In the News
- Iran bill: Sink or swim?
- SCOTUS: Gay marriage
- Japan’s PM in DC: War controversy
- Nepal earthquake: 3,300+ dead
- Drone killing program: Protected in DC
- Russian hackers got Obama’s emails
- GOP 2016ers talk faith in Iowa
- Freddie Gray’s funeral in Baltimore today
- Colorado theater shooting trial today
- Obama at WH press Dinner: “Bucket”
Iran Bill: Sink or Swim?
• Senate proponents of a bill empowering Congress to review and potentially reject any Iran nuclear deal must first win a battle with some colleagues determined to change the legislation in ways that could sink it. “Anybody who monkeys with this bill is going to run into a buzz saw,” warned Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) ahead of this week’s debate (AP, Reuters, me)
• The high-profile debate comes as negotiators from the U.S. and five other nations are rushing to finalize, by the end of June, an agreement requiring Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions choking its economy. The parties will meet again this week in New York on the sidelines of a conference
• If there’s a final deal with Iran, President Obama can use his executive authority to ease some sanctions on his own and work with the EU and the UN to lift others. Obama also can waive sanctions that Congress has imposed on Iran, but he cannot formally lift them
• Some senators are proposing amendments to pressure Iran to end its support of terror groups, stop threatening Israel and recognize its right to exist, and release U.S. citizens held in Iran. Other amendments would prevent sanctions relief until international nuclear inspectors are guaranteed access to Iranian military sites
• Sen Tom Cotton (R-AR), who spearheaded a letter signed by 47 senators to Iran’s leaders, wants to lower the number of votes needed to reject a deal from 60 to 51. That means opponents of any deal would only need Republican votes to sink it. Meanwhile, SecState John Kerry will meet with Iranian FM Javad Zarif in New York today at UN anti-nuclear arms conference
• In a closed-door meeting with Jewish donors Saturday night, former President George W. Bush argued against the lifting of sanctions against Iran during rare remarks about foreign policy. According to an attendee’s transcription, he said the deal would be bad for American national security in the long term (Bloomberg, NYT)
SCOTUS Tuesday: Gay Marriage
• Two years ago, the Supreme Court struck down part of the federal anti-gay marriage law that denied a range of govt benefits to married same-sex couples. The decision in U.S. v Windsor didn’t address the validity of state marriage bans, but many courts across the country said its logic compelled them to invalidate state laws that prohibited gay and lesbian couples from marrying (AP, me)
• The justices Tuesday are hearing 2 1/2 hour arguments about the right of same-sex couples to marry. The cases come from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, all of which had their marriage bans upheld by the federal appeals court in Cincinnati in Nov. That appeals court is the only one that has ruled in favor of the states since the 2013 Windsor decision
• Two related issues would expand the marriage rights of same-sex couples. 1) Do same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry or can states continue to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman? 2) Even if states won’t allow some couples to marry, must they recognize valid same-sex marriages from elsewhere?
Arguments From Both Sides
• The arguments of marriage-rights supporters boil down to a claim that states lack any valid reason to deny the right to marry, which the court has earlier described as fundamental to the pursuit of happiness
• They say state laws that allow only some people to marry violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law and make second-class citizens of same-sex couples and their families. Gay couples say that preventing them from marrying is akin to a past ban on interracial marriage, which the court struck down in 1967
• The states respond that they have always set the rules for marriage and that voters in many states have backed, sometimes overwhelmingly, changes to their constitutions to limit marriage to a man and a woman. They say a lively national debate is underway and there’s no reason for the court to impose a solution that should be left to the political process
• The states also argue that they have a good reason to keep defining marriage as they do. Because only heterosexual couples can produce children, it’s in the states’ interest to make marriage laws that encourage those couples to enter a union that supports raising children
Then What Happens?
• A ruling that same-sex couples have a right to marry would invalidate the remaining anti-gay marriage laws in the country. If the court limits its ruling to requiring states to recognize same-sex unions, couples in states without same-sex marriage presumably could get married elsewhere and then demand recognition at home
• If the court rules for the states on both questions, the bans in 14 states would survive. Beyond that, confusion probably would reign. Some states that had their marriage laws struck down by federal courts might seek to reinstate prohibitions on gay and lesbian unions. Questions could also be raised about the validity of some gay weddings
• Many of these problems would be of SCOTUS”s own making. From Oct to Jan, the justices first rejected appeals from states seeking to preserve their marriage bans, then allowed court rulings to take effect even as other states appealed those decisions. Result: the court essentially allowed the number of states with gay marriage to double – now 36 states, DC and parts of MO
Japan’s PM in DC: Controversy
• Japan PM Shinzo Abe began a historic, week-long visit to the U.S. on Sunday that will highlight strengthened trade and defense ties between the two countries, and feature the first address by a Japanese leader before a joint session of Congress. Now, if the right-leaning Abe can just keep it zipped about World War II (USA Today, WSJ, me)
• The visit will include a summit meeting and state dinner at the WH, a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington Cemetery and meetings with business and govt leaders on both coasts. The meeting comes as Fitch today downgrades Japan’s rating to A from A+, with a stable outlook
• But it’s his congressional speech Wednesday that’s drawing the most attention. Abe is the first leader from Japan invited to speak before Congress since WWII. His views on the war have caused problems on both sides of the Pacific
• Since taking office, he has made statements that seem to gloss over Japan’s atrocities and cast doubt on his commitment to official apologies issued by previous prime ministers for war crimes. His stance has damaged relations with China, which suffered under Japanese occupation, and South Korea
• This month, 25 House members sent a letter to Japan’s ambassador urging Abe to “formally reaffirm and validate” previous apologies during his congressional address. Earlier, an organization of American WWII POWs urged Congress not to invite Abe without assurances that he would acknowledge Japanese wrongdoing
Nepal Earthquake: 3,300+ Dead
• At least 3,617 people are now known to have died in a massive earthquake which hit Nepal on Saturday, say officials. More than 6,500 people have been injured, according to the National Emergency Operation Center. Dozens of people are reported to have been killed in neighboring China and India (BBC, AP, Reuters, me)
• Thousands have spent a second night outside after the 7.8 magnitude quake, which also triggered deadly avalanches on Mount Everest. Vast tent cities have sprung up in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, for those displaced or afraid to return to their homes as strong aftershocks continue
• Rescue missions and aid have started arriving from around the world. The Pentagon says a U.S. military plane is on the way with 70 personnel, including a USAID disaster assistance response team, a Virginia-based search and rescue team and 45 tons of cargo to provide assistance. The flight is expected to arrive at Kathmandu today
• The weather cleared this morning and helicopters are heading out to the Mount Everest base camp to try to bring down 210 stranded climbers. The roads to the earthquake’s epicenter, northwest of the capital, have also been cleared and rescue teams are on the way
• A home ministry official said rescuers were “in a really bad shape” after working non-stop for two days. “We are about to collapse.” Meanwhile, officials have warned that the number of casualties could rise as rescue teams reach remote mountainous areas of western Nepal. The country is running out of water and food, the UN says
Drone Killing Program: Protected in DC
• Perhaps no single CIA officer has been more central to the targeted drone killing program than Michael D’Andrea, a gaunt, chain-smoking convert to Islam who was chief of operations during the birth of the agency’s detention and interrogation program and then, as head of CIA Counterterrorism Center, became an architect of the targeted killing program (NYT, me)
• In secret meetings on Capitol Hill, D’Andrea was a forceful advocate for the drone program and won supporters among both Republicans and Democrats. Congressional staff members say he was particularly effective in winning the support of Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), former chair and current ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee
• The recent accidental deaths of the hostages are only the latest example of how difficult it is for the CIA to know exactly whom it’s killing. The WH provided a public accounting of the deaths only because the victims were Westerners. The govt has never offered a detailed explanation of attacks that witnesses say killed women and children
• By most accounts, the drone program has been effective in killing hundreds of al Qaeda operatives and members of other militant groups over the years. The drone program has been largely immune from the criticism in Congress that other CIA programs have attracted
• The CIA asked that D’Andrea’s name and names of some other top agency officials be withheld, but NYT published them because they have leadership roles in one of the govt’s most significant paramilitary programs and their roles are known to foreign govts and many others
• President Obama tightened rules for the drone program in 2013, but he secretly approved a waiver giving the CIA more flexibility in Pakistan than anywhere else to strike suspected militants. Under a classified addendum to the directive, Pakistan was exempted from the “imminent threat” requirement (WSJ, me)
• It was two years ago that President Obama gave a speech pledging to pull the targeted killing program from the shadows, and WH officials said they wanted to shift the bulk of drone ops from the CIA to the Pentagon, with the states intent of making the program more transparent (NYT, me)
• But the intel committees have resisted the plan, in part because D’Andrea and other top agency officials have convinced lawmakers that the CIA strikes are more precise than those conducted by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command
• And yet the president has given no indication that he intends to shut down the drone program, and both he and his aides continue to praise it as a method of warfare that offers the WH an alternative to messy wars of occupation like in Iraq and Afghanistan
• Despite drone program reforms that Obama announced in May 2013, it is still the CIA, not the Pentagon, that continues to carry out all of the drone strikes in Pakistan and most of those in Yemen. An internal admin proposal to create a counterterrorism center at the Pentagon, modeled after the CIA drone unit, was quietly scrapped
• Loretta Lynch will be sworn in as the new attorney general by VP Joe Biden at the Justice Dept today, replacing retiring Eric Holder. In his farewell speech Friday, Holder said the job had “helped define me as an individual and as a lawyer, as a man.” (TRNS)
Russian Hackers Got Obama’s Emails
• Russian hackers who infiltrated the WH’s unclassified computer system last year reportedly obtained access to some of President Obama’s email correspondence, forcing officials to meet nearly daily for weeks afterward. NYT reports that the hackers obtained an undisclosed number of Obama’s emails – sensitivity unclear – and his email account itself appears to have escaped
• The guarded servers for Obama’s Blackberry, which he uses constantly to communicate with top aides, don’t appear to have been penetrated in the hack, which also hit the State Dept. Earlier this month, CNN reported hackers linked to the Russian govt had obtained a copy of Obama’s schedule, including info not publicly available nor in general schedules give to media
• WH spox Josh Earnest declined at the time to identify who was behind the attack, saying “our investigators have concluded it’s not in our best interests to identify the entity that may be responsible.” Officials told CNN the hackers got in through a foothold at State. “It’s the Russian angle to this that’s particularly worrisome,” a senior official told NYT
• “This has been one of the most sophisticated actors we’ve seen,” one senior American official briefed on the investigation told NYT, which reported senior WH officials have known the hack’s depth for months. Thursday, Pentagon chief Ash Carter disclosed that Russian hackers had broken into unclassified networks at DoD, but were quickly IDd and thrown off
• Russia, a key adversary of the U.S. in cyberspace, is believed to have found its way into most areas of critical U.S. infrastructure, including putting malware on software in the oil and gas pipeline industries and for wind turbines (Hill, me)
• DoJ is close to issuing the first round of economic sanctions against foreign entities over hacking complaints. The sanctions could include freezing hackers’ assets, among other things. Unclear which hackers are the targets (ABC News, Hill, me)
GOP 2016ers Talk Faith in Iowa
• Nine Republican 2016 candidates spoke about the depth of their faith to more than 1,000 attendees at Saturday’s Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition Summit. Gov Bobby Jindal (R-LA) opened his speech by asking for an “Amen” from the crowd (WSJ, NYT, me)
• Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that believers in traditional marriage must “fall to our knees and pray” when the Supreme Court takes up oral arguments on same-sex marriage this week. Cruz, who drew some of the loudest applause of the night, also said: “Religious liberty is an issue that unifies us.”
• Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) said “countries that persecute Christians shouldn’t get one penny of our dollars.” Former Gov Mike Huckabee (R-AR) defended controversial comments he made earlier in the week that same-sex marriage was “criminalizing Christians in this country.” He got applause in response
• Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) defended traditional marriage. “Thousands of years of human history teach us a simple truth: The ideal way to raise children is when a mother and father married to each other, living in the same house, raise children together.”
• Speakers reserved their fire for Hillary Clinton. Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett Packard chief exec, said it wasn’t being a woman that would keep Clinton out of the WH. Rather, Fiorina said, “She can’t be a president of the U.S. because she’s not trustworthy.”
• The Clinton Foundation’s acting CEO Maura Pally wrote in a lengthy statement Sunday: “
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