Tom Coburn: Campaign to defund Obamacare ‘dishonest,’ ‘hype’  —  ANALYSIS CONGRESS BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL  —  Tensions inside the Republican Party about a proposal to defund Obamacare reached a new level Friday when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a lawmaker with unsurpassed credibility in the field …

Weiner girl confidant: Pol's brother grilled sext partner ‘to see if she was going to be a problem’ 2 days after comeback interview published  —  Anthony Weiner's chef brother turned up the heat on the mayoral wannabe's secret online paramour just weeks before the sexting pol announced his mayoral bid …

Greg Abbott's pledge to fight Obama on voting rights a political win with Texas GOP primary voters  —  In the runup to his campaign for governor, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said he considered suing the Obama administration a big part of his job.  Now the Obama administration is turning …

Wall Street wants Yellen, not Summers, as next Fed chief  —  Wall Street overwhelmingly believes President Obama will and should pick Janet Yellen to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, according to a survey.  —  Preliminary results of the CNBC Fed Survey for July show 70 percent …

What the Chris Christie-Rand Paul Ruckus Really Means  —  The political press is abuzz over what sure looks like one of the first clashes of the Republican Party's 2016 primary season.  At a Republican governors forum in Aspen, Colo., New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took …

Concord: Half of Affordable Care Act call center jobs will be part-time  —  CONCORD — Earlier this year, Contra Costa County won the right to run a health care call center, where workers will answer questions to help implement the president's Affordable Care Act.

Bank Reposseses Wrong House, Refuses To Compensate Victim  —  Katie Barnett, a resident of MacArthur, OH, claims that a bank she doesn't belong to  —  Barnett says she has since presented the president of the bank with an $18,000 estimate to compensate her for the loss, but he has refused to pay her.

Paul Ryan lays out immigration proposals in Racine town hall meeting  —  By Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel  —  Racine — Coming face-to-face with activists, immigrants and the children of undocumented immigrants, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan on Friday laid out his proposals to achieve a consensus …

Slain Youth's Mother Criticizes Defense Law  —  PHILADELPHIA — The mother of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teenager whose fatal shooting by a neighborhood watch volunteer has provoked a national debate over racial profiling and gun laws, appealed to a crowd of African-American advocates here Friday to …

Assuming the Distance Learning Can Opener  —  While conceding that Johnathan Rees's argument against MOOC's focuses too much on the self-interest of faculty members and not enough on the massive problems of distance learning, Jon Chait's touting of the promise of MOOCs is suffers from two major flaws.

Weiner & Spitzer — Now More Than Ever!  —  “Progressivism leads inevitably to utter irrationality and eventually political, as well as moral, chaos.”  —  So writes editor R.V. Young in the summer issue of Modern Age, the journal of which Russell Kirk was founding editor.

Team 10 sources: Mayor Bob Filner may take time off for therapy  —  Mayor to make statement at noon  —  SAN DIEGO - Three separate sources inside San Diego City Hall told Team 10 Mayor Bob Filner is considering taking time off for therapy amid more calls for him to resign over sexual harassment accusations.

Ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn to be tried for pimping  —  (Reuters) - Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be tried in France on pimping charges, prosecutors said on Friday, after a long inquiry into sex parties attended by the man whose presidential hopes were dashed by a separate 2011 U.S. sex scandal.

Ohio Group Raises $12K To Buy Zimmerman Guns  —  COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio firearms group has raised more than $12,000 to be spent on guns or a security system for George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer who was acquitted in the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida.

Uh Ho: Obama Says Vietnamese Dictator Inspired by Founding Fathers  —  “...we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”  —  It may come as some unwelcome news to the families …

McCrory Signs State Budget, Says He Will Sign Abortion Bill & Voter ID Law  —  Governor Pat McCrory on Friday signed the new state budget, two days after state lawmakers approved the $20.6 billion spending plan.  —  Lawmakers finished their session this morning, passing a flurry of bills.

Taiwan trip center of Peter Roskam investigation  —  The Office of Congressional Ethics is calling for a full investigation into a Oct. 2011 trip by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) and his wife to Taiwan, claiming the trip was improperly funded by the Taiwanese government.