Boehner: ‘This isn’t Some Damn Game’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) urged Republicans to stick together Friday at a closed-door conference meeting, leaving for another day talk of a possible “grand bargain” to end standoffs over the government shutdown and raising the debt ceiling.

“This isn’t some damn game,” Boehner told reporters after the conference, angrily responding to reports that the White House thought it was winning the showdown.

Lawmakers emerging from the meeting said Boehner told his colleagues they are locked in an “epic battle” with President Obama and Democrats on the shutdown, and vowed they would not “roll over.”

They said Boehner sought to hype up his conference a day after reports emerged that the Speaker has told some members he would not allow the country to default and is willing to bring legislation to the floor that would depend on Democratic votes for passage.

Speaking to reporters, Boehner continued the recent GOP strategy of casting Republicans as the party interested in talking, and blaming Democrats for stonewalling them.

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Reid Apologizes for Nasty Tone on Senate Floor

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delivered a striking mea culpa on the Senate floor Friday as he opened the chamber, saying he and his colleagues have simply gotten too personal and nasty in their floor debates.

A day earlier Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, had scolded Mr. Reid for attacking Sen. Ted Cruz, another Texas Republican, by name as they debated the government shutdown. Mr. Cornyn read directly from the Senate Rules that prohibit members from impugning each other’s motives or conduct.

Mr. Reid on Friday said it was a lesson all senators, including himself, should learn.

“I’ll work harder and I hope my senators will work to their best to maintain these habits of civility and decorum,” he said.

The Nevada Democrat said the chamber has “lost the aura” of Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the long-time lawmaker from West Virginia who was seen as a keeper of the chamber’s traditions.

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Obama’s Media Lapdogs Ban ‘Dirty’ Word…

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Two of America’s largest mainstream media outlets have decided reporters should cut down on the use of the term “Obamacare,” fearing it’s gotten too negative of a connotation.

Tom Kent, the deputy managing editor and standards editor of The Associated Press who is responsible for “accuracy and balance” across the stories carried on AP’s newswire, wrote a column Tuesday telling reporters to back off using the term “Obamacare” when referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

“‘Obamacare’ was coined by opponents of the law and is still used by them in a derogatory manner,” Kent argued. “It’s true that the White House, and even Obama himself, have used the term on occasion. But the administration hasn’t totally embraced ‘Obamacare’ and still uses the Affordable Care Act much of the time. We’re sticking with our previous approach to ‘Obamacare’: AP writers should use it in quotes, or in formulations like ‘the law, sometimes known as Obamacare.’”

At at NPR, Stuart Seidel, managing editor for standards and practices, announced in a memo ruling earlier this week that reporters should cut back on use of the term.

“‘Obamacare’ seems to be straddling somewhere between being a politically-charged term and an accepted part of the vernacular. And it seems to be on our air and in our copy a great deal,” Seidel said. “[W]ord choices do leave an impression. Please avoid overusing ‘Obamacare.’

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Obamacare Enrollee in Media Spotlight Hasn’t Completed Signup Process

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Photo Credit: POLITICO Screen grab

Photo Credit: POLITICO Screen grab

The Georgia college student who basked in national media attention after claiming he and his dad were among the first to enroll in Obamacare is changing his story.

“I never said that I had actually purchased a plan,” said Chad Henderson, 21, who was thrust into the national spotlight after announcing Tuesday on Twitter that he had “enrolled in Obamacare.” He told POLITICO Friday he had been online to shop in the federal exchange, but had never completed the final steps of getting in the health plan.

Henderson, an Organizing for Action volunteer and supporter of President Barack Obama, said he was “sorry for this confusion” and never intended to mislead the numerous media outlets, including POLITICO, that contacted him to hear his story. “I’ve received so much flak for something that has been misinterpreted,” he said.

Questions arose after Reason’s Peter Suderman contacted Henderson’s father, Bill, who owns a shaved ice company in Chattanooga, Tenn. He posted a story outlining discrepancies.

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What a ‘Shutdown’ Means: $63B Spent, $26B Taxed; $1.6B Borrowed; $1B Paid in Salaries–in Just 2 Days

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

In general terms, politicians and the press may be referring to what has been happening in Washington, D.C., over the past few days as a government “shutdown” or a “partial government shutdown,” but the actual accounting sheets of the U.S. Treasury show that massive amounts of taxed and borrowed money were flowing in and out of the government during the first two days of fiscal 2014.

According to the Daily Treasury Statement for Oct. 2, which was released yesterday at 4:00 p.m., the Treasury spent a total of $63.262 billion in the first two days of fiscal 2014. At the same time, it took in $25.681 billion in tax revenue.

The Treasury also sold $1.648 billion in new Treasury securities–which is government debt.

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‘Duck Dynasty’ Star: Show Adding ‘Fake Bleeps’ Despite No Cursing (+video)

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Photo Credit: Dave Nelson/Flickr

Photo Credit: Dave Nelson/Flickr

Popular A&E reality show “Duck Dynasty” continues to smash competition in the ratings on Wednesday nights, but one star has spoken out about how the show is portrayed.

In an interview with Sports Spectrum TV earlier this year that’s only recently gone viral, Phil Robertson admitted that fake bleeps were inserted into the show even though there was no cursing happening.

“The inserted fake bleeps … like somebody had used profanity, but no one had used profanity,” Robertson said. “I ask those guys that produce the show … ‘What’s the point of the fake bleeps?’”

Robertson admitted that there are up to 20 editors who are “arranging the scenes” on the show so they might think that’s where cursing likely happened.

“Of course these people probably thought that there was some profanity going on which there was zero,” Robertson stated. “If we’re not using profanity, why make it look like we’re using profanity? What is the point? Why don’t you just run it and say what we say?”

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Priests Threatened with Arrest if they Minister to Military During Shutdown

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Photo Credit: U.S. Navy/Johnny Bivera/Getty

Photo Credit: U.S. Navy/Johnny Bivera/Getty

In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.

“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”

According to its website, the Archdiocese for the Military Services “provides the Catholic Church’s full range of pastoral ministries and spiritual services to those in the United States Armed Forces.”

In his piece, Schlageter worries about this restriction as Sunday nears. “If the government shutdown continues through the weekend, there will be no Catholic priest to celebrate Mass this Sunday in the chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors,” he wrote.

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Sebelius Fails in Her Own State, No One From Kansas Signs Up for Obamacare (+video)

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Photo Credit: Life News

Photo Credit: Life News

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been President Barack Obama’s main organizer and cheerleader for Obamacare since its inception. But you know the government-run health care plan is bad when the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department can’t get anyone from her own state to sign up for it.

Today, the office of Congressman Tim Huelskamp revealed that according to one of the insurance providers in Kansas, none of the 356,000 uninsured Kansans successfully signed up for insurance on the much-hyped ObamaCare exchanges the first day. Huelskamp has had his own troubles signing up in the exchanges. The Congressman has been on “hold” for over 60 hours, and is still waiting to sign up as required under ObamaCare.

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Christians Under Threat in Syria as Islamist Extremists Gain Influence

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Photo Credit: Youssef Badawi/EPA

Photo Credit: Youssef Badawi/EPA

When radical Islamists tore down a cross and hoisted a black flag above a church in the northern Syrian city of Raqqah last week, their action underscored the increasingly hostile environment for the country’s Christians.

Although Syria is majority Sunni Muslim, it is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse countries in the Middle East, home to Christians, Druze, and Shiite-offshoot Alawites and Ismailis. But the country’s conflict, now in its third year, is threatening that tapestry.

While the primary front in the war has pitted Sunni against Shiite, Christians are increasingly caught in the line of fire. The perception that they support the government — which is in many cases true — has long made them a target of rebel groups. Now, Christians say radical Islamist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an affiliate of al-Qaeda, are determined to drive them from their homes.

“The Christian community in Syria is stuck between two fires,” said Nadim Nassar, a Syrian from Latakia who is director of the Awareness Foundation, an interfaith charity based in Britain. “One fire is a corrupt regime, and everybody agrees there needs to be a change. And on the other hand, there’s a fragmented and diverse opposition on the ground who can’t control jihadist forces coming from outside the country.”

Syria is not the only place in the wider region where Christians are being targeted. Coptic churches in Egypt have been attacked, and Pakistan last week experienced the deadliest church bombing in the country’s history. The militants who attacked a mall in Nairobi last month singled out non-Muslims.

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Jenna Bush: Hillary Clinton and I are ‘Related’ Through ‘Uncle’ Bill – George W Bush’s ‘Brother from Another Mother’

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Photo Credit: Neil Rasmus

Photo Credit: Neil Rasmus

Here’s some family ties you may just be learning about: apparently Jenna Bush-Hager is related to Hillary Clinton.

At least, that’s what the former first-daughter said at a benefit for the Save the Children organization in New York earlier this week.

Jenna was the emcee of the gala and spoke about the family ties she had with one of the evening’s honorees – former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

‘I’m not sure if you know this, but Secretary Clinton and I are actually related,’ Jenna announced.

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