“We need to all speak up,” the father of a Sandy Hook survivor says. The Connecticut deaths move to Washington.

Image by Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT

WASHINGTON — Family members of shooting victims — including the father of a boy murdered in Newtown, Conn. just four days ago — gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday to push for reform to gun laws.

The 40 people who gathered here had family members killed in mass shootings including those at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, and the movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

Among them was Andre Nikitchyuk, whose son survived the shooting last week at Sandy Hook Elementary when a teacher pulled him into a classroom and away from the spray of bullets. Nikitchyuk said the shooting has brought the issue of gun control into stark relief for him.

"Now I believe we need to all speak up," he said. Nikitchyuk, who immigrated 22 years ago to the United States, added, "We are America. We can do it."

Together, the group, along with Democratic Rep. David Cicilline, urged congressional lawmakers to consider reforms that would reduce the number of people who are shot and killed each year.

"The only place where this is a contentious political debate is this building right behind us," said Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "There's a disconnect."

Within the Capitol, lawmakers of both parties agreed Tuesday that the topic will merit discussion in the next Congress; however, Senate leaders would not offer details about what shape and direction the debate might take, and advocates of gun control are hoping to capitalize on intense public concern in the wake of Friday's massacre to move legislation quickly.

“We need to accept the reality that we’re not doing enough to protect our citizens," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, vaguely.

"As we continue to learn the facts, Congress will examine whether there is an appropriate and constitutional response that would better protect our citizens," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, although he declined to talk about his views on what appropriate reform to gun laws might look like.

Another Republican leader, Sen. Roy Blunt, also demurred when asked about his specific views on reform to gun laws, but he assured reporters that those details will be discussed — eventually.

"This is certainly not something that's going to be decided this week," Blunt said. "We're going to have a lot more discussion about it."

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein has said she plans to propose a ban on assault weapons early next year.

Neither the Congress nor the White House have taken action on a law to stop anti-LGBT job discrimination or an executive order to ban contractors from doing so. Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Jared Polis plan a new push.

From left: President Obama, Sen. Tom Harkin, Rep. Jared Polis, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Jeff Merkley.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Mark Wilson/Getty Images; Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — In 1996 — the year the United States Senate passed the Defense of Marriage Act — the body also came within one vote of passing a bill to outlaw discrimination against gays and lesbians.

More than 16 years later, the tide has turned on marriage equality and DOMA’s federal definition of “marriage” is before the Supreme Court and could be gone by June. Despite widespread popular support, though, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — a job nondiscrimination bill for LGBT people modeled after Title VII of the Civil Rights Act — remains in a holding pattern, unlikely to move forward in Congress because of House Republican leadership’s opposition to the measure.

This year, the bill's new sponsors are pushing for a new vote in the Senate, and simultaneously pressing President Obama to take executive action barring discrimination on federal contacts, both sponsors said in interviews with BuzzFeed.

Throughout much of the 16 years since ENDA failed in that Senate vote, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Barney Frank, both of Massachusetts, led the fight in Congress for the bill, which would ban most private employers from discrimination against LGBT employees. Come January, neither Kennedy, who died in 2009, nor Frank, who did not run for re-election, will be in Congress. Instead, Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Rep. Jared Polis, both of whom took federal office in 2009, will be leading the fight for LGBT workplace protections.

Merkley and Polis said they see a Senate vote on the bill — regardless of the House leadership — as an important step. Likewise, both have urged and say they will continue to urge Obama to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees. As the 2012 ends, moreover, LGBT advocates appear to be coalescing in agreement on pushing on both of these fronts.

There remains, however, the House. Polis, while optimistic about LGBT progress broadly, quickly pointed to Republicans as the sticking point on getting ENDA passed.

"I hope to continue to increase the number of sponsors of ENDA in the next session. I am confident we will be able to do that," he said. "We still face opposition from Republican leadership, both in the committee and within the wider House, and their opposition makes it very unlikely that we will be able to bring it to the floor even if we’re able to get a majority of members to commit to support it.”

Merkley said his experience banning sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination while Oregon’s House speaker made it natural for him to take on the leadership of ENDA in the U.S. Senate.

“While Sen. Kennedy was still alive, he was working with his team to pass the torch on key issues and he asked me to carry the torch on ENDA,” he said in an interview in his Senate office. “I grew up with a passionate, fierce conviction that equality really means equality — whether it’s related to issues of color or related to issues of ethnicity or related to issues of sexual identity. This is why, when I became speaker, I carried this battle in Oregon. I think the reason that Kennedy and his team asked me to carry the torch on ENDA is not only because I was on the right committee … but because of my demonstrated advocacy on these issues.”

The committee is the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, led by Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. And the bill, despite a Democratic majority and Democratic chairman, hasn’t moved out of committee since President Obama took office. (During that time, a bill to repeal DOMA, the Respect for Marriage Act, did move out of the Judiciary Committee, although it has not received a floor vote.) Harkin and Merkley will be joined on the committee in January by another strong ENDA supporter: Sen.-elect Tammy Baldwin, who will be the first out LGBT senator.

Merkley said he understands Harkin’s handling of the bill in the 111th and 112th Congresses.

“I understand that chairs of committees wrestle with a complex setting, trying to find the right moment. I don’t want to speak for Chairman Harkin, but I think he wrestled with whether to proceed with a mark-up in the committee or try to go directly to the floor, in which case you essentially are in competition with everything else to get it to the floor. Sen. Harkin is a strong advocate for the bill," he said. "He wants to win this battle, and as committee chair, he’s working to find the most effective path."

Harkin spokeswoman Liz Donovan expressed Harkin's strong support for the bill and added, "Chairman Harkin is committed to working with Senators Merkley and [Sen. Mark] Kirk [of Illinois] and members on both sides of the aisle to move ENDA through the HELP committee in the 113th Congress."

Merkley said he's not looking for a symbolic victory.

“Success is getting it passed," he said. "It is outrageous that at this point in the path towards equality under the law in America, members of the GLBT community are still denied fundamental, everyday privileges as a part of their daily lives, be it housing, be it in restaurants, be it in employment. None of that is acceptable.”

Going a step further than he has previously, Merkley noted the importance of getting a vote of the full Senate on the bill. A version of ENDA containing sexual orientation protections aimed at anti-gay treatment and gender identity protections aimed at anti-transgender treatment has never been voted on by the full Senate.

“I believe there is a time, regardless of what happens in the House, where senators have to declare where they stand. That declaration, via a vote, enables citizens to say, ‘I agree or disagree.’ And for that community to be able to say, ‘Well, this person is our champion or this person is not,’ and to go and work to try and persuade more senators that this is an issue of fundamental equality and they should get on board,” he said. “If they don’t have the vote, all they have is the sponsorships. The sponsorships don’t tell the complete story.”

Does that mean he wants a vote in the 113th Congress?

“I would like to see there be a vote, yes, I would,” Merkley said,” adding, “And I say that in this sense, when I worked on these issues in Oregon and when I worked on them here, I think that conversation needs to be held in partnership with the advocacy communities. In terms of wrestling with the pros and cons of different approaches, different strategies, different tactics.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, left, is the Senate's lead sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban most private employers from discriminating against LGBT employees.

Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Merkley's push has the backing of the LGBT groups that focus on workplace issues.

Tico Almeida, the founder of Freedom to Work and a former House counsel who focused on ENDA, said he was heartened by the senator’s comments.

“We are grateful for Senator Merkley’s strong leadership in calling for a long overdue vote of the full Senate on ENDA. We agree 100 percent, and we think that vote can and should happen in 2013,” Almeida said. “In the weeks and months to come, we will encourage other Senators to also publicly declare, ‘I’m ready to vote on ENDA.’”

The National Center for Transgender Equality’s executive director, Mara Keisling, likewise called for a vote, telling BuzzFeed, "[T]hough the House of Representatives currently looks really tough for us, the Senate can and should pass ENDA in 2013." Although the Equal Opportunity Opportunity Commission found earlier this year that the prohibition against sex discrimination in employment in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act includes discrimination on the basis of gender identity — which includes discrimination against transgender people — most LGBT advocates have resisted relying too heavily upon the decision because, without further court action, it is not binding on courts hearing Title VII cases. (The decision is, however, binding on federal agencies.)

Human Rights Campaign spokesman Michael Cole-Schwartz took a similar — though slightly more nuanced — position.

“Achieving a Senate vote is a critical goal we share and we will continue collaborating with our Senate allies and coalition partners on the smartest and most strategic path forward," he said. At a recent event, HRC president Chad Griffin would not commit to his organization supporting a Senate ENDA floor vote in the 113th Congress.

Polis, from the perspective of the House, pointed to the importance of a Senate vote for the difficulties in the House. "Clearly, momentum on ENDA from the Senate, including if it passes the Senate in a bipartisan fashion, would put the pressure even more squarely on House leadership and committee leadership in the House to move on this bill to end workplace discrimination," he said. "If the Senate can pass ENDA, that squarely puts pressure on House leadership to do something that has broad, widespread, overwhelming support across our country. Most Americans agree that, regardless of their own personal opinions about sexual orientation, people should not be fired from their job just because of their sexual orientation or gender identity."

On that front, both Merkley and Polis pushed at the White House and Obama to take action on the executive order that he declined to sign in April. The order, which is modeled after an existing executive order signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson, bars federal contractors doing more than $10,000 in business with the federal government from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

LGBT advocates have been seeking an order to add sexual orientation and gender identity, and this journalist reported at Metro Weekly that then-Sen. Obama had answered “Yes” to the Houston GLBT Political Caucus’s question of whether he would support a “formal written policy of non-discrimination that includes sexual orientation and gender identity or expression ... for all Federal contractors.”

White House officials said in April, however, that Obama would not be signing such an order "at this time." White House press secretary Jay Carney expressed the White House view that their focus was on "a legislative solution to LGBT employment discrimination." After the election, advocates had hoped that the White House tune on the issue might change, but White House press secretary Jay Carney said earlier this month, "Our position on that hasn’t changed. We point to, as you and I have discussed, the process that led to the effective repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ as a model for the way to approach these issues. I don’t have any updates for you on our approach."

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An American-Canadian group for Syrian expats has launched a project to collect photos from Syrians on the ground. A ground-level view of devastation.

Syrian cat in Aleppo, November 3

The Syrian Expatriate Organization's "Lenses of Freedom" project publishes the work of amateur Syrian photographers documenting that country's turmoil.

The photos range from cell phone snapshots to higher-quality images from those with better equipment, but all were taken at varying degrees of personal risk by Syrians, not journalists or professional photographers. Some of the photos have been exhibited in Toronto. Most are from November or prior.

"They're all young Syrian amateurs (aged between 18-22 years old) who had photography as a hobby and found the revolution as a way to practice this hobby," said Maher Azem, a Syrian expat living in Toronto who organizes the project. "Some of them were actually killed/arrested by the regime."

Press and rebel fighters inspect a destroyed market in Aleppo.

Free Syrian Army fighters in Aleppo, November 15.

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Sandy Hook was a factor, said Snyder in a statement. “This type of violence often leaves society with more questions than answers.”

Republican Michigan Governor Rick Synder vetoed a concealed gun bill Tuesday afternoon. The bill would have allowed pistol owners with additional training and permits to carry their weapons in places of worship, schools, day care centers, stadiums, and churches.

In his veto letter, sent this afternoon to the Michigan Legislature, Synder said his decision to strike down the bill surrounded its failure to allow those public entities to opt out of the concealed carry provisions. "Unfortunately, the bill did not allow schools, public day care centers, or public hospitals to prohibit persons from carrying concealed weapons on their premises," said Snyder in his veto letter. "For that reason, I am vetoing Senate Bill 59."

A press release from the governor's office added that Friday's "horrific school shootings in Connecticut also highlighted the need for a thorough review of [the bill]."

Addressing the shooting, Synder says in the statement:

"This type of violence often leaves society with more questions than answers. The reasons for such appalling acts usually are numerous and complex. With that in mind, we must consider legislation like SB 59 in a holistic manner. While the bill's goal is to help prevent needless violence, Michigan will be better served if we view it through a variety of lenses. A thoughtful review that examines issues such as school emergency policies, disenfranchised youth and mental health services may lead to more answers and better safeguards."

Gov. Snyder's Veto Letter

Via: michigan.gov

The New York Senator emerges as a major gun control backer. Four years ago her NRA rating was 92 percent.

Image by Cliff Owen / AP

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand — once a vocal supporter of the Second Amendment rights — has emerged as one of the fiercest proponents for increased gun control following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

As a freshman member of the House of Representatives serving New York's rural 20th district, Gillibrand received a 92 percent rating from the National Rifle Association. She told Newsday in 2009 that she kept two rifles under her bed. "If I want to protect my family, if I want to have a weapon in the home, that should be my right," she said.

But Gillibrand softened her pro-gun stance when she sought appointment to the Senate after Hillary Clinton's confirmation as Secretary of State, and she has become increasingly vocal in her support of gun control measures. Her NRA rating this year clocked in at zero.

An aide also told BuzzFeed that Gillibrand no longer keeps the rifles beneath her bed.

Gillibrand wrote in a New York Daily News editorial Monday that Americans "deserve more from Congress" than words of sympathy. "Congress has ducked a serious national debate over common-sense gun laws for too long," she wrote.

And in a tweet that followed Sen. Dianne Feinstein's interview on Meet the Press — in which the senior Senator announced she would introduce an assault weapons ban at the start of the next Congress — Gillibrand tweeted that she "strongly" supported the measure.

"I urge my colleagues to pass it when the new Congress begins next year," she said.

Gillibrand was accused this fall by her Republican challenger Wendy Long of flip-flopping on gun control.

Her spokesman, Glen Caplin, said the Senator's views evolved when she took on a wider constituency in the Senate.

"Her former congressional district did not experience the same issues on gang and gun violence," Caplin told BuzzFeed. "But now as a statewide representative, Senator Gillibrand is highly focused on solving the problems of the entire state, and that includes gun violence."

"These are issues that she has always believed in," said Caplin, adding that the Senator still supports a citizen's right to bear arms.

A report out Tuesday night details the State Department's failings surrounding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. “System failures” and “management deficiencies.”

Image by Esam Omran Al-Fetori / Reuters

An Accountability Review Board report convened by Secretary of State Clinton gave a damning portrait of the mishandled security posture in Benghazi, though the Board said no one in the administration had "willfully ignored his or her responsibilities." Declassified portions of the report were released late Tuesday night. Deputy Secretaries of State William Burns and Thomas Nides will appear on Capitol Hill Thursday to testify on the attacks in place of Clinton, who suffered a concussion last week.

"Systematic failures" and "management deficiencies at senior levels" resulted in inadequate security

"Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department (the “Department”) resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place. Security in Benghazi was not recognized and implemented as a “shared responsibility” by the bureaus in Washington charged with supporting the post, resulting in stove-piped discussions and decisions on policy and security. That said, Embassy Tripoli did not demonstrate strong and sustained advocacy with Washington for increased security for Special Mission Benghazi."

There was no protest prior to the attacks on the consulate; responsibility lies with "terrorists"

"The attacks were security related, involving arson, small arms and machine gun fire, and the use of RPGs, grenades, and mortars against U.S. personnel at two separate facilities — the SMC and the Annex — and en route between them. Responsibility for the tragic loss of life, injuries, and damage to U.S. facilities and property rests solely and completely with the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks. The Board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity."

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Creative messaging on the edge of the fiscal cliff.

Image by J. Scott Applewhite / AP

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders are framing the extension of the Bush tax cuts for most brackets as a "net tax cut" as they face the double challenge of accepting such a compromise and selling it to their conference.

In a release Tuesday, Speaker John Boehner's office said his "plan B" to extend most tax cuts would "not raise taxes. It is a net tax cut that prevents a $4.6 trillion tax hike on Jan. 1."

Under the most recent Republican proposal, however, taxes would actually stay the same for most people, and go up on income exceeding $1 million. (President Barack Obama's latest offer would raise taxes on income exceeding $400,000.)

The full press release:

While Republicans continue to negotiate with the White House over a balanced agreement that averts the fiscal cliff by cutting spending and addressing our debt, Speaker John Boehner said the House is going to move simultaneously to “Plan B.”

Here's what the House “Plan B” bill does – and doesn’t – do. According to the House Ways & Means Committee, the House Plan B bill --

Does not raise taxes. It is a net tax cut that prevents a $4.6 trillion tax hike on January 1;

Permanently extends income tax rate cuts for Americans making less than $1 million, which protects 99.81 percent of all taxpayers;

Permanently extends the current estate and gift tax ($5 million at 35 percent and indexed for inflation);

Permanently extends section 179 expensing for small businesses ($250,000 and indexed for inflation);

Permanently stops the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) from hitting more middle class families;

Permanently extends parity for capital gains and dividend taxes, preventing dividend taxes from being taxed at the highest rates; and

Does not include anything on the debt limit or other non-tax policy items.

Remember, Speaker Boehner’s rule on the debt limit still applies: spending cuts must exceed any debt limit increase.

It’s important to have “a backup plan that makes sure that as few American taxpayers are affected by this increase as possible,” said Speaker Boehner. That’s exactly what “Plan B” will do.

The Democrat Senate Majority Leader gave a speech touting his love of gun rights featuring Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association Wayne LaPierre. Reid opposed renewing the assault weapon ban in 2004.

Source: youtube.com

Sandy Hook is the fourth mass shooting they've mourned. “A lot of emotion” on a private visit to a Colorado hospital.

Image by John Gara/Buzzfeed

Barack Obama doesn’t cry in public often.

It’s happened just four times since people started paying attention. The first was in North Carolina, the night before polls closed in 2008, when he told a crowd that his grandmother — “a quiet hero” — had just died; the second was four years later, almost to the day, at his last-ever campaign rally on a cold night in Iowa, the state where it all began; and the third was two days later, at campaign headquarters in Chicago, as he thanked his staff and told them that his work “had come full circle.”

The fourth time Obama let America see him cry was December 14, in the White House briefing room, at 3:15 p.m. And this time, Obama’s tears weren’t about him or his grandmother or his winning campaign — he cried instead for 20 children and six adults who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, at the hand of a killer with a gun.

His tears may be the reason this time is different. If gun control legislation can pass "it will be because people are responding as brothers and sisters, not as politicians,” said one gun control advocate, Third Way’s Matt Bennett. “This is a much more profound emotional response than we’ve ever seen. People are reacting in the most basic human way.”

Obama is too. In a five-minute address to reporters Friday, the president said, simply, “Our hearts are broken today.”

It was a line he’d used nearly two years earlier, at the memorial service for the victims of the shooting in Tucson, Arizona, where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot point-blank by Jared Lee Loughner.

Yes, “our hearts are broken,” Obama said in Tucson to a raucous crowd of 14,000 cheering over his words, “and yet, our hearts also have reason for fullness. Our hearts are full of hope and thanks for the 13 Americans who survived the shooting.”

That was the difference: There was still hope. Still time yet, he said, to have a debate on “everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health system.” But first, he warned, we need to “pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”

(Applause, cheers, more applause.)

Two years and three mass shootings later, a different Obama stood at the podium in the White House briefing room. Visibly stricken, tired — his eyes wet with tears.

“This evening,” Obama said, his cadence slow, “Michelle and I will do what I know ever parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter, and we’ll tell them that we love them, and we’ll remind each other how deeply we love another.”

This had become Obama’s sad ritual — four times performed. Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek, and now Newtown, with minor incidents in between. This time, though, it was personal. Obama spoke as the national parent. It was an approach he did not often take — as Jodi Kantor writes in her book, The Obamas, the president hadn’t “much played the traditional role of expressing the nation’s grief.”

But everything Obama would say that afternoon — and everything he would say that Sunday in Newtown — would be cast through the lens of the raw emotion he felt as a father. Any vow to the promised “meaningful action” would be taken whilst speaking, as he said Friday, “as a parent.”

It was a role Michelle Obama had played, mostly in private, six months earlier, during a visit to Aurora that she had all but insisted on taking.

On July 20, 2012, a man dressed as the Joker shot and killed 12 people during the midnight showing of the The Dark Knight Rises. In the heat of the summer months of his campaign, President Obama made remarks about the tragedy from a stop in Fort Myers, Florida, the morning after the shooting, and two days later he visited the University of Colorado hospital.

But nearly a month after the shooting — when the media furor had died down and the TV crews had gone home and the campaigns were preparing for the conventions — the Medical Center of Aurora received a call from Michelle Obama’s office.

The First Lady was coming to Colorado the next week for campaign events and wanted to stop by the hospital to meet and thank staff members for their service during the shooting. The Medical Center of Aurora had treated 18 patients in total, although only three were still checked in by August.

“We weren’t allowed to tell anybody,” remembers Linda Kanamine, the hospital vice president who took the call. “Her staff said she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and didn’t want to tell the press — it had to stay secret or it might not happen at all.”

The hospital resisted at first. The staff by that time was sick of VIP visitors — the governor had come three times, Christian Bale had made a very public trip to meet with victims, and the Denver Broncos football team insisted on coming, too.

“Our staff was just tired,” Kanamine said. “We turned down a visit from Miss Colorado. We just said, ‘No, we can’t do that.’”

Hal Anderson — an EMT who worked the night of the shooting — remembers staffers who were “frustrated” by the celebs and cameras and handshakes. “At a certain point,” said Anderson, “it was like, these people are just trying to get their name in the newspaper. But you don’t say no to the First Lady.”

No, you don’t. And besides, the First Lady wanted to do a “low-key” visit in between her two campaign events. So on August 11, she came for an hour and a half and everyone loved her.

“The staff understood that when she visited, it was on behalf of a nation,” said Kanamine. “It didn't matter who she was necessarily, she was there to say thank you on behalf of the nation.”

In a conference room near the hospital cafeteria, about 50 staffers — ER nurses, doctors, techs, everyone — lined up around the room. The first lady started at the door and walked around the entire circle. Everybody got a hug.

“There was a lot of emotion from the staff. There were some tears,” said Cynthia Latney, head of the nursing staff at the hospital. It was Latney’s job to walk around the room with Michelle and introduce her to each employee. There was one who had happened to be in the theatre at the time of the shooting, and when came his turn to meet the First Lady, “they were both very emotional,” said Latney. She just hugged him and said, ‘You make sure that you get some help and take care of yourself.’”

When she met Justin Mast — a longtime emergency nurse who rushed into the hospital at 1:30 a.m. on the night of the shooting — the First Lady wanted him to know that the country hadn’t forgotten Aurora.

“It just put things in perspective,” Mast said. “We knew that night that it was a big deal — that what was going on here was being watched and that everybody was proud of how we'd done our jobs — but she reminded us of that.”

Michelle Obama, who once worked as a hospital administrator in Chicago, knew all the right things to say, too. At one point she asked the group if anybody hadn’t been to sleep yet, and they knew then that she understood. “It was clearly a group of people she felt comfortable talking to,” remembered Mast.

Before she left, the First Lady met with the three victims still under the hospital’s care, spending about 10 minutes with each. One young man, still bed-bound in intensive care, would never be able to walk again. Escorted by Latney, Mrs. Obama walked into the room where his family was waiting. Flowers and teddy bears and pictures of classmates lined the walls.

“I’m so sorry this tragedy happened,” she said to him. The young man nodded his head — he couldn’t talk, but he could listen.

“She walked into the room and was there immediately as a mom,” said Latney. “She stood there with his mother and held their hands and kissed him on the forehead.”

When Michelle Obama left the hospital, the mayor and governor and police chief were waiting for a handshake and a photo-op. Michelle Obama wouldn’t stay for more than three minutes before leaving for Denver for a campaign event at the Museum of Contemporary Art, where she would not mention the visit to Aurora in great detail. Later, on Aug. 23, she sent a personal letter to Latney letting her know that “the country [was] eternally grateful” for the work of the hospital staff in Aurora.

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One of the largest classifieds sites in the country takes down its “firearms and hunting” section. A victory for Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg displays a confiscated AR-15 assault rifle above a table of illegal firearms sold to undercover officers.

Image by Mario Tama / Getty Images

In the wake of the Newtown, Conn. shooting, a Mormon Church-owned company announced Tuesday night it was suspending all gun listings on its popular classifieds site.

In addition to removing gun listings, KSL.com — the online hub for Salt Lake City's NBC affiliate, which is operated by church-owned Deseret Digital Media — took down the "Firearms and Hunting" section from its website. A company statement that replaces the site's gun section says they were "profoundly saddened" by the Newtown shooting.

"In the wake of other similar incidents, important questions have been raised about the ease of access to guns," the statement reads. "These questions deserve time for careful consideration and we are confident that an appropriate resolution will be found."

KSL.com maintains one of the largest classified sections on the internet, and has frequently been targeted by gun control advocates, who say the site makes it too easy for buyers to bypass regulations to purchase firearms. A 2011 report from the office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg listed KSL as one of the top offenders in enabling buyers to obtain guns without background checks.

Here is KSL's full statement:

Like everyone else in the country, the management of KSL is profoundly saddened by the tragedy in Connecticut. In the wake of this and other similar incidents, important questions have been raised about the ease of access to guns. These questions deserve time for careful consideration and we are confident that an appropriate resolution will be found. Accordingly, KSL has temporarily suspended firearms listings on KSL.com classifieds. We recognize that this may inconvenience responsible citizens who have used this service, but we feel this is an important step while these broader societal issues are examined.

Caught in Spiderman's web outside the Oval Office.

Source: White House/Pete Souza  /  via: lightbox.time.com

There are no back-up plans. Boehner spokesman calls it “bizarre and irrational.”

Image by Carolyn Kaster / AP

WASHINGTON — A White House official said Wednesday President Obama would veto Speaker of the House John Boehner's fiscal cliff "plan b," saying the middle class tax cut is an unacceptable and unbalanced solution to the fiscal cliff.

The threat represents a shift in the White House's messaging, which for weeks had revolved around the immediate passage of middle class tax cuts, while calling for additional negotiations on other elements of the fiscal cliff. Obama launched a public campaign for the tax cuts, starting a Twitter hashtag #my2k, and taking trips to Pennsylvania and Michigan to pressure lawmakers to pass the tax cuts. Now the White House is rejecting just that.

"The deficit reduction is minimal, and perversely, given its authors, solely through tax increases with no spending cuts," said White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. "This approach does not meet the test of balance, and the President would veto the legislation in the unlikely event of its passage."

Boehner proposed Tuesday to cut taxes on income up to $1 million dollars — a plan previously floated by Democratic lawmakers — while leaving the rest of the fiscal cliff unchanged. Pfeiffer said the plan would give millionaires an additional $50,000 tax cut over President Barack Obama's plan, and released a fact sheet blasting the fact that it allows unemployment insurance to expire and doesn't deal with the mandatory spending cuts from the failure of the super committee. Many of those outcomes are current law that both sides have been fighting to change, but the Boehner back-up plan is limited in scope to tax rates.

The White House's plan would have left the unemployment insurance and the sequester for future negotiations, but has backed off the #my2k push to call for a comprehensive solution to the fiscal cliff deal.

"The President urges the Republican leadership to work with us to resolve remaining differences and find a reasonable solution to this situation today instead of engaging in political exercises that increase the possibility that taxes go up on every American," Pfeiffer continued.

Republican lawmakers and Obama have moved closer to an agreement in recent days, with Boehner caving on allowing tax rates to rise on the wealthiest and Obama agreeing to the "chained-CPI" which would slow the cost of living adjustment to entitlement programs like Social Security.

The veto threat is a sign that there are no alternatives to a comprehensive deal that Obama finds acceptable — essentially forcing the two sides back to the negotiating table on the "big deal" if they want to avoid the fiscal cliff.

"This is not a "plan b" because it can't pass and it has really bad policy as detailed below," Pfeiffer said in an email to BuzzFeed, referencing the fact sheet.

The White House has not proposed any alternatives to a comprehensive agreement.

UPDATE: Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck calls the Obama veto threat "bizarre and irrational," in a statement to reporters:

The White House’s opposition to a back-up plan to ensure taxes don’t rise on American families is growing more bizarre and irrational by the day. Republicans have always said a broader, ‘balanced’ plan is the ideal solution, and we have put one forward. In the absence of a ‘balanced’ solution from the President, however, we must act to stop taxes from rising across the board in 12 days. If Democrats disapprove of this bill, then there is a simple solution: amend it in the Senate and send it back to the House.

The former solicitor general Robert Bork, who passed away Wednesday morning, faced one of the sharpest takedowns in the history of Supreme Court nominations.

The New York Times reported Wednesday morning that Robert H. Bork, the 1987 Supreme Court nominee and former solicitor general, passed away at the age of 85.

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“This time the words need to lead to action.”

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden will lead a commission drawing up recommendations to address incidents of gun violence.

Noting that the shooting in Newtown last week was the fourth and most deadly mass shooting he has responded to, Obama said each time there is a discussion about the causes, but "this time the words need to lead to action.”

“I will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this," Obama said.

Obama said the commission will report its findings to him by January, adding that once he has its recommendations "I intend to push [them] without delay.”

Obama said the task is not just to deal with mass shootings, but also everyday gun violence, listing a half-dozen fatal shootings since the Newtown school shooting.

“It won’t be easy, but that can’t be an excuse not to try," he said.

Obama pointed to polling showing a majority of Americans support the assault weapons ban, banning high capacity magazines, and closing the gun-show background check loophole.

“It will take commitment, compromise, and most important it will take courage.”

A man hangs an angel atop a Christmas tree in a growing makeshift memorial for the victims of the December 14 shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Sandy Hook village in Newtown.

Image by Mike Segar / Reuters

“They keep on finding ways to say no,” says the president.

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the fiscal cliff to members of the media in the White House Briefing Room December 19, 2012.

Image by Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama offered a message to House Republicans on the fiscal cliff, encouraging them to accept his plan to avert a tax hike on most Americans.

"Take the deal," he said Wednesday, taking questions on the fiscal cliff talks after announcing a new commission on gun violence.

Obama said he has already moved "at least half-way" toward Republicans, saying they need to do what is right for the country.

"They keep on finding ways to say no, as opposed to finding ways to say yes," Obama said, suggesting the only reason they won't agree to a deal is because they are negotiating with him. "They need to take me out of it, and think about what’s best for their voters, and what’s best for the country."

Noting that many in the country have been roiled by natural disasters and a slow recovery and don't need the added burden of uncertainty, Obama said, “The country deserves folks to be willing to compromise.

Two members said Reagan changed their votes. The bill passed by two.

Ronald Reagan with James Brady

Source: mrmediatraining.com

In 1994, former President Ronald Reagan's health was still good enough for him to, occasionally, participate in politics, and his agenda that year was clear: Helping President Bill Clinton pass the Assault Weapons Ban.

Reagan had been an ardent supporter of stricter gun laws after his presidency for intensely personal reasons, as he wrote in a 1991 op-ed in the New York Times entitled "Why I'm for the Brady Bill."

"'Anniversary' is a word we usually associate with happy events that we like to remember: birthdays, weddings, the first job. March 30, however, marks an anniversary I would just as soon forget, but cannot," he wrote. "It was on that day 10 years ago that a deranged young man standing among reporters and photographers shot a policeman, a Secret Service agent, my press secretary and me on a Washington sidewalk."

As the assault weapon ban vote neared, Reagan — who as president had signed 1986 legislation loosening restrictions on guns — wrote a letter with former Presidents Ford and Carter to the House of Representatives urging them to vote in favor of the ban.

"We are writing to urge your support for a ban on the domestic manufacture of military-style assault weapons. This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety," the letter said.

"While we recognize that assault weapon legislation will not stop all assault weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals. We urge you to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of these weapons," the letter said concluding.

The vote on the assault weapon ban was contentious and barely passed the House of Representatives. At least two members of the House of Representatives credited Reagan with influencing their votes. The bill passed 216-214, a margin of two votes.

Congressman Scott Klug, a Republican from Wisconsin was an opponent of the assault weapon ban and the day before the vote stated his opposition to the ban. Klug only changed his voted after "a last minute plea from President Reagan" in the form of a handwritten note.

''Dear Scott: As a longtime gun owner and supporter of the right to bear arms, I, too, have carefully thought about this issue. I am convinced that the limitations imposed in this bill are absolutely necessary," Reagan wrote Klug. "I know there is heavy pressure on you to go the other way, but I strongly urge you to join me in supporting this bill. It must be passed. Sincerely, Ronald Reagan.''

''I can think of no one who has been a stronger supporter of law and order and a stronger supporter of the Second Amendment,'' Klug said in a statement regarding Reagan's note announcing his support for the ban.

Another former Congressman, New Hampshire Democrat Dick Swett, also credited the former President with influencing his vote. Swett was unsure of how to vote on the ban, but made up his made after direct lobbying from Reagan.

Swett's vote dogged him throughout his next election. He received threats on his life and had to wear a bullet proof vest. The New Hampshire Union Leader hammered him in editorials for his flip-flop.

At a press conference after the vote announcing his intent to seek reelection, gun advocates chanted "Liar, liar, liar." Swett lost his House seat in the 1994 election.

“I don't think I've been on vacation,” Obama replies.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama was pressed about his lack of leadership on gun control issues in a press conference Wednesday after announcing that Vice President Joe Biden will lead commission to review ways to prevent gun violence.

"Where have you been?" asked ABC News reporter Jake Tapper at the end of the briefing.

Obama replied that he had been elected during one of the worst economic crises in American history and had to manage two wars and a host of other priorities besides guns.

"I don't think I've been on vacation," said a visibly annoyed Obama, a minute before ending the press conference.

But in fact, Obama has done little to tighten access to weapons, aside from casually supporting the Assault Weapons Ban, banning high-capacity magazines, and closing the gun-show background check loophole.

"This should be a wake-up call for all of us," Obama said of the shooting.

Image by Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

A curt response to President Obama's fiscal cliff rhetoric. “The president will have a decision to make.”

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American Jewish Committee executive director David Harris is “puzzled” by the talk of nominating Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon.

Image by Kris Connor / Getty Images

Another leading figure in the American Jewish community joined the chorus of voices against a potential nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel to Secretary of Defense on Wednesday, saying that he was "puzzled" by the possibility.

"I am very puzzled by the possibility of Senator Hagel's nomination," said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, in an email to BuzzFeed. "His voting record and speech trail are in so many important ways contrary to the Obama Administration's. For example, what message would it send to have a Pentagon chief who has very different views on strategies for dealing with Iran, the central foreign policy challenge of our time, than the White House has had to date? Or questions the designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group at the same time the Administration is urging the European Union to add the group to its terrorism list?"

"The list goes on," said Harris, whose group is one of the oldest and largest of American Jewish groups, and typically occupies a more moderate part of the spectrum than some of Hagel's other, more politically conservative critics. "Indeed, in 1999, Sen. Hagel was the only senator who refused to sign a Senate letter to Russian President Yeltsin calling for tougher action against rising anti-Semitism in the country. We know because AJC published the Senate letter as a full-page ad in The New York Times with 99 names included, but not Sen. Hagel's."

Since the possibility of Hagel at the Pentagon started being raised, many Jewish and pro-Israel groups have been lobbying against him in the press. The Anti-Defamation League even came close to accusing him of anti-Semitism for his sometimes critical views on Israel, and for a remark about the "Jewish lobby."

Hagel's allies dismiss the charges as character assassination standing in for substantive disagreements on policy with a former senator who favors defense cuts and is skeptical about the use of power abroad.

“There's a core conservative principle here at stake,” Rep. Heulskamp says.

Image by Gary Cameron / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Conservative Republicans continued to push back Wednesday against House Speaker John Boehner's "plan B" to avert the fiscal cliff, which would let tax rates go up on income exceeding $1 million.

"It's about core conservative principles, and there's a core conservative principle here at stake," said Republican Rep. Tim Heulskamp.

Although some Republicans, including Boehner, have argued that a vote for the plan wouldn't amount to explicit support for a tax hike, Heulskamp said he "would certainly deserve primary opposition” were he to support an increase in taxes.

Outside groups, including the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, also came out against the plan, and issued stern warnings to Republicans who might support it.

"They will lose control of the House," said Brent Bozell, the founder of the conservative Media Research Center.

"This is precisely what happened to them six years ago, and they've already forgotten that message," he added.

Nevertheless, in a press conference earlier Wednesday, Boehner pressed ahead with his proposal, which the House will vote on tomorrow. Boehner said he expects the bill will pass.

"And then the president will have a decision to make: He can call on Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history.”

He added, "I hope the president will get serious soon about providing and working with us on a balanced approach."

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, hit back at Boehner, charging the Speaker had “slammed the door in the president’s face” when he decided to move forward with his Plan B.

But Pelosi also had a warning for the White House, saying she had encouraged Democratic opponents of Obama’s latest plan — which would change entitlement spending — to “express yourself, speak out … they go forth with my blessing.”