Sen. Chuck Schumer says while he strongly supports protections for same-sex couples, his “Republican colleagues feel very strongly that if this is in the bill they would not be able to support it.”

Via: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Schumer refused to commit to voting to add same-sex couple protections to comprehensive immigration reform legislation, warning it could derail the a bipartisan effort to move the bill this year.

When asked if he would support an amendment providing visas to foreign spouses in a same-sex marriage, Schumer, a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight which wrote the Senate's immigration bill, told reporters, "I'm not going get into speculatives. I would very much like to see it in the bill. But we have to have a bill that has support to get [the language] passed. That's the conundrum."

Schumer, however, did say the language has become a major stumbling block for the gang and warned it could scuttle the entire bill if it is added.

"Look, this one is something, you know, I worry about all the time. I'm a good sleeper but I wake up in the morning thinking of these things … Our four Republican colleagues feel very strongly that if this is in the bill they would not be able to support it," Schumer said.

The New York Democrat's comments came as the Judiciary Committee has begun marking up the bill, a process that is expected to take several weeks. Although Chairman Patrick Leahy has filed a same-sex marriage amendment, it remains unclear if he will actually push for a vote on it during the committee's work on the bill, push it off until the floor debate or simply drop the issue altogether.

Human Rights Campaign vice president for communications Fred Sainz said the nation's largest LGBT rights group expects Schumer to stand behind the amendment.

"If Chairman Leahy offers either amendment he filed, and given Sen Schumer's long-record of supporting LGBT equality, we would expect the Senator to support either of them," Sainz told BuzzFeed.

Immigration Equality went further, with spokesman Steve Ralls saying, "Senator Schumer voted for DOMA in 1996, and binational couples are still suffering the consequences."

Flew multiple presidents for +30 years.

This beautiful plane, which has been used as Air Force One multiple times, is now for sale.

Via: gsaauctions.gov

She flew in the service of the United Stated government for 30 glorious years, transporting the President, Vice-President, First Ladies and thousands of other dignitaries.

According to the GSA: "In the thirty years this aircraft was assigned to the 89th Airlift Wing (Feb 1975-Sep 2005) it flew Presidential missions, Vice President, First Lady, Cabinet Secretaries (Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, others), Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, Four-Star Generals, Admirals, Foreign Heads of State and other foreign dignitaries."

According to pictures posted on the government's bid page, the plane has a spiffy cockpit.

Via: gsaauctions.gov

Overhead luggage space.

Via: gsaauctions.gov

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Conservatives face questions over the people they’re relying on to support their opposition to immigration reform. One says Hispanics have a lower IQ than “native white Americans.” Another says pregnant women shouldn’t be allowed in the US.

Via: Damian Dovarganes / AP

WASHINGTON — Pro-immigration conservatives warn a Heritage Foundation scholar's dissertation claim that Hispanic immigrants are genetically predisposed to be less intelligent than "native white Americans" is just the tip of the iceberg, arguing opponents have allied themselves with pro-abortion environmentalists, xenophobes and other questionable scholars.

Heritage officials distanced the group from Jason Richwine after his past scholarship was revealed Wednesday. In a lengthy statement posted to the Heritage website, spokesperson Mike Gonzalez said that Richwine's past work was no reflection on Heritage, and that his views on race and IQ were not part of the Heritage study finding immigration reform would cost American taxpayers more than $6 trillion in the long run.

But pro-reform Republicans say Heritage shouldn't get off that easily, and that Richwine's past statements have seriously undermined his work for the conservative think tank.

"I'm glad that Heritage distanced themselves from those particular quotes and his particular work, but the fact is [Richwine] is there, and you know unless they get rid of him he's going to keep writing about this stuff and he's going to keep writing about it with this worldview. And I don't see how it can't impact the study he co-authored [for Heritage] because basically in that, they assume that all 11 million immigrants are going to remain poor and their kids are going to remain poor," Mario Lopez, president of the GOP-leaning and pro-reform Hispanic Leadership Fund, told BuzzFeed. "It's no wonder they assume that if they think that these people are too stupid to do anything else. It absolutely has an impact on the way we should look at that study."

Pro-reform conservatives told BuzzFeed Heritage's study is now too hot too handle.

"I can't see how any serious Member of Congress can cite any piece of this study, lest they endorse discredited static methodology and the idea that immigrants are incapable of upward mobility," said a senior official at one pro-reform group. "This study is not deserving of the Heritage Foundation's endorsement. Heritage has a reputation of sound, credible, conservative policy analysis; the Rector/Richwine piece reflects none of this."

Richwine is not the only scholar conservative immigration opponents in the current debate have relied on and who've published eyebrow-raising views in the past. The Heritage Richwine snafu will bring fresh scrutiny to other scholars, immigration advocates said.

"Now everything that Richwine has ever been associated with is now tarnished," said an official at another pro-reform, conservative-leaning group. "And now every other scholar is going to be under a microscope."

Two leading voices from the Center for Immigration Studies — an anti-immigration thinktank that traces its roots to John Tanton, a Michigan doctor and member of the zero population growth movement who founded chapters of Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club while writing about the dangers of an end to America's "European-American majority" —have been a big part of opposition to immigration reform on Capitol Hill. Supporters of reform have long tried to make CIS scholarship toxic, and therefore irrelevant, in the debate but up to now they have failed and CIS remains a big part of immigration in Washington.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, Republican from Alabama, hosted a conference call with CIS Research Director Stephen Camarota to oppose comprehensive reform. Last month, both Camorata and CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian tesified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform.

Both Camarota and Krikorian have said things pro-immigration groups call at best extreme and at worst racist. Camarota told a conservative radio show earlier this month that a class of "professional ethnics" (he was answering a question about Attorney General Eric Holder at the time) are trying to "balkanize the country" by calling for rules allowing non-English speakers access to ballots and other government documents. President Obama has called for applicants to "learn English" as part of a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

Krikorian regularly writes for National Review about immigration and other topics. In 2009 he wrote, "While in the past there may well have been too much social pressure for what sociologists call Anglo-conformity, now there isn't enough." Krikorian's views on regulating immigration are far beyond those of mainstream Republican opposition to comprehensive reform. In 2010, he told told ABC News that it should be US policy to deny pregnant foreign women entry to the country, lest they give birth to new American citizens by having their babies on U.S. soil.

Sessions' office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Krikorian's and Camarota's past statements.

After Richwine, immigration supporters say scholars like Krikorian and Camarota will become a liability for anti-reform conservatives.

"I predict Richwine will be the straw that breaks the camel's back," said Frank Sharry, founder of America's Voice, a pro-reform advocacy group that often supports Democrats. "It will force opponents to distance themselves from the ugly influence of white nationalism that has infected the opposition for too long or marginalized it further for not doing so."

The senior official at the conservative reform supporting group was quick to draw a line between CIS and its affiliated groups and Heritage, but said it was time for fresh scruitiny.

"I wouldn't lump Heritage in with CIS, NumbersUSA, and FAIR -- Heritage is actually a productive member of the conservative movement," he said. "The others are population control zealots who dislike newborn babies just the same as they dislike immigrants. But perhaps those using Tanton talking points to inform their views on this issue should scrutinize the founding motivations of these anti-immigration groups."

Pro-immigration conservatives have tried to turn CIS into a liability before. No matter how many stories and op-eds get written about CIS (and they get written often), the group and its leaders remain a central part of the anti-reform cause. Lopez came under fire from anti-reform voices after he wrote a long essay tracking the historical ties between groups like CIS and the zero population movement, which supports abortion rights. Krikorian accused Lopez of "Borking" anti-immigration conservatives and said his group "has never taken, and will never take, any position on abortion or euthanasia — or on the flat tax or defense spending either, for that matter."

But Lopez said conservatives are now ready to be critical of the scholars whose work is being used to drive anti-immigration conversations in the Republican Party.

"There are more people on the right this time who understand exactly who those folks are and what their views are and how politically damaging it is to be in bed with folks whose fundamental interests lie in direct conflict with conservative principles," "If some folks disagree with the Rubio bill for whatever reason, you know, that's fine. I might disagree with them but that's a reasonable position that's defensible. What's not defensible is burying your head in the sand and saying, 'oh, it's OK that CIS and FAIR and NumbersUSA are population control groups because I happen to agree with them on immigration.' I think that's not an intellectually honest approach."

The Senate will vote and is expected to pass the bill Monday, and Gov. Mark Dayton has said he will sign it. Minnesota would be the 12th state, plus DC, with marriage equality.

Rep. Karen Clark, in red, walks to the House floor Thursday, May 9, 2013.

The Minnesota House voted 75-59 Thursday to pass a marriage equality bill through the legislature, passing the most significant hurdle the bill faces before becoming law.

Rep. Karen Clark, an out lesbian who has been in the legislature since 1981, is the lead sponsor of the bill and led of the several hours of debate.

"In closing friends, I just invite you to say yes to marriage equality," Clark asked, after noting that Allan Spear, who died in 2008 and was Minnesota's first out lawmaker "would be proud" of the House's action Thursday.

The vote for passage came after lawmakers voted down an amendment to replace "marriage" with "civil unions" in the bill — a move by Republican Rep. Tim Kelly that would have effectively eliminated marriage in Minnesota. The vote against the amendment was 22-111.

The Senate is expected to vote on — and pass — the bill on Monday, and Gov. Mark Dayton has pledged to sign the bill if it passes.

The Passed Marriage Equality Bill Vote:

The Failed "Civil Unions" Vote:

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From Washington state to Washington, DC, and from the Rhode Island statehouse to the Supreme Court of the United States, the country is very different from just last May.

Via: Alex Wong / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — In a city exemplified by the Senate, where a majority vote can be a losing proposition, the tortured and extended path President Obama took to supporting marriage equality for same-sex couples was not unexpected.

What has been unexpected — even by many of the most prominent supporters of marriage equality — has been the path that both the president and the country have taken since Obama announced on May 9, 2012, "I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

The opposite of gridlock, Obama's move — whether cause, effect or some combination of the two — was followed by the clearing of a pathway to significant movement for recognition of gay and lesbian couples' marriage rights in the year since.

On Wednesday, without noting the pending anniversary of Obama's announcement, White House press secretary Jay Carney noted simply that Obama views marriage rights for same-sex couples as "a fundamental issue of equal rights."

That simple statement was a far cry from a very long press briefing last year in which Carney spent most of his time attempting to deflect questions about Obama's views on marriage in the days in between Vice President Joe Biden's Sunday comments supportive of marriage equality on Meet the Press and Obama's Wednesday interview with ABC's Robin Roberts.

It even was a marked departure from the administration's initial reluctance to announce whether it would be supporting the plaintiffs seeking to have California's Proposition 8 ruled unconstitutional — although it eventually did side with them at the Supreme Court.

From a 2008 campaign opposing same-sex couples' marriage rights to a 2012 campaign supporting them as a personal matter but remaining agnostic as to whether couples had a constitutional right to marry, Obama now views marriage equality as "a fundamental issue of equal rights."

Although opposition remains, the country has moved right along with Obama on the once-divisive issue in five key ways.

The Party

Via: Jae C. Hong / AP

In Charlotte, the Democratic Party formally endorsed marriage equality as part of its platform in September 2012. Although Obama was not the first to endorse its inclusion in the platform — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was one of the first prominent elected officials to do so — his announcement on May 9, 2012, all but sealed the deal for its inclusion.

Prior to Obama's evolution on the issue, several advocates saw the growing divide between the party's more liberal members and Obama on the issue as a potential sticking point at the convention.

With Obama on board, though, the measure was easily adopted, as were other pro-LGBT provisions.

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Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and co-author of a controversial report on the economic costs of immigration reform, said at a 2008 event that the “most important way” race was different was in IQ. He made similar comments in a 2009 PhD dissertation, which have received attention this week.

At an event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute in 2008, Richwine said Jews had the highest average IQs and singled out blacks and Hispanics as having the lowest IQs.

He said IQ differences "were not going to go away tomorrow" and "we have to address them in our immigration discussions and our debates."

The Washington Post first reported on Richwine's 2009 PhD dissertation, which argued the same position.

Here's the video of him speaking at the event in 2008.

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Via:

Attendance will be free and open to the public. Clinton's husband gave the same lecture at the upstate New York school nearly ten years ago.

Via: @briansobotko

Hamilton College's student newspaper, The Spectator, announced Thursday that Hillary Clinton would headline their "Great Names" this October. The speech is Clinton's first yet scheduled that will be open to the public with free admission.

The small liberal arts school, located in upstate New York, has drawn names as big as Clinton's for the lecture series throughout the last two decades. Past speakers include former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter; former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Madeleine Albright; and former vice president Al Gore.

According the Spectator, Clinton is set to speak on Oct. 4. The college traditionally hosts the "Great Names" lecture during the spring semester, but rescheduled "in order to align with Clinton's availability," the paper said.

A Hamilton College spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment as to whether Clinton would be paid for the speech, though it is not uncommon for colleges like Hamilton to dole out large sums for big-name speakers.

“I know the difference between a reporter and a terrorist propagandist.” May says.

The Newseum's Journalists Memorial.

Via: Wikimedia Commons

WASHINGTON — A pro-Israel think tank in Washington is so concerned over the Newseum's honoring of two slain Palestinian journalists with links to Hamas that they may consider pulling their annual policy summit from the venue, two top officials at the organization indicated on Thursday.

"I'll be putting in a call to the CEO of the Newseum first thing tomorrow morning," Cliff May, the president of the hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said in an email to BuzzFeed. "I'm hoping he'll tell me there's been a misunderstanding – or a re-thinking once it became clear that these 'journalists' were members of designated terrorist organizations."

May said his position has less to do with his group's support for Israel than its opposition to terrorist tactics.

"If the Newseum were commemorating members of designated terrorist organizations whose main targets were Americans or Christians or Kurds or Malian Sufi Muslims, our concern would not be lessened," he said in a follow-up email.

The Newseum, a journalism museum and event venue in Washington, is honoring journalists who were killed on the job this past year in a ceremony on May 13, a plan first noticed by the conservative Weekly Standard. Two of those journalists, Hussam Salama and Mahmoud al-Kumi, are cameramen killed in Gaza in November who worked for Al-Aqsa Television, a Hamas-funded outlet, which itself has been designated a terror organization by the Treasury. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is scheduled to hold its event there later this year, but has become concerned about the Newseum's choice to pay tribute to the cameramen.

May said that a decision would not be made before speaking with the CEO of the Newseum.

"Let me be fair and give them an opportunity to answer my questions (I have more than a few)," he said. "As I said: Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding or perhaps some re-thinking is taking place in light of additional information they have received."

"But I will say this: I spent most of my adult life as a journalist – at the New York Times and other media organizations," May said. "I know the difference between a reporter and a terrorist propagandist. I'm hopeful that the folks at the Newseum also are able to make such distinctions."

Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president for research at the Foundation, echoed May.

"We have just learned about this, and we want to learn more," Schanzer said. "As a think tank that has done significant research on terrorist media, we are obviously deeply concerned." He also said that a decision on whether to pull the summit from the Newseum had not yet been made.

A spokesman for the Newseum said that he would have a response for BuzzFeed about the controversy surrounding the ceremony on Friday afternoon.

Update: Jonathan Thompson, a spokesman for the Newseum, sent over a statement on Friday morning standing by the musem's choice to honor the journalists:

The Newseum Journalists Memorial recognizes 2,246 journalists who died or were killed while reporting the news. To be listed on the memorial, an individual must have been a contributor of news, commentary or photography to a news outlet; an editor or news executive; a producer, camera operator, sound engineer or other member of a broadcast crew; or a documentary filmmaker.

Hussam Salama and Mahmoud Al-Kumi were cameramen in a car clearly marked "TV." The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers all consider these men journalists killed in the line duty.

The Journalists Memorial selection committee conducts case-by-case reviews using the above criteria.

Also included in the memorial this year are 82 other journalists who died in 2012 and six additional journalists who died in previous years. For a complete list of journalists on the memorial, visit the online Newseum Journalists Memorial database.

Note: This story has been updated with comments from Cliff May (5/10).

Worried rank-and-file Republicans say the speaker seems to be “a bit checked out” as new legislative battles loom. His allies say he’s working behind the scenes to move the conference forward.

House Speaker John Boehner

Via: Cliff Owen / AP

WASHINGTON — After two years of being front and center in the GOP's fight with President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner seems to be missing in action from messaging and legislative battles, worried Republicans told BuzzFeed this week.

True, Boehner still does one or more on-air press events a week, and aides said he's actively preparing for the fiscal fights looming on the horizon. But with no presidential nominee to be the party's public face and set its agenda, that role has fallen to the Ohio Republican. And his members worry he's not doing enough.

"He is actively hitting his marks nationally; he's fundraising and he's doing everything a speaker is required to do," said a Republican congressman, who asked not to be named so he could speak freely. But "much has fallen to [Majority Leader] Eric Cantor and [Whip Kevin] McCarthy for the legislative load here, near as anyone can tell. That is markedly different than the last Congress. He's disengaged, and that's not helpful. This place has to be actively managed if we are going to achieve results."

Another member remarked that Boehner seemed to be "a bit checked out" when it comes to the day-to-day duties of running the House, leaving the agenda — and the blame when things go wrong — to Cantor.

When Cantor brought a bill to the floor to transfer money from one part of Obamacare to another, conservatives revolted, arguing it prolonged the life of the health-care law they hate. The bill would have extended the funding for high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions.

When the bill was pulled last minute from the floor, Boehner came out unscathed.

"Cantor is getting the blame because Cantor is the one actually trying to do something," a Republican congressman said.

Aides say that Boehner is actively working behind the scenes to move the conference forward, an effort that began in January with passing the No Budget, No Pay Act that Republicans argue forced the Senate to produce their first budget in four years. And some of his absence from Capitol Hill has to do with Boehner's intense fundraising swing: He's done more than 100 events this year for the House GOP.

"Speaker Boehner is at the forefront of efforts to hold the Obama administration accountable, help our House Republican team, and show the American people we have a plan to deal with their number one priority: jobs and the economy. Anyone who doesn't see that, frankly, just isn't paying attention," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

And allies say Boehner's noticeable shift in style can be attributed to a young conference — and now more experienced leadership team — maturing after the 2012 election. The constant crises and election politics that consumed the 112th Congress have waned, allowing Boehner to take a more hands-off approach.

"I think he's probably a little more laid-back, and I think he's letting events work towards him as opposed to trying to force events," said Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole. "I think he's more comfortable right now in the sense that our majority, having gotten through a tough year, is maturing and going to last a while and there's an acceptance of the reality that we are going to deal with this president for four years."

Cole argued that the rest of Boehner's leadership team, Cantor and McCarthy, have grown into their roles. And now that the House majority has "proven it can survive," Cole said, Boehner is in a better position to "let the House work its will."

"We seem to be moving back toward regular order a little bit more, so again I think the pace is different, but I think it's the appropriate pace," he said. "Yeah, everybody is a little more comfortable this time around, but going a little slower seems to be working better."

A Boehner ally said that Boehner was still upset he had not been able to reach a broad fiscal deal with President Obama in the last Congress, contributing to his change in attitude.

"The truth is Obama is engaged in politics. And that saddens Boehner because I do think he'd like to get something done. Reid doesn't care, and Obama says that he does, but hasn't shown any real try," the member said. "He can't force the president to lead, or force the president to engage to strike some sort of grand bargain. And that is why he's different than last Congress."

But the slower pace isn't exactly satisfying to some in the conference, who say they miss the Speaker's passion and energy that they feel is lacking heading into a heavy legislative season that will include another debt limit battle and the House strategy for how to tackle immigration legislation.

"Maybe it just goes back to his original comment of wanting to let the House work its will, but I think leadership means more than that. You don't just get up and gavel in in the morning and go back to your office," the member said.

Some of Boehner's chief critics in the House, like Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, said they haven't really seen a difference in style within the House leadership: It's still unsatisfactory to them.

"I would like to see him uphold the Hastert rule about bringing bills to the floor. We don't see that happening this Congress, we did not see that happening last Congress," Broun said. "They do seek members council and I've counciled our leadership to have, at a minimum, one bill on the floor every month to repeal Obamacare or parts of it. I think we need to do that once a month."

Tea Partiers and conservatives howled last year they were being targeted by the IRS. Turns out they were right. A campaign watchdog calls the revelation “troubling.”

Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin

Via: Pete Marovich / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Tea Party leaders Friday demanded President Barack Obama personally apologize for an IRS campaign that targeted conservative groups during the 2012 election.

Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin reacted forcefully Friday after an IRS official admitted what tea party activists had said all through the 2012 cycle was true: federal tax officials singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

"It is suspicious that the activity of these 'low-level workers' was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred," she said in a statement. "President Obama must also apologize for his administration ignoring repeated complaints by these broad grassroots organizations of harassment by the IRS in 2012, and make concrete and transparent steps today to ensure this never happens again."

IRS official Lois Lerner apologized for the targeting Friday, blaming the error on low-level employees at an Ohio IRS office. She told the AP "no high level IRS officials knew about the practice."

Lerner said the effort was "wrong" and "insensitive and it was inappropriate."

Tea Party leaders and Republican members of Congress complained loudly last year that the IRS was demanding thousands of pages of paperwork related to their non-profit status and in some cases even asking for donor lists.

Now that those fears have been proven true, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin said the IRS apology wasn't going to cut it. So far there's no evidence connecting the IRS misbehavior to political appointees or the White House. The IRS is an independent agency that until November was led by a commissioner appointed by George W. Bush. The commissioner, David Schulman, told Congress last year there was no special targeting of conservative groups.

Nevertheless, Martin said Congress needs to investigate the scandal, and demanded "the immediate resignation of all complicit in this activity."

The White House did not respond on the record for a request for comment.

Campaign finance watchdogs, some of whom have called on the IRS to investigate the tax exempt status of political groups like Crossroads GPS, the organization founded by Karl Rove, say they're also concerned about the IRS apology.

"[Our] position is that the IRS needs to do a much better job at enforcing the existing legal restrictions on candidate election intervention by certain types of tax exempt groups," Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, told BuzzFeed. "But we by no means condone that those enforcement procedures be used to target groups of a certain political ideology."

"We are troubled by the revelation," he said. "I can't say that strongly enough."

Emperor Palpatine was a member of the Bilderberg Group.

This week, #StarInfoWars was born on twitter.

This is the best of that hashtag so far:

Via: @TheSamGrady

Via: @AndOneForBlog

Via: @twolinepass

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Where have you heard this jingle before?

Here's CNN's soon-to-be morning team, Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan:

The first promo for their show New Day does not feature Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan, but it does have a very familiar feel:

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Source: twitpic.com

The New York Times' Jordan Cohen pointed out how much it resembles a Target commercial:

Source: @jorcohen

Not only does it look like a Target commercial, it sounds exactly like a Target commercial:

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President Obama was giving the commencement address at Arizona State University in 2009 where he joked about auditing the president of ASU and their board of regents . The IRS apologized today for unfairly targeting Tea Party groups with extra scrutiny about their tax status.

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Via:

The briefing was on September 17th, the day after Rice’s sunday show appearances.

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Via:

Victoria Nuland is the State Department spokesman who reportedly asked that "references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia" and "CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack" be removed from CIA talking points prepared for Susan Rice before Sunday show appearances on September 16th.

Nuland said in a September 17th briefing, her first after reportedly asking for edits to the talking points late on September 14th that "Ambassador Rice, in her comments on every network over the weekend, was very clear, very precise, about what our initial assessment of what happened. And this was not just her assessment. It was also an assessment that you've heard in comments coming from the intelligence community, in comments coming from the White House.

The White House press secretary used the former Republican presidential nominee’s response to Benghazi as a way to attack Republicans for allegedly politicizing of the September 11th Benghazi terrorist attacks.

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Via:

A spokesman for the D.C. think tank said Friday that the immigration expert “decided to resign” after week of controversy.

Via: Evan Vucci / AP

The Heritage Foundation announced Friday afternoon that Jason Richwine, the senior policy analyst who co-wrote the contentious study on the Senate's immigration reform bill, has resigned.

Richwine became embroiled in controversy this week after a report in The Washington Post revealed that his 2009 dissertation argued that immigrants IQ are "substantially lower than that of the white native population."

"Jason Richwine let us know he's decided to resign from his position. He's no longer employed by Heritage," said a spokesperson for the conservative think tank. "It is our long-standing policy not to discuss internal personnel matters."

A senior official at a pro-reform conservative group told BuzzFeed the Richwine resignation proves the point that the group's Senate immigration study is unreliable at best.

Richwine's resignation is "implicit acknowledgment that the study is flawed," said the official.

The White House press secretary said Susan Rice discussed the possibility that al-Qaeda might be involved in the Sept. 11 attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi. But outside of a brief mention on CBS’s Face the Nation , Rice mostly did not discuss the involvement of al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda affiliates.

Rice was not questioned about and did not bring up al-Qaeda's possible involvement during her other two appearances on CNN or NBC. She was directly questioned about it on ABC, CBS, and Fox News.

Jay Carney: "Ambassador Rice on those shows talked about the possibility that al-Qaeda might be involved or other al-Qaeda affiliates might be involved, or non-al-Qaeda Libyan extremists."

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Via:

TAPPER: So, first of all, what is the latest you can tell us on who these attackers were at the embassy or at the consulate in Benghazi? We're hearing that the Libyans have arrested people. They're saying that some people involved were from outside the country, that there might have even been al-Qaeda ties. What's the latest information?

RICE: Well, Jake, first of all, it's important to know that there's an FBI investigation that has begun and will take some time to be completed. That will tell us with certainty what transpired.

But our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated.

We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to — or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that as you know in — in the wake of the revolution in Libya are — are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there.

We'll wait to see exactly what the investigation finally confirms, but that's the best information we have at present.

Via: abcnews.go.com

WALLACE: Let's talk about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi this week that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

The top Libyan official says that the attack on Tuesday was, quote, his words "preplanned". Al-Qaeda says the operation was revenge for our killing a top al-Qaeda leader.

What do we know?

RICE: Well, first of all, Chris, we are obviously investigating this very closely. The FBI has a lead in this investigation. The information, the best information and the best assessment we have today is that in fact this was not a preplanned, premeditated attack. That what happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video. People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent and those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are quite common in post-revolutionary Libya and that then spun out of control.

But we don't see at this point signs this was a coordinated plan, premeditated attack. Obviously, we will wait for the results of the investigation and we don't want to jump to conclusions before then. But I do think it's important for the American people to know our best current assessment.

Via: abcnews.go.com

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A carefully constructed news day at the White House careens off course. Fleischer says Carney brought the pain on himself for “throwing gasoline on a fire.”

Via: Charles Dharapak / AP

WASHINGTON — Ari Fleischer knew from the moment reporters started tweeting out the Politico story that the Obama White House had lost the message war Friday.

At around the time many reporters were preparing to go to the daily briefing with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Politico reported that the White House had held a special background briefing on Benghazi for a select group of reporters just a few minutes earlier. Fleischer, onetime press secretary for George W. Bush and an Obama White House critic, told BuzzFeed that Obama's communications shop should have realized that such a decision would provoke the wrath of the reporters who weren't invited — thus drawing more attention to the Benghazi controversy the administration is trying to downplay.

"The [daily televised] briefing is a red-hot environment, and there is something to be said for calming the environment and doing it in a different session," he said. "But the timing is important. The timing of doing it right before the briefing is the equivalent of raising a red cape in front of a bunch of bulls."

The White House insisted it didn't do anything out of the ordinary with the background briefing, a commonplace occurrence Fleischer said he made use of often when he was press secretary. On Twitter, Fleischer joined the throngs of Republicans attacking the White House Friday. He's not a neutral observer when it comes to Obama administration policy. But anyone who remembers the Bush years will attest that Fleischer knows a thing or two about press strategy. And strategically, he said, Obama's team could have done a much better job handling the news of the day. Holding the background briefing before the on-the-record briefing was a mistake, he said.

"It's one thing if you hold the [daily] briefing, it doesn't go well, and you bring reporters together for a background briefing late in the evening or later that afternoon to work twice as hard," he said. "But to do this right before the briefing is throwing gasoline on a fire."

"I don't see what it accomplishes unless they were able to somehow convince reporters that the critics are wrong and here's why, and as a result it leads to a calmer briefing instead of a feeding frenzy," Fleischer added. "Absent that, it strikes me as terrible press management and in the middle of a growing crisis, the last thing they should do."

For days, the White House had planned to make Friday's messaging all about implementing Obama's health-care law. In two separate briefings (one held Friday morning) with reporters, senior administration officials previewed a speech Obama gave about the health-care law in the White House East Room Friday afternoon. The speech was aimed at kicking off one of the most important tasks Obama has in the second term: convincing healthy young people to sign up for insurance coverage under Obamacare to ensure the program works. Friday's event was tied to Mother's Day in the hopes of influencing moms to advise their kids to sign up for the new insurance options provided by the health care law.

But the careful White House preparation for Obama's speech got lost in the day's news. A few reporters filed stories about the president's speech, but the day was dominated by the revelation that the IRS had targeted conservative groups, as well as the many stories about how the administration had edited its talking points in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. For most of the day, the White House refused to provide on-the-record quotes for these stories and repeatedly postponed the scheduled White House press briefing.

Once it finally began, three hours after the briefing was originally supposed to start, Carney was peppered with questions about the IRS. He said there was an investigation underway by the IRS inspector general. On Benghazi, where he faced even more questions than he did on the IRS, Carney ducked and parried, even invoking Mitt Romney at one point. He also had to answer uncomfortable questions about the background briefing he'd held with reporters earlier that day, which Carney noted was standard procedure for White Houses from both parties.

There was one question about health care.

The situation for LGBT people in the southern African country has rapidly deteriorated in the past month. “At this point, we need all the help that we can get from the international community,” an activist says.

Philip Mubiana, covering his face, and James Mwape, seated at left, arrive at the Kapiri magistrate court on May 8, 2013 in Lusaka for their trial on charge of sodomy.

Via: AFP/Getty Images

Life has never been comfortable for LGBT people in Zambia, where sodomy is a crime and the constitution proclaims the country to be a "Christian nation." But the situation has grown far more dangerous over the last month, following allegations that activists and European governments want to promote same-sex marriage in the country and ending with an arrest in the past week.

Twenty-year-old James Mwape and twenty-one-year-old Philip Mubiana, who had reportedly lived together for a while, were reported by a relative to police and were arrested on charges of sodomy in what is believed to be the first such arrest in the country.

The two were apparently released only to be rearrested on Tuesday and forced to submit to a "medical test" that "proved that they had been practicing sodomy," according to a story in the Lukasa Times.

They aren't alone. Last month, Paul Kasonkomona, a high-profile activist, was arrested in early April after calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality during a television appearance. Human rights activists also say there has also been a rapid increase of hate crimes, blackmail, and other forms of intimidation.

Th extent of the homophobic outpouring in recent weeks has taken activists by surprise, even though they have been fighting currents of homophobia for some time.

"It's sort of like dealing with an iceberg, where you don't know what the true extent of the problem [is]," said Juliet Mphande, executive director of the human rights group Friends of Rainka, in an interview with BuzzFeed. "You just [feel] defeated when you truly comprehend it."

Mphande said anti-gay sentiments have been stoked in recent years by politicians fighting over rewriting the constitution, as well as religious leaders who have been sounding the drumbeat against gays and lesbians. Some of these pastors, she says, have ties to religious conservatives in the United States.

In early April, a series of media reports helped bring the situation to a boil.

The first was a story that a handful of same-sex couples had attempted to marry in the Zambian capital of Lusaka.

On April 3, the state-owned Zambian Daily Mail wrote that four Zambian students between the ages of 22 and 30 had attempted to register their marriages to foreign men between the ages of 34 and 64.

The Zambians, the paper said, "were playing the role of women," and the implication of exploitation and feminization of young Zambian men by foreigners sounded like a hoax to many human rights activists.

"There were actually some activists who were thinking it was actually a ploy by government officials to create that moral panic," said Damian Ugwu of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

But the blog Zambian Watchdog published comments by Chalwe Ranney, whom it identifies as "a leader at a Zambian LGBT rights group," saying that the marriage attempt was real and a case of "bad strategy" by individuals unconnected to organized LGBT rights group.

True or not, state-owned media continued to fuel the story following the initial report.

On April 4, the Zambian Daily Mail published comments by the country's minister of home affairs, Edgar Lungu, calling for these couples to be arrested.

"It is a pity that foreigners have started bringing this thing to us now. We are on dangerous ground where people are bringing new things to us and we are watching," the paper wrote. "The police must do their work…same-sex marriages are not a normal thing and we do tolerate such."

On April 6, the Zambian Daily Mail published a story that began, "Police say homosexuality is a serious offence and have appealed to members of the public to report anyone involved in it to the nearest police station so that the law can take its course."

Then in mid-April, the European Union inadvertently added fuel to the fire by calling for human rights groups in Zambia—including those working on LGBT rights—to apply for funding.

Lungu responded by attacking the EU, saying its aim was to promote same-sex marriage in the country, according to a report from the Open Society Initiative in Southern Africa, a human rights organization.

And then came the arrest of Mwape and Mubiana. Despite the degrading treatment they received from police, Mphande said the couple may have been lucky to have been taken to the police. Increasingly, "people in communities are feeling empowered to take the law into their own hands" and attack people they believe to be gay, she said.

Mphande said LGBT activists had hoped that "quiet diplomacy" might cool the situation up until the arrest of Mwape and Mubiana. Allegations of foreign meddling helped bring on this crackdown on LGBT people, and activists had worried that international pressure could make the situation worse.

But the couple's arrest suggests the country could start seeing the kinds of anti-gay witch-hunts that have occurred in Uganda, she said. It could also intensify because politicians are exploiting the issue in the debate over the constitution, just as the ruling party of Zimbabwe has done in recent months.

"You could be rewriting the same play," she said. "At this point, we need all the help that we can get from the international community."

No sense of humor.

WASHINGTON — The Syrian Electronic Army was inspired to hack The Onion by an article in a socialist publication written by an Occupy Wall Street and labor activist, a representative of the SEA told BuzzFeed.

"The Onion is more satire than joke website, most readers are aware of that fact and so are we," an anonymous member of the SEA said in an email. "This does not detract from the fact that the basis of their 'humor' was rooted in the narrative promoted by most major corporate media. After a member read the article "The Onion website joins the U.S. Anti-Syria Club" by Shamus Cooke that details how The Onion can be even more effective war-time propaganda than even 'serious' and seemingly credible media, we were convinced to make our move."

"The irresponsible promotion of chemical weapons claims and attribution of all the mayhem in Syria on the one side attempting to keep order is very much an assumption of their focus on Syria," the SEA member said. "This is why the majority of informed people do not find such articles funny. We decided to fix that part too, even if some humorless writers at the Washington times didn't like it."

The article in question appeared on Workers Compass, published by Workers Action, a "Revolutionary Socialist Organization," according to its tagline. Workers Compass' "about" section notes that "We encourage the unions and community groups to join with the Occupy Movement to demand concessions from the 1 percent. We strongly support the Occupy Movement's coming to the defense of unions engaged in struggles with their employers."

"I don't know very much about the Syrian Electronic Army or their work," Shamus Cooke, the author of the article, told BuzzFeed in an email. "However, I will say that the Onion very much deserved to be hacked based on their terribly biased articles on Syria. The article they wrote about the Syrian Electronic Army post-hack was especially repulsive, and only further proved the points made in my article." Cooke's Facebook cover photo is a shot of a workers' demonstration in Venezuala. His Twitter bio identifies him as a "Social Service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action" in Portland, OR.

The SEA managed to take control of The Onion's Twitter feed for a stretch earlier this week, after weeks of satirical articles from the website that seemed to encourage the Obama Administration to intervene in the Syrian conflict. Sample hacked tweet: "We regret taking zionist money to defame Syria, now the hackers are up our ass." The Onion explained how the hack occurred in a post on their tech blog.

The SEA representative who spoke with BuzzFeed said that the organization couldn't give any hints about who they'll target next, but "we will continue our fight in spreading the truth, maybe we will change our targets in the next days and maybe not that's depend on the situation in the real battle field." So far, they've hacked into systems for the AP, the Guardian, and other news organizations.

The hackers, some of whom are based in Syria and others in Western countries, use Facebook groups and "an hidden IRC on unknown website" (sic) to organize their operations, the representative said.

Their actual identities remain hidden, though most appear to be students.

"We are just Syrian youths who want to defend their country against the media campaign that is spreading false/fabricated news about our home land Syria," the hacker who spoke to BuzzFeed said. "Most of us are in High School and Colleges."

"We are not sure if all of our families do know(You know we can't ask all the members..), but anyway they will be proud of us and our work," the hacker asserted.

"We don't have any goal, we are defending our country and that's our duty, maybe we will stop when the crisis is over; but till that time, we will keep defending our country in this way or another one."

"We support President Bashar Al Assad as he is the legitimate representative of the Syrian people; we are defending our country Syria against the terrorists that they were sent by US/Qatar/SaudiArabia/Turkey and Jordan. The Syrian Arab Army fighting the terrorists in the real battlefield and we are here fighting in the cyberspace in order to spread the truth about what is really happen in Syria," the SEA hacker said. (An interview that a SEA hacker did with Global Post went deeper into the group's political motivations.)

The hacker said the SEA had no immediate plans to target BuzzFeed.

"We will if you published false news about Syria :) so if you don't want us to target you, you have to make sure that you will not do that ;)," he or she said.

This post has been updated to include Cooke's comments. 7:21 p.m.