the Obama administration will manage in the next five weeks to strike what many in the White House consider the most important foreign policy deal of his presidency: an accord with Iran that would forestall its ability to make a nuclear weapon. But the White House has made one significant decision: If agreement is reached, President Obama will do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote on it.

Obama Sees an Iran Deal That Could Avoid Congress By DAVID E. SANGER OCT. 19, 2014 WASHINGTON — No one knows if the Obama administration will manage in the next five weeks to strike what many in the White House consider the most important foreign policy deal of his presidency: an accord with Iran that would forestall its ability to make a nuclear weapon. But the White House has made one significant decision: If agreement is reached, President Obama will do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote on it. Even while negotiators argue over the number of...

Trey Gowdy said his party can't impeach the president over his threatened immigration overhaul – but only because Biden would become president The folksy Biden wants the top job for himself but Republicans see him as a potentially embarrassing one-man gaffe factory One senior House GOP aide said Biden is 'two floppy shoes short of a complete clown outfit' and Obama's 'insurance policy' Gowdy hinted that impeachment is being dangled by the White House as bait in the hope that the GOP will destroy its own credibility by trying it A Texas Republican congressman and a judge-turned-news-analyst floated the idea...

Do you ever wonder sometimes why Americans vote? How many times have you heard people say “I don’t vote because my vote doesn’t really matter, those politicians are going to do what they want regardless of how I vote.” In some cases that’s true. Obamacare was a perfect example. In January 2010 Scott Brown won his campaign for the Senate in deep blue Massachusetts by promising to be the 41st vote against Obamacare. The Democrats didn’t care, and despite the fact that 60% of the American people were opposed to Obamacare, they sidestepped Brown and used “reconciliation” to shove the...

The GOP’s draft 2015 “omnibus” spending bill reportedly includes $948 million to help poor and unskilled Central American migrants establish themselves in the United States, but includes no effective restrictions on President Barack Obama’s plan to provide work permits and tax payments to millions of resident illegal immigrants. That new spending works out to $16,928 for each of the 56,000 youths, young adults and children who crossed the border during the 12 months up to October 2014.

House Speaker John Boehner announced Monday that he is reappointing Rep. Trey Gowdy as chairman of the House Select Committee probing the Benghazi attack. Boehner said in a statement that there are still many unanswered questions about the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Libya. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died in the attack. “I look forward to the definitive report Chairman Gowdy and the Select Committee will present to the American people,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said. Boehner said that he is also re-appointing all the Republican members of the committee.

The family of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old shot and killed by Cleveland police last month, said at an emotional press conference Monday that prosecutors should indict the responsible officer without consulting a grand jury. They were joined by attorney Benjamin Crump, who represented the families of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin and now represents the Rice family. [...] The shooting of Tamir Rice, who was playing with a toy gun at park nearby his house, was captured on video, and shows the officers opening fire on the child within seconds of arriving on the scene.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I mean, look, you know, I've gotten a lot of heat from people because I say -- I want as much as you can give me to nail the SOB. That's what I want. But I don't like that people can just say anything and it's taken as fact. We owe it to ourselves, to our sisters, to our brothers who are the folks who may be accused to get the facts. Get the facts. Get as much as you can. There's nothing wrong with it. Because if you can get the person off the street who has...

House Speaker John Boehner is releasing the huge, $1 trillion 2015 government budget on Monday, only three days before the vote on Wednesday, Dec. 11. That delay jams GOP legislators, who won’t be able to identify or oppose many of the unpopular spending programs that are likely buried deep inside the complex budget, which was drafted by GOP and Democratic members of the appropriations committees. “There’s no way this huge bill can be addressed effectively,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking GOP member of the Senate’e budget committee, said on Sunday. “There are going to be thousands of pages.” Boehner has...

As conservatives push back against a bill to fund the government past Dec. 11, Speaker John A. Boehner signaled Thursday that he didn’t expect to make any sizable changes to the so-called “cromnibus” in order to placate voices to the right. “I expect that we’ll have bipartisan support to pass the omnibus,” Boehner told reporters Thursday, in response to a question on whether the Ohio Republican anticipated needing some Democratic votes to pass the bill, and whether that would give Democrats leverage on negotiating riders in the appropriations bill. Conservatives are bashing the cromnibus — which would fund all elements...

Now that he feels secure that he will have another term as Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner is going full liberal on America. He is preparing to push an Amnesty bill through the House next year. He has completely abandoned any attempt to repeal, replace or even reduce Obamacare. And he is spending money like a drunken Democrat. From The Hill: House conservatives are griping that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is putting the squeeze on them by rushing through a $1 trillion spending bill in Congress’s last week in session. Appropriators are expected to roll out the...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani “fundamentally misunderstands the reality,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said today on “This Week” in response to Giuliani’s recent comments focusing on violence within African-American communities, rather than questions over police interactions with minorities that have sparked nationwide protests. “I think he fundamentally misunderstands the reality,” de Blasio told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in his first television interview since a New York grand jury decided this week not to indict police officers in the July death of Eric Garner in Staten Island. “We’re trying to bring police and community together. There is...

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday admonished former mayor Rudy Giuliani for his repeated recent comments that "responsibility is on the black community" for reducing the necessity of police officers in their communities. "I think he fundamentally misunderstands the reality," said de Blasio on ABC's This Week. "There is a problem here. There is a rift here that has to be overcome. You cannot look at the incident in Missouri; another incident in Cleveland, Ohio; and another incident in New York City all happening in the space of weeks and act like there's not a problem."

DETROIT -- Lions running back Reggie Bush, who has been outspoken about the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, continued his outspoken nature Sunday when he wore a shirt reading "I Can't Breathe" during pregame warm-ups Sunday. Bush wrote the message -- in black ink on his blue shirt -- signifying the last words of Eric Garner, the New York man who died while being placed in a chokehold as he was being arrested. Bush wore the shirt a day after Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose wore an "I Can't Breathe" T-shirt in pregame warm-ups prior to his team's game Saturday night...

Cleveland police officers lack the proper training and technology to do their jobs, according to the U.S. Justice Department. As of last year, police recruits received only four classroom hours of training on the department's use-of-force policies. And ongoing training for active officers is insufficient as well, according to the damning 58-page report that concludes the department overuses excessive force, violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Many officers don't have computers in their cruisers, the report says. The cars that do have working computers still lack technology that gives officers vital information. Officers resort to calling each other...

"The more the president talks about his ideas, the more unpopular he becomes. Why would I want to deprive him of that opportunity?"