Facing a huge midterm drop-off in the turn out among their key supporters, Democrats are starting to make direct appeals. Operatives point to the Virginia governor’s race as proof they can turn people out in an off year.

Win McNamee / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — To say "it all comes down to turnout" is both cliché and incredibly true for House Democrats in 2014 if they have any hope at all of regaining the majority.

While they have maintain cautious optimism this year about their prospects for taking back the majority, most political experts put Democrats' chances of doing so at slim to none. And part of the problem — according to party officials — lies in the enormous drop-off in turnout during the midterms among key groups in the Democratic electorate: young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women.

Because of that drop-off, the campaign committees and members themselves have been sharpening their focus on progressive and core Democratic issues to motivate these all-important base voters. It's a new focus learned in part from the lessons of 2010, Democratic operatives say, when many felt party did not adequately engage those groups and House Republicans took control of the House.

Again and again at the Democratic agenda retreat in Maryland last week, party leadership and members pushed hard on the notion that they were fighting for the issues most Americans (and especially their base) really cares about while Republicans were not. The words "women," "equality," "unemployment benefits," and "minimum wage" were used early and often in every single press availability.

"If we don't turn out those voters in numbers closer to what we have in a presidential, we won't succeed. And the way I think we do it is identifying the issues that women care about and people of color care about: minimum wage, economy for everybody," said Vermont Rep. Peter Welch.

"The question is can you execute?" he added. "I think it's progressive issues that motivate middle income and low income voters who've been totally left behind in the recovery. And it's the effectiveness of the execution of the ground game that gets the vote count up."

In an October report for the Voter Participation Center, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake and her team estimated that at least one in three voters in what they call the "Rising American Electorate" who voted in 2012 will not turn out in 2014. The study defines the RAE as unmarried women, people of color, and voters between 18 and 29.

"If progressives can lower this number by just 2%, it would mean an additional
1.3 million RAE voters and the margin of victory in many close races," they wrote. "We have seen this difference in the past; the drop-off among RAE voters was 3%
greater in 2010 when Republicans won back the House, than it was in 2006 when Democrats won both chambers. Turning out RAE voters is essential."

Rep. Jim Himes said that getting key groups, especially women, out to vote was crucial if Democrats wanted to "change the battlefield."

To understand just how much Democrats know this and are trying to appeal to these voters, one only needs to listen to Rep. Steve Israel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

"Rising wages, pay equity for women, a fair tax code, immigration reform, these are not just topics; these are the fundamental differences in the United States Congress right now between Democrats and Republicans. This is about: Whose side are you on?" Israel said last week at the retreat. "And on every one of those issues, rising wages, pay equity, immigration reform, a fair tax code, we're on the side of the American people."

While the prospects for a House takeover remain low, Democrats saw a glimmer of hope last November in Terry McAuliffe's Virginia gubernatorial win. They say the 2013 governor's race showed that the party was capable of turning out voters who normally stay home in an off year.

"The DCCC is employing a lot of the same tactics that we put into place last year," said Michael Halle, who worked as the coordinating campaign director for McAuliffe. "I think a lot of this is transferable…The turnout component of the election is ofter overlooked or they think it's not possible to impact and we came in from the very beginning with the belief that it was a necessary path to victory."

Halle said the campaign began early by not just polling likely voters, but also more "sporadic voters" to try and get a sense of what issues would get them to turn out in an off-year.

"Because of who [Republican] Ken Cuccinelli was, women's issues were really powerful among white unmarried women. For African Americans, deeply important were inequality issues," Halle said. "I think that's why both committees are going to do well with those messages this year."

Republicans maintain they have a strong edge in the election, confident they'll hold on to their majority and the public will still be angry about the difficulties of the health care law rollout and unsatisfied with the president and the economy.

"If Democrats think more top-down Washington mandates are the answer to their political woes then they have learned nothing from the implosion of Obamacare," said Daniel Scarpinato, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "Middle-class families are struggling in the Obama economy, losing their health care and losing their jobs — and that failed record is going to tank House Democrats in 2014."

It's not that Democrats aren't nervous about the possibility of the health care issues hurting them in the midterms, but the message from the caucus right now seems to pinning Democratic hopes on the health care launch improving to the point where Obamacare won't be as big of an issue in November.

"We're still a lifetime from November … a lot of their strategy seems to rely on people being grumpy about the economy and the ACA 10 months from now," Himes said. "There's no question October and November from the standpoint of the ACA was very painful … but every single week thousands of people sign up and the economy, while nothing to crow about, is slowly but surely recovering."

Fox News’ highest rated host says the internet is ruining young people’s minds.

Based on a 2011 survey of 1,000 people, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly declared, "The internet has created a generation of self-absorbed, addicted, distracted, and ignorant people."

The 64-year-old cable news ratings giant wants you and your smartphone to get the hell off his lawn, adding, "The powerful machines, handheld many of them, are diverting a lot of Americans away from real life. You can now create your own world on the net devoid of reality, and millions of Americans are doing that. The result is that a very few shrewd people are now wielding enormous power."

Later on Twitter, NBC's Chuck Todd—probably on his darned smartphone—summed up what we're all thinking:

Here's the GIF O'Reilly would have posted in reply to Todd's Tweet if he posted reaction GIFs to Twitter.

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The NSA appears to be image aware.

Smith in "Enemy of the State."

Enemy of the State Screenshot

The National Security Agency was worried about their image when the 1999 blockbuster Will Smith film Enemy of the State was released. In an interview with CNN in 2001, then-NSA chief Michael Hayden invited the cable news network to profile the agency in part because of the movie.

The film revolves around attempts by Congress, pressed by the National Security Agency, to pass a bill which would expand the agency's surveillance powers. Rogue NSA agents kill a U.S. congressman who opposes the bill in a park, only to realize they were recorded by a bird watcher. The bird watcher, chased by the NSA, passes the information along to Will Smith's character — and Smith's character then finds his phones tapped, clothing bugged, house burglarized, among other attempts by the agency to get Smith.

"I made the judgment that we couldn't survive with the popular impression of this agency being formed by the last Will Smith movie," Hayden said in the interview, which aired in March 2001.

"When Gen. Michael Hayden saw the movie, he saw a problem — an image problem. That is in part why the NSA decided to let CNN inside the NSA to see where code breakers gather, and code makers protect the nation's secrets," CNN's David Ensor narrated in the segment. "Above all, Hayden knows NSA cannot afford to be seen as trampling on the privacy rights of U.S. citizens."

"It has to be somewhat a secretive agency, and right in the middle of a political culture that just trusts two things most of all: power and secrecy," Hayden continued. "That's a challenge for us, and that's why, frankly, we're trying to explain what it is we do for America, how it is we follow the law. Could there be abuses? Of course. Would there be? I am looking you and the American people in the eye and saying: There are not."

In an interview with New York Magazine in 2013, Enemy of the State screenwriter David Marconi said he met with the Department of Defense after his film was released.

"The Department of Defense asked me to come down and speak to them after the film came out. I met CIA guys and NSA guys," Marconi said. "I found them all to be very professional. They were very focused on the mission and on defending the country. I didn't walk away with a sense that any of them were malevolent. But some of them also had a very myopic view—here's what you do, and you sit at your computer and you do it."

Interestingly, Hayden also said in the interview the NSA had "not spied on Americans since the '70s, after it was found to be eavesdropping on Jane Fonda, Doctor Benjamin Spock, and other anti-Vietnam war activists. Hayden also said reports the NSA exchanged industrial espionage against European companies was "absolutely not true."

Many of the NSA's most controversial activities began after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, seven months after the CNN interview aired.

The NSA has been accused of instances of industrial espionage recently. According to documents released by former contractor Edward Snowden, the NSA conducted surveillance on Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras.

A Magnitsky Act-style bill would target those behind violence that has killed dozens of protesters in Ukraine. Updated with statement from McCain and Murphy.

Stringer / Reuters

Updated — 4:28 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Sens. John McCain and Chris Murphy are writing a bill that would enact sanctions against people responsible for violence against anti-government protesters in Ukraine, two sources with knowledge of the bill told BuzzFeed.

"Folks are working on it," a senior Senate aide said on Wednesday. "Would be targeted sanctions against individual Ukrainians responsible for ordering or carrying out violence against peaceful protesters, as opposed to blanket sanctions against Ukraine."

The specific details of the bill are not yet clear. McCain and Murphy will announce the bill today, a source said. The two senators visited Ukraine in December to lend support to protesters who have been demonstrating against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to turn the country closer to Russia and reject a deal with the European Union.

Pressure to enact sanctions against Ukraine has mounted after dozens of anti-government protesters were killed and hundreds injured in clashes with police this week.

The violence is spurring condemnation from the highest levels of the U.S. government. President Obama is expected to address the Ukraine situation in public comments later on Wednesday.

"We have made it clear we would consider taking action against individuals who are responsible for acts of violence within Ukraine," Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday. "We have a toolkit for doing that that includes sanctions."

Secretary of State John Kerry also publicly raised the threat of sanctions in an appearance in Paris today.

The European Union is also weighing sanctions against those responsible for the violence.

The State Department has already enacted a number of visa bans against top Ukrainian officials.

"We have begun working together on legislation that would impose targeted sanctions on government officials and other persons who have committed, ordered, or materially supported acts of violence against peaceful citizens in Ukraine, or who are complicit in the rollback of Ukraine's democracy," McCain and Murphy said in a joint statement on Wednesday afternoon. "These sanctions should not, and will not, target the people or the country of Ukraine as a whole. Instead, they will be narrowly focused on those individuals who must be held accountable for violating human rights and undermining democracy. We remain in contact with the Administration and look forward to working together on this legislation."

Lawsuit filed in state court on Wednesday. Update: Another marriage lawsuit pending in the state is due for a hearing this summer.

Colorado Gov.r John Hickenlooper.

Rick Wilking / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Nine same-sex couples in Colorado, some married elsewhere and others not, sued in state court in Denver on Wednesday for the right to marry and have marriages granted elsewhere recognized in the state.

The lawsuit is brought against Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper Jr. and Debra Johnson, the clerk and recorder for the city and county of Denver. Both are Democrats. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers has said he would defend the law if it were to be challenged.

The lawsuit asks for the court "to permit issuance of marriage licenses to the Unmarried Plaintiffs, pursuant to the same restrictions and limitations applicable to opposite-sex couples, and to recognize the out-of-state marriages validly entered into by the Married Plaintiffs."

In the lawsuit, lawyers for the couples note:

Our courts and society have discarded, one by one, marriage laws that violated the mandate of equality guaranteed by the Constitution. History has taught that the legitimacy and vitality of the institution of marriage does not depend on upholding discriminatory laws. On the contrary, eliminating unconstitutional barriers to marriage further enhances the institution and society. In seventeen states and the District of Columbia, same-sex couples are marrying, and the institution of marriage continues to thrive.

Lawmakers in Colorado last year passed civil unions into law, but the state has an amendment passed in 2006 limiting marriage in the state to one man and one woman.

Update — Feb. 19, 4:50 p.m. ET: Attorneys for Rebecca Brinkman and Margaret Burd informed BuzzFeed of a previously filed lawsuit in state court in Adams County, Denver, in which motions for summary judgment — or, a decision on the law and without a trial — are due to be filed by the plaintiffs and the state on April 1, with responses due by May 16 and a hearing sometime after June 15.

Read the Denver County complaint:

Read the Adams County complaint:

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Legislation that would protect those who discriminate against LGBT people based on religious beliefs either failed or faced major setbacks in South Dakota, Kansas, Idaho, and Tennessee. LGBT advocates say the failures are an “important repudiation” of the latest anti-LGBT tactics. Update : The Arizona Senate, however, approved a similar bill Wednesday.

A demonstration opposing the anti-LGBT law outside the state capitol in Topeka, Kansas Feb. 16, 2014.

Courtesy Planting Peace by Colin MacMillan. / Via Facebook: 427599210663452

Proposed legislation that would allow discrimination against LGBT people based on religious beliefs failed or faced major setbacks in four separate states Tuesday, dealing a significant blow to what some have seen as a new front for LGBT rights opponents.

"[Tuesday was] a very important rebuffing of the latest anti-gay and anti-choice tactics, but I wouldn't say that we're out of the woods yet," said Evan Wolfson, president and founder of Freedom to Marry. "Our opponents have lost the argument about gay people, they've lost the argument about marriage and all they have left is distractions, diversions, and desperate attempts to carve out the license to discriminate as they have tried in every other civil rights chapter in our nation's history."

Lawmakers in Idaho, Kansas, South Dakota, and Tennessee either voted down, blocked, or backtracked on legislation in the states that would have allowed individuals, religious organizations, businesses, and, in the case of Kansas, government employees to discriminate against LGBT people in the form of denying services and other recognition based on religious beliefs.

LGBT and civil rights advocates say that while the battle over these issues is far from over, Tuesday's developments are encouraging and could send signals to other states contemplating similar measures.

"This is an incredible development and very encouraging," said Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. "People across the country are seeing discrimination is just wrong, plain and simple, no matter how they try to justify it with these bills."

The bills come in the wake of the growing marriage equality movement in the United States, where marriage is legal for same-sex couples in 17 states and the District of Columbia, and where federal courts have struck down marriage bans in Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia in recent months.

Although Idaho, Kansas, South Dakota, and Tennessee do not allow marriage for same-sex couples, lawmakers backing the bills say the proposals are preemptive measures to protect businesses with religious beliefs should same-sex couples be allowed to marry there someday, citing cases where businesses were sued for denying services to same-sex couples.

"Just in the last week and a half, we've seen liberal, activist judges overrule the will of the people in our neighboring states, Kentucky and Virginia, by overturning their constitutional amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman," said Sen. Mike Bell, sponsor of the Tennessee bill. "And it's shame, it's a shame that we're here discussing the protections of business owners' rights in this regards. Because of liberal court judges across the country, we must stand prepared."

Moments later, Bell pulled the bill from the state's Senate Judiciary Committee after concluding with legal experts that the state's law already "protects our business owners from the type of lawsuit harassment we've seen in other states."

But opponents of these bills say they are "trojan horses" and would ultimately undermine nondiscrimination and human rights laws at municipal and state levels. They are "a dangerous solution to a nonproblem," Wolfson said.

Holly Weatherford (left) lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, and Tom Witt (right) lobbyist for Equality Kansas on Feb. 6, 2014.

AP Photo/John Hanna

The proposal in Kansas, House Bill 2453, is particularly egregious, opponents of the bill say, because it would have allowed government employees to turn away people if serving them violated their religious beliefs. Specifically, the bill aims to bar anti-discrimination lawsuits and government sanctions against private and public employees, groups, and businesses for refusing services, goods, accommodations, or employment benefits to same-sex couples.

The bill "basically incites discrimination in every aspect of someone's life," Rho said. "[Proponents] try to claim it was limited to wedding-related services, but I would direct them to the bill's language and ask them how that is because the language is so broad."

Kansas Sen. Jeff King said Tuesday the legislation won't pass in the Senate this session after sailing through the House in a 72-49 vote last week. However, "nothing ever stays dead in this capitol," Thomas Witt, executive director at Kansas Equality, told BuzzFeed.

"That particular [bill] number is dead, but again, that doesn't mean that the subject matter stays dead," he said. "It can come right back in a different form and that happens here in regularity. One of my sources called me and said that there are members of the House leadership team looking to see if they have enough votes to send something to the Senate again."

But, he said, "Senate leadership doesn't want anything to do with this, and I'm hoping their position is persuasive to the rest of the legislature" — though he added that what happens next on the issue "is anyone's guess."

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“THE NIGHTMARE … ‘I can handle being a black, disabled, one armed, drug-addicted Jewish homosexual … but please, oh dear God, don’t make me a Democrat.’” A 2010 email forward from then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker’s then-chief of staff, Thomas Nardelli, to his deputy, Kelly Rindfleisch. Update: Another racist email.

The Comic Sans-headlined email Nardelli forwarded on July 27, 2010.

WASHINGTON — In July 2010, then-Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's then-chief of staff, Thomas Nardelli, sent an email to his deputy, Kelly Rindfleisch, and other unknown recipients that consisted of an email forward recounting the story of a "nightmare," involving waking up black, gay, Jewish, and disabled.

The email was uncovered as part of a second investigation into Walker's time as a county executive known in Wisconsin as the "John Doe investigations." Walker has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but Democrats and Walker critics are poring through thousands of documents released Wednesday as part of the probe looking for embarrassing material they can use against the potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate.

American Bridge, one of the Democratic groups digging through thousands of Rindfleisch emails, discovered the email from Nardelli, which was in Rindfleisch's inbox but was addressed to "undisclosed-recipient," suggesting Rindfleisch wasn't the only person who received the forward.

In 2012, Rindfleisch pleaded guilty to charges that she used her position as a government employee to help Walker's first campaign for governor. Nardelli was given a state job in 2011, after working for three years as Walker's chief of staff in the county executive's office, but quit days after accepting it as the first John Doe investigation began.

Walker won a recall election in 2012, after a Democratic and union-backed effort to remove him from office following a pitched battle over organized labor in Wisconsin.

Read Nardelli's email:

Unfortunately, we can’t all be the Underwoods… Also, this quiz is relatively spoiler-free.

A second racist email forward found in released messages from a former aide to Walker, then the Milwaukee County executive. “That is hilarious. And so true.”

WASHINGTON — The deputy chief of staff to then-County Executive Scott Walker praised a racist email forwarded to her in 2010 that joked welfare recipients are "mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can't speak English and have no frigging clue who the r [sic] daddies are."

The email tells the story of dog owner who asks the government for canine welfare checks because the dogs match the criteria detailed above. Kelly Rindfleisch, Walker's then-deputy chief of staff in 2010, wrote that the email was "hilarious" and "so true." The email was sent to Rindfleisch from someone outside Walker's staff.

Another email sent to Rindfleisch from Walker's then chief of staff, Thomas Nardelli, detailed a "nightmare," in which a person wakes up black, gay, Jewish, and handicapped.

Rindfleisch's emails were released to the public as part of the so-called "John Doe investigations" into Walker's staff. Rindfleisch pleaded guilty in 2012 "to felony misconduct in office for doing campaign work at her government job," according to Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporting at the time.

Rindfleisch's email:

“Today we moved to restrict visas, to ban visa issuance to some 20 senior members of the Ukrainian government and other individuals who we consider responsible for ordering or otherwise directing human rights abuses related to political repression in Ukraine,” a Senior State Department official said Wednesday.

Interior Ministry members leave the building as anti-government protesters hold a rally outside an office of the Interior Ministry in the town of Lutsk in northwestern Ukraine.

Stringer / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The United States has banned visas for 20 top Ukrainian officials in the wake of violence that has left dozens of anti-government protesters dead, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday.

"Today we moved to restrict visas, to ban visa issuance to some 20 senior members of the Ukrainian government and other individuals who we consider responsible for ordering or otherwise directing human rights abuses related to political repression in Ukraine," the official said on a call with reporters.

"We had been quite clear that if there was another unleashing of security forces against peaceful protesters that we would take sanctions measures," the official said.

The new round of visa bans comes after the United States revoked the visas of several Ukrainian officials, a list which was said to include the Interior Minister and a top advisor to President Viktor Yanukovych, after a previous crackdown on protesters.

The official declined to name the individuals who are being denied visas but said, "What I will say is that these individuals represent the full chain of command that we consider responsible for ordering security forces to move against the Maidan yesterday." The list is comprised of civilian officials.

Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy are also working on legislation that would enact sanctions against individuals responsible for the Ukraine violence, BuzzFeed learned on Wednesday.

The official also criticized Russia for its role in destabilizing the situation in Ukraine.

"They have not been transparent about what they've been doing in Ukraine," the official said of the Russians. "We completely reject their notion that it is we who have been interfering."

"I would put the question back to the Kremlin," the official said. "What do they support? Don't we today have a shared interest in restoring Ukraine to stability, to restoring political unity. to protecting the integrity of the state, to de-escalating on the street?"

“I cannot … sit by and watch as the current leadership of the organization disingenuously pawns off an unconditional surrender to the forces of bigotry as some sort of ‘compromise,’” Chris Barron tells BuzzFeed.

WASHINGTON — The co-founder of GOProud, Chris Barron, resigned from the board of the organization on Wednesday night, saying that new leadership made an "unconditional surrender" to the leadership of the American Conservative Union's CPAC conference.

The move came less than a day after the National Journal announced that "CPAC Welcomes Gay-Rights Groups After Years of Exclusion."

Such a change would be a victory for Barron and the group's co-founder Jimmy LaSalvia as the organization had been barred from sponsoring the event for the past two years, following a fallout between Barron and senior leadership and backers of CPAC and the ACU.

Barron, though, said no such change had happened.

"Last night I resigned from the Board of GOProud, the organization that I co-founded back in April of 2009. I cannot in good conscience sit by and watch as the current leadership of the organization disingenuously pawns off an unconditional surrender to the forces of bigotry as some sort of 'compromise,'" Barron told BuzzFeed. "Nothing has changed in regards to GOProud and CPAC, GOProud does not have a booth, they are not a sponsor, they are not participating in any formal sense — individual members can attend and that's exactly the terms ACU dictated the previous few years."

In fact, the National Journal states as much, noting, "Two former GOProud summer interns, Ross Hemminger and Matt Bechstein, took over last summer and sought to repair the bitterly frayed relationship. Under a compromise reached last week, they will attend the March 6–8 gathering as guests, without sponsorship or a booth."

Barron was characteristically antagonistic about the development, although, in this case, to the organization he started to help get gay, lesbian, and bisexual people a voice in the conservative movement.

"There was a time when GOProud was on the front lines of the fight for a more inclusive conservative movement — we won some of those battles and we lost some of those battles, but we were always honest about the outcome. If the current leadership of GOProud, or what's left of it, believes that unconditional surrender to the forces of intolerance is in the best interest of the organization, than they should just be honest about it," he said.

Asked Wednesday whether the move represented a change at CPAC, Hemminger told Metro Weekly, "We are participating at the level we wanted to participate at. We have had a very respectful and mutually beneficial dialogue with the folks at CPAC for some time now, and we're excited about turning over a new leaf in our relationship with them, they have been wonderful to work with."

Earlier this year, LaSalvia left the Republican Party altogether, writing that "the tolerance of bigotry in the GOP" was one of the key reasons for his leaving. LaSalvia and Barron had stepped back from running the day-to-day operations of GOProud last year.

NARAL picked a fight with the White House over the nomination of Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs to the federal bench earlier this month. On Thursday the group announced a broad coalition of progressives are supporting it.

Larry Downing / Reuters

WASHINGTON — A broad coalition of progressive groups joined abortion rights group NARAL Thursday in formally opposing one of President Obama's nominees to the federal bench.

In a campaign reminiscent of the one they used to boost Janet Yellin into the top job at the Federal Reserve, progressive groups are directly lobbying Democratic senators to oppose Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs' nomination to the federal District Court. Last week, NARAL called out Obama for nominating Boggs, citing Boggs' opposition to same-sex marriage as well as his support for abortion-access restrictions and the Confederate flag while serving as a Democratic member of the Georgia legislature.

Boggs was nominated as part of a deal the White House cut with Georgia's Republican senators to fill seats on the district court bench. Amid protests from civil rights groups in Georgia and African-American lawmakers from the state, the Obama administration has stuck with Boggs as its choice for the federal judgeship.

On Thursday, NARAL and more than a dozen other groups — including civil rights advocates and the Human Rights Campaign — sent a letter to Democratic senators calling on them to scuttle Boggs' nomination.

"Boggs demonstrated a troubling lack of concern for individuals whose experience and personal history differ from his own, creating a record that lacks a demonstrated commitment to fairness and equal justice with respect to issues of reproductive freedom, civil rights, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality," reads the letter.

Read the letter:

You will not believe this…

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The governor was speaking at his 110th town hall meeting in Monmouth County Thursday were he riffed on his weight loss. Christie underwent lapband surgery in June of 2013.

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LINK: 12 Pictures That Show How Much Weight Chris Christie Has Lost This Year

Yityish “Titi” Aynaw, the first Miss Israel of Ethiopian descent, comes to Washington.

Photograph by Rosie Gray for BuzzFeed

WASHINGTON — The first black woman to win the crown of Miss Israel says she believes the country has real problems with its treatment of refugees and immigrants from Africa but that the situation is improving.

"I'm not ashamed to say that there is racism in Israel; it's a problem, but it's a problem that Israel is working on and it's something that Israel is trying to fix and it's actually improving," Yityish "Titi" Aynaw, 22, told BuzzFeed in an interview at the lobby of Washington's Palomar Hotel.

"I don't feel the racism, me, exactly," Aynaw said. "But my family feels it sometimes."

Aynaw is in the United States this week on invitation of the Israeli Embassy. She traveled first to New York and then to Washington, where she met with members of the city's large Ethiopian community. She also played basketball with members of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Aynaw made headlines last year as the first Ethiopian-born woman to win the Miss Israel pageant. She attended a state dinner last year in Jerusalem and met President Barack Obama, who she says is her "role model."

Aynaw came to Israel at age 12 after the deaths of both her parents to live with her grandmother. Many Ethiopians have settled in Israel over the last 30 years as part of Israeli government programs to bring them over, including two major operations in the 1980s and 1990s that brought over thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

"I came to Netanya to live with my grandmother and I went to regular class in high school," Aynaw said. "I just went to regular class and I was integrated with everyone."

Aynaw, who went on to serve as a commander in the army after high school, said she believes integration is also a matter of choice on the part of immigrants.

"If you feel like you're going to be segregated then you end up being segregated, but if you feel like you're going to be part of the society then you'll be accepted," she said.

Israel's Ethiopian community in particular has often complained that they have been the target of racist Israeli government policies. Long-standing rumors that Ethiopian women were being sterilized without consent were partially confirmed in 2013, when Israel's health ministry admitted that doctors may have been injecting newly arrived Ethiopian female immigrants to Israel with the contraceptive Depo-Provera, without explaining what the contraceptive was. And in December 2013, an Israeli-Ethiopian legislator made waves when she revealed that the Israeli Red Cross would not let her donate blood because she was born in Ethiopia.

From 2006–2013 tens of thousands of African migrants and refugees streamed through Israel's porous border with Egypt, most of them from Sudan and Eritrea. The construction of a fence along the Israeli-Egyptian border stemmed the tide of new African migrants, and those remaining have been offered incentive packages to be returned to African countries, or given the option of going to a detention facility in Israel's south. Last month, massive protests by African nationals in Israel seeking refugee status filled the country's largest cities, while organizations including Amnesty International and the United Nations criticized Israel's current policies toward African migrants. The government says many of the asylum seekers are simply seeking a better economic situation and are not legitimate refugees — a stance that Aynaw shares.

"On the one hand we are obligated to give space to refugees and we have given space to refugees," Aynaw said. "On the other hand a lot of the refugees are not refugees of war, they're economic refugees. You reach a place where there's actually places in Tel Aviv where you can't walk around because there's rape and violence and it's a bad situation."

Aynaw said Israel needed to thoroughly go over the cases and determine who was a legitimate asylum seeker and who was not.

"We don't want people to get hurt," she said. "We know what it is to be refugees. We went through the Holocaust, we've been refugees our entire lives."

Aynaw is in the process of raising money for a community center for at-risk teens she hopes to open in her largely Ethiopian neighborhood in Netanya, called Project Titi. The idea is to provide after-school programs to kids who don't have anywhere structured to go once classes are done.

She is also hoping to launch an international modeling career and book modeling work in the U.S. and elsewhere, she said.

Aynaw is nearing the end of her term as Miss Israel, with the next pageant coming up in March. She'll be a judge at the pageant and says that it's more diverse than ever before.

"This year we have girls from everywhere," she said, citing one from France and one whose parents are from Japan.

“I don’t think the pursuit of a grand bargain on budgets was something that was going to turn out well for the American people,” one top liberal economist told BuzzFeed.

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File

WASHINGTON — When the White House announced Thursday that it won't include lowered cost-of-living increases for Social Security in Obama's upcoming 2015 budget proposal, progressives saw it as a major win.

The proposal, known as chained Consumer Price Index (CPI), hasn't been taken off the table entirely as a negotiation tool, according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, but it won't appear in President Barack Obama's budget that'll be released next month.

Earnest said it was Republicans' refusal to negotiate on tax increases led to the decision.

"I think it's clearly the right move both from policy perspective…and it's also good politics," Josh Bivens, director of research and policy at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, told BuzzFeed. "I don't think the pursuit of a grand bargain on budgets was something that was going to turn out well for the American people."

Bivens added that he wasn't surprised that the administration pulled chained CPI out especially as it became clear the GOP wouldn't budge on tax increases.

A recent push from progressive lawmakers might have contributed to Thursday's decision. Last week, 16 senators signed a letter urging Obama not to include cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in his budget.

Yesterday, another several dozen House Democrats signed a letter asking Obama to do exactly what he did today, take out chained CPI.

Other liberal groups and lawmakers also joined the celebration.

"I applaud the President's decision to exclude chained CPI from the 2015 budget," Sen. Elizabeth Warren told BuzzFeed in a statement. "We are facing a very real and growing retirement crisis in America, and cutting social security is the last thing we should do."

"People were spending a lot of time organizing about this," said progressive strategist Mike Lux. "I think the president heard all of that and realized he didn't want to split his base in an election year."

"This is a huge progressive victory — and greatly increases Democratic chances of taking back the House and keeping the Senate," Stephanie Taylor, president of the Progressive Chain Campaign Committee said in a statement.

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After receiving a letter from NARAL and the Human Rights Campaign, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal: “The letter raises legitimate and important questions about Judge Boggs’s record.”

Eduardo Munoz / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Amid pressure from liberal groups, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary said Thursday "legitimate" questions have been raised over one of President Obama's picks for the federal bench.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal was one of a group of Democrats to receive a letter from a coalition of progressive groups — including close Obama allies NARAL and the Human Rights Campaign — criticizing Obama district court nominee Michael Boggs for his stances against marriage for same-sex couples, abortion access, and in favor of the Confederate flag while he was a member of the Georgia legislature.

"This letter raises legitimate and important questions about Judge Boggs's record," Blumenthal said in a statement. "I look forward to hearing him explain his positions fully before the Judiciary Committee when that time comes."

Boggs has not had a hearing before the Judiciary Committee yet, and progressive groups are hoping to scuttle his chances at a federal judgeship before the committee meets to consider him. Blumenthal and other Democratic Judiciary members — including the chair, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy — received the progressive groups' letter Thursday.

In the letter, the progressive groups say Boggs' legislative record "demonstrated a troubling lack of concern for individuals whose experience and personal history differ from his own, creating a record that lacks a demonstrated commitment to fairness and equal justice." Boggs was nominated to the federal district court by Obama as part of a deal with Georgia's Republican senators aimed at filling vacancies on the court.

Leahy's office said Thursday that the Judiciary chair will wait for a hearing before expressing his views on Boggs.

"Boggs hasn't had a hearing yet and we don't have all his paperwork," said Leahy spokeswoman Jessica Brady. "I don't expect that the chairman will weigh in until the nominee has had the opportunity for a hearing and it is pending before the committee for a vote."

NARAL president Ilyse Hogue said that her group has not heard from other Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee in response to the groups' letter.

For now, the White House is standing with Boggs. White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he couldn't answer questions about the progressive letter at the daily press briefing.

"I haven't seen the statements from the groups that you have mentioned," he said.

Love him or hate him, the Idaho conservative has big plans for the House GOP. “People aren’t indifferent to him,” said one Republican congressman.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Every Republican in Washington has an opinion on Raúl Labrador, the second-term conservative from Idaho.

His allies love him. Labrador's the smartest guy in the room, they say. Opinionated, principled, trustworthy — a leader.

His detractors certainly don't. Those who bristle at the mention of his name contend he's misguided at best and self-serving at worst.

"People aren't indifferent to him," offered one Republican congressman. There's good reason: Since he was elected to office just three years ago, Labrador's built up a powerful base among conservatives and has never been shy about speaking his mind. On everything from immigration to the debt ceiling, the conservative wing of the party has tended to look to Labrador as a leader — and he clearly has big ambitions.

Does he want to be speaker someday?

"I don't think about it that often," Labrador replied in an interview with BuzzFeed.

He then elaborated: "I think a person who is in his second term in the House of Representatives is not qualified to be speaker of the House."

That doesn't mean that he doesn't have big plans for this year. Many in the GOP blame the new breed of staunchly conservative members like Labrador for much of the infighting over the last few years, but to hear Labrador tell it, all he's trying to do is unify the conference. While the legislative load for the rest of the 113th Congress looks light, Labrador says he and other conservatives will be pushing leadership to come up with "a bold agenda, putting things on the floor we are for — that unify the party."

If that means taking tough votes on things like entitlement and welfare reform in the middle of an election year — something members from more vulnerable districts would like to avoid — then so be it.

"That's why I go back to the shutdown. Most people, except for donors, actually thanked us for standing for something," Labrador said.

"It's coming up with a bold agenda," he said. "I think we will lose our opportunity at being the majority in the Senate and we will lose some seats [in the House] if we stand for nothing."

Labrador's commitment to that bold agenda — and his directness about it — has given him leverage and stature among conservatives in the Republican conference.

"I think he's been very open with his statements, he's always been that way," said Rep. Justin Amash, who voted for Labrador for speaker of House at the start of the 113th Congress. "He's a direct representative and people like that. I think he's the kind of guy who would make a good leader in our party. If there are two people that come to mind for leadership, it's Raúl Labrador and [South Carolina Rep.] Mick Mulvaney."

"Will I vote for him for speaker again for sure? I don't know the answer to that," Amash said. "Would I vote for him for speaker again? Yes, I would vote for him for speaker again."

When Labrador entered into the intense, bipartisan immigration deliberations last year, House conservatives gave him room to do so. The rationale: If Labrador agreed to an immigration deal, conservatives wouldn't get thrown under the bus. When he walked away from those talks, they took him at his word that a compromise simply couldn't be reached. He's now adamant that Republicans shouldn't touch immigration reform this year, telling reporters recently, "It's a mistake for us to have an internal battle in the Republican Party this year about immigration reform," and that it would "cost him his speakership" if Boehner were to put an immigration reform bill on the floor.

He's been an outspoken critic of the GOP leadership, most recently becoming one of the first conservative members to have floated the idea of bringing a "clean" debt ceiling to the floor and having it pass with a majority of Democratic votes. And when Boehner struggled to find any 218 votes on any plan he came up with, Labrador eventually got his way, much to the chagrin of many other rank and file Republicans.

The origins of Labrador's plan lay in the government shutdown and the fight over Obamacare that preceded it — a fight Labrador calls a noble one for the conference. When the rollout of the health care looked like a complete disaster, Labrador says that made the fight worth having.

"Most conservatives were actually pretty upbeat. We knew we had lost and we knew we didn't get what we wanted but at least we felt good about having had the fight," he said. "I felt good about that narrative, and then all of a sudden many people in our party started bellyaching about the shutdown and how bad it was and how bad it was for Republicans ... instead of capitalizing on the fact that the American people were really with us on an issue, we started shooting each other."

Labrador claims his clean debt ceiling idea was an effort to avoid Republicans pointing fingers at each other: He believed his party would eventually raise the debt ceiling without preconditions anyway, so they might as well not pretend to fight if they were going to capitulate in the end.

Of course, there are plenty of House Republicans who blame Labrador and his fellow conservatives for a lot of the divisiveness and bitterness among the conference in the last three years.

"The strategies themselves do not reflect a mature approach to governing," said one Republican who counts himself among Labrador's critics but did not want to be named. "Sometimes it's entertaining, sometimes it's annoying, but sometimes the approach appears to be so self-serving it not only hurts our conference — it hurts our country."

"If there's one thing you can admire, it's the willingness to be completely isolated from the majority of the conference," the congressman said.

When debate began over a debt ceiling strategy, other Republicans were stunned that Labrador and other conservatives would suggest bringing a clean debt ceiling to the floor with the understanding quite a few Republican members would be forced to vote for it.

"It's the 'vote no, hope yes' caucus," Rep. Adam Kinzinger said at the time.

For his part, Labrador is unapologetic. He says there are "30 or 40 members who will never fight for anything because they are afraid of what the media was going to say about them. The media is always going to blame us. If we could stand united that would never happen."

"To say we were just fighting for something and end up with a clean debt ceiling—I think that's just lying to the American people," he said of his debt limit solution. "It's OK to lose, but it's not OK to pull the wool over people's eyes."

"[Republicans] were blaming each other and my idea was, 'Let's just move on. It's going to divide our party.'"

“He has to answer why he has not been able to meet with us,” Rep. Keith Ellison told BuzzFeed. “I’m sure he’s busy, but he’s working on stuff we’re also working on.”

Alex Wong / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Progressives are getting things they want, but the one thing progressives on Capitol Hill really want is to talk to President Obama.

It's been four years, by most estimates, since the members of the Progressive Caucus last met with Obama. And even though progressives feel like they're in a generally good place these days, congressional progressives want some face time with the president.

"Why hasn't he met with us? I don't know," Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told BuzzFeed. "We've asked him, we've asked him. He did this executive order stuff … some might say why do you need this meeting? There's other stuff."

There's no real riff between Obama and the progressive caucus, Ellison insisted. They just want the chance other similar groups have had. And Ellison said he feels they deserve that opportunity since they've been, and will continue to be in a tough election year, some of his most ardent supporters.

"We're the ones that are going to defend and protect the Affordable Care Act — we're not running from it," Ellison said.

In general, progressive activists have seen successes in 2014.

When the president pulled chained CPI from his upcoming budget proposal Thursday, progressives celebrated. A few weeks earlier when he signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers, they added another notch to their belt. And in his state of the union when Obama focused his message on fighting income inequality, again they were pleased.

The congressional progressives, however, still want to talk to Obama.

In the past, the president has been criticized for not having the best relationship with Congress, but recently he's tried to cozy up a bit.

Last summer, Obama met with the Black Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus, both of which also have members that are in the Progressive Caucus. Last week, Obama gave a speech at the Democrat retreat in Cambridge, Md., and just a few weeks before that he met with all congressional Democrats in the White House. The president has had a number of meetings or drinks with congressional Democrats in recent months, in fact.

Even House and Senate Republicans got some face time with the president recently, though it was under more hostile conditions during the government shutdown.

"He has to answer why he has not been able to meet with us," Ellison told BuzzFeed. "I'm sure he's busy, but he's working on stuff we're also working on."

Ellison said on Dec. 4 he handed a letter directly to the president requesting some face time for the caucus and like the other times he's asked for access, hasn't received a response.

The White House declined to comment for this story.

The most contentious issue between the congressional progressives and Obama remains trade. Obama wants fast-track trade promotion authority in order to complete trade agreements — including one with the European Union and countries that are part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Progressives don't want to give it to him.

"There is no trust whatsoever with this admin on the trade issue," progressive strategist Mike Lux said.

Lux added that while he "appreciates the movement" on some issues, the president hasn't taken progressive concerns seriously enough.

"Respect issues," Lux said. "There are some problems there."

That trust and respect could be won over with a little face time, Ellison maintains.

"We have some points of view that don't necessarily line up," Ellison said. "We'd like to engage him on our views and maybe he can persuade us on his views, or we can persuade him on our views."

“There is no reason to delay further when no opposition has been presented to this Court and committed gay and lesbian couples have already suffered from the denial of their fundamental right to marry.” [ Update: Advocates say the ruling should impact the entire state.]

Adrin Snider/Newport News Daily Press / MCT

WASHINGTON — Same-sex couples are able to marry in Cook County, Illinois, under a ruling from U.S. District Sharon Johnson Coleman issued Friday.

"There is no dispute here that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and infringes on the plaintiffs' fundamental right to marry," the judge wrote in her opinion. "There is no reason to delay further when no opposition has been presented to this Court and committed gay and lesbian couples have already suffered from the denial of their fundamental right to marry."

The move comes months before the Illinois marriage equality law is due to go into effect.

Johnson Coleman found that because the lawsuit was filed only against the clerk of Cook County, David Orr, that means the decision applies only to Cook County — the state's largest county, which includes Chicago.

Neither Orr nor state officials oppose the move, so it is unlikely the decision can be appealed.

"We are thrilled that the court recognized the unfairness of forcing same-sex couples to wait for months to marry," said Christopher Clark, a lawyer on the case for Lambda Legal, which brought the lawsuit along with the ACLU.

John Knight, the LGBT and AIDS Project director for the ACLU of Illinois, said in a statement, "The U.S. Constitution guarantees these families the personal and emotional benefits as well as the critical legal protections of marriage now, and we are thankful that the court extended this dignity to couples immediately."

Update at 2:45 p.m.: The advocacy groups who brought the suit in Cook County are pressing other clerks across the state to adhere to the judge's ruling.

"We believe that other counties should abide by the ruling. The ruling holds that the current marriage law is unconstitutional," ACLU of Illinois communications and public policy director Edwin C. Yohnka told BuzzFeed.

Asked to specify what the ACLU of Illinois is asking other clerks to do, Yohnka replied, "We are urging other clerks to abide by the ruling."

Lambda Legal's Erik Roldan was not as direct, but echoed Yohnka, telling BuzzFeed, "The ruling declares the marriage ban unconstitutional, and all Illinois county clerks have taken an oath to uphold the Illinois constitution."

Lambda Legal Marriage Project National Director Camilla Taylor told BuzzFeed that the fact that the Illinois ruling Friday was a facial ruling — meaning the judge determined the law was unconstitutional in all circumstances — means that it is applicable statewide.

Read the court's opinion and order:

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