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Democrats, Immigration Activists Slam Obama Immigrant Family-Detention Plan

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“I don’t think small children should be locked up in jail,” Sen. Bob Menendez said Friday.

Damaged and repaired sections of the U.S.–Mexico border fence at the southern limit of John Ladd's ranch near Naco, Ariz.

Will Seberger / MCT

WASHINGTON — House and Senate Democrats Friday slammed the Obama administration's plan to house undocumented families in detention centers, calling it an inhumane and unnecessary solution to the growing crisis on the southern border.

On Friday the White House announced the new detention centers as part of a broader plan to address the tens of thousands of undocumented minors that have flooded into the United States over the last year. Although most have come without their parents, a number of families have also begun moving north from Central America.

"I don't think small children should be locked up in jail," Sen. Bob Menendez said in a statement. "There is consensus that we must quickly address this refugee and humanitarian crisis, but to say that a child who is apprehended at the border with their parent must remain locked up throughout their judicial proceeding is simply a step too far."

"Using up our nation's resources to jail families will not be a deterrent — these kids are fleeing violence and are willing to risk their lives to cross the border. The threat of a jail will not stop these families from coming here. Instead, we need to fully address the root causes of the crisis," Menendez added.

Likewise, Douglas Rivlin, a spokesman for Rep. Luis Gutierrez, also criticized the detention plan, saying in a statement, "Congressman Gutiérrez does not support the idea of putting children and families fleeing violence in detention while they await our courts to catch up to the current crisis. There are alternatives to detention like ankle bracelets and supervision to manage the backlog in processing that are much more humane and cost-effective than tax-payer funded public or for-profit detention centers."

Erika Andiola, a DREAMer activist, warned that keeping children in detention centers could do long-term damage to them. "I can not even imagine what those children would have to go through physically and psychologically being detained like if they were a danger to society. Many of them come from traumatizing situations in their country already."

LINK: Immigrant Minors Alleged Mistreatment By U.S. Border Officials

LINK: White House Plans To Move 1,000 Immigrant Minors To Richmond, Baltimore


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House Votes To Limit Spying On Americans, Ban NSA "Backdoor" Access

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In a surprise move Thursday night, the House voted to limit spying on U.S. citizens and prohibit requiring “backdoor” access for products and services.

National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.

AP

A year after Edward Snowden's massive document leak, the House voted 293 to 123 in favor of an amendment to a $570 billion defense spending bill that would place new limits on government spying on Americans. The bill will head next to the Senate for consideration.

The amendment would cut off funding for the warrantless collection of online personal information, such as emails and browsing history. It also prohibits requiring "backdoor" access for the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency into web services and tech products.

The Republican-led House joined forces with Democrats for bipartisan support on the measure that they said had been removed from an earlier bill on bulk collection. Objections were considered from committee leaders.

Radomes of the former monitoring base of NSA in Bad Aibling, Germany.

CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP / Getty Images

After the vote, Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, Democrat Zoe Lofgren, and Republican Thomas Massie, who sponsored the measure, released a statement that said it "will reinstate an important provision that was stripped" from Americans:

"There's no question Americans have become increasingly alarmed with the breadth of unwarranted government surveillance programs used to store and search their private data. By adopting this amendment, Congress can take a sure step toward shutting the back door on mass surveillance. This amendment will reinstate an important provision that was stripped from the original USA FREEDOM Act to further protect the Constitutional rights of American citizens. Congress has an ongoing obligation to conduct oversight of the intelligence community and its surveillance authorities."


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House Votes To Keep Funding Post-9/11 Military Force Laws As Obama Sends Advisers To Iraq

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The AUMF isn’t going anywhere this week.

Rep. Barbara Lee

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — As President Obama sends up to 300 military advisers to Iraq to address the escalating threat of ISIS, Congress will allow Obama to keep his authority to handle the crisis himself.

The House voted late Thursday night to keep everything exactly as it has been, voting down efforts to limit or cut off funding for U.S. engagement in Iraq. Significant bipartisan support for changing the sweeping laws that first authorized military action for the War on Terror, however, indicate the issue isn't going to just disappear.

Several amendments to the Department of Defense appropriations bill, offered by Rep. Barbara Lee of California, were voted down. Lee tried to attach provisions to prohibit funding for combat operations in Iraq, end funding for the 2002 Iraq Authorized Use of Military Force and sunset funds to the 2001 AUMF after December 2014.

Lee wasn't upset that her amendments had failed, she said Friday. Instead she argued that the broad bipartisan group that supported her bills indicated a growing change in the Congress.

"They were really good votes," she told BuzzFeed. "They were bipartisan and we've got to continue to make sure that Congress is involved in exercising our constitutional responsibility in terms of our war making. There will be more conversations, the American people are war-weary and they are going to demand it."

The vote to end funds for the 2001 AUMF failed 157-260, with 21 Republicans voting for the amendment. The 2002 Iraq AUMF amendment failed 182-231, with 31 Republicans joining most Democrats in support of it.

A good chunk of the Republicans supporting the Lee amendments were from the Libertarian wing of the party — but not all of them were. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the GOP conference chair, voted to prohibit funds going to the 2002 AUMF. Rep. Scott Rigell, a Republican from a military-heavy district, voted for all three Lee amendments.

"My two votes with respect to Iraq indicate my conviction that the president can use U.S military force and personnel to protect our embassy but going beyond that in my view, the authorization for use of military force is no longer valid," he said. "We've had not one, but two presidents state that the war was over."

Rigell said that the desire of Congress to continue to give the president flexibility when it comes to Iraq "cannot be refuted," and that believes strongly the president needs new approval to engage further in Iraq.

"I think that was evidenced last night with the two votes failing," he said. "This is an important debate that must take place and I appreciate my colleague Ms. Lee bringing them to the floor."

Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, a longtime critic of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that because of House rules, it was more difficult for Lee to get enough support for the amendments to pass. On spending bills, amendments must only be related to dollar amounts — not policy — making a substantive debate harder.

"You don't even get a chance to clear your throat to explain what these amendments do and explain what they are all about," he said. "All you can do is add or subtract, if you get into policy it doesn't become germane. So I wouldn't read too much into those votes failing. There's a great deal of skepticism on both sides of the aisle about more war and endless war. Look the way the process is set up; it's hard to deliberate here."

Several Republicans who voted against the amendments told BuzzFeed they would be open to further debate on the AUMFs in the future. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida and the former chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs committee, said while she wasn't inclined to support the Lee amendments, she still believed Congress should be having more conversations and committee hearings on the AUMF.

"I think they deserve a fuller debate and committee hearings," Ros-Lehtinen said. "I don't think this is the proper vehicle to discuss in just a few minutes such incredible far reaching consequences of a vote and the magnitude it would have."

"I hope we have further discussions but the votes shows a great deal of support," she continued. "I'm inclined to not support them no matter what venue they come from, but there are some folks who might have been inclined to support them had they been on another bill where they had more time to debate it."

When 19 Republican Male Congressman Rated Hillary Clinton On Her Hotness

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Yep.

In 1995, reporters for the satirical magazine Spy posed as correspondents for a supposed new magazine for conservative teenagers called "Republican Beat." They asked various new Republican members of Congress questions.

Despite the Spy reporters having an obvious give away in their letter to the new 73 Republican by using the name of Matthew Fielding, a gay character on the "Melrose Place" TV show, requesting an interview many fell for the hoax and granted an interview.

Among the questions they asked the new members was to rank then-First Lady Hillary Clinton on her attractiveness:

Their article had to come with a page ensuring the answers were real:

Their article had to come with a page ensuring the answers were real:

Spy Magazine

Here are the answers on Hillary Clinton's attractiveness:

Here are the answers on Hillary Clinton's attractiveness:

Spy Magazine

The answers include some notable responses from now-MSNBC host Joe Scarborough saying "I don't know if 'pretty' is the word I would use for her," and current Rep. Steve Chabot saying "she's not a dog — but she not gorgeous. I'd give her a five."

"I think she's attractive . . . but she does have kind of big hips," said Rep. Bob Ney.

"Oh, I think she's cute," said Rep. J. C. Watts.

"I think she's attractive," said Rep. Bob Ehrilich.

Spy Magazine is now defunct.


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Muslim Woman At Center Of Heritage Kerfuffle Says She's In Discussions For A Presidential Appointment

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Saba Ahmed made headlines this week when she stood up for Islam to a hostile conservative panel. Now she says she wants a job in the Obama administration.

Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press / MCT

WASHINGTON — The woman at the center of a controversy about Islamophobia, the conservative movement, and the media this week said she's talking to the Obama administration about a presidential appointment.

Saba Ahmed told BuzzFeed Friday that discussions with the White House over a presidential appointment have been ongoing "for months," though she declined to say who in the administration she's spoken with or how serious the conversations are.

"Just like any other American, citizen I'd like to serve my country," Ahmed said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ahmed is a law student at American University, where she is studying patent law. She said she hopes to apply her talents to the patent office. But she said she's also interested in a presidential appointment in other areas.

"I'm also interested in national security," she said.

Ahmed became the center of a media maelstrom earlier this week after she stood up at an event about Benghazi hosted at the Heritage Foundation headquarters that was covered by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Ahmed told Milbank she felt "targeted" by panelists who rejected her contention that the panel was disparaging Islam as dangerous and violent.

On Friday, Ahmed posted to "Exploring Presidential Political Appointments! :-)" to her Facebook page over an image reading "it can take enormous courage to let go of the things that hurt us."

She said she expected criticism of her discussions with the Obama administration about a political appointment.

"People will say — well, I think you know what people will say," she said. Of American Muslims, she added, "we deserve to be here, we've been here for a long time."

Mayor Eric Garcetti Wants You To Think Los Angeles Is A Big F-Ing Deal

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In his first year in office, Eric Garcetti has focused on rebranding Los Angeles. “I think we’ve assumed our sunshine would sell this place.”

Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti flashes an "L.A." hand sign during a rally celebrating the Kings' Stanley Cup victory.

facebook.com

LOS ANGELES — Two weeks before his first anniversary as Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti made national headlines when he dropped an f-bomb at a rally celebrating the Kings' Stanley Cup victory.

The media storm that followed Garcetti's Kings rally remarks —"They say never ever be pictured with a drink in your hand," he said, raising a beer bottle, "and never swear, but this is a big fucking day" — marked the first time many Americans had ever heard from the mayor of the country's second-largest city.

Garcetti is fairly unknown outside the Golden State, while his East Coast colleague New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has regularly grabbed the national spotlight, shoveling his own snow, going to lunch with President Obama, and being sworn into office by President Clinton.

In a way, the Kings' win over the New York Rangers fits Garcetti's narrative as Los Angeles as scrappy underdog — a city of 3 million perpetually having to prove itself against the Big Apple. Garcetti doesn't believe Los Angeles gets the respect it deserves and that the city's image is still haunted by events more than 20 years old: Rodney King riots, the 1994 earthquake, the O.J. Simpson case. And he wants to change that.

Garcetti's f-bomb.

vine.co

"We have not managed our narrative well," Garcetti said last month during an interview with BuzzFeed in his downtown office. "L.A.'s brand is so strong, we don't need a tagline. We're L.A. It evokes something."

Managing narratives is one of the mayor of Los Angeles' most important jobs. Like other cities west of the Mississippi, Los Angeles has an institutionally weak mayor — a product of the era in which the city was established and a backlash to the political machines in places like New York City and Chicago. Garcetti has a powerful 15-person city council he has to work with.

"These are like the lord and lady of the realm. You might be king, but they're very powerful," Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Policy, said.

But supporters say Garcetti may be better prepared to handle the city council than his predecessors. The native Angeleno and Columbia University grad majored in political science and urban planning there before studying at Oxford and the London School of Economics, and he served on the city council for 12 years, longer than any mayor in at least six decades. Still, much of the mayor's power can come from his role as a spokesperson-in-chief.

"Largely, a lot of the power can come from charisma and moving the needle," said Donna Bojarsky, a Democratic strategist. "There's no question [Garcetti] knows what he's doing."

So far, Garcetti's big public moments are tied to the city's professional sports franchises: his fervor for the Kings and his involvement in the controversy over the racist statements made by Clippers owner Donald Sterling. He's been characterized as an earnest mayor focused on his "back-to-basics" agenda over any singular big project, but some wish he would aim higher.

"The mayor is L.A.'s biggest cheerleader, and I don't know what I'm supposed to cheer for," said Michael Trujillo, a Democratic strategist who worked for former mayors Richard Riordan and Antonio Villaraigosa. "I think he really is trying to emulate a press or communications strategy that's about doing no harm."

Trujillo pointed to big items and challenges the previous three mayors faced early on in their time in office: Riordan, who was elected following the Rodney King riots and worked to strengthen the police force and improve schools; James Hahn, who was mayor during the San Fernando Valley's unsuccessful attempt to secede from the rest of the city; and Villaraigosa, who tried to take over the school board and planned to build the Westside subway. Their agendas might have angered some, but that's the mark of a bold leader, Trujillo said. "There's a reason people spend their political capital in year one," he said.

"I don't know that the Garcetti administration can point to an example where they pushed the status quo and angered people," Trujillo said. He said he was fine with Garcetti's "BFD" moment at the Kings rally, but said, "I would have preferred that was the 20th time he said 'BFD.'"

In January, the Los Angeles 2020 Commission published a report calling L.A. a city in decline, plagued by poverty, traffic, and poor schools. The commission began before Garcetti took office, and issued recommendations for solving Los Angeles' ills the day before the state of the city address in April.

"The challenges we face are not new. We don't need a new diagnosis," Garcetti said during his remarks the following day.

He's aware of the perception among some that "back-to-basics" isn't ambitious, but he disagrees. "It's not headline-grabbing stuff," he said.

The city has "every ingredient that it needs for success," but "it's putting the pieces together, which is different than some of my peers who are struggling with declining population, or nobody visiting or bad weather, or jobs that have fled," Garcetti said.

In May, The Guardian ranked Los Angeles the world's most powerful "brand city." Garcetti's office sent out an email blast: "FYI - The Guardian ranks LA #1 global brand," read the subject line. His office was "surprised by the outcome," Garcetti said, but he felt vindicated. The list cited L.A.'s weather, attractions, and improving crime rate for its ranking. "After years of languishing, the City of Angels has top spot in the brand firmament," it read.

"L.A.'s still a tentpole city, but it requires considerable work to reform how government works and to make sure our economy moves forward above and beyond the natural recovery, post-recession," Garcetti said. "I think we've assumed our sunshine would sell this place."


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Is This The Craziest Rant A Fox News Host Has Ever Done?

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Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said Saturday night President Obama “didn’t have the balls” to try Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

She also said President Obama "didn't have the balls" to try Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, and said Americans "are not convinced" Obama "even knows who the enemy is."

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Polish Foreign Minister: We Gave The US A "Blowjob," Got Nothing

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The latest leaked recording to rock European politics.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski across the table from Vice President Joe Biden in Warsaw in March.

AP Photo/Alik Keplicz

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, generally viewed as a leading ally of the United States in Europe, said in a mysteriously-leaked recording Sunday that the alliance between the two countries is "not worth anything."

"The Polish-American alliance is not worth anything. It's even damaging, because it creates a false sense of security in Poland," Sikorski says on an excerpt of a longer conversation set to be published Monday morning in the magazine Wprost, which is reportedly between Sikorski and former finance minister Jacek Rostowski. It's unclear who recorded the conversation said to be from this spring, and why, though speculation has focused on Russian intelligence, which is believed to have leaked a similarly embarrassing conversation between American officials.

After his interlocutor asks why he's skeptical of the alliance, Sikorski continues that it is "bullshit."

"We are gonna conflict with both Russians and Germans, and we're going to think that everything is great, because we gave the Americans a blowjob. Suckers. Total suckers," Sikorski says, according to a translation of the account for BuzzFeed.

The recording is one of many made of politicians' conversations in posh restaurants, and has emerged as a massive problem for the country's ruling Civic Platform.

Sikorski also employs a racially-charged word in the conversation, describing the mentality of Poles as "Murzyńskość." An English-language Polish outlet described the phrase as meaning "thinking 'like a Negro.'"

Sikorski said on Twitter that he hadn't been to the restaurant in which he was allegedly recorded; Wprost's editor said the recording had in fact been made in a different location.


"The Case Against 8" Keeps Its Focus On The Same-Sex Couples Who Fought To Marry

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The new documentary tells the story of the lawsuit against California’s Proposition 8 by highlighting the two couples at the center of the case. A strong look at a key moment in the marriage equality movement.

Courtesy of AFER/Diana Walker / HBO

NEW YORK CITY — On Monday night, as The Case Against 8 premieres on HBO, directors Ben Cotner and Ryan White will be watching as America sees their documentary — and the stories of the two same-sex couples at the center of the case against California's Proposition 8 — brought to a nationwide audience.

For the two filmmakers, who sat down with BuzzFeed to talk about the film in HBO's New York offices the day after a screening of the documentary last month, the moment comes more than five years after they started on the project. Documenting the case against the marriage amendment, Cotner and White said two couples behind the lawsuit — Kris Perry and Sandy Stier and Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami — became the key to that story as the case unfolded.

"I think, for us, since we never wanted to make a film about whether gay marriage was right or wrong, for us it was about telling the story," Cotner said of the impact that being gay Californians, like the couples, had on their filmmaking process. Cotner, who grew up in Indiana, and White, who grew up in Georgia, both described their connection to the film in emotional, personal terms — even at the end of a day of press interviews in connection with the film.

"Once we got there, and got to know Kris and Sandy and Paul and Jeff, it became obvious that this is really a story about these four people's lives and how they were affected and the harms that were done by Proposition 8 to them — and there was so much in that that we related to," Cotner said. "[B]ecause we understood the things that they were talking about, we were able to maybe hone in on some of the emotional elements."

Being so laser-focused on the case itself and the couples at the center of that case, with a supporting role from the lawyers behind the case, the documentary for the most part avoids the problems that plagued the release of Jo Becker's book, Forcing the Spring.

While Becker made broad pronouncements about how the marriage equality movement had "largely languished in obscurity" before the Prop 8 case, she spent little time contextualizing the case in the history of that movement. By also attempting to wind in the tale of Edith Windsor's case against the Defense of Marriage Act in the latter half of her book, Becker did even more damage to her attempt to tell the story of the Prop 8 case by forcing questions about Windsor's case, which, in the aftermath, has had a far greater direct impact on the court decisions that have followed.

Cotner and White, who premiered the documentary at this year's Sundance Film Festival, succeed in largely avoiding those pitfalls by singularly focusing on the Proposition 8 case plaintiff couples and their story — and not the history or politics or aftermath. And while Becker's book was hindered by its reliance on few sources in telling that broader story, Cotner and White succeed at storytelling by keeping the focus tight and their story simple. The screen time given to lawyers Ted Olson or David Boies and their colleagues is, by and large, aimed at advancing the couples' stories — not their own.

"I mean, the film is called The Case Against 8," White said, "so we were keenly aware the entire time that we were just telling one small chapter in a long history and hopefully there are many chapters to be told and films and books. We were making a character film about this team of people."

Of the controversy over Becker's book, Cotner said, "It was hard for us because, you know, we've spent five years doing this, and we have a lot of respect for Jo and the work that she did. Obviously, there are things in it that are controversial, but a lot of what we were trying to do with the film — similar to the the idea that Ted and David coming together would strip the sort of partisanship out of it — we wanted to take the politics out of the issue and focus on the plaintiffs and their journey, which is something that so many people can relate to."

Ben Cotner, left, and Ryan White, second from left, at the D.C. screening of The Case Against 8 on June 9, 2014.

Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed

"As LGBT people, I think it's just important to tell as many stories as possible," White said, "and every personal story is important. And this, to me, is Paul and Jeff and Kris and Sandy's story."

"I remember thinking during the media training, 'These women are going to kill it,'" he said of Perry and Stier. "I think Kris has a way of expressing herself that I don't have — as you can tell right now. She speaks so plainly without being dramatic or without hysterics, but delivers the heaviest messages to me."

"And she was like that from day one, and I remember thinking, 'Wow, if the world can see this woman, she has a way of explaining things that everyone will relate to — and especially someone who grew up as an LGBT youth.' I thought, 'I could follow this woman for years,' and luckily she allowed that."

Four years later, White was at their wedding — a long-planned-but-abruptly-implemented happening that followed the unexpected move to allow same-sex couples to resume being able to marry in California just days after the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of the case on technical grounds.

"We were both in Los Angeles," Cotner said of the day the 9th Circuit ended the stay of the trial court judgment in the case, which allowed the weddings to resume, "and we got a call, 'Go to the airport.'"

"'Don't ask any questions, get in an airplane,'" White said they were told.

"So, Ryan jumped on a plane and went to San Francisco, made it just in time to film —"

"— in bright blue shorts and a T-shirt," White said with a grimace. "My mom will never let me hear the end of that — I was at Kris and Sandy's wedding in a T-shirt and bright blue shorts."

"And so, the fact that I was able to get to Paul and Jeff and he was able to get to Kris and Sandy, and we got the whole thing."

"And we always say it was the hardest day of filming because we did not want to be filmmakers that day. We just wanted to be there. So, the ending that we had was the happiest ending that we could have imagined."

That the film ended with two weddings was not, of course, preordained.

"Whether it had been a win or loss," White said, "we were dedicated to just telling the story of what these people went through — and luckily it turned out the way it did."


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While Hillary Decides, Martin O’Malley’s Embracing Latinos And Immigrants

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He says he doesn’t want to talk about it, but 2016 is coming. Prominent Latinos and immigration advocates see a record they like.

CASA de Maryland. Composite by Chris Ritter/BuzzFeed

If you ask Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley about immigrants, he'll tell you about "new Americans" instead.

The Democrat and presumed 2016 candidate drops the phrase into nearly any conversation or speech about immigration — and he has had frequent opportunity to do so.

Over the past few years, O'Malley has enacted what reads like an activist's wish list. He passed the DREAM Act in 2011 (now 36,000 undocumented immigrants have access to in-state tuition); the state gave driver's licenses to tax-paying undocumented immigrants in 2013; and in April of this year, O'Malley informed the Department of Homeland Security that Maryland would no longer comply with the Secure Communities program that facilitates the deportation of undocumented immigrants.

"On my desk, as I sit here, is a sign from Baltimore that says, 'No Irish need apply,'" O'Malley told BuzzFeed in a June conversation. "My great-grandparents didn't speak English but I think America is made better by people who come from elsewhere."

He argues the state actions are an acknowledgment that "our nation should have passed comprehensive immigration reform."

"In the meantime what do you want?" he said. "Do you want them to be able to get to and from work or do you want them to drive without a license and god forbid you or your wife are involved [in an accident]? That doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense."

The legislative push has also coincided with rapid population growth among Latinos in Maryland, up 48% from 2000 to 2006 and an additional 51% from 2006 to 2012. Among the statistics O'Malley is glad to publicize: Maryland has the lowest Hispanic unemployment rate at 5.1% (compared to 9.1% nationally), and the state has more than doubled contracts to Latino-owned businesses during his time as governor.

What O'Malley doesn't do, though, prominent Latinos say, is make immigration an exclusively Latino issue or think that Latino issues begin and end with immigration. And this has not gone unnoticed.

Gustavo Torres, the executive director of CASA de Maryland, has worked extensively with O'Malley. He was effusive in his praise, noting it comes down to a simple but powerful feeling: O'Malley treats immigrants with respect.

"He's very clearly the most pro-Latino and pro-immigrant governor in the country," Torres said. "He believes we are all immigrants, for centuries we are immigrants. He calls us new Americans because he believes it is a really good way to describe the contribution of the immigrant community."

At a recent speech at a Casa de Maryland awards reception, O'Malley was in his element. He talked about starting the Maryland Council for New Americans in 2008, an initiative to help immigrants with English proficiency, job training, and "starting on the path to becoming a citizen," to whoops and applause from the crowd.

"If you think you can ignore immigration reform, then you are a fool, and Gov. O'Malley is not a fool," said Matthew McClellan, executive director of the NCLR action fund.

In March, six advocacy groups, including the NCLR Action Fund and CASA de Maryland, reached out to nine governors for a meeting to generate ideas for advancing their cause. O'Malley was the first to respond. At the meeting, McClellan said, O'Malley committed to using his influence with other governors in his capacity as the head of the Democratic Governor's Association. The groups also asked O'Malley to work with the president to ease deportations and family separation.

That issue — deportations — has been a powerful motivator for immigration activists this year. Their sustained pressure on the White House resulted in an administration-wide review, the results of which are expected to be released later this summer. In the wake of House Majority Leader Erice Cantor's loss, activists are pushing President Obama now more than ever to take executive action on the issue.

O'Malley chose his words carefully — but came down on the side of executive action. "I think the president should continue to do things like he did with the DREAM kids and use the prosecutorial discretion given to the executive branch to lessen the hurt for families and our society as a people," he said.

Chris Ritter/BuzzFeed

Not everything O'Malley's done has been golden with activists. In December, a trade mission he organized to Brazil and El Salvador with representatives of more than 30 Maryland companies was criticized for not including enough Latino elected officials. Some felt they were invited as an afterthought, after complaining.

And on Thursday, his decision not to comply with the Obama administration's deportation program Secure Communities — first lauded by activists — was questioned in terms of its execution.

CASA de Maryland itself was one of the groups that was disappointed with the way things have been working out. "You have dozens and dozens of rural, Republican sheriffs in the country who have decided they're not going to hold anyone because it violates their constitutional rights," Kim Propeack, the political director said, according to The Baltimore Sun. "You would think a state like Maryland could do better." O'Malley spokeswoman Nina Smith defended the implementation and said a third of federal requests to hold immigrants in Baltimore since the new policy began have been denied, a major change from the previous approach. "We will continue to monitor how Secure Communities is implemented in Baltimore and will work with our federal partners and stakeholders to make sure this program is narrowly focused on its core public safety mission," she said in a statement.

Republicans also take issue with O'Malley's leftward lurch on a whole range of topics during his governorship, from gun control to marriage to immigration. The Republican National Committee questioned the legality of policies he put in place in 2004 when he was mayor, to give $3,000 grants to Hispanics to buy houses in Baltimore.

"What Martin O'Malley won't say is that under his leadership 39,000 Hispanics have entered poverty and more Hispanics are earning less due to the 78 new taxes he has imposed on Maryland's economy," RNC spokeswoman Izzy Santa said in a statement to BuzzFeed. "Winning elections is based on substance and so far Martin O'Malley is relying on Hispandering to win. Talking about immigration and hoping no one pays attention to his failed economic record will not overcompensate for his dismissal of the Hispanic community and attempts to play divisive racial politics."

But O'Malley's overall pursuit of policies meant to assist undocumented immigrants and Latinos in the state has put him on the national radar with Latino groups and campaign activists.

"The guy represents the promise of American politics," said Javier Palomarez, the president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC). "If you look at the record, he increased contracting by Hispanics 133%, which stands in contrast to the abysmal attempt by the federal government."

USHCC, which represents 3.2 million Hispanic-owned businesses, has pursued a bipartisan approach in recent years, inviting high-profile Democrats and Republicans like Vice President Joe Biden, Xavier Becerra, Nancy Pelosi, as well as Paul Ryan, Grover Norquist, and Reince Priebus to speak to its members.

Palomarez has invited O'Malley to speak to USHCC three times in four years.

"America believes immigration is the only issue on the docket for Hispanics. We're not monolithic, it's not just immigration reform," he said. "But if you look, [O'Malley] has led where others have not."

O'Malley is one of a few Democrats people think might challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016. In February, he floated that he was preparing the groundwork to get ready to run. This weekend, he was in Iowa.


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The Iraq Crisis Is A Preview Of The 2016 Fight Among Republicans

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“You’re seeing skirmishes all over the place, people testing each other.”

Rodger Mallison/Fort Worth Star-Telegram / MCT

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

WASHINGTON — Neoconservatives are in the midst of reasserting themselves during the current Iraq crisis, and their message is tailored just as much to the rising libertarian wing of the Republican Party as it is to President Obama.

Several figures from the hawkish wing of the Republican party have made sure over the last few days to name check Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul in their critiques of Obama's policy on Iraq — a strategy of linking Paul to Obama's foreign policy that is bound to be seen again when the next presidential election rolls around.

"I haven't picked a nominee yet, but one of the things that's right at the top of my list is whether or not the individual we nominate believes in a strong America, believes in a situation where the United States is able to provide the leadership in the world, basically, to maintain the peace and to take on the al Qaeda types wherever they show up," former Vice President Dick Cheney said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "Rand Paul, by my standards as I look at his philosophy, is basically an isolationist. That didn't work in the 1930s and it sure as heck won't work in the aftermath of 9/11 when 19 guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters came all the way from Afghanistan and killed 3,000 of our citizens."

Cheney and his daughter Liz, who ran for Senate last year before dropping out, co-wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week slamming Obama's foreign policy and arguing that the crisis in Iraq, where the terror group ISIS has taken major cities and is threatening to cause the nation to fall apart, is his fault. The op-ed, the Washington Post argued, was part of a PR push for a new Cheney group aimed partially at damaging Paul.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton used similar language on radio host Aaron Klein's show on Sunday, saying he was "very concerned" about "isolationists" within the party.

"Now we see isolationism in the Republican Party for the first time since the 1930s and 1940s," Bolton said. "They don't like to call it that, of course. They are acting in a really quite interesting political fashion to try to disguise what their objectives are."

Bolton said the threat of the "isolationists" was one of the main reasons he decided to set up a political action committee to influence elections.

"I think it's one of the reasons that I've set up a PAC and a super PAC to aid House and Senate candidates this November who believe in a strong national security policy," Bolton said. "We have had good success in fundraising. Some large contributions but over 10,000 contributors overall. So I think it's a good indication, really, that the isolationists in the party, while they have some appeal, do not represent anything like the great base of the party's supporters."

"It's all about Rand Paul because he is the most prominent voice of questioning their primacy and offering a different vision, a less interventionist vision, for the party in terms of foreign policy," said one senior Republican operative of the neoconservatives.

But, the operative argued, it's less about Paul himself and more about his ideology creating a safer space for less hawkish foreign policy ideas on the right:

"It may come to be all about Rand in terms of stopping him from being the nominee, but I think it's all about he's putting out there an edge to the debate that creates a middle ground. He's not way over where his father is, so that middle ground has moved to a place that's more plausible."

The neoconservatives are "in a hard spot. They're inevitably tied to Iraq so it's a very hard thing."

Though Paul has said he wouldn't rule out air strikes against the terror group ISIS in Iraq, he has come out against any serious U.S. military involvement in the situation and has criticized Cheney and other architects of the Iraq War — "Were they right in their predictions? Were there weapons of mass destruction there?" he asked on Meet the Press, where he also said he didn't blame Obama for the current crisis. His stance on the issue is giving hawks a chance to tie him to Obama, who has also seemed hesitant about military action in Iraq.

Neoconservatives, said Michael Goldfarb, the founder of the Washington Free Beacon and the Center for American Freedom, stood with Obama on some of the key issues of the last year or so — they supported military action in Syria when Obama called for it and defended NSA surveillance — and feel burned by it.

"The consequence of it is it always ended up further isolating the hawks on the right," he said. "Now the neocons are on the hawkish side and it's the libertarians who are standing with Obama which makes them very vulnerable. They're in a very tough spot right now because they want to shit all over Obama but they're basically where Obama is on this."

On the right, "you're seeing skirmishes all over the place, people testing each other," Goldfarb said. "I would say it's a big problem for them that their foreign policy looks like Obama's. That's what a lot of these skirmishes are about."

Some neoconservative figures privately dismissed the idea that Paul and his wing of the party pose a real threat to a muscular Republican foreign policy, arguing that Paul has actually tried to move farther to the right on foreign policy (he has reached out to the pro-Israel community and supported cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority, for example) and that the young candidates in the party are mostly hawkish.

Still, Paul is likely to run for president and neutralizing him, even if not the prime focus of the current neoconservative renaissance surrounding the Iraq crisis, could be an added bonus, said Republican strategist Rick Wilson.

"I do think it's an ancillary benefit to talking about if for folks that have a concern that the isolationist streak in Paul world is dangerous for the country," Wilson said. Hawks are "making the case that the Obama policy on Iraq is not where we need to be but reminding people that Rand Paul has a lot of conflicting messages and a lot of conflicting statements."

The attempts to link Obama and Paul are "a little unfair actually," Wilson said. "Rand Paul just wants to withdraw from the world, Barack Obama wants to fuck it up more."

The current dust-up is a tryout of sorts for the fighting to come in two years.

"Everybody's going to be tuning up their debate gotcha lines on this and hoping that one of them sticks," Wilson said.


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Biden: I'm The Guy In The "Mildly Expensive Suit" With No Savings Account

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The vice president touts his financial status.

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WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden talked up his relative poverty at a White House summit Monday focused on exploring the financial and other difficulties faced by working families.

"You know, you're going to get to discuss all of these things today and more," Biden said, "but if you excuse, as we used to say in the Senate a point of personal privilege, I can speak a little bit from my own experience."

The vice president went on to talk about the "mildly expensive suit" he was wearing and the fact that "I have no savings accounts" and "I don't own a single stock or bond."

"But I got a great pension and I got a good salary," Biden added.

When he joined the Obama ticket in 2008, Biden was the poorest senator (though, as Politifact reported at the time, poorest senator is still far wealthier than the average American.) In this year's White House financial disclosure, Biden listed assets "valued at $276,000 to $940,000, including a rental property owned jointly with his wife, Jill," according to USA Today. President Obama's assets were "valued at about $2 million to $7 million."

Christina Hendricks Speaks Of Ending "'Mad Men' Era" Policies At White House Summit

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“It’s time for that story to go the way of the rotary phone and the typewriter.”

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Actress Christina Hendricks made brief remarks at the White House Summit on Working Families Monday, saying today's policies related to women need to be updated to no longer be from the "Mad Men era."

"When President Obama discusses the issues facing working families, equal pay for women, affordable child care, to name a few, he often says that current policies seem to be from the Mad Men era," Hendricks said.

Hendricks continued, speaking of the challenges the Joan Harris character she plays on AMC's Mad Men faces "simply because she's a woman."

"Well, it's time for that story to go the way of the rotary phone and the typewriter," Hendricks added.

The White House Summit on Working Families is being hosted with the Department of Labor and the Center for American Progress to "set an agenda for a 21st-century workplace."

Chris McDaniel Posts "#Who'sYaDaddy" Meme Attacking Thad Cochran's Daughter

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The Mississippi primary!

Chris McDaniel posted this meme on his Facebook page Sunday night, attacking the daughter of his primary opponent, Sen. Thad Cochran. It featured the hashtag "#Who'sYaDaddy."

Chris McDaniel posted this meme on his Facebook page Sunday night, attacking the daughter of his primary opponent, Sen. Thad Cochran. It featured the hashtag "#Who'sYaDaddy."

Via Facebook: senatormcdaniel

I think this is the reason that so many seem swayed by my father's opponent: he is valued for his lack. Lack of experience (he is not a "career politician.") Lack of wisdom (he relies solely on Jesus, the Constitution, and common sense*--combined in the veneer of "goodness"). Lack of judgment (he vows to refuse federal monies and to try to impede legislation). Lack of specificity (what are "Mississippi values"?). Lack of perspective (how does he believe for one moment that a junior Senator from the poorest state will have any influence in Washington? How can he believe that he will not want his family to live with him in the D.C. area?).

Via Facebook: kate-cochran

Cochran's campaign spokesman provided this comment:

"Chris McDaniel's latest appalling attack on Sen. Cochran's family is further proof that he is unfit for office. The nursing home break in, screaming at elderly constituents, and now launching a personal attack at Sen. Cochran's daughter on social media show that Chris McDaniel doesn't have the stability, temperament, or judgment required of a United States Senator. You would think somebody running on Christian family values would not stoop to attacking family, especially after all Kate has been through dealing with the crimes committed against her mother by McDaniel campaign team members."

McDaniel's campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

Conservative Website Relied On Republican Opposition Researcher For Clinton Stories

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The Center for American Freedom is free of the traditional lines between politics and journalism. Reinschmiedt helped with paperwork, research assistance.

Eric Gay / AP Photo

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, employed a Republican consultant and opposition researcher to help put together two of this year's biggest stories about former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

In February, the site published "The Hillary Papers," a report that unearthed papers belonging to Diane Blair, one of Clinton's closest friends, from the archives at the University of Arkansas. Last week, the Free Beacon released audio recordings from an unpublished 1980s interview, in which Clinton discussed a child rape case she took on in Arkansas. In the tapes, Clinton suggests the accused attacker, a man she successfully defended, was guilty.

The stories, both by Free Beacon reporter Alana Goodman, were a legitimate and hard-to-find commodity: new reporting on the most covered woman in America. They both landed large, lighting up the internet with headlines on the Drudge Report, occupying the political press for days, and ensuring the Free Beacon a place among the new partisan outlets whose reporting makes them impossible to ignore. Goodman's most recent story hit during the first week of Clinton's media tour to promote a new memoir, Hard Choices.

Shawn Reinschmiedt, a former research director for the Republican National Committee, provided Goodman assistance with both stories, according to documents released by the University of Arkansas and published by Business Insider on Sunday following a copyright dispute over the Clinton tapes.

The documents include a special collections request, signed by Reinschmiedt on March 5, for duplicates of the audio recordings, as well as a subsequent email and letter from the library to Reinschmiedt about his request.

Reinschmiedt has served as a consultant to the Center for American Freedom, the nonprofit that houses and funds the Free Beacon, since its founding two years ago. Tax filings show the organization paid Reinschmiedt's "political intelligence" firm, M Street Insight, a total of $150,000 for "research consulting" in 2012.

Michael Goldfarb, founder of the Center for American Freedom and the Free Beacon, said it is standard practice for his reporters to rely on outside consultants for help with stories that have a research component. The Free Beacon also used a production firm to help present the audio from the Clinton tapes, he said.

Political reporters often work closely with partisan opposition researchers on stories; those researchers are typically employed by campaigns, however.

Reinschmiedt supplied assistance with paperwork and helped sift through archives, according to Goldfarb. (The Diane Blair collection includes thousands of documents, organized in 109 boxes in the basement of the university library.)

"The Beacon provides research and production support to all our reporters just like every other media outlet," Goldfarb said Sunday night.

Until earlier this year, the Free Beacon had an "entire in-house research operation," Goldfarb added. That project was shut down, but the website still uses outside firms, including M Street Insight — a fact "we made clear to anyone who cared to ask from the moment we launched," he said.

Tax filings show the organization also paid the Republican firm CRAFT Media Digital about $233,000 in 2012 for "media consulting."

Laura Jacobs, a spokeswoman for the University of Arkansas, said the school used Reinschmiedt as a go-to in its dealings with the Free Beacon.

"Reinschmiedt was the primary point of contact," Jacobs said in an email.

The Center for American Freedom and the Washington Free Beacon were formed as part model, part parody, to their progressive counterparts: the Center for American Progress and its partnering news website, ThinkProgress.

In 2012, Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti named ThinkProgress and liberal news sites like Talking Points Memo as outlets whose success "at the cutting edge of ideological journalism" he hoped to emulate on the Republican side.

Judd Legum, editor in chief of ThinkProgress, said his reporters and editors have "never used consultants or research firms to help us on stories."

"Although I'm not sure I see anything wrong with it," he added.

David Brock, the founder of the liberal groups Media Matters and American Bridge, likened the Free Beacon's use of outside consultants to the "Arkansas Project" — the 1990s dirt-digging operation in which he played a central role.

The project, funded by a Republican millionaire, aimed to bring down the Clintons with stories in the American Spectator, a conservative magazine. Brock, who has since become a leading figure in the Democratic party, worked on the operation as the Spectator's investigative reporter.

"Having personally been in the middle of efforts to undermine the Clintons with negative information collected by paid Republican operatives and then laundered through the magazine where I then worked, the American Spectator, where it was presented as the product of legitimate journalistic inquiry," Brock said, the Free Beacon's methods have what he called "all the markings" of the Arkansas Project.

"All that seems to have changed is the names of the characters involved," Brock said. "The M.O. is the same. This is the Arkansas Project redux."

Brock has long navigated the straits of journalism and partisanship on both sides of the aisle. His group, American Bridge, served as the central Democratic opposition research center, and he now runs a group defending Clinton's record. This month, he launched a "journalism institute" to investigate the "nexus of conservative power in Washington" and subjects like the Koch brothers.

Through Media Matters, his group that monitors conservative media, Brock plans to release a "news advisory" to reporters and editors on Monday about what he calls a failure to disclose Reinschmiedt's involvement.

"I trust you'll agree that a journalistic news website hiring undercover Republican operatives to misrepresent themselves as journalists and secretly to provide it with information is, at best, an unusual practice," Brock says in the advisory. "I certainly know that you understand that any time a news organization pays money for information, journalistic ethics requires that it be disclosed to readers."

Goldfarb dismissed the criticism of the Free Beacon's reporting. "If Clinton allies prefer to talk about the editorial process at the Beacon instead of Hillary's decision to defend a child rapist she knew was guilty and brag about it on tape after the fact, we won't be surprised if that's the story some reporters pursue."

"If we weren't doing these stories," Goldfarb said, "the only Clinton coverage this past week would have been how many books she sold and which Supreme Court justice she ran into at the book signings."


Charlie Rangel Releases Biographical Rap Song Ad

Bill Maher: Coincidence That "99.999% White""Racist" Tea Party Driven "Insane" By Black President

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“I know the tea party hates hearing that. That, you know, they’re racist, because 99.999% of them are white and the president who drives them insane is black is just a coincidence.”

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Bill Maher, the host of Real Time implied the tea party was racist while appearing on The View Monday. Maher said President Obama has done "fantastic" as president and President Obama's had to deal with unprecedented criticism.

"He's done fantastic," Maher said when asked about how he felt President Obama had done in office. "He's had to deal with things that no other president has had to deal with. It's true."

Maher went on to imply the tea party's criticism of the president was racially based.

"I know the tea party hates hearing that. That, you know, they're racist, because 99.999% of them are white and the president who drives them insane is black is just a coincidence. I'm sorry, nobody has had to deal with what he had to deal with. I never saw ... I never saw a governor stick the finger in a president's face like the governor of Arizona did. I never saw a president heckled at the State of the Union like he was. I never saw Bill O'Reilly interrupt a president the way he does. There's a kind of in your face, in your space, disrespect going on there."

Hillary Clinton Jokes About "Getting Ready To Take Momentous Plunge" In Video Message

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To be a grandparent. Clinton delivered the video message to Democrats at event in Des Moines Friday to honor retiring Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin.

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Hearing On Lost IRS Emails Turns Nasty

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Debating rules!

The House Oversight and Investigations Committee hearing Monday into missing emails related to the IRS's scandal got heated after Democratic Rep. John Tierney accused Republican members of the committee of disrespecting IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

"Mr. Koskinen, good evening and thank you for being here," Tierney said. "I don't think I have seen a display of this kind of disrespect in all the time I have been in Congress. It is unfortunate that anyone would be subjected to it."

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa then cut off Tierney "I would caution all members not to characterize the intent or the character of your fellow members here."

"But it's fair game to question the integrity of the witness," interjected Koskinen.

"The rules of the House speak to questioning the integrity of members," Issa added.

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President Obama Breaks Chipotle Etiquette

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Presidential overreach, as President Obama reaches over the sneeze wall at Chipotle.

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