Republicans of all stripes are distancing themselves from Palin’s call for impeachment.

Republicans are distancing themselves from former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's calls for the impeachment of President Barack Obama, arguing to do so would be an act of "futility" and a distraction from the party's efforts to retake the Senate in November.

"It's time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment," Palin wrote in an op-ed on Breitbart.com.

On Fox Business Network on Thursday, her running mate in the 2008 presidential election, Sen. John McCain disagreed.

"Well, I don't agree and I remember going through an impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton," McCain said. "There are not the votes here in the United States Senate to impeach the president of the United States and I think that we should focus our attention on winning elections. We win this election and we regain control of the United States Senate we can be far more effective than an effort to impeach the president, which has no chance of succeeding."

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House Speaker John Boehner has also weighed in saying ""I disagree," when asked by reporters Wednesday morning.

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On C-SPAN Thursday morning, Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas said it would be "an exercise in futility" for the House to vote to impeach President Obama.

"Assuming we could get the vote to impeach the president, he is not going to get convicted in the senate," he said, explaining, "Most people don't realize that the impeachment process starts in the House, when it passes articles of impeachment. Then there is a trial in the Senate and he won't be removed from office unless he is convicted in the Senate. The Senate won't even take up commonsense job bills. The chances they would actually impeach the president I think are between slim to none."

"I think it would be an exercise in futility for the House to do anything," Farenthold added.

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State court judge says “the State does not identify specific irreparable harm” caused by clerk issuing marriage licenses, “offering only speculation.” [ Update: Denver is now issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples as well.]

Suthers

Hall

Johnson

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Mike McFadden tried to launch his bid to take on Sen. Al Franken with a funny TV ad.

Mike McFadden taking a hit to somewhere just above or below his beltline, depending on who you ask.

WASHINGTON — Negative comments criticizing a Minnesota Republican's Senate campaign ad for featuring a child hitting the candidate in the groin have begun to mysteriously disappear from his Facebook page and appear to have been replaced with comments praising the spot.

On Monday, Mike McFadden — a wealthy executive expected to self-fund some of his Senate bid — put up his first broadcast TV spot of the cycle. The ad features McFadden coaching a youth football team and, eventually, getting hit by one of the players.

"I'm Mike McFadden and I approved this message," McFadden says in tone of voice that's a pretty standard impression of a guy who just took a hit to the groin.

The buzzy spot did its job and created a firestorm of conversation in and out of Minnesota. But not all of the comments were positive. Some objected to the hit in the groin. That led the campaign to formally say it was, in fact, not a hit to the groin but rather a hit to first "the gut" and later "the stomach." But bolstering the case for groin-hit truthers was the fact that the ad was crafted by the same firm that made Iowa Republican Senate nominee Joni Earnst's memorable pig castration spot, perhaps the most groin-focused TV ad in American political history.

The local press quickly declared the whole episode "groingate."

On McFadden's campaign Facebook page, the ad landed to decidedly mixed reviews. While it picked up several dozen likes, it also invited a raft of negative comments, some from those inclined to support McFadden.

"Terrible ad. Shame on you. Hoping I don't have to watch it again. Kids mouthing what some adult told them to say," wrote one commenter. "Please do better or you will loose [sic] my support."

Around 3:30 PM central time yesterday, according to a Minnesota Democrat who was watching the Facebook traffic on the ad closely, that negative comment and several others disappeared from McFadden's Facebook page. By 3:35 PM, they were replaced by three positive comments about the ad.

A cached version of the page showed the negative comments while the current version shows only one negative comment, this one about the uniforms of the real-life youth football team featured in the ad.

"why are you using the Boise state logo in your ad????" a commenter asked.

The McFadden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Screenshots of the deleted Facebook comments:

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And then he praised Nixon.

President Obama cited Abraham Lincoln as his favorite president Thursday, and said, "I'm really not that partisan of a guy" during an Austin, Texas, event.

The president praised Republican Presidents Nixon, Eisenhower, Lincoln, and Roosevelt in a speech blasting Republicans calling for them to take up legislation the White House supports.

Here's the video of Obama's remarks:

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U.S. President Barack Obama stops at Franklin Barbecue during a visit to Austin, Texas July 10, 2014.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

“No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own,” Boehner says.

Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press / MCT

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner announced Thursday that President Obama's decision to delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate will be the basis for his planned lawsuit against the president.

"There are many examples of executive overreach by the president, but his actions on the health care law are the ones that give the House the best chance of success in the courts," an aide said.

In a blog post, Boehner said of the decision, "In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it. That's not the way our system of government was designed to work. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own."

The House resolution Boehner plans to introduce allows him to "initiate or intervene" in lawsuits in federal court regarding the failure of the president or other officials to implement the Affordable Care Act. The resolution states that the House general counsel, "at the direction of the Speaker," will handle any litigation and "may employ the services of outside counsel and other experts for this purpose."

The House Rules Committee announced Thursday evening that it will hold a hearing on the resolution at 10 a.m. July 16.

The National Review reported this past week that lawyers Alice Foley, a law professor at Florida International University, and David Rivkin, a partner at Baker Hostetler, are "the architects of the House of Representatives' likely lawsuit against President Obama."

The draft resolution:

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The border crisis is giving the Texas governor the chance to look serious. “Perry has ended up taking the leadership role and I’m glad he is.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Whether he means it to or not, the border crisis has been very good for Rick Perry.

The Texas governor and failed 2012 presidential candidate has been trying to re-emerge on the national stage as a serious contender for another presidential run. Brandishing glasses instead of cowboy boots, he's gone to great lengths to explain away his embarrassing performance during the 2012 election and had some serious early missteps, including having to walk back a comment where he compared homosexuality to alcoholism.

But the thousands of undocumented immigrants crossing into the United States in recent months, and Perry's perch as the top executive in Texas, have given him the opportunity to be out in front on an issue he knows well: the border.

Several people close to Perry insist his response to the border crisis involves no political calculation at all, and that he would be doing the exact same things were he not seriously toying with a 2016 run. A spokeswoman for Perry did not return a request for comment.

But, they add, it does give him the chance to change the subject from his "oops" moments and remind people why they thought he had a good shot before his 2012 dreams were derailed.

"It's a side of Rick Perry the national public really hasn't seen that a lot of us in Texas have," said Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, who chaired a Homeland Security field hearing on border crisis in Texas last week with Perry as lead witness. "It's one of his most passionate issues. He's not coming across strident; he wants to see D.C. work. He's solution-oriented."

One Republican operative close to Perry in Texas, who said he could not speak on the record, said that in a setting where Perry feels comfortable with an issue, "people love his ass."

"He's a lot smarter than he came across and sometimes comes across. Put him in that setting and he's a stud at it," the operative said. "He owns a small room and flops in front of the national camera."

That was on display when Perry took his spot in front of the dais — he was treated less as Republican boogeyman by the Democrats on the panel and more like an expert on the subject.

He called the members he knew well by their first names. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, not exactly known for her bipartisan rhetoric, thanked Perry and "all of you in the here in the state of Texas, who have risen to accept this challenge."

"Texas will stand in the very noble position … to continue some of the hard work you've already been engaged in," she said.

The only contentious moment came when Eric Swalwell, a freshman Democrat from the Bay Area of California, challenged Perry on the reasons for the influx of undocumented minors and Perry proceeded to chide him for doing so.

"There's been a lot of discussion about his debate performance and his back and all that. But he came across very articulate, intelligent, and thoughtful," McCaul said.

Not everyone was swayed by Perry's performance (and Jackson Lee, while kind to Perry, clearly was not supportive of Perry's stance that every child coming over should be sent immediately back home).

Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat from San Antonio, was less than impressed by Perry's performance at the hearing or with the governor in general.

"The border is a boogeyman for Rick Perry. And it's been helpful to try out that boogeyman the last several years around campaign time," Castro said. "He's running for president and so he's doing it again."

Perry met with President Obama this week (and greeted him on the tarmac on Dallas, though had initially threatened not to meet him upon his arrival in Austin) when Obama was in Texas for a pair of fundraisers. The two sat down with faith leaders and local officials to discuss the crisis at the border. Obama said on Wednesday night the two did not have philosophical differences on what needed to be done to address the crisis, and Obama urged Perry to pressure Texas Republicans in Congress to get behind his nearly $4 billion supplemental budget request.

Following the meeting Perry released a statement blaming the border crisis on "bad public policy."

"Five hundred miles south of here in the Rio Grande Valley there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding that has been created by bad public policy, in particular the failure to secure the border," Perry said. "Securing the border is attainable, and the president needs to commit the resources necessary to get this done."

Perry, in a letter Thursday to Obama encouraging him to come to the border, touted Texas' position to help deal with the crisis.

"No state is better versed in this than Texas, and I, along with state and local law enforcement officials and Texas' Congressional Delegation, are ready and willing to help the federal government meet its responsibility to secure the border for the safety and security of all Americans," he wrote, according to Politico.

"If this was great for a potential 2016 run or if it was awful for a 2016 run he would be doing the exact same thing," said Republican strategist Rick Wilson. "This is reminding people that as governor, he's been extraordinarily successful. People trust the guy to be engaged and involved on this one and he's just taking care of business."

Republicans in Texas and on the Hill argue Perry's deep involvement with the border serves as a juxtaposition to that of the president, who has received criticism from both sides of the aisle for not visiting the border while he was in Texas.

"He's understandably disturbed that the president of the United States was coming to Texas to fundraise and won't bother to come to see what he and his administration describe as humanitarian crisis," said Texas Sen. John Cornyn. "If it's serious enough for him to send a $3.7 billion funding request to us, I would think it's serious enough for him to take the time to go down there and see for himself what the conditions are. It's happening to Texas, and Perry has ended up taking the leadership role and I'm glad he is."

Obama said on Wednesday he wasn't interested in photo ops, which is why he didn't make a trip the border on this trip to Texas.

Perry went to the border on Thursday. It was clear he didn't mind the photo op moment — Fox News Host Sean Hannity had tagged along and tweeted a photo of the pair, holding guns.

Rep. Steve Stockman’s office admits it heinously abused an internal House email system. It’s not clear if his staff cares very much, however.

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File

WASHINGTON — For a while now, staffers on Capitol Hill have been getting emails every hour from Rep. Steve Stockman, a Texas Tea Party Republican.

This may not end, but it sounds like it probably will.

"The principal individual involved was releasing DC letters every hour, on the hour, for a period of time running into weeks (apparently), in the belief that this was the norm," Nate Pendley, Stockman's chief of staff, told BuzzFeed Thursday. "I am grateful it has been called to my attention before we began to appear even more gauche."

The "DC" Pendley referred to is the "Dear Colleague" system, an internal message board of sorts where members of Congress "tell people about upcoming events, to ask them to sign on to letters, and to tell them about our bills/ask others to cosponsor our bills," according to one staffer familiar with the system.

As with most things on Capitol Hill, there are many unwritten rules of etiquette when it comes to Dear Colleague — the kind of rules that newer lawmakers or staffers can sometimes run afoul of. Stockman, who came back to congress in 2013 after serving one term in the 1990s, has run afoul.

"Most people have a separate folder where they receive these, because it can be between 100-150 a day, but when I clear this folder out, the first thing I do is search for 'Stockman' and then just delete everything that comes up," the staffer, a Democrat, said. "Usually clears out about 20-30."

"You're only supposed to send it to the one to two lists that most align with your bill, but he abuses the systems by sending to three (the limit) every time, whether it is directly in that issue area or not," the staffer said.

A former Republican staffer, asked to characterize the number of Dear Colleagues Stockman's office sends out was surprised at the total.

"That's fucking crazy," the staffer said.

The subject lines of many of Stockman's Dear Colleagues match the conservative's trademark boffo political style.

"Citizens ordered to turn in their guns? In America?" read one. "Cosponsor the the Gun Confiscation and Registration Prevention Act!"

This is not how Dear Colleague letters usually sound.

"Steve Stockman is like the uncle that forwards you paranoid chain emails everyday, except this is Congress," said the current Hill staffer. "Your first inclination is to reply with a link to Snopes, but you know it will only make things worse for you."

Pendley clearly enjoyed being asked about the Dear Colleague system and the unwritten rules of comity in the House Stockman's staff was accused of violating.

"In truth, I had not given it serious thought, nor had I given specific instructions to the person[s] in our office deigning to use that resource," Pendley said. "Having now spoken with those involved, it is clear to me that they did indeed misunderstand the function of the list serve, and had no real appreciation for the unwritten protocol and common courtesies associated with it."

This poem was at the bottom of the Stockman staffer's email:

There once was a staffer in Cannon,
The "Dear Colleague" button was mannin'.
Buzz Feed whined to her Chief
Who told her, "Good grief!"
"Your dear colleague list -- don't be spammin'!"

A screenshot of the 'Dear Colleagues' Stockman spams Congress with.

A look at what's in Stockman's Dear Colleague messages:

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“The president is a big fan of LeBron,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

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The White House reacted Friday to the news that LeBron James decided to return to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Press Secretary Josh Earnest noted that "the president is a big fan of LeBron."

"The fact that he's made this decision I think is a testament to the kind of values that he has incorporated into his life and that he says he's interested in instilling in his children," he said. "So I think it's a pretty powerful statement about the value of a place that you consider home."

White House Photo

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Just slide to reveal.

Getty Images

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He said this at the National Governors Association.

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“You got to lead us out of this mess we’re in.”

Stringer/Chile / Reuters

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In a fervent, at times wistful speech on Friday afternoon, Vice President Joe Biden told to a group of governors that they, not members of Congress, amounted to the nation's "best hope" for legislative progress.

He recalled walking the Mississippi River with the governor of Illinois, talking about "the critical connection" between rail lines, highways, and waterways. He remembered a meeting in Albany with the governor of New York, about upgrades to bridges and tunnels. And he looked across the conference room to the governor of Maryland and said, almost at a yell, "You're doing all you can. You're attracting investment. The federal government is sitting on its hands."

The culture in Washington, Biden said, has become "too personal" and "too coercive" in the six years since he left the U.S. Senate, where he served for more than three decades.

Biden spoke before about two dozen governors at the National Governors Association summer meeting.

"Folks, I probably shouldn't say this, but then again, I'm Joe Biden," he told the governors, seated at a long banquet table in the Omni Nashville hotel ballroom.

"I was thinking about this a lot the last three, four weeks. The greatest honor of my life was the be a United States senator and serve with some of the greatest, finest people I've ever known in my life. And I loved it. And it's always been very, very tough politics in Washington," Biden said. "But we never got to where it is now. It was never personal. It was never cast in the context of, you're good or bad."

"We actually liked each other back in those days."

In the 50-minute speech, billed as a talk on the federal-state partnership, Biden reflected on his time in the Senate and appealed to the state executives to "continue to do the practical things you're doing." In particular, Biden highlighted state infrastructure improvements and workforce development programs.

"The culture in Washington now, it's become too personal, too coercive," he said.

Before his speech, Biden attended a Nashville fundraiser for the Democratic Governors Association, a group that recruits and helps finance the party's gubernatorial candidates. "I was saying to Peter earlier today," Biden said of the group's chair, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, "that you folks, the Democratic [and] Republican governors, are the best hope we have to bringing back an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, where we can have significant ideological differences, but at the end of the day, it's all about finding a solution."

"There was a presumption that the other guy or woman you'd be dealing with was acting in good faith," Biden said. "The vast majority of you respect one another. The vast majority of you — I assume all, but I don't know — the vast majority of you treat each other with respect. You're not dismissive of the other guy's or woman's ideas."

"Granted, it always looked better from the outside than the inside looking at you all."

Biden's remarks were reminiscent of a speech by Bill Clinton to the same group in 1993, during his first year as president in Washington.

Speaking to the National Governors Association assembly in Tulsa, Okla., that August, Clinton said the skills "highly praised among" governors were "not only not very much prized — sometimes they're absolutely demeaned in the nation's capital."

Throughout his speech, Biden addressed several of the governors directly, calling each one "Gov." He concluded the remarks by taking several questions from the attending governors. Behind the assembly, guests of the conference, most of them wealthy corporate sponsors and lobbyists, filled the audience.

"You got to lead us out of this mess we're in," Biden told the governors.

"We look to you. I look to you."

WITNESS…the backtracking.

But during his run for governor and throughout his term as governor the Ohioan has had a history of attacks on Lebron.

Kasich's first slamming of James came in a June 17, 2010, interview with Alan Colmes for his radio show. Colmes asked Kasich if he would be joining in "the chorus to keep James in Cleveland."

"I'm not singing in any chorus for LeBron James," Kasich responded.

Colmes responded in amazement: "You're not?"

"No, I'm not. Look, he's a great basketball player, he's a great guy. There's a lot of great people in Ohio," Kasich said.

Asked if he would try to persuade James to stay if he were governor, Kasich dismissed the question.

"Alan, we've lost 400,000 jobs out here and the last guy I worry about is LeBron James. You know I mean, we all hope he'll stay in Cleveland. We think we've got a great guy there that can turn everything around, but we got some serious problems."

They even made an ad:

youtube.com

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Perry hits Rand on foreign policy. “Utter nonsense,” Rand adviser responds.

Ron T. Ennis/Fort Worth Star-Telegram / MCT

Rodger Mallison/Fort Worth Star-Telegram / MCT

In the latest example of the foreign policy divide within the Republican Party, the Washington Post published a sharply critical op-ed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry Friday attacking Sen. Rand Paul's position on Iraq and calling him "curiously blind" to national security threats in the region.

Perry's op-ed, headlined "Isolationist policies make the threat of terrorism even greater," calls out Paul by name repeatedly, and criticizes him for arguing it would be a mistake for the U.S. to take sides in the conflict currently ravaging Iraq:

...it's disheartening to hear fellow Republicans, such as Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), suggest that our nation should ignore what's happening in Iraq. The main problem with this argument is that it means ignoring the profound threat that the group now calling itself the Islamic State poses to the United States and the world...

This represents a real threat to our national security — to which Paul seems curiously blind — because any of these passport carriers can simply buy a plane ticket and show up in the United States without even a visa. It's particularly chilling when you consider that one American has already carried out a suicide bombing and a terrorist-trained European allegedly killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

Yet Paul still advocates inaction, going so far as to claim in an op-ed last month in the Wall Street Journal that President Ronald Reagan's own doctrines would lead him to same conclusion.

But his analysis is wrong. Paul conveniently omitted Reagan's long internationalist record of leading the world with moral and strategic clarity.

Perry and Paul have both said they are considering presidential bids in 2016, and are generally representative of two poles in the current foreign policy debate in the GOP — with each laying claim to Reagan's legacy. While Perry's position is more in line with the hawkish Republican establishment, Paul argues that his approach is a rejection of the unpopular foreign policies of President George W. Bush and President Obama. And despite Perry's characterization, Paul rejects the term "isolationist" as a description of his views.

Reached for comment by BuzzFeed, Rand Paul's chief adviser Doug Stafford dismissed Perry's criticism.

"Utter nonsense. Interesting to be lectured entirely in talking points though. His new glasses apparently don't make him see the world any more clearly," Stafford wrote in an e-mail.

UPDATE: After this article was published, Stafford, who promises to be the most quotable political operative of 2016, e-mailed an addendum to his first statement:

I have three points in response to Governor Perry's talking points:

1. Senator Paul believes national defense is the most important function of the Federal government

2. Gov. Perry's mischaracterization of Senator Paul's foreign policy is not based in fact and

3. Um, I forgot the third. Anyone remember the third one? . . . oops!

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After years of public denials and battles with depression, the interview with Thorpe is set to air tomorrow night in Australia.

Australian Olympic champion Ian Thorpe has been reported by The Sunday Telegraph to say that he is gay during a yet-to-air TV interview after years of public denials and a long battle with depression.

Gabriel Bouys/AFP/File

The swimmer's comments are reportedly made in an interview with British TV personality, Sir Michael Parkinson, airing tomorrow.

"It’s understood the interview, which Parkinson has described as one of the best he has ever conducted, includes a full admission from Thorpe that he is gay despite having dated women in the past," the paper reports.

Parkinson said it is was one of the best interviews he had ever done.

"Ian Thorpe has always been near the top of my list to interview. The reasons are obvious. Not many athletes can claim to be the best of all time. Ian can."

Channel 10

Thorpe broke 22 world records and won five gold and three silver medals and one bronze medal at the Olympic Games before he retired for the first time in 2012 at the age of 24.

Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/File

For years, Thorpe publicly denied claims that he was gay — despite persistent rumors and speculation of his sexuality.

In his 2012 autobiography, This Is Me, Thorpe wrote: "For the record, I am not gay and all my sexual experiences have been straight. I'm attracted to women, I love children and aspire to have a family one day … I know what it's like to grow up and be told what your sexuality is, then realising that it's not the full reality. I was accused of being gay before I knew who I was.''

GREG WOOD/AFP / Getty Images

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The Republican governor talks immigration, same-sex marriage, and LeBron James at a conference in Nashville. A rare exchange with the national press.

AP Photo / Mel Evans

NASHVILLE — Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday that the rush of unaccompanied minors across the U.S.-Mexican border is rooted in a "failure to act decisively in Washington" on immigration going "back to the Bush administration."

Christie would not say whether he thinks the children, who number in the thousands, should be deported. "I'm not going to get into all that," he said.

He called for action from President Obama and members of Congress, but did not elaborate on what response he believes should be taken to address the thousands of undocumented immigrant children now being housed at various government shelter facilities.

"Again, that's Washington's job to figure these things out."

The governor made the comments on Saturday afternoon during a question-and-answer session with reporters at the Nashville Omni hotel, where he appeared at a meeting of the National Governors Association. "My frustration is that there's an obvious problem that exists in the country," he said. "Everybody sees it in this latest episode with the children. It's just another example of the problem that we have in the country. We need to be straightforward and deal with it."

"They need to deal with this issue. And the fact is, they haven't. And they haven't for a long time, going all the way back to the Bush administration," Christie said. "And this is just another symptom of that failure to act and make decision."

Christie said he had not seen any effects from the border crisis in his state, New Jersey, where he was elected to a second term last year. Christie, who dealt with the scandal over lane closures on the George Washington Bridge early this year, has said he'll make a decision about a presidential bid after the midterm elections.

The governor touched on a number of national topics in the press gaggle, including same-sex marriage ("The country will resolve this over a period of time"), the return of basketball star LeBron James to Cleveland ("Good for LeBron"), and the Republican fight to repeal Obamacare ("I don't think the conversation's over").

On the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans have voted dozens of times to repeal, Christie said the party should focus on "putting forth our alternatives for what should be a better health care system in this country."

"I think we all know Obamacare's not working," Christie said. "But the fact is, Republicans need to be talking about what we should be doing as well. And I think that's the positive way to be having this conversation moving forward."

"It must start from a position of repeal, but it has to be repeal and replace with what. It can't just be about repeal, it has to be what else you're going to do as a party."

Christie rarely engages with the national press at events like the National Governors Association meetings. At the conference last year, held that August in Milwaukee, Christie waved off questions from reporters in the hallways with a curt, "We're not here to talk about that kind of nonsense," or, "Enjoy Milwaukee like I'm going to."

On Saturday, following a closed-door meeting with other governors, Christie spent just short of 15 minutes with reporters in the Omni. When members of the press raised some topics, however, Christie declined to comment at length.

He would not talk much about the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision, in which the court ruled that the contraception mandate under the Affordable Care Act violates the religious freedom of some employers.

"Are you worried about the impact of the Hobby Lobby decision on women in New Jersey," one reporter asked.

"No," said Christie.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not."

"No," he added. "I'm not worried about it at all."

After another round of questions, an aide said, "We have time for two more." Christie looked at the huddle of reporters. "Or if you don't," he said, "I have time for zero."

The Obama administration moves the pregnant minors to “permanent” facilities rather than the crowded temporary detention centers housing child immigrants.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility, Wednesday, June 18, 2014, in Brownsville,Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, Pool)

AP Photo/Eric Gay, Pool

WASHINGTON — The thousands of undocumented minors in U.S. detention facilities includes an unknown number of pregnant teenaged immigrants.

The pregnant minors have been moved into longer-term shelters operated by the Department of Health and Human Services in order to provide federally funded health care.

As many as 90,000 undocumented minors from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are expected to enter the United States this year. The rush of children, many of whom are trafficked by drug cartels and other criminal organizations, has become not only a strain on the asylum process but a political nightmare for the Obama administration.

It is unclear how many of the minors are pregnant and now in HHS custody, and HHS spokesman Kenneth Wolfe said Friday that the department does not have "available" statistics on the number of pregnant minors housed in HHS facilities.

But Wolfe confirmed the department, which is tasked with overseeing the flood of immigrants, moves pregnant girls to permanent shelters, rather than the temporary detention facilities that most of the undocumented children are in.

"Pregnant teenage mothers are housed at regular/permanent Unaccompanied Alien Children program shelters (not temporary UAC shelters) and are provided medical care. We do not have statistics available," Wolfe said in an email to BuzzFeed Friday night.

HHS has begun establishing temporary shelters across the country to house undocumented children after the permanent, long-term facilities were overwhelmed by the unprecedented number of immigrants. According to the HHS
website, the department maintains "approximately" 100 permanent shelters in the United States, most along the southern border with Mexico.

Under the 14th Amendment their children will be American citizens if they are born in the United States. It is unclear whether the mothers — and their children — will be deported. Wolfe did not respond to multiple requests for comment on that issue, and White House spokesman Josh Earnest did not respond to a request for comment Saturday.

It is extremely difficult for undocumented parents to get citizenship. For instance, they have to wait until their children can sponsor them when they come of age, or be granted asylum by the government. But with an estimated four million American children with at least one parent who was in the country illegally, the Obama administration in 2013 directed immigration officials to use "discretion" when deporting parents.

*bumps fist*

U.S. President Barack Obama fist bumps the cashier after paying for his order at Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas July 10, 2014.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Daniel Rugg Webb, a 32-year-old cashier at Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas, had been hearing the rumor all day on Thursday: President Obama was stopping by. He and his co-workers didn't give much credence to the idea—that is, until eight secret service agents, and then some, walked into the restaurant in the afternoon.

"[They] frisked everybody, which was kind of my favorite part," Webb recalled in an interview with BuzzFeed Saturday night. "Then he just showed up."

Webb, who is also a comedian and retired musician, wasn't about to miss his opportunity to say whatever he wanted to a sitting president. So, after he had introduced himself and the president was signing a reportedly $300 bill, he slammed his hand on the counter.

"Equal rights for gay people!" he exclaimed.

Obama reacted without missing a beat. "Are you gay?"

Taken aback by the directness of the question, he said, Webb responded, "Only when I'm having sex!"

The president laughed, then, realizing there was a group of children near the two, said, "Not in front of the kids!"

The two men bumped fists and that was that.

The exchange was first reported by the Austin Chronicle.

"As a comedian, it was cool to have a moment where I was making a sitting president laugh — over something that might be considered inappropriate is a bonus," Webb said of the experience.

He said he had been hoping to get in a joke about Texas Governor Rick Perry, who he described as "famously anti-gay."

While Webb said he appreciates Obama's social progressiveness, he expressed hope that the president will close the gap between his own relative forward-thinking on gay rights, and his general quietness on the anti-gay views of many state leaders before he leaves office.

"It would be interesting if he could call some people out for it. People can use a lot of things—religion, freedom of speech—to be anti-gay, but I need people to understand you can call people out for civil rights things," Webb said.

"We are an anti-gay state. We are a state with a whole bunch of hungry children and sick old people, and [Rick Perry is] grandstanding on things that will get him a better election," Webb said. "And it's glaringly obvious. He's kind of primitive in his social beliefs. I would like to see Rick Perry negatively influenced by any kind of attention. Even Obama laughing at something as, hopefully, acceptable as sexuality can show the difference."

“I found out through the media. No one called to tell me.” Gov. Mary Fallin has had little contact with the government about the hundreds of minors in Oklahoma.

AP Photo / Mark Humphrey

It was a Friday in June when Mary Fallin, governor of Oklahoma, got a call from a reporter and first heard the rumor: Hundreds of unaccompanied immigrant children would be sent to Fort Sill, an army post in southwestern part of the state.

"A reporter called and asked if we'd heard that we were receiving some of the adolescents in Oklahoma. It was just local gossip around the community," said Fallin. "I found out through the media. No one called to tell me."

It wasn't until the following Tuesday, June 17, that Fallin received her first briefing from the federal government on a conference call with other governors. That Wednesday, about 600 minors arrived at Ft. Sill, Fallin said.

In recent months, tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants from Central America, many of them unaccompanied children, have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services have directed the minors to government facilities throughout the country, including Ft. Sill. President Obama and members of Congress have yet to outline a resolution to the border crisis.

Fallin, a Republican, spent the weekend at the National Governors Association meeting in Nashville with about two dozen other governors. She has been critical of the president on immigration, and attributed the border crisis to his policies.

In an interview on Sunday afternoon, she said the level of contact between her office and the administration has been inadequate. Fallin toured the Ft. Sill facility on June 20, one week after the call from the reporter. Since then, she said, she hasn't received a government briefing about the immigrant minors.

"Part of the challenge is we don't know what we're facing," Fallin said. "The people of Oklahoma have definite questions about what is going on as these children who are unaccompanied are entering the U.S. What's the process? How does it affect our states? How do we know who's bringing them here and where they're going? To see their legal families? To see their illegal families? What's their health condition?"

A Fallin aide said that HHS and DHS have hosted a "couple of conference calls" initially, but her office did not receive a briefing on Oklahoma specifically.

"The lack of information that's coming from the feds is kind of disturbing," he said.

When Fallin visited the facility along with her secretary of health, she was told they were not allowed to ask the case workers questions, take pictures, or record conversations. "We were not supposed to speak to them," Fallin said of the case workers who man the facility and work with the children living there. "It was Homeland Security that gave us those instructions."

Fallin said she ignored the directions and spoke with the caseworkers. "I asked them about the process and how the children are doing." The conditions inside the facility, Fallin said, seemed, "at that point in time, to look fine." She observed cots with pillows, children playing games, and a "nice cafeteria set-up."

But since that visit in June, the population inside Ft. Sill has doubled, Fallin said.

She said most of the minors at Ft. Sill are between the ages of 12 and 17.

A number of pregnant girls are believed to be in some facilities, as BuzzFeed reported on Saturday. Fallin did not witness any such cases during her visit. "But, they showed me what they wanted me to see," she said.

Oklahoma officials have heard of several cases of illness inside the facility, including scabies, lice, and one case of chicken pox, said Fallin. "So how do we protect our community, and protect the people who are working on the site?"

Fallin also questioned whether the contacts the children have identified as family members are in fact relatives or "traffickers."

"One of the things I was told in Oklahoma is that when the children come across the border, they have a phone number and a person's name in their pocket," she said after a press conference on Friday. During her tour of Ft. Sill, she said she witnessed a boy place a phone call. A case worker nearby told Fallin that the boy was calling his mother, that the two were trying to reconnect.

"But who is the person that's on that phone number in that pocket?" Fallin said. "Is it the real relative? Or is it some individual that has paid to have a child come to the United States? Is it a trafficker that has helped this child get here?"

Fallin has still not heard a final word from the administration about how long the minors, many of whom are not far from age 18, will stay at the Ft. Still facility.

"They told us they were going to be there 120 days," she said. "Now we're hearing rumors that contracts are going to be extended past 120 days at Ft. Sill."

On Sunday, the final day of the governors conference in Nashville, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell talked with the state executives about the border crisis at a "getting to know you" session closed to media.

A Health and Human Services spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about communication between the administration and state officials.

The network accidentally broadcasts footage of destruction when teasing a segment about how “the LeBron James effect” could revitalize Ohio.

Cold as ice.

What began in professional golf has now moved its way over into politics. Utah Speaker of the House Becky Lockhart and Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz immersed themselves (literally) in the so-called "ice bucket challenge."

If you're unfamiliar with the ice bucket challenge, it's process where a person posts a video of themselves dumping a bucket of ice cold water over their heads. At the end of the video the person calls on specific people to either take the challenge or donate to charity.

In this case, Utah Speaker of the House Becky Lockhart took the challenge and donated to the American Cancer Society, while calling on Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz to do the same.

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Chaffetz took the challenge and posted the video over the weekend.

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