Archive for May, 2015

House sends Iran nuclear program bill to Obama …

The measure passed with an overwhelming bipartisan vote 400-25.

The bill, which was passed by the Senate last week 98-1, now goes to the President for his signature. Initially the White House resisted efforts to give Congress a role in weighing in on an agreement. But once it became apparent that both Republicans and Democrats had a veto-proof majority, the White House said it would support a compromise crafted by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tennessee and the top Democrat on the panel, Sen Ben Cardin, D-Maryland.

During the House debate on the bill Republicans emphasized that they were deeply skeptical that the Administration could reach a significant deal with Iran, a country they said repeatedly engaged in state sponsored terrorism.

"I fear that the agreement that is coming will be too short, sanctions relief will be too rapid, inspectors will be too restricted, and Iran's missile program will be plain ignored," Rep. Ed Royce, R-California, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said on the House floor.

Even Democrats expressed doubt that the Obama Administration could get the kind of agreement they could back.

"I agree with Secretary Kerry when he says that no deal is better than a bad deal. The question is, we want to make sure a bad deal isn't sold as a good deal. And that's why it's important for Congress to be engaged," Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee said on the House floor.

A group of House conservatives pressed House Republican leaders to allow some changes to the Senate bill, arguing it didn't go far enough to ensure that the lifting of sanctions didn't mean Iran could funnel money to terror groups. But their effort was turned down because leaders believed any effort to reopen the compromise would unravel it and leave Congress with no role.

Instead, as a gesture to these conservatives, GOP leaders allowed a vote on a separate measure that would impose sanctions on any foreign banks who do business with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant organization. A similar House bill passed unanimously last year, but was never considered by the Senate.

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Iraq | Reuters.com

BAGHDAD - Islamic State militants raised their black flag over the local government headquarters in the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Friday and claimed victory through mosque loudspeakers after overrunning most of the western provincial capital. |Video

BAGHDAD - Islamic State militants raised their black flag over the local government headquarters in the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Friday and claimed victory through mosque loudspeakers after overrunning most of the western provincial capital. |Video

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - The militant group that said it was behind Wednesday's massacre of 45 commuters in Karachi is a dangerous outfit with ties to Pakistan's Taliban, but intelligence sources voiced doubts about claims it had received financial support from Islamic State.

SARAJEVO - Bosnia has indicted 12 people for forming a terrorist group and traveling to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State, the state prosecutor's office said on Friday.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Republican Jeb Bush reversed position Thursday on whether the U.S. should have invaded Iraq, reflecting a struggle between being his own man in his expected run for the White House and remaining loyal to his brother who started the war, former President George W. Bush. |Video

BEIRUT - Islamic State issued an audio recording on Thursday that it said was by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, calling on supporters around the world to join the fight in Syria and Iraq or to take up arms wherever they live.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday the deputy commander of the Islamic State group had been killed in an air strike in the north of the country, but the U.S. military denied coalition air forces had conducted such an attack.

LONDON - Prince Charles wrote to ministers on issues ranging from resources for British troops in Iraq to the fate of the Patagonian Toothfish, according to private letters published on Wednesday against government wishes.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - British interior minister Theresa May declined on Wednesday to say whether three British teenage brides of Islamic State fighters in Iraq who are reported to have escaped the militant group would be allowed back into the country.

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Iraq | Reuters.com

This Should Be Rand Pauls Moment. Is He Going to Miss It …

Filibuster Time

05.15.155:15 AM ET

The NSA reform. Jebs Iraq fumbling. Even Stephanopouloss donations to the Clinton Foundation. This news cycle seems tailor-made for Randbut will he do anything more than criticize?

Praise Aqua Buddha! Rand Paul, the United States senator from Kentucky and Republican presidential candidate, has been gifted a news cycle that feels designedby a certain false idol, perhapsto flatter him.

First, the House of Representatives passed the USA Freedom Act, which, while ending mass phone data collection, extends much of the 2001 Patriot Act that Paul vehemently opposes. That position puts Paul at odds with exactly the sort of people he wants to be at odds with: more moderate primary hopefuls Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, both of whom support NSA surveillance on American citizens.

Pauls preparing to milk that contrast for all its worth by threatening to filibuster. I have until May 19th to mobilize the grassroots for this fight and Im counting on your immediate support, he told donors via e-mail Thursday. I need to know right now if I can count on you to stand with me as I filibuster the so-called PATRIOT Act.

Then Paul was handed another opportunity.

As Bush campaigned on the West Coast, he was asked a fairly obvious question: Knowing what he knows now, would he have supported his brother, George W. Bush, in his decision to invade Iraq in 2003? Yes or I dont know were his stammering answers.

Talking about the future is more than fair, Bush said. Talking about the past and saying how you would have done something after the fact is a little tougher and it doesnt necessarily change things. He dismissed such hypothetical questions.

Paul, who has consistently said throughout his political career that he opposed the war in Iraq, responded in an interview with Politico: I dont think its hypothetical whether or not its a good idea to topple secular dictators in the Middle East and hope to get a good outcome and hope that stability comes thereafter. Iraq, Paul said, was an example of such a strategy failing.

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Hillary Clinton visits Brooklyn to meet staffers …

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pictured here on Tuesday, March 3, has become one of the most powerful people in Washington. Here's a look at her life and career through the years.

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Before she married Bill Clinton, she was Hillary Rodham. Here, Rodham talks about student protests in 1969, which she supported in her commencement speech at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

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Rodham, center, a lawyer for the Rodino Committee, and John Doar, left, chief counsel for the committee, bring impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon in the Judiciary Committee hearing room at the U.S. Capitol in 1974.

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Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton helps first lady Rosalynn Carter on a campaign swing through Arkansas in June 1979. Also seen in the photo is Hillary Clinton, center background.

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Bill Clinton embraces his wife shortly after a stage light fell near her on January 26, 1992. They talk to Don Hewitt, producer of the CBS show "60 Minutes."

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Hillary Clintons litmus test for Supreme Court nominees …

This post has beenupdated.

Hillary Clinton told a group of her top fundraisersThursday that if she is elected president, her nominees to the Supreme Court will have to share her belief thatthe court's 2010 Citizens United decision must be overturned, according to people who heard her remarks.

Clinton's emphatic opposition to the ruling, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on independent political activity, garnered the strongest applause of the afternoon from the more than200 party financiers gathered in Brooklyn for a closed-door briefing from the Democratic candidate and her senior aides, according to some of those present.

"She got major applausewhen she said would not name anybody to the Supreme Court unless she has assurances that they would overturn" the decision, said one attendee, who, like others, requested anonymity to describe the private session.

If the make-up of the court does not change by 2017, four of the justices will be 78 years of age or older by the time the next president is inaugurated.

Clintons pledge to use opposition to Citizens United as a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees echoes the stance taken by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is challenging her for the Democratic nomination.

If elected president, I will have a litmus test in terms of my nominee to be a Supreme Court justice, Sanders said on CBS Face the Nation on Sunday. And that nominee will say that we are all going to overturn this disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United because that decision is undermining American democracy. I do not believe that billionaires should be able to buy politicians.

On Thursday, Clintonalso reiterated her support for a constitutional amendment that would overturnCitizens United, a long-shot effort that is nonetheless popular among Democratic activists.

"She said she is goingto do everything she can," the attendee said. "She was very firm about this that this Supreme Court decision is just a disaster."

A campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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