Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement of a $4.75 million data collection grant-based program is met with pushback from advocates seeking federal action to stop racial profiling.

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

WASHINGTON — While advocates praised Attorney General Eric Holder's Monday announcement of a new effort to collect data about racial bias in the criminal justice system at the state level, the action is not the federal ban on racial profiling that the civil rights community has sought from the Obama administration.

Calling the $4.75 million grant-based effort an "important" and "first" step, American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel Jennifer Bellamy told BuzzFeed "a comprehensive ban on profiling" at the federal level "has been the aim of the civil rights community. … That's what we want to see from the administration because the administration has it within its authority to do that tomorrow."

In a video announcing the Justice Department's new National Center for Building Community Trust and Justice, though, Holder did not address the department's ongoing review of its guidance regarding the use of race by federal law enforcement, instead focusing only on the new center.

"Racial disparities contribute to tension in our nation generally and within communities of color specifically, and tend to breed resentment towards law enforcement that is counterproductive to the goal of reducing crime," Holder said. "As a key part of this initiative, we will work with grant recipients and local law enforcement to collect data about stops and searches, arrests, and case outcomes in order to help assess the impact of possible bias. We will conduct this research while simultaneously implementing strategies in five initial pilot sites with the goal of reducing the role of bias and building confidence in the justice system among young people of color."

Not everyone hit on the ACLU's perceived shortcomings of the announcement on Monday.

"The NAACP applauds the new Justice Department initiative to curb racial profiling by collecting data on police stops and arrests," the NAACP's criminal justice director, Dr. Niaz Kasravi, said in a statement. "Racial profiling is a daily reality for communities of color across the country. This initiative will help us better understand the breadth and depth of this problem, work to reduce disproportionate contact with law enforcement, and ultimately reduce the disparate number of people of color being funneled into the criminal justice system."

The ACLU's Bellamy, however, told BuzzFeed, "[T]here's already really good data out there … we already know that this is a problem."

As to the potential for a federal ban on racial profiling, she noted the ongoing review of the guidance — which dates from John Ashcroft's tenure as attorney general under President George W. Bush — saying that "even while this data collection is happening at the state level, the attorney general should also go ahead and issue a comprehensive ban on profiling at the federal level."

In fact, as recently as April 10, a coalition of civil rights groups — including the NAACP and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights — issued a statement pressing for the administration's resolution of the longtime review, stating, "Racial profiling is unlawful and an ineffective law enforcement practice that violates the human rights of the people targeted. It's time for the administration to propose a meaningful update to this policy. We look forward to learning the details of this proposal." (Civil rights groups have been pushing for the change in the guidance for years now.)

A secondary reason — relating to Holder's announcement Monday — that groups have sought the change in the federal guidance, Bellamy said, is that a federal ban would "send a very strong message to the states that this is an inappropriate practice and something that needs to be banned at the state level, too."

Watch Attorney General Holder's announcement:

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The race is on to register voters.

The Rev. William Barber, head of the North Carolina NAACP.

AP Photo/The News & Observer, Chris Seward

WASHINGTON — When North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed a sweeping voter identification law last year, Democrats, civil rights organizations, and the Department of Justice all quickly decried the effort as a blatant attempt to suppress the vote of minorities in the state.

But as the 2014 election draws closer, where vulnerable Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan is up for re-election, minority activist groups see a high potential for the law to mobilize and actually increase voter turnout in a low turnout year, especially among African Americans.

The law's centerpiece, a requirement that all voters present identification, doesn't go into effect until 2016, but a slew of other provisions have caused groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP to sound the alarm bells in advance of November's election. The law limited early voting, got rid of pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds, ended same-day registration, and determined that ballots mistakenly case at the wrong precinct but in the right county will no longer be counted. The ACLU and the NAACP filed suit against the state, as did the Obama administration. Attorney General Eric Holder called the provisions "aggressive steps to curtail the voting rights of African Americans," on the part of the state legislature.

While they are battling the law in court, the NAACP has embarked on an aggressive effort to register voters in the hopes that putting the law at the center of their political efforts will have a profound impact on November's election. They are planning on sending 50 volunteers into counties across the state to "engage in intense issue-based voter registration and voter empowerment campaign," said Laurel Ashton, a field coordinator for the group. Other groups too have committed big resources to voter efforts — including Planned Parenthood Action, which plans to spend $3 million in the state.

The NAACP maintains this is a nonpartisan effort — many of their workers are going into counties that are deeply Republican and majority white. But the group has protested strongly against the state's Republican-controlled legislature, including the state's speaker of the house, Thom Tillis, who is the frontrunner to challenge Hagan. Polls have shown the race to be close in the red state where President Obama remains unpopular.

Rev. William Barber, the president of the NAACP in North Carolina, who has spearheaded protests — known as the Moral Monday movement — argues the energy on the ground will have a bigger impact on the Senate race than people realize.

"All the pundits that are looking at this election have not been afforded the time to look at an election with this kind of moral energy around it," he told BuzzFeed. "People can't measure the season we're in and the electorate is much deeper, more informed, and more committed than ever before."

The NAACP has not endorsed Hagan, but in their pitch to voters Barber said the group planned to put the election in the context of the Voting Rights Act — and that the outcome of the election was larger than any one candidate.

Passed 50 years ago, the VRA required among other things, federal approval for changes to voting laws in states with a history of discrimination at the polls, including North Carolina. After the Supreme Court invalidated that portion of the law, North Carolina was able to immediately enact the changes to state voting laws.

Unless Congress passes a new version of the designations, states like North Carolina can continue to make changes without DOJ's approval.

The NAACP is framing Hagan's race as bigger than just her seat.

"Who ever wins in the Senate race they're going to have an impact in the future… of the Voting Rights Act," Barber said. "And who ever is elected we have to hold them accountable but before that people are going to have to measure who they vote for."

Election experts generally agree with Barber's assessment that the voter I.D. law could help rally a frustrated liberal base this year. Progressives in the state have griped about their displeasure with Hagan, but also indicated that defeating Tillis would be a huge motivator to get people to the polls. Hagan has forcefully spoken out about the law and last year had encouraged the DOJ to look into it.

"A number of the provisions of law are not going to be in effect in 2014. In terms of really suppressing turn out, I don't think that's very likely," said Rick Hasen, a law and political science professor at the University of California-Irvine who studies state election laws. "In fact it could provide a means of increasing turnout because one of the things that we've seen is that Democrats will fundraise and get the vote out by pointing out what they call Republican efforts to suppress the vote."

It's not a new playbook: Democrats have sounded the alarm bells over voter I.D laws in 2012 as well, but African American turnout actually surpassed white turnout in that election, according to the Associated Press. And in Georgia, which has had a voter I.D. law in place since 2007, turnout among black voters has steadily increased.

When McCrory signed the law, he argued in an op-ed that the provisions would "strengthen the integrity of North Carolina's election process."

"Even if the instances of misidentified people casting votes are low, that shouldn't prevent us from putting this non-burdensome safeguard in place," he wrote. "Just because you haven't been robbed doesn't mean you shouldn't lock your doors at night or when you're away from home."

Meanwhile, the national GOP is aggressively trying to combat any notion that the actions of the state legislature would hurt state Republicans with African-American voters. They also dispute that the voting laws would be a deciding factor in the Senate race.

The Republican National Committee has set up early in the state, and established an "African-American engagement office" office in Charlotte. The office has dedicated staff on the ground "going door-to-door to start conversations with people who haven't traditionally been Republican voters," said Orlando Watson, the RNC's communications director for black media.

Watson said they were "finding commonality with black voters."

The effort is part of the Republicans' broader — and much covered — venture to correct the poor performance with minority voters.

"We know that issues like voter I.D. don't restrict people from voting," Watson said. "The fact of the matter of is, if you don't have an I.D. in North Carolina, you can obtain one for free. What we're hearing from voters is that they are facing limited opportunities to succeed, they're struggling to get by in this economy so what we're offering them is a positive message not scare tactics."

Watson's colleague, Tara Wall, who serves as the senior adviser for black media, took offense to the question that something like North Carolina's I.D. law could antagonize black voters.

"It's not OK to assume that laws that are designed to protect voters from fraud have bad motives, or that we, as Republicans, are somehow diabolical in our intentions with free and fair elections," she said. "To me that's insulting. We all want free, fair, elections and we believe that's sacrosanct. It's insulting and not acceptable."

Domenic Gelsomino is running unopposed on the GOP party line for a seat in the Idaho House of Representatives. He is young, conservative, and gay.

Via Twitter: @domgelsomino

One month ahead of the May 20 primary in Idaho, Domenic Gelsomino is already starting to pound the pavement.

The 21-year-old 2013 graduate of Boise State University, whose most recent work experience is as a customer sales associate at Men's Warehouse, wrapped up a door-to-door tour of his first precinct in the Boise area on April 26, a strategy he plans to adopt for the remainder of the district. He said that fundraising is going slowly at the moment, besides the individual contributions of supportive legislators like former state Sen. Russ Fuchler. But he's hopeful that his candidacy will be a success, and more importantly, a piece of history for Idaho. Gelsomino is gay, conservative, and Catholic — and he's trying to not be an anomaly in the future of the Republican Party.

"Idaho gets to see its first openly gay Republican run for office — and a conservative Republican too," Gelsomino said in an interview in March announcing his sexuality at the beginning of the campaign.

Gelsomino and his equally young manager Daniel Tellez Jr. are waging an uphill battle with targeted idealism, trying to carefully balance the tenets of conservative Republicans in the state with a public image initially based on Gelsomino's sexuality.

In fact, the casual visitor to his website wouldn't know LGBT rights are not only a personal issue for Gelsomino, but even a policy concern. There's little to no mention of same-sex marriages or LGBT rights on his site. Gelsomino's site does however emphasize his firm pro-life beliefs and desire to dismantle Obamacare.

Gelsomino says the absence of LGBT issues in his campaign is part of a new strategy aimed at moving past his identity as a gay man and on to his positions as a conservative Republican who just happens to be gay.

"My coming-out was a means to be honest with my voters, be honest with fellow Republicans, and be honest with fellow Idahoans," Gelsomino said. "But I'm not going to be going around publicizing it."

Around the time of his announcement, Gelsomino spoke publicly and gave conditional support to the "Add the Words" initiative in Idaho, which would amend the Idaho Human Rights Act to include specific protections for LGBT Idahoans. Idaho is one of 29 states in which an individual can be legally fired based on sexual orientation. Gelsomino, a devout Catholic, didn't support adding protections for LGBT people because religious institutions wouldn't be exempted.

"As much as the gay community would like to have its rights respected, religious institutions would like to have their rights respected as well," Gelsomino told BuzzFeed. "If they disagree with the lifestyle of the gay community, it's their First Amendment right to do so."

While ideological purists on both sides may not like his attempts at trying to appease both sides, they could be well matched for his district, which has switched between Republicans and Democrats several times. It's that fickleness that Gelsomino hopes will push him past incumbent Democrat Phyllis King, who's held the seat since 2008.

Still, King, who is a sponsor of the Add the Words campaign, argued that the novelty of a gay conservative isn't likely enough to unseat her. "The people who vote for me don't care if he's gay or not," King said. "The Republican voters are the ones who would probably care. And they would vote against that. So, I don't think it's helping him at all — being a Republican and being gay."

Gelsomino also conceded that some LGBT voters have largely turned his back on him for being a conservative.

"I've already been called a backstabber, a traitor, and a token," Gelsomino said. "That R is a stigmata."

Some Idaho GOP candidates directly affiliated with Gelsomino are opposed to issues like same-sex marriage. Republican State Sen. Russ Fulcher, a candidate for governor to whom Gelsomino has referred as a mentor and father figure, argued to institute a statewide same-sex marriage ban in 2006 and has worked to deny domestic same-sex partnership benefits.

"It's a culture war that we're in ... We get pounded by influences that are outside our own great state," Fulcher said at the time.

Fulcher did not respond to a request for comment.

Gelsomino's campaign manager, Tellez Jr., publicly supports Fulcher's campaign on Facebook.

But Gelsomino still doesn't know how Fulcher manages to remain his close friend and supporter while also opposing same-sex marriage rights.

"I unfortunately don't have an answer for that," Gelsomino said. "I guess because it is more of a personable, family-like relationship. That's something within himself that I can't answer. I really don't question it, but I'm grateful for it. He still sees members of the LGBT community as human beings."

i1.ytimg.com

The Republican Party of Idaho is reluctant to discuss Gelsomino and his sexuality this early in the campaign process, but executive director Trevor Thorpe conceded that Gelsomino faces a difficult challenge to win over Republicans.

"I don't think anyone would deny the fact that he has some barriers to get over," Thorpe said.

"After the primary, of course, we'll support [Gelsomino] — as we will any other candidate," Thorpe said. "And hopefully we can support him to the level where we can help him to win that seat which is currently held by a Democrat. During the primary, we have to be impartial. But I would support all of our Republican candidates."

When asked why the party wasn't supporting Gelsomino at this time, given that he's currently running unopposed, Thorpe said: "We're just not engaging in elections at this point."

Whether or not Gelsomino will come out the victor in November, he is already putting his candidacy in the context of national GOP politics.

"There have been other LGBT Republicans that have won in legislative races in Republican states," Gelsomino said. "This is just the beginning of the reshaping of the party that people like Rand Paul have been talking about. It's a reshaping of the party that will lead it into the future and will lead it into victories and show the people that we're not a party of close-minded bigots or anything else."

At least one political strategist in Idaho, conceding that he didn't have a huge amount of familiarity with District B 18, agreed with Gelsomino's cause.

"I think it is about time we had an openly gay Republican candidate for the legislature in Idaho," said Ron Lahr, a member of the Idaho-based group Strategery. "While there are certainly some homophobes in the party here I don't believe it is a majority and I welcome the chance for some increased diversity in our elected officials. I liked Dom's Facebook page as a tiny measure of support and hope he wins."

It's a small gesture to work towards one of Lahr's larger goals.

"Ultimately, in Idaho, just like in the entire country, if the only candidates the Republican Party runs are older, white, straight males we will end up as a minor party in the future," Lahr said. "We need to be the party for everyone where our ideas are what win voters over to us, not ethnic background or sexual preference."

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Month-long protests set to end with symbolic vigil. “So from Obama’s home, we are now going to Jeh Johnson’s house to ask him to expand deferred action and release those set to be deported ASAP,” Erika Andiola first told BuzzFeed.

Dream Action Coalition

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

Month-long protests in front of the White House by DREAMers and activists whose families have been personally affected by record deportations are set to end in front of a different house — the personal home of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

Ten to 15 activists plan to set up a candlelight vigil early Wednesday morning outside the home of Johnson, who President Obama tasked earlier this year with a review of current enforcement policies, BuzzFeed has learned.

"We want to go very peacefully and bring pictures of those who are still detained," immigration activist Erika Andiola said. "We don't want a lot of people; we also understand he has children and a wife."

Andiola is frustrated that there has been very little movement in two of the cases her organization has been advocating for since the protests and hunger strikes began.

One is the case of Ardany Rosales, a man with two U.S. citizen children, who is in detention after he was arrested on a traffic violation. Rosales is in the same place he was when the activists began their actions in early April.

Things have gone differently for hunger striker and young activist Cynthia Diaz, who will see her mother, Maria del Rosario Rodriguez, for the first time in three years Saturday.

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Publishing sources cast doubt on Ed Klein’s reporting. “I can imagine why some folks in New York might be uncomfortable with some of the revelations in the book, but we are not,” says Regnery’s president, Marji Ross.

The Truth About Hillary, a 2005 book about Hillary Clinton by the conservative author, Edward Klein, is displayed on a New York City bookstore shelf. Klein's next book, Blood Feud, will focus on the relationship between Clinton and President Obama.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Best-selling conservative writer Ed Klein has split with HarperCollins, a major publishing house and subsidiary of News Corp, over an upcoming book that is said to chronicle the "deep rivalry" between the Obama and Clinton families.

Klein's new book, titled Blood Feud, will now be released by the movement publishing house, Regnery, his agent and new publisher said.

Two publishing sources blamed the contract termination on Klein's reporting, which has been called into question in the past by his subjects and the political press. Klein's agent and publisher would not comment on the reasons for the split. Both said their author left HarperCollins's William Morrow imprint by choice.

But the feud is an early sign of the new challenges facing an unsteady conservative book business — and of the stakes accompanying a reborn anti-Clinton industry.

Klein, who edited the New York Times Magazine during a period in the 1970s, is the author most recently of The Amateur, a deeply critical portrait of President Obama, whom Klein casts as "arrogant" and "completely inexperienced."

The book was published by Regnery.

Klein's reporting has been widely disputed, notably with his 2005 book, The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President. The book indulged in, among other things, unsubstantiated rumors that Clinton is a lesbian. (The New York Times reviewer described it as "a lazy, cut-and-paste recycling of other people's work," while a conservative New York Post columnist called it "trash" motivated by a "greedy hunger to separate millions of conservative book buyers from their hard-earned 25 bucks.")

Klein drew the title for his most recent book from a private conversation he outlines in dramatic detail between Bill and Hillary Clinton. "Barack Obama is an amateur!" the former president allegedly exclaims to his wife. Bill Clinton's spokesman immediately denied the remark, calling Klein a "known liar."

Regnery released The Amateur during Obama's reelection campaign. It spent six weeks at the top of the New York Times best-seller list, and has sold more than 230,000 hardback and paperback copies, according to Nielsen BookScan.

In September 2012, after the Obama book's successful run, Klein inked a deal with the HarperCollins imprint William Morrow for two books. One would expose the "networks of power and influence that control the left-wing political agenda"; the other would cover next Democratic nominee for president. HarperCollins announced the deal in a press release touting the author's "deep sources" and his book's "jaw-dropping revelations."

But on Monday morning, in the trade publication Publisher's Weekly, Regnery quietly announced they would release Klein's next book, Blood Feud, on June 23.

Two publishing sources said Klein's contract with HarperCollins had been terminated over concerns about the reporting quality. One said problems occurred when the manuscript underwent a standard legal vetting process this spring.

A HarperCollins spokesperson would not answer questions about Klein's contract.

The publishing house was still promoting the book late last year, when it released its Winter 2014 catalog. The catalog said the Klein project, then still untitled, would come in at 288 pages, set for hardback and audiobook release on April 22.

Klein, reached by phone on Monday, referred questions to his agent, Ryan D. Harbage, and publisher, Regnery president Marji Ross. Both denied that Klein had left HarperCollins over a dispute about the reporting for the project.

Klein has worked with multiple publishers during his 18-year career in books. But his move from Regnery to William Morrow of HarperCollins, for an advance rumored to be as high as $1 million, was seen as a boon to Klein's next projects.

"It was Ed's decision to leave Harper, not the other way around," said Ross, who also oversaw the publication of The Amateur at Regnery. "Harper/Morrow did not request to 'cancel' it. Ed requested to be released."

Book contracts are not easily cancelled. Most often, agreements between authors and publishing houses can be terminated when a manuscript is long overdue. But canceling for other reasons — including quality of the book, or disagreements between the writer and the publishing house — is more difficult, and less common.

Ross said that Klein requested the termination of his contract within the last 10 days, and signed a new deal, for two books, with Regnery within the last week.

"We are very excited to be publishing Ed's next book," Ross said, calling it "very well sourced and well-documented." She said she has read the manuscript "thoroughly," and promised that Klein's reporting on the Clinton-Obama rift would "definitely make news" when it is released this June.

Ross also confirmed that Blood Feud, and the reporting therein, is the same book Klein had been working on while under contract with HarperCollins.

"I can imagine why some folks in New York might be uncomfortable with some of the revelations in the book, but we are not," Ross said. "We are extremely careful to make sure our books are accurate, but we are not afraid to ruffle a few feathers along the way."

Harbage, a Brooklyn-based agent at the Fischer-Harbage Agency, would not comment on the reasons that drove a split between Klein and HarperCollins.

"It was Ed's decision to move to Regnery," Harbage said.

"Ed has published eight nonfiction books, with a few different publishers. They've all been best-sellers. His only book to debut at No. 1 was published by Regnery."

The NRSC says they are “glad” the issue has been resolved.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee settled with the Federal Election Commission over some campaign finance violations dating back to 2012.

Via targetedvictory.netatlantic.com

"The Reports Analysis Division (RAD) referred Respondents for failing to file three (3) required 48-Hour Reports. Respondents filed the Committee's 2012 October Monthly Report on October 19,2012 which included a Schedule E disclosing fifty-six (56) independent expenditures. The Committee failed to file three (3) required 48-Hour Reports to support seven (7) independent expenditures totaling $289,213.65."

"A person, including a political committee, that makes or contracts to make
independent expenditures aggregating $10,000 or more at any time up to and including the 20th day before the date of an election shall file a report describing the expenditures within 48 hours. After a person files an initial report under this subsection, the person shall file an additional report within 48 hours after each time the person makes or contracts to make independent expenditures aggregating an additional $10,000 with respect to the same election as that to which the initial report relates."

"This matter was initiated by the Federal Election Commission (Commission) pursuant to information ascertained in the normal course of carrying out its supervisory responsibilities."

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White House press secretary Jay Carney reaffirms Obama’s support for the death penalty in the wake of a botched execution in Oklahoma.

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WASHINGTON — President Obama continues to support the death penalty, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday, although Carney said Tuesday's botched execution in Oklahoma was inhumane.

"I haven't discussed this particular report with the president," Carney said of the attempted execution of Clayton Lockett, in which the execution began and was stopped following the administration of the lethal drugs, and Lockett's death by a heart attack occurred shortly thereafter. "What I can tell you is that he has long said that while the evidence suggests that the death penalty does little to deter crime, he believes there are some crimes that are so heinous that the death penalty is merited. In this case, or these cases, the crimes are indisputably horrific and heinous."

"But it's also the case that we have a fundamental standard in this country that even when the death penalty is justified, it must be carried out humanely. And I think everyone would recognize that this case fell short of that standard," Carney added.

A second planned execution in the state, of Charles Warner, was postponed.

Following up, Carney was asked whether the Justice Department would investigate the Oklahoma situation, to which he said he was "not aware of any such effort," though he directed further questions to the Justice Department.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin is due to give a statement about the situation shortly.

LINK: Oklahoma Inmate Dies Of Heart Attack After Botched Execution Is Halted

Lawyers argue at the Supreme Court over whether the Constitution protects arrested people from having their cell phones searched without a warrant.

Gary Cameron / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Should the police's ability to search through your phone be a decision made on "an app-by-app basis"? That's one of the questions facing the Supreme Court in two cases the justices heard Tuesday.

The court will consider how changes in technology should affect the limits on searches of smartphones after arrest in the cases — and several justices expressed concerns at the court Tuesday about the broad range of information and services stored in today's phones.

"It has always been the case that an occasion of an arrest did not give the police officers authority to search through the private papers and the drawers and bureaus and cabinets of somebody's house," attorney Jeffrey Fisher argued Tuesday, in defense of David Leon Riley, who was found with photos and notes on his phone that police used to show involvement in gang-related activity. "That protection should not evaporate more than 200 years after the founding because we have the technological development of smartphones that have resulted in people carrying that information in their pockets."

The justices are not likely to rule on the two cases — Riley's and that of Brima Wurie, which concerns drugs found by obtaining the defendant's home address through his flip phone — until June. But after arguments, a majority of the justices appeared to want some searches allowed, though aware that the breadth of information stored on smartphones today could make a bright-line rule allowing such post-arrest searches without a warrant to be constitutionally problematic.

Lawyers on both sides, as well, allowed that a completely ironclad rule in their direction wasn't necessarily possible or advisable.

On the defense side, the exception to a ban on searches for "exigent," or demanding, circumstances appeared to pick up some relevance with the justices. On the other side, the lawyers for the United States and California argued that the justices could craft an opinion with limiting principles, such as requiring certain justifications for a search or limiting the scope of the search, the duration of the search, or even whether the search could reach into data held in the cloud and not on the phone itself.

Nonetheless, the government lawyers were arguing for the broadest possible exemption for cell phone searches "incident to arrest," although California Solicitor General Edward DuMont gave a few answers that prompted Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito to comment, as Alito worded it, that DuMont could "amend" his answer.

"Mr. Chief Justice, it's an arms race between the forensic capabilities of law enforcement labs and the abilities of cell phone manufacturers and criminals to devise technologies that will thwart them," Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, arguing for the United States, said at one point.

Despite the push for a rule — basically an extension of earlier Supreme Court cases allowing police to examine, for example, the contents of a cigarette package in a person's pocket after an arrest to the contents of a person's smartphone — Justice Stephen Breyer appeared open to avoiding any decision on the ultimate question, asking if it was possible for the questions presented in the case to be "be fed into the word 'exigency,' which we wouldn't have to decide now." The reason, Breyer continued, was that lawyers could then make arguments for exclusion or exclusion "in the context of — of what turns out to be the technology of the time."

Although Dreeben said such a decision would create problems for police in the field, the issue of whether the technology in theses cases will continue to be relevant in the future kept coming up in the case.

The second case, in fact, involved the police examination of the call log on a flip phone. When the phrase "my home" came up in an incoming call made to Brima Wurie, police examined the missed call, found the phone number associated with what Wurie had labeled "my home," searched a reverse directory to find the house, and went to the home in question — where they found drugs.

Whether a constitutional decision about flip phone technology will have long-term direct application seems unlikely, but the bigger picture was not lost on Wurie's lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender Judith Mizner. Although Mizner got tripped up a few times in sparring with the justices, she hit on a key question for the justices when debating with Alito and Justice Antonin Scalia about the nature of the Fourth Amendment's bar on unreasonable searches.

Talking about the earlier cases involving objects found in pockets of arrested people, Alito said that "in the pre­digital era, presumably people didn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in ... things that they might be carrying on their persons" and that therefore examining such things after an arrest was not a search.

Mizner responded, "I believe it is a search, Justice Alito. It's a question of whether it is a search that has been justified by an exception to the warrant requirement."

Scalia shot back: "Why do you say they are an exception to the Fourth Amendment? ... [T]he Fourth Amendment covers certain things and it doesn't cover other things. The things that it doesn't cover are not ... exceptions. They're just things not covered."

At another point, in California's case against Riley, Dreeben made clear the difficulty of making constitutional rules when dealing with rapidly changing technology. When responding to Justice Sonia Sotomayor's questions about whether police are able to prevent remote harms coming to a phone by putting it in airplane mode, he replied, "The assumption that we're going to have airplane mode and that the court should craft a constitutional rule around airplane mode assumes that cell phones are not going to be able to be used in airplanes in the next five years and that manufacturers will continue to make an easily available button for airplane mode. I don't think the court should found a constitutional ruling on that assumption."

But the most likely outcome of the two cases was apparent in a question posed by Justice Anthony Kennedy to Fisher in his defense of the Riley case. "[I]f we rule for the government in its case in Wurie, in the federal case," Kennedy asked, "is there some standard where we could draw the line which would still result in a judgment in your favor?"

Fisher acknowledged that the answer was yes.

In fact, many of the "sometimes yes, sometimes no" solutions, as Breyer put it — from allowing the "exigent circumstances" exception for a search to be used on a case-by-case basis to setting "limiting principles" on a rule that would allow such searches without a warrant after an arrest — would lead to such a divergent ruling in the two cases. Sotomayor even floated another possibility, in which a "plain view" exception would be made, allowing some basic viewing of information on smartphones but not more in-depth searches.

“[A]n independent review of the state’s procedures would be appropriate and effective,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin says.

WASHINGTON — Less than a day after a botched execution in her state, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin announced a review of the state's execution procedures while maintaining strong support for the death penalty as a punishment.

"[A]n independent review of the state's procedures would be appropriate and effective," Fallin said, after first noting that she believed that legal process itself, which assigned the death sentence, worked in this case. "I believe the death penalty is an appropriate response and punishment to those who commit heinous crimes against their fellow men and women."

After Clayton Lockett's execution was halted after the administration of lethal drugs Tuesday night and he later died of a heart attack, Fallin put a hold on the second planned execution for the day, that of Charles Warner.

The review — led by the state's Department of Public Safety, headed by Commissioner Michael Thompson, despite Fallin's use of the word "independent" in describing the review — will look at Lockett's cause of death, including an assessment by an independent pathologist authorized by the state medical examiner, determine whether the state's execution protocol was followed, and develop recommendations for future executions.

"The state needs to be certain of its protocols and procedures for executions and that they work," she said. "I expect the review process to be deliberate, to be thorough, and it will be the first step in evaluating our state's execution protocols."

The stay of execution in Warner's case only lasts until May 13, but Fallin said there is no deadline for the review and that she would issue a further stay if the review is not done by that time.

Both Lockett and Warner had unsuccessfully challenged the state's provision keeping the sources of the lethal drugs used in executions secret.

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The senator emphasized an energy-based approach for the United States in dealing with Russia in Ukraine. Part of Cruz’s foray into foreign policy.

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz called Wednesday for an energy-based approach to addressing Russia's increasingly aggressive steps in eastern Europe, arguing steps ranging from expansion of natural-gas exports to increasing the use of petroleum-based fuel by the U.S. Navy will counter the Russian "Petro-Tyrant."

Speaking at a Wall Street Journal event with Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, the conservative Texan also slammed President Obama's leadership on the Russian crisis in Ukraine.

"We should have spoken out far more unequivocally in support of freedom in Ukraine … we should have seen far more leadership."

Cruz hinted that he also believes Obama has been weak in his response, which has encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin's activities.

"Putin in my view is not a complicated world leader .. in my view, he is consistently pressing to reassemble as much of [the soviet empire] as possible … [and] his response to weakness is to press and press and press until he encounters meaningful resistance," Cruz said.

Although Cruz has become a force in Washington on domestic spending issues, he has only recently begun to stake out hard lines in the foreign policy realm, including calling for Secretary of State John Kerry's resignation this week.

At the event, Cruz provided some details on his thinking on foreign policy approaches in Eastern Europe. For instance, he called on the administration to immediately "install antiballistic missile batteries in the Czech Republic and Poland," charging that the decision to not do so has exacerbated the crisis. "That appeasement hasn't worked. And our allies are expressing considerable nervousness at the size of the Russian bear."

Cruz also picked up a common Republican talking point on the Ukraine crisis in pushing for the quick expansion of liquid natural gas exports to Ukraine and other European nations that rely on Russian energy sources.

The administration should work with the Ukrainian government to help "install the facilities to accept liquid natural gas," and said the White House should approve the 22 LNG export permits now under review. "In my opinion the admin should approve all 22 of them. To allow them to go through," Cruz said.

But he also expanded those talking points into domestic energy spending by the Department of Defense. Cruz criticized a Navy alternative fuels program based on algae, insisting that it is a "luxury" the department can ill afford during tight fiscal times and said the Navy should revert to conventional fossil fuels. Similarly, Cruz criticized a failed Air Force wind-farm project that is now being dismantled.

As for U.S. relations with Europe, Cruz again had no kind words for the administration, arguing its leadership of NATO has weakened the U.S. position. "There is no doubt that NATO right now is having a crisis in terms of its ability to prevent Russian aggression. That is making our allies deeply uncertain to the degree to which the United States will stand with them," Cruz said.

“You are slaves.”

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All hail, most powerful Dome-nut.

en.wikipedia.org

en.wikipedia.org

And a sizable portion of D.C. has given their out-of-town friends tours of the dome.

"Yea, I work here." brushes shoulder off

Via famousdc.com

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With immigration legislation stalled in Washington, Republicans in a key state move to help undocumented immigrants. UPDATED

Immigrant advocates watched the tuition bill work its way through the Florida legislature.

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Florida will allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public universities and colleges, becoming the 20th state to offer tuition relief to immigrant youths.

The state legislature on Friday passed a bill, expected to be signed into law, which would apply to immigrants who have attended Florida schools for at least three years.

Undocumented students in Florida currently pay out-of-state tuition rates, which at many schools can be three to four times higher than in-state rates.

Still, only a relatively small number of students will have access to in-state tuition. Rather than treating undocumented students as Florida residents, the law instead allows them to compete for a limited number of tuition-fee waivers available to out-of-state applicants.

Despite this limitation, advocates in Florida and on the national level hailed the legislation.

"This is a wonderful development," said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. "It's not only a benefit for [the students], it's an investment in the future of Florida."

The bill's good prospects in a Republican-dominated state is a mark of efforts by the party's establishment to advance pro-immigrant policies, and to court Latino voters. In Florida, the legislation was sponsored by Republicans in both the senate and the house.

"Increasingly, Republicans have been not only supporting tuition equity but actually sponsoring legislation, as they did in Florida," said Tanya Broder, senior attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. "[The Florida bill] certainly provides more evidence that tuition equity in particular, and pro-immigrant policies in general, are not only good policy but also good politics."

Juan Escalante, a 25-year-old activist and graduate student at Florida State University, has long advocated for the bill, and has watched it get scuttled in the legislature on several occasions. Escalante, whose family migrated to Florida from Venezuela when he was 11 years old, will likely benefit from the law, as will his two younger brothers.

"I want this to pass not only for me and my brothers, but also for students all over the state," he said. "They should be allowed the opportunity to become productive citizens, to contribute to our state and our country."

Governor Rick Scott, elected in the anti-immigration tea party wave of 2010, threw his weight behind the bill in a sharp turn away from his past positions on immigration. Scott had campaigned aggressively for a crackdown on immigrants explicitly modeled on Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law, and he has vetoed pro-immigrant legislation as recently as last year, including a bill that would have allowed immigrants access to state ID cards.

Many see this reversal as brazen political pandering to Latino voters ahead of this year's gubernatorial election. Simon, of the ACLU, characterized the move as "flailing around from one extreme to another in order to win reelection."

"The Hispanic vote is really up for grabs and really crucial" in the upcoming election, said Simon. "The governor needs to make sure he doesn't alienate Hispanic voters like he has in the past."

Former White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor was being interviewed on Fox News about emails and talking points concerning the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Via The Washington Free Beacon YouTube / Via youtube.com

Here's the full video of the interview:

An HHS review board will soon make a ruling. A major change with potentially far-reaching consequences.

en.wikipedia.org

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services is expected to end Medicare's blanket ban on sex-reassignment surgery at the end of a panel review, according to sources familiar with the process.

Because Medicare guides many insurance industry decisions, eliminating the blanket ban on the procedure could have significant consequences in the private health insurance market for the transgender community, transgender rights advocates say.

Medicare has for decades considered sex-reassignment surgery "experimental," despite opposition from many major medical professional associations and LGBT advocates, who say the ban denies necessary care to transgender people. The private insurance industry has also been slow to adopt coverage options for sex-reassignment surgery and related care, something advocates say stems from the Medicare ban.

That could begin changing in the next couple weeks, as an independent HHS review panel hands down its ruling on a challenge to the Medicare ban filed last year by the ACLU, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Lifting the blanket ban would not necessarily mean Medicare would then cover sex-reassignment surgery, but would make it possible for Medicare officials to consider covering the procedure. The change would allow the government study coverage options just as it does for other medical procedures.

Last year, the three groups filed what's called an "administrative challenge" to the ban with the HHS Departmental Appeals Board, which generally makes final HHS rulings that can then be appealed to federal court. The challenge centered on the case of Denise Mallon, a 73-year-old transgender Army vet whose doctors recommended sex-reassignment surgery as a treatment for gender-identity disorder.

For a year, the challenge has wound its way through the HHS appeals structure. On Feb. 25, the HHS Departmental Appeals Board issued an interim ruling, spurring a 90-day window until the board makes its final ruling on the challenge, or announces an extension of the review period is needed. The interim ruling stated the board had "determined that the new evidence submitted by the aggrieved party 'has the potential to significantly affect' the Board's evaluation" of the ban — or in other words, that the evidence presented suggested the blanket ban would be overturned.

Since 1981, Medicare's ban on sex-reassignment surgery has stood in the way of people like Mallon, who are seeing treatment for a disorder recognized by major medical advocates like the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, and American Psychological Association.

The difference between those groups' official stances on sex-reassignment surgery and Medicare's is stark.

"AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder as recommended by the patient's physician," reads a section from the group's bylaws.

According to a May 2012 statement, the American Psychiatric Association "advocates for removal of barriers to care and supports both public and private health insurance coverage for gender transition treatment."

Medicare's three-decades-old ban reads much differently.

"Because of the lack of well-controlled, long-term studies of the safety and effectiveness of the surgical procedures and attendant therapies for transsexualism, the treatment is considered experimental," reads the existing Medicare language. "Moreover, there is a high rate of serious complications for these surgical procedures. For these reasons, transsexual surgery is not covered."

"Transsexual surgery for sex reassignment of transsexuals is controversial," the current language states.

Advocates closely watching the HHS appeal timeline believe a win is coming, but have been reluctant to say so publicly. The advocacy groups directly behind the Medicare challenge declined to speak on the record about it.

Critics have tried to shut down a re-examination of the ban before. A parallel track administration proposal to review the ban was scrapped last year by HHS leadership after controversy erupted among critics who questioned the need for Medicare funds to cover what was once called "sex change" surgery.

That term is outmoded, say experts, as is the contention that sex-reassignment surgery — which some transgender advocates have begun calling "gender-affirmation surgery" — is experimental and unproven.

"It's helping people be who they really are," said Stephen Forssell, director of the Graduate Program in LGBT Health Policy and Practice at George Washington University. "It's a body that does not match how you identify. We as a society should be helping people do that. I find that medically necessary."

Forssell said Medicare's understanding of sex-reassignment surgery is well behind the current medical understanding of it and current suite of medical capabilities. Transgender patients have been found to enjoy innumerate psychological benefits from sex-reassignment surgery, and it is seen as a much more accepted part of medicine than it was in 1981, he said.

Some private insurance has begun covering sex-reassignment surgeries as well as associated care that comes with it. But many companies are still staying away from the new coverage options, citing cost and other concerns. Though cases are still working their way through the courts, current understanding of the Affordable Care Act is that the insurance reforms in the bill do not force companies to cover gender reassignment.

That's partly why ending the Medicare ban is seen as so important among advocates, as well as increased awareness around other health-related issues the transgender community faces. Companies and insurers often take their coverage cues from what the government pays for with Medicare, so if the government stops calling sex-reassignment surgeries "experimental," company plans could follow.

Even lifting the blanket ban could be a powerful victory for the transgender community, say the advocates, and could create a healthcare legacy for the Obama administration that goes beyond Obamacare.

"Medicare is really the 900-pound gorilla of insurance coverage," Baker said.

The cable news version of The View is everything the world was hoping it would be.

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So baby gimme that toot toot. Lemme give you that beep beep.

“Some white people really do think they should tell the history of black experiences. Sad paternalists. We can speak for ourselves,” Barry wrote in one tweet.

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File

WASHINGTON — DC City Council Member and former Mayor Marion Barry slammed HBO for hiring two white writers to pen an upcoming biopic about him, accusing the network of paternalism and attempting to speak for black Americans in a series of tweets.

Barry, a beloved figure in Washington, is perhaps best known for his 1990 arrest at the Vista Hotel for smoking crack during an FBI sting.

Barry, who's autobiography "Mayor for Life" is set to be released later this year, took to twitter Friday morning to vent his frustration over HBO's decision to hire local reporter Tom Sherwood and crime novelist George Pelecanos to write the screenplay for the movie based on Barry's life. Sherwood is the co-author of Dream City, which will serve as the basis for the money.

"Some white people really do think they should tell the history of black experiences. Sad paternalists. We can speak for ourselves," Barry wrote in one tweet.

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President spoke Swahili to 12 Years a Slave star.

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WASHINGTON — The president greeted a star of the Oscar-winning film 12 Years a Slave in her native tongue Saturday ahead of the White House Correspondents Association Dinner Saturday night.

A source familiar with the meeting said the president and Mrs. Obama met with a group of A-listers Saturday ahead of the annual confab featuring journalists, politicians, and celebrities.

Among the group were Robert DeNiro, cast members from the hit ABC sitcom Modern Family, and Lupita Nyong'o, who won and Oscar for her performance in 12 Years.

The source said President Obama spoke to Nyong'o in Swahili. All the celebrities were guests of media organizations who bought the roughly $2,000 each tables at the annual dinner.

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting.

The justices — in a 5-4 decision — ruled that the New York town of Greece’s opening prayer is constitutionally allowed.

The U.S. Supreme Court on March 5.

Gary Cameron / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, in a sharply divided opinion, upheld a New York town's practice of opening its monthly town meetings with a prayer.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for himself and the four more conservative justices, concluded, "The town of Greece does not violate the First Amend­ment by opening its meetings with prayer that comports with our tradition and does not coerce participation by nonadherents."

The court previously had upheld the practice of the Nebraska legisla­ture to open its sessions "with a prayer deliv­ered by a chaplain paid from state funds," but the question before the court with the town of Greece's practice was similarly protected, despite taking place at meetings where individual town citizens sought action from the town. The question was whether the practice is permitted where the prayers are "sectarian in nature" — one of the prayers in the town referenced the "death, resurrection, and ascension of the Savior Jesus Christ," for example — and whether the prayers exerted impermissible "coercive pressures" on nonbelievers.

Kennedy concluded, though, that "[a]n insistence on nonsectarian or ecumenical prayer as a single, fixed standard is not consistent with the tradition of legislative prayer outlined in the Court's cases."

He added, however, that the decision on this point does not mean that sectarian prayer could never violate the Constitution, specifically noting, "If the course and practice over time shows that the invocations denigrate nonbeliev­ers or religious minorities, threaten damnation, or preach conversion, ... [t]hat circumstance would present a different case than the one presently before the Court."

The five justices in the majority also held that — in the case of Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito — the purpose and effect of the prayer was not coercive or — in the case of Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for himself and Justice Antonin Scalia — the subtle pressures at play here do not amount to legal coercion.

Justice Elena Kagan, explaining her dissent on behalf of herself and the other three more liberal justices, countered that "month in and month out for over a decade, prayers steeped in only one faith, addressed toward members of the public, commenced meetings to discuss local affairs and distribute government benefits.

She went on to write "that practice does not square with the First Amendment's promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share in her government."