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After getting Guancheng out of their hair, they can now pretend to want to help him knowing nothing can be done... (video)

A little over 12 hours after blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng was released from the U.S. embassy in Beijing, which he had fled to after escaping house arrest, Chen now says that American officials encouraged him to leave the safe haven of the embassy building, in part by making promises that they failed to keep. In an interview with CNN's Steven Jiang, he expressed deep disappointment with the U.S. and with President Barack Obama personally. He said that embassy officials were no longer picking up his calls and that he already felt his rights being "violated" by the Chinese government,...

Exclusive: Chen Guangcheng tells Channel 4 News he left the US embassy for hospital as part of an "agreement" with the Chinese government, but despite promises, no-one from the US embassy is with him. Chen had been under protection at the US embassy in Beijing after escaping from house arrest last Friday. He left the embassy for hospital on Wednesday morning, although he told Channel 4 News this was part of an agreement with the Chinese government rather than because of a medical emergency. "Nobody from the (US) Embassy is here. I don't understand why. They promised to be here,"...

A blind Chinese legal activist who was at the center of a diplomatic tussle between Washington and Beijing left the U.S. Embassy Wednesday to receive medical care in Beijing and be reunited with this family. Guangcheng said via his lawyer that he is free and has received "clear assurances" from the Chinese government. A U.S. official said Chen did not ask for asylum and is staying in China after receiving assurances that he will be treated as a normal citizen. The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Chinese authorities promised that Chen would be relocated to...

Blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng said a U.S. official told him that Chinese authorities threatened to beat his wife to death had he not left the American Embassy. Speaking by phone from his hospital room in Beijing on Wednesday night, a shaken Chen told The Associated Press that U.S. officials relayed the threat from the Chinese side. After six days in hiding, Chen emerged from the embassy Wednesday after U.S. officials said China had assured his safety. His account contrasts with earlier comments by Chen's supporters saying that he had vowed to stay in China to continue his activism. He...

President Obama took off on a road trip across the Midwest last week in a brand new government-owned bus to talk with ordinary people about getting the economy going again. But Johnny Williams, an Alabama businessman who makes a living by leasing these kinds of buses to political figures, said the Obama tour was just a painful reminder of how the government is doing things that could hurt his business. That’s because this is the first presidential election where the incumbent president and the eventual Republican nominee will have the option of using a Secret Service-owned bus for campaign tours...

Rick Perry, governor of Texas, has only been in the presidential race for 20 minutes but he's already delivered one of the best lines in the campaign: "I'll work every day to try to make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as I can." This will be grand news to Schylar Capo, 11 years old, of Virginia, who made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days, and for her pains, was visited by a federal Fish & Wildlife gauleiter (with accompanying state troopers)...

Fed up with the stalled peace talks, the Palestinian leader defies Israel and vents about Obama. We’re somewhere over the Mediterranean, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is trying to get inside the head of Barack Obama. “We knew him before he became president,” he’s saying, struggling to understand what happened to the man who had seemed more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than any of his predecessors. “We knew him and he was very receptive.” Around us, Abbas’s closest aides are shuffling papers or typing on laptops, while his bodyguards lounge on long corduroy couches. Saeb Erekat, the ubiquitous...

State Department's P.J. Crowley stepping down By: CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry (CNN) – P.J. Crowley is abruptly stepping down as State Department spokesman under pressure from White House officials because of controversial comments he made last week about the Bradley Manning case......

The White House said Monday that the former ambassador President Obama sent to Cairo doesn’t speak for the administration, even after he carried a message from Obama to Hosni Mubarak. The envoy, Frank Wisner, said over the weekend that Mubarak’s “continued leadership is critical” in Egypt and that “it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy,” while the White House has suggested that Mubarak needs to leave power sooner rather than later. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Monday that Wisner “is not an employee of the government” and that he wasn’t speaking for the administration when...

" For Ms. Rogers, associates said the episode proved a searing experience that has soured her on Washington. She believes she was left largely undefended by the White House, by her colleagues, including Mr. Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and even her close friend, Valerie Jarrett."

Barack Obama just delivered a speech on patriotism in Independence, Mo., hometown of what was once America's most powerful haberdasher, and offered a mild rebuke to Wesley Clark, who took on John McCain's military record the other day in rather scorching terms. And just to make it clear, an Obama spokesman sent out this brief statement as Obama was speaking: "As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and, of course, he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark." Obama's speech focused on his own sense of patriotism, quoting Mark Twain (it's good to quote...