The Democratic Senator says the bill's heightened security measures “might have made a difference” in identifying the bombing suspect. “Those who say lets wait on the bill because we have to see everything that happened in Boston…it's an excuse.”

WASHINGTON — New York Senator Chuck Schumer argued Thursday morning that the terrorist attacks in Boston should not slow down movement on the comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Instead, he said, the bill's heightened security measures "might have made a difference" in identifying bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev when he left the country for a six-month trip to Russia.

"As you know, Tsarnaev when he flew out, his name was misspelled. He was on a customs watch list …but even though he was on the anti-terrorism list, that did not show up because his name was misspelled," Schumer told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. "Under our bill, a machine would have read a passport or something else and they would have known exactly who he was and it might have made a difference."

Several Republican Senators have asked Senate leadership to hit the pause button on immigration reform in light of the attacks on the Boston Marathon last week. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a police shootout late last week, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, were legal immigrants from Chechnya. Dzhokhar became a U.S. citizen Sept. 11, 2012.

"Our bill actually strengthens security, the events in Boston if anything should importune us to leave the status quo and go to a proposal like ours," Schumer said. "Obviously we are interested in any other new facts that come up and suggestions to improve the bill. Those who say lets wait on the bill because we have to see everything that happened in Boston...it's an excuse. . The only people who are saying that are people that were against the bill long before Boston occurred."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), appearing with Schumer at the breakfast, said that his Senate colleagues would have the opportunity to improve the bill in the coming weeks.

"We will have hearings, we will have a markup in the Judiciary Committee, we will then move to the floor where there will be weeks of debate and amendments and we will have ample opportunity, if there are lessons to be learns from the Boston tragedy, to incorporate into legislation," he said.

The Arizona Republican says immigration reform “won't gain us a single Hispanic vote.” But it will at least put the GOP on a playing field.

WASHINGTON— Arizona Sen. John McCain said Thursday he didn't think passing immigration reform would help Republicans at the polls anytime soon.

But the 'Gang of Eight' member said the GOP had a lot more to lose if immigration reform doesn't get done.

"I believe if we pass this legislation, it won't gain us a single Hispanic vote, but what it will do is put us a playing field where we can compete. Right now we can't compete," he said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "The numbers in the last couple of elections authenticate that statement.

McCain is one of four Republicans who helped craft a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a path to citizenship for the country's 11 million undocumented immigrants. National Republicans are fearful that if immigration reform doesn't happen, the GOP will continue to lose Hispanics — and elections —for years to come.

However, for GOP House members and Senators, the electoral threat is often from a primary challenge on the right, which may dissuade them from supporting immigration reform.

"I would just try to show my friends, particularly in states like mine and the state of Texas where the demographics should be convincing," he said. "Six or eight years from now we will have if not a majority, a near to majority Hispanic population in my state. So it is a demographic certainty, that if we condemn ourselves to 15 or 20 percent of the Hispanic vote, we will not win elections."

But McCain said that immigration reform passes, it at least gives the GOP some time to try and convince new voters.

"It will us on a playing field where we can make an argument…for smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation pro-life, pro-defense and that's an argument I think we can make to gain Hispanic support," he said.

Eric Cantor and Ted Cruz at war. “The message sucks. We oppose Obamacare. Period. We will repeal it. Period,” a top Cruz aide tells conservatives.

Via: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Three years after Obamacare was signed into law, Republicans on Capitol Hill are locked in an unusually bitter intraparty fight over whether to fix what they see as problems with the law or to insist only on the unlikely dream of fully repealing the health-care law.

The breach became painfully visible to conservative insiders on a private listserv this week when a top aide to Senator Ted Cruz exchanged a series of terse and combative emails — obtained by BuzzFeed — over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's attempt to change the law's treatment of patients with pre-existing conditions.

The emails, which were circulated on the "Repeal Coalition" listserv of activists and congressional staff, show a clear division inside the Republican Party's powerful conservative wing — a division over substance and strategy. On one side are conservative groups like Americans for Tax Reform, pushing hard for the legislation; while on the other, Sen. Ted Cruz' top staffer, the group Heritage Action, and others insisted Republicans stay with a simple message: "Kill the bill."

The emails also lay bare an unheard of breach of Capitol decorum: Aides to Cruz, a junior senator, are working actively to undermine the work of the House Majority Leader to provide insurance for sick Americans during a six-month gap in the implementation of Obamacare.

Cruz has emerged as an influential voice in Washington for the conservative movement and has claimed the mantle of the Senate's conservative provocateur-in-chief vacated by former Sen. Jim DeMint last fall.

In the emails, Cruz Chief of Staff Chip Roy and legislative assistant Alec Aramanda not only slammed the bill but accused Cantor of hypocrisy and questioned his and his supporters' fealty to the full repeal of Obamacare.

Cantor and his supporters wanted to "create a message in support of funding parts of Obamacare … build upon the misguided notion that pre-existing conditions should be taken care of by government (and thus undermining the very purpose of getting insurance) and create a 'win' that only wonks on list-serves [sic] in DC get excited about," Roy wrote in one email.

Similarly, Aramanda also flatly rejected the bill. Instead of providing a fix to Obamacare, Aramanda argued, Republicans and conservatives should focus on "repeal[ing] Obamacare and mak[ing] the case — as John Cochrane has — that liberty solves the problem … the Pelosi logic of passing a bill to find out what's inside it looks like evil genius when compared to our insistence on fixing that cancerous bill without thinking through how the other side might use process to expose GOP policy hypocrisy."

It is extremely unusual for members or staff from one chamber to actively lobby against legislation sponsored by a member of their own party in the other chamber — particularly when it is the majority leader, the second most powerful person in the House.

It is unclear whether the two staffers were working on behalf of Cruz. When asked about the emails and whether Cruz opposed the bill, his spokesman Sean Rushton would only say, "The listserv is designed for private exchange about the repeal of Obamacare — a clear goal of Senator Cruz and millions of Americans feeling the damaging costs and regulations of a bill described by one of its primary authors as a train wreck."

The bill, Helping Sick Americans Now Act, was abruptly pulled from the House floor Wednesday after it became clear it did not have enough Republican support to pass.

Cantor had hoped the bill would turn into a political win for Republicans. Because of the way Obamacare is being implemented, thousands of Americans with pre-existing conditions could find themselves without insurance for more than six months as exchanges are set up. Cantor's bill would have used funds from an account for advertising to set up a temporary "high-risk pool" for those individuals.

According to aides, the language is almost identical to that in a conservative alternative to Obamacare crafted by Rep. Tom Price — a darling of the tea party — and would have included some deficit reduction measures.

But with outside groups and apparently Cruz's staff actively pushing against the bill, Republicans balked, wary of being accused of not supporting full repeal of the unpopular law.

Perhaps ironically, the bill never had much of a chance of passage. The vast majority of Democrats also opposed it, and President Obama had formally threatened to veto the measure.

And that, GOP operatives argued, made it a perfect messaging vehicle. Republicans could claim to be trying to address a key failing of Obamacare, upholding their promise of helping those with existing illnesses — all while being able to bash Obama and Senate Democrats for blocking the bill.

"It's a no-brainer … how do you vote against something called Help Sick Americans Now?" one operative who has worked for House and Senate candidates said.

The collapse of the bill was a humiliating defeat for a leadership team that has struggled for years to keep its conference in line and is a testament to the continuing tenuous grip they have on their members.

"It's the outside groups' obsession," said a senior Republican aide, complaining that pressure from these groups was directly responsible for members abandoning their leader.

"We built this. We built our majority in 2010 on this. And now it may consume us," the GOP aide said Wednesday.

Officially, Republicans said they would continue to work on the bill and try to bring their conference along.

"We had good conversations with our members and made a lot of solid progress. 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," said Erica Elliott, a spokeswoman for Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy.

Privately, however, Republicans acknowledged the bill is dead. "Our guys were never going to go for this … it's either full repeal or nothing at all for them," one leadership aide said.

But, as the Repeal Coalition emails make clear, it's not just House leadership that is unhappy with the preoccupation with full repeal of Obamacare.

A number of influential activists, including Independent Women's Forum CEO Heather Higgins, Americans for Tax Reform's Ryan Ellis, and others, vigorously defended Cantor's bill.

Following the bill's defeat, Ellis wrote bluntly, "Now nothing will happen. I'd rather have tried than made the perfect the enemy of the good. Longer term, this makes this entire coalition decidedly unserious and a liability rather than an asset. But don't fret — now we don't have to worry about seven months of a federal risk pool tainting our ideological purity."

But well before the vote, advocates for Cantor's bill were clearly fighting an uphill battle.

Throughout the internal debate, Ellis was one of the bill's most vocal proponents, attacking the logic of the opposition and insisting support of the bill made political sense.

"If you're opposed to this, I hope you were opposed to 1099-MISC repeal. Because the 'improve' logic used here is the same perfect/enemy/good argument that could have been used then," Ellis wrote on April 18 in reference to the repeal of an unpopular tax provision in Obamacare.

"There really isn't a difference. This repeals part of the bill in a particularly-painful way politically [for Democrats], he argued. "It does so in a way that cripples Obamacare's ultimate success. That's exactly what we did with 1099 … This vote is all about political pressure. If the vote were simply to repeal a slush fund, that creates a discomfort level of X for vulnerable House Dems. But to vote to repeal a slush fund AND use the money to get sick = people health insurance? X on steroids. Which version would you rather vote against if you were a Blue Dog?"

That argument sparked a protracted technical debate. On the 19th, Roy, the Cruz staffer, interjected, "I have no idea about all that, but the message sucks. We oppose Obamacare. Period. We will repeal it. Period."

Bill Pascoe, a conservative blogger who seems to have sat out much of the debate, at one point argued that while he agrees Republicans have "wimped out" in the past, "that's one of the reasons I actually LIKE this bill — because at least on this one exercise, we may not have to worry about wimpy Republicans opposing our efforts to save the country from Obamacare."

"I stayed out of it yesterday because, as I've reminded everyone just about every time I've opened my mouth at one of our meetings, I am no health care policy expert. I read everything yesterday very carefully, and weighed all the arguments. It's my POLITICAL judgment that supporting this bill is a s= mart thing to do for those seeking repeal," he wrote the morning of April 19.

After Roy rejected the idea "that we will win the epic fight of our generation by painting in the pastels of D.C. group-think and accepting the premise of the very thing we supposedly seek to kill ... Government interference in health care and markets," Higgins fought back.

"No pastels here: But here I think it helps to see these as two separate fights — one immediate and one long term: right now we have the opportunity to stop $5bb being spent to promote government interference in health care and markets," Higgins wrote. "Stopping that happening strikes me as a good thing and worth doing, and precisely the thing your email below makes clear you want to see happen."

In an April 19 email, Higgins took direct aim at Roy, questioning his insistence that the message must be "we oppose Obamacare. Period."

"Is your view that it is better to find acceptable only demands for full repeal, knowing that won't happen while Obama is president, and knowing that full implantation is rapidly approach long before then?" she wrote.

That drew a strong rebuke from Matt Hoskins, a former top aide to DeMint.

"Is this a serious question? Chip's boss fought to defund Obamacare but a bunch of Republicans wimped out and voted to pass the CR that funds the implementation of this horrible law," Hoskins countered in a terse April 19 email.

Indeed, one of the most intriguing aspects of the emails is the clear alliance between Cruz and those close to DeMint. In addition to Hoskins, former senior aide Ed Corrigan repeatedly bashed the legislation, as did Russ Vought, the political director at Heritage Action.

In one missive, Vought explicitly warned his colleagues that despite their concerns — and reportedly aggressive lobbying from Cantor's office — Heritage Action would come out against the bill.

"The Club will not be alone in this. Heritage Action will oppose as well. We are opposed to federal high risk pools and don't believe Congress should be expanding Obamacare programs, even if it comes from savings within Obamacare," Vought wrote.

"It's also a fake payfor — Obamacare is not an acceptable offset for new spending. Nor does it make sense when House Republicans have not had a full repeal vote or shown any willingness to fight to defund Obamacare on the CR to suddenly go on the offense by fixing Obamacare. We will have more information soon," he added.

One notable group not on the list is the Club for Growth, a major player in conservative politics who not only opposed the bill but also key voted it.

The Club's absence from the discussion was not lost on members of the listserv. When discussion turned toward the Club's opposition to the bill, Campaign for Liberty's Norm Singleton asked, "Is anyone from Club for Growth on this list?"

Higgins explained they had pulled out "because, as [Club spokesman] Barney Keller informed me, 'The people on that listserv gave up on repeal a long time ago.'"

Rep. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, expressed frustration. "I don't understand what the problem is … this is an opportunity for Republicans to follow up on things we said we would do."

"Here's a chance to reduce the deficit [and] support people who are sick … perhaps not everybody is thrilled with this policy," Gardner said. "But it's better than what we have now."

Ah, memories.

You may have heard the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is opening today!

But we wonder if it will include some of our 43rd president's most lovable moments?

Like his compelling questions to audiences.

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The red line. The White House is advising Congress that sarin gas has been used.

Free Syrian Army fighters move toward the front line in Deraa.

Via: Handout / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday that the government has evidence that chemical weapons have been employed in Syria, according to NBC News.

The use of chemical weapons has been the administration's stated "red line" which, when crossed, means the U.S. will intervene.

Hagel reportedly said that the specific agent used was sarin gas, and that it was done "on a small scale."

There have been allegations and some evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria before this, but this is the first time the U.S. government has confirmed their use.

The White House has sent a letter to Congress advising members that chemical weapons have been used.

Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed this information on Thursday, telling reporters that the government has evidence that chemical weapons were used in two instances.

Update: The letters sent from the White House to Sens. McCain and Levin are below:

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The current president casts his predecessor as aisle-crossing pragmatist.

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WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush always pitched himself as a man who could work with both parties, a characterization liberals often strongly rejected. But after four years of partisan gridlock in Washington, one of Bush's strongest critics — the man who currently holds his old job — appears to be coming around to a belief that Bush had a point.

At two appearances in Texas this week, President Obama pointed to bipartisan successes by Bush that Obama said should be a lesson for the modern day Republicans who seem bent on rejecting everything the White House proposes.

"I'm really looking forward to attending the Bush Library opening tomorrow," Obama told Democratic donors at a DNC even in Dallas Thursday night, "and one of the things I will insist upon is that whatever our political differences, President Bush loves this country and loves its people and shared that same concern and was concerned about all people in America, not just some, not just those who voted Republican."

At the DNC event, focused of course on raising gobs of money to ensure there are fewer Republicans in Washington, Obama went out of his way to promise more bipartisan efforts even as he pushes for Democratic campaign victories.

"Occasionally, I may make some of you angry because I am going to reach out to Republicans. I'm going to keep on doing it. Even if some of you guys think I'm a sap, I will keep on doing it" — the audience laughed — "because I think that's what the country needs."

Obama said he and the GOP had come together on "national security and keeping America safe," but he said that accomplishing his big domestic policy goals required Democratic control of Congress.

The next morning at the dedication of Bush's presidential library, Obama made a direct appeal to prominent Washington Republicans in the audience to pick up a domestic bipartisan example from Bush.

"We remember his commitment to reaching across the aisle," Obama said of Bush. "To unlikely allies like Ted Kennedy."

Kennedy and Bush worked together to draft the No Child Left Behind law (that may Democrats now criticize.) But Obama said Bush and the late liberal Democratic senator were able to join forces out of an understanding "that we have to help every child learn, not just some."

Turning to the current fight over immigration reform, Obama cast his push to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants in America as a continuation of the failed bipartisan effort launched by Bush in his second term. He singled out Republicans in the crowd and called on them to help.

"This progress is only possible when we do it together," Obama said. "Even though comprehensive immigration reform took a little longer than we expected, I am hopeful that this year, with the help of Speaker Bohener and some of the Senators and members of Congress who are here today, that we bring it home."

"If we do that, it will be in large part thanks to the hard work of President George W. Bush," Obama said.

“The risk that we're especially concerned over right now is the lone wolf terrorist.”

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Via:

President Obama warned in 2011 that the possibility of a "lone wolf" terrorist attack — similar to what the Boston bombings appear to be — was the greatest national security threat America faced in the post-9/11 age.

Obama was speaking with CNN's Wolf Blitzer weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 2,000 people.

"The biggest concern we have right now is not the launching of a major terrorist operation, although that risk is always there. The risk that we're especially concerned over right now is the lone wolf terrorist," the president said. "Somebody with a single weapon being able to carry out wide-scale massacres of the sort that we saw in Norway recently. You know, when you've got one person who is deranged or driven by a hateful ideology, they can do a lot of damage, and it's a lot harder to trace those lone wolf operators."

The president continued, adding that intelligence agencies were staying "vigilant" against terrorist threats, especially in the wake of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We're spending a lot of time monitoring and gathering information," he said. "I think that we generally have to stay vigilant. There may be a little extra vigilance during 9/11."

He continued, "I think the most likely scenario that we have to guard against right now ends up being more of a lone wolf operation than a large, well-coordinated terrorist attack. We still have to stay on top of it, though, and we're never letting our guard down, that's part of our job."

According to reports Tuesday, Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told FBI investigators that he and his brother operated alone and without aid from terrorist organizations. The Los Angeles Times reported terrorist experts, such as Brian Jenkins of RAND Corporation, suspect the brothers follow a pattern of alienated youth self-radicalizing.

New York Congressman Peter King, the former chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said Wednesday it was too early to say if the Tsarnaev brothers attacked alone.

"I don't see how we can accept that," King said, according to The Hill. "It may end up being the truth, but this is a person who is a mass murderer. He's a person who barely can speak, speak at all. I don't see why he would be giving up any accomplices anyhow or talk about any connections his brother might have had in Chechnya or Russia."

The administration refuses to say what this means.

A view shows a building damaged by what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad in Arbaeen near Damascus.

Via: Handout / Reuters

WASHINGTON — A White House official said on Thursday that "all options are on the table" in Syria after U.S. intelligence has shown that the Assad regime likely used chemical weapons against its own people.

"All options are on the table in terms of our response," said the official on a call with reporters, while declining to say firmly whether or not Assad has crossed the red line that will prompt American intervention and saying there was still a need for more information.

"The president's red line is the use of chemical weapons or transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups," the official said. "Our standard of evidence has to build on these intelligence assessments. We believe it's necessary to continue to investigate to corroborate that information."

"No one should have any mistake about what our red line is," the official said. "It is when we firmly establish that chemical weapons have been used in Syria."

"It is very important that we are able to establish this with certainty," the official said. "The simplest way is for the UN investigation to have the access that it needs to do a credible investigation."

The official said that the intelligence had come from "a broad mosaic of information, some of it is physiological." He declined to give details, though Danger Room has reported that the intelligence came from blood samples.

"We are going to be methodical, rigorous, and relentless" in gathering more information, the official said.

The official refused to say whether or not he expected that the U.S. will have to intervene.

"What we ultimately do will be informed by what we think will make the biggest difference," the official said.

He said the White House does not believe anyone other than the Assad regime used chemical weapons.

"We're very skeptical that the use of chemical weapons could be attributed to anyone other than the Assad regime in Syria," the official said.

Fears the public announcement of evidence of chemical weapons may provoke Assad.

Via: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

WASHINGTON — Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein said Thursday that the "red line" in Syria had been crossed and that the U.S. must take action.

"The intelligence community has assessed that Syria has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the Syrian opposition," Feinstein said in a statement. "This has now been acknowledged by the Secretary of Defense and the White House. The Senate Intelligence Committee has been briefed on the intelligence behind this assessment and has followed this matter very closely."

Feinstein continued by saying that it's clear that the red line the administration has identified as its cue to intervene in Syria has been crossed, and calling for action from the UN Security Council. She expressed concern that the news would instigate Bashar al-Assad to go further:

I am very concerned that with this public acknowledgement, President Assad may calculate he has nothing more to lose and the likelihood he will further escalate this conflict therefore increases. It is also important that the world understands the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as sarin, will not be countenanced, and clearly Assad must go.

It is clear that 'red lines' have been crossed and action must be taken to prevent larger scale use. Syria has the ability to kill tens of thousands with its chemical weapons. The world must come together to prevent this by unified action which results in the secure containment of Syria's significant stockpile of chemical weapons.

In the basis of this new assessment, which is matched by France and the United Kingdom, I urge the United Nations Security Council—including Russia—to finally take strong and meaningful action to end this crisis in Syria.

Omar Hammami's latest.

Via: Farah Abdi Warsameh, File / AP

WASHINGTON — Alabama native and former Al-Shabaab jihadi Omar Hammami livetweeted an alleged attempt on his life on Thursday by one of his former fellow fighters.

Hammami, also known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki, is an American who moved to Somalia to join Al-Shabaab, a militant group there, and achieved a level of Internet fame for his jihadi raps.

He had a falling-out with Shabaab and has since been engaged in a war of words with them over the Internet. He has accused Shabaab of plotting to kill him.

He is a frequent Twitter user and has a following mostly of national security experts and journalists, whom he sometimes interacts with. Hammami is currently living in an undisclosed location in Somalia.

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Another Mideast crisis brewing…

Yes, that is "world's #1 Barack Obama impersonator" Reggie Brown doing his patriotic duty in this mildly humorous Israeli "Big America" spot.

And so — the unprecedented worldwide advertising exploitation of Barack Obama continues...

Ad agency: YEHOSHUA/TBWA, Tel Aviv.

UPDATE: This isn't a new commercial. McDonald's ran the same ad five years, with the most of same footage, using a bad George W. Bush impersonator. See ad below. (Thank you, Uri Fintzy.)

Ray Chambers on investing to stop the disease.

Source: youtube.com

“Have you found your special freedom lover?” A dating site specifically for fans of conspiracy theorist and media personality Alex Jones.

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“When you read some of these laws you want to check the calendar to make sure you’re still living in 2013,” Obama says.

Via: Evan Vucci, File / AP

WASHINGTON — President Obama reaffirmed his support for abortion rights at a speech during the Planned Parenthood annual conference Friday, and condemned an ongoing state-by-state conservative push to limit access to abortion services or ban the practice all together.

Many state legislatures under Republican control after the 2010 elections have worked hard to put a pro-life agenda into place, a battle that abortion rights supporters say threatens many women's right to choose enshrined in Roe v. Wade.

Obama shared concerns about this in his speech Friday. Citing a new North Dakota law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Obama suggested that law effectively banned abortion outright. "A woman may not even know that she's pregnant at six weeks," he said.

Reaching back into rhetoric from the campaign trail — when Obama and other Democrats often accused Republicans of trying to take the country back to the 1950s when it came to women's rights — Obama said the new state anti-abortion laws seem retro.

"When you read some of these laws you want to check the calendar to make sure you're still living in 2013," he said.

Gay conservatives Jimmy LaSalvia and Chris Barron are stepping down from their day-to-day roles at GOProud. Of his comments lambasting conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, Barron says, “I have one regret working here. I regret apologizing for calling her a bigot.”

Jimmy LaSalvia addresses the crowd at the group's Homocon party at the 2012 Republican National Convention.

WASHINGTON — GOProud, the bombastic group for gay conservatives and their allies, is going to be going through some major changes in the coming months, as the two co-founders, executive director Jimmy LaSalvia and senior strategist Chris Barron, plan to step back from their day-to-day roles with the group as a new executive director is selected.

"It's time. We don't want it to get stale," LaSalvia said, who along with Barron founded GOProud four years ago as a more conservative, grassroots alternative to the Log Cabin Republicans.

"The reason why GOProud has been so successful is because we have brought new ideas and new energy to the arena. At some point, what was the outside-the-box thinking all of the sudden becomes the box, and so now, that's the way that GOProud does things. It's our box. It seems crazy to everyone else, but, for us, it's like standard operating procedure. It's time for someone else to come in and shake things up," Barron added.

GOProud has become known in that time for its outrageous moves and its in-your-face style. From hosting Ann Coulter at its first Homocon party in New York City to Barron calling prominent conservative DC attorney Cleta Mitchell a "nasty bigot," GOProud has stayed in the news while making in-roads into the conservative movement in a way that no one had done before.

"As Chris says always, there was this little patch of ground that nobody else wanted — and that's where GOProud is," LaSalvia said. "We built a foundation on that patch of ground, and I'm really kind of excited to see where it goes from here."

They've done so with support from a number of straight conservatives, including board chair Lisa De Pasquale; Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist; former CPAC organizer David Keene; Republican strategist Liz Mair; and, early on, the late Andrew Breitbart, who hosted a party on GOProud's behalf at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in 2011.

Barron said he was most proud of that inclusion of prominent straight conservatives in their efforts at GOProud.

"The movement for LGBT folks in this country will be successful not when we convince everybody who's gay that we're right; it will be successful when we convince the rest of America. We've always wanted GOProud to be not just gay conservatives; we wanted it to be people who were conservative and supported gay people," he said.

"That's been the real flexing of the muscle. Tony Perkins could care less about just gay conservatives. It's very easy to marginalize us. It's a lot harder … when it's all of these grassroots and grasstop straight conservatives …. That's a different fight."

It was, however, Barron's fight with Mitchell — and the larger battle over GOProud's inclusion in CPAC — where the group has perhaps traversed the most ground. Co-sponsoring the event in 2010 and 2011, the group had been excluded from co-sponsorship in 2012 and 2013 — largely because of Mitchell.

At this year's CPAC, the tide appeared to be changing, with the panel in support of moderating the Republican party's views on gay issues — a panel on which LaSalvia spoke — being overwhelmingly more supported by attendees than a panel helmed by Mitchell and featuring the National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown.

"I have one regret working here," Barron said on Tuesday. "I regret apologizing for calling her a bigot. I had multiple people — big-time people in the conservative movement — who told me I made one mistake at that CPAC, and the one mistake was apologizing."

Jimmy LaSalvia, seated center, speaking at this year's CPAC.

Via: Chris Geidner/Buzzfeed

LaSalvia and Barron saw the response at this year's CPAC as good closure for their tenure at the helm of the organization.

"There's been one thing that's been a constant the whole four years, and that was CPAC. It was an ongoing battle, and it's something that we fought for our entire existence, and we won this year: We won CPAC," LaSalvia said.

Going forward, LaSalvia said "I think that, after the election, that it's more important than ever to make sure that we marginalize people who are so far out of the mainstream, and that's what I'm going to continue to do and that's what GOProud is going to continue to do."

LaSalvia said that the board will be forming a search committee for a new executive director and that he will remain in his role during the search. As for the timing, he said, "I would hope, if they're not in place, that they're chosen by the end of June."

De Pasquale, the board chair, told BuzzFeed Friday, "Since founding GOProud four years ago, Jimmy and Chris have led the organization above and beyond everyone's expectations," and said "the organization is always forward-thinking in its work and that Jimmy and Chris are dedicated to its continued success. I'm excited about what's in store for GOProud as it continues to grow."

As for their plans, while both will remain on the board, Barron said he will focus on his other consulting work and LaSalvia declined to say specifically where he's going.

"I'll just say, what we've done here hasn't gone unnoticed, and I'm really grateful to some opportunities that are coming my way," LaSavia said.

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“There will be GIFs,” new site promises.

WASHINGTON — Mark it down in the history books: April 26, 2013, was the day the White House joined Tumblr.

In keeping with the Obama administration's use of social media to push its messaging — and, critics say, avoid the press — the White House announced via Twitter Friday that the administration has launched a Tumblr page.

President Obama used Tumblr extensively during the 2012 campaign, but that account has been converted to use by Organizing for Action, the group focused on pushing Obama's agenda. The White House announcement was the second time the president launched a new social media account in less than a week: On Monday, the White House posted its first Vines during a science fair on the White House grounds.

The White House promises to make full use of its new Tumblr page, encouraging Americans to interact with the White House through the site.

"We'll post things like the best quotes from President Obama, or video of young scientists visiting the White House for the science fair, or photos of adorable moments with Bo. We've got some wonky charts, too. Because to us, those are actually kind of exciting," reads the first post on the Tumblr page. "And yes, of course there will be GIFs."

A rare hearing on Chechnya, and a debate over Islam and independence.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats.

Via: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

A House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Islamic extremism in Chechnya on Friday did little to reveal any new insights about Chechnya or Chechens, but was the first time the often-neglected region has gotten any serious attention from Congress in years. It was also an unusual moment in which both Democrats and Republicans argued for a closer working relationship with Russia on these issues.

Chechnya and other areas of the North Caucasus remain a mystery to lawmakers, if the hearing, which featured a panel of think tank experts and professors, is any indication. The Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, couldn't get anyone from the State Department to come.

"We did try to get a State Department representative here," Rohrabacher said. "But they declined. They were too busy to send someone here to the US Congress to speak with the American people through public hearings like this."

"That may well be part of the problem," Rohrabacher continued. "This region has not gotten the attention it deserves." (A State Department spokesman didn't return a request for comment about the agency's absence at the hearing.)

The region is now getting enough attention to make up for the last dozen years of neglect in the news because of the background of the Tsarnaev brothers, ethnic Chechens who spent their childhoods in Kyrgyzstan and Dagestan. And the Boston attack has caused a rare moment of trust between the United States and Russia, as it has turned out Russia tried to warn U.S. authorities about one of the suspects well before the attacks.

"Central Asia as we are describing it and the Caucasus represent a huge chunk of the planet, and if that area comes under the control of radical Islam that makes it its job to attack the United States and other non-Muslim peoples, that will be a disaster for every person on this planet," Rohrabacher said.

He said the way to prevent this was by enlisting Russia's cooperation and with the governments of Central Asian nations. Rohrabacher said he had asked the Russian embassy to send over a witness; they had sent Andranik Migranyan, the president of a pro-Putin think tank in New York. "I'm sorry the Russian embassy can send people but the State Department won't," Rohrabacher said.

Rep. Bill Keating, who represents southeastern Massachusetts, agreed with Rohrabacher, saying "there is an undoubtedly a delicate balance between cooperation with Russia on counter-terrorism and concern over Russia's human rights abuses, but in no way should this hinder working together to protect the lives of innocent people."

"At the end of the day, that is what we all want," Keating said.

There was a debate at times among the members of Congress about certain aspects of Chechen politics, particularly about the difference between the effort to build an Islamic caliphate in the Caucasus and the secular struggle for Chechen independence from Russia.

Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had the impression that the Chechen fighters' cause "was much more than just a movement for Chechnyan independence, it was a more ambitious idea for a caliphate for the whole region." Royce was referring to the Caucasus Emirate, a movement that has been classified as a terrorist organization by Russia and by the United States. The UN Security Council in 2011 put the Caucasus Emirate on a list of organizations affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Paul Goble, a former State Department official for the region who is now a professor at the Institute of World Politics, acknowledged that there was a strain of Islamic extremism in Dagestan and Chechnya funded by foreign terrorism financiers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, but said that a secular Chechen independence movement still exists.

"I would argue there's stil a Chechen national movement that's committed to a secular and free Chechnya," Goble said. "It's been unsuccessful."

Rep. Rohrabacher accused Goble of saying that America had somehow invited the attacks.

"I'm trying to provide an explanation and an answer," Goble said. "I certainly do not believe that we bear responsibility either then or now for what happened."

"I do appreciate Mr. Goble's efforts to distinguish the Muslim religion from some of these extremist groups," Keating said.

Rep. Ted Poe, who said he was "irritated" by the fact that the State Department hadn't sent over a witness for the hearing, asked the witnesses about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's six-month stay in Dagestan in 2012.

"There are places in highland Dagestan where no outside official has ever been," Goble said. "I'm much more concerned about the six months in Dagestan than I am about the fact that he's an ethnic Chechen."

In closing, Rep. Rohrabacher gave another warning about the threat of Islamic extremism and threw in a mention of China.

"Radical Islam and China appear to be the main threat to the free world," Rohrabacher said before adjourning the hearing.

So many helium puns, so little time for Georgia's Hank Johnson.

Running against the popular, no-nonsense governor was always going to be tough business. But inside and outside New Jersey, Sen. Barbara Buono can't catch a break.

Via: Julio Cortez / AP

Barbara Buono, known more widely as the woman Democrats put forward to run against Chris Christie after Cory Booker took a pass, is asked her first question early, before the cameras go live and the set falls silent for the countdown to air. The state senator is in Hardball's Washington studio for a national television interview — her third-ever — and a rare chance to get her name on the screen and into the living rooms of Chris Matthews' tens of thousands of MSNBC viewers.

But first — before any talk about New Jersey, where Buono has experience two-decades-deep in the state legislature — a query from the cable news vet, as she later recalled it:

"Can I say you're attractive?" Matthews asks.

"No, you can't," Buono remembers responding.

She slogged to Washington for this?

When the segment begins, the talk, as it often does, centers on Buono's opponent — the popular, blustery incumbent Republican governor, whose approval rating hasn't seen the other side of 60 percent since a hurricane swept up the Eastern seaboard and lay waste to parts of the state last October, after which the straight-talking Christie picked up the pieces and shame-on-you'd federal lawmakers when they wouldn't vote on a funding relief bill before leaving the capitol for recess in January. New Jersey voters have been thanking him since.

And on the set of Hardball, even with Buono on-site, Christie doesn't lose his hero's shine. He is, says Matthews, "outspoken" and "no-nonsense"; he is "wildly popular"; he is "blunt" and "in-your-face"; he is, most simply, the "big guy," who seems, the host adds, "like a shoo-in" for reelection.

"So who would stand a chance of beating him? Well, presumptive Democratic nominee Barbara Buono hopes to." Matthews turns to his guest: "I admire your courage."

But a chyron on the bottom of the screen — "DAWN QUIXOTE" — spells death on arrival for the campaign, a quest as foolish as impossible.

The rest of the interview doesn't go much better: Matthews interrupts Buono mid-sentence 14 times, spends a hefty chunk of the five-minute segment on a nasty political ad that then-governor Jon Corzine ran against Christie in 2009 ("Didja like that ad?"), and when it comes time for a commercial break — Matthews extends a hand across the anchor desk. "You're very nice, senator."

Off the air, the host makes a sort of peace offering: "Oh, I was tough on you."

Buono disagreed. "I wasn't gonna give him the satisfaction," she later recalled, two weeks after the April interview. "I said, 'No you weren't.' And he said, 'But don't worry, people will all just be talking about how you were on Hardball.'"

"That's what this ass said," Buono added, standing outside a campaign event in Bayonne, N.J., just about six months out from Election Day. "It's early in the campaign. I'll remember that. But it's hard to know how to handle it, particularly as a woman. It's just hard. I keep thinking how I would have done it differently."

It may be the last interview Buono gives Hardball, but it won't be the only time she is interrupted or questioned or cast as a hopeless, forgotten cause.

The characterization is frequent, and not for reasons all that wrong. Recent poll numbers show Buono trailing the governor by what counts, in a state with two Democratic U.S. Senators, as an astonishing 32 percent spread. (Christie may be popular, but New Jersey has been and still is a blue state: Democrats hold a majority in both houses of the state legislature; voters haven't elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972; and the state was one of just four in which Obama did better in his second presidential campaign than in his first.)

And even though Buono, 59, has been a fixture in the legislature since 1994, serving recently as the first woman majority leader in the state Senate, the number-two spot, she is all but unknown inside the state — forget outside. In Trenton, she has been a vocal and spirited Democratic voice, a progressive contrast to Christie's first term, pushing issues like marriage equality, education funding, gun control, and environmental protection. But for five straight months, more than three-quarters of voters have said they don't know enough about Buono to form an opinion one way or the other, though she has steadily chipped away at that figure by one or two points each month. It doesn't help that she represents Middlesex County, a political bellwether smack in the center of the state, and a tough place to get yourself known, unlike the political hotbeds in the North and South.

"Outside of central Jersey, I'm not well known," she said, sipping hot tea during an interview at the Broadway Diner in Hudson County. "The gap in the polls between Christie and myself is a direct function of the name identification."

But how many times can one person answer the same question — No, but, do you actually think you can beat Chris Christie? Actually? Buono got it twice in one interview on another MSNBC show, Now with Alex Wagner, the week before her appearance with Matthews. Her response was simple, and pointed: "Can I beat Chris Christie? I wouldn't be running if I didn't think I could."

For Buono, the campaign is no light matter. She said she's done defending the seriousness of her candidacy — which appears, by most measures, to be very serious. (She is collecting the early backing of constituency groups and unions across the state; she is staffed up, with several operatives fresh from Obamaland; she has an operational campaign office in the old Rutgers Bookstore in New Brunswick; and she is risking her state Senate seat, which she has held for more than 10 years now, to run this race.)

"I'm not answering those questions anymore, just so you know. I've just decided time's up on that one," Buono said. "I think I've answered it enough times."

"You're probably gonna say I shouldn't say this," said Buono, turning to an aide in the diner booth. "But I mean, as a woman, I think I've been underestimated my entire life. And so you get used to it, and you just forge ahead and you just have to have a lot of faith in your ability to do the job, and that's the reason I am where I am now."

Cory Booker, the famous, telegenic mayor of Newark who was considering a bid for governor himself, has now become Buono's biggest surrogate inside and outside the state, by virtue of one public appearance, a campaign email, a fundraising conference call, and tweets about the senator from his well-followed account. Booker, who has a close relationship with Christie, is making the rounds for Buono, with whom he has also become friendly. ("They text!" an aide offered.)

"People will make a serious mistake by underestimating Barbara Buono," Booker said. Asked if gender has played a role in the response to her campaign, the mayor said, "I think we live in a world that has a long way to go before we see gender equality. That's a reality that Senator Buono is going to deal with."

But Booker doesn't buy the suggestion that gender is moving the dial one way or the other in the Buono-Christie race.

"I don't think that her gap in the polls right now has anything to do with gender issues," he said, adding that any candidate running against the incumbent governor would have "come out the block" with a polling deficit.

And those who know Buono well say that, regardless of the odds stacked against her, the state lawmaker has never been afraid to stare down a gap in the polls or play the lone soldier within her own party.

"Barbara's always been a bit of a maverick," said Democratic state Sen. Joe Vitale, who has known his colleague in the legislature for more than 20 years. "She always expresses her views and speaks her mind, but thoughtfully — she's not just glib, and she won't say something just to score points."

In a well-documented scrap with with Democratic leaders last year, she refused to vote for a pension and benefits plan supported by Senate president Steve Sweeney, a position that ultimately cost Buono her post as majority leader. During Christie's first year in office, she called a meeting for state progressives — not just lawmakers, but environmentalists and labor unions and college students — to talk about the direction of the state, in the basement of Tumulty's Pub in New Brunswick, where a hundred people ended up coming. The meeting, said Buono, was "clarion call" to consider a possible campaign for governor.

Buono said she doesn't have much of a relationship with the governor. The senator chalked it up to an early disagreement over Christie's declaration of a "fiscal state of emergency" in 2010, an executive order that allowed him to make broad cuts to resolve a $2.2 billion deficit. Buono claimed publicly at the time that the budget move was "akin to imposing martial law."

"He declared a fiscal state of emergency, and the first place he went to cut was public education, and I called him out on it," said Buono. "And he didn't like it. He doesn't take well to criticism."

It was because her willingness to issue a challenge, said Vitale, that Buono emerged as the unopposed Democratic candidate, skirting a primary altogether. "She's the only one that would step up within the party to make this challenge — all the others couldn't or wouldn't for whatever reason, god bless," he said.

Still: That the presumptive nominee is so easily dismissed as a "Dawn Quixote" candidate is a fact that not only frustrates the Buono campaign, but depresses state Democrats who aren't quite willing to throw in the towel on the race. Some question privately whether New Jersey is getting the same support and attention from the national party apparatus as this year's gubernatorial contest in Virginia, where polls are tighter between the longtime Clinton aide, Terry McAuliffe, and the state's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli.

One New Jersey Democratic official suggested that the any potential to curb the political rise of Christie, whose name is floated for the next presidential race as much as any Republican's, should be reason enough to put more national Democratic muscle behind the Buono campaign effort.

"Why wouldn't national party leaders want to use this race as ground zero and cut this off before it gets started," said the state official, of Christie's growing national platform. "He wants to carry the state by at least 55 percent or better, and if he performs like that in November, the sky is the limit for him."

The Democratic Governors Association, the main body charged with fundraising for and electing blue heads of state, has been visible in both races, sending daily messages over email and social media to supporters about New Jersey and Virginia. But in the months closer to Election Day, when the group places its first television ad buys, it's all but inevitable that Virginia will get more money than New Jersey, according to a Democratic strategist with ties to the DGA.

"It's clear that the 'Christie comeback' is a complete fantasy," said the source, citing New Jersey's unemployment rate, which has been stuck at or above nine percent since 2009. "But he was up 30 points three months ago, and he's up 30 points now. With that in mind, it just makes sense to target a state like Virginia more aggressively when you're up against a highly flawed candidate."

(The scales may also tip toward Virginia, because getting on the air in New Jersey, a state that doesn't have its own media market, is simply expensive. Campaigns have to purchase airtime by way of New York City and Philadelphia, both more expensive markets than Virginia.)

But in an interview earlier this month, the chair of the DGA, Vermont's Gov. Peter Shumlin, said the group's efforts were being split down the middle.

"We're making equal efforts in New Jersey and Virginia," he said. "No question that you can read the polls as well as we can. We know right now that if the election were held today, we've got a better chance of winning Virginia than New Jersey, but we think that could change."

Buono and her aides say they have no complaints about the level of national support they've received so far, and they're in the process of courting more. The state senator had former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on a fundraising call last week, and she met earlier this month with another former governor, Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell, who told her she had his support. "I came in, and he said, 'You don't have to sell yourself, I like you, I think you can do it, I want to help,'" Buono said of their meeting. "I thought, 'Okay, this is nice.'"

EMILY's List, the Washington-based group that recruits and works to elect pro-choice women, gave the campaign its endorsement early — in late February — to help combat the widespread sense that Christie was "unbeatable," said Stephanie Schriock, the group's president.

"I think she will get more national support. We got in early because we knew that there was going to be this view that he was unbeatable," said Schriock. "We knew if we could start laying some groundwork, that it would open up the door for other national organizations to get it, and I think that's going to happen."

The group says it has spent the last two months promoting Buono and educating supporters about Christie's record on women's health. On multiple occasions, EMILY's List has appealed to members online to donate directly to Buono's campaign, though the group did not provide information as to how much money its directed to the race. Buono, for her part, said the organization has been "enormously supportive" with the "formidable resources that they bring to bear."

Cory Booker — another substantial wing of Buono's national-level support — has vowed to spend the year "crisscrossing the state" for her candidacy. In an interview Thursday, Booker said he couldn't understand "how people think this is gonna be a blowout. We haven't seen that in New Jersey in decades. It's just not gonna be the case."

"The national support is going to come. That doesn't worry me right now," said Booker. "She's already raising money from outside the state."

But Buono, who has opted to participate in the state's matching funds program, has raised just under $700,000 since December, and is expected to fall short of the state's maximum matching benchmark — a first for the party nominee. It's a sign of the factions in the state party that have splintered around Buono, ever since it became evident at the end of January that she would become the nominee, whether Democrats in the state liked it or not.

The Essex County boss, Joe DiVincenzo, is one big-name Democrat who has refused to endorse Buono, and was instead seen palling around with Christie, posing for photos with the governor, his friend, earlier this month at Turtle Back Zoo's new sea lion exhibit.

And while Buono's name recognition is slowly increasing across the state, it's implausible she'll cross the threshold into Chris Christie territory. One of her biggest news days on the campaign trail came on the heels of a minor car crash, with Buono in the backseat, when a campaign statement disclosed — in a subordinate clause, tucked between two commas — that the candidate hadn't been wearing her seatbelt. Buono hasn't seen too much ink since then.

The plan, then, for the six months is to get Buono "in front of as many people as possible," said her campaign manager, Jonathan Ducote.

"When they see her, they come to her, and they come to her fast, and they stay," Ducote said. "We need as many advocates as we can find, day in and day out, to help us talk about her vision and message."

As unlikely as her chances seem, six months out from Tuesday, Nov. 5, Buono doesn't seem worried by the slow-moving name-ID numbers, by the still wide gap in the polls. She doesn't seem weary, and she doesn't seem shaken by the knocks against her campaign — "If I focused on all the chatter," she says, "I wouldn't be able to do my job" — but it's hard to know.

At a campaign event outside Bayonne High School last Tuesday — where Buono is set to receive an endorsement from the New Jersey Environmental Federation, a group that favored Christie over Corzine in 2009 — a cold drizzle comes down over three campaign staffers, twelve reporters, three television cameras, three environmentalist and one candidate.

Buono stands alongside NJEF members who sing her green praises as the rain comes down cold and heavy in front of the school — "The Home Of The Fighting Bees" — chosen as the press conference site for its solar panel roof installation.

The senator, speaking last, cuts her remarks short because of the rain. "I can see everybody's being food soldiers here," says Buono. "You're shivering. I'm gonna be very quick." But she doesn't leave the podium before mentioning Maryland governor Martin O'Malley — "my friend!" — for showing that green jobs do benefit the economy. "It can be done," says Buono.

When the event is over, the crowd thins, the press packs up their gear, the senator is ushered under a green umbrella, and an attending state official can be heard telling a staffer, "I know, man. It's not easy."

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"There were numerous Republicans that voted against the sequestration because we knew all of these calamities were in the future. And so it reminds me of the Shakespeare line: 'Thou protestest too much.'" — Michele Bachmann

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Via: mediaite.com