Left to right: Joseph McAuliffe, Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe. (Facebook.com)

Terry McAuliffe, a Democratic operative embroiled in a tight race to become Virginia’s next governor, knows a thing or two about conservatives like his Republican opponent, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

That’s in part because his older brother, Joseph McAuliffe, spent two decades as a Republican activist who worked for evangelical leader Pat Robertson’s presidential campaign, helped found a Christian political group in Florida and was even arrested in the late 1980s while demonstrating at an abortion clinic.

Born into an Irish-Catholic family in the 1950s in Syracuse, N.Y., the McAuliffe brothers, Terry, 56 and Joseph, 62, both grew up to pursue political careers, but on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. Joseph spent the late 1970s and 80s working for conservatives, while Terry skyrocketed through the ranks of the Democratic Party.

Despite Joseph’s résumé as a rightwing activist, he wasn’t always a conservative Republican, and he has since disavowed many of his former views. (More on that later.)

In an interview with Yahoo News, Joseph said that before becoming a Republican, he was a self-described hippie who lived in communes and went to Woodstock. As a young man, Joseph was “very much left of the Democratic Party,” he said.

That would all change in the 1970s, when a conversion experience to Christianity took him politically rightward.

One issue in particular delivered the elder McAuliffe brother firmly into the Republican camp: Abortion. In 1973, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade granted women the right to terminate their pregnancies through the first 12 weeks of gestation, a decision that helped ignite a conservative political movement that eventually brought millions of Christians into the Republican Party. Joseph was one of them.

“It really was a bellwether issue that took people like myself,” Joseph told Yahoo News. “There were a number of people who were former counter-culture types who were even left of left so to speak, but shifted to the right.”

A new man, Joseph became a minister and moved to Tampa, Fla., where he helped start a church. In the era of Ronald Reagan, Joseph became deeply involved in Republican politics. He was invited to join then-Vice President George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 1987, but took a job as a deputy state campaign manager for Robertson’s presidential run.

While Joseph toiled on the campaign trail in 1988 for one of the most conservative candidates in the GOP primary, his younger brother, Terry, was busy fundraising for Dick Gephardt, a top House Democrat and one of the most liberal presidential hopefuls at the time.

After Robertson dropped out of the race, Joseph joined other Robertson campaign workers to create United Christians of Florida, a political action committee that provides issue-based voter guides for Christians in the state. Joseph went on to work for Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network for two years, where, like Terry, he specialized in courting high-dollar donors.

During the Clinton years, however, Joseph became disenchanted with the Republican Party. He began to question the conservative opposition to the welfare state and came to realize that he could no longer reconcile right-wing views on issues like food stamps and health care for the poor with his faith.

“I kind of got burned out on some of my experiences I had gone through with the Republican Party,” Joseph told Yahoo News. “I’d find myself sitting in Republican meetings where they would be talking about the problems with welfare and food stamps and I thought, Jeez, these people really don’t know what they’re talking about.”

When he looks back on his years with Robertson and the Christian Broadcasting Network, Joseph said he had hoped that Robertson, who has a long record of making inflammatory statements about Muslims, gays and the cause of natural disasters, had abandoned hot-button political issues to focus exclusively on ministry.

“I wish and recommended for Pat to take that course,” he said.

In the 1990s, Joseph began to dabble in Democratic politics through his brother. During Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign, Terry, who served as Clinton’s co-chairman, brought Joseph to a fundraiser for the president. Terry gave a short speech to the group about his brother, according to a 2001 Tampa Tribune article, and praised hm for his principled commitment to pro-life policies, even though the two disagreed on the issue.

“I was probably the only pro-life person in the room,” Joseph would later tell the Tampa Tribune. Clinton, he said, led the room in applause for him after Terry’s talk.

Joseph’s political shift was complete when, on Nov. 6, 1996, while still a registered Republican, Joseph cast his ballot to send Bill Clinton back to the White House.

Over time, even his staunch opposition to abortion would change. Joseph told Yahoo News this week that while he still would not personally advise a woman to have an abortion, he no longer thinks the government should ban the procedure.

“I describe myself as being very pro-life and very pro-choice. I’m very comfortable being a strong advocate for the unborn and at the same time being a strong advocate of a woman having a right to make decisions for their own bodies,” Joseph told Yahoo News. “I think we need to give individuals the freedom to make that choice.”

Abortion, of course, remains a contentious issue to this day, and the debate over its legality has made its way into Terry’s campaign for governor. As a candidate in the race for governor, Terry has criticized Cuccinelli, his Republican opponent, for his anti-abortion views. On that issue and others, Terry McAuliffe and Virginia state party members regularly label Cuccinelli an “extremist.”

Unlike his younger brother, Joseph declines to use the word to describe those with different views.

“I don’t like the word extremist in almost any regard,” Joseph told Yahoo News. “Adolf Hitler was an extremist, Joseph Stalin. I try to reserve words like that for people that really–I think this is a sensitive, delicate, personal issue and I wish there was more civility and humility surrounding the discussion.

“The idea of me getting arrested is not something I’m proud of. There are just some things we just don’t know,” Joseph said. “To me all religious discussions, all social issues, if you will, should be shrouded in humility and prefaced by words like ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps.’ But we tend to be so dogmatic and so absolutely final about things that we really don’t know what we’re talking about, including God.”

These days, Joseph is far less political than Terry. He still focuses on his ministry while teaching history at the University of South Florida and is the coordinator of the university’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Joseph lives in South Florida with his wife of nearly 40 years, Kay. They have four children, one of whom, Marisa, lives in Washington and works for Hillary Clinton.

“I try not to keep politics as a front-burner issue in my life,” Joseph said. “Sometimes politics can get in the way of people.”

Still, he’s been following his brother’s race closely, and it’s not always easy given the scrutiny his brother often faces in the media.

Joseph said he winced when he saw the dustup over excerpts from Terry’s books that made Terry appear as though he didn’t care about his family. In his 2008 memoir What a Party!, Terry described the time he went to a Washington Post party while his wife was in labor with their first child. In another section of the book, he wrote about how he stopped to meet with a Democratic donor while on the way home from the hospital with his newborn son.

Terry was just trying to be funny, Joseph said.

“Terry’s not the comedian of the family,” he told Yahoo News. “I think some of his book was actually a failed attempt at humor that didn’t really work. In fact it probably backfired on him.”

Later this summer, Joseph plans to travel to Virginia to help his little brother on the campaign trail.

“I think he’ll really surprise people at how good he’ll be,” Joseph said.

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin is surrounded by security on May 23. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

President Barack Obama’s planned counterterrorism speech was temporarily derailed several times Thursday when activist Medea Benjamin shouted criticisms of the administration’s use of drones and operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Benjamin, co-founder of peace activist group Code Pink, was seated in the audience at National Defense University in Washington, D.C., where Obama gave his speech. She first interrupted him as he announced plans designed to move the U.S. closer to closing the facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“You gotta let me speak. I’m about to address it,” the president said in response to the heckling. He asked her to sit down so he could speak and repeatedly thanked her for her comments.

“This is part of free speech, is you being able to speak but also you listening and me being able to speak,” Obama said, drawing wide applause from the audience.

After multiple outbursts and back-and-forths with the president, Benjamin was escorted out of the event.

Benjamin and members of her San Francisco-based, female-initiated organization have a reputation in Washington for making scenes at high-profile events, including those with tight security.

Over the last several months, Code Pink members, including Benjamin, have interrupted the National Rifle Association’s press conference on the Newtown, Conn., shooting response—where Benjamin unfurled a sign reading “NRA blood on your hands” and shouted, “Reckless behavior coming from the NRA” before forced from the room—and John Brennan’s confirmation hearing to be director of the CIA, which was temporarily suspended as aides cleared the room.

Benjamin, a 2000 U.S. Senate candidate in California, co-founded Code Pink (the name a hat tip to color-coded terrorism warnings) in 2002 to protest against the Iraq war. President George W. Bush and his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have been among the group’s high-profile targets.

By Walter Shapiro

In foreign affairs—unlike domestic policy—a president can reinvent himself in the middle of his time in office without worrying about congressional majorities. Mistaken paths can be abandoned and new approaches tried, often without public acknowledgement that anything has changed. George W. Bush did this in his second term as he moved away from the bristling go-it-alone militarism of Dick Cheney towards a more traditional approached personified by Condi Rice.

Now, Barack Obama has hit the reset button with the most far-reaching national security address of his presidency. In an hour at the National Defense University on a spring afternoon, Obama backed away from the excesses of his death-from-air drone policy, renewed his efforts to depopulate Guantanamo and tried to reassure the press that he is not attempting to criminalize investigative journalism.

Embedded in the speech was the larger message: The war on terror, launched in the panicked aftermath of Sept. 11, is finally drawing to a close nearly 12 years after it began. As Obama put it, choosing his words carefully to avoid a whiff of triumph or complacency, “We must recognize, however, that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. … Now is the time to ask ourselves hard questions—about the nature of today’s threats, and how we should confront them.”

Obama repeatedly returned to this theme when talking about drones: “As our fight enters a new phase, America’s legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion.” And when wondering aloud if the legal authority that Congress gave George W. Bush after 9/11 needs updating, he said: “I intend to engage Congress … to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing.”

There is no absolute certainty that the policy changes that Obama hinted at will dramatically alter American national security policy. Drone attacks will continue and, under exceedingly rare circumstances, American citizens may still be targeted abroad. There is no guarantee that more than a handful of prisoners will be repatriated from Guantanamo. And neither the president nor Attorney General Eric Holder has directly repudiated the government legal document that stated that a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, might be vulnerable to prosecution in a leak investigation under the Espionage Act.

But perhaps the deeper significance of Thursday’s speech was that it was given at all. Not too long ago, the administration refused to publicly admit that it was conducting drone strikes. Now, the president mentioned the word “drone” a dozen times in a formal address. Just a few weeks ago at a press conference, Obama portrayed himself as a helpless bystander when it comes to Guantanamo. Now, he is unilaterally “lifting the moratorium on detainee transfer to Yemen.” And nothing in the structure of this speech required Obama to offer a few conciliatory sentences to a skittish national security press corps.

This shift in the president’s public rhetoric—especially on drones—may partly be the result of the changed internal dynamics of his new second-term national security team with John Kerry at State, Chuck Hagel at Defense and John Brennan as CIA director. Or, it could reflect Obama’s need to fortify his liberal flank on issues like drones and Guantanamo when he is battling scandal at the IRS and continued skepticism over the administration’s response to Benghazi and has invited comparisons to Richard Nixon in his handling of leak investigations.

Whatever its original catalyst, the speech was vintage Obama, including a mock debate with himself over whether more civilians would die in lawless nations like Pakistan if we launched drone attacks or if we depended on more traditional military raids. This was also a speech of a second-term president willing to take political gambles, such as his full-throated defense of global economic aid: “Foreign assistance is a tiny fraction of what we spend fighting wars that our assistance might ultimately prevent.”

But, ultimately, the biggest risk that Obama took in the speech was to not visibly worry that conservatives would brand him as “soft on terror.” Harking back to pre-2001 attacks, from the wrenching embassy bombing in Lebanon in 1983 to the 1995 carnage in Oklahoma City, Obama suggested that the scale of the threats that the nation faces today fits more into that pattern than 9/11. Implicit in this comparison was the notion that America did not restrict its liberties or wage worldwide war against such 20^th-century threats.

The Obama speech—intellectually dense, well-argued and yet hazy in places—serves as a reminder of another president recasting his foreign policy at a moment of national calm rather than crisis. Almost 50 years ago to the day (June 10, 1963), John Kennedy, sobered by the nuclear standoff in the Cuban Missile Crisis, spoke eloquently of peace at American University.

While the American University speech contained a major announcement (a unilateral end of nuclear testing by the United States), it is now mostly remembered as pivotal moment in ending the eyeball-to-eyeball brinkmanship that characterized the early decades of the Cold War. “What kind of peace do we seek?” Kennedy asked rhetorically. “Not a Pax American enforced on the world by American weapons of war … I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living.”

Yes, the Cold War went on for a quarter century after Kennedy invoked peace at American University. But never again did Americans live with the kind of duck-and-cover nuclear war fears that were a nerve-rattling subtext of the early 1960s.

So, too, alas, isolated terrorist attacks will continue to flare up over the decades to come. And drone warfare—hopefully under tighter legal control—is going to remain a tool in the American military arsenal.

But Thursday afternoon in Washington, Barack Obama, who was less than 2 years old when JFK spoke at American University, declared that our long war against Islamic terrorists was drawing to a close. And that we could soon return to genuine peace—the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living.

President Barack Obama at the Oval Office in Washington on May 20, 2013. (Larry Downing/Reuters)President Barack Obama will defend his counterterrorism policies in a speech at National Defense University on Thursday afternoon, looking to reassure Americans concerned about his hugely controversial targeted assassination strategy with drones and revive efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected extremists.

Obama’s remarks come as key lawmakers have begun debating whether to revise and update the post-9/11 law that underpins most of the so-called war on terrorism, legislation known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF. Critics worry the executive branch has interpreted the AUMF as a blank check for a global campaign over which lawmakers have only limited oversight.

Ahead of the speech, here are some questions about Obama’s approach to the anti-terror campaign begun when al-Qaida militants slammed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

– How long does Obama think the conflict against al-Qaida will last?

It’s been called “the forever war.” Some critics have scoffed at the very idea of a “war on terrorism,” arguing that because terrorism is a tactic, the United States might as well be fighting a “war on flanking maneuvers.” Obama once seemed to share this view, at least in these remarks from 2004.

What does he think now? Does he agree with Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Michael Sheehan, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a May 16 hearing that the conflict will last “at least 10 to 20 years” from today?

– Are drones creating more extremists than they are killing?

At an April 30, 2013, press conference, Obama renewed his call to close the detention facility for suspected extremists at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Why? “It is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe. It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”

Will he address that same question now for drones? There is ample evidence that America’s drone strikes are vastly unpopular across the Muslim world. While U.S. officials play down civilian casualties and insist that the United States takes every precaution to minimize them, such tragedies occur and plainly fuel anti-U.S. sentiment.

There is precedent for a president asking the U.S. intelligence community to make such an assessment. A formal 2006 study by America’s intelligence community found that the Iraq invasion and occupation was creating terrorists faster than U.S. forces could take them out.

– How will America respond to drone strikes by other countries?

The Obama administration has argued that it has the right to kill suspected terrorists inside other countries, with or without the host country’s green light. The president reaffirmed that right in May 2011 when he order the raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.

So what happens when China or Russia assassinates someone they consider a terrorist? It’s hardly an idle concern. Countries are racing to make up lost time in the race for drones. U.S. ally France, for instance, is in talks to buy drones from the United States and Israel. Others aren’t far behind.

There are related questions. Will Obama push for some kind of global regulatory structure affecting drone sales, something akin to nonproliferation regimes affecting the transfer of nuclear or chemical weapon technology?

– How many Americans, total, have been killed by their government since 2009?

The administration revealed late Wednesday that four Americans have been killed in drone strikes “outside of areas of active hostilities” since 2009: radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and three others who were “not specifically targeted.” What about inside areas of active hostilities, like Iraq or Afghanistan?

- How will Obama overcome bipartisan opposition to closing Guantanamo Bay?

The first lawmaker to deal a major blow to Obama’s promise to close the facility was a Democrat, then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey. And with the campaign ahead of the 2014 midterms already heating up, vulnerable Democrats may not rush to support the president’s approach.

– How does an American get off Obama’s “kill list”?

Apart, of course, from the way that results in drone pilots half a world away high-fiving each other? If there are no formal charges to contest, where do you go if you think your government has wrongly targeted you for assassination? Or, as the author of a harrowing book on Obama’s counterterrorism strategy, Jeremy Scahill, puts it: “How do you surrender to a drone?”

– Why can’t the next president just roll back any changes Obama makes?

A White House official said late Wednesday that Obama’s speech would coincide with “the signing of new Presidential Policy Guidance that lays out the standards under which we take lethal action.”

But presidents have a tough enough time fulfilling their own campaign promises (see: Guantanamo Bay, Obama’s pledge to close), never mind abiding by their predecessors’ rules. Whatever unilateral steps Obama announces on Thursday, a future president could likely undo.

NYC mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner courts voters in Harlem on May 23, 2013. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner made his first appearance on Thursday since declaring his candidacy, apologizing again for his bizarre, Internet-only infidelity scandal that forced him out of Congress nearly two years ago.

“There may be people who will never vote for me, and I respect that,” Weiner told the phalanx of reporters who surrounded him outside a crowded Harlem subway stop. “If citizens want to talk to me about my personal failings, that’s their right. I certainly will apologize.”

Jason Rolom, a 31-year-old construction worker who lives in Harlem, was not one of those voters. Rolom posed for a photo with Weiner while on his way to work. “I know from the past that he had that scandal, but now he’s here to help so I’m going to give him a shot,” Rolom said. “Sometimes you’ve got to let go of the past.”

Another man shook Weiner’s hand on his way to the subway and exclaimed, “It’s a second-chance city, man!”

Weiner, hands on his hips and iPhone strapped to his belt, told reporters he’s “encouraged” by how willing voters have seemed to give him a second chance. His fellow politicians—and New York City’s unforgiving tabloids—have so far seemed less receptive to his comeback attempt, however.

Sen. Charles Schumer, once Weiner’s political ally and mentor, has stayed quiet on the announcement, as has Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “I’m not asking people for endorsements,” Weiner said on Thursday, adding that he wanted to prove himself.

Weiner announced his candidacy in a video posted on Wednesday to his website, saying he would attempt a political comeback for the first time since it was made public that he sent lewd photos to an unknown number of women over the Internet while serving in Congress. The announcement video appears to have been posted earlier than he intended, as it was removed for a while after it first appeared. Weiner also did not emerge from his apartment on Wednesday to address his announcement, another unusual feature of his mayoral campaign rollout. Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Weiner’s wife, appears in the video.

Despite the drama and scandal surrounding him, a recent poll shows Weiner is running second in the crowded race so far, after City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is widely expected to land Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s endorsement. (One Harlem voter shook Weiner’s hand and said he’d rather support him than “a woman.” Weiner said he hoped he would vote for him for other reasons.)

The tabloids’ love of his scandal has certainly boosted his name recognition in the city. Over the past two years, the New York Post has run nearly every single possible pun on the former congressman’s unfortunate surname (“Weiner Roast,” “Weiner Exposed,” “Hard Time,” “Fall on Your Sword, Weiner”). On Thursday, the more liberal Daily News jumped in, running an insert cover on Weiner’s mayoral bid that exclaimed “HE’S GOT SOME BALLS.” (A reporter brandished the headline at Weiner on Thursday morning, asking him how it made him feel.)

When Weiner resigned in 2011, the hard-charging congressman and liberal attack dog said he would seek “treatment,” which apparently amounted to a three-day rehab stint in Texas. According to a recent profile in the New York Times Magazine, Weiner has spent “much of his time within a five-block radius of his apartment” on Park Avenue South, caring for his young son and plotting his next political move.

Weiner told the magazine why he thought the scandal—which involved no actual sex, just flirtatious messages and photos—exploded into such a national sensation. “My last name; the fact that I was this combative congressman; the fact that there were pictures involved; the fact that it was a slow news period; the fact that I was an idiot about it; the fact that, while I was still lying about it, I dug myself in deeper by getting beefy with every reporter,” Weiner said. “But it was also this notion of how much attention our relationship had gotten, this kind of Camelot feel to it. It turned out to make it harder on both of us, and it made the explosion that much bigger.”

Quinn, for her part, said she’s not worried about the late entrant to the contest. “I don’t care who enters the race,” Quinn told Crain’s New York on Wednesday when asked about Weiner’s announcement. “Why should I talk about anyone but myself?”

Lois Lerner

Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service’s director of Exempt Organizations who is at the center of the controversy after the agency targeted conservative organizations for gratuitous scrutiny, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination today at a congressional hearing examining the scandal.

Lerner quietly took her seat at the witness table this morning, standing and raising her right hand as she swore to tell the truth alongside other senior IRS officials testifying at the hearing.

When it became her turn to speak, Lerner read a brief statement into the record, declaring her innocence.

“I have not done anything wrong,” she said. “I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

Lerner then said that while she “would very much like to answer the committee’s questions,” her counsel advised her to assert her constitutional right not to testify or answer questions related to the subject matter of the hearing.

“Because I’m asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I’ve done something wrong. I have not,” she reiterated. “One of the basic functions of the Fifth Amendment is to protect innocent individuals, and that is the protection I’m invoking today.”

Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, entered into the record written answers that Lerner provided for the inspector general’s investigation. Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the committee, said he had not seen the document and asked Lerner to authenticate her answers.

The document was passed the Lerner, who put on her glasses to skim through it.

“This appears to be my response,” she said.

“So it’s your testimony?” Issa of California asked. “As far as your recollection, that is your response?”

“That’s correct,” Lerner answered.

Republicans on the committee quickly interjected, challenging that Lerner gave up her right to remain silent and should be compelled to answer questions from members.

“She just testified. She just waived her Fifth Amendment right to privilege,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a former federal prosecutor, said, “You don’t get to tell your side of the story and then not be subjected to cross-examination. That’s not the way it works. She waived her right to Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing and opening statement. She ought to stand here and answer our questions.”

Members of the public watching in the committee room applauded enthusiastically.

Issa continued to quiz Lerner, who then declined to answer any further questions.

“Is it possible that we could narrow the scope of questions and that there are some areas that you would be able to answer any questions on here today?” Issa asked.

“I will not answer any questions or testify today,” she responded.

Issa followed up: “Ms. Lerner, would you be willing to answer questions specifically related to the earlier statements made under oath before this committee?”

“I decline to answer that question for the reasons I’ve already given,” she deadpanned.

Issa then dismissed Lerner from the hearing, and she quickly left the committee room.

When reporters caught up to Lerner in a back hallway as she made her way to her vehicle, she was guarded by a handful of U.S. Capitol Police officers and her legal team, and she ignored questions from the media about her decision to take the Fifth.

The frustration over her silence was shared on both sides of the aisle. During the hearing, Rep. Stephen Lynch warned Lerner that her silence could compel Congress to appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation.

“If this committee is prevented, by obstruction or by refusal to answer, the questions that we need to get to the bottom of this, you will leave us no alternative but to ask for the appointment of a special prosecutor or appointment to special counsel to get to the bottom of this,” Lynch, D-Mass., said. “I hope that’s not the approach of the IRS going forward because there will be hell to pay if that’s the route that we chose to go down.”

While the IG’s report found that the scandal was not the result of political motivations, Issa criticized the IRS for failing to meet its objective as an independent agency.

“We knew then that something seemed to be wrong. We knew then that there was smoke. We knew then that, in fact, something just didn’t seem to be right,” he said. “Many people believe that the IRS is an independent agency. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Also Read

This photo, from Oct. 2008, shows Imam Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike. (Muhammad …Attorney General Eric Holder informed Congress on Wednesday that the U.S. had killed four Americans in drone strikes since 2009 – radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and three others who were “not specifically targeted.”

Holder’s disclosure, first reported by the New York Times, came a day before President Barack Obama was to defend his counter-terrorism strategy in an afternoon speech at National Defense University. Obama was slated to focus on drone strikes – which have sparked anger across the Muslim world and increasingly tough questions in Congress – and on his broken promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected extremists.

“The President has directed me to disclose certain information that until now has been properly classified,” Holder said in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont).

“Since 2009, the United States, in the conduct of U.S. counterterrorism operations against al-Qa’ida and its associated forces outside of areas of active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one U.S. citizen,” Awlaki, Holder wrote.

“The United States is further aware of three other U.S. citizens who have been killed in such U.S. counterterrorism operations over that same time period,” he wrote. “These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States.”

Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011. His 16-year-old-son, Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed in another strike two weeks later. Obama was “surprised and upset and demanded an explanation” for the second attack, according to a new book about the president’s counter-terrorism strategy.

Two other Americans, Samir Khan and Jude Kenan Mohammed, were also killed in drone attacks, Holder wrote.

A White House offiicial confirmed that the disclosure was timed “to coincide with the speech the president will give tomorrow, in which he will discuss our broader counter-terrorism strategy – including the policy and legal rationale for our use of targeted, lethal force against al-Qaida and its associated forces.” It also reflects Obama’s commitment “to pursue greater transparency around our counter-terrorism operations,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Elena Marquez, center, and others at a rally to call on Congress to pass immigration reform. (Joe Raedle/Getty …

It’s been a good week for proponents of immigration reform. The sweeping bill that seeks to legalize most of the country’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday night, after five full days of debate and amendments that did little to significantly change the original compromise.

So, what’s next for the bill?

It is likely to be introduced on the Senate floor sometime in the next few weeks, and lawmakers will be able to propose more changes to the legislation there. Meanwhile, a secretive bipartisan group in the House also may release a competing immigration bill, though members are divulging few details about what their proposal will look like.

Immigrant advocates are worried the Senate reform bill may face a tougher crowd in the Republican-led House than it has so far in the Senate.

Ben Monterroso of the Service Employees International Union said advocates worry that GOP House members, all already in election mode for 2014,”are going to play to the base.”

“I’m not sure that the extremists [in the House] are going to allow this process to go without a fight,” Monterroso said.

Overall, the bill moved slightly to the right during its trip through the Senate committee. Republicans on the 18-member Senate Judiciary Committee were able to push through a few modest amendments that beefed up some of the border security provisions of the original bill, as well as loosening restrictions on and increasing the amount of visas for the high-tech industry to hire foreign workers.

Unions were unhappy with the high-tech visas amendment but willing to live with it. “We appreciate the work done by the Gang of Eight, as well as all those senators—both Democrats and Republicans—who engaged in good faith in the arduous job of advancing this bill,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a statement. “We applaud the progress by the Judiciary Committee, but we will still work to make a good bill even better.”

Meanwhile, liberal groups expressed disappointment that the bill does not yet include a provision to allow people in same-sex marriages to be able to sponsor their spouses for green cards. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont, withdrew the amendment this week after being warned it could disrupt the fragile bipartisan coalition that supports immigration reform.

Though the bill remained largely unchanged in the Senate committee, three main issues have emerged as major potential sticking points that could derail the bill in the coming months:

1. The low-skilled worker compromise

Both the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO are defending their hard-fought compromise over how many low-skilled workers will be allowed in the country each year under the law. The groups negotiated for nearly a year over this provision, which allows up to 200,000 temporary, noncollege-educated workers into the country each year based on business needs. Any significant changes to this plan could cause one or both of the groups to walk.

“It’s very carefully crafted, and it is not subject to change,” Tom Snyder, campaign manager for the AFL-CIO’s Citizenship Now campaign, said on Wednesday. “We’re going to resist any change in that bill.”

Some free-market conservatives want the number of visas to be higher to allow businesses easier access to labor, while more protectionist Republicans align with some Democrats in saying the number is too high and could drive down wages for American-born workers. Both business and labor say this compromise is a delicate balance that cannot be disrupted by politicians without serious consequences for the bill.

2. The pathway to citizenship

Key Democrats—including President Barack Obama and Sen. Harry Reid—have insisted from the beginning of the process that any immigration reform bill must include a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s unauthorized immigrants.

During the markup, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas offered an amendment to change the bill so that the unauthorized immigrants would be legalized but not eligible for citizenship. It failed. Some House conservatives also have expressed support for a similar plan, however, so it’s possible the push could be duplicated in the House.

3. The border security trigger

A key dispute among conservatives right now centers around the enforcement and border security provisions of the Senate bill. The bill requires some key benchmarks to be met before any of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants are allowed to apply for permanent residency, which leads to citizenship. But immigrants can gain temporary legal status in the meantime, which allows them to work legally. Under the bill, a group of Southwest border leaders, including governors and law enforcement officials, would have to certify that the border is “secure” before the green card process begins. E-verify, which employers will be required to use to check the immigration status of workers, also will have to be in effect.

But some Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, want to move up this timetable so that none of these immigrants can legalize his or her status before these benchmarks are met. That would most likely delay the current 12-year path to citizenship in the bill by several years and alienate liberal support for the bill. Grassley’s proposal to change the bill in this way failed in the markup, but it could be introduced again on the Senate floor or be duplicated in the House.

Some Republicans also believe the border should be declared close to impermeable before the legalization process begins.

A whopping 88 percent of students at the for-profit The New England Institute of Art take out loans to cover the $ 33,104 annual price tag. At Oberlin College, where the net price per year is $ 34,797, only 40 percent of students have loans.

One might assume that Oberlin is merely more generous in allotting grants to its students. While 82 percent receive some form of grant or scholarship, which does need to be paid back, the $ 34,797 figure of attendance is calculated after subtracting those grants from the total cost of tuition, lodging, fees, books, and other expenses.

Every school that participates in the federal loan program reports figures like these to the Department of Education. The following interactive plots every school with at least 1,000 undergraduates by these two values: Net cost of attendance after grants on the x-axis and the percentage of students with loans on the y-axis.

Think of it as a sort of reverse birthday gift.

After a tense few days in the White House Brady Press Briefing Room as the Internal Revenue Service scandal, Benghazi emails and the Justice Department’s secret seizure of journalists’ phone records put White House press secretary Jay Carney on defense, he decided to strike a much lighter note and offer effusive praise for the 50 or so journalists gathered for the daily briefing on Wednesday (which happened to be Carney’s birthday).

Carney defended his handling of the recent scandals, in part by suggesting that the journalists covering the White House are just too good at their jobs.

From Carney:

We have a team here that works really hard trying to anticipate the questions you’re going to ask. The problem is, there’s a lot of you and you’re good at your jobs and you’re smart. And we almost invariably do not anticipate every question that you ask. So sometimes we don’t have the answers, and sometimes we need to go back and get them.

The day before, he called a reporter “petulant” for asking questions about who knew what and when in regard to the IRS’ improper targeting of conservatives.

Carney revealed on Monday that contrary to earlier statements, some members of the White House staff did previously know about an inspector general’s report on the IRS scandal. That the story out of the White House has been evolving has been the subject of criticism.

Carney conceded on Wednesday that “there have been some legitimate criticisms about how we’re handling this. And I say ‘legitimate’ because I mean it.”