“Innocent until proven guilty” at the Waldorf.

Dan Doctoroff, president and chief executive officer of Bloomberg, in March of 2012.

Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Leading figures at old and new American news outlets defended Bloomberg LP CEO Dan Doctoroff's role at a celebration of press freedom on a day when Bloomberg faced intense criticism over reports that it bowed to the Chinese government.

Doctoroff chaired the annual Press Freedom Awards dinner of the Committee to Protect Journalists at Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria hotel, where host Scott Pelley denounced "those who censor, those who harm, and those who silence journalists" before introducing Doctoroff, who called on the press to "stand together."

Bloomberg is "innocent until proven guilty in my book," said CNBC host Jim Cramer. "Dan Doctoroff is a great guy."

"I absolutely think it's appropriate for Bloomberg to chair this event," said the writer Kati Marton, a member of the group's board of directors and the widow of the diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who said of the reports Bloomberg had killed a story about a top Chinese figure: "I wouldn't call it a scandal."

A founder of Vice, Suroosh Alvi, also defended Bloomberg. "I don't have a problem with it," he said.

Others declined to comment on the story, which was on the front page of Monday's New York Times.

"I'm sorry I can't talk about that, I have to practice my speech," said Huffington Post Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington.

The situation was, however, the subject of many quiet conversations and the timing was, said Reuters blogger Felix Salmon, "awkward."

The $10,000-per-table dinner is held to raise money for the organization, and to honor four reporters from Ecuador, Egypt, Turkey, and Vietnam who "face imprisonment or other persecution for exposing realities," according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Bloomberg is under fire for, according to reports in the New York Times and Financial Times, killing an article that reportedly focused on China's richest man, Wang Jianlin, "and his financial ties to the families of party leaders." (Bloomberg News chief Matthew Winkler said the article was delayed only because it wasn't fully reported.)

Doctoroff, in a brief speech, appeared to refer obliquely to the controversy.

"We face tough choices and second guessing every day," he said, promising to "listen to different opinions" and to "keep shining that disinfecting light."

The company reportedly also sought to manage its relationship to China — a massive growth market for its lucrative terminals — with a special code blocking sensitive stories from terminals in China, and by taking another objectionable story off its website for a time.

Doctoroff, according to the New York Times, at one point canvassed other executives to ask, "If Bloomberg were about to run an important article about China and knew for certain it would draw a retaliatory hacking attack, should the article still run?"

"Many senior news people said reflexively that it should, but others were not so sure," the paper reported, in the broader context of the difficulty — perhaps impossibility — of doing both news and business in China.

A Hong Kong journalist who was honored at the dinner 15 years ago, Ying Chan, also demanded Tuesday that Doctoroff relinquish his role.

The news executive — a former top official in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration and the leader of New York City's failed Olympics bid — "has no standing to host such a dinner that celebrates and honors fighters for press freedom while Bloomberg practices such egregious self-censorship and suppresses press freedom. The situation cannot be more ironic," Chan told ChinaFile. A top CPJ official responded by calling the demand "a false linkage."

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the date of a New York Times article.

The low-profile Independent Journal Review could be the conservative answer to the social sharing shift.

A newer conservative website, run by insiders but with an outsider appeal, has rocketed past its better-known competitors in traffic by aiming intensely at social sharing and taking advantage of a massive and accelerating shift toward Facebook as the key source of traffic to publishers.

The Independent Journal Review — which is invisible in the heated Beltway arguments among sites from the venerable National Review and Weekly Standard to the newer Breitbart, Free Beacon, and Daily Caller — appears to have outstripped all of them in traffic with a strategy that mimics its wildly successful liberal cousin, Upworthy.

Some recent headlines mirror Upworthy's play on the "curiousity gap" and its ideological appeal, like "This Teen Thought He Could Knockout an Innocent Victim. Then He Learned About the 2nd Amendment" (51,000 Facebook likes); and
"Judge Jeanine Takes Obama to the Woodshed for Lying in This Scathing Tongue-Lashing" (26,000 likes). Others are more straightforwardly heartwarming: "These Lovable Therapy Dogs at Walter Reed Make Life Just a Bit Better for Wounded Vets" (14,000 likes). (The existence of the "knockout game" is a matter of debate.)

It's the kind of publishing strategy that — paired with Facebook's recent decision to drive more traffic to publishers — has put Upworthy, according to the very roughly reliable traffic measurement service Quantcast, into the top tier of American publishers by traffic. (Quantcast generally undercounts traffic somewhat — a site's internal traffic numbers are usually higher.) IJR's Quantcast profile is private, but the site's co-founder recently shared data suggesting it is ranked 205, above the Daily Caller, The Weekly Standard, and Breitbart, and trailing only Glenn Beck's The Blaze — despite never having gotten a link from the key source of conservative traffic, the Drudge Report.

And while the site is unknown among the Washington, D.C., conservatives who dominate the movement media, it is a Beltway product, owned by a company founded by two well-connected Republican political consultants, former Tim Pawlenty adviser Phil Musser and Alex Skatell, a former staffer for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Like Upworthy, the site is focused on framing, not reporting.

"We don't have a traditional masthead model," said Musser, a co-founder of Media Group of America. "We're looking for relevant, timely, and quality content to serve our audience."

MGA's other operation is IMGE, a digital media consultancy that does work on behalf of corporate and political clients, including Republican Sen. Tim Scott and the Liberal Party of Australia.

IJReview.com is operated by Editor-in-Chief Bert Atkinson and a team of fewer than 10, who operate independently from the consulting business, according to Skatell. The site, which relies on pre-roll advertisements on automatically playing videos and large display ads, is "solidly profitable," he said.

While the site has begun to, in Musser's words, "seep into the edges of the conservative ecosystem as a place for news," pulling down Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin radio hits and the replay of a well-trafficked video on Sean Hannity's, the source is social.

Helping power the site's numbers: an email list of almost one million, and the Facebook page Conservative Daily. That page stands at 3.2 million likes. (The founders declined to discuss in detail their growth strategy, but said they had paid to advertise on Facebook.) Three huge buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and email scroll with visitors.

Reading the site's coverage, one other thing is also absent: Much of an apparent editorial stake in the intraparty struggles over issues like immigration or national security that properties like Breitbart, RedState, and The Weekly Standard engage in. IJReview.com is just conservative news, political or cultural, distilled down and reframed.

The result is an audience largely outside of D.C., and broader in its interests than average consumers of political news.

"We're presenting stories for every American to see in a way they're more likely to click and share," Skatell said. "This helps because people who don't care as much about politics can still stay informed through engaged friends."

A fruitless effort.

Help Bob Levinson Facebook Page / Via facebook.com

A three-month FBI ad campaign to try and find a retired agent, who is now the longest-held hostage in U.S. history and a part of nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran, came to an end in October.

Robert Levinson was kidnapped off Kish Island — just off the coast of Iran — on March 9, 2007. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said in the past that he will do everything to help find the retired agent, who suffers from diabetes, but like his predecessors denies any knowledge of the event.

U.S. negotiators raised the issue of detained Americans, including Levinson, with Iran during the recent nuclear talks, but the current six-month deal makes no reference to them.

The White House released a statement Tuesday reaffirming its commitment to finding Levinson, in the midst of the administration's ongoing nuclear discussions with Iran.

"As we approach the upcoming holiday season, we reiterate the commitment of the United States Government to locate Mr. Levinson and bring him home safely to his family, friends, and loved ones," the White House said in the statement. "We welcome the assistance of our international partners in this investigation, and we respectfully ask the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to assist us in securing Mr. Levinson's health, welfare, and safe return."

Tuesday also marked the 2,454th day since Levinson was taken. That time period makes him the longest-held hostage in U.S. history, surpassing Terry Anderson who was taken in Beirut and held for 2,453 days before his rescue.

The FBI has said repeatedly they are doing everything they can to bring Levinson back, but so far its efforts have been in vain. And after a series of fruitless media campaigns, the agency finds itself without much more than they started with — the only lead that's been made public was more than two years ago when U.S. officials announced there were indications Levinson was "somewhere in southwest Asia."

"While we will always track down every lead and piece of information that comes to us, we have not received any significant information as to Bob's disappearance and/or his current location," FBI spokeswoman Jackie Maguire told BuzzFeed in an email. "Because of that, we will continue with our efforts in the investigation and in the media."

The FBI's ad campaign ran in the Iran Times in Washington, D.C. The FBI has also put up billboards in Times Square and in the Middle East as part of other efforts.

Maguire told BuzzFeed in June the campaign would target Iranian communities both in D.C. and Southern California, though the push to the West Coast has yet to come to fruition.

The FBI has had a $1 million reward for information leading to Levinson's return since 2012. It's also run several media campaigns alongside his family's own efforts, led by Levinson's wife, Christine, seeking help from the U.S. government, the Iranian government and anyone else who can help.

Before the nuclear talks, Rouhani had also discussed Levinson in September, during his phone call with President Barack Obama.

Though the Iranian government has consistently denied involvement with his capture, U.S. officials have speculated otherwise.

Since his capture, two pieces of media have shown Levinson alive, both of which were made public in 2011. The first was a video of him sent from an unidentifiable email address, where he pleaded to be rescued. The other came from a different untraceable email address, and contained several pictures of him in an orange jumpsuit and chains holding various cryptic messages.

One of the messages referred to Guantanamo Bay.

"Bob, if somehow you see or hear these words: Stay strong," his wife said in a statement. "You have a new grandson, just a month old. We can't wait for you to meet him. We love you and will never stop working to bring you home safely."

Here's a copy of what the ad was supposed to look like, provided to BuzzFeed by the FBI in June:

The low-key man running the White House in Barack Obama’s worst year.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius talks with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough during a health care event in the Rose Garden of the White House in October.

Jason Reed / Reuters

Denis McDonough has spent more time running America than perhaps anyone else who has never been the subject of a satisfying profile.

The New Republic captured something important in 2009 with a piece that reflected McDonough's obsession with "regular order." The Times sweetened the beat with a Saturday profile in 2010; the Daily Beast captured slightly more of his "savage" edge and personality this January. Remarkably, BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray was the only one to remark on what has always struck me as a central, and poignant, biographical detail: that McDonough played a key role in authorizing the Iraq War in 2003.

White House staffers were notably unhelpful when BuzzFeed asked for an interview with him this month. The Times's Peter Baker managed, at least, to get the White House chief of staff to talk on the record about himself Wednesday, pretty much a first. But one of the core mysteries of this White House remains.

The mystery of Denis McDonough is very much the mystery of why President Barack Obama's second term is going so badly. Here, for people who watch the building closely, is the underlying conundrum: The Obama White House has never worked better, on a day-to-day level. The chief of staff, for once, actually gets along with the other power brokers in the building: Michelle Obama; Valerie Jarrett; Peter Rouse — there are none of the sharp elbows and infighting that came with Rahm Emanuel's or David Axelrod's ill-concealed distrust of Jarrett, in particular. He is the first to learn the names of junior staffers. He sends thank you cards. "The paradox of Denis is that he's so unfailingly courteous to people that he works with, and yet is an incredible hardass," a former White House staffer said.

But the outcomes have never been worse.

"The White House actually runs day-to-day a lot better than it ever has," said a second former White House staffer, who credited McDonough's roots in the process-obsessed foreign policy world. "You have meetings, you have agendas, when you're done with the meeting you decide who is going to do what, and then there's accountability for it getting done."

And yet: McDonough took over as White House chief of staff on Jan. 25, and what has followed has been a pretty terrible year. The president's top legislative priority, fixing immigration laws, has stalled out. His plan to stop Syria's descent into chaos was a pure debacle. And the implementation of his most important domestic policy accomplishment, the health care overhaul, is a mess. Obama is less popular than ever.

McDonough, who rose from being a staffer to a junior Western senator before the 2008 campaign to one of America's most powerful unelected positions, has generally avoided blame, or even attention. This is partly because he is a modest guy who never flew too close to the sun of a high media profile in the happier first term. It's partly because he is widely seen as a decent and tireless person, the hardest worker in a building of obsessives. It's partly because he is so close to the president that blame naturally falls on Obama himself. It's partly because he hasn't tried too hard to deflect blame.

"I'm a keep-score guy; I always have been," McDonough told Baker. "So I'm good with the idea that there are scores being kept."

And yet McDonough's no-profile public approach shouldn't mask the two most important things about the role he has played this year. First, he is a chief of staff for a self-actualized president. Obama hired seasoned Washington figures — Rahm Emanuel, Jack Lew, and Bill Daley — in his first term. McDonough is the first chief of staff who is younger than the president, the first whose career depends on Obama. He is, beyond that, very close to the president.

He is "as close as a staffer can be," said former National Security spokesman Tommy Vietor.

The upside of that relationship is that McDonough speaks for Obama and has access to him in a way that Daley, in particular, never did. The downside is that the chaotic testing of ideas and plans that came with Emanuel — who opposed the entire health care plan, and whose opposition leaked to the press — has been replaced by a kind of steely internal consensus, in which McDonough is less a broker of internal debate than an enforcer of the presidential will; McDonough's side — that is, Obama's — usually wins, as it did when he defeated Samantha Power's arguments for a stronger American hand in Syria.

"There's a pro and a con about being so trusted and loved by the president that you don't push him back," said the second former White House staffer. "If you have so many people around the president who are really friends then you don't have that team of rivals thing that was a healthy give and take."

The second key fact about McDonough's tenure is that his career has been spent in foreign policy, and with Lew — a former OMB director — gone, it is not in fact immediately clear who is the top domestic policy staffer. It's a contrast that can be seen in the structure of two policies: Talks with Iran were conducted in total secrecy and with intense focus by the most senior, talented diplomats the American government could produce, and with close and careful attention to the White House. The health care rollout was managed by a middle-manager at a non-cabinet agency; it's unthinkable that a desk officer at the State Department would control the implementation of a vital foreign policy move.

Indeed, McDonough remains very deeply involved in the foreign policy weeds. John Kerry's aides at the State Department, a source said, were surprised to find McDonough himself ready to go to war to put his and Obama's allies — rather than Kerry's — into even relatively junior "Schedule C" posts.

"No one owns domestic policy the way Rahm did," said a former Emanuel aide.

The Obama presidency has, like most, been one in which strengths are interchangeable with weaknesses: There's confidence or arrogance; discipline or insularity; centralized control or a failure to delegate. And the second term, difficult so far, is still beginning. But understanding the term will probably mean paying more attention to Denis McDonough.

Evan McMorris-Santoro contributed reporting.

Remember what the holidays are truly about.

All things 2016.

Banned.

media.giphy.com

Benghazi.

Banned.

media.giphy.com

Senate Procedure and/or Nuclear Options of any sort.

Banned. But feel free to have some more of that Pecan Pie Rugelach.

media.giphy.com

Not Banned: This.

s3-ec.buzzfed.com

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You never quite know what you’re going to get with a Hardball cold open.

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And sparked the #RacismEndedWhen hashtag.

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The crash left four dead and more than 60 injured.

View Video ›

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that a Metro-North passenger train that derailed Sunday in the Bronx, killing four people and injuring more than 60, was likely caused by the speed at which the train was traveling.

"I'm not an expert in this field. Working with the experts over the past day, I think it is going to be speed-related," the New York governor said on NBC's Today. "This was a tricky turn on the system, but it's a turn that's been here for decades and trains negotiate all day long. It's not about the turn. I think it's going to turn out to be about the speed more than anything, and the operator's operation of the train at that time."

The cause of the train derailment remains unknown, but National Transportation Safety Board officials said Monday that a pair of "black box" recorders, similar to those used in aircrafts, have been recovered from the train. The device's data will be analyzed to determine what caused the crash. Officials are also expected to interview the engineer and conductor of the train later Monday or Tuesday.

The passenger train derailed Sunday morning at the Spuyten Duyvil station in New York.

The four victims were identified by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Sunday night as 54-year-old Donna Smith of Newburgh, N.Y.; 58-year-old James Lovell of Cold Spring, N.Y.; 59-year-old James Ferrari of Montrose, N.Y.; and 35-year-old Ahn Kisook of Queens.

James Lovell was an audio technician for the Today show, and his longtime friend Janet Barton said he was taking the Metro-North to New York City Sunday to do lighting and sound work on the famed Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

LINK: Passenger Train Derails In New York, Killing At Least 4

If only we could elect him president for life.

Meet Rep. Howard Coble. Oh, you have never heard of him? Get your learning hat on.

He has been in Congress for 28 years.

Via AP

He is 82 and 7 million times more badass than your member of Congress. Here is why.

HE WEARS THIS BLUE COAT WHEN YOU INTERVIEW HIM.

Via Facebook: HowardCoble6

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War on Christmas?

Twitter: @NRCC

WASHINGTON — The National Republican Congressional Committee appears to have removed a t-shirt from its website that advocates against saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."

In a tweet last week, the NRCC promoted the t-shirt, which reads "Happy Holidays is What Liberals Say" in a Comic Sans font on the front and "Merry Christmas!" on the back, for Black Friday.

As of Monday, the shirt looks to have been removed from the NRCC website. The online store is still selling a t-shirt milder version that says "Not Afraid to Say 'Merry Christmas.'"

As many noted on Twitter when the NRCC tweeted out the shirt, liberals are not the only people who say "Happy Holidays," but many Jews as well. Monday will be the sixth night of Hanukkah this year.

This comes after a Twitter incident on the part of the Republican National Committee, which tweeted over the weekend that Rosa Parks had ended racism and later had to backtrack.

Update: A spokesperson for the NRCC said that the shirt was sold out and that "We are also working on several new products for the rest of the month."

Plans for the hearing were already in the works before Amazon’s announcement of the company’s delivery drone program.

Via amazon.com

A Senate committee will hold a hearing early next year to explore the potential economic impact of private companies using drones, including Amazon's proposed drone delivery program, BuzzFeed has learned.

An aide to West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, said the hearing was in the works before Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo's Sunday night announcement that the company plans to use drones to make deliveries.

"Amazon's plans for using drones to deliver packages is just one example of the potential this technology offers consumers, and a reflection of the ingenuity of American business," Rockefeller said. "As we move forward toward integrating drones into civilian life and capitalizing on the economic opportunities they offer, we must make certain that these aircrafts meet rigorous safety and privacy standards. I plan to hold a hearing early next year to explore the potential economic benefits of unmanned vehicles in our airspace as well as the potential risks they may create."

Bezos introduced the delivery system, which is currently being developed, on CBS' 60 Minutes, saying he believed Amazon drones, known as Amazon Prime Air, could be used for deliveries in as little as four years. Bezos acknowledged drone use would not be possible before 2015 because it requires the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration.

"They are effectively drones, but there's no reason they can't be used as delivery vehicles," Bezos said. "I think this looks like science fiction, but it's not. … We can do half-hour delivery and carry objects we think up to five pounds, which covers 86% of the items we deliver."

youtube.com

In Jon Cohen’s 2001 book, Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine , he detailed the Reagan administration’s early indifference to the growing epidemic. White House acting press secretary Larry Speakes, and some of the reporters at press briefings, found the crisis to be quite the joking matter.

White House acting press secretary Larry Speakes, in the foreground, as President Reagan consults with advisers.

Pete Souza / Time Life Pictures / Getty Images

Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement—the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?
MR. SPEAKES: What's AIDS?
Q: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?
MR. SPEAKES: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)
Q: No, I don't.
MR. SPEAKES: You didn't answer my question.
Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President—
MR. SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)
Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?
MR. SPEAKES: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.
Q: Does the President, does anybody in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?
MR. SPEAKES: I don't think so. I don't think there's been any—
Q: Nobody knows?
MR. SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.
Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping—
MR. SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he's had no—(laughter)—no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.
Q: The President doesn't have gay plague, is that what you're saying or what?
MR. SPEAKES: No, I didn't say that.
Q: Didn't say that?
MR. SPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn't you stay there? (Laughter.)
Q: Because I love you, Larry, that's why. (Laughter.)
MR. SPEAKES: Oh, I see. Just don't put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)
Q: Oh, I retract that.
MR. SPEAKES: I hope so.
Q: It's too late.

Q: Larry, does the President think that it might help if he suggested that the gays cut down on their "cruising"? (Laughter.) What? I didn't hear your answer, Larry.
MR. SPEAKES: I just was acknowledging your interest—
Q: You were acknowledging but—
MR. SPEAKES: —interest in this subject.
Q: —you don't think that it would help if the gays cut down on their cruising—it would help AIDS?
MR. SPEAKES: We are researching it. If we come up with any research that sheds some light on whether gays should cruise or not cruise, we'll make it available to you. (Laughter.)
Q: Back to fairy tales.

Acting press secretary Larry Speakes at the podium as President Reagan makes an appearance in the White House Press Briefing Room.

reagan.utexas.edu

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The former New Democrat chief says Obama — and Clinton — need to get back to growth. Hillary’s generational challenge.

Via amazon.com

The leading ideologue of the old New Democratic movement says one of Barack Obama's problems may be that nobody knows where he stands.

"He has provided less direction than I expected — less aggressive leadership one way or another," said Al From, the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, which provided the intellectual underpinnings of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign against his own party's left wing. "He's been a counterpuncher as a president. I think that has missed him some opportunities, probably served him well in other cases."

From's observations, in an interview with BuzzFeed the day before the release of a new memoir of the global movement he helped start, mark the ideological muddle of today's governing party. Bill Clinton represented a revolt against the dominance of labor unions, ethnic lobbies, and the aging New Left. Obama's roots are on the other side of that bitter divide: Chicago's social justice politics. From and the DLC first opposed Obama; then, in 2008, From sought for a time, in conversations with reporters (this one included), to make the case that Obama had been misread as a liberal, and was in fact "pragmatic," and that you could even hear the DLC's watchwords of responsibility and opportunity in his speeches. In 2009, From left the group, and in 2011 he effectively shut it down, merging it into the Clinton Foundation, where he said elements of it may someday be revived. ("I spent too many years trying to figure out a new mission for the DLC — I probably should have shut it down sooner," he said.)

From is now 70, slimmer than he was during his time as an intra-partisan warrior, and seems to be more puzzled than alarmed by the president's ideological leanings. The Affordable Care Act, with its primary role for the private sector, is the sort of thing Hillary Clinton championed and that he supports, and he said the "jury is still out" on its implementation. But Obama "has a hard time explaining these structures in a way people can understand," he said.

Obama, he said, has also failed to explain a clear vision for growing the private sector.

"We've got to get the economy growing again. If we don't do that, then everything becomes a zero-sum game and there's not any wealth to spread around," he said. "For Obama that has been sort of a missing element — he talks about it a little bit but not really a lot."

From will, of course, back Hillary Clinton if she runs for president in 2016. He's been with the Clintons since the mid-1980s, and Bill Clinton in 2000 said of him: "It would be hard to think of a single American citizen who, as a private citizen, has had a more positive impact on the progress of American life in the last 25 years than Al From." The former president also convinced him to write a book, with the promise that he'd provide a forward, which he did. He's hosting a book party for From in January.

"If Hillary runs, I'll be there 100%," he said. His advice hasn't changed in nearly 30 years: "She just needs to lay out an agenda for tackling the challenges and then she ought to be very comfortable running on a lot of the basic themes — opportunity, responsibility, community."

A key challenge she'll face, he said, is generational. He recalled "black Wednesday," in 1976 — when Jimmy Carter clinched the nomination and a whole generation of senators like Ed Muskie of Maine and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota realized their time had passed and they would never be president.

"Generational change is not an unimportant thing," he said. "It doesn't mean that you can't go back to a previous generation for leadership, and there may be circumstances that make that desirable, including a really powerful candidate like Hillary. Part of the appeal is it's also groundbreaking, which may take the edge off a little."

"It's entirely possible in this very troubled world that the experience issue will trump the generational issue," he said. "But that decision will not be made with me — I'm already for Hillary."

A new salvo against the war on Christmas is launched.

Via nrcc.org

WASHINGTON — The National Republican Congressional Committee is fighting back against criticism of its anti-"Happy Holidays" T-shirt by coming out with a mug with the same slogan, according to an email.

Gerrit Lansing, digital director of the NRCC, emailed the following to a conservative listserv on Monday with the subject line "so about that 'Happy Holidays is what Liberals Say' tshirt..." Attached to "then everyone flipped out" is a link to a BuzzFeed story from Monday about the T-shirt:

we launched the shirt last week and then sold out. so we took it down from the site.

then everyone flipped out.

And piled on:

DWS: https://twitter.com/DWStweets/status/407604282553544704
DCCC: https://twitter.com/dccc/status/407609771596861440

Mo Elleithee: https://twitter.com/MoElleithee/status/407609362337632256

DNC: https://twitter.com/TheDemocrats/status/407604460047712256

#

But we're more of the "Stay on Offense" type at the NRCC so now we're doing a mug and the shirt will be re-launched soon - see the below email in the meantime that we just sent out.

Would love it if any of you could help us kick back on this...

thanks much,

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah!

Lansing included the following email:

Want to really annoy a liberal? Say "Merry Christmas."

On Friday, we unveiled a new Christmas t-shirt at our NRCC Store – "Happy Holidays is What Liberals Say."

You loved the shirt so much, it sold out!

But Liberals all across the internet flipped out and said we were being politically incorrect.

We're working to get more shirts and products up ASAP.In the meantime we've got a "Happy Holidays is What Liberals Say" MUG for you.

Get yours with **free** shipping while supplies last.

While Democrats are doubling-down, the DCCC is saying the shirt is derogatory to other holidays and religious beliefs. Seriously?

Liberals just don't get it. We don't celebrate Christmas to offend people. Saying "Merry Christmas" isn't an attack on any religion or belief.

Had enough?! Same here.

Get your mug here:www.nrcc.org/store/merry-christmas-mug/

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Just don't tell Nancy Pelosi we said so.

NRCC HQ

The NRCC had been selling a shirt that read "Happy Holidays is What Liberals Say" in a Comic Sans font on the front, but on Monday the shirt was no longer on the site.

LINK: NRCC’s “Happy Holidays Is What Liberals Say” Shirt Removed From Website

Erika Andiola told BuzzFeed that she is leaving Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Simena’s office to put all of her energy into stopping ICE from deporting her mother in January.

Erika Andiola, immigration activist.

Steve Pavey

Erika Andiola, a high-profile "dreamer" who was on Time magazine's 2012 cover featuring undocumented immigrants, announced Tuesday that she is leaving her job as a congressional staffer to return to Arizona to put her energy into fighting the threat of her mother's deportation in January.

Andiola was able to work for Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema as outreach director because she was a recipient of President Obama's summer 2012 executive order, granting her deferred action status as an eligible undocumented immigrant.

"The main reason I was excited when I got offered a job to work for Congress was not necessarily because I see it as my lifelong career, but because I'm so passionate about immigration reform," Andiola told BuzzFeed. "I wanted to see if I could change things from the inside. But unfortunately, the year has almost ended and House leadership hasn't done anything."

In January, during the same week she was hired, Andiola nearly saw her mom be deported; she was taken from their home at 9 p.m. by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and driven to the border before prosecutorial discretion was granted.

Now, on Jan. 2, 2013, Andiola's mother, Maria Arreola, 54, has to face ICE again. "That's when they'll make the decision of if she stays or she goes."

Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, and dreamers.

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Sinema told BuzzFeed in a statement that she is sad to see Andiola go.

"While I am disappointed to lose Erika as a member of our staff, I understand that she needs to focus 100% on her mom's case. We are hopeful that Erika's mother can remain in the country because we believe families should stay together. Arizona families just like Erika's are waiting for this Congress to pass commonsense comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders, keeps families together, and grows our economy. Arizona has been waiting for too long already; we owe it to our state to pass immigration reform this year."

Andiola said both Republicans and Democrats have used immigration as a "political football" and doesn't let the Obama administration off the hook for a record number of deportations.

"There has been rhetoric that the administration is not deporting people that are low priority. Tons of people who are vulnerable to deportation and haven't committed crimes are being deported," she said.

And while her mother's immigration status was spotlighted by a minor traffic violation, Andiola believes Arizona's controversial recent history with Latino immigrants leads to more stops.

"Thank god we were able to stop my mom's deportation last year by creating enough pressure for ICE to get her to stay," she said. "The bus was so close to leaving the country, it was almost a miracle for them to get the message right away and for the bus to turn around. But the prosecutorial discretion nightmare doesn't end there. It's still in the hands of ICE."

ICE did not respond to BuzzFeed's request for comment on Andiola's mother before publication, but had previously said its initial decision would be followed by further review.

In releasing the relatives, ICE exercised its case-by-case discretion based on initial reviews, said ICE press secretary Barbara Gonzales to the Associated Press, adding that "a fuller review of the cases is currently ongoing."

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A celebrated, brutal tradition in Puerto Rico.

Cockfighting has been a popular sport in Puerto Rico for hundreds of years.

Here is a Puerto Rican cockfight from 1937.

And it remains a legal and celebrated sport to this day. Welcome to Club Gallistico de Puerto Rico.

Via Benny Johnson/ BuzzFeed

If you want to watch a cockfight, you have to walk through this door, pay $5, and get patted down by a security guard.

Via Benny Johnson/ BuzzFeed

And when you walk in, this:

Here is how the cockfights happen.

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Jonathan Mantz, Clinton’s finance director in 2008, is expected to take on a major fundraising role as senior advisor, following talks with Jim Messina and John Podesta. The latest in the group’s transition to a pro-Clinton effort.

The top fundraiser behind Hillary Clinton's first presidential bid is currently in talks to take on a major fundraising role at Priorities USA — the leading super PAC that backed President Obama last year and is now positioning itself behind Clinton ahead of her possible White House run in 2016.

Jonathan Mantz, who served as Clinton's national finance director in 2008 and is one of the Democratic Party's biggest names in fundraising, is set to join Priorities USA as a senior adviser, while retaining his position as managing director of BGR Group, a D.C.-based lobbying firm, BuzzFeed has learned.

Four sources familiar with the Mantz discussions said he will fundraise for Priorities as the group transitions from the last presidential election into its next phase — a pro-Clinton paid media effort, likely led by Jim Messina and John Podesta, top former aides to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton respectively.

Mantz, according to one source familiar with Priorities USA, has already been making calls to other fundraisers and consultants in Washington to inform them of the new arrangement, the details of which are still being finalized.

A spokesman for Priorities USA confirmed the talks.

Mantz, who most recently worked on Terry McAuliffe's successful gubernatorial bid in Virginia, led the team that raised Clinton hundreds of millions in the 2008 primary contest against then-Sen. Obama.

The former finance chief has ties to the PAC. Mantz, along with three other fundraisers, was listed on tax forms last year as one of the group's unpaid directors, but was not involved in day-to-day operations. The move to the senior advisor role would put him at the helm of the group's fundraising efforts.

Sources said that Buffy Wicks, the former senior Obama aide who led his Operation Vote effort in 2012, is further along in formalizing her move to Priorities USA as the group's executive director, as first reported by Politico.

Sean Sweeney, the former Obama campaign official who co-founded the PAC in 2011 with Bill Burton, another former Obama aide, has been leading the transition, along with Paul Begala, a longtime advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Messina and Podesta are still in talks of their own to co-chair the Clinton project — a partnership that would signal the extent to which loyalists from the once-divided Obama and Clinton camps have unified behind Clinton's possible candidacy in 2016.

The Messina and Podesta move has been somewhat stalled this month, sources said, because of considerations over Vice President Joe Biden. There is a worry that Biden — who was already spurned by a story in the new book, Double Down: Game Change 2012, which described how Obama aides floated the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket last year — could view Messina's jump to a Clinton effort so early as a slight to his own presidential ambitions.

The rejiggering of Priorities USA comes as an array of other outside groups — Ready for Hillary, American Bridge, and EMILY's List — align behind Clinton.

This articles has been updated to include reference to Mantz's initial ties to the PAC during the 2012 election. (12/3/13)

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A board of advisers who didn’t seem to know they were on the board of advisers.

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The Daily Download, the much-scrutinized project of media personalities Lauren Ashburn and Howard Kurtz, appears to be no more.

The website for the media commentary project hasn't been online in more than a month according to the Internet Web Archive.

The Daily Download's YouTube account was also taken down. That account was online earlier Tuesday but disappeared during the day. Prior to the YouTube account's removal, BuzzFeed emailed and called Ashburn to inquire about what had happened to the site. After publication of this article, the Daily Download's Twitter and Facebook accounts were removed from the web as well.

Neither Ashburn nor Kurtz returned requests for comment.

The Knight Foundation, a group that provided $230,000 to help support the launch of the website told BuzzFeed after publication they were aware the Daily Download was closed and that their grant with the organization ended at the end of November.

"The grant period ended Nov. 30, which is when we received a final report from MPT. The grant to MPT was intended to create a series of digital reviews to help users determine which websites and online tools for covering news are effective and credible. The intent was to experiment with new ways to help people find information and to to test tech journalism on PBS.This fits in with Knight's goal of constantly testing new innovations in media, data and information toward more informed communities. We do know from MPT that Daily Download is now closed.

The website has not been updated since September and two writers who freelanced for site before it stopped posting articles did not know what had happened to the site.

"Don't know," said Alicia Cohn who wrote the last article the website published in September.

"I haven't written for them since summer, but I do know they were grant-funded and the grant was due to run out at the end of 2013," said Nikki Schwab who wrote for the site a month before it stopped posting. "Since Lauren ended up at Fox News I assume she just pulled the plug early? Weird that she wouldn't keep the archive, but it didn't really have the greatest reputation after that quasi-homophobic video they put out."

Kurtz was fired from his position as the Daily Beast Washington bureau chief in May after an embarrassing error regarding out NBA player Jason Collins and questions about time Kurtz was spending at the Daily Download. The Daily Download also apologized for the Collins incident after Kurtz and Ashburn made a video in which they seemed to mock Collins.

Kurtz joined the Fox News Channel in June of this year after it became known CNN was not interested in renewing his contract. Ashburn joined him at Fox in August, a month before the website stopped posting articles.

Three members listed on the site's "board of advisers" said they didn't know why the site was gone. Two members of the board of advisers, Sharon Waxman, the editor-in-chief of the website The Wrap and Teagan Goddard who runs the political site Political Wire did not seem to understand why they were listed as advisers to the website.

"Amusing. I've never had anything to do with Daily Download," Waxman told BuzzFeed.

"Howie was a longtime friend of mine and asked me to advise them," she later added when asked if she was clear she was listed as an adviser.

"I have no idea what happened to the site," Goddard said. "It's probably not appropriate to call me 'an adviser.' I had lunch with Lauren Ashburn and Howard Kurtz once and spoke to them on the phone once."

"Not a clue. My role was only to give Lauren and Howie some informal
advice at the start," said Jim Brady the editor-in-chief of Digital First Media. "I have no formal role, no financial stake or anything lilt [sic] that."

The Twitter account for the Daily Download had not been updated since June and the Facebook account for the website had not been updated since May before they were removed.

This article has been updated to reflect the latest developments. (12/3/13)

The House and Senate Democratic leaders have picked members to try and reboot health care messaging on the Hill.

U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

WASHINGTON — As part of the new push from the White House to try and highlight the benefits of Obamacare amid the troubled rollout of the law, a group of House and Senate Democrats are holding daily phone calls with administration officials to coordinate the messaging of the day and serve as a communications "strike team" on the Hill.

The House Democratic team began the calls with the administration three weeks ago, and the Senate joined them this week in putting together a group for the effort, according to a House Democratic aide.

The White House is trying to hit the reset button after a long month of bad news for President Obama's signature domestic achievement. As Politico reported Monday, the administration will tout different benefits of the law daily and members of Congress will echo those messages on the Hill with floor speeches and press events. For example, Wednesday's theme will focus on preventive care, and House Democratic women will hold a call to speak about the law's benefits for women's preventive services.

Rep. Steve Israel, who chairs the Democratic political arm in the House and is on the "strike team,", said the White House needed to talk more about the law's benefits but also remind the public that House Republicans haven't presented solid plans to replace the law they want to repeal.

"They knew they needed to be more aggressive on this," he said. "They also need to be, and one of the points that I made, is they have to do a better job not only talking about the successes of the Affordable Care Act but the fact that Republicans are advocating a repeal that will increase costs, bring us back to a broken system, that leads to bankruptcy. "

In addition to Israel, members of the House Obamacare response team include Reps. Donna Edwards, Xavier Becerra, Rob Andrews, Rose DeLauro, Jared Polis, Matt Cartwright, Doris Matsui, Keith Ellison, Nydia Valasquez, Jan Schakowsky, and Henry Cueller.

Senate Democratic leadership, including Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and Dick Durbin, will lead the charge in the Senate and will be joined by Debbie Stabenow, Chris Murphy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tom Harkin, Max Baucus, Barbara Boxer, Tim Kaine, and Angus King, according to a source familiar with the group.

The headlines in recent weeks have not been good for Democrats. Millions of Americans have received cancellation notices from their health insurance companies, violating a key promise from the president that if "you like your plan you can keep it." The rollout caught congressional Democrats off guard, and strained relations between the administration and the Hill. Democrats are hoping the strategy to highlight the benefits and a pledge to "fix" the problems with the law could help shift some of the public opinion in their favor.

"A lot members think we should be on offense about this. The GOP doesn't have a counter proposal," said Rep. Patrick Murphy, one of the GOP's top targets for 2014. "This isn't perfect but it's better than what we had, lets talk about the benefits…let's talk about the wins in this instead of just defending."

But Democratic caucus chairman Xavier Becerra, another member of the House Obamacare communications team, argued that the new push from the White House and Democrats was not about trying to "go on offense" but helping more people understand the law.

"It's not a matter of taking offense or defense on this, it's just a matter of making it work," he said.

Administration officials also spoke with Democratic caucus members on Tuesday morning to update them on the progress of the errors with the website. Even some of the politically vulnerable Democratic rank and file seemed somewhat relieved at what they heard.

"They are making progress. Everyone was very disappointed with the rollout but cautiously optimistic that they are getting it together," said Murphy. "All hands are on deck, trying to fix it to get it right."

Republicans pounced on the news Tuesday, making light of the effort with a Twitter hashtag.

"President Obama and House Democrats are attempting to do in three weeks what they couldn't do in three years: convince voters that Obamacare isn't a massive failure," said Matt Gorman, the rapid response director for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "As it raises premiums and cancels plans, we look forward to talking about the law even more than Democrats do"

Oh boy.

Rabbi Gary Moskowitz, a former New York police officer known as “Rambowitz” dropped by CNN to show America how to defend itself against the mythical "Knockout Game."

CNN host Don Lemon stood in as a "Knockout Gamer."

There was some of this...

And some of that...

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