The best beard in Congress.
He has been battling cancer and will be leaving his term two years early. Here are some solid reasons why everyone in Washington should miss him.
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“I’m not a politician,” he said.
MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews dug deep into the NBC News archives for this footage a young Jeb Bush campaigning in Puerto Rico during his father's first presidential run in 1980.
REPORTER: "What's it like being the son of a professional candidate down here [Puerto Rico]?
JEB BUSH: "It's not something that I would like to do the rest of my life, no. I get nervous at first. Just — I'm not a politician."
Watch the entire Hardball segment below.
DREAMers say relief from deportation is more important than citizenship in the short-term as the fight for immigration reform heats up. Democrats and longtime advocates pushed back and cautioned the need for a wait and see approach.
Eliseo Medina, an advocate of 48 years, seen here meeting with President Obama after he engaged in a long hunger strike to bring attention to immigration reform, newly defended the push for citizenship as a necessary part of future reform.
Jason Reed / Reuters
Longtime immigration activists and Democratic lawmakers argued Friday that any immigration proposal must include citizenship guarantees, pushing back as prominent DREAMer advocates this week urged support for immediate deportation relief, even if it requires compromise on citizenship.
A group of more than 80 DREAMers, undocumented immigrants brought into the United States as children, released Thursday a letter stating that "citizenship or nothing" is not a viable strategy.
But Democrats and older activists argue that because Republicans have not yet released their anticipated immigration "principles," a wait-and-see approach to the citizenship issue is necessary.
Eliseo Medina, an activist for workers' rights and the immigration issue for nearly half a century, believes accepting less than full citizenship is a dangerous strategy.
"One thing I know is unless you fight for it, you are never going to get it," Medina told BuzzFeed.
Medina drew the attention of President Obama last year during a protracted hunger strike to increase awareness for immigration reform. Recent comments he made on the citizenship issue to Univision sparked the letter this week from the younger activists.
"I am absolutely convinced for immigrants to have the same rights as anybody else is fundamental to our conditions as citizens and human beings," he said. "I'm absolutely opposed to anything that says people are going to be second-class citizens.
Medina joked that he has been an advocate longer than DREAMers have been alive, before turning serious and saying that the oldest trick in the book is divide and conquer.
"We can't afford to be divided," he said. "At end of the day I don't think anyone disagrees that we need to be first-class citizens. Now the question is how do you get there? What is the process for getting there? Not should you get there. The conversation with Republicans is just beginning."
Lawmakers have made it clear that they are not completely comfortable with, nor do they support, any policy that gives legalization but not citizenship to the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
"Not to provoke a fight, but I'm not going to be asked to do something I don't believe in and something that is expedient politically," Rep. Raul Grijalva told BuzzFeed, saying "old-timers" like him view this as a race and civil rights issue.
He said he understands the frustration of DREAMers, particularly those in Arizona, where deportations and detention are realities for family members and friends, but believes there is little to gain in the short-term by presenting the House Republicans with a deep division in the movement.
"Second-class status — we have a record historically — has never worked out for second-class citizens and society as a whole," he said. "I, for one, only speaking for myself, that is a bill I can't swallow."
When asked by BuzzFeed earlier this week about Republicans possibly seeking to "split the baby" and give DREAMers citizenship but not others, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) balked at the idea.
"We need a system that works, not a patchwork system that will have us in five or ten years doing this same thing again because we didn't fix it all," he said. "And I think everyone understands that you're not going to get this right if you leave a whole bunch of parts of a broken machine without being fixed."
A recent dust-up between a prominent DREAMer and Becerra shows division exists — even among groups whose aims are largely aligned.
Cesar Vargas, co-director of the DREAM Action Coalition and National Activists for the DREAM Act, wrote a recent op-ed in The Hill emphasizing the community's desire for deportation relief. Vargas said Democrats like Becerra win political points by blaming the GOP for killing the prospect of immigration reform, while advocating for a "citizenship or nothing" approach. In a statement to the paper, Becerra's office praised Vargas' work, but said Vargas attributed quotes to Becerra that were not accurate.
Other Democrats like Rep. Luis Gutiérrez said they would not say what they are for or against until Republicans show their hand and unveil a policy proposal.
"I haven't said 'yes' to anything or 'no' to anything because we are not at that point, yet," he said in a statement to BuzzFeed. "Republicans are moving closer to putting concrete proposals on the table and I am anxious to see them and I think we have a real chance of passing significant reform this year."
But he did leave daylight for supporting something close to what DREAMer advocates have outlined, picturing what kitchen table conversations between the young immigrants and their parents looks like, and where that can lead policy-wise.
"Some DREAMers themselves have said as long as their parents are protected from deportation, they can wait until they are citizens and can petition for permanent status and citizenship for their parents down the road. That is clearly not ideal, but is much better than what we have now," he concluded in the statement.
David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyer's Association, doesn't like the DREAMers' approach — it's a basic rule of negotiation that you don't start by talking about what you're willing to concede, he said. "But beyond that, citizenship is the heart of this whole deal."
"Beyond the question of creating a European-like second class in this country, citizenship has national security implications," he said. "It is the primary method by which immigrants can swear allegiance to America and become officially part of the American family. Do we really want to take that choice away from people?"
DREAMers are less receptive to that strategy — they say immigration has been argued for decades already.
"What we're saying is this year we need our first win," Cesar Vargas said, adding that legalization is the current battle and citizenship will follow soon after. "People like David Leopold erroneously assume this year is going to be the end of the fight."
Erika Andiola, a prominent DREAMer who will appear on Univision's Al Punto Sunday as a counterpoint to Medina's comments about citizenship, said she was once told by a Democratic lawmaker that the best immigration reform law would not be passed until Democrats control of the House again, and that even if 2 million more people were deported everyone would just have to accept it, waiting for the best end result.
Vargas said he rejects that kind of strategy and isn't worried about the appearance of a rift. Noting that one DREAMer recently shared a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote that they say describes their current mood: "Unity has never meant uniformity."
The position adopted by the coalition of DREAMers that released Thursday's letter is also, as some point out, not the definitive perspective of young undocumented immigrants. Groups like United We Dream have pushed hard for citizenship to be included in immigration proposals.
And longtime activists and lawmakers view the current situation as an opportunity to finish the fight.
Grijalva invoked comments Andiola made to BuzzFeed previously about there being many ways to define citizenship.
"There are many ways to define citizenship, but one way you don't define it is by saying certain groups don't have access to it," he said.
Medina says he can feel how close the country is to meaningful reform of the country's broken immigration laws.
"Gosh, we've been working on immigration for 20 years now," he said. "This is the closest we have come. But close doesn't count — we have to get it done. Republicans have accepted legalization and are just arguing citizenship, that's a huge move forward from 2013. But when you have momentum, you keep pushing, you don't give up."
President Obama spoke with Claus Kleber of the German television station ZDF in an interview Friday that focused on the NSA. Kleber called the reaction to the president’s NSA speech on Friday in Germany “skeptical, guarded, all the way to disappointed.”
Heres the transcript of the entire interview, courtesy of ZDF:
Claus Kleber: Mr. President. Thank you for having us.
Barakc Obama: Thank you so much for being here.
CK: I have to say that the initial responses to your speech in Germany have been skeptical, guarded, all the way to disappointed, even from sources who are normally very pro- American. They expected more. Does that surprise you?
BO: No, it doesn't surprise me. Because I think that, first of all, a lot of suspicion had been built up in Germany and, frankly, around the world, in the wake of the Snowden disclosures. And it's going to take some time to win back trust.
And if you look at what we've done, though, it really is unprecedented: What I've put forward is a presidential directive that very clearly indicates what we will do and will not do when it comes to overseas surveillance. And I indicated very specifically that we do not listen to people's phone calls or read their emails if there are no national security threats involved, that we will, for the first time, I think, ever, include our concerns about the privacy rights of all per- sons, regardless of nationality.
We have laid very clear criteria by which we approach bulk collection, that there are only very narrow instances in which we can engage in that kind of collection. And I made very clear the limits on collections for our friends' and our allies' heads of state.
So if you take the body of what I said publicly, what we've done is something that no country around the world has been as clear about when it comes to their intelligence services, even as we do have to maintain the intelligence capabilities that don't just help to keep us safe, but also help to keep our friends and allies, including Germans, safe.
CK: But people see this immense size of the American security and spying apparatus. And they look at that, they look at your speech today, as well and they say: Listen, what I want is that no agency like that is collecting any data from people in Germany. They should just stop that, unless you have specific reasons to look for this person, like the Hamburg cell of 9/11 and so on.
BO: But of course, here's the challenge: We don't always know who the Hamburg cell is, until after the fact.
CK: So you have to listen to everybody until then?
BO: No, well but that's not what happens. We are not listening to everybody. And I think it's very important to make that clear. And this is part of the reason why it is going to take time to win back trust, because there's been so much sensationalism around these issues. One of the issues that I discussed for example today, the 215 program of telephone metadata, that I've determined we will end government collection of this data. But this is data that does not include names, does not include content. It is essentially a series of phone numbers so that when we have a specific lead — let's say we find a number in an Al-Qaeda compound — we can find out whether that number contacted a number inside the United States or, for that matter, inside of Germany. And there are legitimate concerns, though, about the government holding this data and those are some of the concerns that we have tried to address.
Now, one of the things that I have said throughout the speech is: I am very sympathetic to why the German people would be concerned about this. Obviously, there is a history there with respect to East Germany that tells us what happens if you have a vast surveillance state and it turns on its own citizens. Here in the United States, as I mentioned, there have beentimes where surveillance has been abused. And I would not be in the seat I am today, were it not for figures like Dr. King who, at times, our own government spied on, in ways that were inappropriate.
So what I'm trying to do is to make sure on the one hand that a group like the Hamburg cell we can identify before rather than after they have killed a whole lot of innocent people, but also to create a series of safeguards and limits, checks, an oversight so that the process whereby we are doing that is not something that would lead the ordinary German or American or Brazilian to think that our networks are somehow reading their text messages that they are sending to their spouses.
CK: Understood. But still, the metadata of people in Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, are somewhere stored where, with a couple of judicial steps, American authorities, your agencies have access to. That will remain.
BO: Well, I have to be careful about what details I can and cannot discuss here. But I think that it is absolutely true that US intelligence has a series of capabilities that allow us to access digi- tal information, not just here in the United States but around the world. Those capabilities are not unique to us...
CK: But yours are bigger.
BO: ... a whole lot of intelligence agencies have them. Well, you're right. Ours are bigger. And I discussed in the speech the fact that the challenge we have is that our capabilities are signif- icantly greater than many other countries'. In some ways, it is parallel to the fact that our mili- tary capabilities and our budgets are significantly greater than others'. Now, you can look at that in two ways. Because we have greater capabilities it also means we have greater re- sponsibilities for humanitarian assistance for helping to keep our allies safe. I think it's fair to say that there are a whole series of European countries who are very glad that the US has those military capabilities and intelligence capabilities. And so in some ways we underwrite alot of the security needs and defenses of countries around the world. What is also true is, because we have these greater capabilities, it means that we have greater responsibilities when it comes to privacy protection than other countries do.
It means that there are higher expectations placed on us than other countries. And what I'm trying to do is to create a framework, at a time when we are seeing technology advance very rapidly, to figure out how do we do this in a way that is respectful of the privacy of individuals, but at the same time is making clear that our law enforcement officials and our intelligence officials are able to do the things they need to do.
And the interesting thing is, in some ways, the United States has gotten faster to a place that I suspect over time everybody is going to get to, which is that more and more of our infor- mation is stored digitally. That is very useful. We take advantage of it in all sorts of ways. But it also means that some of the traditional safeguards and checks that we had in protecting our privacy are going to have to be updated. And that's why part of what I said in the speech was: I don't consider this an end point. I think this is the beginning of a discussion. And we are engaged in conversations with the German government, with German intelligence and we will continue to try to refine how we cooperate, how we are respectful of German traditions and German laws and how we can also continue the kind of cooperation that is important not only to our people but also the German people.CK: Cooperation. You said that Angela Merkel's cellphone will not be monitored anymore. Nice to hear. Let's take the situation of 2002 / 2003, when Germany, France and others really tried to pull together a coalition in the United Nations, against the interests of the United States or United States policy at the time. Would that be a good moment to hear what chancellor Schroeder at the time was saying to the French president?
BO: You know, I have to tell you I can't comment on what happened in 2003 / 2004. But I under- stand the general point of your question which is: Is this something that chancellor Merkel or her successors can count on? This is a presidential directive. So I am saying what I will do under my administration. My hope would be that future presidents will follow the example that I am trying to set at this point. What I can say is that chancellor Merkel and I may have disagreements on foreign policy...
CK: But that is not the reason to listen in to...
BO: That is exactly right. That is what I was about to say.
CK: I'm a bit rushed because I feel that you are not getting to a point.
BO: Even if we have disagreements of any sort, the one thing that I know is that I have established a relationship of friendship and trust with her, in part because she's always very honest with me and I try to be very honest with her. I don't need and I don't want to harm that relationship by a surveillance mechanism that somehow would impede the kind of communi- cation and trust that we have. And so what I can say is: As long as I'm president of the Unit- ed States, the chancellor of Germany will not have to worry about this.
CK: But there are limits, even within NATO allies. We have a very difficult situation in Turkey right now. Your intelligence agencies must be interested in communications of president Erdogan. Would he be off limits because the president doesn't want this to happen?
BO: I'm not going to comment on country by country.
CK: I am just trying to understand the principle.
BO: I think what you will see in the directive is that we have close friends and allies that we work with consistently and it is important for us and for me as president of the United States to maintain the trust of those colleagues who I work with so closely. Now, as I said in the speech, our intelligence agencies, like German intelligence agencies, and every intelligence agency out there, will continue to be interested in the government intentions of countries around the world. That's not going to change. And there is no point in having an intelligence service if you are restricted to the things that you can read in the New York Times or Der Spiegel. The truth of the matter is that by definition the job of intelligence is to find out: Well, what are folks thinking? What are they doing? That helps service our diplomatic and our policy aims.
But I think the point you made earlier is the critical one: We have greater capabilities than most countries around the world. It is important for us, then, particularly as technology advances, to make sure we are showing some self-restraint in how we approach this. What you hear today is my first effort at providing that restraint in ways that can assure the German people and the German chancellor and other partners and friends around the world that we are not behaving in ways that would violate their privacy. And the truth of the matter is that it will take some time to win that trust back. And I think that is entirely appropriate.
But, hopefully, the German people will recall also the incredible partnership that we have and all the good that we have done together and the incredible investment that the United States has in the success of Germany and the defense of Germany.
CK: On a personal note a last question, although I am getting a signal. I was there covering your speech at the victory column, standing about one hundred feet from you, one of the most exciting assignments I had. What you cannot know that hundreds of meters away, people who couldn't even see the stage, certainly not you, were listening in a way that you heard a pin drop. There was so much hope and expectation in the air of Berlin on that day. And to- day, five years into the presidency, our polls indicate this has basically melted away. A lot of disappointment in your policy and performance has established itself. So how do you think that could happen?
BO: Well, look. I think that the nature of being president of the United States is that you are steer- ing a massive ship. And I have a clear vision, which I described in Berlin that day and which I described in speeches that I made when I was running for office in 2008, of where I think we need to go, of how we uphold dignity and freedom of all individuals, of how countries should relate to each other, of how we should promote economic growth that is good for all people and not just those at the very top. And those values continue to drive what I do every day. Where disappointment typically comes in, and this is natural, is that people think I am driving a speed boat and that I can...
CK: You would rather.
BO: ...quickly move in that direction and I get there and by this time, four years after the fact, I would have ended all wars and I would have brought the world together and the economy would be humming along. And, unfortunately, although I would love to be in that position, the president of the United States is not emperor of the world. I am one figure, one man in this broader process and what I try to do, then, is to, every single day, move us a little bit closer to that vision I set. And my hope is that at the end of my presidency, over the course of eight years, there will be a body of work where people will say: He ended the war in Iraq responsi- bly. He ended the war in Afghanistan responsibly. He was able to move our war footing after 9/11 into a greater focus on diplomacy and building multi-lateral agreements and institutions, that he advanced the cause of dealing with climate change, even if it is not completely solved. If I can show that, as a consequence to the work that I did, we are closer to that vi- sion that I described in Berlin, then it will have been time well spent.
But I assure you that anybody who feels frustrated at the slow pace of our progress in some of these areas is probably less impatient than I am. I would love to get there faster, but it's the nature of this job and the nature of history that sometimes things take longer than we would like.
CK: You have nine-hundred or so days left. Good luck.
BO: Thank you so much.
CK: Thank you very much.
BO: I appreciate it. Thank you.
The Democratic candidate for Texas governor was divorced at 21 — not 19, as she’s said in the past.
At the Dallas Morning News Wayne Slater has an article on Texas state senator Wendy Davis, who is running for governor. Slater notes discrepancies in her background: she was 21, not 19, when she was divorced; lived only a few months in a mobile home; and her second husband paid for half of her college and law school educations.
![In an interview with Slater, Davis says she was separated from her first husband, Frank Underwood “some time between [age] 19 and 20," not divorced as she had previously said.](http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-01/enhanced/webdr02/19/21/enhanced-buzz-9353-1390183961-15.jpg)
Frank Vasquez/Fort Worth Star-Telegram / MCT
An email to BuzzFeed the Davis campaign said: "At the age of 19 I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep afloat on my way to a divorce. My story is not unique, it is the story of tens of thousands of women across Texas who struggle economically in the face of divorce."
“I think the campaign is going very very well, and there’s no question that in large part that’s due to the inspiration of the rabbi,” Rep. Michael Grimm said in 2010 interview.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Michael Grimm called an influential Israeli rabbi he has been accused of blackmailing an "inspiration" to his his congressional campaign in a bizarre 2010 television interview that also featured claims the religious leader predicted the 9/11 attacks in New York.
Grimm is currently under investigation for alleged campaign finance irregularities, including charges leveled by former Rep. Anthony Wiener that he sought to extort Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto in 2010. Grimm has denied the claims, but the federal investigation has also prompted a related inquiry in Israel, where Pinto aide and top Grimm funraiser Ofer Biton is also facing corruption charges. Pinto is embroiled in a corruption scandal of his own, having been accused of bribing a top Israeli police official.
But in the video, which was taped in the May of 2010 but aired on Israeli television last night, Grimm praised Pinto. "It's amazing ... I'm not Jewish, I'm Catholic. But the very first time that I met Rabbi Pinto, I can't explain, it was a very special meeting. You could almost feel the positive energy when he holds your hand," Grimm said in the interview.
Grimm explained in the video that he had met Pinto through members of New York's Jewish community, and that "I see the rabbi regularly and it's really an amazing story because you would think I am here asking the rabbi advice about my campaign," Grimm says. "Many politicians come to rabbis throughout the country just to garner financial support and possibly votes. I don't believe that's the way it should be."
Still, Grimm said Pinto was helping the campaign. "I think the campaign is going very very well, and there's no question that in large part that's due to the inspiration of the rabbi," he said.
Pinto's following in New York was a major source of both votes and financial support for Grimm's campaign.
A spokesperson for Grimm declined to comment.
During the interview, Grimm sat next to Ben Zion Suky, another Pinto aide who has also been identified as a witness in the Pinto case. The interview took an odd turn when Suky described in Hebrew how Pinto foresaw 9/11.
"The rabbi asked us, what are these buildings," Suky said. "And we told him, these are among the tallest buildings in the United States. And the rabbi told us, and as I tell you this I'm shaking, I'm so emotional, the rabbi said, a disaster a huge disaster involving planes will happen here. And he was soon proven right. The Rabbi has powers that I can't explain. Has he made mistakes? I haven't seen that at all."
The interviewer asks about donations to the rabbi's yeshiva, and Suky said, "People out of love to the Rabbi are willing to give everything, out of the bottom of their heart. The rabbi doesn't ask for anything, people just give."
Suky has donated to Grimm, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and to Weiner, who returned his money. He was one of the administrators of Rabbi Pinto's yeshiva in Manhattan and has been linked to the porn industry.
Taxes and corporate bailouts topped the rapid fire list.
While discussing David Remnick's 17,000-word profile of Barack Obama, The Five's Greg Gutfeld argued that Obama's status as "the most left-wing president, ever" are what has diminished his popularity among white voters. (The hosts had been discussing remarks made by the president about race in the piece.)
Gutfeld's declaration was challenged by the Fox News panel show's lone liberal, Bob Beckel, which led to the rest of The Five into a rapid fire list of reasons why they think the president ranks more left-wing than, say, FDR or LBJ:
BECKEL: "What makes him such a leftist? For those of us on the left, he's not that left."
DANA PERINO: "Taxes."
ERIC BOILLING: "Bailouts. Taxes. Regulation"
GUTFELD: "Redistribution. His friends. Palling around with terrorists. I will never forgive him for that."
ANDREA TANTAROS: "Downplaying American exceptionalism."
BOILLING: "You didn't build that. Uh, we're gonna spread the wealth around."
PERINO: "Enemies."
BOILLING: "We're gonna bankrupt the coal industry. Other than that, he's, you know.."
GUTFELD: "Pipeline. Global warming."
Stalled attempts to resolve Ukraine’s political crisis mirror pitched battles on Kiev’s streets. Pro-government thugs vs. Molotov cocktails.
Pro-European integration protesters carry Molotov cocktails during clashes with police in Kiev Monday.
Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
The protesters who seized central in Kiev two months ago came to turn Ukraine into a standardized European liberal democracy. Today those streets look like a medieval battlefield. Anti-government rioters with helmets, sticks, and shields have fought pitched battles with police for two days nonstop. Some of them built a wooden catapult. At least one man showed up in an actual suit of armor. Riot police flung back rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown in their direction and shot rubber bullets into the crowd.
Police gingerly retreated from an apparent attempt to clear new barricades on Grushevskogo Street just north of the main protest encampment on Independence Square, known as the Maidan, in sub-zero temperatures Wednesday morning, with neither side declaring victory.
Large gangs of titushki, tracksuit-clad pro-government skinhead thugs who attacked passersby with bats and metal chains, fled when activists chased after them. Twelve of them were captured and brought before a people's court. Police have arrested and beaten several dozen activists and two Radio Free Europe journalists. Over 100 on each party to the violence have been hospitalized.
The stalemate on the ground reflects the political sclerosis gripping the country since President Viktor Yanukovych abruptly pulled out of a deal with the EU in November under heavy pressure from Russia. Unable to regain control of the capital and, according to every poll, doomed to lose the presidential election scheduled for a year from now, Yanukovych's position looks all but untenable. But an ineffective opposition and a last-minute $15 billion cash injection from Vladimir Putin have made him feel all but unassailable.
In recent weeks the music-festival euphoria of Euromaidan's early days has given way to an atmosphere of creeping tension and paranoia, and outbursts of violence. Journalist Tetiana Chornovol accuses Yanukovych of ordering a vicious attack on her late last month as revenge for her work on his luxury residences, a claim he denies. TV coverage of the protest movement, seen as a gauntlet thrown to Yanukovych by the channel's oligarch owners, has dwindled. The government has made few of the concessions demanded by the movement for earlier violence and made increasing recourse to the legal system to repress it.
A slew of laws passed in clear violation of protocol and with no quorum Thursday were meant to draw a line under Ukraine's lurch east. Yanukovych might de jure have played hard-to-get on joining Putin's customs union, which would be electoral suicide, but de facto joined the authoritarian ranks of its members, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Some, like bans on "extremism" and a "foreign agents" act, were copied wholesale from the playbook Putin has used to consolidate power in Moscow. Libel now carries a two-year jail sentence. Internet access can be restricted without a court order. Various penalties for participating in unsanctioned protests stretch up to 15 years. The Automaidan movement, which organizes car rallies outside Yanukovych's palatial Mezhigorye residence, was all but banned. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, one of the driving forces behind the EU's failed plan for Ukraine, called them "the most solid package of repressive laws that I have seen enacted by a European parliament for decades." Many activists say the laws amount to the establishment of a "dictatorship."
If credit for keeping the protests going belongs to Yanukovych, however — attendance at Sunday rallies on the Maidan had flagged in previous weeks until the laws were passed — Ukraine's political opposition shoulders at least some of the blame for their violent turn as well. Where Orange Revolution leaders Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko drew rapturous crowds to demand a re-vote against Yanukovych in 2004's Orange Revolution, their successors have done little to draw protesters and less still to encourage them. Endless long-winded speeches full of unattainable, ever-changing demands the leaders of the three largest parties rarely agree on are beginning to grate. At Sunday's rally, the usual cries of "Glory to Ukraine!" and "Down with the gang!" were joined by plaintive chants: "Do something!"
The crowd and the politicians are beginning to turn on each other. Many activists are furious with opposition leaders for calling Euromaidan's more radical elements "provocateurs" intent on undermining it, which they see as an attempt to smear a movement they did not start and do not control. Sunday's violence began after opposition politicians scoffed at an Automaidan activist who voiced a widely-held demand that the movement nominate a single leader. Some in the crowd who had been chanting "Give us a leader!" throughout the afternoon slunked off towards Grushevskogo. Right-wing activists and soccer hooligans engaged with police; other protesters soon joined them.
"I can understand why people behaved this way and I can't call them provocateurs," Kateryna Kruk, a 22-year-old activist who has been one of the key voices of the movement on Twitter, wrote in The Guardian. "It is sad and wrong that they have expressed their feelings this way, but when there is no leader in the crowd to control people, they start to act as the street teaches them."
At present, there is little sign of resolving the impasses at state or street level. Yanukovych has paid lip service to opposition calls for dialogue and sent his security chief, reviled for ordering the Nov. 30 crackdown that kickstarted the movement, to negotiate, an obvious slight. Klitschko and Arseny Yatsenyuk, the leader of Tymoshenko's party, both poll well ahead of Yanukovych in presidential matchups and seem to be spending as much time jockeying with each other as attempting to lead. The United States is said to have drawn up a list of Ukrainian officials implicated in the violence to be sanctioned, but has yet to deploy it. Any move would be little more than symbolic without similar steps from the EU, which has so far refused to consider sanctions publicly.
For now, Ukrainians will have to stay angry and, unless things change, get angrier still. And until that happens, they will have to find other outlets for their anger — at Yanukovych, at the police, at the opposition, at Western inaction, at other Ukrainians, at everything. Sunday's burnt-out police buses may only be the beginning.
“Florida is our home, it is where we are raising our child, and where we want to get married,” one of the plaintiffs says.
Catherina Pareto and Karla Arguello.
Courtesy of NCLR
WASHINGTON — Six same-sex couples in Florida and a statewide LGBT advocacy group there are suing in state court for marriage rights for same-sex couples, the National Center for Lesbian Rights announced.
Led by Catherina Pareto and Karla Arguello, NCLR is filing the lawsuit in state court on behalf of them and five other same-sex couples, as well as the Equality Florida Institute, in Miami on Tuesday.
"Florida is our home, it is where we are raising our child, and where we want to get married," Pareto said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed. "Karla and I wish for our family the same things that other families want. We want to build our lives together, provide a safe and caring home for our child, and share in the responsibilities and protections of marriage."
Joining NCLR as co-counsel in the case are the law firm of Carlton Fields Jorden Burt, attorney Elizabeth F. Schwartz and attorney Mary B. Meeks.
Although a copy of the complaint in the case was not made available, NCLR stated that the lawsuit will argue that Florida's ban on same-sex couples marrying violates the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit follows federal trial court decisions in the past two months in cases in Utah and Oklahoma in which judges held that similar marriage bans violate the U.S. Constitution.
Most everything about this YouTube edit by Reddit user risbia is taken out of context. Enjoy!
reddit.com / Via mediaite.com
Stay in your cars.
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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issues broad ruling providing “heightened scrutiny” protection for sexual orientation discrimination claims.
Members of the public cast shadows as they line up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington January 13, 2014.
Larry Downing / Reuters / Reuters
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Tuesday held that lawyers cannot exclude potential jurors from a jury based on their sexual orientation — a ruling whose underlying rationale could have broad implications outside of the case.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a unanimous decision, held that discrimination based on sexual orientation is subject to heightened scrutiny — a decision the court concluded has been made in action, though not in word, by the Supreme Court itself.
In describing the reason for applying the new standard, Judge Stephen Reinhardt examined the Supreme Court's June decision in Edith Windsor's case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act. Although equal protection claims brought based on sexual orientation have previously been judged under the lowest level of review, called rational basis, the 9th Circuit held that a higher standard now applies.
Writing for the three-judge panel, Reinhardt wrote:
Windsor review is not rational basis review. In its words and its deed, Windsor established a level of scrutiny for classifications based on sexual orientation that is unquestionably higher than rational basis review. In other words, Windsor requires that heightened scrutiny be applied to equal protection claims involving sexual orientation.
Under that heightened scrutiny, in which equal protection claims are considered more carefully by courts reviewing challenged actions, the court concluded that Batson — a Supreme Court case barring juror strikes based on race — also applies to strikes based on sexual orientation.
Reinhardt wrote:
This appeal's central question is whether equal protection prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in jury selection. We must first decide whether classifications based on sexual orientation are subject to a standard higher than rational basis review. We hold that such classifications are subject to heightened scrutiny. We also hold that equal protection prohibits peremptory strikes based on sexual orientation and remand for a new trial.
In the current case, the court concluded that Abbott Laboratories had decided to strike a juror because he was gay in a lawsuit brought by SmithKline Beecham over a licensing agreement relating to HIV medication. Examining the history of discrimination faced by gays and lesbians, Reinhardt then applied that to the questions raised about the potential juror's exclusion, writing:
Strikes exercised on the basis of sexual orientation continue this deplorable tradition of treating gays and lesbians as undeserving of participation in our nation's most cherished rites and rituals. They tell the individual who has been struck, the litigants, other members of the venire, and the public that our judicial system treats gays and lesbians differently. They deprive individuals of the opportunity to participate in perfecting democracy and guarding our ideals of justice on account of a characteristic that has nothing to do with their fitness to serve.
This article was updated, with the final update at 1:25 p.m.
“An experiment” in Washington state.
Tobias Schwarz / Reuters
Bill Gates voted "yes" on the 2012 referendum that legalized marijuana in his home state, he told BuzzFeed in an interview Tuesday.
Gates, the wealthiest American and the nation's largest philanthropist, said he didn't expect the law to pass — but that now "it will be interesting to see" how the program develops.
"It's an experiment, and it's probably good to have a couple states try it out to see before you make that national policy," he said.
Gates flatly refused to answer the question of whether he has smoked pot, though he is listed on the Marijuana Policy Project's ranking of "influential marijuana users," and suggested to journalists in the 1990s that he had tried both marijuana and LSD.
Gates is known in philanthropic circles, where he has focused on global public health and on American education, for pushing to more accurately measure the impact of spending on philanthropy and education. He suggested that Washington would have to answer specific questions on that front.
"Can they keep it out of minors' hands? Will it reduce alcohol consumption? Are there some people who use it at levels you might think of as inappropriate? Will drug gangs make less money?" he asked, adding that so far he's been impressed with the implementation of the law, which goes fully into effect later this year.
"I think people are going about this trying to make sure it's labeled well, trying to make sure you're collecting taxes so more than any of the additional state costs that will get imposed by this thing are funded by the consumers," he said.
And he suggested the legal market would cut into the illegal drug trade. Traffickers "are going to make a lot less money, and some of the perverse things about the illegal drug trade will be avoided."
Gates was in New York Tuesday talking about the annual letter from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which focused on what he argues is good news and positive results from global public health spending.
“[E]ven one day more of our marriage not being recognized as legal is too much,” the lead plaintiff in the case, JoNell Evans, says. The ACLU filed a lawsuit Tuesday, asking a state court to order Utah officials to recognize the roughly 1,300 marriages entered into by same-sex couples there.
JoNell Evans (left) and Stacia Ireland.
Courtesy of ACLU
WASHINGTON — Four same-sex couples married in Utah during the brief period when the state allowed such marriages are suing Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and Attorney General Sean Reyes, asking a state court to require the state government to recognize the roughly 1,300 marriages entered into during that time.
"We're fairly private people, and we try to live our lives quietly," JoNell Evans — who, along with her wife, Stacia Ireland, are the lead plaintiffs in the case — told BuzzFeed Monday night. "We enjoy our quiet little home life, but we felt so strongly that this was something that we needed to do because even one day more of our marriage not being recognized as legal is too much. And you never know what tomorrow will bring."
They speak from experience: Ireland's history of heart problems are front and center in their minds as the marriage they entered into on Dec. 20, 2013, hangs in limbo in the state.
Although the state recognized the marriages of same-sex couples following the Dec. 20, 2013, court ruling in Kitchen v. Herbert striking down the state's ban on such marriages, Herbert announced that Utah would not recognize the marriages during the appeal of the case following the Supreme Court's order putting a stay on the trial court judgment during the appeal.
For Evans and Ireland, that is not an acceptable answer.
In the lawsuit, filed Tuesday, the ACLU argued, "By properly availing themselves of their legal right to marry and completing the necessary steps to solemnize their marriages, Plaintiffs – like any legally married different-sex couples – acquired certain property and liberty interests under Utah law attendant upon and arising from their marriages."
The ACLU goes on to argue that Utah's recognition of those marriages "do not depend on the ultimate outcome of the Kitchen litigation in federal court" because, they argue, the Utah Constitution's due process guarantees prohibit Utah from "interfer[ing]" with the state-related liberty and property rights relating to their marriages, which is of particular concern because of Ireland's health problems.
"We had a commitment ceremony in 2007 in front of several friends, but it didn't have that legal component to it," Evans said. "As we got older, that became more and more important to us, as we had health problems that occurred in 2010 when Stacia had a heart attack."
Referencing the legal documents that same-sex couples have been told by lawyers to prepare in the absence of legal marriage rights, Evans said, "Luckily, we already had all of our paperwork drawn up, including the medical power of attorney. So, we rushed to the hospital, but in the panic to go there, we had to make sure we grabbed that paperwork."
Ireland emphasized that, noting, "We had to be in the presence of mind to think about taking it with us because we knew that there was the chance that if something serious did happen to me that JoNell might not be able to make decisions for me."
"And we've known people that that has happened to," Evans said. "While I was never excluded, I was not treated fully as a spouse would be. I think people tried to be respectful within the limits of the rules of the hospital."
So, marriage was key for them, they said, although Evans acknowledged, "We were getting to the point where we thought in our lifetime in Utah, we wouldn't see it happen."
But, it did on Dec. 20, 2013, when U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby struck down the marriage amendment, Amendment 3, and refused to put his ruling on hold while the state sought to appeal his decision — leading couples to begin marrying in Salt Lake County immediately.
"To get that message come across that immediately it was possible for us, it didn't feel real at first," Evans said. The couple heard that the first couple already had married and so they rushed over to the Salt Lake County Clerk's Office and got their marriage license. "And, in fact, Salt Lake Mayor Ralph Decker married us that night," she added.
Joy was the theme of the day, they said. "Every time, you would hear people just cheer out in the hallway, and you knew someone else just got married, 'Yay!' And five minutes later there'd be another big cheer," Ireland said.
"We were just on cloud nine for a week. And then Stacia had severe chest pain on New Year's Day, and we didn't have to grab our legal papers," Evans said.
"As soon as we got there, they asked me who JoNell was, and I said, 'She's my wife," Ireland said. "Immediately, [they] let her sign papers. They took me back, but they allowed her to sign papers, talk to her, any of that. It was a very different feeling from the first time."
"The change was just overwhelming to us almost," Evans said, pausing for the first time in the interview. "I don't know the right word for it. We were almost stunned by how easily they accepted that we were married. And, I think it's because people really have changed over the last 10 years since Amendment 3 was passed. People don't want to stand in the way of us taking care of each other and loving each other, and now the law, at that point, gave them the legal right to just accept our marriage."
Then, however, when the Supreme Court issued the stay, halting Shelby's order during the appeal, Gov. Herbert said the state would not recognize the marriages of same-sex couples married during the period between Shelby's order and the Supreme Court's stay.
The day after Herbert's announcement, Ireland said, she had to go in for another medical procedure, "So we were thrown back into that world of uncertainty, and we debated, 'Do we need to bring these documents with us again?' Just in case. It was not a dangerous procedure, but any time there's a medical procedure, there's always the slight chance that something could go wrong."
They chose not to bring the documents, Evans noted, saying, "It was more an act of defiance. I said, 'No, I'm not going to bring our wills and other documents. I refuse to.' Because as far as I'm concerned, our marriage is valid."
Now, through the ACLU's suit, they hope the state will be forced to treat them that way.
Update at 5:40 p.m.: Gov. Gary Herbert responded to the lawsuit through spokesman Marty Carpenter, who said in a statement: "Governor Herbert has said throughout this process that his responsibility is to follow the law. That is exactly what the administration is doing and we respect the rights of those who disagree to take their grievances before a judge."
Because there’s a little bit of Papa Bear in everyone.
“We will end the failed war on drugs that believes that incarceration is the cure of every ill caused by drug abuse,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said during the inauguration of his second term as governor. “We will make drug treatment available to as many of our non-violent offenders as we can and we will partner with our citizens to create a society that understands that every life has value and no life is disposable.”
The former Republican governor and his wife were indicted Tuesday on corruption charges stemming from their acceptance of gifts from a Virginia donor.
Mike Theiler / Reuters
Federal authorities charged former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife with illegally accepting gifts from a Virginia donor in exchange for helping promote the donor's business.
McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were indicted on 14 counts in a Richmond federal court, the Washington Post reported.
The McDonnells accepted more than $165,000 in loans and gifts, including a Rolex inscribed personally for Bob McDonnell, from Jonnie R. Williams Sr. The McDonnells promoted Williams' business, and helped Williams meet with Virginia officials.
The couple was informed late last year they were going to be indicted, but authorities later deferred the decision about whether to indict to the new year.
McDonnell, a Republican, was elected in 2009 and concluded his single term this month.
Did he just say “bumbaclot”? UPDATE: Ford admitted to reporters he was drinking last night with some friends but said he hadn’t used other drugs.
Ford is seeking re-election in 2014.
Ford said that it shouldn't concern anyone because it was on his "own time."
"What I do with my personal life and my personal friends, that's up to me," he told reporters, according to an audio clip from the Toronto Star.
Ford added that he didn't think what he said was offensive.
"I said I was there, I had met some friends. If I speak that way that's how I speak with some of my friends," Ford said. "I don't think it's discriminative at all."
“I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol,” Obama said.
Growing up in Hawaii, Barack Obama belonged to a group of friends who were known as the "Choom Gang." Choom is a verb which means “to smoke marijuana.” According to David Maraniss’ book Barack Obama: The Story, the young Obama popularized a smoking trend known as “TA” (short for “total absorption") and “roof hits,” where the group would smoke with all the car windows rolled up to not let any smoke escape. Obama was also known to cut into other people's turn when a joint was being passed around and yelling "interception."
Via google.com
Speaking to students at Northwestern University when running for Senate in 2004, then-State Senator Obama said: "I think the War on Drugs has been an utter failure. I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws. But I'm not somebody who believes in the legalization of marijuana. I do believe we need to rethink how we're operating in the drug wars – we're not doing a good job."
At a event for magazine editors in 2006, the then-Senator drew a contrast between him and his future presidential primary rival Hillary Clinton by admitting he inhaled frequently as a kid.
Speaking in Iowa in 2007, Obama said he would support medical marijuana if doctor's suggested it was the best care, but had concerns about folks growing their own calling it a "slippery slope."
“My attitude is if the science and doctors suggest that the best palliative care, the best way to relief pain and suffering is through medical marijuana, then that’s something I’m open to and because there’s no difference between that and morphine when it comes to just giving people relief from pain. But I want to do it under strict guidelines. I want to make sure that it is prescribed in the same way that pain killer or other palliative drugs would be prescribed. I'm concerned about folks just kinda growing their own and saying it's for medical purposes because that's kind of a slippery slope their."
