Rick Perry to Appear in Anti-D.C. Ads

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Photo Credit: APAn advocacy group tied to Texas Gov. Rick Perry is poised to launch a six-figure national ad campaign criticizing dysfunction in Washington and declaring that “conservative governors” are leading the way with policy solutions, POLITICO has learned.

Americans for Economic Freedom, a conservative 501(c)4 nonprofit, will run TV ads for 10 days on Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC, as well as radio ads on a host of nationally syndicated shows. The television commercials feature Perry talking about the work of Republican state executives outside D.C.

The ads will hit the TV and radio airwaves Tuesday, against a backdrop of historic public disgust with Washington, D.C., as the federal government remains shut down and teetering on the edge of defaulting on its debts.

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Gabrielle Giffords Attends First Gun Show Since Shooting

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Photo Credit: AP/Tim RoskeA smiling Gabrielle Giffords toured rows of tables loaded with rifles and handguns in her first visit to a gun show since surviving a 2011 shooting, and pleaded afterward for people to come together to stop gun violence.

The former Arizona congresswoman visited the Saratoga Springs Arms Fair on Sunday with her astronaut husband, Mark Kelly and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to highlight a voluntary agreement that closely monitors gun show sales in New York.

The trio mixed with a gun show crowd that was mostly welcoming — with a few hostile undertones — before calling for people to build on the cooperative effort.

“We must never stop fighting,” Giffords said at a post-tour news conference, her fist in the air. “Fight! Fight! Fight! Be bold! Be courageous!”

Giffords, a face of the national gun control effort, slowly walked hand-in-hand with Kelly through the large room where Winchester rifles, muzzle-loaders, antique knives and other weapons were on display and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags hung from poles.

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Feds Removed Handles From 40 Public Water Pumps Along C&O Canal

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Photo Credit: APNational Park Service (NPS) rangers removed the handles from some 40 public water pumps and closed restrooms in the 184.5 mile- C&O Canal National Historical Park, but they haven’t been able to keep hikers and bikers off the popular trail known as a “cyclist’s dream.”

“It’s full every day,” said Gail Hall, who runs Mountain Side Bikes at the trailhead in Cumberland, Md. “They’re bringing in their own water and utilizing the tree-lined areas [of the park] for restrooms. Some towns like Harper’s Ferry even brought in potties to accommodate them. As long as they can pedal, they don’t care.”

Cumberland Times-News reporter Matthew Bieniek, who first reported that the handles on the park’s old-fashioned water pumps had been removed as part of the federal government shutdown, told CNSNews.com that Park Superintendent Kevin Brandt told him that the pumps had been disabled “to discourage people from attempting to use the park.”

But Michael Nardolilli, president of the non-profit C&O Canal Historical National Park Trust, which runs interpretive programs at the park’s historic lockhouses, later said that the pump handles were removed for “public health reasons.”

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Protesters Chain Themselves to Stop Deportations in Arizona

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Photo Credit: notonemoredeportation .comImmigrant-rights protesters have chained themselves in front of an detention facility in Eloy, Ariz., and planned to blockade the main federal immigration office in Phoenix later Monday, hoping to stop anyone from being deported.

The moves are the latest act of civil disobedience from activists who are demanding the Obama administration halt all deportations. Among the protesters were illegal immigrants.

“Undocumented — unafraid,” the protesters chanted as they blocked the road at the facility Monday morning, which is southeast of Phoenix and is one of the busiest detention locations in the country.

The protesters aired their action in a webcast.

While activists have demanded action from Republicans in Congress, they are increasingly critical of President Obama over his record of deportations. Under his watch, immigration authorities have set records by deporting about 400,000 immigrants a year.

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Cruz, Lee, Palin Speak at WWII Memorial – Protestors Tear Down Barricades (+video)

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A crowd converged on the World War II Memorial on the National Mall, pushing through barriers Sunday morning to protest the memorial’s closing under the government shutdown.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas were among those who gathered Sunday morning, along with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, according to WTOP radio. Cruz said President Obama is using veterans as pawns in the shutdown.

“Tear down these walls,” the crowd chanted. Protesters also sang God Bless America and other patriotic songs as they entered the memorial plaza.

The memorial has become a political symbol in the bitter fight between Democrats and Republicans over who is at fault since the shutdown began. Earlier rallies have focused on allowing access for World War II veterans visiting from across the country with the Honor Flight Network.

Sunday’s rally was more political. A protest by truckers converged with a rally by a group called the Million Vet March at the World War II Memorial. Participants cut the links between metal barriers at the National Park Service site and pushed them aside.

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IMF Chief: U.S. Dance with the Debt Limit is ‘Very, Very Concerning’

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Photo Credit: AP/Alex BrandonBy Tom Howell Jr.

The chief of the International Monetary Fund says the U.S. government’s stalemate over spending and its debt limit is “very, very concerning” and could roll back economic progress around the world.

Christine Lagarde, who took over the financial watchdog-and-rescue organization in 2011, said global finance ministers assembled for meetings in Washington last week feeling like Japan had finally turned the corner and that economies in the U.S. and Europe were on the upswing.

“And then they found out that the debt ceiling was the issue,” she said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They found out that the government had shut down and that there was no remedy in sight. So it really completely transformed the meeting in the last few days.”

Ms. Lagarde, a lawyer from France, added a global perspective to the standoff that has roiled Washington for weeks and befuddled overseas investors who typically view the U.S. as a paragon of financial rectitude.

Instead, Senate leaders are trying to forge a deal that would extend the federal debt limit and end a government shutdown about to enter its third week.

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Budget Talks at Impasse; Democrats Won’t Agree on Spending Cuts

By The Associated Press.

Senate Republicans and Democrats hit an impasse Sunday over spending in their last-ditch struggle to avoid an economy-jarring default in just four days and end a partial government shutdown that enters its third week.

After inconclusive talks between President Barack Obama and House Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took charge in trying to end the crises although no resolution seemed imminent.

“Americans want Congress to compromise,” Reid said at the start of a rare Sunday session in the Senate in which he pressed for a long-term budget deal.

The two cagy negotiators are at loggerheads over Democratic demands to undo or change the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts to domestic and defense programs that the GOP see as crucial to reducing the nation’s deficit.

McConnell insisted that a solution was readily available in the proposal from a bipartisan group of 12 senators, led by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that would re-open the government and fund it at current levels for six month while raising the debt limit through Jan. 31.

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Across the Country, Donors Chip in to Help Programs Hurt by Federal Government Shutdown

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Photo Credit: L. Allen BrewerAs the partial government shutdown rolls on, programs that rely on federal money are feeling the strain — and so are the people who depend on their services.

For 16-year-old Alishe’ah Sockwell, federal money makes a big difference.

It helps put a roof over her head. It allows her mother, Nia, to undergo job training. And it pays for childcare for Sockwell’s young daughter so that Sockwell can go to high school every day in Little Rock, Ark.

But with some federal funds out of reach because of the shutdown, Sockwell may have to stay home from school in order to watch her daughter. If the shutdown drags on much longer, her housing could be in jeopardy, too.

So, to fill in the gaps, the nonprofit organization that provides Sockwell and other homeless people in Little Rock with childcare, shelter and other assistance, has asked community members to chip in.

Read more from this story HERE.

N.J. Gov. Christie Flips, Says He Now Wants In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants

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Photo Credit: Mel EvansImmigrant-rights activists say New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reversed himself Saturday and endorsed giving illegal immigrants in-state college tuition rates, and said he will try to get the issue through his legislature in a lame-duck session.

Mr. Christie, who is up for re-election in November, is also seen as eyeing a bid for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination — but his support for in-state tuition could complicate that.

“We need tuition equality for everyone in New Jersey,” the activists said the governor said in a speech to the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey.

Afterward, the activists said, Mr. Christie told one of them that, “We will get it done in the lame duck.”

A message left with Mr. Christie’s office Sunday morning wasn’t returned.

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Wall St. Elites Reason it’s Time for a ‘De-Americanized World,’ China’s News Agency Says

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Photo Credit: AP/Eugene HoshikoBy Fox News.

China’s official news agency is calling for a “de-Americanized world,” in a blistering editorial characterizing the United States as a “meddling” and “hypocritical” nation that introduces chaos into the world for its own ends.

“As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world,” writes the Xinhua News Agency.

“Meanwhile, the U.S. government has gone to all lengths to appear before the world as the one that claims the moral high ground, yet covertly doing things that are as audacious as torturing prisoners of war, slaying civilians in drone attacks, and spying on world leaders.

Read more from this story HERE.

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China wants a ‘De-Americanized’ world

By Rick Moran.

I suppose if I had a couple of trillion in dollar denominated bonds, I’d be a little worried too.

But really, “De-Americanize” the world? Just how does one go about doing that?

IBT:

China’s official news agency has called for the creation of a “de-Americanised world”, saying the destinies of people should not be left in the hands of a hypocritical nation with a dysfunctional government.

Heaping criticism and caustic ridicule on Washington, the Xinhua news agency called the US a civilian slayer, prisoner torturer and meddler in others’ affairs, and said the ‘Pax Americana’ was a failure on all fronts.

The official news agency of China, which is seen as the pretender to the world’s superpower crown, then rubbed in more salt, calling American economic pre-eminence just a seeming dominance.

Read more from this story HERE.

RNC Chair: Hillary Should Return Donations from Mcauliffe’s Convicted Pal

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Photo Credit: APOn Sunday RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called on Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and the Democratic National Committee to return political contributions made to their political campaign committees by Joseph Caramadre, a friend and business associate of Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.

Breitbart News reported on Wednesday that Caramadre, who recently pled guilty to stealing the identities of terminally ill people, donated $25,000 to McAuliffe’s 2009 gubernatorial campaign and that McAuliffe had invested $47,000 in his illegal business venture.

Also on Wednesday, McAuliffe said he would donate the $25,000 he received in contributions from Caramadre and the $47,000 he invested in Caramadre’s business venture—offered and managed by Estate Planning Resources, Caramadre’s Rhode Island-based business—to charity.

Priebus told Breitbart News exclusively on Sunday that “Terry McAuliffe has already given back part of his ill-gotten gains from Joseph Caramadre. It is now up to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and the DNC, to decide where they stand.”

Priebus called on Clinton and Reid to return the substantial contributions they have received from Caramadre. “Will they continue to keep the hundreds of thousands of dollars they received from a convicted fraudster who illegally profited off terminally ill patients?” he asked.

Read more from this story HERE.