When the clock strikes 11:11, do you wish for the return of Crossfire to cable news programming? You're not alone.

Cable executives on the lookout for programming changes would be wise to turn to Hollywood's successful reboot strategy for inspiration. Producers who are willing to sniff around the mothball fleet of defunct cable news programs for the next great political talk show could win big by combining proven cable news formats with the public's love of nostalgia. Here are a few suggestions:

"Drudge"

"Drudge was a television series on Fox News Channel hosted by Matt Drudge. Drudge left the show in 1999 after network executives refused to let him show a picture of 21-week old fetus." — Wikipedia

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Americans are among the hostages captured in a raid by Islamist militants on an oil field in Algeria.

video via Free Beacon

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed on Wednesday that Americans have been taken hostage as part of an Islamist raid on a BP gas field in Algeria.

"The best information that we have at this time is that U.S. citizens are among the hostages," Nuland said. She did not provide names or the number of U.S. hostages.

The Norwegian, Japanese and Irish embassies have confirmed that some of their citizens have been captured. Their current status is unknown.

The Associated Press puts the current number of American hostages at 7, and estimates 41 hostages overall.

Obama knows his “plan” for legislation isn't going anywhere and will just enrage Republicans. That may be the point, Democrats say.

An American AR-15 assault rifle in a studio environment

Source: images.newscred.com

WASHINGTON — In a highly anticipated press conference Wednesday, President Barack Obama laid out a sweeping agenda to overhaul the nation's gun laws — one that almost certainly won't make it through Congress, at least not in its entirety.

And that may be the point.

Congressional Democrats and the White House are betting that attitudes about guns have shifted sufficiently across the country that it if House Republicans kill the president's legislative efforts to curb gun violence, it will create electoral opportunities for Democrats in moderate districts.

"I'd hate to be [Rep.] Peter King on this issue," a veteran Democratic operative said of the moderate New York Republican, who will likely have to answer for his colleagues' gun control opposition during the next election.

New York and New Jersey Republicans, particularly those in Long Island, around New York City and the Jersey coast could be particularly vulnerable. Their party is already facing strong blowback in the area for House Republicans dragging their feet — and ultimately voting against — Hurricane Sandy relief funding.

Suburban areas in Pennsylvania and California could also be fertile ground for electoral gains based on gun control, Democrats said.

"Those guys have never done anything to differentiate themselves from the Republican Party," a DCCC source said Wednesday. "I'm not super concerned about our guys," the source added, noting that Democrats like West Virginia Democrat Rep. Nick Rahall over the years have successfully managed to hold the main body of the Democratic Party at arm's length.

"Are there some Democrats who are going to have to be independent to continue to win? Sure, no doubt about it. But it's a small number, and they have for years distanced themselves from the party," a Democratic operative added.

If the strategy works, it would mark the first time that the politics of gun control broke for Democrats, who have long lived in fear of the powerful and well-financed gun lobby pouring money into their opponents' coffers.

Still, it's a high risk gamble for Democrats, who've had their moderate and southern ranks decimated over issues like gun control, climate change and Obama's health care reforms.

But there still any number of moderates, like Rahall in the House or his fellow West Virginian Sen. Joe Manchin who will chafe under a prolonged fight over guns and it will almost assuredly make House and Senate races in places like Ohio, Arkansas and Montana more challenging for Democrats.

"Obama's end-run around Congress isn't even sitting well without a lot of members of his own party, so if that is his midterm strategy he's going to have a tough sell even in many Democratic districts," said Tim Miller, Deputy Communications Director for the Republican National Committee.

And so far, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has not taken up the issue of gun control with the same vigor as the White House. The group, which is in charge of helping Democratic candidates get elected, posted an online petition calling on House Republicans to "move immediately to pass sensible reforms, including banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines."

But Republicans haven't seen an onslaught from the committee as of yet, in part, the DCCC source said, because "it's gotten buried in the avalanche on the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling."

Congressional Democrats also complain that the White House has failed to create a dialogue with them as they approach the issue, though operatives have occasionally been in touch.

"It's talking, but its not like 'hey do you guys want to do this issue' talking. Not that they've done that in the past though," one operative said.

In a discussion Tuesday, talks focused on who would “go first” on immigration reform. “We're in a good place,” says Gutierrez.

U.S. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez met Tuesday with Obama administration officials to discuss the path forward on comprehensive immigration reform.

Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Representative Luis Gutierrez and five other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with White House officials Tuesday in the Roosevelt Room to discuss the administration's plan to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform, the Illinois Congressman, a key figure on the issue, told BuzzFeed.

"It's clear to me from that meeting that they have a plan, they're working, and their team is expanding," he said.

Gutierrez said the discussion surrounded "who goes first" — the Senate, House, or White House — on the push for immigration legislation. "We talked about what the president wants and what his vision is," said Gutierrez. "And I gotta tell you, we're in a good place."

As evidence of the momentum on immigration, Gutierrez compared Tuesday's meeting with one he had in March 2009 — which he found lacking — with the president and White House officials.

"In March 2009, it's like, no, I don't have a plan, I don't have anybody in charge, and I don't have a team of people working on this," said Gutierrez, who was told at the 2009 meeting that the figure heading up immigration would be then-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

"The chief of staff is in charge of everything. It was like being told there was no one in charge," he said. (Gutierrez declined to the Obama officials present for Wednesday's meeting.)

Cecilia Muñoz, White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council, will likely take a leading role, he said. "Cecilia has been in every meeting I've had with the president. She's been the link," said Gutierrez.

As discussions continue in the House and Senate — particularly around Sen. Marco Rubio, who laid out his immigration plan in the Wall Street Journal last week — a more solid path forward for Congress and the Obama administration would emerge, said Gutierrez, "by the end of February or early March."

Immigration reform will also be a central focus of the president's State of the Union address next month, said the Congressman.

"The president has spoken about it in his last three State of the Unions. You can speak about something without it really being remembered. But something tells me you're gonna remember immigration in this State of the Union address," he said.

The meeting, called Monday, was a show of assurance to immigration advocates in Congress that reform remains a priority despite the administration's recent focus on the fiscal cliff and gun control.

"It's a big priority, and it's gonna be an all-out press," said Gutierrez. "There's a team of people that the White House is working on this. They made clear to us that the team was evolving and expanding."

“I saw presentations of the Iron Dome and it was very impressive.”

Image by Aron Heller / AP

Senator Rand Paul Wednesday said there was "no reason" the United States shouldn't have its own version of Israel's Iron Dome to defend the homeland from missile attacks.

"I saw presentations of the Iron Dome and it was very impressive," Paul said in a conference call with reporters fresh off a weeklong trip to Israel and Jordan. Paul added that he is "absolutely in favor of it."

"There's no reason why our White House, our Capitol, and major cities shouldn't have missile defense," Paul said, after referencing the 9/11 attacks.

Paul demurred, however, on whether or not the U.S. should be paying for Israel's Iron Dome.

During his visit to Israel, Paul — who has supported cutting aid to Israel — met with Benjamin Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, as well as Mahmoud Abbas and the king of Jordan. The trip was interpreted as a kind of olive branch to the more hawkish elements of his party at the same time that Paul was named to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"I hate to get people locked into thinking that the purpose of the trip was to go over there and spout my views on foreign aid," Paul said. "While I want to be a strong ally with Israel, that doesn't mean they can get a blank check either."

But Israel shouldn't be the first country to which the U.S. rolls back its aid, Paul said, adding that should be reserved for "countries burning our flag and chanting 'death to America.'"

During the conference call, Paul criticized President Obama's reported private assertions that "Israel doesn't know what its own best interests are" after the announcement of new E-1 settlement plans.

"That's an arrogant and presumptuous point of view and really does not further any kind of progress," Paul said. "We can't tell Israel or others how to behave."

"No one can really know as much as those who live in that region," Paul said. "To dictate to the mayor of Jerusalem where to build is ridiculous."

Paul stayed neutral on the topic of whether or not former Senator Chuck Hagel should be confirmed as Secretary of Defense, saying, "I'm open to hearing about his viewpoints."

The Ohio “liberal lion” is heading to Fox.

Image by Mark Duncan / AP

Dennis Kucinich's unlikely next act will be as a paid Fox News contributor, but he says it's "almost silly" to think that he'll be a kind of token.

"I'm way past that in my life and career," Kucinich said in a phone interview with BuzzFeed on Wednesday. "That's almost silly."

The former Ohio congressman, who lost his seat after redistricting to fellow Democrat Marcy Kaptur, said that Fox invited him to New York last week to discuss the deal. "That's when they made the offer and I accepted," he said.

He said that he'll appear on shows "across the Fox News Channel"; "There's a chance tomorrow, for example that I might end up being on O'Reilly. On another day I might end up being on Cavuto or on Fox Business."

In July, Kucinich announced that he was launching a PAC to support like-minded candidates after his exit from Congress. He said on Wednesday that "I'll continue to do that, but that's a long range plan and that's not going to in any way interfere with what I'm doing here."

Kucinich has been a semi-regular guest on Fox throughout much of his time in Congress, he pointed out: "I think that the perspective that I offer is one that they obviously have valued in the past because of the number of invitations that I've received. "

"I would say that over the years I've developed a relationship with people on every show they have," he said.

Kucinich will become one of the small number of liberal Fox contributors, which includes Evan Bayh and Bob Beckel. In the past, some of Kucinich's views have hewed more closely to Fox lines, like abortion; he held out longer than many other anti-abortion Democrats in Congress, and announced that he had become pro-choice in 2003.

Fox president Roger Ailes said on Wednesday he's "always been impressed with Kucinich's fearlessness and thoughtfulness on the issues," according to the AP.

OutServe-SLDN seeks records of Fort Bragg leaders' discussions regarding the spouses group that meets at the base. The Human Rights Campaign is asking Defense Secretary Panetta for action now to help address the situation.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta pauses at a news conference on Jan. 10, 2013.

Image by  Evan Vucci / AP

WASHINGTON — The Army leadership at Fort Bragg is facing a public records request from the leading LGBT military group, seeking information on whether the military leaders are "working for them or against them," following BuzzFeed's Tuesday report that the Army would not stop a spouses group from meeting on the military base there despite the group's policy against allowing the same-sex partner of officers.

In a letter dated Wednesday, the legal director of OutServe-SLDN submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking communications over the past six months relating to the membership policies of the Association of Bragg Officers' Spouses, which denied membership to Ashley Broadway. Broadway is married to Army Lt. Col. Heather Mack.

The reason for the request, OutServe-SLDN executive director Allyson Robinson told BuzzFeed, is that "[g]ay and lesbian military families at Fort Bragg and throughout the armed services deserve to know if their chain of command is working for them or against them. If there is a coordinated effort that would undermine the principle that every service member and his or her family should be treated impartially, our nation's leaders at the Pentagon need to know as well."

Specifically, the OutServe-SLDN request seeks information about communications received by or sent from the North Carolina Army installation's commanding officer, Gen. Daniel B. Allyn, and several others regarding "the operation, continued operation, or membership or admission policies or practices of the Club."

The public records request wasn't the only fallout from the Tuesday comments of the Army's Fort Bragg spokesman, who told BuzzFeed that the private group was able to continue to operate on the base because "federal discrimination laws don't extend to sexual orientation." A Pentagon spokesman backed the decision Tuesday night, citing a 2008 policy setting guidelines for recognition of outside groups by military entities that did not require sexual orientation nondiscrimination.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT political organization, accordingly is seeking immediate action from the Defense Department.

HRC president Chad Griffin said in a statement, "[W]e call on Secretary Panetta to immediately issue military regulations that will allow the spouses and partners of gay service members access to a military ID. This benefit is crucial to accessing many of the benefits and services offered to military families."

At one point, the spouses group had told Broadway that she would not be able to be a member because she did not have a military ID card that would allow her access on the base. The LGBT military group, then SLDN, has been seeking Pentagon action regarding the ID cards since before "don't ask, don't tell" repeal.

A White House spokesman, meanwhile, did not respond to a request for comment about whether the president supports the Pentagon's reliance on the 2008 policy to permit continued military recognition of private groups that exclude same-sex spouses of servicemembers.

OutServe-SLDN FOIA Request

The union representing striking school bus drivers in New York City today began airing an ad with images of wrecked school buses. The first one is, for no evident reason, a scene from Hurricane Katrina.

The ad from Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union

Source: youtube.com

A barge sits atop a school bus in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

h/t Dan Oshinksy

Lobbyists may be the only ones benefitting from all the Hill's self-made apocalypses.

Image by Jonathan Ernst / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Legislators responsible for making sure the government functions in some approximation of smoothness may hate the endless string of manufactured fiscal crises facing the nation, but for lobbyists on K Street, the dysfunction is great for business.

Much has been made of the strain the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling have placed on high-profile issues like immigration reform and gun control. But its also having a serious impact on the basic functions of governing, ranging from the annual appropriations process, to a reauthorization of critical agriculture legislation.

In one illustrative example, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers had hoped to move an omnibus spending package shortly after the 2012 election that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year in September. The measure had buy-in from Democrats and Republicans in both chambers. But Congressional leadership simply wasn't in a position to do the hard work of getting a massive spending package passed before the fiscal cliff fight kicked off.

"I had hoped we'd replace [the current stop gap measure] with an omnibus," Rogers said this week. "But the fiscal cliff sucked all the oxygen out of here."

At the same time, Rogers finds himself in the middle of preparing for the fiscal year 2014 spending fight, which begins early next month with the release of the President's budget.

And while he says his committee is moving forward, he acknowledged the fiscal cliff and the dragged out Sandy disaster relief fight have "been terribly time consuming." It's a complaint shared by some of his workhorse colleagues who may not be household names, but whose jobs entail keeping the nuts and bolts of Washington working.

"I'm just kind of at a standstill at the moment," Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas said Monday. "I've gotten to the point where I'm just kind of accepting the environment I'm working in."

Like Rogers's omnibus, Lucas's reauthorization of the measure got caught up, in part, in the fight over the fiscal cliff. With the start of the new Congress, he had hoped to quickly move to the authorization in the first few weeks of the new session. But that doesn't look likely now.

"Because of all the things beyond my control I don't think its advisable to say there will be a markup by the end of February," Lucas acknowledged, saying the various fiscal fights "make it a very complicated time."

Asked when he thought he could begin working on the bill, Lucas was understandably circumspect: "It's one of those things I'll know when the time is right when my political gut tells me it's right. And I just can't tell you when that will be."

Meanwhile, the denizens of the K Street lobbying corridor are seizing the opportunity to twist arms of idle committee members, and suck money out of their clients, who are more insistent than ever that their issues keep moving forward.

"It's incumbent on guys like me to make sure … my clients and their issues don't get lost in the shuffle," said Harry Sporidis, a lobbyist with the firm Polsinelli Shughart. Sporidis, a veteran lobbyist on a host of issues, acknowledged that the fiscal cliff, debt ceiling, sequester and government shutdown fights have essentially put normal legislative action in the House and Senate on hold until at least the end of March.

"It is backing things up, there's no question about it … but there's always ways to keep moving your issues forward," Sporidis continued, adding that since those negotiations "are at such a high level, the rank and file members aren't really in the talks," which means there's lots of time to meet with them and discuss other issues.

And with potentially trillions of dollars of spending or tax breaks at stake, lobbyists said that anecdotally it looks like there's been a run on top-flight lobbyists by companies looking to protect their bottom lines.

"Everybody's hiring up to not be a pay-for," one lobbyist said, explaining that for most industries, it's become a question of when, and not if, they will end up feeling pain from one of the various fiscal crisis deals in the offing. "At some point, you're going to get wacked, it's just a matter of when."

The new “gun nuts”: Media elites, locavores, and hipster hunters.

On a Sunday morning a couple years ago, Brooklyn journalist Foster Kamer and a few of his "particularly liberal" blogger friends decided to skip brunch and hit the shooting range instead.

"We said, hey let's do something ridiculous," he recalled. "Let's go shoot guns."

They chose the nearest site they find, a range that operated out of a basement in midtown Manhattan. "The first thing that happened when we got there was we heard some guy hammering away at a target with what sounded like a cannon. It was just in such tight quarters. It kind of freaked us out."

It didn't keep them away, though.

One 30-minute gun safety lesson and a few bucks later, Kamer and his friends were blasting away at their own targets — the first of many. "Sometimes we go bowling, sometimes we eat together, and sometimes we go shooting," he said. "It's something to do."

The current flare-up in the long political battle over gun laws is coming at a moment when American gun culture is more expansive than ever, having gained a foothold among the type of coastal elites that, just a couple decades ago, would have dismissed the very idea of holding a rifle as obscene and offensive. Hunting and recreational shooting, once viewed by the left as backwater pastimes, have won over a liberal coalition of eco-conscious locavores, hipster hunters, and adventure-seeking New York media elites.

Since that first experience, Kamer has made a handful of trips to a New Jersey shooting range, bringing along a cadre of Twitter-savvy media types — including New York Times columnist David Carr, and Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa — who post photos of themselves posing with guns, and tweet trash talk about each other's shots.

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As House Republicans meet in Williamsburg, Virginia, Democrats make a supercut of the party's disunity. “Good luck with that.”

People aren't quite as excited as they were in 2008. Luckily, Bey is singing the national anthem.

Four years ago, nearly 2 million people flooded the National Mall to watch Barack Obama's historic swearing-in ceremony.

This time, people aren't quite so excited...

Source: mardecortesbaja.com

Because it's going to be cold.

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The state's county chairs won't align behind a candidate until February. “I personally expected that Cory Booker was going to be a candidate.”

State Senator Barbara Buono, the only declared Democratic challenger in the 2013 gubernatorial race, speaks at the statehouse in Trenton, N.J.

Via: state.nj.us

Election Day is nine months away and New Jersey Democrats have yet to coalesce around a single gubernatorial candidate.

State Senator Barbara Buono, the only declared candidate, says she is "confident" that county chairs — the state power brokers who determine which candidate gets the party line on the primary ballots — will align behind her campaign.

Buono already has the support of three counties — Middlesex, Somerset, and Monmouth — and was backed Wednesday by the bipartisan Women's Political Caucus of New Jersey.

"I'm really energized," Buono told BuzzFeed. "With that support comes momentum, and with momentum comes enhanced fundraising — so it's all coming together."

"I'm talking to chairs many times a day," Buono said.

But John Wisniewski, Chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Party, said the county chairs will give other possible candidates — particularly former governor Dick Codey and state Senate President Steve Sweeney — until the end of the month to get in the race.

On a conference call with county chairs Wednesday morning, Wisniewski encouraged the chairmen to "avoid a fractious primary and avoid wasting millions of dollars on a nominee," he said.

"Everybody expressed hope that we would have a candidate, or clear idea of who the candidates are, by the 31st," said Wisniewski. "Every county chair with some minor exceptions believes that giving unannounced candidates another couple weeks to do their due diligence is not harmful to the party."

But Democrats already lag behind in what will no doubt be a bitter race against incumbent Chris Christie, who is still riding high on approval ratings that haven't slipped below 70 percent since Hurricane Sandy devastated the New Jersey coast in October.

A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll shows bleak head-to-heads against Christie no matter who the Democratic candidate — Buono polls at 21 percent against Christie; Codey polls at 26 percent; and Sweeney at 19 percent.

But South Jersey power player George Norcross told PolitickerNJ that in order to beat Christie, the party "ought to rally around [Buono] and move forward." Norcross added that Codey — who told WCBS 880 that he'd decide in two weeks — doesn't have "the guts" to take on Christie.

Buono wasted no time in declaring her candidacy. The progressive state Senator said as early as March that she was "seriously considering" a gubernatorial bid, and she officially declared her candidacy on Dec. 11. It was a week that had much of the state in a holding pattern, waiting for Newark Mayor Cory Booker to announce whether he would run for governor or for Senate in 2014.

Booker, who ultimately decided to run for Senate, has said he made a personal phone call to Sweeney last month to encourage him to get in the governor's race.

"I personally expected that Cory Booker was going to be a candidate," said Wisniewski. "He never said, 'John, I'm a candidate for governor,' but he did and said many things that would lead one to presume he'd be a candidate."

"A lot of people didn't make a serious evaluation of whether they were going to run because they expected someone else was going to run," said Wisniewski. "That's why we're now in the position of finding out who our candidate is in January."

Buono was careful to note that she didn't make her decision to run "based on any other candidate," she said. "I did it because middle class families have been forgotten by this governor and by his policies."

With the support of three county chairs and a head-start on fundraising — her campaign has just north of $250,000 in contributions — Buono's chances of becoming the Democratic nominee are on the rise.

"It doesn't clinch it for her, and it's not a time where you could say it's over, but it certainly puts her in the forefront," said Wisniewski. "If Buono wound up becoming our candidate for governor we'd be very well served."

But because the race was so delayed by Booker's possible run, said Wisniewski, the county chairs will give Codey and Sweeney the rest of the month to make up their minds.

"They expected someone else to run, so it's unfair for us to tell them to pick up the pace," said Wisniewski. "In fairness to them, they should be given an opportunity to have this process unfold."

On Wednesday, president Obama called on Congress to limit ammunition magazines for firearms to 10 rounds. A modern machine gun will fire an average of 12 rounds per second.

Here's how 8 iconic action scenes would look with this new 10 round restriction.

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How could you do this to me?

Via: zgeek.com

GOP budget chief says colleagues must understand “realities” of divided government.

Image by J. Scott Applewhite, File / AP

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — In his most extensive comments to the press since November's election, Rep. Paul Ryan said he and other GOP leaders were using their annual retreat here to warn Republicans they must understand the "realities" of their weakened position and temper their expectation for what can be achieved.

Republicans need to "recognize the realities of divided government … and the fiscal deadlines that are approaching," the House Budget Committee chairman said, explaining that during the first day of the retreat he was helping to facilitate
"a conversation among our members about all the fiscal things that are about to occur."

Republicans, particularly the new crop of freshmen lawmakers, need to understand "all the deadlines that are coming, all the consequences of those deadlines … [and] the best way to achieve progress to controlling our deficit and debt, control our spending."

Ryan was circumspect when it came to the details of the internal talks, saying that Republicans "think the worst thing for the economy is for this Congress and this administration to do nothing to get our debt and deficits under control … to move past these events that are happening with no progress made" on debt and deficits.

That said, he did reveal that Republicans are "discussing the possible virtue of a short-term debt limit extension so we have a been chance of getting the senate and White House involved in March."

Ryan also appeared to give a nod towards the need for Republicans to relearn the art of give and take and compromise because of they make up only a majority of the nation's divided government.

"I think what matters most is that people have a very clear view of what's coming, so that there are no surprises … that means setting expectations accordingly, so that we move forward on a unified basis," Ryan said.

Tough optics at the GOP retreat.

Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Newly minted National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Greg Walden said Thursday that better recruitment of minority and women candidates would be a major focus for the 2014 election, and that he is taking steps to broaden the GOP's reach.

Speaking to reporters during Republicans' annual retreat at the posh Kingsmill resort, the Oregon Republican said better outreach is "an important priority for me as chairman" and that he is hoping to move his party "further and deeper into minority communities."

"Obviously we have to address this. You have 50,000 young Hispanics reaching voter age every month," Walden noted.

Walden noted that he has brought Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler into the NRCC as well "to be our vice chairman to help in that regard, to help lead that up," while Native American members like Rep. Tom Cole will work to expand the party's influence in the native community.

"We understand that Republicans have good answers, we just have bad communication in some cases … we may not understand how what we say is interpreted by others," Walden said, arguing the party can find ways to work with minority communities without abandoning its core principles.

Still, optics remain an issue for the party. On Friday, members are scheduled to participate in a panel entitled "Coalitions — Discussion on Successful Communication with Minorities and Women," which is being held in the Burwell Plantation Room at the resort. The Burwell family owned dozens of slaves at numerous plantations and farms around Virginia, according to historical records.

Correction: An earlier version of this article's headline stated that Walden's comments were made in the Burwell Planation room. It has been corrected.

Liberals more likely to block opposing views than conservatives. At George Washington University Thursday, market research firm ORI presented these findings on how politics happens on Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms.

Younger people are more likely to share their political affiliations.

"Overall, 28% overall said they displayed their political affiliation on their social networks.

While Obama and Romney supporters were equally likely to display their political affiliation, they were twice as likely to do so as someone who did not support either candidate.

More than half of those 18-25 (55%) shared their political affiliation, a rate three times higher than respondents over 55 years that shared their political affiliation."

Most find a diverse collection of opinions on the networks they use.

"More than half (52%) say there’s an even mix of those who do, and do not, share their political views on their networks, though one-quarter (25%) are connected primarily to people who share their views.

Older respondents, particularly those over 45, were more likely to have a mix of views in their social networks, with six in ten saying theirs was a mix of perspectives. Conversely, those 26-35 were more likely to be in ideologically homogeneous networks."

Most Americans still don't talk politics on the internet.

"Four in ten (41%) said they’d engaged in a political discussion with other people in their social networks, including nearly half the men 48% compared to 36% of women.

Over half the respondents under 35 had engaged in a political discussion on social media compared to just over a third of respondents over 55."

Liberals more likely to post public messages than conservatives.

"Two thirds (65%) of respondents used public messages such as wall posts or tweets, making them the most common way in which political conversations took place on social media. However, one-fifth (19%) also mentioned one-on-one video chats.

Women were more likely to have engaged in a publicly-viewable discussions (72% to 59%) while men were more likely to have participated in a one-on-one video chats (25% to 13%).

Liberals and Obama supporters were more likely than conservatives and Romney supporters to post public messages on social media by a margin of nearly twenty percentage points."

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Whites, men, and people who play a lot of video games were especially likely to want guns, according to a recent poll.

Researcher Jennifer L. Lawless and her team surveyed 4,000 high school and college students to find out whether they wanted to have a gun when they had a household of their own. The majority were at least thinking about it. A sampling of the results:

Source: Graphic by Chris Ritter for BuzzFeed

A strange twist in the story of a missing couple.

A photo of Boyle and Khadr from 2009.

Source: beta.images.theglobeandmail.com

Media coverage of the disappearance of an American/Canadian couple in Afghanistan has so far left out an important detail: the identity of the husband, identified in the American press simply as "Josh" because of his wife Caitlan Coleman's family wish to protect his privacy.

Now Canadian media outlets have named Josh as Joshua Boyle, and his real identity throws a new and strange element into the story: Boyle's ex-wife is Zainab Khadr, whose father has been linked to Al-Qaeda and whose brother, Omar Khadr, the only Canadian citizen ever held in Guantanamo Bay.

"Canadians may remember Boyle as the former husband of Zaynab Khadr, the once outspoken sister of Omar Khadr who spent a decade in Guantanamo Bay before his transfer to Canadian custody this fall," the Toronto Star wrote on Dec. 31 when the news of the couples' disappearance broke.

"He later worked as a Khadr family 'spokesperson' — helping organize Zaynab Khadr's Parliament Hill hunger strike in the fall of 2008 to raise awareness of her brother's case in Guantanamo," the article continues. This chart from The Globe and Mail maps out the connections between the Khadr and Boyle families.

Zainab Khadr was also the subject of some controversy for statements she made in 2004 in a documentary about her brother that seemed to support the 9/11 attacks.

Boyle and Khadr were married for about a year and divorced in 2010; the marriage to Coleman is his second. Coleman was pregnant at the time of their disappearance and is due to deliver the baby this month; the couple are thought to have been kidnapped in Wardak province, in southern Afghanistan.

Khadr's father, Ahmed, who died in 2003 near the Afghanistan border, is alleged to have been an associate of Osama bin Laden; the family moved from Pakistan to Afghanistan in 1996, before emigrating to Canada. As a teenager, Omar was trained among militants in Afghanistan and was captured in a firefight between U.S. and Afghan forces, and subsequently sent to Guantanamo. His sister Zainab became an outspoken activist on his behalf. The case was closely followed in Canada, up to Omar's return to being detained in that country in 2012.

Canadian authorities would not comment on whether there was any suspected link between Boyle's past with the Khadrs and his and Coleman's disappearance in a dangerous part of Afghanistan.

"We do not comment on private matters," Chrystiane Roy, a spokeswoman for Canada's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told BuzzFeed. "Our thoughts are with the families involved at this difficult time."

Joshua's father, Patrick J. Boyle, is a justice on Canada's tax court. His and his wife Linda's home in Ottawa was vandalized in 2009, the windows shot through with bullets, and the couple was given police protection. The incident shed light on the family's connections to the Khadrs, but the Royal Canadian Mountain Police said at the time that there was no connection between the Khadrs and the break-in.

Reached by email, Patrick Boyle declined to answer questions from BuzzFeed: "This would not be the time for us to make any further comment," he wrote.

Caitlan Coleman's parents, Linda and James, whose decision to speak out put the story in the news in December, did not return a request for comment. Nor did a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department.

Both sets of parents have said that Afghanistan was not part of the couples' original travel itinerary; they were on a multi-month trek through Central Asia and Russia.

A “guest membership” in the Association of Bragg Officers' Spouses has been offered to Ashley Broadway, a lesbian married to a Fort Bragg officer. A group for LGBT servicemembers' spouses, however, calls the offer “offensive.”

Troops in Fort Bragg in North Carolina await President Obama's arrival Dec. 14, 2011.

Image by Davis Turner / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Association of Bragg Officers' Spouses — which has been in the news for denying membership to the lesbian wife of an Army officer stationed at Fort Bragg — has offered that spouse, Ashley Broadway, a "guest membership" in the group.

In a letter from the Fort Bragg spouses group's president, Mary Ring, to Broadway, Ring wrote that the guest membership was being extended "[w]hile our bylaws are being reviewed."

Although Broadway did not immediately respond to a late-night request for a response to the development, the head of the American Military Partner Association — which supports LGBT servicemembers' partners and of which Broadway is an officer — called the offer "offensive."

In a statement from the Association of Bragg Officers Spouses (ABOS) that was posted on its website Thursday, the board stated, "It always has been and will continue to be our mission to support all military families."

In regard to Broadway's request to join the group, however, the board wrote:

The ABOS Board's biannual review of the by-laws began in July 2012, at which time the by-laws were removed from the ABOS website and continue to be under review. Since the by-laws were written and adopted well before the repeal of 'Don't Ask Don't Tell', the term 'Spouse' is not defined.

In December 2012, the group had announced it would review its "membership requirements" in light of Broadway's request. The statement made no mention, however, of any ongoing bylaws review.

Broadway and the group supporting LGBT servicemembers' partners also had said that the Fort Bragg spouses group had attempted to change the membership requirements to exclude Broadway by requiring a military ID card for membership — something currently unavailable by the military to same-sex spouses. The ABOS board, however, stated Thursday that "ABOS' membership application does not explicitly require a valid DoD ID Card" and that "ABOS' by-laws were never changed retroactively in an attempt to exclude anyone."

While the bylaws review continues, though, the ABOS board stated, "In a continued attempt to support all military families, the ABOS Board would like to offer Ms. Broadway a special Guest Membership. Additionally, [Broadway's wife,] LTC [Heather] Mack, as an active duty Officer, is and has always been eligible to become a Member of ABOS and participate in ABOS events."

Stephen Peters, the executive director of the American Military Partner Association, was not satisfied with the move by the Fort Bragg spouses group.

"Ashley is not a 'guest' military spouse. She is a military spouse, plain and simple," Peters said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed. "So the idea that the organization, in order to end the negative attention they are getting because of their outright discrimination, wants to give her a 'guest membership' is not only offensive, but ridiculous. The ABOS openly admits a military ID card is not listed as a requirement, yet they continue to deny her full membership."

The development comes days after an Army spokesman at Fort Bragg in North Carolina said the Fort Bragg spouses group, which meets on the Army installation, was not violating any law if it continued excluding Broadway from membership.

The Guest Membership Offer Letter