A federal judge ordered Ohio and local officials to recognize the same-sex marriages conducted outside Ohio on death certificates. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is appealing the decision to the 6th Circuit.

ohioattorneygeneral.gov

WASHINGTON — Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is appealing a December order that the state recognize same-sex couples' marriages conducted out of the state.

The case itself is a narrow one, limited to the request that the state list the couples married out of state as married on death certificates. Under Ohio's 2004 marriage amendment, the state can neither grant marriages to same-sex couples nor recognize those marriages if performed elsewhere.

In December, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black ruled that, "[U]nder the Constitution of the United States, Ohio must recognize on Ohio death certificates valid same-sex marriages from other states."

DeWine's office, which had previously said it would appeal the decision, filed a notice with Black's court on Thursday that it would be appealing the case. The appeal will be heard by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Black's ruling was limited to the narrow request made in the case, but his reasoning likely would be used by other couples seeking recognition of their marriages by the state. More broadly, Black suggested he would likely reach a similar ruling if asked whether Ohio's constitutional amendment banning the state from granting such licenses is constitutional.

Still not available to the public.

Pool New / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The text of the agreement to implement the interim nuclear deal with Iran has been provided to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, a senior senate aide said on Thursday.

"The administration has sent the text of the implementation agreement to the Hill but has restricted its access so that the public and media cannot view it — this raises serious questions as to why the administration is so afraid of the American people viewing this agreement," the aide said. "Only members and congressional staff with security clearances are being allowed to view it."

The White House has previously said that the European Union made the decision not to make the document public. The world powers that negotiate with Iran reached an agreement on Jan. 20 to implement the nuclear deal that was reached in November in Geneva that will restrict Iran's nuclear program in exchange for some sanctions relief.

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said that White House press secretary Jay Carney would address the issue in his press briefing on Thursday.

Spokespeople for the State Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

The decision not to release the document has attracted criticism from opponents of the president's policy on Iran.

"The Iran deal shouldn't be kept secret from the American people," Sen. Mark Kirk, one of the authors of Iran sanctions legislation moving through the Senate, said on Thursday. "If the White House is proud of the deal, it should be able to withstand public scrutiny."

A senate aide with knowledge of the agreement text said that the agreement does not require dismantlement of the Arak heavy water reactor in a final deal, and that it includes a provision for the Iranians to get to veto reports of violations of the interim agreement.

"Iran sits on the commission that decides whether a violation occurred so enforcement of the deal may prove impossible — making it much more important for the Senate to pass the enforcement bill under consideration," the aide said, referring to the Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill.

Citizenship or nothing? DREAMers say their families need relief from deportation and they’re willing to pass on citizenship for now to get it, but old guard reform advocates don’t think that needs to happen. DREAMers release letter exclusively to BuzzFeed detailing their position.

AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

As rumblings begin again about Congress taking up overhauling U.S. immigration laws, tension has developed between key advocates in the reform community over what exactly should be pursued in terms of citizenship.

In a letter obtained by BuzzFeed, a group of more than 80 so-called DREAMers, undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children, as well as advocacy groups, argue that "citizenship or nothing" is no longer a viable strategy.

The letter, addressed to "friends and allies in the immigrant rights movement," urges practicality:

As people who are directly affected, we ask you to revisit your strategy:

1. Focus on a practical legislative solution for immediate relief for families, even if it doesn't include a special path to citizenship. Our families and communities need relief now, not ideological hard lines.

Democrats and advocates should support "bills that are already amenable to citizenship for Dreamers and legalization for parents without blocking existing citizenship channels," the letter states, adding that they would not accept a proposal that blocks, bans or bars citizenship.

The letter follows comments made by high-profile and longtime advocate Eliseo Medina, who was visited by the president and first lady in November after engaging in a hunger strike to bring attention to the need for immigration reform.

Medina emphasized that any legislative action must include citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States in a recent Univision interview that drew wide attention in the advocacy community.

"Our battle is to fight for what we need and not for what the opposition is inclined to give us," Medina said to Jorge Ramos in Spanish on his show Al Punto recently. "Republicans need to know that we aren't disposed to being second-class citizens. They want us to have all of the responsibilities, pay taxes, work, all of it to build this country but without all of the rights. It's unacceptable."

House Republicans are currently preparing "principles" on the immigration issue that will address the fate of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country, BuzzFeed reported earlier this month. What potential legislation would look like and whether the efforts will be tenable this year legislatively remain unclear.

Erika Andiola, a high-profile DREAMer who recently left her job on Capitol Hill to return home to successfully fight her mother's deportation, said Democrats are using the citizenship issue as a cudgel to bash Republicans. She said the GOP deserves blame, but the blame game won't end deportations that are affecting undocumented families.

"The word citizenship, you can define it in so many ways," Andiola told BuzzFeed. "But first we want to be recognized as human beings not as people you can put in detention centers."

Frank Sharry, a longtime immigration advocate for America's Voice, who was part of the previous struggles to pass new laws in the last few years, said there is no sense in activists negotiating against themselves when House Republicans may end up being more open to citizenship than current conventional wisdom suggests.

Sharry cited a report in the New York Times in which Rep. Bob Goodlatte of the House Judiciary Committee "would not support legislation with a 'special' or direct pathway to citizenship" for the country's undocumented immigrants.

"He doesn't say legalization without a path to citizenship, it's legalization with no special path to citizenship," Sharry said. "You could have a House architecture and meet an achievable path to citizenship."

A report released Tuesday by the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, found that Republican policy proposals being discussed could eventually lead between 4.4 million and 6.5 million immigrants toward a path to citizenship.

Sharry said pushing for citizenship is paramount.

"It's unwise to talk about reform without citizenship, which would create a permanent underclass that harkens back to the darkest times in American history."

But he understands where the young undocumented activists are coming from.

"I respect them, I know people who signed on to that statement and I respect their right to voice their concerns. I'm not being critical of them, I just don't think we should negotiate with ourselves."

Jose Patino, a DREAMer who appeared in the Dream is Now documentary and founded the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition in 2008, said he appreciates what advocates like Sharry and Medina have done but ultimately, undocumented families are the ones bearing the brunt of a broken system.

"We respect Eliseo Medina a lot, but we don't need 'citizenship or nothing,' what we need is deportation relief," he said. "When I ask my mom, my friends, they say they want to be able to be here, want to be able to work, have a driver's license to go to work and to be able to travel and see family. They say they don't need citizenship right now."

But Andiola said the idea is that relief from deportation should come first and then there will be other battles later on.

"We have to keep fighting for more, once we have a way of being here and work without fear of being deported, then we will keep fighting for the rights we don't have. We're not going to sit there and not do anything," she said.

Patino said the strategy of DREAMers has been doubted before but they've shown that they know what they're doing. He said the original push for the DREAM Act led to the deferred action for childhood arrivals program which liberated many of them from the fear of imminent deportation and allowed them to start advocating more publicly for their families.

"We as dreamers knew what was best for us, people who are undocumented know what's best," he said. "We're not saying we don't appreciate the work the Eliseo Medina's and the Frank Sharry's are doing."

But Sharry says now is not the time to get bogged down in debates over tactics when a better offer might be put on the table.

"You can't dance without a dance partner," he said. "They haven't come with a proposal but I'm optimistic it'll be better than legalization without citizenship."

See the full letter from DREAMers here.

As a student at Baylor in the early 1980s, Paul wrote numerous letters to his college newspaper The Lariat . Paul weighed in on topics like gun control, the Equal Rights Amendment, and affirmative action with a libertarian tint.

On society:

Baylor Lariat

On gun control:

Baylor Lariat

On affirmative action:

Baylor Lariat

On the Equal Rights Amendment:

Baylor Lariat

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Gene Scherr has been appointed as the lead outside counsel assisting the state, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes announced. Reyes says Schaerr will be leaving Winston & Strawn in order to do so.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Gene Schaerr, a well known D.C. appellate lawyer, will be serving as the lead outside counsel to Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes in defending the state's amendment barring same-sex couples from marrying.

The appointment was announced Thursday afternoon by Reyes. Along with Schaerr, John J. Bursch of Warner Norcross & Judd, and Monte Neil Stewart of Stewart Taylor & Morris will be serving as outside counsel to the state.

The case, Herbert v. Kitchen, is currently on appeal before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals after U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby struck down the amendment as unconstitutional on Dec. 20, 2013.

Prior to Thursday's announcement, Schaerr had been the chair of Winston & Strawn's Appellate and Critical Motions Practice. Winston & Strawn is a major international law firm with 17 offices across the globe. According to The Oyez Project, Schaerr has argued five cases at the Supreme Court, all of them criminal cases. Bursch is the former solicitor general of Michigan and has argued eight cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, including two earlier this term. Stewart, whose appointment was announced previously, has written and advocated against same-sex couples' marriage rights.

According to a statement from Reyes, though, Schaerr is leaving his firm.

"We are pleased that he is so eager to represent our state and that he would leave his firm so he can focus on this case exclusively," Reyes said in the statement. A message left with a press contact at Winston & Strawn and another message left for Schaerr were not immediately returned.

This is not the first time a big-firm lawyer left his firm as part of representation of the increasingly unpopular position against marriage rights for same-sex couples.

When Paul Clement was appointed as outside counsel to the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to help with the defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2011, he was a partner with King & Spalding, a global law firm based out of Atlanta. Soon after questions were raised about the firm's defense of DOMA, Clement left the firm and joined the smaller, more ideological D.C. firm of Bancroft PLLC, which was started by former Bush administration Assistant Attorney General Viet D. Dinh.

On the other side of the cases though, several other big-law firms have represented the plaintiffs seeking equal marriage treatment. Ted Olson of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Roberta Kaplan of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison represented the plaintiffs in this past year's Supreme Court cases challenging California's Proposition 8 and DOMA, respectively.

As nation prepares to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, lawmakers announce compromise reforms to protect voting rights while allowing voter ID laws to stand.

People visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall October 17, 2013 in Washington, DC. The US federal government reopened after a 16-day forced shutdown.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers achieved something Thursday few thought was possible a year ago: introducing a bipartisan bill to update the Voting Rights Act in the wake of last year's Supreme Court decision.

Responding to the Supreme Court's gutting of a section of the Voting Rights Act last year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers — Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, House Judiciary ranking member John Conyers and others — have been quietly working for months to modernize the law that protects voters in minority communities.

The compromise bill expands protections of the law nationwide, and will focus particularly on instances where states have at least five instances of discriminatory voting practices in the last 15 years. Critically, the bill does not necessarily rule out the implementation of stricter voter ID laws, a key demand of Republicans, although if they have the effect of discrimination it appears they could come under scrutiny from the Justice Department.

Although VRA reauthorizations have been a bipartisan affair in the past, given the explosive history of civil rights issues, Republican voter ID efforts and the general toxicity of Congress, few outside Congress thought the group would be able to come to an agreement.

The trick was "figuring out how to get the votes to pass this modernization through a divided and very fractured Congress … I think we've threaded that needle," Sensenbrenner said matter-of-factly of the group's unlikely achievement.

Indeed, Sensenbrenner noted that Reps. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina and Spencer Baucus of Alabama, two of the most conservative Republicans in the House, are sponsors of the bill. "So there is southern support for it," Sensenbrenner noted.

"It is unbelievable. It is almost unreal that we were able to come together so quickly to craft a compromise that democrats and republicans can support … I will admit that it is not a perfect bill. But it is a necessary and good beginning," Lewis said.

"This is not something that is going to be filibustered in the Senate," Leahy added, explaining he expects to have support from conservatives and liberals alike.

Last year's Supreme Court ruling undid decades of voting rights law, eliminating requirements that a handful of southern states with a history of discrimination get pre-approval from the Justice Department for changes to voter laws.

The ruling opened the flood gates for state-level changes to the laws, particularly new voter identification requirements, and since then civil rights activists have warned it could result in a new era of restricted voting abilities for minorities, not just in the South but across the country.

The compromise bill drew praise from the ACLU and other civil rights and civil liberties groups.

"The bill includes commonsense updates to a law that has protected the fundamental right to vote for American citizens for nearly 50 years. While it does not fix everything that was lost … we are pleased to see a bipartisan bill that contains a set of protections that are flexible, forward-looking, and written to capture recent discrimination and stop discriminatory changes before elections take place. We will continue to work for improvements in the bill and urge Congress to pass the bill swiftly. Congress must do all in its power to ensure that Americans are treated fairly at the ballot box," ACLU senior legislative counsel Deborah J. Vagins said.

The vote should take place after the interim deal on Iran’s nuclear program runs out, he says.

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bob Corker has proposed the idea of scheduling a vote on Iran sanctions six months from now, after the interim nuclear agreement has run its course, instead of voting on sanctions right now.

Corker said Thursday that he had suggested the idea to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during a closed-door briefing for senators by lead Iran negotiator Wendy Sherman on the implementation agreement with Iran that is due to kick in on Jan. 20, the text of which was released to Congress today. The Senate is mulling a new sanctions bill introduced by Sens. Mark Kirk and Bob Menendez that is currently stalled pending a vote scheduled by Reid.

"One of the things I posed to the leader was look, why don't we schedule a vote for July the 21st, that's six months after the implementation date and if they haven't reached an agreement that we believe is satisfactory, let's implement on that day," Corker, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters after the briefing.

"When you think about it, we could almost have more leverage in some ways for a vote prescheduled right now for July the 21st," Corker said. "Scheduling a Senate vote the day after in some ways can put even more pressure on the situation."

Sen. Carl Levin, who was also in the briefing, said that Corker's solution "doesn't sound workable."

"There's a lot of things in that bill that wouldn't make any sense on July 21," Levin said. "By then we could vote on whether or not we wanted to not adopt it. There's another problem with that approach, which is you can extend the July 21 by up to six months with mutual consent."

Democratic senators who exited the briefing stayed mostly mum ("I'm a desert like California. No water here," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein), though Republican senators Corker and Lindsey Graham said they didn't think Sherman made a convincing case that the deal was a good deal.

"I'm more disturbed now than ever after the briefing," Graham said. "The end game being contemplated is not even in the ballpark of what I would consider an endgame."

"Nothing was said to change my mind" on sanctions, said Sen. Jim Inhofe.

"I think many of us are very concerned about the fact that the administration still has never stated what their end game is," Corker said, echoing Graham.

Corker said he believed the meeting had "built momentum towards those sanctions."

"I completely disagree," said Sen. Tim Johnson when asked if he thought the meeting had boosted support for sanctions.

"Quite the opposite," Levin said. "I think it was a very persuasive briefing that there should not be a vote while negotiations are going on because it could undermine the possibility of success."

“So I’m asking you the million dollar question. What am I supposed to do right now to keep a roof over my head, food in my stomach, clothes on my back, car insurance paid?” Wessita McKinley asked a McConnell staffer.

WASHINGTON — Activists weaved through the basement of the Capitol, marched up stairs and squeezed through hallways to deliver more than 100,000 petitions to extend unemployment benefits to the offices of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner.

After a press conference with House and Senate Democrats, more than a dozen activists, organized by groups including the National Employment Law Project and AFL-CIO, carried two boxes filled with 60,000 petitions each, asking Congress to extend the benefits, which expired late last month — one for Boehner's office and the other for McConnell's.

Much to the surprise of the activists, Sen. Elizabeth Warren stepped out of an elevator they were waiting to take. Judy Conti (left) of the National Employment Law Project explained to Warren (right) what was going on.

"May the force be with you," Warren said as she walked away.

Eventually they arrived at McConnell's office. After some negotiation, a few activists were allowed into McConnell's office to speak with his spokesman, Don Stewart (middle).

No cameras were allowed inside. One activist, Wessita McKinley of Maryland, spoke for the group.

"I’ve served my country, honorable discharge. I’ve done my time. I’ve done everything right," she said. "College, school, no crime, no record. Pay my taxes. Make sure my daughter went to school."

"Did the American dream. Got her in college," McKinley added. "And I’m sitting here struggling. I’m now ready to take a street sweeper job if they would offer it to me. So I’m asking you the million dollar question. What am I supposed to do right now to keep a roof over my head, food in my stomach, clothes on my back, car insurance paid?"

Stewart listened to McKinley (pictured at the earlier press conference) as she explained how difficult life without unemployment benefits has been.

Stewart, the McConnell spokesman, countered by saying Majority Leader Harry Reid has not agreed to Republican amendments and waited too long to hold votes on the issue in the first place. But McKinley wasn't satisfied with that answer as she continued to lament about her situation.

“I can only tell you what we can do here in the Senate," Stewart said. "I have no control over your life.“

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The Oklahoma Republican cites his commitment to serve only two terms — not his health — as the reason for his retirement.

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

Sen. Tom Coburn announced late Thursday that he will retire from the Senate at the end of 2014 in a statement released by his office.

In a statement, Coburn emphasized that his recent diagnosis of prostate cancer did not play a role in his decision.

"This decision isn't about my health, my prognosis or even my hopes and desires," he said in the statement. "My commitment to the people of Oklahoma has always been that I would serve no more than two terms."

Coburn was reelected to his seat in 2010, would have been up for reelection in 2016, though he pledged he would not run again. The Oklahoma Republican, who is also a medical doctor, is known as a principled fiscal conservative, dubbed "Dr. No," for his routine votes against and holds on bills.

Here is the full statement released by Coburn's office:

"Serving as Oklahoma's senator has been, and continues to be, one of the great privileges and blessings of my life. But, after much prayer and consideration, I have decided that I will leave my Senate seat at the end of this Congress.

"Carolyn and I have been touched by the encouragement we've received from people across the state regarding my latest battle against cancer. But this decision isn't about my health, my prognosis or even my hopes and desires. My commitment to the people of Oklahoma has always been that I would serve no more than two terms. Our founders saw public service and politics as a calling rather than a career. That's how I saw it when I first ran for office in 1994, and that's how I still see it today. I believe it's important to live under the laws I helped write, and even those I fought hard to block.

"As a citizen legislator, I am first and foremost a citizen who cares deeply about the kind of country we leave our children and grandchildren. As I have traveled across Oklahoma and our nation these past nine years, I have yet to meet a parent or grandparent who wouldn't do anything within their power to secure the future for the next generation. That's why I initially ran for office in 1994 and re-entered politics in 2004. I'm encouraged there are thousands of Americans with real-world experience and good judgment who feel just like I do. As dysfunctional as Washington is these days, change is still possible when 'We the People' get engaged, run for office themselves or make their voices heard. After all, how else could a country doctor from Muskogee with no political experience make it to Washington?

"As a citizen, I am now convinced that I can best serve my own children and grandchildren by shifting my focus elsewhere. In the meantime, I look forward to finishing this year strong. I intend to continue our fight for Oklahoma, and will do everything in my power to force the Senate to re-embrace its heritage of debate, deliberation and consensus as we face our many challenges ahead.

"My God bless you, our state and our country."

“I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official told BuzzFeed. The NSA leaker is enemy No. 1 among those inside the intelligence world.

Snowden's Russian refugee document.

Maxim Shemetov / Reuters

Edward Snowden has made some dangerous enemies. As the American intelligence community struggles to contain the public damage done by the former National Security Agency contractor's revelations of mass domestic spying, intelligence operators have continued to seethe in very personal terms against the 30-year-old whistle-blower.

"In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself," a current NSA analyst told BuzzFeed. "A lot of people share this sentiment."

"I would love to put a bullet in his head," one Pentagon official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. "I do not take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single-handedly the greatest traitor in American history."

That violent hostility lies just beneath the surface of the domestic debate over NSA spying is still ongoing. Some members of Congress have hailed Snowden as a whistle-blower, the New York Times has called for clemency, and pundits regularly defend his actions on Sunday talk shows. In intelligence community circles, Snowden is considered a nothing short of a traitor in wartime.

"His name is cursed every day over here," a defense contractor told BuzzFeed, speaking from an overseas intelligence collections base. "Most everyone I talk to says he needs to be tried and hung, forget the trial and just hang him."

One Army intelligence officer even offered BuzzFeed a chillingly detailed fantasy.

"I think if we had the chance, we would end it very quickly," he said. "Just casually walking on the streets of Moscow, coming back from buying his groceries. Going back to his flat and he is casually poked by a passerby. He thinks nothing of it at the time starts to feel a little woozy and thinks it's a parasite from the local water. He goes home very innocently and next thing you know he dies in the shower."

There is no indication that the United States has sought to take vengeance on Snowden, who is living in an undisclosed location in Russia without visible security measures, according to a recent Washington Post interview. And the intelligence operators who spoke to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity did not say they expected anyone to act on their desire for revenge. But their mood is widespread, people who regularly work with the intelligence community said.

"These guys are emoting how pissed they are," Peter Singer, a cyber-security expert at the Brookings Institute. "Do you think people at the NSA would put a statue of him out front?"

The degree to which Snowden's revelations have damaged intelligence operations are also being debated. Shawn Turner, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, recently called the leaks "unnecessarily and extremely damaging to the United States and the intelligence community's national security efforts," and the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Dutch Ruppersberger said terrorists have been "changing their methods because of the leaks." Snowden's defenders dismiss those concerns as overblown, and the government has not pointed to specific incidents to bear out the claims.

On the ground, intelligence workers certainly say the damage has been done. The NSA officer complained that his sources had become "useless." The Army intelligence officer said the revelations had increased his "blindness."

"I do my work in a combat zone so now I have to see the effects of a Snowden in a combat zone. It will not be pretty," he said.

And while government officials have a long record of overstating the damage from leaks, some specific consequences seem logical.

"By [Snowden] showing who our collections partners were, the terrorists have dropped those carriers and email addresses," the DOD official said. "We can't find them because he released that data. Their electronic signature is gone."

The establishment freaks out as another favorite son falls from grace. “There are definitely people jumping ship.”

Lucas Jackson / Reuters / Reuters

In the immediate aftermath of their emphatic defeat in 2012, the monied mega-donors and professional operatives who run the GOP took solace in what then seemed like a dazzling, diverse roster of talented politicians and outsize personalities eminently equipped to lead the party out of the wilderness.

But after a brutal year of setbacks, scandals, and political floundering capped this month by a controversy that threatens to sink New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's political career, the Republican establishment is warily scanning its bruised and bloodied field of potential 2016 standard-bearers — and many of the party poobahs are on the brink of panic.

In interviews with more than a dozen party officials, fundraisers, and strategists in New York and Washington over the past 10 days, Republicans described a palpable sense of anxiety gripping the GOP establishment in the wake of Christie's meltdown, and an emerging consensus that the once promising cast of candidates they were counting on to save the GOP from the tea party — and the nation from Hillary Clinton — is looking less formidable by the week.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — declared "The Republican Savior" on the cover of Time magazine last January — fell from grace after his attempt to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and his subsequent flip-flop on the bill, was met with revolt from the right, and a chorus of scorn from the left. Meanwhile, the establishment's other favorite son, Jeb Bush, virtually vanished after half-heartedly feeding the 2016 buzz during his short-lived book tour last spring. Since then, he has shown little interest in building a presidential campaign, and on Thursday his own mother said she hopes he doesn't run.

Now, with federal and local investigators digging into the George Washington Bridge scandal — an effort that will likely result in a subpoena for Bridget Kelly, the senior aide Christie fired for ordering the bridge closure, and the release of thousands more pages of internal documents — Christie's supporters are bracing for the worst.

"My sense is they're hoping against hope there aren't more shoes to drop," said Keith Appell, a Republican strategist with ties to the tea party who has been critical of Christie's moderate streak. "They really want to support him... but they can't control anything if another shoe drops."

A Republican operative at a large super PAC used the same metaphor — a favorite among political observers at the moment — to describe the unease in the party.

"Everyone thinks there's probably a 60% chance the other shoe will drop," said the operative, who like many of the people quoted in this story, requested anonymity to speak freely about a situation that is still evolving. "When I saw the press conference, I said, I don't think he's lying... But for the deputy chief of staff to do something like that requires a culture in the office that he would have set, and it probably requires other examples that would have made her feel like that was acceptable to do."

He added, "My gut is that they'll probably find something else."

For now, Christie is putting on a brave face as his team — and his most loyal supporters — attempt to present an image of strength and returning to business as usual. This weekend, Christie will embark on a two-day fundraising swing through Florida for the Republican Governors Association, where he just became chairman. Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot who has been one of Christie's most enthusiastic boosters, insisted to the Washington Post that "enthusiasm among donors has never wavered."

Langone's sentiment was echoed by Ana Navarro, a Miami-based Republican strategist and pundit who is plugged in to the Florida fundraising scene. "Donors are calling around trying to get details and invitations," she said. "I think people are in a wait-and-see mode and in general like the way he has dealt with the issue in the last week... Donors are not fleeing form the guy like if he was radioactive material."

But behind the scenes, the situation is more tense. A Republican fundraising operative who has met with Christie said much of the interest he's seeing in the Florida fundraisers is being driven by donors' morbid curiosity — not solidarity with the governor.

"There are definitely people jumping ship," the operative said, noting that confidence in Christie's electability has dropped off sharply among the donors he's heard from.

And yet, without a clear, top-tier establishment alternative to hitch their wagon to, many donors are left with a menu of less-than-ideal options, ranging from right-wing firebrands like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, to B-team governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin or John Kasich of Ohio.

In fact, it's gotten so bad, the operative said, that some donors have started looking back fondly on the good old days of 2012: "You know what a lot of them say to me? I think we need Mitt back."

Of all the disappointments suffered this past year by the GOP elite, Christie's crisis came as the most startling. Many in the party establishment had come to rely on the governor's soaring approval ratings and landslide reelection to bolster their faith that — even after all the budget brinksmanship and government shutdowns — the party would eventually come around to the socially moderate, business-friendly, compromise-seeking brand of Republicanism that Christie represented. And as President Obama has struggled to implement his signature health care law, and seen his approval ratings crumble along the way, professional Republicans saw an opening for the Springsteen-singing, populist governor to reshape the electoral map.

But while Christie's base of Acela Republicans probably always had slightly inflated faith in his transformative abilities, they also grasp the implications of the current bridge scandal more acutely — and have responded more viscerally — than Republicans anywhere else in the country.

To a certain degree, savvy donors in the tri-state area recognize, and even admire, the hardball tactics Christie has been known to use. As one New York GOP operative put it, "Being on the wrong side of a political fight, you expect to pay some sort of consequence for it." But if there is one act of political retribution that crosses the line of propriety for Christie's donor base, it's shutting down the bridge that connects Manhattan to the New Jersey suburbs. (Indeed, of the 14 titans of industry and finance who confronted Christie at a private Park Avenue social club in 2012 to urge him to make a last-minute bid for the nomination, at least 10 own homes within five miles of the George Washington Bridge.)

"A lot of these guys live in Jersey and take that bridge to work in New York every day. Or a lot of them live in Manhattan and take it to go to a Jets game," said the operative of Christie's core network of donors. "The bridge in and of itself is always a disaster in terms of traffic. So adding to it purposefully and then bragging about it over email, I think, is what made it so stunning."

Road rage aside, many Republican elites now worry that the scandal will exacerbate the challenge for Christie to make his persona translate across time zones.

"The folks in New Jersey just have a different level of tolerance for power politics than other states," said the super PAC operative. "What's acceptable in New Jersey may be completely unacceptable in North Dakota, but may be several steps removed from Moscow."

Meanwhile, as the GOP establishment agonizes over whether Christie — or anyone — can emerge intact for the primaries next year, one piece of news this week did manage to calm some nerves: a report in Politico that Hillary Clinton keeps a political "hit list" of all those who have wronged her over the years.

As one veteran of the George H.W. Bush administration put it, "Bluntly, two misshapen psyches keeps you in the game."

Sunrise was still nearly an hour off when Nazih al-Ruqai climbed into his black Hyundai SUV outside a mosque in northern Tripoli and turned the key. The lanky 49-year-old had left the house barely 30 minutes earlier for a quick trip to the mosque on a Saturday. It was Oct. 5, 2013, and after more than two decades in exile, he had settled into a predictable existence of prayer and worship.

The homecoming hadn’t always been so smooth. Ruqai, who is better known in the jihadi world as Abu Anas al-Libi, was still feeling the effects of the hepatitis C he had contracted years earlier during a stint in an underground prison in Iran. Following overtures from Muammar al-Qaddafi’s government, his wife and children had returned to Libya in 2010. But Libi stayed away, wary of the man he had once plotted to kill. Only when the Libyan uprisings started in early 2011 did he follow his family back to Libya. But by then it was already too late. His oldest son, Abd al-Rahman, the only one of his five children who had been born in Libya, was dead, shot while fighting for the capital.

After that, things moved in fits and starts. Qaddafi was killed weeks later in October 2011, and Libi eventually settled in Nufalayn, a leafy middle-class neighborhood in northeast Tripoli, alongside several members of his extended family. Life after Qaddafi was chaotic and messy — nothing really worked as the new government struggled to reboot after 42 years of dictatorship, often finding itself at the mercy of the heavily armed militias and tribes that had contributed to Qaddafi’s downfall.

Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Abu Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the 1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa.

FBI / AP Photo

“He suspected that at any moment he would be killed,” his son later told The New York Times. Still, on that Saturday morning in early October, much of the danger seemed to have passed. Libi had been living in the open for nearly a year, attending prayers and settling local disputes, where his history as a fighter and knowledge of the Qur’an made him a respected arbiter. Neighbors called him simply “the shaykh,” a sign of respect in the conservative circles in which Libi still moved.

He had also taken steps to address his past. Three weeks earlier, on Sept. 15, Libi had sat down with Libya’s attorney general to discuss his indictment, according to one report. (The Libyan Embassy in Washington did not respond to repeated requests to confirm Libi’s meeting.) But mostly he just wanted to move on with his life. He had applied for his old job at the Ministry of Oil and Gas and he couldn’t stop talking about how much he was looking forward to becoming a grandfather for the first time.

A trio of cars around 6 a.m. ended all of that.

Inside the family’s apartment, Libi’s wife heard the commotion. From a window she looked out over the beige wall that surrounded their building and into the street where several men had surrounded her husband, who was still in the driver’s seat of his black Hyundai.

“Get out,” the men shouted in Arabic. “Get out.” Then they smashed the window. Most of the men were masked, but she could see a few faces, she said later in Arabic interviews. They looked Libyan; they sounded Libyan. Some of them had guns; some didn’t, but they all moved quickly.

By the time the rest of the family made it to the street, all that was left was a single sandal and a few drops of blood.

Early that same morning, nearly 3,000 miles away in the seaside city of Baraawe on Somalia’s eastern coast, U.S. Navy SEALs crept through the darkness toward their target, which a local resident later described to me as a walled compound more than 100 yards inland. The Americans had been here before. Four years earlier, in September 2009, a contingent of Navy SEALs had ambushed a two-car convoy just outside of town. Flying low in helicopter gunships, the SEALs quickly disabled the cars and then touched down to collect the bodies.

This time the target — Abd al-Qadir Muhammad Abd al-Qadir, a young Kenyan of Somali descent better known as Ikrima — was stationary. The SEALs would have to go in and get him. Pre-raid intelligence suggested that the compound housed mostly fighters with few or no civilians present. Only 130 miles south of Mogadishu and what passed for the Somali government, Baraawe had been under the control of al-Shabaab, a fragmentary militant group, since 2009. Fighters came and went freely, as al-Shabaab implemented its own narrow version of Islamic law in the city.

Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, aka Ikrima.

Inside the compound, some of the al-Shabaab fighters were up late and online. And, according to a report in the Toronto Star, when the internet suddenly went out in the middle of the night, they went to look for the source of the problem. At least one fighter stepped outside, and as he moved around in the darkness he spotted some of the SEALs.

The plan to knock the internet offline and isolate the fighters in the villa had backfired, effectively giving al-Shabaab an early warning that the SEALs were on their way. (In the days after the raid, al-Shabaab would arrest a handful of local men who were known to visit Western websites, accusing them of spying and aiding U.S. efforts.)

The firefight lasted several minutes, although residents reported hearing gunfire throughout the night as members of al-Shabaab discharged their weapons into the dark for hours after the Americans had withdrawn, empty-handed.

In the span of a few hours, the U.S. had launched a pair of raids — one successful and one not — 3,000 miles apart, in countries with which the nation was not at war. Hardly anyone noticed.

More than a dozen years after the Sept. 11 attacks, this is what America’s war looks like, silent strikes and shadowy raids. The Congressional Research Service, an analytical branch of the Library of Congress, recently said that it had located at least 30 similar occurrences, although the number of covert actions is likely many times higher with drones strikes and other secret operations. The remarkable has become regular.

The White House said that the operations in both Libya and Somalia drew their authority from the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, a 12-year-old piece of legislation that was drafted in the hours after the Sept. 11 attacks. At the heart of the AUMF is a single 60-word sentence, which has formed the legal foundation for nearly every counterterrorism operation the U.S. has conducted since Sept. 11, from Guantanamo Bay and drone strikes to secret renditions and SEAL raids. Everything rests on those 60 words.

Unbound by time and unlimited by geography, the sentence has been stretched and expanded over the past decade, sprouting new meanings and interpretations as two successive administrations have each attempted to keep pace with an evolving threat while simultaneously maintaining the security of the homeland. In the process, what was initially thought to authorize force against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan has now been used to justify operations in several countries across multiple continents and, at least theoretically, could allow the president — any president — to strike anywhere at anytime. What was written in a few days of fear has now come to govern years of action.
Culled from interviews with former and current members of Congress, as well as staffers and attorneys who served in both the Bush and the Obama administrations, this is the story of how those 60 words came to be, the lone objector to their implementation, and their continuing power in the world today. The story, like most modern ones of America at war, begins in the shadow of 9/11 with a lawyer and Word document.

The former Secretary of Defense says his new memoir is not an “anti-Obama” book.

Jason Reed / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on Friday that reports of his criticism of President Obama in his new memoir were overblown and blamed Bob Woodward for initially portraying it as an anti-Obama book in his Washington Post story before its release.

"One of the advantages that Bob had was that nobody had read the book," Gates said at a breakfast with reporters in Washington. "And I think that as a growing number of journalists and others got copies of the book and read it during the days after the Post article I think the message began to rebalance itself, that this was not an anti-Obama book, it was much more nuanced than than that, and that I had a lot of positive things to say about President Obama in the book."

"If we could all have our do-overs, I suppose there are a lot of things people could change, but I'll just leave it at that," Gates said.

"I've had the growing feeling over the last week or so that my book has become like Lenin — you can find in it whatever you want to support your position on the political spectrum," Gates said.

Gates, who stepped down in 2011, has been on a media tour for his book Duty, a memoir of his time as Secretary of Defense which has mostly gotten attention for its negative portrayals of the president, vice president, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who Gates claims opposed the Iraq surge for political reasons.

He said he didn't see any irony in a passage in his book where he criticizes Obama for asking advisors not to write about a meeting in their memoirs. (The passage: "I was put off by the way the president closed the meeting. To his very closest advisers, he said, 'For the record, and for those of you writing your memoirs, I am not making any decisions about Israel or Iran. Joe [Biden], you be my witness.' I was offended by his suspicion that any of us would ever write about such sensitive matters.")

"Not in the slightest because I was aware of the context and I write in the book about the context," Gates said. "The context was I had gone to the president to discuss specific decisions and military options with respect to an attack on Iran and with respect to an Israeli attack on Iran and we were talking about specific military options that the United States would take if the Israelis launched their own attack. That's what I was referring to when I said I was offended he might think that somebody would write about that in their memoirs and i never would have written about it in the memoir."

"It's been expanded, as you say, to suggest irony or contradiction or whatever applied to everything that I wrote when in fact if you go to the book it's very specifically in the context of military options with regard to Iran," Gates said.

Gates said that only a small portion of his book contained material that cast Obama in an unfavorable light and said of his time in the Obama administration, "Frankly I think I was more loyal to him than some in his own White House sometimes."

Many of the reforms Obama proposed in his big intelligence speech Friday will require congressional action and could take months in implement, if they’re implemented at all. Here’s what the White House says changed Friday.

Larry Downing / Reuters

WASHINGTON — National Security Agency analysts can no longer query massive cell phone metadata databases, senior administration officials told reporters on a conference call Friday morning.

The call came ahead of President Obama's much-anticipated NSA reform speech, which comes months after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden turned the world's attention to the capabilities of America's snooping agencies by leaking thousands of documents.

The officials outlined a long list of reforms to intelligence collection, many of which will require Congress to act and could take months to be implemented. But the officials insisted the NSA is already changing the way it operates thanks to new directives from Obama.

CBS's Major Garrett asked an administration official what would be different Friday for the average NSA analyst working with cellphone metadata.

"What can't I do or what steps do I have to go through now…to query data that has sparked my interest in an ongoing and legally authorized surveillance case?" he asked.

"The most tangible thing there, Major, with respect to the 215 program at the president will say, is that he is going to ask the attorney general to go to the FISA court that will have to implement this to modify the program as it exists today so that analyst cannot conduct that query without the prior approval of the FISA court," a senior administration official said, referring to the metadata tracking program. "So that is a new reform, again, it will have to be authorized by the FISA court, but that is a very specific and tangible change to the program as it exists today."

"There no longer is NSA approval of the determination to query the database. That is no longer an issue that is dealt with solely within the NSA," the official continued. "They have to bring that to the FISA court."

UPDATE: The Marine Corps has apologized for the tweet. “Don’t be lone shooter #MLK weekend — make sure you’ve got security!” An official account, and a quickly deleted tweet.

They also posted the message on their Facebook community page.

Via Facebook: MARSOCInfo

The posts were quickly removed from both pages when commenters began to question if the messages were in good taste.

Parent tweet has been deleted / Via Twitter: @MARSOCofficial

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Reforms and proposed reforms to the current program.

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"I believe we need a new approach. I am therefore ordering a transition that will end the Section 215 bulk metadata program as it currently exists, and establish a mechanism that preserves the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk meta-data."

WASHINGTON — President Obama promised changes to America's intelligence system Friday, the first slate of reforms he has proposed since the first disclosures about U.S. intelligence practices by Edward Snowden last year.

Critics of the National Security Agency and supporters of Snowden are skeptical that the list will mean much in terms of improving privacy, but administration officials insist the reforms are sweeping.

Here's a rundown of what Obama announced:

A senior administration official told reporters Friday that the workflow for the average NSA agent using cell phone metadata is different after Obama's speech.

Obama announced that NSA operatives will only track metadata for a target and those two degrees removed from that target. The current standard is "three hops." Implementing the change may take time, the president said.

"I've ordered that the transition away from the existing program will proceed in two steps," he said. "Effective immediately, we will only pursue phone calls that are two steps removed from a number associated with a terrorist organization instead of three.

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A day after hiring new lawyers to help in its defense of the Utah marriage amendment, the attorney general’s office requests a brief deadline extension for filing its appeal.

Troy Williams, a local LGBT organizer, speaks to a crowd of supporters of marriage equality at the Utah State Capitol Friday, Jan. 10, 2014, in Salt Lake City.

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Utah attorney general's office has asked the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to give it an additional 10 days to submit its opening brief defending the state's amendment that bans the marriages of same-sex couples. The brief currently is due to be submitted to the court by Jan. 27.

The request comes a day after the Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes announced his office had hired a well-known D.C. lawyer, Gene Schaerr, to serve as outside counsel in the case challenging its marriage amendment.

When the court set the expedited briefing for the appeal of the case, it stated in the order, "Requests for extension of time are very strongly discouraged, and will be considered only under extraordinary circumstances."

The Attorney General's Office requested the extension so it could "complete a fulsome, detailed and quality brief" to present to the court.

The state asserts that "circumstances have changed significantly since the expedited schedule was set and a short extension is now warranted." Among the circumstances, according to the lawyers for the state, are the stay entered of the trial court's judgment in the case and the hiring of outside counsel — both of which were actions sought by the state.

The state also asserted that "the Court is considering extending each of the existing briefing deadlines by 2 or 3 days" and noted that a similar case — the marriage case out of Oklahoma — also could be appealed to the 10th Circuit and "the Court may want to place the Utah and Oklahoma appeals on similar briefing and argument tracks to conserve judicial resources and the resources of amici who will have the same interests in both matters."

Read the Utah AG's Office request:

“We must ask, how would he feel about 20 million African Americans unemployed or underemployed, about giving amnesty and jobs to 11 million illegal aliens with so many jobless Americans,” Californians for Population Control says in the ad.

WASHINGTON — A California anti-immigration group has launched a national ad campaign invoking the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and framing the immigration issue in highly racial terms.

The 30-second ad by Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), which is running nationally including during CNN broadcasts, features stark black and white images of black, white, and Latino Americans as a voice over gravely intones, "We must ask, how would he feel about 20 million African Americans unemployed or underemployed, about giving amnesty and jobs to 11 million illegal aliens with so many jobless Americans; about admitting 30 million more immigrant workers when 17 percent of Hispanic Americans are having trouble finding work."

"Was that Dr. King's dream?" the ad concludes.

CAPS has a long history of connecting anti-immigration arguments with population control and environmental issues.

"As we mark the great Dr. King's birthday, it's safe to say, higher minority unemployment and no wage increase in 40 years were not part of his dream for Americans. So, why do so many of our congressional leaders today want to admit millions more immigrant workers to take jobs and depress wages when hardworking African-American and Hispanic American workers can't find jobs?" Californians for Population Stabilization media director Joe Guzzardi said in a statement.

Chad Henderson, who made news in October for telling the world he had signed up for Obamacare without actually having done so, says he’s really coming to the president’s address to Congress. (The plane tickets and hotel are booked. We think.)

WRCB-TV

Rep. Steve Stockman, who has perfected the art of congressional trolling, is really bringing Chad Henderson to the State of the Union.

Don't remember Chad Henderson?

Here's a refresher: When the Obamacare exchanges officially went live, reporters desperately searched for someone — anyone — who had been able to enroll. Henderson, a student at Chattanooga State University, was connected with multiple reporters through Enroll America and gleefully told them he had successfully signed his father and himself up for Obamacare.

That turned out to be untrue. Henderson had picked out a plan he wanted, but didn't actually enroll. He argued he had just used the wrong terminology.

Enter Stockman, who a few days later invited Henderson to the State of the Union via a press release calling the college student "practically a Democrat member of Congress."

"Chad Henderson is Obamacare personified. He pushed Obamacare on other people but refused to buy it himself because he would pay more. He's practically a Democrat member of Congress," Stockman said. "I hope Chad will join me at the State of the Union Address so Obama can point to someone who personifies his policies."

Henderson happily accepted the invitation.

So Stockman put out another press release stating that now the media "will have someone they can cut to" when the president talked about Obamacare.

It might have ended there. But Henderson confirmed Friday that he's really headed to D.C. for the president's address to Congress.

As he told BuzzFeed, he's paying his own way and his plane tickets and hotel are officially (we think) booked. He says he's looking forward to talking with Stockman.

"I think we're all smart here, I'm not going to pretend that I'm gonna be his friend," Chad said. "I'm anticipating that he's going to use me a whipping post and mock me, but I hope I'm wrong and we can all be adults and let me enjoy this honor."

"I do have some reservations about his motives but there is no way in hell I'd turn something like that down," he added.

Henderson also said that he'd be making an announcement about his own health care situation prior to the State of the Union. He still describes himself a big supporter of the president's health care law.

"The people who called me a fake and phony and mocked me will feel pretty stupid come the 28th," he said.

This is not the first time Stockman has grabbed attention for his State of the Union invites. Last year his guest was controversial rocker Ted Nugent, who declared one Democratic congressman had "shit for brains," and said he felt like "a little girl" for not having his gun on him.

Massachusetts officials had appealed a trial court ruling ordering the surgery.

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Friday upheld a trial court decision ordering the Massachusetts Department of Correction to provide a transgender inmate with sex reassignment surgery deemed "medically necessary" by her doctors.

In summarizing the three-judge panel's unanimous opinion, Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson wrote:

Twenty years after prison inmate Michelle Kosilek first requested treatment for her severe gender identity disorder, the district court issued an order requiring the defendant, Luis S. Spencer, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction (the "DOC"), to provide Kosilek with sex reassignment surgery. The court found that the DOC's failure to provide the surgery — which was said by a group of qualified doctors to be medically necessary to treat Kosilek's condition — violated Kosilek's Eighth Amendment rights. The DOC appeals the district court's order. Having carefully considered the relevant law and the extensive factual record, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

The other judges who heard the appeal were Judges Juan Torruella and William J. Kayatta, Jr. Thompson and Kayatta were appointed to the court by President Obama, and Torruella was appointed by President Reagan.

Noting that "providing some treatment is not the same as providing adequate treatment," the judges concluded that they were "at a loss" to see how they could overturn the lower court's ruling that surgery was medically necessary for Kosilek — beyond the non-surgical treatment the state had been providing.

The judges then note that, contrary to public discussion of the case, "there was no evidence that the DOC withheld surgery because it was too expensive." The appeals court also held that prison officials "were keenly aware of and in fact motivated by the outcry" and decided that "the DOC refuses to meet that need [for surgery] for pretextual reasons unsupported by legitimate penological considerations."

In conclusion, Thompson wrote, "While sensitivity and deference to [prison officials] is warranted, "[c]ourts nevertheless must not shrink from their obligation to 'enforce the constitutional rights of all 'persons,' including prisoners,'" quoting the Supreme Court. "And receiving medically necessary treatment is one of those rights, even if that treatment strikes some as odd or unorthodox."

Read the 1st Circuit opinion: