Voters See A More Divided Nation; GOPers More Enthusiastic to Vote

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Voters strongly believe the United States is a more divided nation these days, and they think both sides are to blame. Most are also ready to do something about it at the ballot box in November.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Likely U.S. Voters say America is a more divided nation than it was four years ago. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just seven percent (7%) think the country is less divided now, while 21% rate the level of division as about the same.(To see survey question wording, click here.)

Among voters who see more division or about the same level of it, 35% believe President Obama is to blame. But 34% point the finger at Republicans in Congress instead. Twenty-three percent (23%) say they’re both to blame. Just five percent (5%) attribute the division to something else.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of all voters say they are more likely to vote this year than they have been in past elections. Only four percent (4%) say they are less likely to do so, while 38% rate their intention to vote as about the same as in past years.

Perhaps problematic for Democrats is that 65% of GOP voters and 55% of voters not affiliated with either major party are more likely to vote this year, compared to 53% of those in the president’s party. But that could change as the election gets nearer.

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Obama Sets Out On Dem Fundraising Sprint Amid Mounting Crises

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / KEVIN LAMARQUE

Photo Credit: REUTERS / KEVIN LAMARQUE

President Obama began his three-day West Coast fundraising tour in Seattle with an admission that mushrooming global crises were adding anxiety to an American public already concerned about the economy.

“Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite yet where we need to be based on the new order,” said Obama, who later cautioned against letting those anxieties lead to cynicism and a lack of interest in democracy.

“People who really need government to work for them on their behalf, they withdraw, they opt out, and that makes government even more dysfunctional,” he said.

The president already has taken heat for making time for a burger stop and fundraisers last week shortly after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed over Ukraine, killing hundreds. While the president repeatedly has addressed the tragedy in public, he also spent his Sunday playing golf at Fort Belvoir.

Later Tuesday, Obama will attend a Democratic Party fundraiser in Seattle, before catching Air Force One to San Francisco. He’ll end the three-day swing later this week in Los Angeles.

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A Policy So Bizzare, So Obama

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Obama has a new get-tough policy with Russia.

It’s called the War on the Billionaires.

The United States is using narrow sanctions against Russian billionaires—private persons presumably– some of whom Obama supposes supports Russia’s war in Ukraine. And the policy isn’t just bizarre; it’s Obama.

He’s seen our war on millionaires here at home, and raised them a war on billionaires in Russia.

“The U.S. and Europe are gearing up for a new round of sanctions expected to be announced this week that will impose travel bans and business sanctions against several Russian billionaires with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” reports CNBC. “In a phone call last night, British Prime Minister David Cameron told Putin that his ‘cronies’ will face sanctions unless Russia withdraws its support for the separatists in Ukraine.”

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Welfare Cash for Weed in Colorado

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Photo Credit: Dreamstime

Photo Credit: Dreamstime

For the past six months, welfare beneficiaries in Colorado have repeatedly withdrawn their cash benefits at marijuana retailers and dispensaries, according to a new analysis by National Review Online. Such apparent abuses have caught the eye of Colorado’s executive and legislative powers alike, and the state has launched an effort to curb them.

At least 259 times in the first six months of legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado, beneficiaries used their electronic-benefit transfer (EBT) cards to access public assistance at weed retailers and dispensaries, withdrawing a total of $23,608.53 in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash, NRO’s examination found.

In 2012, the latest fiscal year available, Colorado used $124 million in TANF money from the federal government, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Withdrawals at marijuana establishments represented only a tiny fraction of the more than 500,000 total EBT transactions that have occurred since recreational weed became legal in Colorado on January 1. And it’s impossible to determine how much of that welfare money actually was used to buy pot, given that cash benefits are fungible and some of these establishments also sell groceries.

Nevertheless, welfare withdrawals at weed stores are coming under increasing scrutiny, and Colorado’s legislators and bureaucrats are beginning an effort to restrict abuses.

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Sarah Palin Drives Stake Through Heart of 'True Blood' Producers

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin rejected overtures from True Blood’s producers for a cameo role on the conservative-bashing vampire show. Her instincts proved to be correct after Sunday’s HBO episode in which Republican women were once again demeaned when one of the lead characters said in horror, “Oh my God, I’m a Republi-c*nt.”

Palin told Breitbart News after she heard about the misogynistic episode that she simply wondered, “‘True Blood’ or true gall?”

“The brilliant minds of ‘True Blood’ were brazen enough to ask me to do a cameo on their show, apparently so they could insult a conservative woman in person instead of just all conservative women in general,” Palin told Breitbart News. “Their offer wasn’t presented in any negative way, perhaps to benefit from a surprise factor after the guest appearance. I turned them down anyway.”

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LA Street Artist Blasts Obama for 'Scandalous' Fundraiser

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Photo Credit: Truth Revolt

Photo Credit: Truth Revolt

As President Obama arrives in Los Angeles for his $32,000 per plate fundraiser at the home of Shonda Rhimes this week, a local street artist is pointing out the irony of the producer of the hit TV show Scandal, a show about a Washington public relations firm that specializes in managing political scandals, hosting the producer of such actual scandals as the cover-up surrounding the Benghazi attack, the lost hard-drives of IRS officials targeting conservatives, and the Fast and Furious gun running scheme.

Posters went up Monday night all over Hollywood around Rhimes’s Hancock Park home and the Sunset Gower Studios where Scandal is filmed.

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Obama Refuses to Add Religious Exemption to Homosexual Employment Mandate

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Photo Credit: Christian News

Photo Credit: Christian News

Barack Obama has refused to include a religious exemption in an executive order that he plans to sign today, which mandates that federal contractors hire homosexual and transgender persons.

According to White House representatives, Obama will sign the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) on Monday without any provisions for religious entities. The order prohibits federal contractors from refusing to hire prospects on the basis of their gender identity or “sexual orientation.”

“Following on his pledge for this to be a year of action to expand opportunity for all Americans, the president has directed his staff to prepare for his signature an executive order that prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” an unnamed White House official told Time last week.

“The action would build upon existing protections, which generally prohibit federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. This is consistent with the president’s views that all Americans, LGBT or not, should be treated with dignity and respect,” they stated.

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Joaquín Castro: Rick Perry ‘Militarizing’ Border

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Photo Credit: Getty

Photo Credit: Getty

By Jonathan Topaz.

Texas Rep. Joaquín Castro on Monday said Gov. Rick Perry is “militarizing our border” with his decision to deploy state National Guard troops there.

“We should be sending the Red Cross to the border not the National Guard to deal with this humanitarian crisis,” the Democratic congressman said in an email. “The children fleeing violence in Central America are seeking out Border Patrol agents. They are not trying to evade them. Why send soldiers to confront these kids?”

“Militarizing our border is the wrong response to the arrival of children,” Castro continued. “I remain hopeful that our state can provide a more helpful response than to send armed soldiers to greet children seeking refuge from violence.”

Castro was responding to a report from a Texas newspaper The Monitor that Perry is planning to deploy up to 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

At a news conference on Monday in Austin, Perry announced that he has directed the state’s adjutant general to immediately prepare to deploy the forces to help secure the southern border. “I will not stand idly by,” he said in announcing Operation Strong Safety. “The price of inaction is too high.”

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Gov. Rick Perry deploying up to 1,000 National Guard troops to border

By Rebecca Kaplan.

Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, announced Monday that he is activating up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border as he accuses the federal government of offering “lip service” on border security.

The announcement comes as the Obama administration is still struggling to deal with the influx of more than 50,000 unaccompanied minors, most from Central America, who have crossed into the United States in the past year. The additional resources are not aimed at the children themselves, Perry said, describing them instead as a “force multiplier” to help the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) “combat the brutal Mexican drug cartels that are preying upon our communities.”

“I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor. We are too good of a country,” Perry said.

The troops could detain people if asked, Texas Adjutant General John Nichols said at the press conference with Perry, but they are planning to play a “referring and deterring” role by deterring cartels with their visible presence and referring any immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally to DPS.

Perry argued that the elevated response at the border by DPS personnel has already has already acted as a deterrent force and reduced apprehensions. That operation comes at a cost of $1.3 million per week. A state memo obtained by the McAllen Monitor, which first reported Perry’s plan to deploy the National Guard, indicated the new efforts will cost the state of Texas $12 million per month.

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IRS Seeks Help Destroying Another 3,200 Hard Drives

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Days after IRS officials said in a sworn statement that former top agency employee Lois G. Lerner’s computer memory had been wiped clean, the agency put out word to contractors Monday that it needs help to destroy at least another 3,200 hard drives.

The Internal Revenue Service solicitation for “media destruction” services reflects an otherwise routine job to protect sensitive taxpayer information, but it was made while the agency’s record destruction practices remain under a sharp congressional spotlight.

Congressional investigators of the IRS targeting of conservative groups have been hampered by the unexplained destruction of emails and other records of Ms. Lerner, the former head of the IRS tax-exempt division and a central figure in the scandal.

The loss of Ms. Lerner’s hard drive also raised broader questions about why the tax agency never reported the missing records to the National Archives and Records Administration, as required by the Federal Records Act.

While those questions remained unresolved, IRS officials signaled plans to destroy tens of thousands of additional electronic records.

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Insolvent US Giving Away $47M To Gaza Strip

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Photo Credit: AP / Adel Hana

Photo Credit: AP / Adel Hana

The U.S. is sending $47 million in humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip to help tens of thousands of Palestinians there who have been forced from their homes since war broke out two weeks ago.

A State Department breakdown of the aid that was released Monday said nearly a third of the money — $15 million — will go to the United Nations’ refugee mission in Gaza.

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