Sen. Mitch McConnell's and RNC Chair Reince Priebus' Staff Attend Congressional Tea Party Caucus Meeting

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Photo Credit: APThe Tea Party Caucus is back in action with a new strategy and a growing membership.

Roughly 20 House Republicans attended a closed-door meeting Thursday evening in the Rayburn House Office Building, along with staffers from nearly 40 congressional offices, including those of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul.

It comes as conservatives continue to flex their muscle, making life difficult for GOP leaders in the House on issues like Obamacare, and as the debate on immigration legislation heats up.

Conservative mainstays such as Reps. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Tom Price (R-Ga.), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Steve King (R-Iowa) were among those at the meeting. A source said the entire GOP House delegation from South Carolina was there as well.

Mike Shields, chief of staff to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, spoke at the meeting – an indication that the GOP establishment is making an effort to work with the tea party lawmakers.

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Outrage: Congressional Leaders Engaged in Secret Discussions to Exempt Them, Aides, from Obamacare

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Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.

A source close to the talks says: “Everyone has to hold hands on this and jump, or nothing is going to get done.”

Yet if Capitol Hill leaders move forward with the plan, they risk being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American public. By removing themselves from a key Obamacare component, lawmakers and aides would be held to a different standard than the people who put them in office.

Democrats, in particular, would take a public hammering as the traditional boosters of Obamacare. Republicans would undoubtedly attempt to shred them over any attempt to escape coverage by it, unless Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) give Democrats cover by backing it.

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Military Blocks Access to Southern Baptist Website

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Photo Credit: Wesley FryerThe U.S. Military has blocked access to the Southern Baptist Convention’s website on an unknown number of military bases because it contains “hostile content” — just weeks after an Army briefing labeled Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics as examples of religious extremism, Fox News has learned.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination known for its support of the pro-life movement and its strong belief in traditional marriage.

Southern Baptist chaplains reported that SBC.net had been blocked at military installations around the nation. The censorship was made public after an Army officer tried to log onto the denomination’s website and instead — received a warning message.

“The site you have requested has been blocked by Team CONUS (C-TNOSC/RCERT-CONUS) due to hostile content,” the message read.

Team CONUS protects the computer network of the Dept. of Defense. The SBC’s website was not blocked at the Pentagon. Read more from this story HERE.

UPDATE:

Pentagon Blocks, Says it Will Free Access to Southern Baptist Website

The Pentagon blocked access to the Southern Baptist Convention’s website recently because it contained “hostile content” that was later determined to be malware, a military spokesman said Thursday.

“We determined that our web filters recently detected malware at the SBC website, which resulted in the block for some service members,” Lt. Col. Damien Pickart said in a prepared statement. “The department has verified that the Southern Baptist Convention website no longer contains malware that may pose a threat to our networks and will be unblocked today.”

Pickart denied the block had anything to do with the religious content of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.“The Department of Defense strongly supports the religious rights of service members, to include their ability to access religious websites like that of the SBC,” he said.

Hundreds of Southern Baptist military personnel and chaplains across the nation reported earlier this week they could no longer access the SBC.net website on base computers. Instead, they received a message saying the website had been blocked due to “hostile content.”

At the same time, soldiers reported they could access websites of other religious faiths and organizations. Read more from this story HERE.

Harry Reid: Tea Party Like Anarchists, Gov't 'Inherently Good'

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Photo Credit: APSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) believes the Tea Party is ideologically similar to anarchists and that government is “inherently good.”

Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Reid said he was frustrated that, “We have a situation where this country has been driven by the Tea Party for the last number of years.” He then insinuated Tea Partiers were like anarchists.

“When I was in school, I studied government and I learned about the anarchists. Now, they were different than the Tea Party because they were violent,” Reid said. “But they were anarchists because they did not believe in government in any level and they acknowledged it.”

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Cantor Withdraws Obamacare Bill that Drew the Ire of Conservatives

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Photo Credit: John Shinkle House Republican leadership abruptly pulled a health care bill from the floor after concerns from conservatives that it extended President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The legislation, which was championed by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, had opposition from all corners of the conservative universe.

It’s a blow to the Virginia Republican, who touted the “Helping Sick Americans Now Act” and visited the Republican Study Committee meeting Wednesday to try to move votes.

The legislation attempts to transfer money from what Republicans call a “slush fund” — it’s actually a preventative disease account — to create high-risk pools for sick Americans. The Obama administration said Tuesday the president would likely veto the bill.

“We had good conversations with our members and made a lot of solid progress,” said Erica Elliott, a spokesman for Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). “There’s still work to do and with members leaving town for the Bush Library dedication in Texas, we’ll continue the conversations after the district work period.”

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Financial Gun Control? GE Capital Quietly Cuts Off Lending to Gun Shops

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General Electric, Co. has been quietly informing gun shop owners that the company will no longer be providing lending services to them, the Wall Street Journal reports. GE Capital is apparently reconsidering its relationship to firearms companies following the Sandy Hook shooting.

Earlier this month, Glenn Duncan, owner of Duncan’s Outdoor Store in Bay City, Mich., claims he received a letter from GE Capital Retail Bank announcing its “difficult decision” to stop providing financial services to his business. Other gun shops have received similar notices, the Journal notes.

More from WSJ.com: “GE is at least the second big financial firm to retreat from the gun business following the school shootings, which claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six adults in December.

Days after the killings, private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP said it would try to sell the gun company it owns—Freedom Group Inc.— which makes brands including Remington, Bushmaster, Marlin and H&R . . .

GE is based in Fairfield, Conn., and many of the GE’s employees live around Newtown, and several have children in the Sandy Hook elementary school, where the shootings took place. Peter Lanza, the father of Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza, is an executive at GE Capital. GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt held a town hall meeting with affected employees after the shooting, and the board has been updated on efforts to help staff, a person familiar with the matter said.”

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Cantor Pushing Obamacare Bill, but not to Repeal it as Promised

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Photo Credit: John ShinkleRepublican-backed legislation meant to alter a piece of Obamacare has picked up some unlikely opponents: conservatives.

The Club for Growth, ForAmerica and the Heritage Foundation have come out against the bill, which the House is expected to take up later this week.

The critics argue that the bill would prop up a program that should be killed. The measure would move $4 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was created under the health care law, to the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program, which ran out of money earlier this year.

For America President Brent Bozell said that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who supports the bill and pushing it behind the scenes although he is not listed as a sponsor or a cosponsor, is to blame.

“Rather than sticking to his promise to repeal the massive government takeover of healthcare that is Obamacare, which led to Republicans taking the House majority in 2010, [Cantor] is actually advocating shoring up a portion of the law that does nothing to use free market-based reforms to cut healthcare costs,” Bozell said.

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With Ricin Case Crumbling, FBI Finds a New Target, Former GOP Candidate (+video)

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Photo Credit: Smoking Gun Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested last week for allegedly sending the threatening letters to Obama, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, and a Mississippi county judge. But Curtis has been released from custody amid signs that the case against him has collapsed.

During a court hearing yesterday, lawyers for Curtis contended that he had been framed and pointed investigators toward James Everett Dutschke, a 41-year-old Tupelo man with whom Curtis has feuded. Like Curtis, Dutschke is a martial arts expert, a musician, and a Mensa member.

Dutschke was arrested in January on a child molestation charge in connection with the alleged assault of a seven-year-old girl at the tae kwon do studio he operates. In March, he was named in a three-count felony indictment accusing him of fondling a victim under the age of 16 (each count carries a maximum 15-year prison term). Dutschke, now free on bond, has previously been convicted of indecent exposure…

In 2007, Dutschke was the unsuccessful Republican candidate against Stephen Holland, the incumbent Democratic state representative from the Tupelo area. Holland’s mother Sadie is the judge to whom one of the ricin-tainted letters was sent.

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GOP Benghazi Report: Obama Admin. Lied, Set-Up Military for Failure

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Photo Credit: APHouse Republicans have concluded that the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies bear no blame for failing to halt the terrorist assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year, releasing a report Tuesday that said President Obama and the State Department set up the military for failure.

The report also found that plenty of intelligence presaged the attack, but the White House and State Department — including the secretary at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton — failed to heed the warnings.

In the most damning conclusion, House Republicans said Mr. Obama’s team lied about the attacks afterward, first by blaming mob violence spawned by an anti-Muslim video, and then wrongly saying it had misled the public because it was trying to protect an FBI investigation.

“This progress report reveals a fundamental lack of understanding at the highest levels of the State Department as to the dangers presented in Benghazi, Libya, as well as a concerted attempt to insulate the Department of State from blame following the terrorist attacks,” the GOP investigation concluded in its 46-page report.

The White House dismissed the report as a rehash of questions the administration has answered, and said it has provided extraordinary cooperation.

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Mitt Romney Invites Axelrod, Former Chair of DNC, Chris Christie, Others to His Summer Retreat

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Photo Credit: Politico The guest list for Mitt Romney’s June retreat has a few surprising names not traditionally seen together with the former GOP presidential nominee.

The list of high-profile speakers include Democratic political consultant David Axelrod, who was President Barack Obama’s campaign adviser in 2008 and an Obama senior strategist in 2012, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday. During the 2012 campaign, Axelrod was openly critical of Romney, often slamming the Republican for his political stances.

Another staunch Obama supporter, and the former chairman of the Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is also on the list.

New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie is also expected to speak at the retreat. The Republican caught flak from his own party last year when he worked together with the president on Hurricane Sandy relief.

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