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Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's hometown in Idaho on Wednesday canceled an event to celebrate his release after city officials were bombarded with angry phone calls and emails. *SNIP* The city said the June 28 event was canceled "in the interest of public safety."

Bergdahl's hometown is carrying on with a celebration for the returned sergeant at the end of the month, despite a rising backlash A rally in U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s Idaho hometown celebrating his release after nearly five years of captivity will go on as planned, despite growing questions about the circumstances of the soldier’s capture. The joy over the soldier’s return among residents of the small mountain community of Hailey, Idaho has been dampened by claims that he abandoned his post. Some have also claimed that the subsequent search for Bergdahl cost the lives of up to six soldiers,...

Controversy has surrounded newly freed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl since his release from Taliban captivity, with some in the military, including members of his own unit, claiming he is a deserter, not a war hero. But Sherry Horton knows a different Bergdahl than the one the world has come to see in the chilling proof of life videos the Taliban released. "He's a very interesting guy, he was very quiet, he was an observer," Horton said. Horton, the artistic director of Sun Valley Ballet in Idaho, said she was Bergdahl's ballet teacher and later, she became his roommate in his...

Chuck Todd told Matt Lauer on Wednesday that the White House was “caught flat-footed” on the backlash against the prisoner swap for Sergeant Bergdahl. “I’ve had a few aides describe it to me as ‘we didn’t know that they were going to Swift Boat Bergdahl’,” Todd said, “And Matt, of course, that’s a reference to that political fight back in 2004 over John Kerry’s military service which became so controversial in that campaign. So there’s some fighting words there.”

A new documentary makes the controversial case that a political cocktail of big corporate money and racially charged sentiments has helped fuel the rise of the tea party. And squarely behind that movement, the film argues, are the Koch brothers. Co-Directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin sat down with “Top Line” to discuss their film, “Citizen Koch,” and why they say the GOP’s deep-pocketed donors, the Koch brothers, are such figures in American politics today. “Money – $100 billion now,” Deal said in explaining the Kochs’ influence. “When we started out making this film, their net worth was about $68...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — White House aides are accusing soldiers who served with Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl are “swift boating” him following his release over the weekend after five years in captivity. NBC News’ Chuck Todd reported Monday that the White House did not expect this sort of vitriolic backlash exchanging five high-level Taliban members held at Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl, who left his Army post in 2009 in Afghanistan and was subsequently taken captive. “They did not expect this backlash on Bergdahl himself,” Todd reported on NBC’s “Today.” I’ve had a few aides describe it to me as we didn’t...

"...If they truly fear the unchecked growth of presidential power, then their best option is to come to the table and force compromise. It's the one sure way to keep Obama from going cowboy (or, in their minds, tyrant)."

The Taliban prisoner swap for Bowe Bergdahl might do some good, but fear and anger are getting in the way of a realistic appraisal.Richard Hofstadter opened his 1968 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," with this line: "American politics has often been an arena for angry minds." He continues, "Behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind." One wonders...

If attacking Obamacare is its number one campaign strategy, the GOP might want to regroup before November. Related Stories Enough already! Voters want Obamacare gag order CNBC Republicans Target Burwell in Obamacare War The Fiscal Times Poll: Health care law still fails to impress Associated Press 10 reasons people didn’t sign up for Obamacare The Fiscal Times After enduring four years of intense political warfare over the president’s health care law, the majority of voters say they want candidates to stop talking about it and move on, a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found. Although the law remains...

After Minnesota became one of the first states in the Midwest to legalize same-sex marriage, it became a new travel ‘hot-spot.’ According to the New York Times, Minneapolis is now on the list of “up and coming LGBT” places to visit, especially with the Pride celebration coming up. New York Times completed the survey after talking with gay and lesbian travel experts. It estimates the annual economic impact of LGBT travelers to be about $70 billion a year in the United States. Other cities on the hot spot list include Eureka Springs, Arkansas, the Big Island on Hawaii, and Pittsburgh.

SunNews' Brian Lilley follows up with Josh Tickell, filmmaker. The ultimate highlight is at 03:49 as it is revealed directly from the horses mouth: "The truth is that about 30% of the films in Hollywood are funded through the Middle East"video link via VladTepesBlog

The return of Benghazi is the latest evidence that the GOP is putting its unhinged obsessions before the good of the country. Back in March 2013, I wrote a column titled, "Why I am no longer a Republican." A more accurate (though admittedly more ponderous) title would have been, "One important reason among many that I am no longer a Republican." That important reason was the Iraq War, which I never supported and which the Bush administration and its legion of defenders in Washington and around the country justified in terms that struck me at the time as highly ideological,...

House Speaker John Boehner would not say Thursday if the House GOP’s campaign arm should stop including the Benghazi attacks in fundraising appeals. Asked three times whether the National Republican Congressional Committee should be fundraising based on what they call Democratic obstruction of the Benghazi investigation, Boehner answered only: “Our focus is on getting the answers to those families who lost their loved ones. Period.” An NRCC email sent Wednesday morning included a link to “become a Benghazi watchdog” – which led to a page where supporters can donate cash. A separate website called “BenghaziWatchdogs.com” still contains a link encouraging...

CNSNews.com) - Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova says he'll be happy if Democrats decide not to appoint members to the special select committee on Benghazi that Republicans plan to establish. "I'm delighted the Democrats don't want to participate. All they would do is obstruct," diGenova told WMAL talk radio in Washington, D.C. Monday morning. "The president is going to pay a price ultimately," he added. "It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but his performance and Leon Panetta's was shameful that night." DiGenova says on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks that killed four Americans,...

Throughout history, religion has sanctioned and fueled the persecution of homosexuality. That dynamic may be drawing to an end. Polls, clerics, and denominations are shifting. Theology is adapting. Resistance to same-sex marriage is dwindling, and there’s no end in sight. For 15 years, the Ethics and Public Policy Center has hosted the Faith Angle Forum, a regular conference on religion and public life. Several weeks ago, the group met again to discuss current issues. Transcripts of the conference have just been posted on EPPC’s website. They underscore the extent of the anti-gay collapse. The first session, led by papal biographer...

A Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Oregon was thrown out of a meeting with the alternative weekly newspaper Williamette Week after he confronted a reporter for writing “blah blah blah” on his notepad while another GOP candidate was talking.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday about a big setback for the Wendy Davis campaign for Texas governor.  The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) did not include her campaign as a top target which means it won't be prioritized for heavy spending. The reaction from the Davis campaign could best be described as an angry hissy fit which bitterly attacked the DGA. Pretty big political news from Texas to the extent it was covered by the Wall Street Journal. Therefore you would expect the Texas Tribune which is supposed to cover the nuts and bolts details of Texas politics to...

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...

....Two weeks ago, on April 10, in a manner reminiscent of King’s carefully controlled original unveiling of the fragment, the Harvard Divinity School issued a press release declaring that a “wide range of scientific testing indicates that a papyrus fragment containing the words ‘Jesus said to them my wife’ is an ancient document” and that “its contents may have been composed as early as the second to fourth centuries.” Harvard had given an advance viewing of the test results and an interview with King to reporters for just three newspapers—the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Harvard student...

On Thursday, the hashtag #WhatIsPretty trended on Twitter, inspiring men and women across the globe to share photos of what they consider beautiful. And on Thursday, the covers of two of the world’s largest magazines, TIME and People had a resounding answer: black women.