And Richard Dawkins. Zach Dasher is running for Congress in Louisiana.

Before running for Congress, Zach Dasher, the cousin of the Duck Dynasty cast challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Vance McAllister in Louisiana's 5th Congressional district was a Twitter troll.

Dasher, who is the nephew of Phil Robertson and has a radio ad featuring the family patriarch, would troll politicians like current Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Another favorite target of Dasher's was evolutionary biologist and atheist movement leader Richard Dawkins.

Here are the tweets:

Zach Dasher Twitter / Via Twitter: @Dasherzach

Zach Dasher Twitter / Via Twitter: @Dasherzach

Zach Dasher Twitter / Via Twitter: @Dasherzach

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“We stand with you and the French people, not only as you grieve this terrible loss but as you show resolve against terror and in defense of liberty.”

President Obama mourned the murder of a French hostage killed by the ISIS-linked Algerian group Jund al-Khilafah.

The hostage, Herve Gourdel, was beheaded in response to French assistance in airstrikes on ISIS target inside Syria on Monday, the militants said.

"So many nations represented here today, including my own, have seen our citizens killed by terrorists who target innocents," Obama said speaking at the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday. "And today the people of the world have been horrified by another brutal murder, Herve Gourdel by terrorists in Algeria. President Hollande, we stand with you and the French people, not only as you grieve this terrible loss but as you show resolve against terror and in defense of liberty."

Here's the video:

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Quick turnaround from a liberal three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ohio Secretary of State's Office / Via sos.state.oh.us

WASHINGTON — A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday unanimously upheld a trial court ruling that restores early voting time in Ohio.

The opinion, by Judge Karen Nelson Moore, upholds a Sept. 4 decision that stops Ohio officials from enforcing an Ohio law that reduced the early voting period. Additionally, the trial court stopped enforcement of a related order from Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted that limited the ability of county boards of elections to provide for additional early voting hours.

In a news release supporting the ruling, the ACLU noted that the trial court ruling had restored the first week of early voting — called the "Golden Week," because voters are able to register and cast a ballot on the same day — as well as evening early voting and multiple Sundays of early voting.

The panel consisted of three reliably liberal judges, all appointed by Democratic presidents. If the state wishes to appeal the decision, it could now seek en banc review of the decision, which would mean that all of the judges of the 6th Circuit would rehear the state's case if they accept en banc review, or the state could seek Supreme Court review.

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“He reduced humanity to nothing more than a collection of atoms, to be discarded like an old banana peel.”

Dasher for Congress Facebook / Via Facebook: DasherforCongress

Zach Dasher, the cousin of the Duck Dynasty family who is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Vance McAllister in Louisiana's 5th Congressional district, once blamed atheism for the Sandy Hook school shooting.

Before running for Congress, Dasher was the proprietor of the website Willingtothink.org, which bills itself as a website and podcast "a website and podcast dedicated to encouraging folks to be willing to think about the deeper questions in life."

"These children that were killed in Connecticut were made for purpose and to be honest with you even the killer himself was made for a purpose," Dasher said on one podcast titled "Why did this happen," which discussed the Sandy Hook shootings.

Dasher says the Adam Lanza, the shooter, was "made in the image of God" but started to believe "what the atheist says."

"He was made in the image of God," he said. "But somewhere along the way he believed what the atheist says. He reduced humanity to nothing more than a collection of atoms, to be discarded like an old banana peel. I guarantee you, now this is my hypothesis, that even saw himself as nothing more than chemicals."

View Video ›

Later in the podcast, Dasher reiterates that the shooting was the result of not just atheism but also "post-modernism."

"Porn and video games are the most obvious symptoms of what is wrong with our culture but they of themselves are not the core problem," Dasher said. "Those are the symptoms. So some people want to blame this on porn and video games. Look, does it contribute? Yes. Is it the core of the cause? No. These are also symptoms."

"You wonder why porn is so rampant in our culture. You wonder why video game addiction is so rampant in our culture. It's a result of post-modernism. It's a consequence of post-modernity combined with atheism. That all there is, is matter and material. And that all that matters is matter and material."

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“I’m not certain what this thing you’re referring to was, how many people danced.” Iran’s president on jailed dancers, journalist.

Ali Abdi holding up the photographs of Green Movement leaders Zahra Rahnavard, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Mehdi Karroubi

Rosie Gray/BuzzFeed

NEW YORK — Iranian president Hassan Rouhani claimed not to know the details of the case against a group of young Iranians arrested for making a video to the Pharrell song and dodged questions about a jailed Washington Post reporter during an appearance in New York Wednesday.

In a lengthy onstage interview with Fareed Zakaria at the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan, Rouhani was extremely vague on the topic of the young "Happy" dancers and of Jason Rezaian, the Tehran-based Washington Post reporter who was arrested in July.

"I'm not certain what this thing you're referring to was, how many people danced," Rouhani told Zakaria, who asked about the harsh treatment of the "Happy" dancers. They have been sentenced to 91 lashes and six months in jail because of the video, though the sentence is a suspended for three years contingent on good behavior. Rouhani had appeared to refer to the case (and side with the dancers) in a tweet from May: "#Happiness is our people's right. We shouldn't be too hard on behaviors caused by joy."

"I as the president of Iran have been sworn and put there by the will of the people to protect the constitution," Rouhani said. "If the constitution is violated, it is my legal responsibility to implement appropriate steps."

But "we do have an independent judiciary," Rouhani said. "Perhaps an individual does something that legally may not be allowed in Iran, whether I like it or you like it or not."

Rouhani is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where he will make a speech on Thursday. His visit last year made headlines for breaking a longtime barrier: He and President Obama spoke on the phone. In the year since, the United States and its negotiating partners have attempted to eke out a nuclear deal with Iran — a project that has required more cooperation with Iran than there has been in decades, and one that some on both sides argue must be dealt with separately from human rights concerns. Rouhani's appearance on Wednesday, which was attended by protesters demanding the release of political prisoners, underscored the tension between these issues.

Rouhani did not say Rezaian's name, though Zakaria asked him directly about the reporter.

"The individual you named is being investigated," he said. "At a time when a case is being built and the prosecutor is working hard to send that case file to the appropriate court, only then will everyone be informed as to what the actual charges are."

"We must not prematurely express opinions about a case file that hasn't reached the court yet," Rouhani said.

During the part of the interview that dealt with "Happy" and Rezaian, two young men held up sheets of paper with the images of the Green Movement leaders who have been under house arrest since after the elections and mass protests in 2009.

Ali Abdi, an activist who was a student organizer in 2009 and is now a PhD student at Yale, stood up at the end of the interview and shouted at Rouhani about Ghoncheh Ghavami, the 25-year-old British-Iranian woman who was arrested for trying to watch a volleyball match and has been put in solitary confinement in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.

"She is 25 years old, and she is now in prison for the act of trying to watch volleyball," Abdi said as Rouhani started to leave the stage.

Rouhani responded to Abdi in Farsi; according to Abdi, he said, "Yes, we can discuss it later sometime if you come to us."

"Really not a very concrete and productive response," Abdi said.

"Of course I know that President Rouhani is facing so many challenges inside the country and from Parliament, from the judiciary, but at the same time many of us who voted for him expect him to be a little more serious in pursuing those promises he made before the elections," Abdi said.

President of the National Iranian American Council Trita Parsi argued that from a political standpoint, Rouhani can't criticize the actions of the judiciary that sentenced the dancers and is investigating Rezaian in the setting of an interview in New York the same way he could if he were back in Iran.

"He can use very harsh language against [his domestic political opponents] in Tehran and he has, and he's been criticized for it as well, but it's a very different thing for him to do so while sitting in New York being interviewed by a very famous American journalist," Parsi said. "So I'm not surprised that he's giving an answer like that."

Copy-and-paste.

Burke for Wisconsin

More sections of Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke's rural communities plan appear to be copied directly from a variety of sources.

The copied text includes failed 2010 Nevada gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid, a newspaper article, and a Wisconsin school press release.

As in previous instances, some of Burke's plan includes links to sources in plan's footnotes, but Burke's plan doesn't indicate the words are taken directly from the source.

BuzzFeed News previously reported Burke economic plan "Invest for Success" took almost word-for-word portions of the jobs plans of Cammack, part of Delaware Gov. Jack Markell's 2008 plan, part of now-Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe's plan from his failed-2009 bid, and failed-2012 Indiana gubernatorial candidate John Gregg.

BuzzFeed News also previously reported part of Burke's veterans and rural communities plans copied text directly from academic journals and reports, a local newspaper column, and failed 2010 Utah gubernatorial candidate Peter Corroon.

In a local radio interview, Burke dismissed the copied text as "as "very small" and "extremely limited" passages.

"I am going to draw on best practices and innovative ideas that are working in other parts of the country," she said. "But these plans are very in depth and what has been identified are very small passages, scattered throughout that, that have, uh, maybe been used in other plans that this consultant developed."

"This is something that is extremely limited and the main bulk of this work is work that I have been deeply involved with. And there not ideas in those plans unless I thought that they were great ideas for Wisconsin on how we're going to move our economy forward."

Here's 2010 gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid's platform on education:

Reward teachers and principals who move to underserved or underperforming schools. Most states offer financial incentives for teachers in subject-areas with shortages, such as math and science, or in underserved schools.

And here's Burke:

Rewarding successful educators who choose to move to underserved or underperforming schools in rural areas. Most states offer financial incentives for educators in subject-area shortages – such as math and science – or underserved schools, particularly in smaller districts
or rural areas.

Here's a 2010 Wisconsin State Journal article:

Many of Wisconsin's regional health systems have set up telemedicine networks.

Gundersen Lutheran in La Crosse, Luther Midelfort in Eau Claire, Aspirus in Wausau, Bellin Health in Green Bay and Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee are among the systems with video connections in rural areas.

Marshfield Clinic, which serves most of northern Wisconsin, was one of the first to implement telemedicine, in 1997, in two small towns: Ladysmith and Park Falls.

The multisite clinic now makes doctors in 45 specialties available by two-way, broadband video connection at 60 locations, said Nina Antoniotti, Marshfield Clinic's telehealth director.

And here's Burke:

Many of Wisconsin's regional health systems have already set up telemedicine networks – some with the help of federal telemedicine grant funding. Gundersen Lutheran in La Crosse, Luther Midelfort in Eau Claire, Aspirus in Wausau, Bellin Health in Green Bay and Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee are among the systems with video connections in rural areas. Marshfield Clinic, which serves most of northern Wisconsin, was a telemedicine pioneer back in 1997. The clinic now makes doctors in 45 specialties available by two-way, broadband video connection at 60 locations.

Here's a press release from the University of Wisconsin-Extension:

On Oct. 1, 2013, with funds from a Federal Economic Development Association (EDA) grant, the University of Wisconsin-Extension began a statewide assessment of Wisconsin's food processing and manufacturing support infrastructure. This assessment will identify current assets, gaps, and industry needs;

And here's Burke:

For example, last year, with funds from a federal Economic Development Association (EDA) grant, the University of Wisconsin-Extension undertook an assessment of our state's food processing and manufacturing support infrastructure in order to identify assets, gaps, and industry- wide needs.

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The nation’s first black Justice Department head will announce his resignation Thursday, a senior administration official confirms to BuzzFeed News.

Pool / Reuters

Eric Holder will announce on Thursday that he will resign as U.S. Attorney General, a senior administration official confirmed to BuzzFeed News.

NPR first reported the news on Thursday morning.

But Holder won't disappear from the national stage immediately — he plans to leave the Justice Department once a successor is confirmed, a process that could run into 2015, NPR reported. A White House official said Thursday that Obama has not decided on a successor.

Holder's resignation comes with a legacy of pushing civil rights advancements and battling Congressional Republicans. In an interview with the New Yorker in February he said he would step down at some point in 2014.

The first black attorney general, Holder was credited with heading to Ferguson, Missouri, and helping to ease tensions after the fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer.

But he came under fire during his tenure for pushing to hold the trials of the accused 9/11 plotters in New York City. (The administration later changed course under pressure.) Also, House Republicans voted him in contempt for refusing to hand over documents about the gun-trafficking operation Operation Fast and Furious, which involved the U.S. government sending guns to Mexico that were subsequently used in crimes.

“I think (Rand Paul’s message) is a little bit of a warning sign to Democrats in the long run that demographics is not destiny,” Dan Pfeiffer says.

Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press / MCT

Sen. Rand Paul is the most interesting Republican in the country — and the only one with a long-term vision that could threaten Democrats' coalition, a senior White House adviser said Thursday.

Dan Pfeiffer, the top communications adviser to President Obama, argued Paul has a defined vision with a real appeal — if not the organization to take advantage of it — in a sit-down interview with BuzzFeed News in New York.

"The Republican I find most interesting is Rand Paul, and the reason I say that is he is the only Republican who seems to know about what their long-term structural problems are and trying to do something about it," Pfeiffer said.

"I think he's the only person who is sort of honed in on a message that could be appealing to the next generation," he continued, describing the group as one "more burned out on, more skeptical of politics than the previous one before them, more distrustful of establishments, with sort of a libertarian instinct."

Asked whether Democrats inflate Paul's appeal because they think he could never really win on the national level, Pfeiffer conceded that might be the case for some. But he said he has a "a genuine, sincere belief in his message."

Paul has been a sharp critic of President Obama, but has distinguished himself from many Republicans on a several issues long associated with Democrats, and ones particularly important to younger and black voters: He's advocated for significant changes to drug-sentencing laws and police policies and is seen generally as a much more noninterventionist in foreign policy matters. Along with those two policy areas, Paul is probably best known for a libertarian-minded economic policy.

"I think it's a little bit of a warning sign to Democrats in the long run that demographics is not destiny," Pfeiffer said Thursday. "And we actually have to do some things to maintain faith with the next generation."

Pfeiffer argued, though, that despite Paul having "the right message," he does not have the organizational heft, "in sort of the meta-strategical sense, to take advantage of that."

Would he vote for him?

"No, we have a wide disagreement on a whole host of social issues."

An historic first from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The federal courthouse in Detroit.

Getty Images / Bill Pugliano

WASHINGTON — The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed lawsuits Thursday against two companies accused of discriminating against transgender employees, the first time the federal government has brought suit under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect transgender workers.

The two complaints, filed in federal courts in Florida and Michigan, are the latest — and most ambitious — steps in a series of aggressive moves taken by the commission in the past several years to advance LGBT rights under existing laws.

"This enforcement priority aims to give full force to Title VII's prohibition against sex discrimination to ensure it helps eliminate unlawful discriminatory barriers to LGBT applicants and employees," EEOC General Counsel David Lopez said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. "It seeks to ensure employers aren't considering irrelevant factors, like gender-based stereotypes or gender identity, in making employment decisions."

Thursday's actions and much of the work that preceded it followed from an April 2012 decision of the commission — a five-member board that controls the decisions of the independent agency — holding that discrimination against transgender people is "sex discrimination" within the meaning of the phrase in Title VII's employment discrimination ban.

That ruling, in a claim brought by Mia Macy against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was made in the "federal sector," meaning it served as a precedent in federal employees' discrimination claims. It followed a small, but growing, area of case law — including, notably, in the two federal appeals courts that hear appeals from Michigan and Florida — supporting the argument that anti-transgender discrimination is sex discrimination.

As a decision of the commission, though, Macy v. Holder also represented the interpretation of the commission in its own enforcement activities in the private sector. That means "the EEOC has instructed its private sector investigators that, in accordance with the Commission's Macy decision, discrimination against an individual because that person is transgender is discrimination because of sex in violation of Title VII," according to an EEOC memo.

In Thursday's cases, the EEOC argues that Amiee Stephens and Brandi Branson deserve restitution for back pay, reinstatement or front pay, and punitive damages for the discrimination they faced. EEOC is also seeking additional remedies to protect against future discrimination against other people.

Stephens had worked at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home, Inc., in Michigan as a funeral director/embalmer for nearly six years when she informed her employer and co-workers in 2013 that she was transitioning from male to female and would begin "dress[ing] in appropriate business attire at work as a woman from then on." Within two weeks of her announcement, according to the complaint, the funeral home owner "fired Stephens, telling her that what she was 'proposing to do' was unacceptable."

Branson's case, a senior EEOC staffer acknowledged, is a less direct claim. In 2010, Branson, who then presented as male, was recommended for and hired as the director of hearing services at Lakeland Eye Clinic in Florida — a position in which she exclusively relied about referrals from the company's eye doctors. When Branson began "wearing feminine attire to work, including make-up and women's tailored clothing" about six months later, the complaint claims that other employees snickered. She was soon thereafter confronted about the changes by her employer, at which point she acknowledged that she was transitioning from male to female.

After that, according to the complaint, managers and employees began "ma[king] derogatory comments" about her appearance and most of the eye doctors stopped referring patients to her. Soon thereafter, she was fired, being told that her position was being eliminated. Two months later, however, the complaint states that the company "hired a replacement for Branson" — "a male employee who conformed to traditional male gender norms."

Although these two cases are the first to make it to the lawsuit phase, the EEOC official noted that the EEOC's own process meant that it would take some time after the Macy decision to reach this point. Under the EEOC's process, it examines any "charge" of discrimination brought to it. It then issues either a "right to sue" determination, meaning the agency is not going forward with its process, or a finding of "reasonable cause" that there was discrimination. At that point, the agency offers conciliation to try and resolve and discrimination claims before going to court. If that fails, it either litigates the matter itself or, again, issues a "right to sue" letter.

In a discussion about the pending litigation, the EEOC official described the lawsuits as "business as usual" in one sense because they track the Macy decision and amicus curiae — or, "friend of the court" — briefs the agency has sought to file before and since the Macy decision. In another sense, though, the official said the decision was "historic" because the cases are the first time the agency has filed these types of lawsuits.

"These cases build on the amicus brief my office prepared in Pacheco v. Freedom Buick GMC Truck, which the Commission approved, and the Commission's groundbreaking ruling in 2012 in Macy v. Holder, and recent case law," Lopez, the EEOC's general counsel, said in his statement to BuzzFeed News. "These cases also fall squarely within the EEOC's current Strategic Enforcement Plan, which includes 'coverage of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals under Title VII's sex discrimination provisions, as they may apply.'"

Under the EEOC's Strategic Enforcement Plan, which was adopted in December 2012, "coverage of LGBT individuals under Title VII" was included as a "priority" for the commission. In addition to the direct enforcement of Macy within the federal sector — which addresses anti-transgender discrimination but not anti-LGB discrimination — the EEOC has expanded its enforcement of Title VII's ban on sex stereotyping to allow for more complaints resulting from anti-LGB discrimination to proceed.

Additionally, last month the EEOC asserted in a now-binding opinion in the federal sector — similar to the Macy case — that Title VII's sex discrimination prohibition often can include protections for people who are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.

"While Title VII's prohibition of discrimination does not explicitly include sexual orientation as a basis, Title VII prohibits sex discrimination, including sex- stereotyping discrimination and gender discrimination," the commission wrote in its August 20 decision in Complainant v. Jeh Johnson, citing Macy. "The term 'gender' encompasses not only a person's biological sex, but also the cultural and social aspects associated with masculinity and femininity. Moreover, we have [previously] held that sex discrimination claims may intersect with claims of sexual orientation discrimination."

The changes have had real results, the agency claims. According to the EEOC, in 2013 the commission received 834 charges alleging sexual orientation-based discrimination, and 199 charges alleging gender identity-based discrimination. In the first half of 2014, it received 459 charges alleging sexual orientation-based discrimination, and 81 charges alleging gender identity-based discrimination.

Read the Michigan complaint:

Read the Florida complaint:

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GOP members took to Twitter to share their thoughts on the Attorney General.

Attorney General Eric Holder

Pool / Reuters

WASHINGTON — It's no secret that outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder has had a tense relationship with House Republicans, who've accused Holder of everything from misleading Congress to undermining the Constitution.

In 2012, the Republican majority in the House held him in criminal contempt in relation to the Fast and Furious gun trafficking investigation.

The feeling was mutual: his main sparring partner has been Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa. Tensions between the two bubbled over in a hearing last year when Holder called Issa's behavior "shameful" and "unacceptable."

In a statement, Issa called Holder "the most divisive U.S. Attorney General in modern history" and that "time and again, Eric Holder administered justice as the political activist he describes himself as instead of an unbiased law enforcement official. "

Several of his Republican colleagues took to Twitter to react to the news that Holder was stepping down as attorney general and it was clear they weren't exactly sad to see him go.

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The much-criticized decision was made because of lessons learned during a bruising 1994 gun-legislation fight that damaged Democrats, Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said at a BuzzFeed Breakfast.

Susie Armitage/BuzzFeed

The White House drew from lessons learned during the Clinton years when the administration decided to delay executive actions to slow deportations over fears prospects for immigration legislation would be irreparably damaged, Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said at a BuzzFeed News event in New York City.

In a wide-ranging interview, Pfeiffer said the administration recalled the grueling gun legislation fight of 1994 that damaged Democrats, and said the politics of gun control has changed ever since.

"The Democrats pushed the crime bill through, it was a subject of campaigns and Dems had a bad year," Pfeiffer said. "The politics of gun laws have not recovered from that moment."

He argued the much-maligned immigration delay, which has put the administration under scrutiny from advocates tired of repeated delays by the president, was done so that when executive actions are passed before the end of the year, they are politically sustainable moving forward.

"Imagine a world where we push forward, the Koch brothers mobilize, [financing campaigns against the immigration actions], and Dems lose seats," Pfeiffer said. "The narrative becomes immigration reform killed the Democrats."

Since the delay, normally reliable allies like longtime immigration advocate Frank Sharry have blasted the White House, saying the immigration delay shows once again that it's never politically convenient to help Latinos and immigrants. Asked to respond to that kind of criticism, Pfeiifer said there are two types of critics on the left.

"One is a process-based critique that is really good to get you on MSNBC," Pfeiffer said, adding that nothing gets you in the news like "Dem-on-Dem violence."

But he said the other criticisms come from "passionate" activists for causes that haven't gotten done, likening immigration activists to disappointed LGBT advocates from 2009 to 2011.

"Frank Sharry feels incredibly strongly about these issues — it's sincere. They can be angry and disappointed, we understand that," Pfeiffer said. "But the action we take will be sustainable and they will be happy."

LINK: Inside President Obama’s Decision To Delay Immigration Actions

Mary Burke had her own policies plagiarized.

Susan Wismer For South Dakota / Via Facebook: SusanForSD

Democratic gubernatorial South Dakota nominee appears to have plagiarized parts of her issues page from Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, who herself is embattled in a plagiarism snafu of her own.

Oddly, Susan Wismer actually copies from a biographical section of Burke's campaign material, placing her name where Burke's appeared.

A spokesperson for the Wismer campaign told Buzzfeed News they admitted to the mistake saying, "we will be making any changes necessary" and similarities "will be taken care of."

Her issues pages were taken down shortly after BuzzFeed News inquired, but the screenshots are at the bottom this post.

Here's Mary Burke on fiscal responsibility, citing her own biography:

She knows how to make responsible decisions that keep a balance sheet in the black while creating jobs because she's spent her career doing it. Scott Walker has taken a different approach. Despite making historic cuts to education, he's turned a projected budget surplus into a deficit, and state spending has shot up by $4.6 billion.

And here's Wismer substituting her name for Burke's:

As an accountant, Susan knows how to make responsible decisions that keep a balance sheet in the black while creating jobs because she's spent her career doing it. This governor has taken a different approach. After making historic cuts, he took a $127 million dollar budget surplus and padded his reserves rather than giving back what was cut to areas desperate for funding.

Here's Mary Burke on education:

Mary believes Wisconsin schools should be among the best in the nation—and she knows that making historic cuts isn't the way to do it. She'll work every day to strengthen our public education system, from K-12 to our technical colleges and university system.

And here's Wismer:

Susan believes South Dakota schools should be among the best in the nation and making historic cuts isn't the way to do it. Susan will work every day to strengthen our public education system– from K-12 to our technical colleges and university system.

Here's Wendy Davis on education:

Wendy Davis will build a well-trained workforce of teachers by engineering guaranteed pathways to careers in education and ensure ongoing support by raising teacher pay to be in line with the rest of the country.

And here's Wismer:

Susan will build a well-trained workforce of educators and ensure ongoing support for them by raising salaries to be on par with the rest of the country.

Here's Wendy Davis on economic investment:

When responsibly invested, economic development funds can help bring new businesses and jobs into the state, promote innovation, and encourage technological advancements. But under the wrong leadership and without accountability, too often they become giveaways to special interests and insiders that drain valuable resources from essential investments like our schools and increase taxes on working Texas families.

And here's Wismer:

Susan knows that the best businesses for communities are usually local businesses. When responsibly invested, economic development funds can help create new businesses and jobs, promote innovation, and encourage technological advancements. However, under the wrong leadership and without accountability, too often they become giveaways to special interests, corporations, and insiders that drain valuable resources from essential investments.

On transparency, here's Wendy Davis:

As Governor, Wendy Davis will:

• Promote transparency, accountability, and responsible investment of economic development funds to ensure they actually create jobs, as well as encourage innovation and development that benefits all Texans.

And here's Wismer:

As governor, Susan will promote transparency, accountability, and responsible investment of economic development funds to ensure they actually create jobs and encourage innovation and development that benefits all South Dakotans. She will establish strong, independent oversight of our incentive funds. Susan will ensure transparency and accountability of tax exemptions.

Here's Mary Burke on Medicare expansion:

The Walker administration has taken a different approach. Rejecting hundreds of millions of our own federal tax dollars means our money goes to cover health care in other states, and leaves us paying more as a state to cover fewer hard working Wisconsinites. It's an example of what happens when you put politics ahead of progress. And it's just wrong.

And here's Wismer:

The Daugaard administration has rejected hundreds of millions of our own federal tax dollars, money that is covering healthcare in other states, and leaves us paying more to cover fewer hard-working South Dakotans. It's an example of what happens when you put politics ahead of progress.

Here's Burke again:

Mary will overturn the current administration's refusal to accept the federal expansion of Medicaid, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars of our taxpayer money back home to our state, where it belongs.

And here's Wismer:

Susan will overturn the current administration's refusal to accept the federal expansion of Medicaid, bringing over $272 million of our taxpayer money back to South Dakota, while providing 48,000 South Dakotans with access to affordable, preventative health care.

View Entire List ›

Will the next attorney general of the United States be the attorney general of California?

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Supporters of Kamala Harris, California's popular Attorney General, say the departure of Eric Holder could clear a path for Harris to take over as America's top law enforcement officer.

"She'll certainly be in the mix," said Steve Philips, the founder of the liberal group PowerPac.org and a leading Harris backer. "What she really is is California's next governor, but I guess they're not mutually exclusive."

President Obama likes Harris. After Holder, Obama's close personal ally, announced his resignation Thursday, Harris' name quickly appeared on DC shortlists for the next Attorney General of the United States.

"I am honored to even be mentioned, but intend to continue my work for the people of California as Attorney General," Harris told BuzzFeed News in a statement when asked about the speculation. "I am focused on key public safety issues including transnational gangs, truancy and recidivism."

Harris' name has been part of the conversation for years as a potential replacement for Holder. Appointing her would allow Obama to continue using the Justice Department as the leading edge of progressive social policy in the administration. Harris has built up a record on racial and economic issues that's amassed massive support from progressives, and she would be the only the second black U.S. attorney general.

She'd also be just the second woman to be attorney general, which could lead to pressure on the White House from Democratic women, many of whom also love Harris. One prominent Democratic women's advocate in Washington noted dryly, "We're well aware that only one woman has ever held this job."

The White House was trying to shut down rampant speculation about Holder's replacement in the hours after his resignation was announced, promising that Obama would not announce a new nominee in remarks at the White House Thursday that will formal announce Holder's eventual exit from the administration. (Holder will stay on during what is likely to be a long and highly politicized Senate confirmation process for whomever Obama selects.)

A Harris nomination would no doubt bring up the awkward April 2013 apology Obama extended after calling Harris "brilliant," "dedicated," and "by far, the best looking attorney general" at a California fundraising event. Progressive columnists and women's groups called the remark offensive. Harris accepted the president's apology saying through a spokesperson, "The attorney general and the president have been friends for many years."

Adam Serwer and Ben Smith contributed reporting.

If Democrats fail to keep the majority in the Senate, they’ll move quickly in November to confirm the next Attorney General.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder

Gary Cameron / Reuters

WASHINGTON — If Democrats fail to retain the majority in the Senate in November, watch for them to move as quickly as possible to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder.

Several Senate sources said that a lame duck vote on whomever President Obama nominates to succeed Holder would likely happen regardless of the outcome of the November elections, but if Republicans win enough seats to take control next year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to waste no time in pushing through Obama's nominee.

A senate leadership aide said that it was "way too early" to speculate on timing of a confirmation.

But the timing of the resignation allows Democrats, if they lose, to act fast because they will still be able to confirm presidential nominees with a simple majority during the lame duck session.

Republicans have already signaled that they'll be ready to oppose any move to confirm a nominee in the lame duck session. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley put out a statement saying that since Holder had committed to staying until a replacement was confirmed, the Senate should take it's time to "vet a nominee thoroughly."

"Rather than rush a nominee through the Senate in a lame duck session, I hope the President will now take his time to nominate a qualified individual who can start fresh relationships with Congress so that we can solve the problems facing our country,' Grassley said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, who called Holder an "extreme partisan," also has warned against any significant work happening during a lame duck.

"Allowing Democratic senators, many of whom will likely have just been defeated at the polls, to confirm Holder's successor would be an abuse of power that should not be countenanced," Cruz said in a statement.

National Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council, and CitizenLink lash out against candidates “working to actively alienate the Republican base.”

Olaf Faeskorn/Tisei for Congress

DeMaio for Congress

WASHINGTON — Conservative activists are launching "an unprecedented campaign" against three Republican candidates — two of whom are out gay men — because of their support for marriage equality and abortion.

The National Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council Action, and CitizenLink "will mount a concerted effort to urge voters to refuse to cast ballots" for Republican House candidates Carl DeMaio in California and Richard Tisei in Massachusetts and Republican Senate candidate Monica Wehby in Oregon, according to a letter sent to Republican congressional and campaign leaders on Thursday.

"We cannot in good conscience urge our members and fellow citizens to support candidates like DeMaio, Tisei or Wehby," the presidents of the three groups write. "They are wrong on critical, foundational issues of importance to the American people. Worse, as occupants of high office they will secure a platform in the media to advance their flawed ideology and serve as terrible role models for young people who will inevitably be encouraged to emulate them."

DeMaio and Tisei are the only out LGBT federal candidates from the Republican Party to be appearing on the ballot this fall.

"The Republican Party platform is a 'statement of who we are and what we believe.' Thus, the platform supports the truth of marriage as the union of husband and wife, and recognizes the sanctity and dignity of human life," NOM President Brian S. Brown said in a statement.

Brown called it "extremely disappointing" to see candidates supported "who reject the party's principled positions on these and other core issues."

Of the effort to urge people to oppose DeMaio, Tisei, and Wehby, he said, "We cannot sit by when people calling themselves Republicans seek high office while espousing positions that are antithetical to the overwhelming majority of Republicans."

The letter was sent to House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Greg Walden, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, and others in Republican congressional leadership.

In it, the three conservative groups also warned that it is a "grave error" for the party to be supporting "candidates who do not hold core Republican beliefs and, in fact, are working to actively alienate the Republican base."

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Meet Jenny Durkan, being pushed as a potential nominee by LGBT advocates in D.C.

U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan speaks during a news conference in Seattle.

AP/Ted S. Warren

WASHINGTON — Three weeks after Jenny Durkan announced that she would step down at the end of the month from her role as the U.S. attorney in Seattle, some in D.C. are pushing her name as a potential successor to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Although not well-known in D.C. circles, some LGBT advocates are advocating for her to take the reins at the Department of Justice. If she were to become the nominee and be confirmed, she would be the first out LGBT person in a cabinet role.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle, Emily Langlie, told BuzzFeed News that she had discussed the issue with Durkan and that they concluded it "would not be appropriate" for the office to issue any comment on the speculation.

"With Attorney General Holder's resignation, President Obama has an amazing opportunity to once again make history and reflect our country's great diversity. The controversy of getting the Senate to confirm an openly LGBT appointee is over," Human Rights Campaign Vice President for Communications Fred Sainz told BuzzFeed News, referencing Durkan as a possible pick.

The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund — which advocates for out LGBT candidates and appointees — was even more direct. "It will be a huge milestone if the president chooses a qualified LGBT American like Jenny Durkan," Torey Carter, managing director of the Victory Fund, told BuzzFeed News. "It would send a signal that experience and ability matter a lot more than gender or sexual orientation, and that would matter a lot to young people who worry they can't be authentically themselves and still succeed in life."

Durkan also was listed by NBC News as a potential replacement should Obama look for a "career prosecutor" to take over, reporting that "a top Democratic Hill aide tells NBC News that one possibility would be retiring U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan in Seattle."

In announcing her planned departure from her role as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington earlier this month, Durkan was highlighted by the Seattle Times for her role in two areas — police reform and civil rights — that have been central to Holder's tenure, particularly in the months since the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

According to the Seattle Times, "[P]erhaps more than anything else, Durkan's efforts in the area of police accountability and civil rights will define her time as U.S. attorney."

The article continued:

Her intimate knowledge of problems within the Seattle Police Department — gleaned after serving on two mayor-appointed task forces — led her to call in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) civil-rights division and the FBI in 2011 after widespread community complaints.

The DOJ concluded later that year that Seattle police routinely used excessive force, mostly against the mentally or chemically impaired, and often escalated stops into violent confrontations. The DOJ also concluded there was disturbing, if inconclusive, evidence of biased policing.

Durkan sued the city and then negotiated a hard-fought settlement agreement, monitored by a federal judge, to address the problems.

HRC has long pressed for an out LGBT person to be nominated for Obama's cabinet. In an interview the week of Obama's reelection in 2012, HRC President Chad Griffin told BuzzFeed News, "We now have the opportunity, and I hope this president and this White House will seize the opportunity to have the first openly LGBT cabinet secretary."

Fred Hochberg, the head of the Export-Import Bank, and John Berry, the former head of the Office of Personnel Management, are two out gay men who were previously discussed as potential cabinet nominees — for commerce and interior, respectively — although neither came to fruition.

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Politics is about policy . What Andrew Kaczynski found.

Burke for Wisconsin

Mary Burke is running for governor in Wisconsin. When you pull up her economic plan, you get 35 pages of text, 59 instances of the first person singular pronoun, charts, and an opening letter from her.

"I hope you'll take the time to read the whole plan. You see, I'm a businessperson, so I view this as a starting point," she writes.

"This plan isn't just for the campaign — it's the playbook I'll look to the day I'm sworn in as your governor."

This document contains sentences copied from: a Tennessee Democrat's plan, Gov. Jack Markell's campaign, the White House, Gov. Terry McAuliffe's 2009 campaign, an Indiana Democrat's campaign, and a Harvard report. It's like little Russian nesting dolls hopping out with talking points.

The campaign fired the "expert" who wrote the report. But this plagiarism isn't unique to Mary Burke's campaign. The Republican nominee for Senate in Oregon did the same thing with her health plan. A Republican Senate candidate in Oklahoma copied parts of his issues pages from others, and a Democrat in Florida running for Congress copied parts of her issues page. Eight Republicans plagiarized from Sen. Rand Paul's issues page. And Paul plagiarized three pages of his recent book and in a number of newspaper columns.

In a particularly bizarre example, the Democrat running for South Dakota's governorship actually copied a biographical sentence from Burke. Apparently, both Burke and South Dakota's Susan Wismer know "how to make responsible decisions that keep a balance sheet in the black while creating jobs because she's spent her career doing it." It's a generic sentence, but it's also about, you know, her life.

The campaign took down the page. But the candidate dismissed the plagiarism: "This isn't academia. This is politics," she told the Argus Leader. "We all do what we can to save time."

Burke called her campaign's plagiarism "wrong," but downplayed it, too — "very small passages," "extremely limited," "scattered throughout." Paul originally blamed the plagiarism episode on "hacks and haters" before conceding his staff had been "sloppy" and changing procedures.

Over the past year, BuzzFeed News's unstoppable Andrew Kaczynski has found plagiarism on campaign websites everywhere — left, right, senate, gubernatorial, state legislature. It's rarely grandiose. We're not talking about speeches given before joint sessions of Congress. No one is going to pitch himself into a fire because Monica Wehby, the Oregon Senate candidate, copied from a Crossroads health survey. But it is: basic, casual, lazy, and widespread.

Andrew has a couple different ways he finds plagiarism, but it generally requires hours of tedious work organizing the material, checking it, and sorting through false positives. The truth is: He's probably putting more work into these plans and issues pages than some of the people who write them.

This is the state of U.S. politics in 2014: The intellectual infrastructure around candidates is so weak that consultants don't write their candidates' own issues pages. Instead, they scavenge and reconstruct from old campaigns and articles, popping a sentence here, loosely rephrasing a paragraph there. The candidates and their aides appear to operate under the belief that the expectation for this kind of material is that it's meaningless bullshit.

Can you really blame them, then? Yes. They are seeking policymaking positions and their websites are the most important and most accessible places where they make policy commitments. These policy statements are, arguably, the most important things they write.

Burke used to be an executive at the Trek Bicycle Corporation, which her family owns. She tells voters she knows about creating jobs. She's supposed to know about jobs. Wehby, Oregon's Republican Senate candidate, is a doctor. She's supposed to know about health care. That's HER THING.

Some might dismiss this merely as an instance of lazy p.r. tradecraft, and the consultant who "plagiarized" his own talking points has been fired for it. But it tells us nothing about Burke that distinguishes her from any other major gubernatorial candidate in the country.

And — whoops, wait, sorry. Brian Beutler, in an unusual dismissal of policy in what used to be one of the country's most important policy outlets, wrote that last paragraph for The New Republic last week. I just copied and pasted it here for the hell of it. He's right that it doesn't necessarily tell us much about Burke personally.

Beutler and other apologists argue this is more like "message discipline working a little bit too well," saying it's something less than a major speech or a thesis being plagiarized. He isn't alone; on Twitter, others in both parties (depending mostly on whose candidate has been caught) laugh off Andrew's findings.

There are two answers to this. First, that plagiarism is an act of dishonesty. It misleads the reader. It presents information, possibly left unchecked and free from its original context, as good. This is a standard we have for journalists — it's a standard we have for high school students.

Otherwise, why post issues pages at all? Why put together jobs plans and health care plans? Why make them 35 pages long? This isn't sixth period history class — no one requires candidates to do these things. Candidates do this to indicate that they have ideas, and ideally to commit to them; the plagiarism suggests, similarly, that they actually don't.

This indulges the worst of political hackery. It's based, often, on a spoken or unspoken view that the press and the people don't really care about policy or campaign policy commitments. And this is a particularly bizarre time to make that argument: The Obama administration has been shaped by huge fights over policy — health care, immigration, coal and fracking and emissions — and many of those originated with commitments Obama made during his 2008 campaign.

In his speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 44th Annual Legislative Conference, President Obama will turn attention toward domestic program.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is expected to lay out more specifics on his My Brother's Keeper initiative on Saturday, BuzzFeed News has learned.

The speech, which will be given to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 44th Annual Legislative Conference, comes as the administration is juggling a number of foreign policy situations and Thursday's announcement that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will step down from his position.

Obama formally introduced the program in an impassioned, 35-minute speech at the White House in February. My Brother's Keeper will seek to stem the tide of challenges faced by boys and young men of color by implementing programs with support from both the private and public sector.

In May, a special task force released a 61-page report to the president, outlining a broad set of recommendations the initiative should seek to solve on behalf of boys and young men of color. "Some of the proposals will begin a long process toward tearing down structural barriers," the report said, addressing President Obama. "But this report is just the beginning. The challenges described in this report will not vanish overnight. And, as you have noted, the government cannot play the only—or even the primary—role in these efforts."

Critics questioned both why the president had waited five years into his time in office to address disproportionate challenges obstacles that boys and young men of color face — and also why the administration didn't offer more specifics.

Sources tell BuzzFeed News Tom Perez has White House supporters who want him to be the nation’s next top lawyer.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Add Labor Secretary Tom Perez to the list of names being bandied about in the hours following Attorney General Eric Holder's resignation Thursday.

A source familiar with internal White House chatter said Perez' name has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Holder, though it was not clear how serious the conversations were or if Perez is on the official White House shortlist. NPR reported President Obama is expected to formally announce Holder's replacement in "days."

The reason Perez' name is floating around: his past as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Civil rights issues are very near and dear to both Holder and Obama, and those who spent time with Perez when he was at the Justice Department said he and Holder formed a close bond on civil rights issues.

"They were really colleagues at DOJ. As a necessity [of Perez' job,] they had a lot of interactions," said Vicki Schultz, a former Perez deputy at the Justice Department, now an associate dean at the University Of Baltimore law school. "They became good colleagues and close colleagues. And i think developed a great respect for one another."

Schultz said she doesn't have much regular contact with Perez these days, and said she didn't know if he was under consideration for the Attorney General's job. But she said he'd be a good pick.

Some Perez allies cite his highly contentious 2013 confirmation as a reason why Obama might want to avoid sending him back to the Senate for another debate. But John Kane, a former state Republican Party chair in Maryland who worked with Perez when Perez was the state's Secretary of Labor, said Perez had proved himself as Labor Secretary and doubted Republicans would be as hard on him in a new confirmation fight as they were the last time.

"He'd be a lot easier to confirm in that role," Kane said. "They'd have no compelling reason not to. He's already been vetted, twice, so if they wanted to block it they'd have to have a reason why or else they'd just be obstructionists."

Despite that, Kane said he doesn't expect Perez to get the job. That's because he expects Obama to nominate a woman who can lead a strong fight against domestic violence in the wake of the NFL scandal.

"My bet is he picks a woman and Perez stays at labor," Kane said. He predicted the president would want an "activist" on domestic violence issue who can be a leader as the country deals with its "tone-deafness about it."

Perez' office did not direct respond to a request for comment on the speculation, but forwarded a copy of Perez' statement on Holder's resignation.

"Eric Holder is a man of extraordinary conscience and competence. It was a unique honor to serve with him at the Justice Department, and I am enormously grateful for his unwavering commitment to the cause of civil rights and to reinvigorating the Civil Rights Division in particular," Perez said.

In the pen-and-a phone era at the White House — where the president is focused almost solely on unilateral executive action rather than legislative pushes through congress — the cabinet secretary job has a new importance. That might make it hard for Perez to leave the Labor Department, those in his orbit say.

"Tom Perez would make an outstanding Attorney General (as would any number of other names I've heard)," said Samuel Bagenstos, another former Perez deputy at the Justice Department. "He's a terrific leader and manager, and he obviously knows the Department of Justice inside and out. The only downside would be that it would be hard to find a replacement as Secretary of Labor who would be nearly as good as he is."

During weeks of racial turmoil in Ferguson, Attorney General Eric Holder visited and sent FBI agents to the town.

Pool / Reuters

With Attorney General Eric Holder departing the Obama administration, Ferguson residents who protested the death of Michael Brown say they are losing a champion.

"I think he's awesome, and whoever comes behind him has large shoes to fill," said Patricia Bynes, a Democratic Party official from Ferguson, Missouri. "Him coming down here made it clear it wasn't just a dog and pony show, that there was a serious investigation going on."

Nine days into clashes between protesters and police following the Aug. 9 shooting of unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, Attorney General Eric Holder announced he was heading to Ferguson personally. The day Holder announced his visit, the unrest seemed to be escalating. Night after night, a few rowdy protesters would hurl rocks and bottles at police, who would respond by firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd.

Holder sent dozens of FBI agents to Ferguson, ordered an independent federal autopsy of Brown's body, and in early September announced an independent investigation into the Ferguson police force. With Holder stepping down, protesters in Ferguson are losing a man who let them know their voices were being heard.

"I'm disappointed to hear that he is leaving, I think he's been a good attorney general, and his involvement in the Ferguson situation has been a big help," said Antonio French, a St. Louis Alderman who chronicled the Ferguson protests firsthand through his Twitter feed. "At a time when people were not seeing much action or progress from state or local government, it was the federal government that stepped up and gave hope to people that justice might be served in this case."

Many Ferguson residents had lost faith in the ability of the St. Louis County Police, and County prosecutor Bob McCulloch, to properly investigate Wilson. As FBI began to fan out in Ferguson, interviewing witnesses and talking with residents, the people in Ferguson upset over Brown's death began to feel that someone was listening. Ferguson is mostly black, but its 53-member police force only has three black officers. For the protesters, Holder was a calming presence, a black man in a position of authority.

"I just had the opportunity to sit down with some wonderful young people and to hear them talk about the mistrust they have at a young age. These are young people and already they are concerned about potential interactions they might have with the police," Holder said in speech in St. Louis. "I understand that mistrust. I am the Attorney General of the United States. But I am also a black man."

Holder and the Justice Department's conduct was not universally praised — some conservatives were critical of Holder's presence in Ferugson.

French said that Holder's actions meant a lot to Ferguson residents. "It was the federal government that provided empathetic action on behalf of citizens here who felt the system was not working on behalf of them," he said. "That's real action, it's one thing for people give words of empathy, but having empathetic action is something different. So far it's only been the attorney general and the president who we've seen that from."

During his trip to Ferguson, Holder also met with members of the community, including Michael Brown's parents. "He met with them very early on, and I think this sentiment still remains true, they were comforted by his words and his visit," said Anthony Gray, an attorney for the Brown family.

Holder's visit "was pivotal, it set a very nice tone, it gave a sense of attention and focus that several people in the community were calling for," Gray said.

With Holder stepping down, the people of Ferguson are left to wonder whether his successor will be as dedicated.

"They have to make sure that the investigation in Ferguson remains a priority," said Bynes. "I would recommend that they come down here, too, and let people know that I'm the new attorney general, but this case is just as important to me."