“This administration should get serious about prosecuting violent criminals who misuse guns and stop focusing its efforts on law-abiding gun owners,” says NRA spokesperson Andrew Arulanandam.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association swiftly condemned a new round of Obama administration executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence Thursday.

"The Obama administration has once again completely missed the mark when it comes to stopping violent crime," NRA spokesperson Andrew Arulanandam said.

Vice President Joe Biden is expected to announce the new executive actions Thursday, the same day he ceremonially swears in the new head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. A proposed ATF rule requiring individuals who register a gun to a corporation to undergo a background check would, according to the White House, close a loop hole in existing law that allows convicted felons and others barred from owning guns to purchase them. A new administration policy bans the reimportation and sale of American weapons sold or given to U.S. allies by the military.

There are more details on the White House proposals here.

The NRA opposition is in step with the organization's response to most of Obama's pushes for new gun control laws after the Newtown shooting. which ultimately led to a defeat for the president at the hands of NRA allies in the Senate.

"Requiring background checks for corporations and trusts does not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals," Arulanandam said. "Prohibiting the re-importation of firearms into the U.S. that were manufactured 50 or more years ago does not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals."

"This administration should get serious about prosecuting violent criminals who misuse guns and stop focusing its efforts on law-abiding gun owners," he continued.

My. God. No.

mtv.com

abcnews.go.com

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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held the law does not violate free speech or parents’ rights.

Rich Pedroncelli, File / AP

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Thursday upheld California's ban on therapy aimed at changing minors' sexual orientation.

In a unanimous decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the law — the first of its kind in the country — was upheld as being within the legislature's authority to pass. Parents wishing to employ such therapy with their children and professionals who employ "sexual orientation change effort" therapy.

New Jersey last week became the second state in the country to pass such a law.

The three-judge panel that heard the appeal of California's law considered both free speech claims brought by the practitioners, associational claims brought by the parties, and claims about parents' rights to raise their children. The judges found the law violated none of these provisions.

In explaining the court's decision regarding parents' rights, Judge Susan Graber wrote:

[T]o recognize the right Plaintiffs assert would be to compel the California legislature, in shaping its regulation of mental health providers, to accept Plaintiffs' personal views of what therapy is safe and effective for minors. The aforementioned cases lead us to conclude that the fundamental rights of parents do not include the right to choose a specific type of provider for a specific medical or mental health treatment that the state has reasonably deemed harmful.

In conclusion, the court on Thursday held:

Read the court's opinion:

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“This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says.

Kostas Tsironis, Pool / AP

WASHINGTON — The federal government will recognize the marriages of all same-sex couples, regardless of where they live, for tax purposes — an expansive decision that will have ripple effects across the nation.

"This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change," Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in a statement.

As a result of the Revenue Ruling issued Thursday, a same-sex couple in Ohio who married in Massachusetts would be able to file a joint tax return next year the same as any other married couple in Ohio would do.

In a statement announcing the decision on enforcement of tax law after the Supreme Court's June 26 ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, the Treasury Department announced:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) today ruled that same-sex couples, legally married in jurisdictions that recognize their marriages, will be treated as married for federal tax purposes. The ruling applies regardless of whether the couple lives in a jurisdiction that recognizes same-sex marriage or a jurisdiction that does not recognize same-sex marriage.

"Today's ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide. It provides access to benefits, responsibilities and protections under federal tax law that all Americans deserve," Lew said.

Regarding the recognition of marriages based on the "place of celebration," as it has been called, the ruling stated:

Under this rule, individuals of the same sex will be considered to be lawfully married under the Code as long as they were married in a state whose laws authorize the marriage of two individuals of the same sex, even if they are domiciled in a state that does not recognize the validity of same-sex marriages. ... Given our increasingly mobile society, it is important to have a uniform rule of recognition that can be applied with certainty by the Service and taxpayers alike for all Federal tax purposes.

The ruling expansively interprets current law, holding that "the terms 'husband and wife,' 'husband,' and 'wife' [found in tax law] include an individual married to a person of the same sex if they were lawfully married in a state whose laws authorize the marriage of two individuals of the same sex, and the term 'marriage' includes such marriages of individuals of the same sex."

The Treasury announcement also states that, generally, refunds can be filed for the prior three years' returns. "As a result, refund claims can still be filed for tax years 2010, 2011, and 2012," the Treasury statement notes.

The announcement also notes that only marriages — and not civil unions or domestic partnerships — will be recognized by the IRS.

Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin said in a statement, "With today's ruling, committed and loving gay and lesbian married couples will now be treated equally under our nation's federal tax laws, regardless of what state they call home. These families finally have access to crucial tax benefits and protections previously denied to them under the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act."

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, praised the decision.

"This announcement makes today a day of celebration and relief for married same-sex couples all over America. At long last, the IRS will treat them as what they are: married," he said in a statement.

The National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown, however, said in a statement, "The Treasury Department is grossly overstepping its authority. This is a nation of laws. Only Congress has the authority to change the law."

Read the Revenue Ruling:

Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest argued that President Obama’s decision regarding Syria is not similar to the decision President George W. Bush had to make in Iraq because there’s a “preponderance of evidence” suggesting the Assad regime used chemical weapons.

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Deputy White House Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday that the situation in Syria is not similar to the situation in Iraq that led President George W. Bush to decide to invade the country in 2003.

"As it relates to the situation in Iraq, I don't agree that these are similar situations," Earnest said. "What we saw in that circumstance was an administration that was searching high and low to produce evidence to justify a military invasion -- an open-ended military invasion of another country with the final goal being regime change."

Earnest said the large amount of visual evidence that's come out of Syria, circulated largely via social media, greatly aids the Obama administration's assertion that the Assad regime was responsible for the Aug. 21 attacks outside of Demascus.

"What we have seen here tragically is a preponderance of evidence available in the public domain that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against innocent civilians," he said. "That evidence exists thanks to social media thanks to some of the videos that have been broadcast thanks to some of the good work that independent journalists are doing on the ground, thanks to the reports of non-governmental organizations that are on the ground trying to meet the needs of the Syrian people."

Earnest added that Obama is not considering an open-ended military action nor is he talking about seeking a regime change.

"So, I thoroughly reject the suggestion that these two situations are somehow similar," he said.

In an interview with PBS Wednesday night, Obama said that Syria won't be "a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about."

This is exactly what you think it is.

In 1996, the Macarena was the #1 song in the country.

And delegates loved dancing it at the DNC convention in Chicago in 1996.

c-spanvideo.org

They would play the song before the program and delegates would pop out of their chairs.

c-spanvideo.org

Some were better than others.

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“[T]his is just going to prompt more litigation,” one LGBT legal advocate says.

Jim Obergefell, right, and John Arthur after they returned from their wedding flight at Landmark Aviation at Cincinnati's Lunken Airport. The couple were married during a short ceremony on the plane, on the tarmac, at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

The Cincinnati Enquirer, Gary Landers / AP

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration's decision Tuesday to recognize all same-sex couples' marriages for tax purposes regardless of where they live will force states to recognize that they have married same-sex couples living within their borders — even if the states themselves ban such marriages.

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act's ban on recognition of same-sex couples' marriages, the Internal Revenue Service adopted "a general rule, for Federal tax purposes, that recognizes the validity of a same-sex marriage that was valid in the state where it was entered into, regardless of the married couple's place of domicile."

The move means states that ban same-sex couples from marrying will nonetheless have to deal directly with married same-sex couples living in their states come tax time — putting pressure on executive officials, lawmakers and courts to address the issue, whether they want to or not.

"The reason I brought my case against DOMA all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court was because of a massive estate tax bill I received from the federal government after my beloved spouse, Thea Spyer, passed away. Thanks to today's ruling at the Treasury Department, no one will have to experience the pain and indignity that I went through ever again," Edith Windsor said in a statement Tuesday. "I feel so proud and grateful to my country and to our president."

That is true as to the federal government — and now the fallout from the case has the potential to press the issue even further, because of the reach of Thursday's ruling into the 37 states where same-sex couples remain unable to marry.

This is so because, beginning September 16, all married couples — regardless of sex and regardless of where they live — generally will have to file their taxes as "married." A same-sex couple who get married in California but live in Arizona, for example, will be filing their federal taxes as a married couple — despite Arizona's ban recognition of such couples' marriages.

Jon Davidson, the legal director at Lambda Legal, said the decision is "going to make things more complicated for the states." Before DOMA's bar on federal recognition of same-sex couples' marriages was struck down, married same-sex couples in states like Massachusetts had to file as unmarried at the federal level because "people were treated as married for state purposes but not federal ones," he said. Now, he explained, the difficulties will be reversed — with same-sex couples being treated as married by the federal government but not by many state governments.

The IRS' decision is going to set up a series of questions around the country because more than half of the states ban same-sex couples' marriages by their state's constitution. At the same time, however, many states base their own tax filing system on federal filings.

"I expect what will happen is that Ohio will say you have to file as single, and that they will do that based on the constitutional amendment," Davidson said. Santa Clara University Law professor Patricia Cain agreed, telling BuzzFeed states like Ohio with such amendments will have to "change their state income tax reporting rules to unhook them from federal reporting."

Looking at a pending case in which a federal judge in Ohio has questioned Ohio's failure to recognize the marriage of a same-sex couple, Jim Obergefell and John Arthur, who married in another state, however, Davidson also said, "But, as the Obergefell decision suggests, this is just going to prompt more litigation."

Davidson pointed out that, in addition to Ohio, there are federal lawsuits by same-sex couples seeking marriage recognition pending in federal courts in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia and state lawsuits pending in Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and Texas.

In one of his organization's own cases — challenging the fact that New Jersey does not allow same-sex couples to marry — Davidson said that the organization has filed briefs with the court about the various benefits now extended to married same-sex couples that are not available to couples with civil unions in New Jersey. "We're probably going to be filing something more based on today's tax ruling."

Roberta Kaplan, Windsor's lawyer at the Supreme Court, said the decision would put additional pressure not just on courts but also on state legislators — a point echoed by Davidson.

"Today's decision will only put more pressure on states like New Jersey that do not treat their gay citizens equally since it will become increasingly intolerable for those states to continue to treat married gay couples as second class citizens, especially given that the IRS will now afford them equal respect and dignity under the law," Kaplan said in a statement. Davidson also pointed to legislators in Hawaii and Illinois on that front.

Because of all the pending court cases and those new ones likely to come out of the coming issues as tax time comes around, moreover, Davidson put a quick timeline on when the question of same-sex couples' marriage rights will return to the Supreme Court.

"I expect the Supreme Court is going to need to revisit these issues in the next two to four years," he told BuzzFeed — adding that Thursday's decision "will be an additional force moving things in the right direction."

Tech companies offer thousands of dollars for reported bugs. The military hands out nondisclosure agreements.

ANDREW BURTON / Via Reuters

The U.S. Army has been aware for years of a major security flaw in the system soldiers use to access computers — and has done nothing to fix it, two sources, including an officer who alerted superiors to the risk, told BuzzFeed.

Today countless computers, and the soldiers who use them, remain vulnerable to a simple hack, which can be executed by someone with little or no security expertise.

The officer, who reported the flaw, was told to keep quiet, despite evidence of its widespread exploitation. Another soldier, who went to his superiors and even Congress, got no results. They Army has not yet returned a request for comment.

The hack allows users with access to shared Army computers to assume the identities of other personnel, gaining their securities clearances in the process, by exploiting issues with the computers' long and buggy log-out process, according to the sources familiar with the flaw.

The officer, an Army lieutenant, spoke on the condition he not be named; he is referred to here as "Mark." He discovered the flaw in October 2011, when he was playing around on his military computer during one of his 18-hour shifts. Being "of the hacker mind-set and being really, really bored," as he puts it, he wanted to see if there were any holes in it.

That's when he discovered the major, and obvious, computer security flaw.

"Oh shit," Mark said to himself when he figured it out. "This isn't good."

He described to BuzzFeed calling in his superiors — two middle-ranking officers, one in military intelligence and the other in computer communications.

As Mark described it, their eyes grew wide.

But, according to Mark, they told him there was nothing they could do. It would cost too much to fix it, they told him. It would require redoing too many contracts. "The term they used is that it would be 'impractical' to try and fix it," he says.

Instead, they made him sign the Army's version of a nondisclosure agreement. If he told anyone else about what he found, he could face prison time, he said.

"I'm showing you this so you can fix this," Mark recounts telling the officers. "This is obviously a huge problem. I'm probably not the only asshole who figured out how to do this."

At least one other soldier besides Mark has tried to formally report the security flaw, going to his military superiors as well as Congress and the Pentagon. This soldier's efforts, too, were met with inaction and silence.

Mark made a second attempt to report the security flaw when a new officer replaced one of his superiors. But again, nothing came of it.

"At that point I could try to talk with one of the division-level guys, but I know from personal experience that he is one of the people who plays the game," he said. "I wondered if it would raise a red flag about me if I tried to keep addressing the flaw."

Big private tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft routinely seek out and sometimes pay people like Mark who expose security flaws. Some have set up bounty systems giving any member of the public who finds and reports a bug up to $20,000.

The military has no such system. If reporting to a superior goes nowhere, then in reality, there is little recourse for soldiers who discover computer security problems. They could report a bug to the Department of Defense inspector general, which handles complaints about fraud, waste, and abuse. But that's not an obvious avenue for computer issues. Moreover, if their superiors found out, they could face retaliation.

One refrain in the wake of the National Security Agency leaks is that Edward Snowden should have reported his concerns up the chain of command rather than leaking documents to the press. But the internal reporting system is seriously broken in the military. All too often when a soldier reports misconduct or illegal activity, it is swept under the rug.

Perhaps the most egregious recent example of such a mind-set is the tragically late response to reports of widespread sexual assault in the service. Women's reports weren't just ignored — the victims were subject to retaliation including but not limited to being barred from medical treatment, having their information made public, and being discharged from the military. Recent pressure on the issue led to an updated version of the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, first created in 1988. The fact that it had to be updated to specifically include people reporting sexual assault speaks to its inadequacy.

Retaliation against internal whistle-blowers is a fact of military life. Between October 2012 and April 2013, the Department of Defense's inspector general's office received 695 complaints about "whistleblower reprisal, restriction of service members from contacting an IG or member of Congress, procedurally improper mental health referrals and senior official misconduct." Those are only the cases which were reported.

Mark's case suggests serious issues with the military's security reporting infrastructure too, even when the issue at hand is ideologically neutral.

JOSE LUIS MAGANA / Reuters

Now, almost two years later, the security flaw still exists.

"It is still happening," says Mark. "People know about it and no one is addressing it." Knowledge of it has even spread to low-level soldiers who don't work in technology. More than one source confirmed with BuzzFeed the existence of the flaw.

To fully understand the significance of the security flaw, you need to understand the Army computer security system. In order to log into a shared Army computer — say, in a computer lab on a base — you need to insert your personal Common Access Code military ID. Each card contains a chip that has the individual soldier's permissions and security details, and which helps the military track your activity. Once you remove the card, you are fully logged out.

But Mark found that it was possible to access the system as the last user, even if his or her military ID has been removed.

When a computer stalls during the shut-down process — if, for example, a program locked up and required a force quit or if Outlook is delaying the process with a large file upload — the computer can remain temporarily logged in without the presence of the key card. If the next user jumps on at that moment, the shut-down process can be canceled and the log-in can remain active with credentials and security clearance. All subsequent activity will be recorded as the previous user's.

This is almost certainly the result of a system design mistake, not malice, according to Daniel Cohen, an RSA cyber-security expert. "Personally I haven't heard of this exploit or weakness in the system, but it sounds very severe," he says.

According to Mark, the hack is simple to accomplish on both secure and non-secure computers. Mark has even tested the exploit to see if it would allow a user to gain access to SIPRNet, the classified DoD network from which Chelsea Manning acquired some of the files she then leaked to the press. It could.

Since many military computers have stuffed, cluttered hard drives as the result of long-term use by large numbers of soldiers, they often hang while shutting down. When soldiers sharing computers are in a rush, this identity swap can easily happen by accident.

For a hacker or leaker to manipulate this exploit would be easy. It would simply involve "a little bit of social engineering," as Mark says. "But that is easy since most people just pull their card and walk away, often without looking at the screen. 'Hey, buddy, can you print X out before you go? Wait, you can't find X? Let me pull it up. Can you grab it off the printer? Thanks, man, here's your card; see you in 12 hours.'"

Recently, Mark saw a number of soldiers watching an Entourage DVD on a operation center computer. "Hey, you don't have rights on that computer," Mark recounts saying to one of the soldiers. "I look at him and he says, 'Well, sure,' and he pulls out his card and waves it at me and the computer still plays."

It's not just the log-in problem. Security in general is fairly lax in the computer rooms overseas. After the Manning leak, one of the fixes advised was to have soldiers rename various files in the SIPRNet database, as if that would add a level of security. Soldiers also routinely bring USB sticks, DVDs, and CDs into the tactical operation center computer rooms. The sign on the door prohibiting it doesn't deter them.

"It is a boring job. You are just sitting there for 18 hours waiting for chaos to happen," says Mark. "So multiple TVs are on showing drone feeds, but you have one that is playing a Game of Thrones DVD or a movie that was burned from BitTorrent."

He has gone to his superiors with recommendations for numerous best practices to improve security, ranging from setting up a routing security to having an ID card system with levels of access and systems to prevent DDOS attacks, but no one was interested.

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The Newark mayor says his sexuality is well-known in local circles. “The question should be why the heck are you asking the question in the first place.”

Eduardo Munoz / Reuters

In an interview with MSNBC's Chris Hayes Thursday evening, U.S. Senate candidate Cory Booker dismissed rumors about his sexuality as irrelevant to the campaign, saying when pressed that he has "affirmed my sexual orientation numerous times over the years."

"My sexuality is not an issue right now, especially because it's been talked about by me for years," Booker said.

The discussion with Hayes focused largely on Booker's criminal justice reform proposal, a policy paper released Wednesday that aims to curb mass incarceration by taking steps toward marijuana decriminalization, ending mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenders, and fostering reentry programs.

The conversation turned quickly to Booker's personal life.

In an article in The Washington Post published earlier this week, Booker said questions about his sexual preference allow him "to challenge people on their homophobia," he said. "I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I'm gay, and I say, 'So what does it matter if I am? So be it. I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I'm straight.'"

Steve Lonegan, Booker's Republican challenger in this year's New Jersey special senate election, was asked about the interview. "It's kind of weird. As a guy, I personally like being a guy," he said.

In the interview on MSNBC, Hayes asked, "If you are gay, why would you not just come out?"

"It's a ridiculous discussion," Booker responded. "The question really should not be whether I'm gay or straight. The question should be why the heck are you asking the question in the first place. It doesn't make a whit of difference."

Booker, who has spoken frequently and publicly about dating women, said his sexuality is well known by the "local press" that has covered his City Hall for years. In the Post article that set off discussion about Booker's personal life, he says he keeps his dating life private because it would be "unfair" to "a young lady to put them in the spotlight if they haven't signed up for that yet."

"What I am trying to say to you is that I have affirmed my sexual orientation numerous times over the years. People in my local press world know exactly what that is," Booker told Hayes, noting that by refusing to say definitively one way or the other whether he is gay or straight gives him the opportunity to make a strong statement in the race against Lonegan.

"The reality is that the point I'm getting a chance to make right now — and I really, really want to drive this home — is we need to stop in American talking about anybody in the public realm besides what is important: the content of their character, the quality of their ideas, the courage within their hearts to serve others," said Booker. "That's what's important."

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nbcnews.com / Via MSNBC

“There is an irony there that we’re now paying for the mistakes of George Bush,” says Howard Dean.

Jason Reed / Reuters

WASHINGTON — America's chickens are coming home to roost.

The shadows of the Iraq War loom so heavily over President Obama's attempt to attack Syria that he may not be able to pull off the sort of relatively modest intervention that has been routine for American presidents for half a century. And the ironies come from two sides: On one hand, domestic and international memories of Iraq mean the American president can't get anyone to trust him. On the other, Obama has resisted the cynical lessons of the Bush Administration's political successes: That you can't undersell a war; that you can't rely on international good will; and that you can't, as Bush aide Andy Card notoriously said, launch a new product in August.

Now, Obama finds himself cast as Bush — without the results. And Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a butcher whose crimes need no exaggeration and whose victims are recent, is in some ways a better fit for the role into which Bush put Iraq's Saddam Hussein, whose worst crimes were behind him. Iraq war boosters invoked Saddam's 1980s gas attacks; but Assad stands accused of gassing civilians last week.

Yet as Thursday's vote against intervention in the British Parliament proved, Obama can't get even partners Bush did to go after Assad. And opponents of the Iraq war say Bush has boxed Obama into a corner.

"The problem is Obama can't deal with Assad with even a much milder military attack because of the loss of credibility of the United States under Bush," said Howard Dean, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate who made his name on opposing the war in Iraq and whose campaign laid the groundwork for Obama's. "There is an irony there that we're now paying for the mistakes of George Bush and it hampers the United States' ability to do something about somebody murdering his own people with weapons that are clearly against international law to use."

Dean was quick to say he didn't know what he would do were he in the Oval Office instead of Obama, but he did say that the vote in Parliament — an echo of the Iraq conflict both he and Obama opposed — was a major setback to Obama's plans for intervention. Prior to the British vote, Dean said he favored strikes on Assad's air force and other military targets. Without America's closest ally, the path forward is much less clear, Dean said.

"It's going to be really hard at this point to have a unilateral attack with cruise missiles without the Brits and nobody else with us," he said.

The collapse of British support for a strike on Syria is a particular inheritance from Iraq. David Cameron, Obama's Tory ally and the newest client of Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, abandoned the American president after seeing the shadow of his local ghost, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose leadership and legacy were badly damaged by his support for Bush in Iraq. Blair's foes saw the irony there."

"Syrians pay the price for Blair's lies over Iraq," tweeted Carne Ross, a former British diplomat and bitter Iraq war critic.

Obama is also facing a press that earned its own lesson from Iraq: It wants clearer proof that Assad used chemical weapons. Outlets willing to jump on the American push to attack Iraq are dragging their feet as the White House pushes for action in Syria. Obama, meanwhile, appeared Wednesday a page from Bush's book, warning that letting Bashir Assad and his regime go unpunished after the chemical attacks could lead to eventual chemical attacks on Americans.

That was a half-hearted gambit. Amid wide skepticism and open hostility who remembered the Bush era warnings not to let the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud, the White House walked it back. Spokesman Josh Earnest clarified that the president meant "was referring to our critical national security interests in the region," and "American facilities in the region" — not to a danger that chemical weapons could be used against American citizens here.

Obama is stuck in the world Bush left him, playing the role of a war president without Bush's conviction. The open political role, now, is for the young Democratic champion to stand up against her president. And some of the most promising figures in Congress, including a rising star from Hawaii, have sought to slow the planned attack on Syria.

"Right now, we do not have enough facts about all facets of what is occurring on the ground, the factions involved in this civil war, and what the unintended consequences would be for U.S. military involvement," Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran of the Iraq war and a leading figure in a new, Obama generation of Democrats, said in a statement. "Congressional debate and approval must occur before any U.S. military action is taken, and through this process we need to have a clear-eyed view of our objectives and what the outcomes would be, understanding the impacts in Syria, and those that extend far beyond Syria."

For their part, Obama and the White House have worked hard to say Syria is not Iraq, and will not become Iraq.

"We can take limited, tailored approaches, not getting drawn into a long conflict, not a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about," Obama told PBS Wednesday night.

But despite his hopes to cast this conflict as something different, the reactions from the media and the international community have made clear that the memory of Iraq will be hard to escape. And that means Obama may have to behave a lot more like his predecessor than many of his supporters would ever have predicted.

“Title 38 is unconstitutional under rational basis scrutiny.”

Tracey and Maggie Cooper-Harris.

Courtesy Kathleen Perrin

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California on Thursday found that, as with the ban on federal recognition of same-sex couples' marriages, federal veterans' benefits laws that limit those benefits to opposite-sex spouses are unconstitutional.

Finding no rational basis for the definitions in Title 38 of the U.S. Code that limit provision of veterans' benefits to opposite-sex couples, Judge Consuelo B. Marshall found those statutes unconstitutional — echoing the Supreme Court's ruling earlier this summer striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Specifically, Marshall found:

The Court finds that the exclusion of spouses in same-sex marriages from veterans' benefits is not rationally related to the goal of gender equality. ...

The denial of benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages is not rationally related to any of these military purposes.

Additionally, Title 38 is not rationally related to the military's commitment to caring for and providing for veteran families.

Marshall concluded, "Title 38 is unconstitutional under rational basis scrutiny," specifically barring the government from enforcing either the DOMA marriage definition, also challenged in the case, or the two statutory definitions at issue in Title 38 "to deny recognition of Plaintiffs' marriage recognized by the state of California."

The case was brought on behalf of plaintiffs Tracey and Maggie Cooper-Harris by the Southern Poverty Law Center in February 2012. Tracey Cooper-Harris served in the Army for about 12 years — deployed and having served in Iraq, among other places — and completed her service and received an honorable discharge in 2003.

The American Military Partner Association president, Stephen Peters, said in a statement, "Title 38 clearly violated the constitutional rights of our military veteran families. This decision sets our nation on a path to honoring and serving all of our veterans and their families, regardless of their sexual orientation."

[This story was updated as additional information became available, with the final update at 1:30 a.m. Friday.]

As the U.S. looks more alone than ever, former top Kosovo hands say the two conflicts don’t exactly compare. “The similarities are exactly zero,” says Galbraith.

UN vehicles full of experts investigating chemical weapons attacks leave the Four Season Hotel in Damascus on Thursday.

The Associated Press / AP

WASHINGTON — Diplomats who were involved in the West's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 say the situation offers little precedent for the Obama administration's planned attack on Syria, despite comparisons in the press.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that President Obama's "national security aides are studying the NATO air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations."

Balkans hands from the late 1990s say the situations bear little resemblance and that the example of Kosovo shouldn't serve as a model for action in Syria.

"The similarities between what we did in Kosovo and what is now being proposed in Syria are exactly zero," said Peter Galbraith, the former Ambassador to Croatia and close ally of the late Richard Holbrooke. "The situations are completely different. In Kosovo, we had a partner. In Syria, we don't. Kosovo is small, Syria is large."

Former Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill, a U.S. Special Envoy to Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, said: "I want to stress that there was a very big difference between Kosovo and Syria."

"In Kosovo we had political arrangements that had been agreed on by the Contact Group plan," Hill said. "We worked assiduously with Europeans, Russians and others to come up with a political solution."

"At the end of the day the Serbs refused to go along with it and in so refusing they were very much isolated," Hill said. "At the end, as ethnic cleansing continued, we hit them and hit them hard."

"We had a broad group of countries supporting us in Kosovo," Hill said, despite not managing to obtain a United Nations Security Council resolution. "I think in Syria we don't have that support."

Robert Gelbard, a former U.S. Envoy to Kosovo who warned Slobodan Milosevic about possible NATO intervention in 1998, was an early proponent of air war in the Balkans.

"I frankly was one of the hawks along with General Wesley Clark," Gelbard said. "But Richard Holbrooke, in particular, kept assuring people he could negotiate a peaceful solution."

"That's quite different from this situation," Gelbard said. "Nobody thinks they can negotiate a peaceful solution [in Syria] except the Russians."

Gelbard pointed out that the intervention in Kosovo came after sustained efforts on the part of the international community to negotiate an agreement between the two sides, a scenario that hasn't been true in Syria.

"By the time Kosovo came up, the U.S. had been deeply engaged in the region for a number of years," Gelbard said. "The U.S. finally got involved in 1995 particularly after the Srebrenica massacre [in Bosnia in 1995]. Obviously, some people are comparing Srebrenica to the chemical weapons attack as a final straw."

For Heather Hurlburt, a speechwriter for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the time, the comparison between Kosovo and Syria "is shorthand for a limited form of military intervention that got Russia to bring the recalcitrant party back to the table."

"If something like that could work it would be a godsend for the people of Syria because I see a stalemate in the fighting for the foreseeable future, but people should realize that Kosovo didn't happen overnight," Hurlburt said.

And in today's supercharged news cycle, anything longer than a few days could prove disastrous from a public relations perspective.

"Kosovo was pre-blogs and pre-Twitter, and criticism of the administration when we got into month three was pretty savage. We felt under enormous pressure in May of 1999," said Hurlburt.

Despite the obvious differences, some who were involved in Kosovo in the 1990s argue that the campaign offers useful lessons for Syria. General Wesley Clark wrote an op-ed on Thursday arguing that "the Kosovo campaign can still be instructive in other respects because it offers lessons on expecting the unexpected and on improvising in the midst of a confrontation."

"These episodes are always fluid, but so long as your political coalition is well organized — and NATO was — objectives can be modified and clarified during the course of military action," Clark wrote. "Not every 'I' has to be dotted or 't' crossed before initiating a strike."

It doesn't appear likely that a political coalition like the one that formed around Kosovo will come together here. International support for U.S. action in Syria took another hit on Thursday as the British parliament voted against United Kingdom involvement in the planned strikes, leaving the U.S. without one of its only potential military partners in the strikes.

Greenwald lifts the curtain on the scale of the leak — and says he and Poitras alone have access to the full cache.

U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald (left) walks with his partner David Miranda in Rio de Janeiro's International Airport on Aug. 19.

Ricardo Moraes / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The British Embassy in Washington met with the New York Times in mid-August regarding materials the paper has that were leaked by Edward Snowden, the editor of the Guardian said on Friday.

"On Monday 22 July, the Guardian directed the government towards the New York Times and ProPublica, both of whom had material from GCHQ," said Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, in a statement aimed at pointing out that his government — which forced the Guardian to destroy hard drives with copies of data leaked by Edward Snowden — had not acted with the same urgency toward American outlets with the same data from Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency.

"It was more than three weeks before anyone from the British government contacted the New York Times," Rusbridger said. "We understand the British Embassy in Washington met with the New York Times in mid-August — over three weeks after the Guardian's material was destroyed in London. To date, no-one has contacted ProPublica, and there has been two weeks of further silence towards the New York Times from the government."

It is unclear whether the British demanded that the Times destroy its copies of the documents. A spokesperson for the Times, Eileen Murphy, said the paper wouldn't comment on the meeting.

"We have presented a witness statement to the court in Britain which explains why we are trying to secure copies of over 58,000 stolen intelligence documents – to protect public safety and our national security," said James Barbour, the British Embassy's press secretary. "We are not going to get into the specifics about our efforts but it should come as no surprise if we approach a person who is in possession of some or all of this material."

The president of the nonprofit investigative journalism group ProPublica, which is working with the Guardian and Times on reporting about the Snowden documents, Dick Tofel, confirmed that he had not heard from the British.

The information comes after a hearing Friday in London in which a British intelligence official disclosed that David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was carrying a password for encrypted files on a piece of paper when he was detained at Heathrow Airport on Aug.18. That has prompted the British government to declare that Greenwald and Miranda's possession of the documents poses a threat to national security, since the existence of a piece of paper with the password makes them less secure — though the government did not assert that the password had allowed them to decrypt the 58,000 British intelligence documents it said Miranda was carrying.

On Twitter, Greenwald said the password does not give the authorities access to the documents. In a statement to BuzzFeed, he offered the clearest glimpse yet of the scale of the documents leaked by Snowden and of who exactly controls them, saying that he and filmmaker Laura Poitras retain control of the full set, and that even the Guardian does not have all the Snowden documents.

Greenwald said:

Only Laura and I have access to the full set of documents which Snowden provided to journalists.

The stories published in Germany and Brazil were authored by each of us (Laura in Germany with Der Spiegel, me in Brazil with various outlets). The vast majority of my reporting has been and will continue to be with the Guardian, but in those instances where stories are of principal concern to one country, we are continuing to partner with media organizations in countries around the world to ensure that all materials in the public interest are reported and disclosed.

As the Guardian reported, the New York Times and ProPublica have only the portion of the archive relating to GCHQ. That is a small subset of the documents.

[The Washington Post's] Bart Gellman also has only a small subset of the documents, though the number is substantial and relate to NSA. To my knowledge, he has not received any new documents from Snowden since May nor communicated with him since the first part of June, nor has he ever met Snowden.

The hearing in London today gave London police expanded powers to investigate Miranda for crimes related to terrorism and the Official Secrets act after electronic devices belonging to him were seized at Heathrow on Aug. 18.

Update: Greenwald's comment has been updated for clarity at his request. (1:37 p.m.)

As North Korea bars a State Department envoy, Bae’s options look slim.

Kim Jong Un (left) and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at an arena in Pyongyang.

VICE Media, Jason Mojica, File / AP

WASHINGTON — The situation for Kenneth Bae, an American citizen imprisoned in North Korea, looked more dire on Friday as the North Korean government revoked its invitation to a U.S. envoy who was scheduled to fly to Pyongyang to negotiate Bae's release.

"We are surprised and disappointed by North Korea's decision," said deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf in a statement. "We have sought clarification from the DPRK about its decision and have made every effort so that Ambassador [Robert] King's trip could continue as planned or take place at a later date. Ambassador King intends to return to Washington from Tokyo the afternoon of August 31."

Bae, a Christian missionary and tour guide, was arrested last year by North Korean authorities and has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for "hostile acts" against the government.

In a strange turn of events, the only person who has even tentative plans at this point to visit North Korea and attempt to free Bae is former NBA star Dennis Rodman.

Rodman, who famously met with Kim Jong-un in February, floated the idea earlier this summer of returning this month to free Bae. Though the trip never materialized, Rodman repeated his offer to try and rescue Bae in an interview with HuffPost Live on Thursday.

"I gave [Kim Jong Un] a great indication of when I'm going to Beijing soon – that's just a hop, skip and a jump from North Korea," Rodman said. "So basically, you know, I'm pretty sure I'll be talking to [Kim] soon."

"I will definitely ask for Kenneth Bae's release," he said. "I will say, 'Marshal, why is this guy held hostage?' I could try and soften it up in that way."

Rodman said he would be "the most powerful guy in the world" if he successfully negotiated Bae's release.

The other high-profile potential Bae savior was President Jimmy Carter, who was rumored to be planning a trip earlier this summer. A spokesperson for the Carter Center did not immediately respond to a question about whether Carter might revisit the idea of traveling to North Korea now that the U.S. envoy's trip is no longer happening.

Bae's sister Terri Chung declined to discuss the situation with BuzzFeed.

"Due to the uncertainty and sensitivity of the situation, our family is declining interview requests at this time," Chung said.

No decision yet, but the president says a “limited, narrow act” is on the table. Obama says American national security is at stake.

Iraq / Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Obama is still deciding what to do about Syria, he told reporters at the White House Friday. But, as his staff and cabinet officials have done several times now, he is ready to rule one thing out: sending ground forces to the country.

"We're not considering any open-ended commitment. We're not considering any boots on the ground approach," Obama said in a public appearance after a meeting with Baltic leaders.

The president reiterated that he has "not made any decisions" about how to proceed, but he also repeated his promise that something will be done.

"We are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria, but others around the world, understand that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm," he said.

"What we will do is consider options that meet the narrow concern around chemical weapons, understanding that there's not going to be a solely military solution to the underlying conflict and tragedy that's taking place in Syria," Obama said.

In longer comments, Obama said he understood why there's been reticence to engage in Syria following chemical attacks his administration insists it has proven were caused by Syrian president Bashir Assad. But he said the world — and U.S. national security interests — can't wait for Iraq fatigue to dissipate before acting.

"I recognize that all of us here in the United States, in Great Britain and many parts of the world, there's a certain weariness given Afghanistan. There's a certain suspicion of any military action post-Iraq," Obama said. "And I very much appreciate that."

In a long answer, the president said that if the attacks in Syria his administration says are Assad's fault go unanswered, "then we're sending a signal that that international norm doesn't mean much, and that is a danger to our national security."

Pointing to the stalemate in the U.N. — where Russia, with China's support, has vowed to oppose a U.N.-led action in Syria — and the ongoing effects of the weariness he described, Obama said, "ultimately we don't want the world to be paralyzed. And, frankly, you know, part of the challenge that we end up with here is that a lot of people think something should be done, but nobody wants to do it."

Obama again said that direct U.S. interests are at stake, referring to a potential chemical attack on Americans if the attacks in Syria are not responded to.

"This kind of attack is a challenge to the world. We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale," he said. "This kind of attack threatens our national security interests by violating well established international norms against the use of chemical weapons by further threatening friends and allies of ours in the region, like Israel and Turkey, and Jordan and it increases the risk that chemical weapons will be used in the future and fall into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us."

Friday brought the United States ever closer to a military strike on Syria, with Secretary of State John Kerry delivering an impassioned case for some kind of action after the Obama administration released an intelligence report detailing what officials said was clear-cut evidence that Assad ordered chemical attacks that killed over 1,000 people earlier this month.

Senior administration officials told reporters on a conference call Friday the president is still seeking input on how to proceed in Syria. One official said the president has "received options from the military and also from his broader national security team about potential courses of action."

The official said "a two-way conversation with Congress" is ongoing, and that Obama is still talking to international leaders as well.

"Those international conversations are also important to the president's decision-making," the official said. "But ultimately he will make the decision that's in the best interest of the United States on his timeline."

Watch Obama's remarks on Syria to reporters Friday:

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Young Republicans revolt. “The party and the leadership has given [young people] no attention, has done nothing in terms of outreach, and we’re going to change that,” says Nass.

A new organization for young conservatives will kick into gear next week with the express goal of "drowning out" the cranks and cooks who have "hijacked" the Republican Party, and converting a generation of dissatisfied Democrats and independents on college campuses across the country.

"The thesis of our organization is that young people are not liberal," said Josh Nass, a Brandeis student and founder of the group, Voices of Conservative Youth. "They vote for Democrats but that is not a function of their genuine political philosophy. And that's not their fault, it's ours. The party and the leadership has given them no attention, has done nothing in terms of outreach, and we're going to change that."

Nass, who describes himself as a "21-year-old, ambitious, yet slightly insecure college kid," said the group plans to build a national network of university chapters, maintain an active and aggressive social media presence, and work with a public relations firm to get young conservative activists on outlets like Comedy Central, MTV, and Univision. It has already collected a mailing list of 1,000 college students in the northeast, and predicts it will quickly balloon to 10,000 once it starts advertising itself online next week.

While the outreach they are doing is meant to fill the void left by Republican leaders, Nass stressed that they will break from the GOP establishment on key issues.

The most obvious example is that Voices of Conservative Youth supports marriage equality and plans to elevate conservatives like Stephanie Petelos, a college Republican who made headlines last week in Alabama for going to battle with party poobahs over comments she made about the marriage issue.

"I've been told by countless people not to do this — not because it wouldn't improve the party's image among young people, but because they said, 'You're gonna be met with a lot of resistance. You're gonna create a lot of enemies for yourself," Nass said. "And that's true, but it will be all the right folks; the Ralph Reeds of the world, the Tony Perkins of the world, the people who have held the party back and have basically hijacked it."

Nass pulled no punches in his assessment of the party's failures, criticizing the Republican National Committee ("does a lot of talking"); Rick Santorum ("anyone who says he's going to win the presidency needs to get their heads checked"); and the College Republicans, a group he abandoned citing its inability to recruit a single non-conservative to the cause.

But if Nass plans to upset certain elements of the party, he does have the support of at least one major GOP player: Sheldon Adelson. Nass, who proudly self-identifies as a "Zionist," said he is close to the Jewish mega-donor and that Adelson has provided ample "moral support." They even appear together in a photo on the group's homepage. (Nass declined to comment on the organization's donors.)

The riddle of coalition-building is one Republicans have been actively trying to solve since Election Day 2012, universally acknowledging the need to attract more young people, but disagreeing vehemently about how to do it. And while token outreach platforms — like The Daily Show and Twitter — have come up more than once, few have been as aggressive as Nass' group about advocating for the elimination of certain planks in the party's platform.

But Jimmy LaSalvia, the former executive director of the conservative gay organization GOProud and a board member for Voices of Conservative Youth, said embracing gay rights is an essential step the party must take.

"It's especially important that conservative organizations recognize the world we live in today, and I am pleased that VOCY is making the effort to engage with young gay Americans because gay people are very much a part of America in 2013," LaSalvia said.

Army’s Deputy of Cybersecurity told BuzzFeed a security failure can allow unauthorized access to computer files. Instead of fixing it, they are telling soldiers to be more careful.

BOB STRONG / Via Reuters

The United States Army's Deputy of Cybersecurity Roy Lundgren has confirmed with BuzzFeed the existence of a major computer security flaw that enables unauthorized access to users without proper security clearance. They say the best fix is to make soldiers aware of proper conduct, instead of fixing the technology itself.

Countless computers, and the soldiers who use them, remain vulnerable to a simple hack, which can be executed by someone with little or no security expertise.

The hack allows users with access to shared Army computers to assume the identities of other personnel, gaining their securities clearances in the process, and having their activity logged as that user.

In order to log into a shared Army computer you need to insert your personal Common Access Code military ID. Each card contains a chip that has the individual soldier's permissions and security details, and which helps the military track your activity. Once you remove the card, you are fully logged out. But the hack overrides that system during the shut down period.

"There are instances where the log-off process does not immediately complete upon removal of the CAC. This occurs when the system is running logoff scripts and shutting down applications," Lundgren told BuzzFeed. "The period of time that a system can be accessed following CAC removal before system logoff completes is normally not sufficient to gain unauthorized access."

The U.S. Army has been aware of the flaw for at least two years. One officer, a lieutenant, reported the flaw in 2011, to his superiors — a middle-ranking officer, and another in computer communications. He was made to sign the Army's version of a nondisclosure agreement. Keep quiet, or face jail time, he was told. Another soldier, who went to his superiors and even Congress, got no results.

When asked about the lieutenant's nondisclosure form, the Army did not comment.

"If an issue is reported to our cybersecurity directorate, we would normally contact the system owner and ask them for an assessment," the Army told BuzzFeed, not commenting on the response to this specific report. "Often the risk is known and mitigating factors are already being applied and/or the organization has developed a plan of action to correct the issue."

The lieutenant, who spoke to BuzzFeed on condition of anonymity, was told that there was nothing they could do. It would cost too much to fix it, they told him. It would require redoing too many contracts. "The term they used is that it would be 'impractical' to try and fix it," he says.

"The government and industry must manage numerous risks each day. We look at each situation and decide if it is a low risk or high risk situation. Then the decision must be made how the risk will be managed," Lundgren says. "Often software and/or hardware solutions are not available, supportable, or necessary. In the case of many risks, they are managed via other mitigations such as modifying policy, procedures, or training."

The Army contends that instead of improving the security flaw itself, individual soldiers should make sure they are properly logged off. "The government and industry must manage numerous risks each day," says Lundgren. "Often software and/or hardware solutions are not available, supportable, or necessary. In the case of many risks, they are managed via other mitigations such as modifying policy, procedures, or training."

In response to the problem they are planning an "Information Assurance/Cybersecurity Awareness week" in October as a follow-up measure to their new handbook, released last February, which stresses the importance of individual responsibilities to protect information. According to Lundgren, the handbook "augments current policy, training, and inspection processes and aims to raise awareness and change culture."

"Commanders and other leaders are reemphasizing the importance of protecting our information and systems, and key processes to ensure this," says Lundgren. "The Army is also emphasizing that cybersecurity is the business of all leaders and that we cannot ignore information assurance/cybersecurity requirements due to a lack of knowledge and/or convenience."

Knowledge of the flaw has spread to low-level soldiers who don't work in technology, as confirmed with BuzzFeed by more than one source.

Since many military computers have stuffed, cluttered hard drives as the result of long-term use by large numbers of soldiers, they often hang while shutting down. When soldiers sharing computers are in a rush, this identity swap can easily happen by accident.

BuzzFeed sources say it is easy to accomplish on both secure and non-secure computers. The officer who reported the flaw has tested the exploit to see if it would allow a user to gain access to SIPRNet, the classified DoD network from which Chelsea Manning acquired some of the files she then leaked to the press. It could.

Police officers set up barricades outside the White House before President Obama addressed the nation. Anti-war shouts could be heard on the White House livefeed.

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Updated: The president says he has “the authority” to strike Syria without Congress, but “I know that the country will be stronger” if he asks for their opinion.

President Obama, with Vice President Biden, during Saturday's Rose Garden address.

Jim Watson/AFP-Getty Images

WASHINGTON — President Obama is ready to go to war in Syria and he says he has the power to do it. But he's not going to pull the trigger until Congress weighs in.

"After careful consideration, I have decided the United States should take action against Syrian regime targets," Obama said in Rose Garden address Saturday.

But he said the attacks won't come until Congress has had its say, which won't happen until they come back to Washington at the end of their August recess.

"Having made my decision as Commander-In-Chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interest, I'm also mindful that I'm president of the world's oldest Constitutional democracy," Obama said. "That's why I've made a second decision. I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people's representatives in Congress."

Obama said Congressional leaders of both parties have "agreed to schedule a debate and then a vote as soon as Congress comes back in session."

The president said he doesn't need Congressional authorization to strike Syria, but he's going to ask for it anyway.

"While I believe I have the authority to take military action without specific Congressional authorization, I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course and our actions will be even more effective," Obama said. "We should have this debate because the issues are too big for business as usual."

Obama's remarks Saturday followed a week of debate around the world over how to respond to the alleged chemical attacks on Syrian civilians. A preliminary U.S. government assessment released this week stated that 1,429 people were killed in the chemical weapons attack earlier this month, including at least 426 children and put the blame on the Syrian government for the attacks.

Video of Obama's Address on Syria:

Good afternoon, everybody. Ten days ago, the world watched in horror as men, women and children were massacred in Syria in the worst chemical weapons attack of the 21st century. Yesterday the United States presented a powerful case that the Syrian government was responsible for this attack on its own people.

Our intelligence shows the Assad regime and its forces preparing to use chemical weapons, launching rockets in the highly populated suburbs of Damascus, and acknowledging that a chemical weapons attack took place. And all of this corroborates what the world can plainly see -- hospitals overflowing with victims; terrible images of the dead. All told, well over 1,000 people were murdered. Several hundred of them were children -- young girls and boys gassed to death by their own government.

This attack is an assault on human dignity. It also presents a serious danger to our national security. It risks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. It endangers our friends and our partners along Syria's borders, including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. It could lead to escalating use of chemical weapons, or their proliferation to terrorist groups who would do our people harm.

In a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted.

Now, after careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope. But I'm confident we can hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons, deter this kind of behavior, and degrade their capacity to carry it out.

Our military has positioned assets in the region. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has informed me that we are prepared to strike whenever we choose. Moreover, the Chairman has indicated to me that our capacity to execute this mission is not time-sensitive; it will be effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now. And I'm prepared to give that order.

But having made my decision as Commander-in-Chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I'm also mindful that I'm the President of the world's oldest constitutional democracy. I've long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military might, but in our example as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And that's why I've made a second decision: I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people's representatives in Congress.

Over the last several days, we've heard from members of Congress who want their voices to be heard. I absolutely agree. So this morning, I spoke with all four congressional leaders, and they've agreed to schedule a debate and then a vote as soon as Congress comes back into session.

In the coming days, my administration stands ready to provide every member with the information they need to understand what happened in Syria and why it has such profound implications for America's national security. And all of us should be accountable as we move forward, and that can only be accomplished with a vote.

I'm confident in the case our government has made without waiting for U.N. inspectors. I'm comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council that, so far, has been completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable. As a consequence, many people have advised against taking this decision to Congress, and undoubtedly, they were impacted by what we saw happen in the United Kingdom this week when the Parliament of our closest ally failed to pass a resolution with a similar goal, even as the Prime Minister supported taking action.

Yet, while I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization, I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course, and our actions will be even more effective. We should have this debate, because the issues are too big for business as usual. And this morning, John Boehner, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell agreed that this is the right thing to do for our democracy.

A country faces few decisions as grave as using military force, even when that force is limited. I respect the views of those who call for caution, particularly as our country emerges from a time of war that I was elected in part to end. But if we really do want to turn away from taking appropriate action in the face of such an unspeakable outrage, then we just acknowledge the costs of doing nothing.

Here's my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? What's the purpose of the international system that we've built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98 percent of the world's people and approved overwhelmingly by the Congress of the United States is not enforced?

Make no mistake -- this has implications beyond chemical warfare. If we won't enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules? To governments who would choose to build nuclear arms? To terrorist who would spread biological weapons? To armies who carry out genocide?

We cannot raise our children in a world where we will not follow through on the things we say, the accords we sign, the values that define us.

So just as I will take this case to Congress, I will also deliver this message to the world. While the U.N. investigation has some time to report on its findings, we will insist that an atrocity committed with chemical weapons is not simply investigated, it must be confronted.

I don't expect every nation to agree with the decision we have made. Privately we've heard many expressions of support from our friends. But I will ask those who care about the writ of the international community to stand publicly behind our action.

And finally, let me say this to the American people: I know well that we are weary of war. We've ended one war in Iraq. We're ending another in Afghanistan. And the American people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in Syria with our military. In that part of the world, there are ancient sectarian differences, and the hopes of the Arab Spring have unleashed forces of change that are going to take many years to resolve. And that's why we're not contemplating putting our troops in the middle of someone else's war.

Instead, we'll continue to support the Syrian people through our pressure on the Assad regime, our commitment to the opposition, our care for the displaced, and our pursuit of a political resolution that achieves a government that respects the dignity of its people.

But we are the United States of America, and we cannot and must not turn a blind eye to what happened in Damascus. Out of the ashes of world war, we built an international order and enforced the rules that gave it meaning. And we did so because we believe that the rights of individuals to live in peace and dignity depends on the responsibilities of nations. We aren't perfect, but this nation more than any other has been willing to meet those responsibilities.

So to all members of Congress of both parties, I ask you to take this vote for our national security. I am looking forward to the debate. And in doing so, I ask you, members of Congress, to consider that some things are more important than partisan differences or the politics of the moment.

Ultimately, this is not about who occupies this office at any given time; it's about who we are as a country. I believe that the people's representatives must be invested in what America does abroad, and now is the time to show the world that America keeps our commitments. We do what we say. And we lead with the belief that right makes might -- not the other way around.

We all know there are no easy options. But I wasn't elected to avoid hard decisions. And neither were the members of the House and the Senate. I've told you what I believe, that our security and our values demand that we cannot turn away from the massacre of countless civilians with chemical weapons. And our democracy is stronger when the President and the people's representatives stand together.

I'm ready to act in the face of this outrage. Today I'm asking Congress to send a message to the world that we are ready to move forward together as one nation.

Thanks very much.

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But now Congress is the “dog that caught the car,” Axelrod gloats.

President Obama speaks at the Rose Garden of the White House Saturday.

Mike Theiler / Reuters

President Barack Obama's abrupt decision to hand over the choice to strike Syria to Congress may or may not wind up dislodging President Bashar al Assad from Damascus — but the American leader has already struck a rare and dramatic blow against his own power.

Presidents for decades have ignored the Constitutional requirement that Congress authorize acts of war, launching attacks from Kosovo to Libya without authorization. Presidents Bush and Obama took a 2001 authorization of the use of force against terrorists as a carte blanche for a global secret war from Rome to Pakistan; the last formal authorization came in 2003, for Iraq. And Obama — the president who spent the summer defending the vast surveillance power of the National Security Agency — had shown no particular inclination to give up presidential authority.

But Saturday's announcement redefines the playing field over national security, delivering, six years late, on a promise he made during his presidential campaign, and more broadly on the vision of the presidency that he was elected by an anti-war Democratic Party to install.

"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation," candidate Obama told he Boston Globe in 2007.

The politics of Washington's great institutions — the presidency; the congress; the courts — do not always align with partisan politics, and Congressional leaders had no choice but to celebrate the president's surprise move.

"Under the Constitution, the responsibility to declare war lies with Congress. We are glad the president is seeking authorization for any military action in Syria," the House Republican leaders said in a joint statement. Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the judiciary committee and a Democrat, called the move "especially commendable... given the positions taken by past presidents."

Liberals who spent years arguing that President George W. Bush had abused executive power also celebrated the move.

"It's great news that President Obama is seeking congressional approval for military action, an important precedent for all future presidents," said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "After years of societal and international norms being thrown out the door -- and things like torture, violations of civil liberties, and war becoming normalized -- today's announcement is an important down payment on proper norms and regular order being restored."

But the politics of institutions always overlap with the more conventional politics of parties, and some on the left saw Obama's speech as a double victory:

For while the weakened presidency may sting, Obama can at least enjoy watching a wedge sink more deeply into the Republican Party. The upstart libertarian wing has been eager for open conflict with hawkish old war horses led by Senator John McCain, and with an establishment whose tradition is of hawkish bipartisanship. Now Kentucky's Rand Paul and his allies can look for new traction at no political cost: Paul said Saturday he was "encouraged" by Obama's move, while Texas's Ted Cruz, possibly for the first time, "commended" Obama. The new Republican libertarians' internal enemies will get no political benefit from backing President Obama's war.

Thus Obama's longtime political guru, David Axelrod, couldn't resist a bit of gloating on Twitter:

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