“I don’t believe that anyone prefers war,” Sherman says.

Senator Robert Menendez

Gary Cameron / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The lead U.S. negotiator with Iran told Congress on Tuesday that she does not view them as warmongers after lawmakers complained that they had been treated as such by the White House.

"Let me say for the record I don't believe any of you, and any senator and any member of the House are warmongers," the State Department's Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman, said. "I don't believe that anyone prefers war." She called some lawmakers' support for Iran sanctions "an issue of tactics, not an issue of intent, and not a characterization of any individual."

The National Security Council released a statement in January that implied that supporters of a sanctions bill authored by Sens. Mark Kirk and Bob Menendez want to go to war with Iran. "If certain members of Congress want the United States to take military action, they should be up front with the American public and say so," Bernadette Meehan, National Security Council spokeswoman, said in the statement. The sanctions bill has stalled in the Senate and looks unlikely to come to a vote, but on Tuesday at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing where Sherman was a witness, feelings over the White House statement seemed to still be raw.

"Maybe the administration could be enlightened to understand the difference between tactics and and war-mongering and fear-mongering," Menendez said.

Even senators who didn't support the bill said they didn't like the comment.

"I haven't appreciated some of the comments from the administration describing those who are in favor of the sanctions bill implying that they're warmongering or that they have anything but the best motives," said Senator Jeff Flake, one of only two Republicans who did not cosponsor the bill. "I think that everyone here wants the same thing."

"Since my colleague from Illinois Sen. Kirk has been a part of the effort on enhanced sanctions along with Sen. Menendez, I want to join the chorus that you have joined in Ms. Sherman — I don't question for a moment the motives of anyone engaged in this," said Sen. Dick Durbin, the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate. "We all have the same goal: Stop a nuclear Iran. Keep Israel safe. Stabilize and bring peace to the Middle East."

"These are goals we all share, and the approaches may be different. I have not signed onto this bill," Durbin said.

“Here’s what you guys are gonna have to figure out is what are — what are you gonna do when I’m gone?” President Obama said to Bill O’Reilly after his Super Bowl interview.

Fox News posted on Tuesday the unedited version of Bill O'Reilly's Super Bowl interview with President Obama (the entire unedited interview and transcript can be viewed here). In the interview President Obama says he's been great for Fox News.

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A senior administration official dismisses Republican gloating over a Congressional Budget Office report, saying it doesn’t prove the Affordable Care Act hurts the job market.

Mike Segar / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The White House responded aggressively Tuesday in the hours after a Congressional Budget Office report on the effects of Obamacare on the economy led to gloating from Republicans.

In a statement and conference call featuring top administration officials, the White House tried to beat back an emerging narrative that the CBO report supported claims made by health care reform critics. The CBO report says the Affordable Care Act could lead to a reduction of 2 million full-time workers between 2017 and 2024. The CBO says the reduction would not come via fewer available full-time jobs (as critics of the law have alleged) but "almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply."

On a conference call with reporters, a senior administration official said the change in worker behavior due to health care access reforms found in the Affordable Care Act was not a surprise.

"To put that in context, I have no doubt that if we eliminated Social Security and eliminated Medicare, there would be many 95-year-olds that would choose to work more hours than they're working today just so they could survive, feed themselves and have health insurance," the official said.

The CBO's projected reduction in full-time workers, then, "shouldn't be a significant cause for surprise and it reflects the fact that workers have a new set of options and are making the best choices that they can choose to make for themselves given those options," the official said.

At the White House briefing Tuesday, White House Council of Economic Advisors chair Jason Furman repeated the Medicare line, and added "I don't think anyone would say that's a compelling argument for [eliminating Medicare.]

“Oh, I haven’t been recording this whole time?” Update: Watch the video Obama shot.

WASHINGTON — Sometimes, presidents are just like us. Tuesday was one of those days, when President Obama tried to shoot some video with an iPad and ended up looking pretty dorky.

On a visit to a Maryland Middle School where he announced a massive new public-private partnership aimed at boosting high-speed internet access for America's students, the president toured a classroom where students were using iPads as part of their course work. Obama grabbed one of the devices and tried to start filming the students, the press corps and his assembled staff.

He forgot to press "record," however. When a student pointed it out, Obama looked sheepish.

"Oh, I haven't been recording this whole time?" Obama said to the student whose iPad he grabbed. "I thought you already had it on record, Kevin."

Once Kevin helped the president press record, he was able to go about making his iPad video.

LINK: Click here to watch the video on the CBS website.

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“We have strongly urged the government to drop these charges and release those journalists and academics who have been detained,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney said Tuesday. He wouldn’t say if aid would be in jeopardy if detention continues.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has told the Egyptian government to release four Al Jazeera reporters detained in December on charges that they held "illegal interviews" with members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

At the regular press briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney condemned the arrests, which have drawn outrage from reporters across the globe.

Carney said the move by Egyptian officials is a "deep concern to the administration."

"We have expressed these concerns directly to the government of Egypt," Carney said. "And we have strongly urged the government to drop these charges and release those journalists and academics who have been detained."

But the top administration spokesperson didn't respond directly when asked if the arrests of reporters in Egypt could have any impact on the billions of dollars in aid the United States sends Egypt every year.

"I think that we are expressing very directly the fact that we're deeply concerned that this contravenes the very constitution that provides the freedoms that we hold dear and we believe the Egyptian people hold dear," Carney said. "And we're making that clear to the Egyptian government."

An exclusive interview with President Obama and round two with Dennis Rodman couldn’t even help the mess in the morning over at CNN.

How bad of a week was State of the Union week for CNN's struggling morning show, New Day?

When measured against the "Big Three" cable news networks' morning shows and prime time programming, New Day was last or second-to-last in the prized ratings demographic of viewers aged 25-54 all week long. It also finished last in total viewers every day except one.

Those numbers don't fair well against the viewership of CNN's daytime programming either. New Day was below the network's daily average in demo and total viewers every single day of the week.

To make matters worse, Morning Express—the morning show for CNN's sister network, HLN—beat or tied New Day in demo every day but one.

An awful week like that will only add to the rumored behind-the-scenes disarray at the show. If you believe the blogs, co-anchor Chris Cuomo wants co-anchor Kate Bolduan replaced, while other co-anchor Michaela Pereira wants to move back to Los Angeles. Rumors or not, the fact remains that New Day is a mess.

What can be done to fix the problem? CNN could do plenty if they decided to cut the losses, take a wrecking ball to the show, and start from scratch. However, based on the network's seeming determination to build CNN mornings around Cuomo, replacing Bolduan with strong presence who will counteract his semi-stiff, alpha maleness is essential.

Option #1: Brooke Baldwin

Brooke Baldwin has been doing a great job of holding down the fort at CNN in the late afternoons for a while now. She's a solid anchor who can manage a fun celebrity interview. Most importantly, Baldwin can improvise confidently on the air, a skill that is absolutely necessary to neutralize/capitalize on Cuomo's often cringe-worthy attempts at spontaneous humor. Balwdin may not be the Katie Couric-style answer that Zucker is ultimately looking for, but she has the skills to stabilize this sinking ship and has definitely earned the chance to surprise everyone and turn the show into a winner.

Option #2: Robin Meade

If Brooke Balwdin doesn't work out, HLN's Robin Meade could fit the bill quite nicely. Since CNN has sunk untold millions into New Day, the chances that they'd make a splashy hire outside the network's family are very slim. So, why not look to the host of the very morning show that, without the help big interviews and an intensely expensive advertising campaign, is making New Day look bad by keeping pace in the ratings?

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The GOP derides a provision of Obamacare as an “insurance company bailout,” but some in the party don’t have a problem with the policy on its own and have used them before. “Risk corridors in and of themselves are solid in concept and have been an important part of other laws,” Rep. Tim Griffin.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON— Congressional Republicans see a political winner in their latest push to repeal the "risk corridor" provision of Obamacare, dubbed the "insurance company bailout" by opponents of the law.

But those in the GOP who support repeal of the risk corridors say they do not have a problem with the idea of risk corridors on its face but only as it relates to the president's health care law.

Risk corridors were a part of 2006's Medicare prescription drug overhaul (known as Part D) without controversy, as a way to draw insurance companies into a new marketplace. The corridors essentially provide financial assurances to companies to cover some losses should an insurance company take on a riskier, sicker pool of customers for plans sold on the exchanges.

The provision in Obamacare went relatively unnoticed for years, and is set to sunset in 2016. But the risk corridors took on a new life when Senate and House bills were introduced to repeal the provision. The House GOP has also floated tying repeal of risk corridors to a debt ceiling increase. Insurance companies are taking the threat seriously enough that they are intensifying the lobbying outreach on Capitol Hill and warning members repeal of risk corridors could "lead to a single-payer system."

Sen. Marco Rubio, the lead Senate cosponsor of the repeal bill, said he isn't against the idea of risk corridors — but not for Obamacare.

"The concept [of risk corridors] is a valid insurance concept but it requires companies to be able to make a profit—it requires enough companies making a profit in exchange for a handful of companies that may miscalculate and have some losses that way you have a net positive," Rubio said.

"You can see in the people signing up, the numbers of people signing up, they are not getting the sort of risk profile they need to make these programs work… creating an extraordinary liability for the taxpayer," Rubio added.

Rep. Tim Griffin, who sponsors the House bill, similarly said that risk corridors on their own were not bad policy, only in the context of the president's health care law.

"Risk corridors in and of themselves are solid in concept and have been an important part of other laws. What's the difference here? Well, the difference here is a risk corridor assumes that you have a functioning market, and it's not a bailout," he
said. "Risk corridors were not made for [a bailout], they were made for balancing out a market where some companies were ok and others weren't, they weren't made to bailout a systemic failure of an industry."

Both Griffin and Rubio brushed off news from Congressional Budget Office out on Tuesday that risk corridor repeal would lead to an increase in the deficit and keeping the provision will actually save the government about $8 billion. That analysis relied heavily on what happened in Medicare Part D, which Rubio argued was not a fair comparison.

"The Medicare Part D program was not operating under the same situation that these companies are operating under," Rubio said.

But Democrats charge that they were merely replicating a Republican idea.

"Democrats simply copied what the Republicans had done — including the same risk corridors program that Republicans had invented in Medicare Part D," read a memo from minority leader Nancy Pelosi's office. "Actually, the risk corridors program in the ACA is a more conservative version of the program than the one in Medicare Part D — being both of shorter duration and less generous than the risk corridors in Medicare Part D."

Support for the repeal of the risk corridors has been strong among a number of conservative commentators, including Charles Krauthammer, who made no bones about what repeal of the risk corridor would mean for the health care law.

"Without viable insurance companies doing the work, it falls apart. No bailout, no Obamacare," he wrote.

But others are warning Republicans that if premiums skyrocket from a repeal of the risk corridors, the GOP will end up taking the brunt of the blame.

"Some conservatives say that a vote by the House would be safe because the legislation never would be taken up by the Senate or signed by the president. But I'm not so sure," wrote Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute. "The Democrats and especially the president would like nothing more than to have someone else to blame for at least some of the failures of Obamacare. If Republicans initiate this legislation, then the White House could blame them for the higher health insurance premiums that would result."

Some Republicans BuzzFeed spoke with conceded that they were less clear on the policy implications of repealing risk corridors but understood it could be a winning message.

"We're looking into it. I can't answer your question but I know we did something similar in Part D," said Rep. Joe Pitts. "We want to make sure when we deal with it we don't do damage. But when you talk about taxpayer bailouts, it sets people on fire."

Taking the trans story “outside the safe bubble.”

WASHINGTON — Transgender advocate Janet Mock accused CNN's Piers Morgan of seeking to "sensationalize" her life after Morgan and his producers focused intensely on Mock's past and physical aspects of her transition in an interview coinciding with the release of her book, Redefining Realness.

Morgan ended the first segment of the Piers Morgan Live interview by saying that Mock at one point had to tell the man she was dating that "you used to be yourself a man" — although Mock has never identified as a man.

The on-screen description of Mock was that she "was a boy until age 18," although she was identifying as a girl in high school, and the Piers Morgan Live Twitter account posed the question during the interview, "How would you feel if you found out the woman you are dating was formerly a man?"

"He's trying to do info-tainment," Mock told BuzzFeed Tuesday night. "He doesn't really want to talk about trans issues, he wants to sensationalize my life and not really talk about the work that I do and what the purpose of me writing this book was about."

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While the 10 top sponsors of the Olympics invested heavily in Sochi’s success — and in their multi-year partnership with the International Olympic Committee — they have remained largely silent on LGBT and other human rights concerns in Russia.

BuzzFeed/John Gara

WASHINGTON — With the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Sochi just days away, the top Olympic sponsors have largely stayed on the sidelines of the disputes over Russia's anti-LGBT laws and other human rights issues.

The sponsors have nearly universally backed the International Olympic Committee, whose president, Thomas Bach, this week accused politicians not attending the games of using the Sochi games to make a political statement "on the backs of the athletes."

The IOC's sponsorship program — called The Olympic Partners, or TOP — likely is part of the reason the sponsors all have backed the IOC, as the program "operates on a four-year term – the Olympic quadrennium," which means the sponsors also will be working with the IOC for the larger, upcoming Rio Summer Olympics in 2016.

The Sochi and Rio games are big business for the 10 TOP sponsors — in terms of brand recognition, marketing rights, and sales connected with the Olympics — and some sponsors, including Coca-Cola and Omega, already are contracted with the IOC through the 2020 games.

As Visa announced plainly on its site, "Sponsoring the Olympic Games makes good business sense for Visa and our clients."

The other seven TOP sponsors are: Atos, Dow, GE, McDonald's, Panasonic, Procter & Gamble, and Samsung.

When BuzzFeed sought information from the TOP sponsors in August 2013 about their view of Russia's then-new anti-LGBT propaganda law, several provided BuzzFeed with identical language backing the IOC's position that it has received assurances from the Russian government that the games will not be affected by the law. Notably, a GE spokeswoman was an exception, going further than the others and telling BuzzFeed, "We expect the IOC to uphold human rights in every aspect of the Games."

Two weeks after BuzzFeed published its story, the Human Rights Campaign sent a letter to the TOP sponsors, asking them to speak out against Russia's new law and asking them to ask the IOC to take action as well. Nothing happened.

After that first story, the TOP sponsors, generally, have either not responded to BuzzFeed's requests or not responded with any substantively different statements.

This past Friday, HRC was joined by Human Rights Watch, All Out, and 37 other groups in a letter sent to all the TOP sponsors seeking action. They asked the companies' CEOs to "use your voice to insist on changes that will make a difference in the future." The letter asks the companies to "condemn Russia's anti-LGBT law," use their advertising during the Olympics "to promote equality during the weeks leading up to and during the Games themselves," "ask the IOC to create a body to monitor serious Olympics-related human rights abuses in host countries as they occur," and asks the IOC to ensure that future host countries "honor their commitments to upholding the Olympic Charter, including Principle 6 which forbids discrimination of any kind."

The 40 groups — which included U.S., Russian, and global groups — concluded, "Discrimination has no place in the Olympics, and LGBT people must not be targeted with violence or deprived of their ability to advocate for their own equality. We cannot be silent on how Russia's anti-LGBT law violates this very standard to which we aspire. As all eyes turn toward Sochi, we ask you to stand with us."

Coca-Cola: The "Exclusive Non-Alcoholic Beverage"

us.coca-cola.com

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At a union meeting Wednesday, the vice president showed off his inner gearhead.

This is not a Z06, but you get the idea.

Anindito Mukherjee / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden is pretty excited about the newest version of the Chevy Corvette. The top-of-the line Z06 model might even be enough to pull a man away from his presidential ambitions, Biden told a United Auto Workers union conference in DC Wednesday.

"Everyone wants to know whether or not I'm going to run for president," Biden said. "There's a lot of reasons to run for president, but there's one overwhelming reason not to run for president. I'd like to get that Z06 with 0-60 in 3.4 seconds. 3.4 seconds!"

"You tack that sucker up to six grand and this comes out of the hole like a bullet, man," Biden went on.

The vice president is the proud owner of a restored 1967 Vette, but he said his ride pales in comparison to the new version he saw unveiled when he visited the Detroit Auto Show last month.

"I still have my '67 Corvette. By the way, my grown sons had it rebuilt for me, and it cost seven times the sticker price, rebuilt. But it's a quarter horse, man. That's all it is, is a quarter horse," Biden said. "But that new Stingray, yoooo. Oh, it's more than a quarter horse, even though it goes 0-60 in 3.9 seconds — not that I like speed. It also can track on a curve. It has a 106.7 inch wheelbase. It has more weight in the back, for the first time ever. And I could hardly wait, if I were just not in this job, to take on my friend's Porsche."

Biden's salivating over America's sports car had the crowd cheering and laughing at the UAW convention. But Biden wasn't done making his pitch for the 2015 Corvette.

"I'm serious," Biden said. "It's the best buy in America!"

An odd email from the former Massachusetts senator. Brown has now cut ties with the company. Update: Mike Huckabee sent out the same email.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is thinking of running for Senate in New Hampshire (He recently sold his Massachusetts home, dropped "MA" from his Twitter handle, and went diving shirtless into frigid New Hampshire waters for charity.)

Union Leader front page

Update: The email was also sent by Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee Email

Dr. Russell Blaylock also happens to be a vaccine truther, believes "the Soviet Union created the U.S. drug problem "to weaken the resistance of western Society to Soviet invasion, undermine religion and make the youth unable to resist collectivism." He also has said water fluoride is toxic and did an interview with InfoWars where he "Exposes Obama's Nazi Healthcare System."

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Has Clay Aiken been sitting like this for 11 years?

ClayAiken.com in 2003

Clay Aiken Website 2003

ClayAiken.com in 2014

(He's running for Congress in North Carolina.)

ClayAiken.com

LINK: Clay Aiken Is Running For Congress In North Carolina

Obama nominates Judge Darrin Gayles for a federal judgeship in the court where another out gay black nominee was blocked by Sen. Marco Rubio.

victoryinstitute.org

WASHINGTON — President Obama nominated Judge Darrin Gayles, an out gay black state court judge, to serve as a judge on the same federal trial court where another out gay black judge's nomination was blocked by Sen. Marco Rubio.

Gayles, who was endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund in his last election in 2012, was nominated Wednesday to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The move comes after another out gay black judicial nominee from southern Florida failed to receive even a committee vote on his nomination.

In that case, Sen. Marco Rubio withdrew his support for Judge William Thomas, who had been nominated by Obama in 2012 to serve on the same court. After Rubio withheld his "blue slip" on the nomination, Sen. Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, followed Senate practice in not allowing the nomination to move forward because Thomas lacked the support from one of his home-state senators.

In January, at the start of the new session of Congress, Obama did not resubmit Thomas' nomination, ending his quest for a federal judgeship.

Both Thomas and Gayles currently serve on the same court, the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida in Miami, though Johnson serves in its criminal court and Gayles on its civil court. Notably, Rubio's concerns raised about Thomas, according to his spokeswoman, related to "his judicial temperament and his willingness to impose appropriate criminal sentences."

Update at 6:05 p.m.: Sen. Marco Rubio suggested he would not withhold a blue slip on Wednesday's four Florida federal trial court nominations.

"I welcome today's four nominations to the district courts in Florida. As I previously indicated to the President, I do not anticipate having an objection to moving forward on any of these nominations pending the outcome of the customary background check conducted on every nominee," he said in a statement. "I am disappointed, however that given the opportunity to fill four vacancies on the court, the White House has declined to nominate any of the Republican finalists jointly suggested by Senator Nelson and myself."

Don’t expect anything big from 2014 but there are some glimmers of optimism from members of Congress. “I’m sure there will be something that will burp out of this dysfunctional congress,” quipped Rep. Peter DeFazio.

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — After three years of standoffs, something like a bipartisan spirit has descended on Capitol Hill.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama declared that 2014 needed to be a "year of action." Congressional Republicans at their conference retreat last week appeared to be working toward shaking their "party of no" image. Among members, there's a sense that something will happen this year — not something big, but something.

"I'm sure there will be something that will burp out of this dysfunctional Congress," quipped Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio.

What exactly that will be, DeFazio and other members of Congress don't exactly know. But in talking to members there's a deep desire to be seen as more functional and productive as congressional approval ratings are at an all-time low.

"I'm very optimistic about 2014 — we passed a farm bill neither side is overly happy with but we like enough," said Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger. "We did the same thing with the budget deal and if the president is sincere, we can find small areas where we can work together in moving this country forward and have a year of action."

Kinzinger said that since House Republicans "got the shutdown out of our system" they needed to refocus on "doing more than just opposing the president."

"The idea that we are somehow going to come to an agreement on huge philosophical differences probably isn't going to happen," he said. "But it doesn't mean everything has to be stalled and we can't do anything."

It may have taken a really, really long time, but Congress finally passed a farm bill, and a budget deal effectively took a government shutdown off of the table for the rest of the year. With those big-ticket items out of the way, members might start looking to sweat the small stuff instead.

Republican House leadership highlighted four points from the State of the Union address where they saw opportunities to work with the president in a letter shortly after the speech. The tone, while critical of Obama's desire to use executive actions, was more open to negotiation on bills dealing with jobs and energy that have already passed the House.

"There are some places where we're probably going to continue to have some incremental movement but I think that the tenor is better than it was, and I'm hopeful we can get some things done with the appreciation this will probably quickly turn into a election year," said Republican Rep. Pat Meehan. "You have to be realistic in the expectations of that."

Democratic Rep. John Delaney recently put together a bipartisan dinner for freshmen at his house, and even some House conservatives, not exactly known for their willingness to reach across the aisle, walked away from it open to the idea of spending 2014 coming together on the small stuff.

"It was awesome, there was 50 of us," said Florida conservative Ted Yoho. "It shows the camaraderie we have across the aisle and that's a great thing. We're going to find the common ground we can agree on; you know stuff that's not contentious."

There are fault lines, however, rooted in the long-held divisions between the caucuses.

"The problem is much of the small things get held up because we can't get some of the bigger items done," said Joe Crowley, the vice chairman of the Democratic caucus. "I would argue that one relatively small item is unemployment insurance. This is a not a complicated piece of legislation and it would show good will that we are helping all Americans."

Democrats remain sharply critical of Republicans for inaction on both raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment insurance. Crowley offered passing a three-month extension of unemployment insurance as a an example of a "small item" on Congress' to-do list. Republicans want to see an unemployment deal paid for — but Senate Democrats say they are addressing the issue.

Potential major conflicts, however, loom with another a looming debt ceiling fight, which usually has the power to suck up all of the oxygen out of pretty much everything else for a long time.

And while immigration may be the one big exception to the small ball rule immigration reform, problems aren't likely going away there either.

House leadership last week released a set of tentative policy "principles" on the topic. But Republicans are wary of Obama and remain divided in their own party. Rep. Paul Ryan, who has long pushed for immigration reform, threw some cold water on that possibility Sunday, telling ABC's "This Week," Republicans have a hard time trusting the president to enforce the laws, making the odds of a deal more difficult. Not to mention the fact that a good chunk of the conference remains opposed to acting on immigration anytime soon.

Asked whether he believed the House GOP would simply unify around some immigration principles and do little else, Rep. Patrick McHenry replied simply, "Yes."

The reason? A big compromise during an election year will be nearly impossible to achieve, McHenry said squarely blaming Obama and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

"All she wants to do in my estimation is get back the speaker's gavel. She's not about policy, she's not about helping those who want to come here in a legal way," he said. "She cares about the politics of it and the votes in the next house election. It's clear that the president cant control his own party in getting maybe 60%, 70%, 80% of what he wants. He's playing for 100% of what he wants."

Facebook says no . At least one large gun-community page suggests otherwise.

Facebook

"S&W 500! Paid 1200, 25 rounds spent! I'm in Texas and newmexico. Looking to trade for a nice AK or AR of same value," reads a recent Facebook post by a gun enthusiast named Cody, who has included a photo of himself brandishing the Smith & Wesson handgun.

"Suggestion, Keep Your mug Out of Fireams Sales / Trades" reads the top comment, liked 28 times.

Another comment calls the poster an "inmate."

Another comment simply points out that $1,200 is too much for a 500 model when you can get one for $900.

Guns For Sale is a Facebook page with 196,000 likes that invites gun enthusiasts and licensed dealers to procure buyers for firearms through posts like this one from Cody. (Facebook removed this post after a gun control group tweeted it with the message "@facebook allows this guy to sell guns.")

Despite the appearance of the post — with comments recommending you not show your face and the plausible suggestion of wrongdoing by deleting it — what's happening on the Guns For Sale page is most likely totally legal.

Facebook

Bobby Richards is the owner and operator of Crossfire Arms, LLC, an independent arms dealership in Vermont. For the past six months, Richards has listed new firearms and industry information on online forums, like the Guns For Sale Facebook page. He is still in the process of building Crossfire's online store and sees these pages and sites as "electronic billboards" that allow his independent operation to compete with the industry's big boys.

"Social media has leveled the playing field somewhat and has afforded smaller businesses the opportunity to network with groups that have massive fan bases," he said. "Affiliate marketers have enormous reach and followers on Facebook, numbering in the high six figures."

While Richards said that while Facebook postings are an asset to his business, every gun sale is completed through an in-person, in-store exchange that includes a mandatory background check.

Once a potential buyer expresses an interest in a particular firearm, Richards sets up an appointment for the buyer to fill out the required paperwork and National Instant Criminal Background Check System background check. If the buyer lives in a state other than Vermont, he or she is required to have their local federally licensed dealer send a copy of their license to Richards before he will ship the firearm to that dealer. And then once the paperwork is complete, that local dealer can finalize the sale.

"No firearm transactions are completed through Facebook," Richards said.

David Chipman, a retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent, said these types of sales would likely pass muster with the agency.

"I think that's extremely above board. I think that would get sign-off from the ATF," said Chipman, who spent 25 years with the bureau.

The ATF public affairs office confirmed to BuzzFeed that Richards' process is the correct way to obtain a firearm from a Federal Firearms Licensee.

But Chipman disputes the idea that firearms sales are not taking place at all on Facebook.

"I believe Facebook should understand that persons could be using their platform to conduct illegal conduct and they have a moral obligation to do their best to prevent it," Chipman said.

Chipman noted that if sellers are buying guns, posting them online, and selling them for profit without a license, the ATF would consider that to be illegal. However, it would take an undercover investigation to prove if any of these people listing their guns on Guns For Sale are making a profit illegally, he says.

In the past week, there have been more than 100 posts from fans on the Guns For Sale page. Sixty-nine of the posts listed actual guns, gun parts, or ammunition for sale or trade. Every one of the posts includes contact information from the seller; if the post doesn't initially include a name and phone number or email, the page's moderator asks the seller to update the post. Of the 69 posts, 44 were from personal Facebook accounts.

This is not a lot of activity, especially compared with other players in the online gun trade. A study this year by Mike Bloomberg's group Mayors Against Illegal Guns of online gun retail destination Armslist.com concluded that nearly one-third of the activity on the website was by high-volume sellers, selling more than 34 firearms a year without a license, which amounts to an estimated 243,800 guns.

The level of activity on the Guns For Sale Facebook page is more on par with a forum like the r/GunsForSale subreddit, which Mother Jones found had 1,000 posts over six months — about 40 posts a week.

What these regular people in the Guns For Sale Facebook community are doing appears legal, as long as the posters on Guns For Sale are following a few rules if they don't have a dealer's license:

According to U.S. federal gun laws, a person is allowed to buy or sell a firearm from an unlicensed resident of their state if they do not have reasonable cause to believe the person is prohibited from owning guns. If the buyer is out of state, this person is required to go through a licensed dealer to complete the transaction.

But the legality of the deals on Guns For Sale is just another example of why the nation's gun laws need reforming, some say.

"[There is a] huge weakness is our federal gun policy. People on Facebook take advantage of this gap," said Daniel Webster, a professor and the director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

"It's not a loophole, it's a gaping hole. There's no mechanism of accountability. We need a policy fix."

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Sounds like an interesting drinking game tho.

American Idol runner up Clay Aiken is now running for Congress in North Carolina!

Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

He has even tricked out his Twitter account for the run.

Via Twitter: @clayaiken

Douglas Gorenstein / NBC

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On Wednesday, the Obama administration’s most prominent Catholic slammed one of the pope’s most prominent American conservative detractors: “As a practicing Catholic, bless me, Father, for he has sinned.”

Osservatore Romano / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Vice President Biden went out of his way at a speech to the United Auto Workers union Wednesday to take on one of Pope Francis' strongest critics.

"A couple weeks ago Ken Langone, who I don't know, a billionaire founder of Home Depot, predicted that the pope — Pope Francis' critique of income inequity will be, quote, 'a 'hurdle' for very wealthy Catholic donors, who seem to think hurt feelings trump the teachings of the Bible," Biden said, referring to a December interview with the Home Depot founder.

Langone claimed to CNBC that one potential major donor to a cathedral restoration project was concerned about Pope Francis' economic rhetoric about capitalist economies.

"I've told the cardinal, 'Your Eminence, this is one more hurdle I hope we don't have to deal with. You want to be careful about generalities. Rich people in one country don't act the same as rich people in another country,' " Langone said he told Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the donor.

Biden appeared amazed by the comments as a Democrat pushing the Obama administration's income equality message. As the most prominent Catholic on the president's team, Biden seemed to be personally offended by the comments.

"As practicing Catholic, bless me, Father, for he has sinned," Biden said. He paused. "I mean, come on. Come on! What are we talking about today?"

It's not the first time Biden has embraced Francis, a pope who has energized the left in America despite his adherence to the church's positions on social issues, while alienating some on the right with his economic views. President Obama is set to meet with Francis at the Vatican in March, and the president has said he's "hugely impressed" with the pontiff.

Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin have condemned the pope as a purveyor of "pure Marxism," saying they've been "taken aback" by some of his comments criticizing capitalism for not doing enough for the poor. Even Catholic conservatives have distanced themselves from Francis on economic issues. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, a Catholic, dismissed Francis' critiques of capitalism, due to his experiences growing up and living in South America.

"I think they have crony capitalism in Argentina, where you have real exploitation," Ryan told ABC News recently. "That is not the free market. That's crony capitalism."

Biden has been a prominent supporter of Francis since he became pope last year. The vice president attended the installation of the new pope last year and said he "shares a vision that all of us share, to reach out to the poor and the dispossessed."

At a TIME magazine banquet last April, after his visit to the Vatican, Biden put his connection to Francis in personal terms.

"In his homily he spoke movingly about our commitments to one another, not just as people of faith, he emphasized, but as human beings," Biden recalled. "We all know we have obligations to each other. We know. We know we have a duty to look out for one another, to keep our hearts and minds open for those who are in need. Those are the values that I was taught...Most of us are here because we felt some connection, some obligation, some responsibility to the people around us."

A very strange turn of events.

Allyson Schwartz is a Democratic member of Congress, she is also running for governor of Pennsylvania.

Via Facebook: allysonschwartzforgovernor

She recently voted for theFederal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013, commonly known as the Farm Bill. It passed the Republican-controlled House last week and the Senate this week.

House.Gov

The Republican Governors Association attacked her for voting for it, linking to a Washington Times report saying it raised the price of heating oil.

“The recent string of polar plunges and extremely cold weather has placed an added burden on many family budgets, especially when it comes to heating their homes," RGA communications director Gail Gitcho said. "It is shocking that want-to-be governor and liberal Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz would vote to increase the fees on home heating oil at this time. The working families of Pennsylvania can least afford to pay for this onerous tax.”

Via rga.org

This is all very odd because her opponent, Pennsylvania's Republican governor Tom Corbett supports the Farm Bill and sent out a press release urging President Obama to sign it into law.

Via pa.gov

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Everything old is new again… Millions of Brits are going to wake up to claims that actress Liz Hurley had an affair with the ex-President.

The Sun (circulation two million):

Daily Star (circulation 490,000):

Daily Mail (circulation 1.7 million):

Daily Mirror (circulation 965,000):

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Priorities USA Action, the super PAC now backing Hillary Clinton, won’t spend to help Democrats in the House and Senate this year, a spokesperson confirms.

Mike Theiler / Reuters

The Democratic Party's biggest super PAC, recently retooled as an early pro-Hillary Clinton effort, will sit out the midterm elections this year.

A spokesman with the group, Priorities USA Action, confirmed to BuzzFeed on Wednesday night that it would not be involved in House or Senate campaigns.

"House Majority PAC and Majority PAC are doing everything right and making a real difference. We fully support their efforts," said the spokesman, Peter Kauffmann, referring to the main groups supporting Democratic congressional candidates.

Priorities USA, which operates under loose campaign finance rules that allow it to raise and spend unlimited sums, put $65 million behind Barack Obama in 2012.

Sources close to the group say its leaders considered helping Democrats in House and Senate races approaching this fall. The PAC's principal financial backer, Hollywood magnate Jeffrey Katzenberg, has shown an interest in one midterm candidate in particular: Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democrat gunning to unseat Sen. Mitch McConnell. Katzenberg, one of Obama's biggest bundlers, raised more than $1 million for Grimes on her first trip to California last year.

Sean Sweeney, the former Obama aide who co-founded Priorities USA, said a year ago that the group would likely let others, like House Majority PAC and Majority PAC, "take the lead on House and Senate races."

But Kauffmann's comments Wednesday night mark the first sure signal since the group's relaunch last month that it will steer clear of 2014 races.

Priorities USA will also take steps to ensure its Clinton fundraising operation doesn't interfere with the party during the midterms, according to a Wall Street Journal report this week. The group, the article said, is discussing a system in which it asks donors to hold off on making larger contributions until after 2014.

After months of discussions, which date back to as early as last spring, the political action committee announced it would support Clinton should she decide to make a second White House run in 2016. The group assembled a new board of directors, headed by Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, and Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan who backed Clinton's first presidential bid in 2008. Priorities USA announced its new board in the New York Times last month.

The PAC is one of several Democratic groups — including Ready for Hillary and American Bridge — already aligned behind Clinton. EMILY's List, another PAC, has also launched a polling effort under its "Madame President" project, an initiative aimed at electing a woman to the White House in 2016.