Chuck Hagel has disavowed a statement he reportedly made at a speech at Rutgers University in 2007 saying that the State Department was becoming adjunct to the Israel Foreign Minister's office according to Senator Lindsey Graham. Graham said Hagel wrote to him in a letter that he didn't recall making the statement, but disavowed it if he did.

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The Newark mayor says he's still “exploring” a run for U.S. Senate, but he's raising cash for the race next month in Florida.

Image by Don Emmert / Getty Images

Newark mayor Cory Booker will hold a fundraiser in support of his run for U.S. Senate next month in Palm Beach, Fla., BuzzFeed has learned. The event sets in motion a campaign that has, until now, been held in abeyance pending a decision from Frank Lautenberg, the 89-year-old U.S. Senator from New Jersey whose seat Booker hopes to win, to retire and not seek a sixth term in office.

Despite Lautenberg's announcement Thursday afternoon that he would in fact step down in 2014, Booker insisted Sunday morning on CBS News's Face the Nation that his run for Senate remains a mere possibility. "Clearly it's a job that I'm interested in," Booker said. "I'll spend the coming months working on and exploring that."

But next month's fundraiser is a clear sign that Booker is already laying the groundwork for a serious campaign.

The event, a lunch reception on March 23, 2013, will take place at the home of Christina and Robert Baker, located just outside the Palm Beach Country Club, with tickets priced at $5,200 per guest, the maximum individual contribution for a primary and general election. A listing for the fundraiser on Booker's website, found Saturday night, has since been removed.

Reached by phone Sunday morning, Christina Baker confirmed that she and her husband would be hosting for Booker, whom the couple met around the time of his first mayoral campaign in 2006. Robert Baker, founder and CEO of the shopping mall development company National Realty & Development Corp., has several properties in New Jersey and met Booker through his work there, his wife said.

"We've met him several times," said Baker. "We think very highly of him and are very happy that he's been as successful a mayor of Newark as he has been. He would be a good leader in the Senate, and our government needs good leaders."

Baker's company manages 70 shopping centers and business complexes across 14 states, and provides space to brands such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl's, and Sears, according to the NRDC website. Although campaign finance records don't show the Bakers as active political contributors, the couple gave $5 million this year to help build the Christina and Robert C. Baker Prostate Cancer Care Center, a new wing of Johns Hopkins' Brady Urological Institute.

"My husband and I usually don't do this. We're new to the arena," said Baker, of political fundraising. "It was pretty much a knee-jerk reaction. We heard that he was running, and we wanted to support him."

Baker said plans for the fundraiser came together just "this week," although she would not specify whether the event was established before or after Lautenberg's retirement announcement on Thursday. "I didn't even know whether Lautenberg was going to try to reclaim his seat or not. It wasn't about that," she added.

Baker said the fundraiser next month will be "very intimate," with just 26 attendees, including the Bakers, Booker, and Bookers' long-time fundraiser, Bari Mattes.

With Lautenberg out of next year's race, Booker may face New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone, who has long expressed interest in the senior Senator's seat and has $3.5 million of cash on hand for a campaign.

The Senator has used the viral hit to launch a successful fundraising drive for his PAC, taking in more than $100,000.

When Marco Rubio paused to take a sip from a water bottle during his response to the State of the Union this week, it become an instant viral sensation. The Florida Senator has now capitalized on the moment to raise more than $100,000 for his Reclaim America political action committee by selling branded water bottles.

A source close to Rubio tells BuzzFeed that the water bottles, which were sold on the senator's PAC website to anyone who makes a donation of $25 or more, sold like hotcakes. In the period since they went on sale Wednesday, more than 3,100 of the PAC's "Marco Rubio Water Bottles" have been sold.

"Send the liberal detractors a message that not only does Marco Rubio inspire you…he hydrates you too," the donation page reads.

Rubio has made light on the incident in interviews following his speech Tuesday saying during an appearance on Good Morning America that "God has a funny way of reminding us that we're human."

President Barack Obama and Tiger Woods go unphotographed.

Former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama chat after completing the first hole during a golf game on September 24, 2011 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.

Image by Chris Kleponis-Pool / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The White House Correspondents Association expressed "extreme frustration" with the Obama administration Sunday for refusing press access to President Barack Obama's golf weekend — including an appearance by golf legend Tiger Woods.

"Speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association, I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online, and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the President of the United States this entire weekend," said Fox News correspondent Ed Henry, the organization's president. "There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency."

(This reporter, like nearly all White House correspondents, is a member of the WHCA.)

Obama golfed with donors on Saturday at the Floridian Yacht and Golf Club in Florida, with former Woods coach Butch Harmon providing pointers on several holes, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. Woods himself played with the president on Sunday, which Earnest confirmed once they had already hit the links. News photographers sought access to photograph Obama on the course but were repeatedly denied, according to the White House pool report.

We got confirmation at 1:45 PM that POTUS had been hitting the links with Tiger Woods inside the "Floridian" golf compound, 20 minutes away from the pool hotel. Your pool has been aware since this morning that a reporter, Tim Rosaforte, had been tweeting and talking on the Golf Channel about the POTUS/Woods game from inside the compound. Still officially under a lid, we decided to assemble and at 2:10 PM we logged a request to the White House for access to the President's game for a photo-op, like this administration and previous ones have granted in the past. We were told that we were free to travel to the Floridian but wouldn't get access to POTUS. After some back and forth, our handlers finally arrived at 4:17 PM and our bus was on the move quickly afterwards. We reached the Floridian's gates at 4:37. We're holding outside the compound and we're told that the President is not moving out of the Floridian and that the lid is still in place.

It is not clear how Rosaforte was allowed to report and broadcast from the secured private compound.

"The press access granted by the White House today is entirely consistent with the press access offered for previous presidential golf outings," Earnest said in a statement. "It's also consistent with the press access promised to the White House Press Corps prior to arrival in Florida on Friday evening."

While most Obama golf outings take place without press coverage, Obama has allowed photographers on the links to snap photos of the "golf summit" with Speaker of the House John Boehner, as well as an outing with former President Bill Clinton.

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On Morning Joe , New York magazine's John Heilemann argues that the current direction of the Republican party provides a Hispanic conservative with a national platform, like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, with a huge advantage in the 2016 race.

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"If you're a Hispanic Republican right now, who has a national platform, your mind is immediately spinning towards thinking about 2016, thinking about 2020. I think Ted Cruz is trying to stake out ground as a certain kind of — [pauses] — getting a lot of loyalty among a more fractious, more populist part of the Republican party."
—New York magazine's John Heilemann appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

After falling out with al-Shabaab, Alabama native Omar Hammami gets a comeuppance from someone who seems like a fellow Western jihadi. Did Hammami rip off someone else's jihadi rap?

Omar Hammami, also known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki ("the American").

Image by Farah Abdi Warsameh, File / AP

WASHINGTON — An Alabama man who threw his lot in with the Somalian terrorist organization al-Shabaab is waging a technological war of words, though this time not with the West but with his fellow jihadists.

Omar Hammami, a.k.a Abu Mansour al-Amriki ("the American") and his former brothers in jihad have lately taken to Twitter, YouTube and now PDFs published on the Internet to take shots at one another, with Hammami accusing his compatriots of attempting to kill him while his newest detractor denounces him as "vacuous" and accuses him of "childish petulance."

Someone by the name of Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir (which happens to have been one of the aliases of deceased al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri) has lobbed the most recent grenade in an ongoing spat between Omar Hammami, a.k.a Abu Mansour al-Amriki, and his former fellow mujahideen.

J.M. Berger has the document, which was posted on Monday. In it, al-Mujahir criticizes Hammami for publishing a video last year that accused al-Shabaab of plotting to kill him. The video led to a public rebuke from al-Shabaab and since then, Hammami has resorted to trolling the group on his suspected Twitter account ("Amazing how the shabab keep busting a hole into the hull of the ship and hate anyone that refuses to help or says its a bad idea").

Al-Mujahir calls Hammami "vacuous" and "simple-minded" as well as stronger words, arguing at one point that he "reeks of the fetid odour of unabashed obsession with the self-image."

He also accuses Hammami of stealing the jihadi raps that lent him Internet fame:

Worth noting here also is that the Jihadi rap Nasheeds, 'send me a cruise' and 'make Jihad with me', that are often erroneously attributed to Abu Mansur are the work of another Muhajir, - another American Mujahid - but, of course, Abu Mansur would never say otherwise since the Nasheeds 'perfect' and complement his projected self-image.

Berger notes that the author of the screed writes in excellent and colloquial English, indicating that he's likely a westerner like Hammami, and that he uses British spellings at some points. Otherwise there's no indication of who he might be.

Hammami has stayed silent on his Twitter so far on this subject. He is thought to still be in Somalia.

Nearly half of the $1.2 trillion federal budget reduction would come from defense spending. “They know we're doing our utmost to turn it off,” a House GOP aide says.

U.S. Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) walks from a Republican caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on December 18, 2012.

Image by Joshua Roberts / Reuters

WASHINGTON — As the automatic federal spending cuts known as the "sequester" near, there has been little sound or fury recently from those government contractors who stand to lose the most.

The cuts, which are set to take effect March 1, would trim $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over ten years, roughly half of that from defense spending.

Before Congress extended the sequester deadline from Jan. 1 to March 1, defense contractors saw the sequester as a call to arms and placed immense pressure on lawmakers to find a solution. Now, the discourse has assumed a new tone of resignation and wariness.

"Everyone feels an obligation to say, 'Don't let sequestration happen,'" said Rep. Darrell Issa, who hails from a district in San Diego with strong ties to the military. "But the same contractor who says, 'Don't let sequestration happen,' in the absence of sequestration...might see, instead of his or her program cut by 10 or 20 percent, might see their program eliminated. So, although people are saying 'please don't do sequestration,' they're really saying, 'please don't do sequestration or cut my program.' That's the dirty little secret behind sequestration."

Lawmakers continue to meet with parties concerned about the sequester, congressional aides confirmed — but the discussions are used primarily to express worries, not to suggest or push for specific outcomes.

"They don't have to," a House Republican aide explained. "They know we're doing our utmost to turn it off."

But the most acute obstacle to averting the sequester is an unspoken understanding in both parties that the political motivation to find an alternative will be greater after the cuts begin to take effect.

"Going into the sequester for a couple weeks, that's going to open people's eyes and it's going to change people's hearts," the aide said. "It will soften lines on both the Republican and Democratic side."

How bone-able are these presidential h0tties?

Ronald Reagan

Source: bbc.co.uk

Warren G. Harding

Image by Hulton Archive / Getty Images

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America's Catholic bishops have gone from a strong attack on interracial marriage bans in 1967 to a plea against being “held hostage” by states that allow same-sex couples to marry in 2013.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Image by Patrick Semansky / AP

WASHINGTON — Far from their 1967 argument that "every type of discrimination" must be "eradicated," America's Catholic bishops are now arguing that "the federal government is not constitutionally bound by, and should not be held hostage to, redefinitions of marriage that are adopted in some states."

The bishops have gone from making a strong moral and religious case for ending interracial marriage bans in the 1960s to making a largely political argument in 2013. They are now urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hold back on finding same-sex couples to have similar constitutional rights.

The Catholic Church's differing position on marriage restrictions based on race as opposed to those based on sex — and, in practice, sexual orientation — is well established. It could not be more starkly presented, though, than in the way American bishops have urged the Supreme Court to handle such restrictions.

"Interracial marriages do not constitute a threat to the 'principles of government' made manifest in the United States Constitution," several American bishops — and four archbishops — argued in a brief filed in support of Mildred and Richard Loving's right to marry. Mildred was black and Richard was white; Virginia law made their marriage a crime.

In 1967, the broad geographic swath of Catholic bishops and archbishops — including those from North and South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana — joined the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice and National Catholic Social Action Conference in arguing to the Supreme Court that interracial bans on marriage were a violation to the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection of the laws. The group also argued the bans violated the constitutional "right of privacy" and "freedom to marry," as well as being an "invalid restriction on the free exercise of religion."

On Jan. 29, the lawyers at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops filed very different briefs in the cases challenging California's Proposition 8 amendment and the Defense of Marriage Act. In asking the court to uphold Proposition 8, which bans same-sex couples from marrying, as constitutional, the bishops argue, "The exercise of restraint in this case as well will redound to this Court's institutional credit."

In 1967, they argued in favor of aggressive action to "overcome and eradicate" discrimination, writing, "These bishops, as pastors of their respective dioceses, are committed to the proposition that 'with regard to the fundamental rights of the person, every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural, whether based on sex, race, color, social condition, language or religion, is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's intent.'"

As part of that argument, the bishops noted, "It must be emphasized that the teachings or laws of some of the churches or religious bodies in the United States even exclude specifically any restriction on marriage based upon racial considerations." In fact, the bishops spent a significant part of their argument detailing how interracial marriage bans violated "that 'free exercise of religion' guaranteed to the individual by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution."

With regards to churches that, in 2013, allow same-sex couples to marry, today's bishops argue that such considerations are irrelevant:

Proposition 8 is not rendered invalid because some of its supporters were informed by religious or moral considerations. Many, if not most, of the significant social and political movements in our Nation's history were based on precisely such considerations. Moreover, the argument to redefine marriage to include the union of persons of the same sex is similarly based on a combination of religious and moral considerations (albeit ones that are, in our view, flawed). As is well established in this Court's precedent, the coincidence of law and morality, or law and religious teaching, does not detract from the rationality of a law.

To the extent the bishops consider protection of religious views at all, it is in defense of those who oppose allowing same-sex couples to marry. If the court held in the case challenging Proposition 8 that same-sex couples have a constitutionally protected right to marry, "those who disagree with the government's moral assessment of such relationships would find themselves increasingly marginalized and denied equal participation in American public life and benefits."

In addition to "the simple matter of biology," which enables opposite-sex couples to reproduce, the bishops argue that "the People of California could reasonably conclude that a home with a mother and a father is the optimal environment for raising children, an ideal that Proposition 8 encourages and promotes."

Regarding arguments about a suboptimal environment that children of interracial couples faced in 1967, the bishops professed a different view. Then, they wrote:

The parties to an interracial marriage or their children may suffer, but this is not because of anything inherent in the family structure of the marriage. Rather it is due to the lack of understanding and the race prejudice that an interracial family may encounter. In short, this suffering is due to the reaction of third parties, not to the marriage itself.

All of the major medical and mental health associations argue similarly that stigma faced by same-sex couples and their children today is increased because of marriage restrictions.

In 1967, the bishops concluded, "[W]e respectfully submit that marriage is an exercise of religion protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution; that, as such, marriage can be restrained only upon a showing that it constitutes a grave and immediate danger to interests which the state may lawfully protect; and that interracial marriages do not constitute any danger to any interest which the state may lawfully protect."

In defending DOMA in January, the bishops handled the question differently, arguing, "The law's historic treatment of marriage as the union of one man and one woman belies any conclusion that there is a fundamental right to marry a person of the same sex." Additionally, they state that such a right cannot "be shoehorned into a generalized 'right to marry.' For well over a century, this Court has held that marriage is a fundamental right, but those decisions, which expressly reference the link between marriage and procreation, make clear that by 'marriage,' the Court means the union of one man and one woman."

Although the 1967 brief went on to argue that interracial marriage bans also were unconstitutional for their impact on "the right to beget children" — because such bans meant all children of such unions would be "legally denominated as bastards" — it is notable that the final citation even in that section of the brief is not about procreation itself.

"In Meyer v. Nebraska," the bishops wrote of an earlier case, "the Court had denominated, as a right included within the 'liberty' guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, 'the right of the individual ... to marry, establish a home and bring up children ...'"

Among the arguments made by the plaintiffs in the challenge to Proposition 8 — one of the two plaintiff couples are raising children — is the very same argument.

He didn't really give an interview to an Iranian news outlet saying he was coming to Iran.

Image by Brad Barket / Getty Images

Filmmaker Michael Moore didn't really tell an Iranian magazine that he's planning a trip to Iran, he told BuzzFeed on Monday.

"Someone is playing a prank," Moore said via email.

"Are you serious? Really?" Moore said when asked whether he gave the quotes in question to that outlet. "I did tell them that I once shot a unicorn in Reno (or was it Elko?) just to watch it die. And then I ate it. After I took it to Uranus. Flew coach with Kim Kardashian. Who has carried three of my babies. But we dropped two of them off on Jupiter because the schools are better."

An Iranian news report quoted Moore saying that "I am now waiting for an opportunity to travel to Iran. Even if they do not invite me this time I will go anyway."

Moore allegedly told Mehrnameh magazine that he had previously planned to visit Iran, but "the right-wing media in the US began to take a position and published some very critical and hateful articles, they even published faked news about me. So I thought I should postpone visiting Iran to another time."

The country "maintains a very defined process to get a visa to visit, with clear limitations and extra hoops for Americans to jump through," the Washington Post notes in its write-up of the original report, adding that Americans must have an invitation to enter the country.

In a sweeping ruling striking down a ban on same-sex couples' marriages in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico's Supreme Court says U.S. Supreme Court cases support marriage equality.

A gay couple takes part in a mock wedding in Monterrey, Mexico, on February 16, 2013.

Image by Stringer / Reuters

Denying same-sex couples the right to marry is unconstitutionally discriminatory, Mexico's Supreme Court announced in a sweeping ruling made public Monday.

The ruling not only makes a strong statement about Mexican law's treatment of equal protection guarantees, it also relies heavily on civil rights rulings handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Although several justices of the American court take pride in not caring what foreign courts say, any who read the Mexican decision will find the court makes an impassioned case for the United States to follow its lead.

Writing for a unanimous tribunal, Minister Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea invoked the U.S. cases Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. Board of Education to argue for marriage equality in a way that American activists would be overjoyed to see from a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Loving v. Virginia, which struck down laws against interracial marriage in 1967, Zaldívar wrote (translated from its original Spanish):

The historical disadvantages that homosexuals have suffered have been well recognized and documented: public harassment, verbal abuse, discrimination in their employment and in access to certain services, in addition to their exclusion to some aspects of public life. In this sense … when they are denied access to marriage it creates an analogy with the discrimination that interracial couples suffered in another era. In the celebrated case Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court argued that "restricting marriage rights as belonging to one race or another is incompatible with the equal protection clause" under the US constitution. In connection with this analogy, it can be said that the normative power of marriage is worth little if it does grant the possibility to marry the person one chooses.

Zaldívar also wrote that it would also be contrary to the principles of the 1954 school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education to restrict same-sex couples to civil unions or domestic partnerships while barring them from marriage.

It can be said that the [other] models for recognition of same-sex couples, even if the only difference with marriage be the name given to both types of institutions, are inherently discriminatory because the constitute a regime of "separate but equal." Like racial segregation, founded on the unacceptable idea of white supremacy, the exclusion of homosexual couples from marriage also is based on prejudice that historically has existed against homosexuals. Their exclusion from the institution of marriage perpetuates the notion that same-sex couples are less worthy of recognition than heterosexuals, offending their dignity as people.

The ruling had been anticipated since the court announced December 5, 2012, that it would order the state of Oaxaca to recognize the marriages of the three same-sex couples that had filed suit. But the court waited to spell out its justification for this decision in a written ruling for two-and-a-half months, suggesting there may have been disagreement about just how broadly it should make the case for marriage equality. The couples' lawyer, Alex Alí Méndez Díaz, told BuzzFeed the opinion was posted on the court's site Monday.

The court broke important ground in the ruling by invoking another precedent from international law, a ruling handed down in 2012 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Karen Atala Riffo y Niños v. Chile. Most Latin American countries recognize the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court, which is the legal arm of the Organization of American States. (The United States and Canada do not submit to the court's jurisdiction.)

Karen Atala was a Chilean mother who was denied custody of her children during divorce proceedings with her ex-husband because she is a lesbian. The Inter-American Court said the Chilean courts violated Atala's human rights and for the first time said that gays and lesbians were protected from discrimination under international law, declaring that the American Convention on Human Rights, "prohibits … any rule, act, or discriminatory practice based on sexual orientation."

A trio of same-sex couples from Chile have already started proceedings in the Inter-American justice system claiming that the Atala precedent means that international law should also protect the right to marry. If they succeed, it could open the door to marriage rights throughout Latin America for same-sex couples.

The Mexican marriage case was the first test in any Latin American court of whether the decision in Atala's case can be applied to marriage rights. The court held that it could, writing that Atala requires the rejection of "a regime of separate-but-equal marriage."

Hunter Carter, a lawyer for the Chilean couples suing to marry in the Inter-American Court, told BuzzFeed, "This opinion is a huge win for marriage rights for same sex couples in the Americas."

Despite its breadth, this ruling will have only a small immediate impact in Mexico.

Technicalities of the country's legal system mean that only the three couples who brought this case will be able to marry right away. Mexico City is still the only jurisdiction inside Mexico where marriage between same-sex couples is fully legal; several more lawsuits will have to be brought before that right is available nationwide.

Unlike in the United States, it takes more than one ruling from Mexico's Supreme Court to strike down a law—the court must rule the same way in five separate cases before a law falls. This ruling concerns three separate cases; it will take two more for any same-sex couple in Oaxaca to be able to wed easily, and then the process may have to be repeated in other states. But this precedent means this is a procedural issue, not a legal one.

For the lawyer who brought this suit, Méndez, the verdict is still a big win.

"Without a doubt, we have made history … in Mexico. The next step is to extend this experience to other parts of the country," he said.

J. Lester Feder is a 2013 Alicia Patterson Fellow.

“I did attend the event, and even though the event was nearly six years ago I'm certain that he did not make the remark attributed to him,” Charles Häberl told BuzzFeed.

Image by J. Scott Applewhite, File / AP

Chuck Hagel's confirmation as Secretary of Defense has come under increased scrutiny in recent days following a report from The Washington Free Beacon bringing to light an account of a 2007 speech Hagel gave at Rutgers University where he allegedly said during a Q&A session after the speech that the State Department "has become adjunct to the Israeli Foreign Minister's office."

But Charles Häberl, a Rutgers University professor at the Center for Middle East Studies which hosted the event, says he is "certain" Hagel did not make the comment attributed to him.

"I did attend the event, and even though the event was nearly six years ago I'm certain that he did not make the remark attributed to him. The one blogger who related this remark, George Ajjan, has also claimed that the event was 'closed to the press,' which is demonstrably false, as the document you referenced indicates," Häberl wrote in an email to BuzzFeed.

Häberl was commenting on a press release which he was listed as an RSVP contact for the event, which prompted BuzzFeed's inquiry.

"A number of interested parties have asked me whether the event was recorded, and I can tell you that it was not, at least not by Rutgers," Häberl added.

In a statement to BuzzFeed, Rutgers confirmed the event was not recorded by the university.

"We have checked several possibilities on campus and we have neither
video or audio nor a record of any media coverage of the event," the office of media relations wrote in an email to BuzzFeed.

In an interview with Fox News South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said Hagel wrote him a letter about the alleged comment saying that he did not remember making the comment and completely disavows that view.

With additional reporting by Rosie Gray.

The president will endorse Senate Democrats' plan to avoid the sequester.

Image by Carolyn Kaster, File / AP

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will once again call on members of Congress to avoid the mandatory spending cuts due to hit at the end of the month, joined by first responders whose jobs may be on the line, according to a White House official.

With the sequester due to hit on March 1, Obama will address reporters at 10:45 Tuesday from an auditorium in the White House complex to increase the pressure on Republicans to agree to raise revenues to offset the cuts, the official said.

"With less than two weeks before these cuts hit, the President will challenge Republicans to make a very simple choice: do they protect investments in education, health care and national defense or do they continue to prioritize and protect tax loopholes that benefit the very few at the expense of middle and working class Americans," the official said.

Two weeks ago, Obama called on lawmakers to pass a temporary delay of several to the cuts to allow lawmakers time to pass a complete budget, saying spending cuts and revenue increase through tax reform must be included to achieve the mandated deficit reduction.

Republicans have said they are opposed to any efforts to raise revenue after last month's fiscal cliff deal almost entirely included tax rate increases.

Little has changed since Obama took the podium in the White House briefing room earlier this month. Senate Democrats introduced a proposal to avoid the spending cuts in concert with Obama's 50-50 principle, but the measure has so far failed to gain Republican support.

With lawmakers in their districts this week, Obama is trying to seize the bully pulpit to force Republican lawmakers to cut a deal, and will explicitly endorse the Senate Democratic plan.

"[T]ime and again, Republicans in Congress have said they would rather see these devastating cuts go into effect than close a single loophole that benefit the wealthy," the official added, previewing Obama's remarks.

Obama will be joined Tuesday by "emergency responders." Earlier this month administration officials detailed the dire consequences of the sequester, including thousands of police officers coming off the streets, federal prosecutions being delayed, and delays to federal disaster aid.

The sequester will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, Obama says, demanding Congress act.

Image by Charles Dharapak / AP

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama sounded a dire alarm once again on the set of automatic, mandatory spending cuts known as the sequester, warning that hundreds of thousands will unemployment rolls if Congress doesn't act.

"These cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will add hundreds of thousands of people to the unemployment roles," Obama said. "This is not an abstraction. People will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again."

The cuts, mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 in an attempt to force a bipartisan deficit reduction agreement, would take a "meat cleaver" to government, Obama said, cutting indiscriminately across all federal programs. Unless Congress offsets them with more targeted spending cuts, tax increases, or both, the cuts will take effect on March 1.

Obama's remarks on Tuesday were little different from what he said two weeks ago — the last time he addressed reporters on the sequester — and little, if any, progress has been made with congressional lawmakers. The president used a backdrop of "emergency responders" to make his point, warning of cuts to law enforcement, food safety, and the military if Congress doesn't act.

"Already these cuts have forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to be deployed to the Gulf," Obama said.

With Congress out of session until next week, Obama's remarks were designed to increase pressure on Republicans to cut loopholes that benefit "special interests" and millionaires.

"Are you willing to see a bunch of emergency responders lose their jobs because you want to protect some special interests?" Obama asked.

Obama wants a "balanced" deal that includes revenue increases from cutting loopholes and deductions in the tax code as well as spending cuts. Republicans want to close the loopholes and deductions and use the revenue to lower tax rates, while paying for the sequester with entitlement reform and other spending cuts.

"Americans know that if they give President Obama more tax revenue, he isn't going to use it to reduce the deficit; he's going to spend it," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker of the House John Boehner.

“I happen to have some money, and that's what I'm gonna do with my money,” said the New York City mayor.

Image by Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that he stands by his super PAC's efforts to dislodge Debbie Halvorson, the NRA-aligned Democratic candidate in the Illinois special election to fill the House seat left open by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.

"It's just an outrage, and the public I think should stand up," Bloomberg said, speaking at a press conference. "I'm part of the public. I happen to have some money, and that's what I'm gonna do with my money — try to get us some sensible gun laws."

Bloomberg has invested a reported $2 million into the House race through his PAC, Independence USA. It's a race that Bloomberg, a staunch gun control advocate and the co-chair of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition, has made an example of amidst an effort this year by President Barack Obama and members of Congress to pass new gun control legislation.

Halvorson, a former member of Congress who received an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association, is the subject of two Independence USA-sponsored television ads, out last week in advance of the race's Democratic primary on Feb. 26.

"This is a scourge in our society, and we have to do something about it," Bloomberg said. "The NRA has convinced an awful lot of legislators at the state level and the federal level that they cannot get reelected if they do not support the NRA."

Asked if he felt the money spent for the air war on Halvorson — whom he called "the pro-NRA candidate who wants more guns in the hands of people" — has been effective, Bloomberg said, "We'll see in a week."

And if Congress were to finally pass gun control legislation, he said, "there'd be no reason to spend any money whatsoever."

Last week the satire site convinced the Washington Post that Sarah Palin had joined Al-Jazeera. This week the Twitterverse is convinced she's joining Harvard's faculty.

Via: dailycurrant.com

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The White House has confirmed that Allen will not pursue the NATO supreme allied commander post. The general — who was connected to last year's Petraeus-Broadwell affair through scores of emails apparently exchanged with Tampa socialite Jill Kelley — cited family health issues.

Image by MOHAMMAD ISMAIL / Reuters

Today, I met with General John Allen and accepted his request to retire from the military so that he can address health issues within his family. I told General Allen that he has my deep, personal appreciation for his extraordinary service over the last 19 months in Afghanistan, as well as his decades of service in the United States Marine Corps. General Allen presided over the significant growth in the size and capability of Afghan National Security Forces, the further degradation of al Qaeda and their extremist allies, and the ongoing transition to Afghan security responsibility across the country. He worked tirelessly to strengthen our coalition through his leadership of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and to improve our relations with the Afghan government. Above all, he cares deeply for the men and women in uniform who serve our nation – as well as their families – and I am grateful for the sacrifices made by his family in supporting him during his service. John Allen is one of America's finest military leaders, a true patriot, and a man I have come to respect greatly. I wish him and his family the very best as they begin this new chapter, and we will carry forward the extraordinary work that General Allen led in Afghanistan.

In January, Allen was cleared of any wrongdoing in the Petraeus-Broadwell-Kelley scandal, but unnamed U.S. military officials told NBC News last week that Allen was likely to withdraw from NATO commander consideration because he "does not want to drag his family through a nomination process in which the emails would almost certainly come up."

Alabama representative Mary Sue McClurkin apparently does not understand the size or definition of organs.

Mary Sue McClurkin is a member of the Alabama House Of Representatives, which is set to vote on abortion legislation that would restrict access to clinics.

Source: i.huffpost.com

"When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body," McClurkin said in an interview Thursday. "That's a big thing. That's a big surgery. You don't have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that."

Source: montgomeryadvertiser.com

Even if you accepted McClurkin's definition of a fetus as an organ — which most experts would dispute — it wouldn't be the largest internal organ.

And then there's the skin, which is the largest external organ.

The legislation McClurkin is promoting would most likely shut down the five remaining abortion clinics in Alabama as part of a larger "Personhood" anti-abortion movement.

Source: jezebel.com

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Rubio's office disputes it.

Image by Larry Downing / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Senior administration officials Tuesday pushed back against complaints from Sen. Marco Rubio that the White House didn't seek Republican input on its comprehensive immigration reform proposal, insisting staff from the two sides had indeed met on the issue.

The debate seems to boil down to a question of how the two sides define talks: Rubio's office says the administration "briefed" lawmakers but didn't ask for input, while the officials argue those meetings were a discussion of policy.

The officials said White House legislative and policy aides met with staff members from all of the "gang of eight" at least five times in recent weeks — including Rubio's staff.

Rubio's spokesperson Alex Conant responded via Twitter:

The tweet followed an earlier, less ambiguous statement from Rubio's office.

"Senator Rubio's office has never discussed immigration policy with anyone in the White House," Conant said earlier Tuesday.

The tone of immigration reform discussions, previously one of cautious optimism, has shifted to one of heightened frustration and tension this week after a draft of the White House's immigration plan leaked Sunday to USA Today.

The president's plan would allow illegal immigrants to obtain legal status within eight years, but did not commit to strengthening border security to the extent Republicans have requested. Rubio, among the bipartisan group of senators leading the push for immigration reform, rejected that proposal.

The officials insisted the president would not push his plan unless Congress failed to pass its own legislation; meanwhile, the Senate's proposal has not yet been fully drafted,

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“I filed HB 633 as a matter of principle and as a statement in defense of the Second Amendment rights of all Missourians.”

Via: mikeleara.politicalwebmarketing.com

A Missouri state lawmaker wants to make it a crime to propose any gun control legislation. Mike Leara, a Republican who represents suburban St. Louis, introduced a bill making it a class D felony for any member of the Missouri legislator to introduced a bill to that effect.

"Any member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bear arms, as set forth under the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States, shall be guilty of a class D felony," the bills reads.

But the state lawmaker doesn't expect the bill to go anywhere, saying he submitted it as a matter of principle.

"I filed HB 633 as a matter of principle and as a statement in defense of the Second Amendment rights of all Missourians," Leara said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed. "I have no illusions about the bill making it through the legislative process, but I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people's Constitutional right to keep and bear arms."