Whatever you do, don’t call it an invasion.

NATO imagery showing Russian artillery operating inside Ukraine.

Handout / Reuters

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials are refusing to call Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine this week an invasion, and the issue is not on the agenda for Thursday's National Security Council meeting.

"Today the president is meeting with his National Security Council to discuss the situation in Iraq and Syria, our ongoing efforts to support the Iraqi government, and our efforts to counter the threat posed by ISIL," a White House official said on Thursday when asked if the situation in Ukraine would also be a part of the meeting. "You should not expect that we'll have new decisions to announce on these issues today."

The meeting will include heads of intelligence agencies, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry, the three of whom plan to join remotely. The meeting is expected to include discussion of whether or not the U.S. will carry out strikes against the Islamist terrorist organization ISIS inside Syria.

Russian combat troops are currently inside southeastern Ukraine. NATO released satellite imagery showing this on Thursday. "The satellite images released today provide additional evidence that Russian combat soldiers, equipped with sophisticated heavy weaponry, are operating inside Ukraine's sovereign territory," NATO Brigadier General Nico Tak said.

Despite this, no one seems to want to call what is going on in Ukraine an invasion.

Asked by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC on Thursday why the United States has favored terms like "incursion" and "aggression" instead of "invasion" to characterize the situation in Ukraine, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said, "I think this is a discussion about terminology" and that it doesn't change the kind of support the U.S. is giving Ukraine and the discussions U.S. officials are conducting."

"Escalation of aggression by the Russians has been a pattern over the last several months," Psaki said. She said that this would be a main issue discussed at the NATO summit next week, and that there are "sanctions we could still do, a range of tools at our disposal."

The U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Douglas Lute, is also avoiding the term, despite calling Russia's actions "the most severe challenge to European security since the end of the Cold War."

"NATO leaders will meet with Ukrainian President Poroshenko to discuss the crisis caused by Russia's illegal aggression, the most severe challenge to European security since the end of the Cold War," Lute wrote in a blog post about next week's NATO summit.

Other U.S. officials, like National Security Adviser Susan Rice, have also stuck with words like "escalation" and "incursion."

Part of the reason for this is that using the word "invasion" would force the United States into a rhetorical corner and require them to respond in some way, while making diplomacy with the Russians over this issue more difficult — and Russian President Vladimir Putin has proved himself adept at the kind of drawn-out invasions that also allow the United States to avoid using the dreaded I-word.

Other Western leaders are mirroring the U.S. rhetoric, including U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who said on Thursday that "I'm extremely concerned by mounting evidence that Russian troops have made large-scale incursions into South Eastern Ukraine, completely disregarding the sovereignty of a neighbor" and warned Russia of "further consequences."

Broader review of Oklahoma’s execution procedures ordered after Clayton Lockett’s botched execution also coming to a close, with a report expected in the next week, officials say.

AP Photo/Oklahoma Department of Corrections, File

WASHINGTON — Clayton Lockett, the inmate who died in Oklahoma's botched April execution, died from "judicial execution by lethal injection," according to the results of an autopsy ordered by the state's governor.

The broader review of the state's execution procedures also is coming to a close, according to the state's director of the Department of Public Safety, with a report expected on the findings in the next week.

Lockett's execution began as planned on April 29, at 6:23 p.m. CT. After having been declared unconscious, however, he reportedly began moving and officials halted the execution procedure and eventually lowered the blinds, preventing the witnesses from seeing the remainder of the execution. Lockett was pronounced dead at 7:06 p.m. CT.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said at the time that Lockett died of a "massive heart attack." The autopsy, conducted by the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences at Dallas, was ordered by Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin as part of the review of the execution and execution procedures that she called for the day after Lockett's botched execution.

Oklahoma's commission of the Department of Public Safety, Michael Thompson, also announced that investigators are "finalizing recommendations" regarding the state's execution procedures after having conducted "well over one hundred interviews" and reviewed other evidence, including the autopsy report.

The report's results will be summarized in a report to be made public and a news conference to discuss those findings will be held next week, per the Department of Public Safety.

LINK: Oklahoma Department of Public Safety: Clayton Lockett autopsy report and related documents

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The president said media might be “further ahead” than where the administration currently is on strikes in Syria.

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President Obama said Thursday that "we don't have a strategy yet" to combat ISIS militants and the possibility of strikes in Syria.

"I don't want to put the cart before the horse. We don't have a strategy yet. I think what I've seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we're at than what we currently are," President Obama said in response to a question about consulting with Congress about military action.

The president added he would make sure there was a consultation with Congress when there was a clear strategy; the administration has reportedly been considering strikes on ISIS in Syria.

"And I think that's not just my assessment but the assessment of our military as well," Obama said. "We need to make sure we have clear plans, so that we are developing them. At that point, I will consult with Congress and make sure their voices are heard. But there's no point in me asking for action on the part of Congress before I know exactly what it is that is going to be required for us to get the job done."

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“Defendants took up arms and, in militaristic displays of force and weaponry, engaged U.S. Citizens as if they were war combatants,” the suit claims.

Police officers patrol a street in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 11.

Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

WASHINGTON — A multimillion dollar lawsuit was filed in federal court in Missouri on Thursday, seeking compensation for "excessive force" by the police in Ferguson, Missouri, in the days after the shooting of Michael Brown.

According to the suit, the excessive force included false arrest, assault, and battery; led to intentional infliction of emotional distress; was the result of negligent supervision and discipline; and resulted in a violation of the plaintiffs' constitutional rights.

The lawsuit, filed by three out-of-state lawyers — including Malik Shabazz from Black Lawyers for Justice, who participated in the protests in Missouri — seeks multimillion dollar judgments against the City of Ferguson and St. Louis County, as well as one specific and several unknown officers on behalf of Tracey White, Dewayne A. Matthews Jr., Kerry White, Damon Coleman, and Theophilus Green.

In addition to the city and county, the chief of both city and county police are named as defendants, as is Justin Cosma, a police officer with the Ferguson Police Department.

The underlying cause:

The general reason for the lawsuit:

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This is where we are.

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The White House finally stopped dodging the question everyone is asking: What was up with Obama's tan suit?

"I know that there is one aspect of the president's news conference yesterday that attracted some attention," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday.

"So I thought I might go over at least on aspect of that argument and it's specifically this: The president stands squarely behind the decision that he made yesterday to wear his summer suit at yesterday's news conference. It's the Thursday before Labor Day. He feels pretty good about it."

The tan suit is actually a flip-flop for Obama, in 2012 he told Vanity Fair he only wears black or blue suits.

"You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits," Obama said.

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The White House has been frantically trying to change the message since Thursday’s press conference.

Stringer / Reuters

Republican members of Congress have seizing on comments from President Obama that "we don't have a strategy yet" to combat ISIS militants and possibly strike them in Syria.

"I don't want to put the cart before the horse. We don't have a strategy yet. I think what I've seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we're at than what we currently are," President Obama said in response to a question about consulting with Congress about military action.

In a first sign that Congressional Republicans want to make the moment of candor a representation of Obama's foreign policy, many members of Congress have been tweeting about the remarks.

The White House attempted to quickly clean up the comment on both Thursday and Friday, frantically emailing reporters, tweeting, and making television appearances to combat what many are perceiving a serious gaffe.

The president added Thursday he would make he consulted with Congress when he had a clear strategy; reports have said the Obama administration is considering strikes on ISIS in Syria.

"And I think that's not just my assessment but the assessment of our military as well," Obama said. "We need to make sure we have clear plans, so that we are developing them. At that point, I will consult with Congress and make sure their voices are heard. But there's no point in me asking for action on the part of Congress before I know exactly what it is that is going to be required for us to get the job done."

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Chuck Grassley and Bob Goodlatte argue the administration hasn’t been transparent with DACA.

Sen. Chuck Grassley

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Key House and Senate Republicans warned Friday that the Obama administration's program legalizing DREAMers is an "open invitation for fraud and abuse" and accused the Department of Homeland Security of failing to verify the identity of undocumented minors covered by the program.

In a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Chuck Grassley also slammed the administration's lack of transparency, complaining that despite numerous requests for information "we have rarely received substantive responses. Congress is entitled to know how this administration is managing the program and to whom it is providing lawful status."

The administration has been providing some undocumented minors with legal status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which covers many minors who were brought to the United States by their parents.

Goodlatte and Grassley argue a set of changes to the program published in June have created loopholes that could be exploited by people it is not intended to cover, including those "who want to do us harm."

The two Republicans highlight a Frequently Asked Questions document published by DHS "which provides an open invitation for fraud and abuse by assuring potential DACA applicants that [DHS] has not plans to actually verify the validity of any evidentiary documents submitted in support of an application."

Additionally, the lawmakers question the Department of Homeland Security's commitment to guarding against fraud and abuse, pointing to a June 5th conference call with congressional staff in which a DHS employee "stated that, 'generally the majority of documents we receive are valid.' Please forgive us if that simple 'assurance' does not quell our concerns," the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

Is this real life?

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Republican Rep. Peter King of New York is no fan of tan. The conservative member of Congress from Long Island blasted President Obama for wearing "a light suit, light tan suit" to talk about the threat of ISIS on Thursday.

"There's no way any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday," King said of President Obama on NewsMaxTV. "When you have the world watching... a week, two weeks of anticipation of what the United States is gonna do. For him to walk out — I'm not trying to be trivial here — in a light suit, light tan suit, saying that first he wants to talk about what most Americans care about the revision of second quarter numbers on the economy. This is a week after Jim Foley was beheaded and he's trying to act like real Americans care about the economy, not about ISIS and not about terrorism. And then he goes on to say he has no strategy."

King said Obama's comments and actions showed "foreign policy was not a major issue" for President Obama.

Here's the suit:

Larry Downing / Reuters

The fringes of the U.S. conservative movement build bridges with their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic.

National Policy Institute / Via npiamerica.org

WASHINGTON — The white nationalist think tank the National Policy Institute is holding a conference in October in Hungary that will feature Alexander Dugin, a Russian nationalist thinker who is increasingly popular in Kremlin circles.

Richard Spencer, the president of NPI and a former writer at the American Conservative, said the conference, which will also feature figures from the ascendant European far right, would be the first of its kind for NPI outside the United States. It's part of an effort to reach out to "European traditionalists" all over the world, he said, and the relationship with Dugin is just beginning: a publishing arm attached to NPI will publish a book this fall by Dugin, who this week called for Ukraine to be "cleansed" of the Ukrainian "race of bastards."

"I think there are a lot of things happening in Europe that I think would excite people like me and people who want to go to the conference, and would excite Americans who care about their European identity," Spencer said.

Apart from Dugin, the conference will also host Márton Gyöngyösi, a leader of Jobbik, Hungary's extremist far right political party.

This is not the first time that figures from the fringes of the American conservative movement have built bridges with the right in Europe and Russia. Pat Buchanan has publicly expressed support for Vladimir Putin's policies, as have others. But this is the first time that Spencer's crowd of white nationalists, who are no longer welcome in the mainstream U.S. conservative movement, have so publicly joined themselves to their Russian and European counterparts.

Spencer's thoughts on the Ukraine crisis hew closely to Moscow's.

"I think to a large degree the Maidan revolution was organized and funded by outside powers, I don't think that's a controversial statement," he said. "I certainly understand the position of Ukrainian separatists and nationalists. I think that to a very large degree they are supporting a geopolitical policy of Washington and I myself am more sympathetic towards Russia as a major power entering the world stage. Russia has the opportunity, to put it bluntly, to make the world a better place."

"I'm sympathetic toward Putin in many ways," he said.

Spencer is a great admirer of Dugin's, whom he says he knows personally, and will be publishing a Dugin volume about the German philosopher Martin Heidegger this fall titled Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning under the Radix Journal imprint, which is part of NPI.

"We're certainly honored to have him at our conference," Spencer said.

"I think the fact that we're inviting Dugin is expressive of the fact that we want to have a real healthy dialogue with the major currents of Russian conservatism," Spencer said.

h/t Adam Holland

The only question is whether the justices will agree to take on the issue — and, if so, which case or cases it’s going to be.

Gary Cameron / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Some of the top appellate lawyers and leading LGBT legal groups in the nation are squaring off in unusual filings at the Supreme Court this week asking the justices to hear their respective case about marriage equality.

Technically, the lawyers were responding to Supreme Court filings by state or county officials in Oklahoma, Virginia, and Utah that ask the justices to hear their case in order to uphold bans on same-sex couples' marriages.

In reality, however, the lawyers are pointing out to the justices why their case — and not a case in another state — should be the case heard by the justices in the coming term that will begin in October.

Although the justices won't consider whether to take any of the cases until, at the earliest, the end of September, the four filings this week showed how focused lawyers across the country supporting marriage equality are on getting a case — and, they hope, their case — before the justices in the next year.

The filings in cases challenging the bans on same-sex couples' marriages in Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia start from the unusual posture that all of the same-sex couples who filed lawsuits have won in the lower courts that heard their cases. Nonetheless, the importance of the issue has led all four legal teams — there are two in Virginia — to ask the Supreme Court to resolve the issue.

The filings share one thing: They argue that the justices should take a marriage case to resolve the issue, as the Virginia class-action plaintiffs put it, "so that the constitutional rights of same-sex couples in Virginia and elsewhere may be enforced without delay."

Although all four filings agree on that point, the four teams differ on which case or cases to take and why. Each explains why their case is the best "vehicle" for resolving the question, focusing on the distinctions between the cases.

One distinction is whether the justices will hear a case only asking whether same-sex couples can marry or whether the case will also address bans on recognition of out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples.

The filings also differ on how the state government officials treat the bans: Do the justices want to hear a case in which the state is totally defending the ban or are the justices OK with hearing a case in which at least some government officials agree that the ban is unconstitutional, like in Virginia?

Additionally, at least one of the briefs raises the issue of the experience of the lawyers involved in the case with Supreme Court litigation about gay rights issues. Finally, there is a question of whether the court might take multiple cases — something explicitly recommended in some briefs.

Of course, the justices don't need to take any of the cases, or they could hold them for a while, potentially into the next term, which wouldn't begin until October 2015. The unified filings — from supporters and opponents of the various states' bans — urging the court to take up the issue, however, suggest no one wants that.

In Oklahoma, local lawyers Don Holladay and James Warner of Holladay & Chilton and Joseph Thai, the lawyers behind Smith v. Bishop, have been joined by Jeffrey Fisher of Stanford Law School's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic to push the justices to take their case on behalf of the same-sex couples who sued back in 2004.

In Virginia, two different groups once fighting with each other have now resolved (at least for the moment) to push together, albeit in separate filings. They are urging the Supreme Court to take their case, filed after the Supreme Court's 2013 decision striking down the federal ban on recognition of same-sex couples' marriages.

In the named case before the justices, Rainey v. Bostic, the local lawyers with Shuttleworth, Ruloff, Swain, Haddad & Morecock were soon thereafter joined by the American Foundation for Equal Rights and lawyers Ted Olson, who argued against California's Proposition 8 at the Supreme Court, and David Boies with their respective teams at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Boies, Schiller & Flexner.

The second set of Virginia plaintiffs, a class-action lawsuit challenging the ban, successfully intervened in the Bostic case on appeal. They are represented by lawyers from the ACLU and Lambda Legal, as well as Paul Smith, the Jenner & Block lawyer who successfully argued against sodomy laws at the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas.

Finally, in Utah, an ever-growing team has been assembled to represent the same-sex couples who sued the state in Herbert v. Kitchen. Peggy Tomsic, whose firm of Magleby & Greenwood brought the suit, was joined by lawyers from the National Center for Lesbian Rights at the appellate level and by Neal Katyal, the former acting solicitor general at the Justice Department who is now at Hogan Lovells, and lawyers at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.

In other words, a lot of lawyers are in on this — and they all want to be the ones who get to say their case was the one the ended the marriage bans across the nation.

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With the help of libertarians, the ACLU, and a law from Maryland, the conservative legislature in Utah is leading the way in reigning in police tactics.

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Here's how you convince a legislature full of law-and-order Republicans to back efforts to rein in militarized police tactics:

Take a law passed by the Democratic legislature of Maryland, get the local chapter of the ACLU (and a group of libertarians) to rework it slightly, put it on the floor, watch it pass basically unanimously.

That was the unlikely recipe used — successfully — by activists in Utah.

And after the startling images of police deployments in Ferguson, Missouri, the same group of Utah activists are pretty confident they'll be able to achieve even greater success in the next legislative session. This time, they're setting out to make Utah one of the first states to voluntarily limit the way its local police forces can accept and use surplus military equipment distributed by the Department of Defense.

"It's definitely another catalytic event," said Conor Boyack, president of Libertas, the libertarian group that lead the effort with the Utah ACLU. "Some lawmakers who have been shocked at the images coming out of Ferguson...[and] have expressed skepticism that those scenes could ever be on the streets of Utah are nevertheless interested in looking at this because of the images coming out of Ferguson."

"It just feels very timely for us," agreed Marina Lowe, legislative and policy counsel for the ACLU in Utah. "Having a real national incident helped make this very real for everyone."

With the U.S. Congress set to return to Capitol Hill for its first legislative work days since Ferguson, activists in Washington are scrambling to push some kind of police demilitarization legislation through Congress before lawmakers scatter again for the final 2014 campaign push.

The White House, currently in the beginning stages of an executive branch review of programs that send military equipment to local police forces, isn't ready to sign on to any of the legislative solutions.

"The review has to be conducted first to determine if the program needs adjusting. It's way too early to talk about changing legislation when we don't know what the findings will tell us," a White House official involved with the review said Friday. "It could be the case that the program needs no adjustments or needs adjustments that do not require a change in legislation."

There is also the reality that any bipartisan action on any topic in Washington right now faces a deeply divided Congress and rapidly-approaching election. Mainstream Republicans have been more cautious about changes to the criminal justice system than Democrats have, and even with momentum building among the conservative activist wing of the party, convincing the Republican House to take on police tactics seems like a tall order.

But Utah shows bipartisan demilitarization bills are possible, even in an environment where law-and-order Republicans have a lot of control, as is the case in Washington.

In January, 2012, a SWAT raid on the home of low-level marijuana suspect went terribly wrong, leaving one officer dead and several others wounded. The suspect was an Army vet with no criminal record — he who claimed the police did not announced themselves and he shot at them believing them to be burglars. He hung himself in jail after he lost a legal challenge to the warrant that authorized the raid. The case quickly became a poster child for the police demilitarization movement, and led to soul-searching among Utahans about the tactics and equipment used by their police.

Activists sprang into action, Boyack says, grabbing a copy of an existing law passed in the blue state of Maryland that requires police to keep and provide data about how and when SWAT teams are used. Data on military-like policy activity is notoriously hard to gather; there's no central repository for it and police are generally not thrilled about giving up details of controversial SWAT activities. The ACLU has called on the Obama administration to create national data collection requirements for local police who use Surplus department of Defense equipment.

The activists also proposed legislation that made it harder for police to use SWAT teams to serve warrants without crossing high evidence standards. That puts a tighter civilian oversight on police tactics similar to options proposed on the national level by activists.

In Utah, police opposed the bills. Boyack said he reached out to the ACLU to help craft a legislative strategy that could overcome the police lobby and the natural tendency of many politicians to steer clear of laws not seen as "tough on crime." The goal was to take politics out of the equation entirely.

"Early on, we reached out to ACLU to bring them on as sort of a coalition," Boyack said. "They readily agreed with the ideas we were working on, to show the legislators that this was a trans-partisan issue or nonpartisan issue."

Lowe said the partnership was an easy, if unlikely, one.

"We don't agree on a lot of issues," she said. "But we found when it comes to the Fourth Amendment we tend to get along."

Lawmakers were initially skeptical, he said, but the unified front and arguments that new transparency stemming from the data collection requirements and the regulations on warrants protect both citizens and police helped both bills sail through the legislature.

After the 2012 SWAT incident, "even the tough-on-crime types recognized that was a heavy-handed response to such a low-level crime," Boyack said.

After Ferguson, Utah members of the left-right coalition that has been driving criminal justice policy change in recent years think they can tackle the surplus equipment program at the state level. Talks are in their early stages, but Boyack said future legislative proposals could make impose restrictions on Utah cops trying to get their hands on military tech and require stringent reporting after that tech is used.

Could the Utah model work in Washington? Ferguson has put a lot of momentum behind the libertarian wing of the GOP's take on police militarization in Washington. Bills have been filed focusing on militarization of local cops as well as federal regulatory agencies. The Senate will hold hearings soon on the use of military equipment by police. As in Utah, the ACLU and the prominent libertarian activists in Washington are in general agreement about what needs to be done.

But Boyack is not bullish on Washington and its large caucus of law-and-order Republicans.

"My opinion is that there's too much inertia at the federal level," he said. "The proper way to get reform done is at the state level."

How farce turns into tragedy.

The disaster that Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen face — excessive gifts from a donor and friend; exposure and disgrace; and a federal trial that centered on the couple's relationship — has two distinct phases.

First, the utter smallness of everything to do with the scandal; and next, the actual tragedy.

The secret of the McDonnells and the source of nearly all their problems is this: They are ordinary. Go right back to the beginning. In January of 2010, Gov. Bob McDonnell, the handsome new hope of the Republican Party, responded to the State of the Union, one month into his governorship. This was the high point of his public life. He and his wife then owed $74,904 to their credit card companies, and owned two Virginia Beach properties losing about $50,000 a year.

This is a problem you can understand: You have $75,000 in debt and two properties just bleeding money — and you can't say anything. You can't ask for help. It's got to be kept a secret; it's got to be solved before anyone finds out, because otherwise everything will be ruined. The last three lines of a Tetris board in real life. What were they going to do?

So, they took a loan. Then they took another loan, this one from the kind of new friends politicians make, a businessman named Jonnie Williams. Williams happened also to be looking to advance the prospects of Anatabloc, a supplement whose key ingredient, Anatabine, is found in tobacco. They paid off the first loan with, in part, one from Williams. They took two other loans from Williams, too. And while doing this, they kicked off a midlife crisis built on a foundation of damp popsicle sticks.

The gifts: some UVA golf clubs, a three-hour drive in a Ferrari, a Rolex (inscribed with a special message), a New York shopping trip straight out of a beach read for women of a certain age, $120,000 in low-interest loans, $15,000 in catering fees.

The thing is, it's a pathetic scandal, mired in the ordinary. Unravel to reveal fights over two beach houses, and a supplement you could buy at your local GNC. One gift that didn't end up working out: "the best tool of all — a generator." Well, that's very sensible, Jonnie. Good for hurricanes. What romance.

It's like the reality of passing out on the kitchen floor; or having to make a midnight run to Target to, in fluorescent blindness, buy a half-gallon of milk; the adult realization that it falls to you to deal with changing cable providers; every nasty impulse you've ever had, keyed to an everyday concern. That's the kind of scandal we're dealing with here: credit card debt and a generator.

This is so often how politicians fall — in scandals over four-digit and five-digit sums of money, even as their jobs give them control over sums many orders of magnitude larger. In this case, the sheer smallness of everything has become a distraction. For instance, there are enough photos of Bob McDonnell driving Jonnie Williams' Ferrari to make a flipbook-style GIF. There are photos of him posing with the Rolex. But run through the photos on your phone. Examine the contents of your heart: Would you really resist the photos? There's also the light-yourself-on-fire email from McDonnell to his wife. "You told me again yesterday that you would wreck my things and how bad I am. It hurt me to my core." But read through every email and text you've ever sent. Have you ever looked at your Facebook search history?

The McDonnells turned out to be people who wanted to drive three hours in a Ferrari. They were panicked and greedy in small, familiar, stupid ways.

Then the trial started.

To shake these charges and evade prison, the McDonnells' lawyers (there are two, one for each) have more or less argued that Maureen McDonnell (mentally unstable and lonely) brokered the deals, sought the gifts, and sought the attention of Jonnie Williams. The McDonnells ("broken down") could not commit conspiracy because they could barely talk to each other, and whose fault was that?

The argument really is: Maureen McDonnell is a slut.

These are real things said in the closing arguments by the two defense lawyers: She was "pathologically incapable of taking any kind of responsibility." "The breakdown in Bob and Maureen's relationship left a void for Jonnie Williams to fill." "We never said there was anything physical or sexual. What we said is that she cared deeply about him."

Here are some real things they said on the first day of the trial: "Maureen immediately gravitated toward Jonnie. He showered her with attention she craved." "Jonnie Williams was larger than life to Maureen McDonnell. But unlike the other man in her life, Jonnie Williams paid attention to Maureen McDonnell." Bob McDonnell wanted to "shield the dysfunction of his marriage from his youngest children and the public." She said she "hated him." He tried to fix it, but she was "distracted with other interests."

This is really happening! It's not a small, ordinary thing to do. This isn't petty — it's actually tragic. The McDonnells have cast one another out.

The grotesqueness might be more palatable if McDonnell leaned into the whole thing, grinning. But McDonnell is soft and damaged by this, whispering answers to questions in court. The Rolex, he says, was "gaudy." He wears Jos. A. Bank. He wasn't the husband he should have been. His wife underwent mental health treatment. She was on medication. He is living with his parish priest.

He never said it himself, but he didn't really have to: My wife is unbalanced. My wife is a slut. I am the godly one.

How can this be worth it?

“Actions of Republicans in congress are worse than #ISIL.”

A Democratic congressional candidate in Alabama says Republicans are worse than ISIS in a tweet posted on his campaign account Monday evening.

Jesse T. Smith, who is running against Republican Rep. Mike Rogers wrote "the greatest country on earth is being bullied from within. Actions of Republicans in congress are worse than #ISIL."

Here's the tweet:

This is the only video he has on his campaign account:

vimeo.com

He does however seem to have a pretty active campaign Facebook.

Via Facebook: JesseSmithforCongress

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“You say don’t blame the victim, but legally, what kind of recourse do they have?”

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During a Fox News segment addressing online security in the wake of the recent celebrity nude photo hacking scandal, anchor Martha MacCallum seemed more upset with the celebrities who uploaded nude photos to a private online space than with the criminals who stole and posted the pictures online.

MACCALLUM: Don't put naked pictures of yourself on internet, people. So. Dumb. You say don't blame the victim, but legally, what kind of recourse do they have? You put it out there. Isn't it kind of, buyer beware so to speak?

MacCallum's security experts, John Lucich and Dan Shore, would not be swayed.

SHORE: I was sex crimes prosecutor, a lot of people make error in judgment are victim after sex crime. Doesn't mean it is their fault. Maybe they take more careful steps not to take photos or secure them better, but they are victims of a serious crime.

Faced with pushback, MacCallum ended the segment with a family-friendly note.

MACCALLUM: Yeah, but no doubt, you would both tell your kids don't ever take a picture like this of yourself?

Watch the full Fox News clip below.

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“There’s a chance it could come before the end of the summer, a chance it could come after,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

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Not even close.

Rodger Mallison/Fort Worth Star-Telegram / MCT

Sen. Rand Paul on Friday told the Associated Press that the United States should pursue ISIS aggressively:

Speaking to a ballroom later, some of the loudest applause for Paul came when he quipped: "If the president has no strategy, maybe it's time for a new president."

In an emailed comment, however, Paul elaborated by saying: "If I were president, I would call a joint session of Congress. I would lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily."

His father, Ron Paul, on Sunday wrote that the United States should at all costs avoid intervening in Syria:

What does this mean in practice? If the neocons have their way, the Federal Reserve will "print" more money to finance another massive US intervention in the Middle East. In reality this means further devaluation of the US dollar, which is a tax on all Americans that will hit the poorest hardest.

A new US military incursion will not end ISIS; it will provide them with the recruiting tool they most crave, while draining the US treasury. Just what Osama bin Laden wanted!

[...] A lack of strategy is a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the president will finally stop listening to the neocons and interventionists whose recommendations have gotten us into this mess in the first place! Here's a strategy: just come home.

“And then I said, ‘Did you know that every member of the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats from the South?’ ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ You know, they need to be educated.”

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The father of Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said black people "need to be educated" about Democrats, so that they will vote Republican. Cruz, who made the comments at the Western Williamson Republican Club August meeting, added "the average black does not" understand that the minimum wage is bad.

The Aug. 21 meeting advertised that Cruz would "speak passionately on what can be done to return our nation to the principles that made America exceptional." During the speech, Cruz spoke at length about a recent conversation he said he had with a black pastor in Bakersfield, California.

"I said, as a matter of fact, 'Did you know that Civil Rights legislation was passed by Republicans? It was passed by a Republican Senate under the threat of a filibuster by the Democrats,'" Cruz said. "'Oh, I didn't know that.' And then I said, 'Did you know that every member of the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats from the South?' 'Oh I didn't know that.' You know, they need to be educated."

Cruz cited a book Please Stop Helping Us by Jason Riley, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

"I am going to try to encourage everybody I can to buy a book written by a black journalist. His name is Jason Riley. He wrote a book called Please Stop Helping Us, talking about how all the handouts to blacks have kept blacks in the poorhouse. And I'll tell you what, I am going to make it my task to buy 15 to 20 copies of that book and hand it out to some black leaders to read."

"Jason Riley said in an interview, Did you know before we had minimum wage laws black unemployment and white unemployment were the same? If we increase the minimum wage, black unemployment will skyrocket. See, he understands it, but the average black does not."

The elder Cruz added "every ethnic group" wants "the ability to succeed," saying Democrats "sell this guaranteed utopia" that is "guaranteed mediocrity."

"What we need to sell is the American dream," Cruz said.

The 5th Circuit chides Texas attorney general’s office for “wait[ing] until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday August 31 to file” a motion asking the appeals court to allow enforcement of the restrictions on September 1.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott speaks during an anti-abortion rally at the State Capitol in Austin, Texas, July 8, 2013.

Mike Stone / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — New abortion provider restrictions that could lead several clinics in Texas to close will remain on hold — at least through next week — under an appeals court order Tuesday night.

After a federal trial court judge on Friday ruled that the requirements, due to go into effect on Sept. 1, were unconstitutional, state officials had asked the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to put the ruling on hold — allowing the law to go into effect — during the appeal.

Criticizing the trial court ruling, the state lawyers argued that the "judgment should be stayed immediately pending appeal." This is so because, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott wrote, "[t]he State will suffer irreparable injury absent a stay because the district court's injunction prevents the State from enforcing a duly enacted statute."

The court, in an order signed by the clerk of the 5th Circuit "at the direction of the court," declined to issue an immediate stay, instead ordering briefing on the matter over the course of the next week and scheduling oral arguments on the issue for September 12 in New Orleans.

The 5th Circuit went further, making clear that part of the reason for the delay of a ruling on the issue was the way the issue had been handled by the Texas Attorney General's Office at the 5th Circuit.

Noting that the Attorney General's Office had "alerted the Clerk of this court on Friday afternoon that the appellants would be filing a motion for stay pending appeal," the clerk goes on to state for the court, "The appellants waited until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday August 31 to file the stay motion; a corrected version was sent at 12:08 a.m. on Monday September 1. This did not allow time for a response, or for the court adequately to consider the motion, before the scheduled effective date, though the appellants claim irreparable harm from the statute's not being enforced. Moreover, the tardy motion was well in excess of the number of pages that are allowed."

The court granted the state's request that its filing be longer than allowed by the court's rules, but otherwise held off on ruling on the stay itself, ordering the plaintiffs in the case to respond to the state's stay request by 5 p.m. September 8 and a reply from the state officials by 5 p.m. September 10.

The relatively unknown Minnesota Democrat has been all over the country this year.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Getty Images Drew Angerer

WASHINGTON — A few weeks ago at a Washington cocktail party, Sen. Amy Klobuchar was chatting with someone who asked why she was going to Iowa again.

"I was invited!" Klobuchar insisted, laughing, an attendee who heard the conversation recalled.

The Democratic Senator is being invited a lot of places these days — which is surprising considering her name I.D. outside of her home state of Minnesota isn't exactly sky high. Klobuchar has crisscrossed the country in the last few months, keynoting Democratic Party Dinners, fundraising for Senate candidates (her PAC has maxed out to several candidates), and building up her profile with the party base. She's toured a popcorn store with Bruce Braley in Iowa, co-chaired an economic roundtable with Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, and spoke at the Sanford Hunt Frye in North Carolina on behalf of Sen. Kay Hagan. All told, Klobuchar has traveled to more than 10 states this cycle.

Furious travel schedules like these are usually meant to do one thing: produce a big spike in a politician's influence.

One Democratic operative compared Klobuchar's 2014 to what Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has done in recent cycles.

"Gillibrand had a little bit more of a profile — she was starting at a slightly higher base than Amy does," the operative said. "Gillibrand was using her 'off the sidelines' project to build a national base and now she is, if not a household name, a Democratic base-hold name and I think Amy wants to do the same thing."

Like Gillibrand, Klobuchar maintains the relentless campaigning is in service of a bigger goal: electing more Democratic women to the Senate.

"I've gone this around the country a lot because we don't have that many women in the Senate, though about a year ago we had a traffic jam in the women's bathroom for the first time in history," the senator said in an interview. "So I've been helping them. It goes back to when I headed up the women's Senate network for the last two cycles of the [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee]."

Klobuchar has been deeply involved with Emily's List, a group that works to help elect women supportive of abortion rights. She co-chairs the group's "impact series" — quarterly events that highlight the work of women supported by Emily's List are doing in Congress. During the 2012 cycle, when Klobuchar was up for re-election and doing well, she worked in both Wisconsin and North Dakota to help with the elections of Tammy Baldwin and Heidi Heitkamp.

She went to Georgia to help Michelle Nunn this time around — a weird place for a progressive midwestern senator. What does a Minnesota senator have in common with the voters of Georgia? A lot if you ask Klobuchar, who argued Georgia and Minnesota are more alike than different in terms of their business and farming communities.

That trip speaks to a core reason for Klobuchar's schedule: no one would be inviting her anywhere if they thought she wasn't any good. Operatives describe Klobuchar as approachable and likeable on the stump.

"People may not know who she is, but they walk away from her liking her and understanding her message," said a campaign staffer for one Democratic candidate in a tight race.

And while Klobuchar's certainly cognizant of the big priority (keeping the Senate in Democratic hands), the progressive senator emphasized the importance of moderate, red state Democrats in the Senate.

"A lot of it is trying to elect good people trying to move the country forward and not just stand in corners of the boxing ring," she said. "For me that's very, very important. The majority people that are up would be considered moderate Democrats and they do try and find common ground."

"They are people that want to get things done for the country and that's why this election to me is so important and of course getting these women elected, knowing how fragile this is," she continued. "We lose them, we lose a good part of the women in the Senate."

Klobuchar ticked off the accomplishments of her female colleagues this past congress: Patty Murray's work on the budget negotiations, Debbie Stabenow's work on the farm bill, Barbara Mikulski's work as appropriations chairwoman.

She left herself off the list. But, like Gillibrand, she's likely got some next thing in mind.

"Every one of these senators thinks that he or she can be the next president of the United States," said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and Harry Reid's former communications director. "Clearly she has ambitions; I don't know what they are right now. Is she building chips in the caucus as she moves up the ladder in the Senate or is it broader than that? I just can't tell."

Conservative reality television star admits conversion “would be next to impossible.”

Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson has a solution for combating ISIS militants, convert or die.

"You either have to convert them — which I think would be next to impossible. I'm not giving up on them, but I'm just saying, either convert them or kill them," Robertson said appearing on Sean Hannity's program Tuesday to promote his book unPHILtered.

Here's the video of his remarks:

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