Rep. Mark Pocan aims to “close the book” on the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” with new legislation to codify the way those discharged under the military’s ban on out gay servicemembers are treated by the military.

Via: Cliff Owen / AP

WASHINGTON — Two Democratic lawmakers are set to introduce new legislation ensuring service members discharged under "don't ask, don't tell" are able to have their records changed to reflect the end of the military's ban on out gay service members.

Rep. Mark Pocan, a first-term lawmaker from Wisconsin, told BuzzFeed Tuesday the bill "would provide the legal clarification, and close the book, on the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell'" by codifying the process by which discharged servicemembers can have their records reviewed and changed. Pocan and Rep. Charlie Rangel are currently seeking co-sponsors for the Restore Honor to Service Members Act and plan to formally introduce the bill in the near future.

The bill is partially based on a September 2011 memo by the undersecretary of defense that set standards and rules for the military's implementation of the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." For those service members affected by DADT and earlier policies, their service paperwork would reflect the changed policy. Pocan's office also notes it would apply to those dismissed under policies prior to DADT, dating back to World War II.

From World War II to the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in 2011, approximately 114,000 service members were discharged because of their sexual orientation, Pocan's office says.

"Specifically, it would put into law what is currently policy by the military, which is the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell.' However, without having it in law, it could change at some date in the future with a different administration. It provides for a very clear process and lays out the process for what it takes to be able to get your [discharge] status changed and adjusted," Pocan said.

"Right now, you go to the discharge review, there's a process. This lays out that process, but it lays out ... exactly what the process is. Part of the problem right now is that it's not as clear, so it's a little bit varied, person to person, and it delays the process. So, we've got a very clear, simple process."

The bill would change former members of the military's discharge characterization to honorable, when there were no aggravating circumstances. The legislation would also require discharge paperwork to not include the servicemember's sexual orientation as the reason for their discharge.

The bill also would "repeal the language that makes sodomy illegal" in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Pocan said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller testifying on Capital Hill Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee responded to a question about Americans gaining trust from redacted versions of FISA court opinions by saying “you’re right the American people are frustrated.” Mueller added that the ODNI was looking at the possibility of releasing redacted copies.

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Via:

Sean Hannity was interviewed by Playboy for their July/August interview (it comes to newsstands this Friday). Here are five of the best quotes.

On what he would do if one of his children turned out to be gay:

On his celebrity crushes:

On “sowing his wild oats” as a teenager:

On fueling the myth that Obama is a Muslim from Africa:

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“The government may love this,” says the AP CEO. “I suspect that they do.”

Via: CBS, Chris Usher / AP

WASHINGTON — The CEO of the Associated Press told an audience Wednesday that the Department of Justice has succeeded in muzzling government employees from talking to AP reporters in the weeks since the seizure of AP phone records was revealed.

"What I learned from our journalists should alarm everyone in this room and I think should alarm everyone in this country. The actions of the DOJ against AP are already having an impact beyond the specifics of this particular case," AP CEO Gary Pruitt told an audience at the National Press Club. "Some of our longtime trusted sources have become nervous and anxious about talking to us, even about stories that aren't about national security. In some cases, government employees that we once checked in with regularly will no longer speak to us by phone, and some are reluctant to meet in person."

After it was made public that the Justice Department took AP Washington bureau phone records as part of the Obama administration's aggressive anti-leak operation, Pruitt said the fear among potential sources has spread to reporters from other outlets.

"I can tell you that this chilling effect is not just at AP, it's happening at other news organizations as well," he said. "Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me it has intimidated sources from speaking to them."

Pruitt said he believes government officials are happy to see the process of newsgathering become more difficult in Washington.

"The government may love this. I suspect that they do," he said. "But beware the government that loves secrecy too much."

During a question-and-answer session after his speech, Pruitt said he did not believe the Obama administration has had a different relationship with the press than past administrations, but he said that the Obama administration's aggressive attempts to prosecute leakers have put the administration's view of the press front and center.

Later Mr. Rock argued Dana Perino is “giving white people a bad name.”

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Via:

Meanwhile, the Wikileaks founder’s asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy is stretching into a second year. “I’m worried about the state of journalism.” (Updated below)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange makes a speech from the balcony of Ecuador's Embassy in London in December.

Via: Luke Macgregor / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said on Wednesday that he is helping the source of recent leaks about American domestic surveillance win asylum in Iceland.

Wikileaks is "in touch with [Edward] Snowden's legal team," Assange said, and they are "in the process of brokering his asylum in Iceland."

Asked whether Snowden would be able to successfully travel from Hong Kong, where he has been since the leaks to the Guardian, to Iceland, Assange said "All those issues are being looked at by the people involved."

Assange, who was granted asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London a year ago while evading sexual assault charges in Sweden and a Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks for the material it received from Bradley Manning, was on a conference call with reporters and with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake.

Assange wouldn't directly answer whether he's had personal contact with Snowden, "as a matter of policy." He also wouldn't talk about whether or not he had had contact with Snowden before the leaked material came out.

"It is clear to me that Mr. Snowden is being very aggressively pursued by the U.S. security sector," Assange, who sounded tired and was at times hard to understand. It's been reported that he is or has been in poor health while at the embassy.

He predicted that Glenn Greenwald, the author of the Guardian's Snowden stories, could be "in the same position that I'm in in a year's time."

Assange also predicted that the Guardian would come out with more significant material.

"I've read Mr. Greenwald's comments, like all of you, and it is clear from those that significant publication will occur in the coming weeks," Assange said.

Assange, whose asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy has resulted in Ecuador's ambassador to the U.K. being called back to Quito because of her failure to negotiate his exit, wouldn't say when he plans to leave the embassy.

Even if the investigation in Sweden is dropped, Assange said, he wouldn't leave immediately.

"It makes no difference because the reason for asking asylum concerns the U.S. investigation," Assange said. Assange took offense at this reporter's question about the charges against him in Sweden, saying that it is "extremely poor journalism" to describe him as having been charged.

As the BBC reported, though Assange isn't technically facing charges, the term means something different in Sweden, and "Despite the lack of formal charges, in its judgement in May, the UK Supreme Court found that the Swedish public prosecutor was a judicial authority capable of issuing the warrant, in the same way as a judge or a court would be."

Asked why he sounded so tired, Assange said that working on the Snowden case was "exciting, demanding work" and had "taken up quite a bit of time this week."

He acknowledged that the time at the embassy had impacted his ability to get leaks, package and publish them.

"The UK government has admitted that it has spent six million pounds on the surveillance of me in this embassy," Assange said.

The surveillance "is an interference with the operation of the WikiLeaks media organization," he said. "However that is contrasted by my complete inability to do anything else but work."

"There's nothing else to do but work," he said, a bit sadly.

Assange saved most of his opprobrium for the media, the state of which he described as "appalling."

"I'm not worried at all" about the situation in the Ecuadorian embassy, he said. "I'm worried about the state of journalism."

Update: Greenwald says he doesn't think WikiLeaks has a direct involvement in the Snowden affair.

"I'm not aware that WikiLeaks has any substantive involvement at all with Snowden, though I know they've previously offered to help," he told BuzzFeed in an email. Asked if Snowden was inclined to work with WikiLeaks on the asylum issue, he said "I know he admires WikiLeaks' past work, but I don't know of any involvement he's ever had with them, on asylum or anything else." (3:43 p.m.)

“A couple points of clarification.”

Sarah Palin made the following claims about Obamacare at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference on Saturday:

When the clip was aired the next day on the weekend edition of Fox & Friends, Fox News host Alisyn Camerota pushed back at Palin's remarks:

Here's the whole segment:

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Very diverse.

A tea party rally against the IRS drew a large crowd in front of the Capitol Wednesday.

Via: Gary Cameron / Reuters

The crowd was made up of a colorful arrangement of people, including a Superhero Tea Partyer.

Tan Mom Tea Partyer.

Designer Glasses Tea Partyer.

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“Exodus International, the oldest and largest Christian ministry dealing with faith and homosexuality, issued an apology to the gay community for years of undue suffering and judgment at the hands of the organization and the Church as a whole,” the group stated on its website Wednesday. Update: The group has announced it is closing down.

Source: exodusinternational.org

In a letter "to members of the LGBTQ community," Alan Chambers, the head of Exodus International, a group that has long backed "change therapy" for gays and lesbians, issued an apology Wednesday, stating, "I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced."

[Update at 11:20 p.m.: Following a meeting Wednesday night at its conference, Exodus International went further, announcing it is closing up shop.

"Exodus International, the oldest and largest Christian ministry dealing with faith and homosexuality announced tonight that it's closing its doors after three-plus decades of ministry," the organization said in a statement.]

The public statement comes in advance of a Thursday airing of the television broadcast "God & Gays" on Our America with Lisa Ling on OWN, in which Ling talks with Chambers about these issues.

In his apology, Chambers wrote, "I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents."

Later, he added:

I hope the changes in my own life, as well as the ones we announce tonight regarding Exodus International, will bring resolution, and show that I am serious in both my regret and my offer of friendship. I pledge that future endeavors will be focused on peace and common good.

There are limits to his apology, as he also wrote, "I cannot apologize for my deeply held biblical beliefs about the boundaries I see in scripture surrounding sex, but I will exercise my beliefs with great care and respect for those who do not share them. I cannot apologize for my beliefs about marriage. But I do not have any desire to fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek."

The changes to be made by the organization were not laid out in the apology or the group's news release about the apology.

In a news release, the group states only, "Exodus International, the oldest and largest Christian ministry dealing with faith and homosexuality, issued an apology to the gay community for years of undue suffering and judgment at the hands of the organization and the Church as a whole."

[Update at 11:20 p.m.: The group's statement Wednesday night added:

"Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we've ceased to be a living, breathing organism," said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus. "For quite some time we've been imprisoned in a worldview that's neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical." ...

For these reasons, the Board of Directors unanimously voted to close Exodus International and begin a separate ministry. "This is a new season of ministry, to a new generation," said Chambers. "Our goals are to reduce fear (reducefear.org), and come alongside churches to become safe, welcoming, and mutually transforming communities."

The "reducefear.org" website is not yet live.]

The statements were released on the first day of the group's Exodus Freedom conference, taking place through June 23 at Concordia University Irvine.

[Update at 11:55 a.m. Thursday: Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen, who has been tracking and opposing "ex-gay" therapies for more than a decade, issued a statement Thursday morning:

"The closing of Exodus is an earthquake that is shaking the very foundations of the 'ex-gay' industry. We feel vindicated with our efforts to expose these groups and reveal their great destruction. Although new groups are vying to fill the vacuum, the passing of Exodus casts a huge shadow of doubt on their work and cuts right to the heart of their credibility," Besen said.]

Our America With Lisa Ling's "God & Gays" Preview:

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Via: oprah.com

Chambers' full statement:

To Members of the LGBTQ Community:

In 1993 I caused a four-car pileup. In a hurry to get to a friend's house, I was driving when a bee started buzzing around the inside of my windshield. I hit the bee and it fell on the dashboard. A minute later it started buzzing again with a fury. Trying to swat it again I completely missed the fact that a city bus had stopped three cars in front of me. I also missed that those three cars were stopping, as well. Going 40 miles an hour I slammed into the car in front of me causing a chain reaction. I was injured and so were several others. I never intended for the accident to happen. I would never have knowingly hurt anyone. But I did. And it was my fault. In my rush to get to my destination, fear of being stung by a silly bee, and selfish distraction, I injured others.

I have no idea if any of the people injured in that accident have suffered long term effects. While I did not mean to hurt them, I did. The fact that my heart wasn't malicious did not lessen their pain or their suffering. I am very sorry that I chose to be distracted that fall afternoon, and that I caused so much damage to people and property. If I could take it all back I absolutely would. But I cannot. I pray that everyone involved in the crash has been restored to health.

Recently, I have begun thinking again about how to apologize to the people that have been hurt by Exodus International through an experience or by a message. I have heard many firsthand stories from people called ex-gay survivors. Stories of people who went to Exodus affiliated ministries or ministers for help only to experience more trauma. I have heard stories of shame, sexual misconduct, and false hope. In every case that has been brought to my attention, there has been swift action resulting in the removal of these leaders and/or their organizations. But rarely was there an apology or a public acknowledgement by me.

And then there is the trauma that I have caused. There were several years that I conveniently omitted my ongoing same-sex attractions. I was afraid to share them as readily and easily as I do today. They brought me tremendous shame and I hid them in the hopes they would go away. Looking back, it seems so odd that I thought I could do something to make them stop. Today, however, I accept these feelings as parts of my life that will likely always be there. The days of feeling shame over being human in that way are long over, and I feel free simply accepting myself as my wife and family does. As my friends do. As God does.

Never in a million years would I intentionally hurt another person. Yet, here I sit having hurt so many by failing to acknowledge the pain some affiliated with Exodus International caused, and by failing to share the whole truth about my own story. My good intentions matter very little and fail to diminish the pain and hurt others have experienced on my watch. The good that we have done at Exodus is overshadowed by all of this.

Friends and critics alike have said it's not enough to simply change our message or website. I agree. I cannot simply move on and pretend that I have always been the friend that I long to be today. I understand why I am distrusted and why Exodus is hated.

Please know that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn't change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn't stand up to people publicly "on my side" who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry that I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine.

More than anything, I am sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection by Christians as God's rejection. I am profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith and that some have chosen to end their lives. For the rest of my life I will proclaim nothing but the whole truth of the Gospel, one of grace, mercy and open invitation to all to enter into an inseverable relationship with almighty God.

I cannot apologize for my deeply held biblical beliefs about the boundaries I see in scripture surrounding sex, but I will exercise my beliefs with great care and respect for those who do not share them. I cannot apologize for my beliefs about marriage. But I do not have any desire to fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek. My beliefs about these things will never again interfere with God's command to love my neighbor as I love myself.

You have never been my enemy. I am very sorry that I have been yours. I hope the changes in my own life, as well as the ones we announce tonight regarding Exodus International, will bring resolution, and show that I am serious in both my regret and my offer of friendship. I pledge that future endeavors will be focused on peace and common good.

Moving forward, we will serve in our pluralistic culture by hosting thoughtful and safe conversations about gender and sexuality, while partnering with others to reduce fear, inspire hope, and cultivate human flourishing.

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Small government conservatives and social welfare liberals abandon their hardline positions when homestate interests are on the line.

Via: Pete Marovich / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Most days, conservative Rep. Steve King is as ideologically rigid as they come: He hates Obamacare, frets over the "tyranny" of the IRS, and insists imposing massive spending cuts is the only way to preserve liberty.

But when it comes to the farm bill — the omnibus measure loathed by conservatives that funds everything from crop insurance to food stamps — King not only supports the multi-billion dollar legislation, he's actively helping round up conservative votes for it.

"I think doing nothing is worse than voting for it. Most conservatives I've spoken with have gone from a hard no to a lean no or looking for a way to get to yes," the Iowa Republican said this week. That flexibility is all the more remarkable since it comes from one of the most strident opponents to compromise on issues ranging from immigration to the debt ceiling.

King cites the $20.5 billion reduction in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as a major reason for his support.

"I want conservatives to know, and I want Democrats to know that if we are going to get reform, we have to pass something," King said. "This is a balance that has been pulled together by [Agriculture] Chairman Frank Lucas, whose judgment is excellent on this, he has been a maestro in working this through. If we don't succeed in passing a farm bill, then it will be a disaster, a debacle."

But King's decision to find the virtue in flexibility isn't just about food stamp cuts. King hails from Iowa's Fourth District, and a massive part of his state is dominated by the agricultural industry.

Farm bills have provided states with billions of dollars over the years in subsidies and King's Iowa ranks 2nd out of 50 states for such subsidies for 1995-2012 according to the Environmental Working Group. And King's district is considered very rural — even by Iowa standards.

So far, it's unclear how many votes King has been able to round up for the bill. Many House conservatives are holding their fire on the bill, waiting to see if any of the hundreds of amendments will change the bill in a way that can earn their support.

Members will try to add additional cuts or structural changes to the bill, but the fact that food stamps remain a large portion of the bill makes it nearly impossible for them to support.

"I told Frank [Lucas] I'd vote for just about anything in the farm bill if we got rid of the nutrition part of it. If we broke that unholy alliance between Ag and nutrition once and for all, then I could vote for just about every subsidy in the book they could think of if they could make some real structural long term changes," said South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney.

"I don't know how a two percent reduction [in food stamps] is going to be cheered as an overwhelming success. I just don't get it. The price for me is just too high,' Mulvaney added.

But King is not the only member with a reputation for ideological purity that's suddenly not so pure.

On the Democratic side Rep. Peter Welch, a leading voice for progressives in the House Democratic conference, finds himself on the other side of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other liberal members who are outraged by the cuts to food stamps.

Pelosi told Politico on Tuesday she was "not likely" to vote for the House bill because of the food stamp cuts.

"It's so unacceptable. It should not stand," she said.

Welch says he's outraged too, but the Congressman said that if the final bill manages to come through a long amendment process without further cuts or drastic changes to certain subsidy programs, he'd most likely support it and hoped that other members would as well, hoping that the "unacceptable" cuts would be restored by Democratic Senators during a conference committee.

"At the end of the day members are going to have to decide whether to put some faith in the Senate for food stamp funding," he said.

But like King, the food stamp fight isn't the only reason Welch is fighting for a bill many of his ideologically like-minded colleagues opposed.

For Welch, there's the issue of subsidies for the dairy industry, which is critical to his home state of Vermont.

"There's a lot of extremely important things in the that farm bill, dairy among them. There are bad things in it, but there's significant conservation, local agriculture, environmental, organic provisions ... all heading in the direction we should be going and we don't want to throw that overboard. I want to support it."

Asked if he felt that the bill was addressing only parochial concerns of farm-state members of congress, Welch said yes, but that was the point.

"That's the nature of the farm bill. The obligation of congress is to merge and unify and work out the regional and sectional conflicts. There's a lot of folks here who have no clue about dairy and don't need to, on the other hand dairy is important. There's a lot of folks who live in districts where food stamps aren't an issue, but food stamps are an issue for many Americans."

Catholics, conservatives say the president pulled a big gaffe in Belfast. Update: American progressive Catholic group defends Obama.

Via: Cathal Mcnaughton / Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Obama may have picked up a few scratches after he ventured into the political thicket that is Northern Ireland this week.

Some Catholics were offended by remarks Obama gave at a town hall meeting in Belfast Monday, in which he called on the regions often deeply divided Catholic and Protestant populations to integrate.

"Issues like segregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity — symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others — these are not tangential to peace; they're essential to it," Obama said. "If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs — if we can't see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division. It discourages cooperation."

To some, the remarks came off as an attack on Catholic education, a sore issue in Northern Ireland. Education remains deeply divided in the region, with the children of Catholics mainly attending Catholic schools and the children of Protestant families mainly attending government-run schools. Obama's speech, aimed at a mixed audience of Northern Ireland youth, came before he made a visit to the area's only integrated primary school with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

"The US President has made an alarming call for an end to Catholic education in Northern Ireland," wrote the Scottish Catholic Observer. The story moved in some foreign papers and was picked up in the Catholic press.

Some Protestant political leaders in Northern Ireland have called for an end to state funding for Catholic schools, and some American conservatives have read Obama's remarks to mean support for that idea.

"Just imagine the reaction if Obama had visited the West Bank and said something like this about Islamic education," wrote David Freddoso.

Asked about the criticisms, a White House official said the administration did not have "anything more to say on this beyond what the President said in his speech."

Back in Northern Ireland, Auxiliary Bishop Donal McKeown dinged Obama over the remarks, but did not criticize them to the extent some American Catholics have. He told the Catholic News Service Obama's remarks were a "hackneyed analysis" of the current situation in Northern Ireland. McKeown said sectarian division flows not from the classroom, but from the home.

"It is the Catholic schools in Northern Ireland that are now actually among the most racially and linguistically mixed," he said. "And, while so many young people are very open to new friendships and opportunities, it needs to be stated that it is adults outside schools who promote mistrust for their own political and personal agendas."

"A simplistic denominational vocabulary fails to do justice to where we are," McKeown added.

Update: Catholics United, a progressive faith group not associated with the Vatican, defended Obama's comments in Northern Ireland and noted the president has honored Catholic education leaders at the White House in the past.

James Salt, director of the group, accused conservatives of ginning up the controversy over Obama's remarks.

"President Obama's comments are directly on point and in no way disparage Catholic education. Obama has been a consistent supporter of Catholic schools and has held multiple events honoring them at the White House," Salt said. "The real story here is how far the Catholic far-right will go to disparage this President. Simply put, Obama's detractors have taken an innocuous yet important comment out of context as a way to score cheap political points with an electorate that doesn't fully understand the context of religious and public education in Northern Ireland."

“Out of step with international norms, medical ethics and practices of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, speaks to the media after attending a meeting regarding National Security Agency programs, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 13, 2013.

Via: Jacquelyn Martin / AP

WASHINGTON — California Senator Dianne Feinstein is calling for an end to force-feeding practices at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility after returning from a visit there with Sen. John McCain and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough earlier this month.

Feinstein sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel that calls the practice of force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike "out of step with international norms, medical ethics and practices of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons."

Full text of the letter:

The Honorable Chuck Hagel
Secretary of Defense
Department of Defense
Washington, D.C., 20301

Dear Secretary Hagel:

I have given a great deal of thought since visiting the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay on June 7, 2013, about the continued hunger strikes and force-feeding occurring there. I write to express to you my concerns and opposition to the force- feeding of detainees, not for reasons of medical necessity but as a matter of policy that stands in conflict with international norms.

Before detailing these concerns, let me state again my appreciation for all the efforts of your Department in supporting this very informative and productive trip. Senator John McCain, White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, and I were all very impressed by the command at Joint Task Force Guantanamo by Admiral Smith, and by the representatives of all the services and civilians working at Guantanamo under very challenging and difficult conditions. Their professionalism and dedication were clearly apparent, and in no way does my disagreement with the force-feeding policy reflect on their work.

During our visit, more than 60 percent of the 166 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay were categorized by the Department of Defense as "hunger strikers," with more than 40 of them being force-fed. Four detainees were in the facility's hospital for problems related to their feeding or hunger strike. During our visit to the prison, we were briefed on the Department of Defense policies regarding force-feedings and I remain concerned that these policies are out of step with international norms, medical ethics and practices of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Medical Association (WMA), as well as numerous international organizations (including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and three UN Special Rapporteurs) have all criticized or opposed the force- feedings of detainees.

The WMA recently stated that "[f]orcible feeding is never ethically acceptable," and "that physicians should never be used to break hunger strikes through acts such as force-feeding." The American Medical Association has supported the WMA's position on this matter. On May 13, 2013, several human rights and anti-torture organizations—citing the positions of the ICRC and WMA—wrote that the force-feeding of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility violates Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment. Moreover, a recently published bipartisan Task Force on Detainee Treatment—led by former Congressman Asa Hutchinson and former Ambassador Jim Jones—found that the Department of Defense's force-feeding practices were "contrary to established medical and professional ethical standards" and called on the United States to adopt standards of care, policies, and procedures in keeping with the guidelines developed by the WMA, "including affirmation that force-feeding is prohibited."

In addition to the allegation that the Department of Defense's force-feeding practices are out of sync with international norms, they also appear to deviate significantly from U.S. Bureau of Prison practices. Based on a review by Intelligence Committee staff, the significant differences between force-feedings at Guantanamo Bay and within the U.S. Bureau of Prisons relate to the manner in which detainees are force-fed, how often detainees are force-fed, and the safeguards and oversight in place during force-feedings.

Within the Bureau of Prisons, force-feeding is exceedingly rare. The Intelligence Committee staff has been told that no inmate within the Bureau of Prisons has been force-fed in more than six months. When force-feedings do occur within the Bureau of Prisons, we have been told that nearly 95% of the time they are conducted with a fully compliant inmate requiring no restraints. At Guantanamo Bay, on the other hand, all detainees being force-fed—regardless of their level of cooperation—are placed in chairs where they are forcibly restrained. The visual impression is one of restraint: of arms, legs, and body. Further, at Guantanamo Bay, detainees are fed twice a day in this manner, potentially over a substantial period of time. This also is inconsistent with the practice of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Additionally, the U.S. federal prison guidelines for force-feedings include several safeguards and oversight mechanisms that are not in place at Guantanamo Bay. These guidelines require the warden to notify a sentencing judge of the involuntary feeding, with background and an explanation of the reasons for involuntary feeding. Further, the Bureau of Prisons requires an individualized assessment of an inmate's situation to guide how force-feedings are administered, a practice that I found largely absent at Guantanamo Bay. Finally, all force-feedings must be videotaped within the Bureau of Prisons.

Hunger strikes are a long known form of non-violent protest aimed at bringing attention to a cause, rather than an attempt of suicide. I believe that the current approach raises very important ethical questions and complicates the difficult situation regarding the continued indefinite detention at Guantanamo. I urge you to reevaluate the force-feeding policies at Guantanamo Bay and to put in place the most humane policies possible.

I very much appreciate your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

Dianne Feinstein
Chairman

The reporter died Tuesday morning at 33. His friend and bureau chief remembers an era that shaped him.

Michael Hastings at the Newsweek office in Baghdad.

Via: Scott Johnson/Buzzfeed

I used to call him Hasty. Emphasis on the ty. Has-ty!

I'd say it when I saw him, covered in grime, coming in from an embed, or over breakfast in the morning, day after day, month after month, year after year, in the dilapidated house we shared in the green zone in Baghdad. Michael would chuckle and say, "What's shaking?" or, as was so often the case, simply, "Dude," which was really just a prelude, his way of saying: Wait till you hear what I'm about to tell you.

And tell he did, more stories than I, or even sometimes he, could keep up with. He was a consummate storyteller, and an even better story-getter. Michael Hastings was one of the most dedicated and talented reporters I've ever known. More than that he was an extraordinarily thoughtful human being, a fact that often got eclipsed in recent years by his aggressive and unrelenting diligence on the job. Michael died early Tuesday morning in a fiery car crash in Hollywood. There is no accounting for everything his death will come to mean for the rest of us. But right now, a world without Michael feels like a less honest, a less generous and a much less soulful place.

I first met Michael at the old Newsweek offices on 57th Street in New York in 2003. He was 23, fascinated by journalism, foreign reporting, anything that enabled him to engage with the world, a world that just lit him up with desire and outrage, curiosity and conviction. Michael was alive, even in those very first encounters, with a rare kind of ferocity, a hunger for experience coupled with a subtle sensibility far beyond his years. He was already a gifted writer whose talent had caught the eye of senior editors to whom he was becoming increasingly indispensable. When they challenged him with greater and more difficult tasks, he rose to the occasion every time. And from the heights of each accomplishment, he looked further.

Michael arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2005. He was untested as a war correspondent, but I was happy to have him there. I was Newsweek's Bureau Chief and we needed a permanent correspondent. Michael was fresh, eager and raring to go, and within days he was working Baghdad as if there were no more natural thing in the world. For the next year and a half Michael and I reported together virtually every day, and what began as a collegial relationship soon blossomed into one of the most rewarding and lasting friendships I have ever had.

There was a time when I thought I was actually teaching Michael — about reporting from a war zone, or how to talk to the military, or what the larger lessons of the war might eventually be. I sent him out on his first embed, and like a father I fretted every hour that he was gone, wanting nothing more than his safe return to the house. But when he did return, amped up on adrenaline and tingling with the thrill of having survived, it was clear he had already absorbed more than I could ever teach him. As the situation worsened, and Iraq began to descend into civil war, Mike grew along with it, using each new story, each new atrocity to better understand the world and his place in it. In that way he was the best kind of reporter and public intellectual – the kind who never shied away from an uncomfortable truth, but instead ran straight toward it, knowing it would offer him, and by extension the rest of us, something of much greater value.

Mike proved himself over and over again in Iraq, often in the harshest circumstances. He spent three weeks embedded with a unit in the height of summer once, unwilling to return until he had gotten every last bit of reporting he could find. When the story was published, the officers threatened him with bodily harm because they didn't appreciate the honesty with which he had portrayed the experience of soldiering. He stayed on with the unit anyway. He was sometimes cavalier and brash, but in Iraq his ire was never directed toward the grunts with whom he spent so much time. Instead he sought to portray their experiences in what he knew was the larger context of a failed war. When out-of-touch or embarrassed leaders pushed back at him, sometimes with threats, he could have retreated in fear but he did not. He was then, and remained so until the end, courageous in his reporting and in his life.

Michael's reporting from Iraq was without question some of the very best that Newsweek produced. He was the first reporter to uncover indications of torture by American-supported Iraqi jailers and he found his way into a jail to prove it. Together we snuck into a courthouse and reported on the flaws of Iraq's incipient judicial system. He was the only reporter to break the news that the execution of Saddam Hussein was filmed, contradicting what officials claimed and in violation of the law. He broke stories on politics, military strategy and death squads. It was because of Michael's diligent cultivation of sources that one day, toward the end of 2006, I found a trove of classified documents on my desk, leaked to us by sympathetic officials at the U.S embassy, detailing a propaganda campaign. Without Mike, I might have sat on the story. "Let's do it," he said, "[U.S government officials] are the ones who are lying." And so we did. Michael, younger by seven years, had become my teacher.

The week after I left Baghdad, in January 2007, Michael's fiance Andi Parhamovich, a young employee of the National Democratic Institute was killed in an ambush after leaving an appointment with a prominent Sunni politician in a particularly rough part of town. In Mexico that week, my mother and aunt and I made a wreath and left it in a small church. I never sent the pictures to Michael and I wish I had. But when I saw Michael last week, he had just returned from a meeting in Washington D.C where, he told me, he had uncovered more information about the people he believed were responsible for Andi's murder. He said he wouldn't stop looking until the killers were brought to justice.

Michael's reporting eventually changed the world. His profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal altered the course of the war in Afghanistan and, arguably, shifted the way the military thinks about its Constitutionally enshrined duties to civilian leadership. He won accolades and awards, and yet he always battled people, even other reporters, who felt more comfortable nestled within the cozy alleyways of power, where access and privilege are taken for granted, provided that you refrain from speaking certain truths. Michael Hastings never took that easy route.

And yet for all that fame and glory, he was until the end humble, courageous and concerned. I had dinner with him last week at the Manhattan apartment where he made a home with his wife Elise Jordan and his Corgi, Bobby Sneakers. He wanted to do another story on the death squads in Iraq, he told me; he had always felt bad that he had left that story untold. Six years after Andi's death he was still doggedly on the trail of the people, in both the American and Iraqi governments, who he felt bore some measure of responsibility. And in typical fashion, he was branching out, delving into the sordid mysteries of Hollywood where, he told me last month as we rode in the Mercedes he had just bought, "dreams come to die."

It had been a few years since I had last seen Michael in person. He had moved to Los Angeles and I would soon be too. He had all kinds of plans for us -- stories we would do together, tips to pursue, hell to raise. He picked me up one day at LAX in April and we spent a couple of days together, eating street tacos, enjoying the sun, talking about the past. I was so proud of everything he had accomplished, and so excited for the future.

I'm sorry I won't be able to go skateboarding with Michael, like we had planned. Or that I won't be able to teach him to surf. I'm sorry I won't hear his remarkable laugh anymore. I'm so sorry I will no longer be the recipient of his vast knowledge. He was a treasure as a friend, a gift as a teacher and a remarkable human being. For the world, however, he was incalculably valuable, and for that I am not just sorry but incredibly sad.

I miss you already, Hasty.

RIP.

The untold faces of our country.

This young migratory worker mother who traveled 35 miles to pick peas for $2.25 a day. She lived in a camp with her two children and husband.

(1940)

Via: usnationalarchives

This Japanese-American grandmother waiting to be moved to an internment camp during World War II.

(1942)

Via: usnationalarchives

These 10 small boys who worked in a cotton mill in North Carolina in 1908.

(1908)

Via: usnationalarchives

This young girl at that same mill staring out a window. She had already worked there more than a year.

(1908)

Via: usnationalarchives

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Rep. Pompeo asks what the alternative to force-feeding hunger strikers is.

Rep. Mike Pompeo

Via: Win McNamee / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) criticized Sen. Dianne Feinstein's call for a stop to force-feedings at Guantanamo on Wednesday, saying that in his recent visit to the facility the practice had appeared to be in step with standards.

"I was down at Guantanamo not terribly long ago, two or three weeks ago," Pompeo told BuzzFeed. "I was walked through the process by which these detainees were being fed. We were told that the process that they were doing is completely consistent with what's being done by the federal Bureau of Prisons."

Feinstein sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Wednesday criticizing the practice for being out of line with federal and international norms and calling for it to end.

In an interview, Pompeo asked what Feinstein would propose instead for feeding prisoners on hunger strike.

"She wants them to die?" he asked. "Did she give an alternative?"

"I must say they have a very difficult situation with a group of folks who are attempting to make a political statement, and trying to stir hostility from the left wing here in the United States in an effort to convince America that the detention center should be closed," Pompeo said. "They want to be set free. My judgment on that is, if someone can present to me an alternative that makes sense I'm happy to consider it."

Pompeo, who spoke on the House floor last week against closing Guantanamo, wouldn't say whether he thinks it should remain open indefinitely.

"These detainees must be kept away from killing Americans indefinitely," Pompeo said. "The president declared the war on terror over, he's wrong. We've got folks that have killed thousands of Americans there. The solution which has been provided so far, which is to bring them back into the United States, is unworkable."

"The Guantanamo detention is consistent with international norms," he said.

The Iowa Republican and immigration hardliner holds a six-hour “press conference” to protest the Senate’s immigration bill. “I didn’t know when we started out this morning if I might be standing here alone till 5 o’clock tonight,” he said.

Rep. Steve King.

Via: Pete Marovich / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Steve King was prepared to talk about immigration for six hours all by himself if he had to.

On Wednesday, the Iowa congressman and immigration hard-liner had organized a press conference-turned-rally scheduled for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon — with a two-hour break for an anti-IRS rally — to protest the immigration bill moving through the Senate and to "have a debate not happening inside the halls of Congress."

"I didn't know when we started out this morning if I might be standing here alone till 5 o'clock tonight," he told BuzzFeed. "I couldn't have said go if I wasn't ready to [do] that. I told my staff, if I can't carry the whole load then I can't say yes."

But King didn't have to talk by himself. Crowds showed up in droves. One member of Congress after another showed up to give speeches. The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector dropped by to talk about his widely criticized study that the Senate's immigration bill would cost $6 trillion (though there was no criticism from this crowd).

For King, the outpouring of support from tea party groups and like-minded members of Congress was proof that his efforts to stall, and hopefully kill, the Senate's immigration bill in the House were working. If party leaders had hoped King would sit this fight out, by day's end on Wednesday he had made it abundantly clear he wasn't going anywhere.

"People kept asking, 'What's Steve King going to do?' And I heard their voices dripping with contempt that they were going to be able to run over the top of us and of course that's not the case," he said.

"I don't want it to be personal, and I don't want it to be a family feud, but I didn't force this debate, they did."

Rep. Louie Gohmert speaks to the crowd. An attendee holds up the American flag.

"What we have today is maybe the longest press conference in the history of the United States Congress," King said in the morning.

"This bill is at its core amnesty," King said to cheers. "We're here to today…to take this debate outside the halls of Congress. If it's not going to be good enough inside, we'll take it outside!"

National Republicans have called for immigration reform as they work to gain Hispanic votes, and the party in Congress is split between those who would support comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path for citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and those, like King and Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who say immigrants who came here illegally should not be given citizenship and the border needs to be secured.

"This is about the rule of law," King said many times.

Supporters of comprehensive immigration reform argue that King, Gohmert, and others are outliers in the Republican party and point to polling that shows the majority of Americans support a pathway to citizenship that comes with tighter border security.

"With their abysmal showing among Latinos in the last election, it is suicidal politics to let the Steve King wing continue to drive and define the GOP," said Frank Sherry, executive director of America's Voice, in a statement. "There is a path forward in the House, but it requires the adults in the GOP to work with Democrats and modernizers and do the right thing for the country, which is also the right thing for their party."

Conservatives are wary that House Speaker John Boehner will find a way to bring immigration reform to the floor of the House, although Boehner has said he will not do so without a majority of Republican support.

But by the end of the day Wednesday, King and his crew were feeling more emboldened than ever to keep on fighting.

"This is so important, and I think our Republican leaders aren't getting it," said Gohmert. pointing to the IRS, Obamacare, and other issues troubling the Obama administration. "Our Republican leaders are saying, 'Let's change the subject.' Are you kidding me?"

As hundreds of King's tea party supporters continued their rally, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, the chair of the House Republican Conference, emerged from the Capitol for own press conference a few dozen feet away. Flanked by a small cadre of pro-reform Hispanic faith leaders and aides, McMorris Rogers' press conference was dwarfed by King's throng.

Several members of Republican leadership had met with the Hispanic leaders to talk about immigration issues in their communities as the House begins to tackle immigration reform.

"The goal of this gathering was to talk about these faith-based and community-based leaders about what they are seeing in their communities, and it's a conversation Republicans want to have," she said.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican working on a House immigration bill, spoke briefly in Spanish at the McMorris Rogers event and was heckled by one of the tea party protestors who had wandered over and yelled, "Learn English!"

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He was a college professor. Hagel was speaking at the University of Nebraska where he went to school. He had previously answered a question on Afghanistan and negotiating with the Taliban before the exchange.

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A longer version of the event is available here.

Absolutely no slight toward any individual in the audience was intended. That's the last thing the Secretary would do under any circumstance, in this or any other setting. He didn't know who would be called next to pose a question.

On Wednesday, they’re hosting a press conference with a billionaire Obama donor.

Via: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — A group of 145 progressives is hoping to make the Keystone XL pipeline debate very, very personal for President Obama Wednesday.

The group of former Obama campaign workers, most from 2012, have signed a letter calling on the president to reject the controversial oil pipeline, one of the few issues — before the arrival of Edward Snowden — that has led to widespread protest of the White House by the left.

Obama has steadfastly refused to say whether he will approve Keystone, with White House officials regularly noting the State Department is still reviewing the potential environmental impact of the project.

Keystone opponents have begun turning to members of Obama's massive campaign operation to help protest the pipeline. On Monday, a couple dozen former Obama campaign workers and donors were arrested in Chicago as part of an anti-Keystone rally. Former top Obama advisers now in the private sector are divided, with some working to oppose Keystone and at least one working for a firm that has been contracted by a pipeline supporter.

The 145 signatories of the letter were organized by environmentalist groups, including the Energy Action Coalition and 350.org.

On Wednesday, the groups behind the letter and billionaire Tom Steyer — a prominent donor to Democratic causes, including the Obama campaign — will host an event at the National Press Club where they'll announce a new anti-Keystone campaign led by Steyer's PAC, NextGen Action.

Read the letter:

“The last six months have reinforced my belief that government can be a force for good and that reason and compassion will win the day.”

Via: Equality Delaware

Governor Jack Markell signed the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Act yesterday, which ensures equal legal protections to trans individuals in the state of Delaware. Prior to this bill, it had been perfectly legal to fire someone or deny them housing on the basis of the person's gender identity.

Equality Delaware Co-President Mark Purpura testifying before the state senate:

Via: Equality Delaware

After the signing, Markell had a special message for a young woman in the room."I especially want to thank my friend Sarah McBride, an intelligent and talented Delawarean who happens to be transgender," Markell announced. "Her tireless advocacy for passage of this legislation has made a real difference for all transgender people in Delaware." At only the age of 22, Sarah McBride is one of the most important voices in the state of Deleware for transgender rights.

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Chief justice sets limits on the conditions the federal government can set for groups that accept federal money. Justices Scalia and Thomas disagreed.

Via: Alex Wong / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — In a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court held Thursday that the federal government cannot force groups that get government HIV/AIDS-prevention funding to pledge their opposition to prostitution, a decision based on the groups' First Amendment rights and the limits of government power when it gives money to outside groups.

The case involved grants given to nongovernmental organizations under the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, called the "Leadership Act." The law required not only that no federal funding "promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking," but also that groups receiving funding have "a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking."

It was this second part of the program — the "Policy Requirement" — that several organizations challenged and that the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional on Thursday. They told the justices that they feared the requirement could "diminish the effectiveness of some of their programs by making it more difficult to work with prostitutes in the fight against HIV/AIDS" and force them to censor their discussions, even in programs or at events where no federal funds were being used.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court's opinion for himself and several of the more moderate-to-liberal members of the court, and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with more protection given for First Amendment rights in a regularly recurring question about how much control government has over what a group can say when accepting government funds.

They concluded that, while government has broad authority to set conditions defining a federal program, it cannot ban protected-speech activity outside the scope of that federally funded program. Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the consideration of the case because of her prior role as the top appellate lawyer in the Obama administration, which was defending the law in question.

Describing the difference between allowed conditions and unconstitutional ones, Roberts wrote for the court, "[T]he relevant distinction that has emerged from our cases is between conditions that define the limits of the government spending program—those that specify the activities Congress wants to subsidize—and conditions that seek to leverage funding to regulate speech outside the contours of the program itself."

Although he acknowledged that the difference between the two "is not always self-evident," he concluded, "Here, however, we are confident that the Policy Requirement falls on the unconstitutional side of the line."

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, disagreed with this formulation, writing in dissent that this was clearly permissible because there is no coercion and the condition is simply an example of "government ... enlist[ing] the assistance of those who believe in its ideas to carry them to fruition."

"That seems to me a matter of the most common common sense," he wrote. Scalia went on to call the requirement struck down by the justices the "reasonable price of admission to a limited government-spending program that each organization remains free to accept or reject."