“But as Iowans, we need to see that connection in action … We’d suggest sooner rather than later this time,” the second-largest paper in Iowa writes.

Hillary Clinton, then a U.S. Senator, campaigns in Iowa in Dec. 2007 ahead of the caucuses with her husband Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton.

Stan Honda / Getty Images

In a pointed staff editorial, a major Iowa newspaper urged Hillary Clinton to visit the crucial presidential primary state "sooner rather than later this time."

The editorial, published Tuesday by the Gazette, rehashes Clinton's failed 2008 operation and offers a blistering characterization of the problem she faced in Iowa: "when a candidate or campaign refuses to engage in retail politics."

The Gazette, based in Cedar Rapids, is the state's second-largest paper, catering primarily to eastern Iowans. The editorial begins with a reference to Clinton's third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses six years ago, behind then-senators Barack Obama and John Edwards. "In her book Hard Choices, Hillary Clinton wrote, 'The night of the Iowa caucuses, where I placed third, was excruciating.'" The editorial continues: "Clinton might be surprised to know many Iowa activists and caucus-goers felt similarly regarding her 2008 campaign in the Hawkeye State."

Clinton, who has said she's considering a second White House bid, has a mixed history with the state. In 1992, her husband's presidential campaign skipped the state altogether — one of Iowa's U.S. senators, Tom Harkin, was also running that year. But four years later, running as an incumbent, he didn't show there either.

When Clinton launched her own presidential bid, she nearly passed over Iowa, too. A 2007 campaign memo suggested she skip the state. Clinton did spend a considerable amount of time in Iowa, but she had trouble connecting with voters.

Ready for Hillary, a super PAC that has spend the last year and a half rallying support for a potential 2016 run, has made two major appearances in the state this year. Iowa Democrats showed up in large numbers to a Ready for Hillary "kick-off" event in January, but some attendees suggested they wanted Clinton to make an appeal herself, not a surrogate organization. "Do you want them to organize around a PAC or around a candidate?" said Janet Petersen, a state senator, at the event.

Clinton has been traveling from city to city this summer to promote her new memoir, Hard Choices, but she has not returned to Iowa.

The Gazette takes issue in particular with Clinton's staffers and her chief strategist at the time, pollster Mark Penn, who authored the 2007 memo.

"While many Iowa Democrats had few qualms with the candidate, the same could not be said of the campaign or, to some extent, its staffers — especially strategist Mark Penn of the now infamous memo that advocated skipping Iowa."

"Mistakes were made — frankly, too many to list here — but chief above them all was the steadfast refusal of the Clinton campaign to honor the tradition of visiting the early states," the staff writes. "Iowans are generally forgiving folks, willing to allow candidate weaknesses in one area if they are overshadowed by strengths in others. We make exception to that policy, however, when a candidate or campaign refuses to engage in retail politics."

The final section of the editorial shifts to second-person, addressing Clinton directly.

"The memories of 2008 have softened for us, Mrs. Clinton. We've watched as you have flexed your muscles on the international stage and have been impressed with your ability to connect," the staff writes. "But as Iowans, we need to see that connection in action. Our hope, if you are really considering a 2016 run, is that you have learned from your experience and come to Iowa intent on having true conversations about what matters to our state and the fine people in it."

"We'd suggest sooner rather than later this time."

The jockeying to influence President Obama’s administrative actions on deportations has already begun.

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP / Getty Images

Top Latino lawmakers have been lobbying the Obama administration to enact specific executive actions on immigration, according to a memo obtained by BuzzFeed.

Sent by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in April, the document outlines five executive actions President Obama could take, including the expansion of the program that allowed undocumented immigrants brought by their parents into the country as children to stay here legally.

Obama announced Monday he will take executive action on immigration later this summer. The leaked document, obtained from a source close to the CHC, is just an early instance of what will likely be weeks of jockeying by lawmakers and activists about what Obama should do on deportations, how far he should go, and when.

The CHC memo to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson includes five suggestions for administrative actions the president can take, along with six suggestions for "humane" enforcement reforms the DHS can make.

Chief among the executive actions would be an expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), beyond undocumented youth known as DREAMers who received it initially, for undocumented immigrants who are low-priority American workers and those who would benefit from the Senate's immigration reform bill.

The memo also calls for an expansion of "parole in place" to more undocumented immigrants, which would temporarily protect them from removal and provide them the ability to work in the country. The lawmakers give the example of a deferred action recipient who marries a U.S. citizen and doesn't have to leave the country to apply for a green card.

The letter to Johnson also suggests forgiving immigrants who have had periods of unlawful presence in the U.S. despite now having a certain lawful status.

The memo also seeks to keep nuclear families together or unify them by extending humanitarian parole to the family members of DACA recipients, including some who have already been removed from the country.

Lastly, it recommends administrative action that would allow undocumented immigrants with certain legal status to enlist in the military.

The suggested enforcement reforms include clarifying the extreme hardship waiver, refining prosecutorial discretion, limiting deportations without hearings — and a big one — ending the controversial Secure Communities program that facilitates detention, finger printing and deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Sen. Bob Menendez, who previously announced support of stopping deportations for the immediate families of U.S. citizens, DREAMers, and lawful permanent residents (LPRs) at the National Council of La Raza's 2014 Capital Awards Gala in March, supports the leaked CHC memo.

"Sen. Menendez fully supports the recommendations made by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus," Juan Pachon, his deputy communications director, said in a statement to BuzzFeed.

"In light of House Republicans' intransigence, Sen. Menendez has encouraged President Obama to use his executive powers, particularly to expand the Deferred Action program to stop or suspend the deportation of families and long-term residents."

The president previously called for a meeting with the CHC after it was set to release a memo with demands on him to slow deportations in March. When they voiced concerns, he told them to bring their suggestions to Johnson.

The leaked memo is a window into the CHC demands, just days after Obama's announcement that he will pursue administrative actions alone because House Republicans refused to move forward with legislation a year after the bipartisan Senate bill passed.

"The antidote for do-nothingism is doing something, and the president is doing for the American people what the Republican-controlled Congress refused to do," Rep. Luis Gutierrez said after Obama's announcement.

"This is the president I voted for," Gutierrez said. "The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has already submitted a list of actions he can take under current law to add some rationality to our irrational immigration system, and I look forward to working with him to vet those ideas and others he can take to help the American people."

LINK: Obama To Move Toward Reducing Deportations Without Congress

Here is the memo to DHS secretary Jeh Johnson:

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You can have it your way…unless you’re gay.

Via usatoday.com

Burger King also posted this two-minute video about the burger on their YouTube channel:

youtube.com

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, a former Burger King executive in the 1990s, then posted this on Facebook saying "looks like a lot has changed."

Via Facebook: THEHermanCain

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“Poor riddleschool wow.”

This morning's Way Too early featured some amusing technical difficulties when MSNBC's news ticker started transmitting bizarre phrases in the midst of its "All Up In Your Business" market preview segment:

“Salutations, commendable gentlemen, how are you on this elegant evening? Are you.”

“Only quite a fatuous individual would question the use of the mentally salubrious nature of sophisticated commentary, as demonstrated in this public."

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

youtube.com

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that "we still have more work to do" at the White House to have equal pay for women there.

"The statistics that cited about the country is about 77 cents on the dollar and here at the White House it's 88 cents on the dollar," Earnest said. "So the White House is doing appreciatively better than the country as more broadly. But we still have work to do at the White House."

According to data released Tuesday, the average male White House employee makes about $88,600. The average female White House employee earns about $78,400.

Would the protest affect White House strategy for dealing with the influx of undocumented immigrants? “No, not at this point,” White House press secretary says.

Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times / MCT

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration steered clear Wednesday of directly criticizing the California protests blocked the relocation of undocumented immigrant minors away from the border into new processing facilities.

"I haven't spoken to the president about those news reports," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said when asked for the president's reaction. Earnest moved immediately to a larger discussion about the ongoing crisis at the border.

"The president has directed the secretary of Homeland Security to do — and he's asked for funding from Congress to make sure that we can maximize this — is to increase the amount of resources that's dedicated to dealing with the surge in illegal migration that we've seen at the southwest border," Earnest said. He pointed to additional resources the administration has dispatched to the border as well as new diplomatic efforts taken with Latin American governments to reduce the border crossings.

Nearly 50,000 undocumented immigrants have crossed the border in recent months, many of them unaccompanied children. Because facilities near the border are over capacity, detained undocumented immigrants are being relocated to facilities as far away as Maryland and Virginia.

Spurred on by the mayor, hundreds in Murrieta, Calif., on Tuesday waved American flags and chanted slogans like "Bus illegal children to the White House," surrounding buses of undocumented immigrants in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The buses were meant for an ICE facility in Murrieta but turned around and went to San Diego.

Earnest said the protest would not cause the administration to reevaluate its plan to deal with the border situation.

"No, not at this point," he said, when asked if the protests would lead the White House to "further reassess its strategy in terms of dealing with what's happening."

"At this point what we're focused on is making sure that we can ramp up the resources that are necessary to meet this growing need," he said. "And again, this is about balancing our responsibility to treat in a humane way those who are attempting to enter this country, but also sending a clear signal to everybody inside this country and to people in other countries who might be contemplating making the very dangerous trip to our southwestern border that the law will be enforced. And that's exactly what's happening."

Later in the briefing a reporter asked about the impact of the surge in border crossings, noting that "besides the ugliness and the rancor that happened at the Murrieta yesterday, there are some people there who are genuinely concerned that their towns are not able to handle the influx and concerned about their health."

Earnest said those concerns are being heard and urged Congress to send more resources to assist federal agencies already working on the border.

"The president has, you know, over the weekend indicated his desire to seek greater funding from Congress so that we can devote more resources to dealing with this problem at our border," Earnest said. "And that's certainly the kind of assistance that would benefit communities like McAllen [a Texas border town] that are working very hard to deal with the consequences of this surge that we've seen."

LINK: Protestors Block Buses Carrying Immigrants To Processing Facility

“[W]e are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities,” a group of religiously affiliated leaders writes.

Terry Wyatt / Getty Images for Gospel Music Association

WASHINGTON — The pastor who caused an uproar from LGBT advocates when President Obama asked him to speak at his inauguration is now asking the president to exempt those with religious beliefs from an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people.

Rick Warren has joined forces with the head of Catholic Charities and others in asking President Obama to "include a religious exemption in your planned executive order addressing federal contractors and LGBT employment policies." The Atlantic first reported on the letter earlier Wednesday.

LGBT advocates have pressed for a limited religious exemption or no religious exemption in the order, but others, like Sen. Orrin Hatch, have said an exemption similar to that included in the version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed by the Senate last fall is needed.

Warren, the senior pastor at California's Saddleback Church, has a mixed history with President Obama. After being asked to deliver the invocation at Obama's first inauguration, Warren later decried the president's policies in 2012 as "intentionally infring[ing] upon religious liberties."

Now, with Obama having announced that he has directed his staff to prepare an executive order to protect LGBT employees of federal contractors from employment discrimination, Warren has joined up with a group of religious leaders and religiously affiliated individuals to urge the president to include a religious exemption in the order.

Of the planned order, the group writes, "[W]e are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need. ... Without a robust religious exemption, like the provisions in the Senate-passed ENDA, this expansion of hiring rights will come at an unreasonable cost to the common good, national unity and religious freedom."

Although The Atlantic reported that the person who organized the letter, Michael Wear, said that the letter is not "antagonistic," he added that, following this week's Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby, "the administration does have a decision to make whether they want to recalibrate their approach to some of these issues."

Asked about the letter, White House spokesman Shin Inouye repeated a line from recent days when asked about the order, saying only, "I don't have any details to share about the specifics of an Executive Order."

The Human Rights Campaign's vice president, Fred Sainz, however, did speak out, telling BuzzFeed, "LGBT activists have every expectation that the EO will contain no further religious exemption other than the very broad one that is in there already — and there is certainly nothing in Hobby Lobby to suggest that there should be one."

The exemption to which Sainz is referring is that contained in an executive order signed by former President George W. Bush in 2002. In the executive order, Bush stated that contractors that are a "religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society" are exempted from the existing federal contractor executive order's nondiscrimination requirements "with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities." Those contractors are not exempted from other requirements in the order.

The existing federal contractor executive order bars federal contractors who do more than $10,000 worth of federal work in a year from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The White House has not said whether it intends to amend Executive Order 11246 to include sexual orientation and gender identity or create a new executive order specifically to cover the two categories.

As Clinton continues her Hard Choices book tour this summer, the group Correct the Record aims to keep her supporters on point.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discusses her new book, Hard Choices, on June 13 at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington D.C.

Olivier Douliery / MCT

One of the organizations backing Hillary Clinton's possible presidential campaign announced on Wednesday that it would release daily talking points to provide Democrats with a "unified message" ahead of 2016.

Correct the Record, a project housed under the Democratic super PAC, American Bridge, will send surrogates and Clinton advocates a "daily email program, 'The Daily Point,'" the group's head, Burns Strider, wrote to supporters on Wednesday.

For months, the group has maintained what they call a "friends and family list." Supporters on the list receive talking points, news alerts, and daily updates on Clinton-related news. The "Daily Point" email will cater to a larger audience.

In recent weeks, while traveling to promote her new memoir, Hard Choices, Clinton has drawn scrutiny for comments about her personal wealth. In her first interview earlier this month, an hour-long primetime sit-down with ABC's Diane Sawyer, she said she and Bill Clinton left the White House "dead broke" in 2001 — a comment she has spent weeks clarifying during various other appearances.

"The Daily Point will provide supporters with a unified message," Strider. "Each day, the email will consist of some current news, points about the day's news, and quick facts about Hillary Clinton's many achievements." Correct the Record will still maintain the "friends and family list" for its "inner circle," Strider said in the email.

The eagle has landed.

But before the president and first lady can walk out of the plane and have this near wardrobe malfunction, a bunch of interesting stuff happens:

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An unusual move in the marriage equality legal fight.

Gov. Hickenlooper. (Attorney General Suthers, inset.)

Via colorado.gov

WASHINGTON — In order to stop a county clerk from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the Colorado attorney general went to court Wednesday asking a federal court to strike down the state's ban on same-sex marriages.

The unusual move from Attorney General John Suthers, who has been defending the ban, follows last week's ruling from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that Utah's similar ban is unconstitutional.

As Colorado is one of the other states within the 10th Circuit, the ruling is binding precedent in the district court in Colorado, where a lawsuit challenging the state's ban was filed on Tuesday.

In Wednesday's filing, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who supports marriage equality, joined Suthers in asking the federal court to strike down the state's ban on same-sex marriages — but, in doing so, also to enter a stay stopping same-sex couples from marrying at this time.

The newly filed lawsuit could thus reach a quick, although indefinite, resolution. The move, though, also is Suthers's best way of seeking a clear legal basis for stopping Boulder County Clerk Hillary Hall from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples — something she has been doing for the past week.

Hickenlooper and Suthers disagree about whether the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals was correct in striking down Utah's similar ban last week. In the Wednesday filing in federal court, though, they both agree to a ruling from the trial court that the appellate ruling in the Utah case means that Colorado's ban also is unconstitutional.

"[T]he Defendants do not oppose the entry of a preliminary injunctive relief in favor of the Plaintiffs based on their constitutional claims at this time," Suthers wrote, adding, however, that they wish for that injunction "to be stayed pending until all final appeals in the [Utah] case are resolved."

Suthers then noted the state defendants' differing positions in the case:

Suthers's office has been going back and forth with Boulder County officials in recent days over Clerk Hall's decision to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the 10th Circuit's decision.

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Draft circulated Wednesday by progressive religious leader Jim Wallis urges Obama that “the state should not require faith-based organizations to violate [their] beliefs [about marriage] in order to receive government contracts or grants.” Now, the letter might not even be sent.

WASHINGTON — A progressive religious leader was rallying a group Wednesday and early Thursday to warn President Obama that if the executive order to protect LGBT workers' rights does not include a strong religious exemption, it could give "ammunition" to critics.

Sojourners president Jim Wallis urged a handful of religious leaders Wednesday afternoon to sign onto a letter to the president backing "a clear and strong religious exemption" to the executive order — an additional effort beyond the letter that former Obama adviser Michael Wear and others sent earlier this week.

This second letter has not been sent yet and Wallis, generally viewed as a progressive religious leader, told BuzzFeed it has been changed significantly from the Wednesday afternoon draft obtained by BuzzFeed — and now might not be sent at all.

"We believe that change in our churches is necessary in regard to welcoming LGBT persons and are committed to working on that," stated the draft of the letter obtained by BuzzFeed. "But we believe that government action in making those changes would be very counter-productive to our goals of change."

When contacted Thursday morning about the draft letter, Wallis initially said, "There are no letters that have been agreed to or signed on or anything at all."

In Wallis's email to a handful of people sent at 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, however, he wrote that he drafted the letter after receiving "much feedback" from the recipients. He wrote that he wanted to "send it to the WH tomorrow by noon" — which would have been noon Thursday — and added, "Changes are hard to make on such a short time frame" but that he would "do whatever we can" in order to have the "key signatures" on the letter.

When pressed Thursday morning, Wallis said, "I'm not denying that we're in the process — I didn't deny anything — we're in the process of trying to find some helpful ways to express our concerns face-to-face and other ways with our friends in the White House, and I'm in regular conversation, at my request, with friends in the LGBT community about all of this. We're trying to help something privately and not taking public stances."

The letter was intended in some ways, Wallis said, to be a counterpoint to the Wear letter that some religious leaders and religious advisers to President Obama, including Rick Warren, had sent to the president. The distinction, Wallis said, being that his draft letter focused on support for LGBT rights, something he saw lacking in the other letter.

"I didn't think any of the letters that I saw from religious groups — I thought they were all very equivocal about LGBT equal protection in hiring, which I am not equivocal about," he said. "I didn't believe in those, I thought they were not nearly as supportive as I am and should be about equal protection."

Wallis announced support for marriage equality last year and has backed LGBT employment protections, including the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — the religious exemption of which has faced fire from some LGBT advocates in recent months. LGBT advocates have been pressing for an exemption in the executive order no broader than already existing exemptions in other similar orders.

Nonetheless, the Wallis draft letter — like the other religious letter — pressed for strong religious exemptions in the coming executive order, both because of the public perception of including religious exemptions and on principle.

"If religious exemptions are removed, withdrawn, or seriously cut back from those in place, like in ENDA, the perception will be that your administration is attacking religious freedom and liberty," the draft stated about perception. "While there is likely little you can do to win over some of the religious institutions and leaders who have been your critics, there are millions of Christians who are allied with you on many issues but would be lost if they perceived the balances of religious liberty were compromised."

Regarding the principle of religious exemptions, the draft stated, "Just as freedom of speech is only meaningful if it protects all viewpoints, ensuring religious liberty must be respected for churches and faith-based organizations who believe that heterosexual marriage is the biblical norm. And the state should not require faith-based organizations to violate those beliefs in order to receive government contracts or grants."

After the initial call Thursday morning, Wallis had a second call with BuzzFeed on Thursday afternoon, where he clarified his earlier remarks and backtracked on much of the draft letter's comments. He also made clear that his focus, when talking with White House officials, has been on other issues and that it was White House officials who approached him on this issue.

"I was trying to help the president and his team by sharing what I was hearing out there, and how we could find — if we could find — some good balances and some common ground that would achieve, as a top White House official said to me last week, could achieve the right balance between LGBT protections and respecting religious liberty. Both are goals that I have, that the president has, and that I think we have to find if we're going to go forward here," he said.

A White House spokesman did not respond Thursday afternoon to a request for confirmation about Wallis's involvement with the White House's process for considering any religious exemption to the executive order.

As to the letter itself, Wallis said Thursday afternoon, "The letter has not been finalized, it's not been signed, it's not been sent. And, what I was saying this morning — and I might have been clumsy, being surprised by your call — that letter is a conversation between people about whether we should say something in a private letter to just a few friends at the White House. That's all this is." He added that he may not even send it now because he "do[es]n't want to hurt the cause."

Explaining how the letter fits into his broader work, he explained, "I want to see a better relationship between the churches, the faith community, the LGBT people, who — as the letter says, have been terribly mistreated, over and over again, by the religious community. So, I don't want conflict over political issues to set back that agenda and just keep doing damage control."

Despite the language in the draft letter, Wallis said Thursday afternoon that he was not proposing any specific exemption in the draft, telling BuzzFeed, "I don't know the answer, and so I wasn't pressing a particular answer — because I don't know what the answer is."

Dear Mr. President,

We are your brothers and sisters in Christ. We have prayed, worshiped, studied Scripture, and engaged spiritual questions with you. We are all also your friends. And we have worked together with you on matters of deep moral consequence for us as faith leaders which are also vital issues for the common good. On issues like poverty, hunger, immigration, racial justice, criminal justice, climate change, international aid, HIV and malaria funding, and much more, we have been your allies. We regard you not only as an ally on so many of these concerns, but as a fellow committed Christian, for whom we have not only respect, but sincere affection.

We are writing this private letter with regards to the Executive Order on discrimination against LGBT persons in federal contracts. We have questions about how this order will be worded, shaped, rolled out, and practiced in relationship to the faith community. In particular, we have concerns over the religious exemptions question which has become so understandably controversial.

We are in favor of non-discrimination protection of LGBT people—not only in federal contracts but throughout society. Many of us have endorsed the ENDA bill in the Senate. We have supported equal protection under the law for LGBT people and some of us support same-sex civil marriage as a part of that commitment to equal protection. So we share many of your goals.

Many of us are working to open our faith communities to both empathy and compassion for LGBT people, and to repent of the ways we have treated our gay brothers and sisters, and many of us appreciate the gifts of gay people in our organizations. And we are also in regular dialogue with LGBT people both inside and outside the faith community.

Yet we also have a strong commitment to religious liberty and believe that the issues of equal protection and religious freedom must be very carefully balanced. Some of us wrote to you about some similar issues regarding the initial HHS rulings on how contraception requirements for health care would be applied to religious communities and suggested the changes that we were very glad to see you make at that time. We believe that change in our churches is necessary in regard to welcoming LGBT persons and are committed to working on that. But we believe that government action in making those changes would be very counter-productive to our goals of change.

In particular, we are concerned about the real danger of handing the "tool" of religious liberty (a very legitimate issue) over to those who would use it against the LGBT community and your administration in pursuing equal protection. Faith-based organizations that have been trying to work on these issues internally would strongly react to the state telling them they must change their current beliefs publically—or no longer be eligible for federal contracts. Change is coming on the inside, but those changes could easily be reversed if they were perceived to be forced by the government.

Your allies in the progressive faith community also have strong convictions on religious liberty. We have had many experiences with governments around the world intruding upon the beliefs and practices of our global faith communities, and some of us in the faith community have engaged in civil disobedience in our own country. Despite our support for the positive role of government, we are still resistant to federal intrusion into the beliefs and practices of faith communities as a requirement of partnership; it is a creative tension we live with. And a conflict with your administration over this EO, if religious exemptions are reduced, would create many problems for the important work faith-based communities are doing in the world in partnership with the government—crucial work that you have been very supportive of.

If religious exemptions are removed, withdrawn, or seriously cut back from those in place, like in ENDA, the perception will be that your administration is attacking religious freedom and liberty. While there is likely little you can do to win over some of the religious institutions and leaders who have been your critics, there are millions of Christians who are allied with you on many issues but would be lost if they perceived the balances of religious liberty were compromised.

We are deeply concerned about the protections of religious liberty for the sake of the common good, and are willing to be as helpful as we can be about how these important balances are sensitively drawn. How can we pursue protection for LGBT people and protection of religious liberty at the same time?

We grieve over how our religious communities have often hurt LGBT people. But many of us are working to change these behaviors and are working with allies in the LGBT community to do that. We would much rather be making forward progress than doing damage control and exacerbating the already strong tensions between the LGBT and faith communities.

As the church continues its internal discernment on these issues, it is imperative that the government is not perceived as stepping outside of its proper role and inappropriately influencing these theological conversations. Just as freedom of speech is only meaningful if it protects all viewpoints, ensuring religious liberty must be respected for churches and faith-based organizations who believe that heterosexual marriage is the biblical norm. And the state should not require faith-based organizations to violate those beliefs in order to receive government contracts or grants.

Your administration has done more for LGBT rights and acceptance than any other President and you should be proud of that. Your friends in the faith community want to also help protect your legacy from being described by your critics as against religious liberty and freedom. This EO could give them ammunition to do that, if religious exemptions are diminished or lost. We trust your commitment to the faith community and your desire to partner with us. And we want to protect those invaluable relationships, especially for all the sake of the poorest and most vulnerable.

While other elected officials have done all they can to block immigration reform, eviscerate social safety nets, and allow for the continued destruction of God's Creation, you worked with us and other faith leaders to make progress on these issues. Your efforts have brought you both respect and support from within the faith community, including many evangelicals and Catholics who are often distrustful of Democratic Administrations. There is serious risk of undermining that success with a misstep on this executive order.

We believe these problems are avoidable if the Administration offers a clear and strong religious exemption to the executive order.

We deeply appreciate the ways you always listen to us and we hope this letter can be helpful. And we are available any time to meet and talk about this with you and your team.

You, as always, are in our prayers.

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“…to make it worse used race baiting tactics to take advantage of African-American voters all for the sake of holding onto a seat to feed their money grubbing, greedy, selfish egos.”

Chris McDaniel / Via Facebook: senatormcdaniel

Melanie Sojourner, the campaign manager for Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel's bid to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, wrote on Facebook that she will never endorse Cochran. Cochran bested McDaniel in a primary runoff two weeks ago.

"For me to ever endorse Cochran would be to say that I can accept or find it ok the tactics he used," Sojourner writes. "That will simply never be the truth. Ever."

In her Facebook message, Sojourner, who is also a state senator, accuses the Cochran campaign of "race baiting."

"They did not reach out to African-American Democrats based on sharing a vision of conservative principles," she writes. "No they abandon those beliefs, told out right lies and made vicious attacks against one of Mississippi's most decorated conservative Republican champions and to make it worse used race baiting tactics to take advantage of African-American voters all for the sake of holding onto a seat to feed their money grubbing, greedy, selfish egos."

McDaniel has yet to concede to Cochran and has pledged to challenge his primary defeat.

A screenshot of the post has been embedded below:

Melanie Sojourner / Via Facebook: melanie.sojourner

Let’s get rowdy.

Sunday, the New York Post led with a big story: President Obama would support Elizabeth Warren over Hillary Clinton in a 2016 primary.

Except the story is by Edward Klein, the author of the new book, Blood Feud. And Klein doesn't offer any proof this is actually happening.

There is an anonymous source who says that Warren "like Obama, wants to transform America into a European-style democratic-socialist state." Another anonymous source dubs Warren Obama's "Mini-Me." There are vague reports of White House adviser Valerie Jarrett meeting with Warren.

And then Klein misquotes himself (or whatever you'd call this):

Here's Klein in the Post on Sunday:

Here's Klein in his own book. This is Bill Clinton talking to Chelsea, rather than "several close friends," at a party:

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“Winning an asylum case when one is in detention … it’s incredibly difficult.” White House spokesman told reporters Monday deportations are likely for most.

Pedestrians cross a border bridge connecting El Paso with Ciudad Juarez July 1, 2014.

Stringer/Mexico / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Led by Sen. Robert Menendez, Democratic lawmakers have been pushing for asylum to be open to the thousands of undocumented minors who have crossed the border in recent months.

"Some of the children will qualify for protection under asylum, trafficking and other laws, while other children will not," Menendez said last month. "All of these families and children deserve to have these cases heard."

But the process for gaining asylum status in the United States is very difficult — especially in the case of minors.

Although thousands of the undocumented immigrant minors could meet the criteria for asylum in the United States, federal law also requires that minors be reunified with their parents in all cases except in situations in which reunification would be against their best interests.

"The law itself, the policy, is to reunify these children with their parents. I think that at some point, most of them are going to be going home," said David Leopold, an immigration attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

"This isn't going to be one blanket grant of asylum," Leopold said.

Nearly 50,000 undocumented immigrants, many of them children, have crossed the border in recent months — a complex crisis that has overburdened U.S. detention facilities.

Republicans have argued the undocumented immigrants need to be deported with expediency. Democrats have argued many of the undocumented immigrants are "refugees."

Federal law gives unaccompanied minors an automatic right to make a claim for asylum — even if the chances of having it granted are slim.

"Children are entitled to be heard on the question of asylum. But let's be honest … we can't expect a child to understand our asylum laws" and the requirements for making a claim, Leopold said.

Indeed, even for adults who meet one or more of the criteria to make a potential asylum claim, navigating the legal system is extremely difficult.

For most asylum seekers, the bar is extremely high. For instance, adults, or children who come to the United States with one or more parents, must demonstrate they are part of a targeted class that is suffering persecution at the hands of the government, or that the government is unable or unwilling to protect them.

Immigration courts require asylum seekers to provide concrete evidence of their claims. That means gathering documentation, affidavits, and other evidence.

And even if asylum seekers can put together a case, in many areas along the border — particularly in Texas — judges rarely grant asylum claims. In El Paso, for instance, immigration judges denied 87% of asylum requests between 2007 and 2012 — far higher than the national 50.6% average.

"Sometimes they question the authenticity of your documents, putting your whole credibility at risk," said Nancy Oretskin, an attorney with the Southwest Asylum and Migration Institute who works with asylum seekers held in detention centers in New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. "Winning an asylum case when one is in detention … it's incredibly difficult," Oretskin said.

For unaccompanied children, however, there is a second set of anti-human trafficking laws passed by Congress in the mid-2000s that provide a much broader set of potential protections, in asylum cases. Specifically designed to protect minors from traffickers, thousands of the children flooding into the U.S. could, in theory, be covered by this law "because it isn't persecution based," Leopold said.

But with so many minors making claims, there are concerns that the Border Patrol and others now tasked with assessing the asylum claims of undocumented immigrant minors are simply not up to the task.

Shifting members of the Department of Homeland Security's "Asylum Corps" — investigators trained in handling asylum cases from around the world — could help ensure minors' claims get a proper vetting because "there are serious questions about … the border patrol's ability to do this. And that's not a knock on the border patrol," Leopold explained.

"The most frustrating thing is that the law is so complicated in this area," Leopold said, warning that asylum cases can only be addressed on a "case-by-case basis," although that hasn't stopped politicians on both sides from capitalizing on the situation.

"You have politicians sound biting this in so many ways," Leopold lamented.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest acknowledged Monday that the majority of the unaccompanied minor immigrants will end up being deported. "It's unlikely that most of the kids who go through this process will qualify for humanitarian relief, which is to say that most of them will not have a legal basis — will not be found, through that court process, to have a legal basis to remain in this country," Earnest said during his daily briefing with reporters.

There’s bipartisan momentum for changing a 2008 law that treats undocumented minors from other Central American countries differently from those from Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center

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WASHINGTON — More than 20 members of Congress spent some time during the July 4th recess on the border visiting the processing and detention centers where thousands of undocumented immigrants, many of them minors, are currently.

The surge of people coming over the border from Central America has been deemed a humanitarian crisis by the Obama administration, and the president will officially ask Congress for an additional $2 billion to send to the border on Tuesday.

Democrats and Republicans who visited came away with very different impressions of what the government can and should actually do about the crisis there, and the reasons for it: Republicans continued to blame the Obama administration's immigration policies for the increased influx of minors coming in; Democrats argued the main issue was the conditions in Central American countries forcing children and their parents to flee.

But following the visits, members on both sides of the aisle seem open to amending a 2008 anti-trafficking law that directs the United States to treat unaccompanied minors from "noncontiguous" countries differently than children crossing the border from Mexico. The law requires that the government take in these minors and process them through the Department of Health and Human Services before their immigration cases are decided. The Obama administration is seeking changes to the law to allow for expedited processing.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, who led a delegation of five members to the border, said through a spokeswoman Congress should carefully consider tweaks to the 2008 law if the president presents them. But the statement added there were immediate steps Obama should be taking now to slow the flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States.

"While there are some laws that complicate how we deal with minors from Central America coming the U.S. illegally, it is crystal clear that President Obama has many tools he could use now to quell this activity in the Rio Grande Valley and prevent minors from making the dangerous journey to the United States," Goodlatte said in an emailed statement. "If President Obama wants to stop this problem, he should enforce our immigration laws and quit using his pen and phone to create administrative legalization programs. Additionally, he needs to direct officials at the Department of Homeland Security to crack down on asylum fraud and implement deterrents to stop people from entering in violation of the law. This would send the unequivocal message that it is no longer worth the risk to subject children to the dangers of the perilous trip north to our southern border."

Conservative Rep. Raúl Labrador, a staunch critic of the Obama administration's immigration policies, did not travel to the border but said on Meet the Press Sunday he would welcome a change to the 2008 law.

"I think we need to change that law. We shouldn't be treating the children from Central America any different than we treat the children from Mexico and Canada. And I think that is something that I will join the administration is doing," he said.

Democrats have argued that passing a broad immigration law would go a long way to further securing the border and providing regularity in the law. But to immediately address the crisis, some said that immediately visiting the 2008 law was the best first step.

"The short-term fix is that 2008 law, which no one had ever really talked about, mentioned, since it was passed and we're clearly seeing that because the border agents are charged with carrying out the letter of that law is that any child not from Mexico must be placed within 72 hours — they're kind of stuck," said Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who went to McAllen, Texas, with the Homeland Security Committee. "Under our laws, we have to receive and place these kids, so I think the first thing we have to do it is amend that law to give the border agents more discretion on a case-by-case basis for these kids."

At a field hearing in McAllen, many of the members on Homeland Security called the situation "heartbreaking." Arizona Republican Matt Salmon said seeing the children brought tears to his eyes — but the majority of Republicans on the panel agreed that those crossing over needed to be sent back as quickly as possible. Salmon told the Arizona Republic he planned to introduced a fix to the 2008 law this week in Washington.

The committee's lead witness, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, concurred that the U.S. government needed to do everything it could to send back the thousands of children crossing the border back home.

"Some may think that allowing them to stay here is a more humane option and I can assure you it's not," Perry told members at a field hearing of the Homeland Security Committee. "Nobody's done any of these children the slightest favor by delaying the rapid return to the countries they were born to."

Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee defended the government, pointing again to the anti-trafficking law.

"A massive deportation policy for children is not a humane thing to do. We must find a way to follow the law, Republicans voted for the law in 2008 and that is the law that transfers these children to Health and Human Services. Maybe we need added help," she said at the hearing. "I am ready to provide funding for more ICE officers, more resources for the border patrol, and more help for the state."

The former secretary of state did a barrage of interviews to promote her book.

Hillary is not fond of talking about Monica Lewinsky's resurgence: Asked on BBC radio what she thinks of Lewinsky's recent reemergence, she dodged and said the country has moved past it.

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Hillary has finally spoken out about her 1975 defense of an accused child rapist: In an interview with British parent network Mumsnet Clinton says she had a "professional duty to represent my client to the best of my ability."

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Hillary views Iraq with regret, both in her 2003 vote for the war and the aftermath: Speaking with the BBC, Clinton calls the failure of the Maliki government in Iraq, as "the biggest regret I have."

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People will never be tired of asking Hillary Clinton if she wants to run for president.

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Today.

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The Internet activist Alexis Ohanian tells BuzzFeed that despite its problems gaining public attention, net neutrality is a vital cause.

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Alexis Ohanian, the internet activist and creator of the news site and meme machine Reddit, is optimistic about net neutrality, despite the fact that, as he said tonight
at the BuzzFeed Brews event, in conversation with BuzzFeed FWD editor Charlie Warzel, "it could use a mascot."

Net neutrality, the idea that internet service providers should have to treat access to all sites equally, is currently subject to a 120-day public comment period held by the FCC. Currently, internet service providers can charge major traffic hogs—like Netflix—what Ohanian called an "extortion fee" for normal consumer access to their sites.

Ohanian is strongly associated with efforts to protect free and open internet access, particularly the successful` web campaign to defeat the 2011 Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that sough to vest the government with new powers to prevent online copyright infringement. In 2012, Ohanian embarked on a cross-country bus tour — coinciding with the Presidential debates between President Obama and Mitt Romney — to promote open internet.

He attributed the relative ease of stopping SOPA to two reasons — first, there was a "clear and imminent threat" that sites like Google could rally behind: it would have given major content companies extraordinary and chilling powers over major sections of the internet. Second, according to Ohanian, SOPA was "bad legislation" to be stopped; ensuring net neutrality remains a standard involves the much less graspable process of reclassifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.

Still, despite the fact that net neutrality, as Ohanian put it "could use a mascot", he remained positive that a "nightmare scenario" would not come to pass, largely because the only major parties with a natural interest in ending the practice are a few giant corporations (companies, he admitted, that have "lots of lobbying money.")

Ohanian fretted that major internet companies like Google, which came out strongly against SOPA, have not been as vocal in their support of net neutrality. "Google, whereart thou?" he asked facetiously. Google, which Ohanian noted is now an ISP, "is not looking out for the interest of the American people; they're looking out for the interests of their shareholders."

The danger here, as Ohanian said, is that small companies — the Googles and Netflixes of tomorrow — won't have the capital to "win on the merits" of their technology, and that the entrenched tech powers won't be challenged, or, as he said repeatedly, "disrupted".

Ohanian, who is traveling to Washington D.C. to meet with members of Congress, forecasted a battle over internet freedom that is not going away any time soon: "This is never going to end. It's all very threatening technology to a lot of industries. No one will look out for us other than ourselves."

Ben Tribbett says he’s become a “distraction” in the fight to preserve the Washington Redskins team name.

WASHINGTON — Less than a month after taking a job that put him in charge of defending the embattled Washington Redskins team name from its critics, Virginia progressive activist Ben Tribbett said on Twitter Monday night he will resign from the NFL franchise.

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A month ago, the Veteran’s Administration issued a subpoena for names of anonymous whistleblowers a veterans’ group collected to expose problems in the VA health system. On Tuesday, a congressional hearing is expected to explain why the whistleblowers want to keep their names secret.

Elizabeth Flores/Minneapolis Star Tribune / MCT

WASHINGTON — Former and current VA employees will tell congress at a hearing Tuesday that whistleblowing can entail severe retaliation from superiors at the VA, including reassignment to a windowless basement, separation from family and — in one case — a stress-induced heart attack.

Three VA doctors and a program administrator are set to testify at Tuesday's House Veteran's Affairs Committee hearing, specifically focused on whistleblowers. All provided information on what they saw as inept practices inside the VA and say they faced retaliation, including being placed on leave.

The hearing should also provide illumination on the case of the VA's aggressive actions toward an outside veterans group that has called for whistleblowers to come forward.

In May, the Inspector General for the Veteran's Administration issued an extraordinary subpoena demanding a list of anonymous whistleblowers collected through a joint effort launched by the Project For Government Oversight, a watchdog group, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, one of the nation's most vocal advocates for veterans of post-9/11 conflicts. The groups built a special website for VA employees and veterans to anonymously report problems with the way the federally-owned hospital network was delivering care to vets.

POGO and IAVA have collected around 800 names through the website and have pledged to keep them secret. The Inspector General's subpoena required POGO to hand them over so federal investigators can look into the claims. In an June letter to members of congress, VA Inspector General Richard Griffin wrote that the subpoena was necessary because Griffin's team can't investigate claims of wrongdoing by IAVA and POGO unless they can independently verify the allegations themselves. Griffin pledged to keep the names secret and warned that unless he was able see the list himself, the complaints gathered by POGO and IAVA were "mere allegations."

POGO and IAVA officials say that would violate the promise they made to their whistleblowers, and so, on June 13, the groups publicly let the deadline for compliance with the subpoena pass, earning praise from media critics and the backing of Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who warned that the subpoena could have a chilling effect on future whistleblowers coming forward. On Monday, POGO announced more than 18,000 had signed an online petition demanding the inspector general drop the subpoena.

A month after they made their stand, the groups say they haven't heard a word from the inspector general about the subpoena, or what the feds plan to do now that they've ignored it. That hasn't calmed their nerves.

"We have not received anything, no phone call, no fax, no anything. There's really nothing we can read into that either," said Joe Newman, POGO spokesperson. "We'd like to think it's because they're rethinking their decision but anything we say is just speculation. It's just radio silence for now."

Experts agree that no word is not necessarily good word when it comes to ducking federal subpoenas.

"Hearing nothing doesn't mean they're doing nothing," said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola law professor who writes about the intersection of law and politics. "You don't get to ignore a subpoena," she added.

POGO and IAVA may be benefitting from the fact that the optics of dragging veterans' advocates into court to force them to reveal the names of anonymous whistleblowers are not exactly ideal, she said.

"POGO is the sympathetic party in this situation and the VA is not," she said. "This is not a time that the VA wants to be seen as strong-arming and leaning on people who want to facilitate whistleblowers."

While Coburn has been the most vocal defender of POGO and IAVA against the subpoena, there are signs congressional wariness about the inspector general's move is growing. POGO and IAVA have said their whistleblowers are afraid of retaliation inside the VA if they get found out. Stories like those of the witnesses for Tuesday's House hearing — and ongoing federal investigations into more than two dozen cases of retaliation against whistleblowers at VA — fuel those fears, the advocates say.

Dr. Jose Matthews, former head of psychiatry at the St. Louis VA hospital, is among those testifying Tuesday. He's detailed in the media before how he was stripped of his position and transferred to a windowless basement after he complained doctors in his department were operating a deliberately inefficient pace.

Staff at the House Veterans Affairs committee told BuzzFeed they've reviewed many cases of whistleblower retaliation in advance of the hearing Tuesday.

"We've seen some very egregious stuff," one committee staff member said. One woman suffered what the staffer called a "stress heart attack" related to the treatment she received after she blew the whistle, which included feeling forced to resign and live away from her family for two years while seeking a new job.

Committee staff say stories like that are bolstering the case for POGO and IAVA, who want congress to help pressure the VA Inspector General to drop the subpoena.

"Which is more important, the issue or the whistleblower's identity?" said a committee staffer, who said the inspector general should investigate the claims raised by POGO first and then only ask for names if the investigation requires it. "If there's a concern about the validity of the data, then maybe you have to go the extra mile. I don't think that because you don't know the identity that you should be prevented from investigating."

"The who isn't as important as the what yet," the staffer added.