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Soon after becoming House Speaker in 2011, Republican John Boehner started running the traps on inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint meeting of Congress. But when Barry Jackson, then Boehner’s chief-of-staff, checked with President Barack Obama’s top advisers, Jackson said he was left waiting a month only to get no response. Ultimately the Netanyahu speech went ahead in May but soon after Jackson faced the opposite problem: the White House had promised South Korea’s leadership an appearance before Congress, he said, without checking first with the speaker. None of these slights justify what seems like...

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that she is “seriously interested” in running for the White House in 2016. “You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested,” Palin said, when asked to clarify her thinking about a possible presidential bid. Palin, the GOP’s 2008 vice-presidential nominee, said she stood by comments she made Thursday in Las Vegas to ABC News, where she first expressed enthusiasm about potentially competing for the Republican presidential nomination.

A senior State Department official on Saturday claimed that there is “nothing religious” about the Islamic State’s reported execution of a Japanese hostage. Rick Stengel, an under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, took to Twitter to condemn the killing of Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa, who has been held for ransom by the terror group along with Japanese freelance reporter Kenji Goto. “Brutal criminal murder of Japanese citizen #Haruna Yukawa by the terrorist group #Daesh,” Stengel tweeted after IS released video of the killing. “Nothing religious about it.” Stengel’s apparent refusal to acknowledge that IS’s radical Islamic...

**SNIP** In years past, health ills such as infections picked up at the hospital during treatment were just considered the cost of doing business, Biden said. But then people like the founders of the Patient Safety Movement decided these sorts of infections and deaths didn’t have to be. They spoke out. “You’ve broken down the silence,” Biden told the several hundred doctors, hospital administrators and patient advocates attending. He added: “You’ve changed the vocabulary. You’ve changed the mindset when it comes to preventable deaths.” Hospital-acquired infections declined by 17 percent from 2010 to 2013, resulting in 50,000 lives saved and...

MONTPELIER (AP) >> Vermont is applying a fresh round of scrutiny to its contract with Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology health economist who got into hot water for talking about what he called "the stupidity of the American voter." Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer has been reviewing the contract under which Gruber got paid $500 an hour and his assistants got $100 per hour. Hoffer said Friday Gruber provided insufficient documentation to support his invoices to the state. Hoffer said officials in Gov. Peter Shumlin's administration had been in close touch with Gruber throughout his work, but that...

...Abdullah, like other Saudi royals, had numerous wives — at least seven, and perhaps as many as 30. He had at least 15 daughters. Four of them, according to news reports, live under house arrest.... Fayez claims her daughters’ supposed incarceration, which has gone on for some 13 years, was both a mark of Abdullah’s vindictive streak and intolerance of his daughters’ modern, independent upbringing. She says the four have been locked away for more than a decade, subject to abuse and deprivation. Last year, various news stations managed to reach Sahar, 42, and Jawaher, 38, who live in a...

New Delhi: US President Barack Obama, who has often talked about the influence of Mahatma Gandhi on his life, on Sunday paid homage to the 'apostle of peace' at Rajghat soon after his arrival on a three-day visit. Obama placed a wreath at Gandhi's memorial and bowed before the Samadhi with folded hands. He went straight to Rajghat from the ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. During his last visit in 2012 too, he had paid tributes to Gandhi at the memorial. The American President was presented a replica of Gandhi's famous 'charkha' by the officials of the memorial. Obama...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Scott Walker’s stock is soaring after a triumphant return to Iowa. The Wisconsin Republican governor delivered a pitch-perfect speech to a room packed with influential Hawkeye State conservatives on Saturday, walking them through his robust resume and ideology with a passion that surprised many. Activists say Walker came out on top after 10 hours of candidate speeches. “It was a clear Walker victory. He had expectations coming in here, he was on everyone's shortlist and he had to meet those expectations and I thought he far exceeded them,” said former Iowa Republican Party political director Craig...

ALBANY — Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s arrest was a blow to the gut of the progressive activists who viewed the powerful Manhattan Democrat as their champion. Advocates on issues ranging from rent control to abortion rights have been left wondering whether Silver can still wield the clout they’ve come to expect over two decades. “I am very much concerned,” said Michael McKee, treasurer of the Tenants Political Action Committee. “He is the only one of the three men in a room who would be inclined to hold out for something better on rent regulations,” McKee said. Silver’s arrest on bribery...

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New tensions are emerging in the relationship between allies of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. At issue is the fate of the political equivalent of gold dust — the enormous email list, comprised of many millions of supporters and donors, that the Obama team has compiled over the course of his two presidential campaigns. The Clinton camp would dearly love to get its hands on the list, but there is no promise as yet that the president’s aides will comply. There are “large concerns” about the lists among Clinton supporters, one Hillary ally told The Hill. To the Clintons and...

A tape apparently recorded by murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko a year before he was poisoned has revealed he was digging up links between Vladimir Putin and one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. A Telegraph investigation uncovered the audio recording, in which the dissident claims from beyond the grave that Russia’s president had a “good relationship” with Semion Mogilevich - a Ukrainian crime boss who was on the FBI's most wanted list and whom Mr Litvinenko believed was selling weapons to al-Qaeda. The apparent recording of Mr Litvinenko is published for the first time ahead of a public inquiry...

Rupert Murdoch says he's a huge fan of American Sniper, and anyone who thinks otherwise -- "Hollywood leftists" in particular -- are completely out of touch with America. Murdoch just weighed in on the left vs. right controversy surrounding the film, after Seth Rogen and Michael Moore both initially appeared to criticize American Sniper on Twitter, sparking a national debate in the process. The mogul, who owns 20th Century Fox movie studios and routinely takes to Twitter to praise Fox films, offered his support for the Clint Eastwood film, which was released by rival Warner Bros. Murdoch wrote on Twitter,...

      THE GREATEST Greatest handicap..........Fear Greatest mistake..........Giving up Greatest stumbling block..........Ego Easiest to do..........Find Fault Top comfort..........Work well done Greatest need..........Common sense Best gift..........Forgiveness Greatest resource..........FAITH    

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) lambasted Hollywood liberals in a rambling speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit on Saturday. The party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, who said this week she’s “ interested” in a presidential bid, took the stage with to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” feeding off the energy of the crowd as she jumped from conservative topic to topic. Her speech was replete with memories of her own trips to Iowa, but she also focused on one recent controversy — defending criticism over the country’s top-grossing movie, “American Sniper.” Palin detailed how she and her family were...

President Obama: “I will tell you peoples’ hearts have opened up on this issue, I think people know that treating folks unfairly, even if you disagree with their lifestyle choice, the fact of the matter is they’re not bothering you. Let them live their lives and under the law they should be treated equally." You Tube Interview With President GayLove

The Texas conservative and his team are trying to lock down a state director for his White House run.DES MOINES -- Ted Cruz's presidential campaign​ in Iowa is unofficially underway. The Texas senator and his lieutenants have been making calls to top Iowa activists and consultants for the past two weeks, multiple Republican sources told National Journal, hoping to lock down a state director for his White House campaign. Cruz has not yet made that critical hire, the sources said. But he's making other moves in this first nominating state. At the end of a fiery speech here Saturday to...

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker eschewed the podium at Saturday’s Iowa Freedom Summit, opting to use the full stage to work the room with an incredibly high-energy speech that repeatedly stressed the themes of “common sense conservative reform” and the GOP’s need to “go big and go bold” if they want to win in American politics today. Walker ended by telling Iowans, “I’m going to come back many more times in the future” and pointed to a broader American revival similar to the one he said he’s led in Wisconsin. This seemed to be a clear sign that Walker intends to...

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Rip up your euro forecasts. A day after the European Central Bank unveiled its bond-buying program, the single currency still was in free fall, blowing past analysts’ expectations for how low the euro can go. Some investors now say the euro could fall to the point where it is on equal footing with the U.S. dollar for the first time since it climbed above the buck in late 2002. “If you would have asked me a few months ago, I would’ve said that parity could be in the cards in the years ahead. Now, we can’t rule it out anymore...