Congress Wants to See Obama's "License to Kill"

Congress is considering two measures that would compel the Obama administration to show members of Congress what Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) calls Obama's "license to kill": internal memos outlining the legal justification for killing Americans overseas without charge or trial.

Legislators have been asking administration officials to release the documents for nearly a year, raising the issue multiple times in hearings and letters. But the new proposals, including one from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) first flagged by blogger Marcy Wheeler and another in a separate intelligence bill, aren't requests—they would mandate disclosure. That shift shows both Republicans and Democrats are growing impatient with the lack of transparency on targeted killings.Congress is finally standing up to President Barack Obama on targeted killing. Almost a year after three American citizens were killed in US drone strikes, legislators are pushing the administration to explain why it believes it's legal to kill American terror suspects overseas.

The New York Times has confirmed the existence of a secret memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—the branch of the government that tells the president whether what he wants to do is legal—outlining the legal basis for the targeted killing program. But the Obama administration has yet to acknowledge that any such memo exists, despite defending the targeted killing policy in speeches and public appearances, and is currently fighting an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that seeks to force the government to reveal the legal justification for targeted killing. Now Congress seems to be moving towards the ACLU's position.

Cornyn's amendment would require the Obama administration to provide the Office of Legal Counsel memo justifying the killing program to legislators on several congressional committees. Democrats on the Judiciary Committee voted to shelve Cornyn's proposal, but that doesn't mean the effort is dead. Cornyn could propose his amendment again later this year, and there's also a section of a separate intelligence bill that would compel the administration to share all of the Justice Department's legal opinions on intelligence matters with the congressional intelligence committees—unless the White House invokes executive privilege.

"We're not mere supplicants to the executive branch, we are a coequal branch of government," Cornyn said during discussion of his amendment in the Senate committee hearing last week. "So it is insufficient to say pretty please, Mr. President, pretty please, Mr. Attorney General, will you please tell us the legal authority by which you claim the authority to kill American citizens abroad?" (Cornyn also noted that just because he wants to see the memo doesn't mean he'd necessarily disagree with its contents.)

Neither Cornyn's proposal nor the intelligence bill would require the administration have to share the OLC memo with the media or the public, even in redacted form. But releasing the memo to legislators would at least allow Congress to perform more effective oversight of the targeted killing program, argues Chris Anders, legislative counsel for the ACLU. The Los Angeles Times reported in June that at the initiative of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Congress has been keeping a closer eye on the use of drone strikes. But critics like Anders argue that it's hard for oversight to be effective if legislators don't know what standard the Obama administration is using to determine whom to kill. "The key committees of Congress don’t even know what the legal standard is or how they’re applying it, so how can they do meaningful oversight?" Anders asks. The intelligence bill and Cornyn's proposal could fix that problem.

More oversight, though, is not enough, Anders says—regular Americans should know what kind of conduct could lead to them being blown up by a deadly flying robot. "There's a fundamental due process right to know what it is you can't do in order to avoid getting killed by the order of the president," he says. Grassley, at least, seems to be on board with that idea—a Grassley aide said the senator would "support making a redacted analysis public if possible." A Feinstein aide also suggested a push for public disclosure could follow Congress getting access to the legal analysis of targeted killing. And even if the OLC memo is only shared with Congress, broadening access to the document makes it more likely that it could be leaked to the press.

Now that legislators on both sides of the aisle are pushing for more disclosure, the chances the public will learn about the contents of the targeted killing memos has increased dramatically. Still, Anders says, it's easy to see a difference between how hard Congress pushed for George W. Bush-era memos authorizing torture and the deferential stance Congress adopted during the first three and a half years of the Obama administration.

"When it was Bush, it was much easier to get [legislators] to demand public disclosure," Anders says.

Hillary Clinton: Huma Abedin Attacks Have 'No Place In Our Politics'

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday that charges made about her top aide Huma Abedin by Rep. Michele Bachmann and other conservatives "have no place" in our politics.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday addressed allegations by five House Republicans that one of her top aides has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, saying their comments "have no place in our politics."

During a speech on international religious freedom, Clinton was asked about the recent controversy sparked when the lawmakers called for the investigation of Clinton's deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin, a Muslim-American who is widely respected among members of both parties, for possible ties to the Islamic extremist group. Clinton responded by talking about the duty of political leaders to speak out and protect diversity in their countries.

"I don't see enough of that. I want to see more of it," she said. "We did see some of that in our own country. We saw Republicans stepping up and standing up against the kind of assaults that really have no place in our politics. So we have to set an example, there is no doubt about that. And we have to continue doing so."

Clinton was referring to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) defending Abedin shortly after the lawmakers announced they had addressed their claims to the State Department. McCain went on the Senate floor and dismissed their allegations as "an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman." House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) also pushed back on his members' charges, saying their words were "pretty dangerous."

The five GOP lawmakers who signed the letter to the State Department are Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Trent Franks (Ariz.), Thomas Rooney (Fla.) and Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.).

Stone Age Poison Pushes Back Dawn Of Ancient Civilization 20,000 Years

By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer 
Published: 07/30/2012 03:08 PM EDT on LiveScience

The late Stone Age may have had an earlier start in Africa than previously thought — by some 20,000 years.

A new analysis of artifacts from a cave in South Africa reveals that the residents were carving bone tools, using pigments, making beads and even using poison 44,000 years ago. These sorts of artifacts had previously been linked to the San culture, which was thought to have emerged around 20,000 years ago.

"Our research proves that the Later Stone Age emerged in South Africa far earlier than has been believed and occurred at about the same time as the arrival of modern humans in Europe," study researcher Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, said in a statement.

The Later Stone Age in Africa occurred at the same time as Europe's Upper Paleolithic Period, when modern humans moved into Europe from Africa and met the Neanderthals about 45,000 years ago.

"[T]he differences in technology and culture between the two areas are very strong, showing the people of the two regions chose very different paths to the evolution of technology and society," Villa said. [10 Mysteries of the First Humans]

Hints of culture

Traces of civilization have been found going back nearly 80,000 years in Africa, but these fragments — bone tools, carved beads — vanish from the archaeological record by about 60,000 years ago.

In fact, almost nothing is known about what happened in Southern Africa between 40,000 and 20,000 years ago, Villa and his colleagues wrote online today (July 30) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This gap makes it hard to link middle-Stone Age societies to the ones that came later.

The researchers brought the latest in dating technology to bear on a site on the border of South Africa and Swaziland called Border Cave. They found that a number of the artifacts in the cave were much older than expected. [See Amazing Cave Photos]

Ostrich eggshell beads, sharp bone points likely used for arrowheads, and notched bones were among the fragments of life dating back thousands of years before the San were thought to have emerged. One long-bone tool is decorated with a spiral incision that was then filled with red-clay pigment. A set of warthog or pig tusks shows signs of grinding and scraping. Other bones are marked with notches, as if they were used to keep a tally of something.

The researchers also found beads, several apparently deliberately blackened by fire, one dating back more than 38,000 years. A piece of wood associated with a stone with a hole through it was dated to about 35,000 years ago. The tool appears to be an early digging stick of the sort used by the later San people to unearth roots and termite larvae.

Oldest poison

The researchers also dated a lump of beeswax mixed with toxic resin that was likely used to haft, or attach, stone points to the shafts of arrows or spears. The beeswax dates to about 35,000 years ago, making it the oldest known example of beeswax being used as a tool.

Finally, researchers dated a thin wooden stick scarred with perpendicular scratches. A chemical analysis revealed traces of ricinoleic acid, a natural poisonfound in castor beans. It's likely that the stick was an applicator used to put poison on an arrow or spearheads, the archaeologists reported. At about 20,000 years old, the applicator marks the first use of poison ever discovered.

"The very thin bone points from the Later Stone Age at Border Cave are good evidence for bow and arrow use," Villa said. "The work by d'Errico and colleagues [published alongside Villa's group's report in the same journal] shows that the points are very similar in width and thickness to the bone points produced by San culture that occupied the region in prehistoric times, whose people were known to use bows and arrows with poison-tipped bone points as a way to bring down medium and large-sized herbivores."

The ancient dates help fill in a continuity gap of human civilization, said study researcher Lucinda Backwell, a researcher in palaeoanthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

"The dating and analysis of archaeological material discovered at Border Cave in South Africa, has allowed us to demonstrate that many elements of material culture that characterize the lifestyle of San hunter-gatherers in southern Africa, were part of the culture and technology of the inhabitants of this site 44,000 years ago," Backwell said.

It seems plausible that these technologies arose 50,000 to 60,000 years ago in Africa and later spread to Europe, Villa said.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

• Top 10 Things that Make Humans Special
• The Awá: Faces of a Threatened Tribe
• In Photos: Survival of an Ancient Civilization

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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India Power Outage: 600 Million People Affected By One Of The World's Biggest Blackouts

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's energy crisis spread over half the country Tuesday when both its eastern and northern electricity grids collapsed, leaving 600 million people without power in one of the world's biggest-ever blackouts.

The power failure has raised serious concerns about India's outdated infrastructure and the government's inability to meet an insatiable appetite for energy as the country aspires to become a regional economic superpower.

The outage in the eastern grid came just a day after India's northern power grid collapsed for several hours. Indian officials managed to restore power several hours later, but at 1:05 p.m. Tuesday the northern grid collapsed again, said Shailendre Dubey, an official at the Uttar Pradesh Power Corp. in India's largest state. About the same time, the eastern grid failed as well, said S.K. Mohanty, a power official in the eastern state of Orissa. The two grids serve about half India's population.

Traffic lights went out across New Delhi. The city's Metro rail system, which serves about 1.8 million people a day, immediately shut down for the second day in a row. Police said they managed to evacuate Delhi's busy Barakhamba Road station in under half an hour before closing the shutters.

S.K. Jain, 54, said he was on his way to file his income tax return when the Metro closed and now would almost certainly miss the deadline.

The new power failure affected people across 13 states — more than the entire population of the European Union. They raised concerns about India's outdated infrastructure and its insatiable appetite for energy that the government has been unable to meet.

India's demand for electricity has soared along with its economy in recent years, but utilities have been unable to meet the growing needs. India's Central Electricity Authority reported power deficits of more than 8 percent in recent months.

The power deficit was worsened by a weak monsoon that lowered hydroelectric generation and kept temperatures higher, further increasing electricity usage as people seek to cool off.

But any connection to the grid remains a luxury for many. One-third of India's households do not even have electricity to power a light bulb, according to last year's census.

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South Korean Hackers Arrested For Stealing 8 Million Users' Personal Information

2 South Korean hackers are accused of making $877,000 from their scheme of selling info to telemarketers

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean police said they arrested two men who allegedly stole the personal details of about 8 million mobile phone subscribers and sold the data to marketing companies in one of the country's biggest hacking schemes.

Police said in a statement Sunday that the two men developed the hacking program that was used to steal the names, residential registration numbers and phone numbers of customers of KT, which is South Korea's largest fixed-line telephone company and No. 2 mobile operator. The program was uploaded to the company's computer systems and harvested personal data for months.

Police said the two made about $877,000 from the hacking scheme. They sold the program as well as mobile subscriber data to telemarketing companies which used the details to contact customers to solicit them to switch to other mobile operators.

Authorities said a former KT employee and six others were also charged for their roles in the scheme.

The data theft at KT took place over the span of five months from February and affected about half of KT's 16 million mobile customers.

KT apologized and said it will beef up its security system.

The incident is the latest in a series of large-scale hacking attacks that have affected millions in one of the world's most wired countries. Last year, hackers stole personal data of 13 million gamers at Nexon and private details of 35 million members at web portal Nate and Cyworld were leaked.

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Sluggish Economic Growth: More Reason to Renounce Tax Hikes

On the afternoon of another discouraging assessment of the nation’s economic growth, the Obama Administration late Friday quietly released its mid-year update of the budget. The synchronicity made clear just how far from reality the President’s fiscal and economic policies have drifted—and the imperative of a prompt course correction.

Friday morning, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported a tepid 1.5 percent growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter of this year. That reflected a slowdown from the anemic 2 percent in the first three months of 2012 and an ominous warning of growing sluggishness through the rest of the year.

Later Friday, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), nearly two weeks past the legal deadline, trickled out its Mid-Session Review of the budget. It predicted a slight decline in the deficit this year to $1.2 trillion—still the fourth consecutive year of 13-digit red ink. For 2013, OMB now projects a deficit $91 billion greater than its February estimate, largely due to $148 billion in new “stimulus” spending the President originally sought for 2012. Through the rest of the decade, the Administration projects lower deficits and debt than its February budget estimated.

The foundation of every budget is the set of underlying economic assumptions, and that is where the problems with the President’s numbers start. His economic figures are all but unachievable. The Administration projects GDP growth of 2.3 percent for all of this year. Reaching that annual rate would require the economy to expand at nearly 3 percent for the balance of 2012—double the pace of the second quarter. That growth rate is not impossible, but is highly unlikely, especially given the growing talk of recession.

At least as disturbing is the Administration’s rosy forecast beyond this year. OMB projects 2.7 percent GDP growth next year, 3.5 percent in 2014, 4.1 percent in 2015, and 4 percent in 2016. All four projections are higher than the Blue Chip consensus of private forecasters, and the discrepancy widens over time: the 2015 and 2016 estimates exceed the Blue Chip by more than a full percentage point. Moreover, the U.S economy has not seen growth rates greater than 4 percent since 2000. One should certainly hope for such growth rates, but credible budgets are not built on wishes.

Friday’s disappointing growth figures also demonstrate the unquestionable failure of the Administration’s economic analyses and Keynesian-inspired “stimulus” program. In President Obama’s initial budget submission, in February 2009, the Administration projected the economy, jolted by the $831 billion Recovery Act, would be surging by 4.6 percent this year in inflation-adjusted terms. That is exactly twice the Administration’s growth forecast now.

Yet the President still demands $98 billion in tax hikes next year and nearly $2 trillion in tax increases over the next 10 years. Indeed, his allies in the Senate are willing to risk a recession by letting the $500 billion Taxmageddon tax hike take effect next year just to win an ideologically driven challenge. As commentator Pat Buchanan recently noted, their attitude resembles the “chicken run” scene in the classic 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause, in which Buzz Gunderson “wins” by driving over a cliff to his death—because his sleeve gets caught in the door handle of his car.

The looming tax hikes and general uncertainly about fiscal and regulatory policy are stifling growth right now. While the government has little capacity to “jumpstart” the economy, one thing it can do is remove the threat of tax hikes hanging over investors and employers. Given the economy’s growing weakness, the President and his congressional allies should promptly renounce any tax increases and extend all existing tax policies—including current rates on upper-income brackets. They should yield their ideology and accept economic reality.

The Foundry

How Welfare’s Work Requirements Make a Difference in Lives

On July 12, the Obama Administration issued a directive to gut welfare reform of its work requirements. But those who work closely with individuals in need understand the critical principles of personal responsibility and self-reliance.

Rachel Morrison, founder of a remarkably effective Washington, D.C.–based prison re-entry program titledEFFORTS (Employment for Former Offenders Receiving Treatment), explains that reciprocity, personal responsibility, and work are keys to upward mobility and the rise from dependency. Once a guard at Lorton Prison, Morrison knows of the obstacles that former convicts face when they come back into society, and she has committed herself to help them overcome those hurdles—specifically through job training, computer-skills classes, and guidance in applying for a job.

“Some people come out of prison with a lot of anger inside, because they feel that society owes them,” she says. “They think society is supposed to take care of them. We help them to understand that they have to go out there and get a job, help take care of their family, be on time, and go to work every day. Society doesn’t owe you anything; you have to earn whatever it is that you want out of life.”

Among the hundreds of individuals empowered through EFFORTS is Michelle Staten. The product of a broken home and victim of domestic violence, Staten became addicted to drugs. Her children were taken from her and put into foster care, and she was living on the streets when she first came to EFFORTS. Today, Staten is married, has regained custody of her five children, and is employed with security services at a major government agency.

Also in D.C., the ministry of Bishop Shirley Holloway—whose outreach addresses homelessness, drug addiction, and alcoholism—likewise entails some form of work requirement for all of the hundreds of men and women she has served. Among the beneficiaries of Holloway’s programs is Angela Woods. Once addicted to drugs and wandering the streets with her two children in a one-seat stroller, Woods is now married and works with her husband, James, in Holloway’s City of Hope. They are the proud parents of five children and grandparents of four.

Another beneficiary of Holloway’s outreach is Rachel Hicks, who had spent more than a year moving through a series of homeless shelters after she was laid off and lost her home to foreclosure. Hicks credits Holloway with helping her find a job at an IHOP, creating a budget, and restarting her life with her daughter and grandson.

In the words of one director of a county Department of Social Services, “We are talking about trying to boost our referrals to [Holloway’s] facility because…it seems like a very effective program. The mandate that she puts on the residents is ‘You can’t just lay in your room and not be productive.’ She really likes to promote productivity.”

Instead of weakening the successful 1996 reform, which resulted in nearly 3 million families moving out of dependency, Washington should bolster work requirements. Doing so would recognize the capacities of the people it serves and give individuals and families hope of achieving a life of independence and the satisfaction of productivity.

The Foundry

“Twiplomacy” Won’t Replace Diplomacy

According to a new study done by PR firm Burson-Marsteller, two-thirds of the world’s leaders have joined Twitter, including 16 members of the G-20. But while Twitter is a powerful tool, it has its limits and will never replace traditional diplomacy.

Tweets resonating from world leaders encompass 43 different languages, with English and Spanish leading the way. Of these leaders, President Barack Obama’s @BarackObama feed is the most popular at 17.8 million followers, 76 of which are either other leaders or official government Twitter accounts. The study showed that, altogether, leaders have sent more than 350,000 tweets to almost 52 million followers.

Such statistics point to a new wave of diplomacy sometimes dubbed “Twiplomacy.” But unlike true diplomacy efforts, which require two-way communication, the tweets sent out by world leaders often fall on deaf ears and lack conversation among the participants. This is what Heritage expert James Carafano calls “broadcast mode” in his book Wiki at War. The ability to reach many people is important, but that is only half the story.

To be effective, governments must hear as well as speak. Most government leaders aren’t actively listening to other leaders or citizens on Twitter—true diplomacy isn’t really happening. Furthermore, most Twitter accounts go dark following elections, indicating that leaders see Twitter as a tool to speak to voters but little else.

The rise of “Twiplomacy” has also reduced the amount of time that governments have to react to certain events. Because news can be broadcast as it happens by anyone with Internet access, governments may be forced to make hasty decisions due to public pressure. The combination of public pressure and the flood of unconfirmed accounts could result in more harm than good.

The Internet and its capabilities demand recognition and should be taken advantage of. However, just as the airplane did not replace the infantryman, the virtual world will not replace the physical one. Our diplomatic efforts should be balanced according to their effectiveness, not their popularity.

Morning Bell: Business Owners Battle Obamacare for Religious Freedom

The Newland family, which owns Hercules Industries, won a preliminary injunction against Obamacare's HHS mandate. (Left to right: James, Paul, William, and Andrew Newland; courtesy of ADFmedia.org.)

Two days from now, employers across America will become vulnerable to crushing government penalties for exercising their religious freedom. This isn’t exactly what lawmakers advertised when they pushed Obamacare, but it is part of the Obama Administration’s agenda—forcing nearly all employers to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization services.

Beginning August 1, employers must amend their health insurance offerings to include these drugs and services. And if they don’t? How about a fine of $100 per employee per day for non-compliance. This outrageous policy makes it impossible for employers to afford the fine—meaning they must change their insurance policies or stop offering health coverage to their workers.

But for many employers, offering the types of services required under the HHS mandate violates their consciences. It conflicts with their deeply held religious beliefs. And the government is telling them that doesn’t matter—what’s more, it’s telling them that their beliefs are inconsequential, and they must pay.

Just last Friday, a judge in Colorado gave one business’s owners the first glimmer of hope that their religious freedom may survive this attack. Heritage’s John Malcolm and Dominique Ludvigson explained:

U.S. District Court Judge John Kane, a Carter appointee, granted a preliminary injunction on behalf of Hercules Industries, halting the government’s ability to enforce its anti-conscience mandate against the company while the lawsuit challenging the mandate continues in court…The case is in its early stages and will proceed to a trial on the merits.

Hercules is a family-owned, for-profit company with a self-insured health plan for its 265 employees. Its owners see the Obama Administration’s message as “either comply and desert our faith, or resist and be punished,” said William Newland, one of the owners.

“We have a President, I think, that doesn’t know much about building up a business, but he certainly has good ideas on how to tear one down,” Newland said.

Judge Kane concluded that the harm to the government from not enforcing the mandate “pales in comparison to the possible infringement upon Plaintiffs’ constitutional and statutory rights” to operate their business consistent with their convictions. Judge Kane concluded that the government’s interests in enforcing the mandate were undercut by the numerous exceptions to the mandate that the Administration has already created for other entities. “These interests are countered, and indeed, outweighed, by the public interest in the free exercise of religion,” he stated.

According to the Obama Administration, however, the free exercise of religion is something done only one day a week in a house of worship. It argued that the “Plaintiffs’ free exercise claim fails at the outset because for-profit, secular employers generally do not engage in any exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment.”

Operating on this belief, Obamacare brings nothing but punishment for business owners who believe otherwise. Heritage’s Jennifer Marshall and Dominique Ludvigson break down the monetary cost:

With 265 employees, Hercules’ fine would have amounted to $800,000 per month—almost $10 million per year. If Hercules were to take the more likely action of dropping health care coverage to avoid facilitating the mandate, thereby forcing its employees into government-run exchanges, it would face a fine on faith of approximately $2,000 per employee per year, for a total of $530,000 per year.

Those would be the monetary costs, but the cost to freedom would be much greater. Marshall and Ludvigsonnote:

While the court order is limited to Hercules and does not relieve other family businesses or the many religious non-profits with moral objections from having to comply with the mandate’s burden, Judge Kane’s analysis offers hope that their pleas for the restoration of their religious liberty will get a fair hearing.

How did it come to this? During the legislative battle over Obamacare, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) famously said that Congress would need to pass the law to see what was in it. She was right about one thing: Obamacare as it passed was not fully formed. The law gave unprecedented new powers to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to fill in countless details, directing the ways Obamacare would affect all Americans. With this law, Congress handed over immeasurable authority to HHS. And Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been hard at work trying to convince Americans that this is all in their best interest.

There is no reason to believe it will end here, which is why it is vital to halt this attack on religious freedom as quickly as possible. As Ludvigson explains, this first HHS mandate “raises significant questions about what more Obamacare will require on other matters of deeply personal religious and moral significance, such as prenatal care, end-of-life issues, and parental authority for minors’ health decisions.”

More than 50 plaintiffs—for-profit and non-profit alike—have gone to court against the HHS mandate. In winning an injunction that prevents the mandate’s enforcement on its business while the case goes to trial, Hercules has demonstrated the strength of the religious liberty challenge to Obamacare.

John McCain: Mitt Romney Needs To Do More To Court Hispanic Vote

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Mitt Romney, in an interview published Monday at The Daily Beast, that the presumptive GOP nominee needs to soften his rhetoric on immigration if he wants to win Latino voters.

In the interview, McCain said that he and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Romney in January to urge him to tone down his rhetoric, and he did. The candidate hasn't used the phrase "self-deportation" since, according to the Daily Beast.

Romney is up against low numbers for Latino support, with a recent Latino Decisions poll finding that he has only 22 percent support to President Barack Obama's 70 percent.

Conventional wisdom among strategists is that Republicans need about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote to win a presidential election. Former President George W. Bush won 44 percent of Latino voters in 2004, according to some estimates. McCain received about 31 percent of the Latino vote when he lost to Obama.

McCain worries that Romney will do even worse, The Daily Beast reported.

"He gets 24 percent of the Hispanic vote," McCain told the publication. "They need to do more outreach."

Romney said in a GOP debate in January that "self-deportation" -- essentially making life difficult for undocumented immigrants until they decide to leave -- would be the best policy for lowering the number of people in the country without authorization.

"The answer is self-deportation, which is, people decide they can do better by going home because they can't find work here because they don't have legal documentation to allow them to work here," Romney said.

After the Obama administration announced in June it would halt deportation for some undocumented young people, McCain bashed the decision as "a politically motivated power grab that does nothing to further the debate but instead adds additional confusion and uncertainty to our broken immigration system."

But he notably declined to call the move "amnesty," the term thrown at many efforts to stop deportation for undocumented immigrants.

McCain was a centrist himself on immigration until his failed bid for president in 2008 and his 2010 reelection campaign, when he went from a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and the Dream Act to a "complete the danged fence" would-be hardliner. Since his reelection, he's returned somewhat to his roots -- although he voted against the Dream Act when it went for a Senate vote in 2010 -- and said he hopes to see some sort of congressional action to address young undocumented immigrants.

Romney said he wants the same, but has failed to give any details on how he would deal with the issue, including a refusal to say whether he would end the Obama policy that gives reprieve to some undocumented young people.

CORRECTION: This article was corrected to reflect that McCain's ad on border fences was in 2010, not 2008.

Gay Marriage Plank Will Be In Democratic Party Platform At Convention

WASHINGTON -- A Democratic Party source confirmed to The Huffington Post that the party will include a plank supporting marriage equality in its official platform at the upcoming convention.

The news, first reported by theWashington Blade, represents a historic and phenomenal win for LGBT rights groups, which could hardly have envisioned progress being made so quickly on this front.

The Democratic source relayed that officials unanimously agreed at a recent platform drafting committee meeting in Minneapolis to adopt language endorsing same-sex marriage. Several steps must be taken before the language is codified. A full platform committee will consider the draft in a meeting in Detroit in two weeks. It will then go to the convention delegates in Charlotte for final approval. But the deal is more or less final.

Retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass), a member of the drafting committee who recently married his longtime partner, told the Advocate that the decision was reached without dissent.

"The fact is, by every action that should be taken, the Democrats in Washington have repudiated DOMA," he said, referring to the 1996 law signed by President Bill Clinton that barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage.

According to the Blade, the "language in the platform approved on Sunday not only backs marriage equality, but also rejects DOMA and has positive language with regard to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The exact wording of the language wasn’t immediately available."

The Democratic National Committee had hesitated to push for same-sex marriage as a platform plank as recently as this March, with LGBT sources telling The Huffington Post that they were getting pushback from party officials. But that all changed when President Barack Obama, prompted by remarks from Vice President Joe Biden, came out in favor of marriage equality.

"We are grateful for the Platform Drafting Committee’s unanimous vote to include the freedom to marry in its draft of the Democratic Party platform," said Marc Solomon, National Campaign Director of Freedom to Marry. "As I testified to the Committee on Friday, the Democratic Party has a noble history of fighting for the human and civil rights of all Americans. We are proud that the Committee is including language that will ensure the Party is leading the way forward in supporting marriage for loving and committed same-sex couples and their families."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest demurred when asked Monday afternoon about Obama's reaction to gay marriage being included in the party platform, directing all questions to the DNC.

Jennifer Bendery contributed reporting.