Obama calls for release of Americans held in Iran, after nuke deal omitted them

President Obama called Tuesday for the release of Americans held in Iran, individually naming them during a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention -- a week after his diplomatic team helped strike a nuclear accord with Iran that did not secure the prisoners' freedom. 
The deal's failure to address the prisoners' status has fueled criticism of the Obama administration, though State Department officials have said they raised their imprisonment repeatedly. The president also scolded a reporter last week at a White House press conference for suggesting he was "content" to leave the prisoners out of the deal.
Obama vowed Tuesday to continue to press their case.
“We are not going to relent until we bring home Americans who are unjustly detained in Iran,” Obama said at the VFW convention in Pittsburgh.
Obama mentioned Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Pastor Saeed Abedini and former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati by name, saying all of them "should be released." He also said Iran should help the U.S. find retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who has been missing since 2007.
In his wide-ranging address, the president also took a jab at lawmakers criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, saying negative comments come from “the same people who rushed into war with Iraq.”
Obama accused them of “chest beating” and said they were simply popping off soundbites that could derail the still-delicate deal.
Obama’s comments came one day after the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed the agreement. Since then, the White House has mounted a massive outreach campaign to try to win over skeptics and avoid a veto showdown with Congress, which could play out this fall.
The president also told the crowd of veterans he wasn’t satisfied by the level of medical care they were receiving and called for fast-tracking funding for the Veterans Affairs department.
Obama said he has sent an “urgent request” to Congress that would give the VA more flexibility so it can transfer funds where needed.
“I’m calling on Congress to approve this request quickly,” Obama said, adding, “our vets need it and our hospitals need it.”
House Speaker John Boehner's office, in response, urged Obama to join House Republicans in supporting a new bill to give the VA secretary the authority to fire anyone for misconduct. A spokesman said the public doesn't need more "hollow platitudes."
Obama also addressed growing concerns in the military over Thursday’s massacre in Chattanooga, Tenn., that claimed the lives of five service members at two military facilities.
“We don’t know all the details of the attack in Chattanooga but we do know ISIL (Islamic State) has encouraged attacks on servicemembers,” Obama said, adding that it was difficult to detect ‘lone wolves’ but that the government was working hard to do just that.
Earlier Tuesday, Gen. Mark Milley, tapped to be the next Army chief of staff, said during his nomination hearing that he would support a push to arm soldiers manning recruiting stations if certain legal hurdles were cleared.
Obama’s multi-topic speech included comments on an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, U.S.-Cuba relations and the rise of the Islamic State.
He also announced that the Defense Department is close to finalizing predatory lending legislation that would close loopholes in the law that have “trapped some members of our military in an endless cycle of debt, adding financial strains to families that already bear the burden of defending our country.”
Obama made the announcement on the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank reform bill and said protecting veterans against predatory lenders “is the right thing to do” and that he would “not accept any attempts to roll back this law.”

Appeals court overturns some Blagojevich corruption convictions

A federal appeals court Tuesday overturned some of the corruption convictions that sent former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to prisoner for 14 years for trying to sell President Obama’s vacated Senate seat.
The unanimous ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago means Blagojevich, 58, could serve less than his original sentence, of which he has currently served just over three years in a Colorado prison.
The three-judge panel dismissed five of the 18 counts and ordered that the former governor be resentenced, although it suggested the original sentence wasn’t necessarily extreme.
The panel ruled that Blagojevich’s attempt to obtain a seat in Obama’s cabinet did not cross the line between legal and illegal political wheeling and dealing. However, his attempts to trade the Senate seat for campaign cash did cross the line.
Blagojevich wanted a Cabinet job in exchange for appointing Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to the vacant Senate seat. After Blagojevich's arrest, the seat went to Roland Burris, who served less than two years before a successor was chosen in a special election.
In its ruling, the appeals courts pointed to how President Dwight Eisenhower named Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court allegedly after Warren offered Eisenhower key political support during the 1952 campaign.
"If the (Blagojevich) prosecutor is right, and a swap of political favors involving a job for one of the politicians is a felony, then if the standard account is true both the President of the United States (Eisenhower) and the Chief Justice of the United States should have gone to prison," the ruling said.
Still, the ruling wasn't a resounding win for Blagojevich. The appellate judges upheld allegations that he sought to sell the Senate seat. He had argued that he didn't break the law because he never stated explicitly that he was willing to trade an appointment to the seat for campaign cash.
"Few politicians say, on or off the record, 'I will exchange official act X for payment Y,'" the opinion said. "Similarly persons who conspire to rob banks or distribute drugs do not propose or sign contracts in the statutory language. 'Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you know what I mean' can amount to extortion ... just as it can furnish the gist of a Monty Python sketch."
Prosecutors could appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court or could choose to retry Blagojevich on the dropped counts, though prosecutors often decline to retry a case if most of the counts are upheld. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon declined to discuss the ruling, including prosecutors' next moves.
Despite the ruling overturning a number of the convictions, Blagojevich’s legal team expressed disappointment. Len Goodman, the lead lawyer on the appeal team, said the ruling “doesn’t address the most serious errors in the trial,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Blagojevich’s wife Patti said she was also disappointed with the ruling, and that her husband had never intended to break the law. She did, however, express hope that her husband would be given a more lenient sentence.
“I think most people think the sentence is harsh for someone who never put a penny in his pocket,” she said, adding that her husband was “optimistic that justice will prevail eventually.”
The two-term governor proclaimed his innocence for years. Taking the stand at his decisive retrial in 2011, a sometimes-tearful Blagojevich said he was a flawed man but no criminal.
Jurors eventually convicted him of 18 counts; 11 dealt with charges that he tried to swap an appointment to the seat for campaign cash or a job, once musing about becoming ambassador to India.
Blagojevich was also convicted on other play-to-pay schemes. They include the attempted shakedown of the Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago for a contribution to Blagojevich's campaign.
After his arrest on Dec. 9, 2008, Blagojevich became the butt of jokes on late-night TV, including for his well-coiffed hair and his foul-mouthed rants on FBI wiretaps. The most notorious excerpt was one where he crows about the Senate seat, "I've got this thing and it's f------ golden. And I'm just not giving it up for f------ nothing."

Army chief Odierno, in exit interview, says US could have ‘prevented’ ISIS rise

EXCLUSIVE: The Army’s top officer told Fox News Tuesday it’s “frustrating” to watch the gains he helped achieve in Iraq disintegrate at the hands of the Islamic State, saying in an exit interview that the chaos now unfolding “might have been prevented” had the U.S. stayed more engaged.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, weeks away from retirement after 39 years in uniform, spent more time in Iraq than any other U.S. Army general -- more than four years, the last two as top commander. He is widely viewed as a key architect of the Iraq surge.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News, the general tackled a range of topics, from the Iran nuclear deal to the deep cuts to U.S. Army troop levels. But Odierno had pointed words on the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria – suggesting it didn’t have to be this way.
“It's frustrating to watch it,” Odierno said. “I go back to the work we did in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 and we got it to a place that was really good. Violence was low, the economy was growing, politics looked like it was heading in the right direction.”

Odierno said the fall of large parts of Iraq was not inevitable, reiterating concerns about the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal there.
“If we had stayed a little more engaged, I think maybe it might have been prevented,” he said. “I've always believed the United States played the role of honest broker between all the groups and when we pulled ourselves out, we lost that role.”
In 2009, while still the top commander in Iraq, Odierno recommended keeping 30,000-35,000 U.S. troops after the end of 2011, when the U.S. was scheduled to pull out. The recommendation was not followed.
“I think it would have been good for us to stay,” Odierno said, when asked if it was a mistake to pull out.
Further, when ISIS took over large portions of Iraq last year including its second-largest city, Mosul, the White House apparently didn’t reach out to the Army officer who had spent more time commanding U.S. forces than anyone else.
“All my work was given to [Joint Chiefs] Chairman [Martin] Dempsey,” Odiernio said. “I never talked directly to the president about it at that time, but I talked to the secretary of defense and I'm sure he relayed all of my thoughts,” he added.
Odierno, though, is most worried about the deep cuts to the Army over the past four years – from 570,000 troops in 2010 to near 490,000 today, a reduction of 14 percent. And the cuts are getting deeper.
“In my mind, we don't have the ability to deter. The reason we have a military is to deter conflict and prevent wars. And if people believe we are not big enough to respond, they miscalculate,” Odierno said.
Earlier this month, the Army announced an additional cut of 40,000 troops, which would take the Army down to 450,000 soldiers -- or pre-9/11 levels -- the result of a decision taken two years ago.
"I believed at the time we could do that,” said Odierno. “But I said we were on the razor’s edge that we could actually do our mission at 450.”
He added: “Two years ago, we didn’t think we had a problem in Europe. … [Now] Russia is reasserting themselves. We didn’t think we’d have a problem again in Iraq and ISIS has emerged.
“So, with Russia becoming more of a threat, with ISIS becoming more of a threat, in my mind, we are on a dangerous balancing act right now with capability.”
“When we go to 450, we are going to have to stop doing something," said Odierno.
As for what message these cuts send to adversaries of the United States, Odierno said: “I believe they question whether we will be able to respond and so they're willing to take maybe a bit more risk than they might have just a few years ago.”
While Odierno says he supports the recently announced nuclear deal with Iran, he warned that Iran will not change its behavior in the region.
“Iran has continued to do malign activities throughout the Middle East [and] they will continue,” warned Odierno, who blamed Iran for contributing to the unraveling of Iraq and the rise of ISIS.
Dempsey recently told Congress that Iran was responsible for roughly 500 American deaths, an estimate Odierno did not dispute.
Odierno said of Iran: “We can't be naïve.”

Navy officer, Marine reportedly returned fire at Chattanooga gunman

A Navy officer and one of the Marines murdered in last week's attack on a military center in Chattanooga fired their personal weapons at the gunman, according to a report published Wednesday.
The Navy Times, citing multiple military officials familiar with internal reports on the tragedy, reported that Lt. Cmdr. Timothy White, the commanding officer at the Navy Operational Support Center, fired his sidearm at Mohammed Abdulazeez during Thursday's attack.
The paper, citing a Navy official, also reported that one of the four Marines killed in the attack fired his 9mm Glock at the gunman. A Navy sailor also died in the shootout, as did the gunman. The possibility that the Marine had used his personal sidearm during the shooting was first reported by The Washington Post Monday.
A source close to the investigation told the Navy Times that while the details of the attack's final moments are unclear, authorities have uncovered no information that contradicts the Navy's own reporting.
Law enforcement sources told Fox News Tuesday that the FBI recovered the Glock at the scene and noted it did not belong to either the shooter or police. The sources said the weapon had been fired. Details about what type of weapon White used are unclear.
It is still unclear whether the shots that killed Abdulazeez were fired by White, the Marine, or local police. Fox News has learned that autopsies of the gunman and his victims have been completed and could be released later this week. The Navy Times reported that investigators won't know who fired the shots that stopped the rampage until a ballistics assessment is performed.
It is against Defense Department policy for anyone but military police or law enforcement to carry weapons on federal property. It was not immediately clear whether White would face disciplinary action.
The shooting at so-called “gun-free” military installations in Tennessee has prompted calls for a policy change.
Governors in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Indiana and Florida have ordered National Guardsmen to be armed, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott relocated recruiters to armories.
U.S. military officials have said security at recruiting and reserve centers will be reviewed, but the Army's top officer, Gen. Ray Odierno, said it's too early to say whether the facilities should have security guards or other increased protection. He said there are concerns about accidental discharges and other security issues related to carrying loaded weapons.
However, Gen. Mark Milley, the man tapped as Odierno's replacement as Army chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that if legal issues could be resolved he thinks it would be appropriate, in some cases, to arm soldiers manning recruiting stations.
Tucked in strip malls in rural and suburban communities and in high-traffic city spots like New York's Times Square, military recruiting and reserve stations are designed to be open and welcoming to the public. The troops inside aren't allowed to carry weapons.
The ban is largely due to legal issues, such as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement. U.S. forces don't routinely carry guns when they are not in combat or on military bases. And Pentagon officials are sensitive to any appearance of armed troops within the United States.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported Wednesday that the gunman, 24-year-old Abdulazeez, searched the Internet in the days leading up to the attack for information from Islamic sources about whether martyrdom would to forgiveness for his sins, such as drunkenness. The Hixson, Tenn. native was due in court after being arrested in April on a charge of driving under the influence

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Rubio: It's 'Capitulation Monday' for Obama on Iran, Cuba

Sen. Marco Rubio said Monday, July 20, will go down in history as President Obama's "Capitulation Day," as it marked the day that the United Nations Security Council voted to lift international sanctions on Iran in returning for limits on its nuclear program, and when embassies were opened in Washington and Havana.
"History will remember July 20, 2015, as Obama's Capitulation Monday, the day two sworn enemies of the United States were able to outmaneuver President Obama to secure historic concessions," the Florida Republican said in a statement.
Events at the United Nations, Washington and Havana, he said, are proof that "we have entered the most dangerous phase of the Obama presidency." He accused Obama of "flat-out abandoning America's vital national security interests to cozy up to the world's most reprehensible regimes."
The U.N. Security Council vote took place Monday morning, U.S. time, in Brussels. The Obama administration moved forward with the vote despite sharp bipartisan resistance in Congress. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., have urged the administration not to move forward with the vote, arguing that it undercuts Congress and the Senate's Constitutional mandate to review all international treaties.

Killed in her sleep: Illegal immigrants suspected in Mass. grandma's death faced deportation

A Massachusetts woman killed as she slept in her bed by a bullet fired through her ceiling would be alive today, if the men accused of shooting her had been deported, according to anti-illegal immigration activists.
Mirta Rivera, 41, a nurse and grandmother from Lawrence, was shot July 4 from an upstairs apartment where two illegal immigrants lived despite being under federal deportation orders, according to the Boston Herald. Dominican Republic nationals Wilton Lara-Calmona and Jose M. Lara-Mejia both had long histories of sneaking into the U.S.
The case, as well as a pending murder case in neighboring Connecticut involving an illegal immigrant accused in the stabbing death of a woman, comes after the July 1 murder of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco helped propel illegal immigrant crime into a hot-button national issue.
“This has been happening all over the country for several years,” said Dan Cadman, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a retired federal immigration official. “I hope the American public is stirred up and angry about it.

“There are families all over the country that are grieving because they lost their mother, father, brother, sister, child or spouse needlessly.”
- Dan Cadman, Center for Immigration Studies

“But I hope they realize there are so many more victims,” he added. “There are families all over the country that are grieving because they lost their mother, father, brother, sister, child or spouse needlessly.”
Lara-Calmona, 38, was deported in April 2012 and arrested for re-entering the country last November, the Herald reported. Lara-Mejia, 35, was nabbed crossing the border in August 2013 and ordered deported in April 2014, but apparently ignored the ruling.
The suspects and a third roommate, Christopher Paganmoux, were charged with trafficking heroin and cocaine after police investigating the shooting found drugs in their home. But the bullet hole in Lara-Mejia’s second-floor bedroom, which penetrated the ceiling above Rivera’s bed, and a Sears and Roebuck .270 bolt-action rifle that matched the bullet found in Rivera’s mattress, are expected to lead to murder charges.

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Mirta Rivera was killed as she slept in her bed.

In Norwich, Conn., Jean Jacques, 40, a Haitian illegal immigrant who got out of prison in January after serving 17 years for attempted murder, has been charged with stabbing Casey Chadwick, 25, to death and stuffing her in a closet last month. Jacques’ prison file was marked "Detainer: Immigration," according to the Norwich Bulletin.
But the case seems to have sparked the same sort of finger-pointing between local, state and federal officials as was seen in the aftermath of the Steinle murder. In that case, ICE officials said they had requested that San Francisco hold Steinle’s alleged killer, Francisco Sanchez, until they could pick him up and evict him from the country. San Francisco refused, with its sheriff later saying it was only a “request,” and that he was not allowed to comply with it.
Connecticut officials say Jacques was released in January to the custody of the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but was never deported. While ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer told the newspaper he was barred by law from discussing Jacques' case, Connecticut last year became the first state to enact legislation that prohibited law enforcement agencies from holding people simply because federal authorities asked that they be held for deportation.
The measure was touted as a way to strengthen immigrant families and it does not extend to convicted felons such as Jacques or people with a "final order" of deportation.
Because local and state governments rarely pass comprehensive codes detailing their level of non-cooperation with the federal government on illegal immigration, and because the federal government itself has refused to enforce its own immigration laws, it is difficult to say where the blame lies, said one expert.
“We have two-tiered sanctuary policies,” said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “You have it at the local level, where cities refuse to cooperate, but you also have it at the national level. The Obama administration won’t enforce the laws federally, and the local communities won’t locally.
“You could make the case that America is now a sanctuary country,” Dane said.

UN Security Council endorses Iran deal, Tehran diplomat lashes out at US

The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously endorsed the Iran nuclear deal, though the show of support was interrupted shortly afterward by a war of words between the American and Iranian ambassadors. 
Iran's ambassador lashed out at the U.S. mere moments after the vote, in retaliation for U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power bringing up Tehran's human rights record.
Power, during the session, had raised concerns about Iran's support for terror proxies and reiterated a U.S. demand that Iran release all unjustly held American prisoners. Iran's ambassador fired back, blaming the U.S. for instability in the region and calling Power's criticism "ironic."
"The country that invaded two countries in our region and created favorable grounds for the growth of terrorism and extremism is not well placed to raise such accusations against my country," Iranian U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said, calling past U.S. actions in the region "feckless" and "reckless."
The exchange, which came as Israel's representative continued to assail the deal itself, hung over what was nevertheless the first formal step at the international body toward implementing the deal and rolling back U.N. sanctions.
The movement at the U.N. still faces resistance in Washington, where lawmakers had wanted the Security Council to wait until Congress formally reviews the landmark agreement. The White House says the Security Council's actions won't take effect for another 90 days, but congressional lawmakers had urged President Obama to halt Monday's vote -- and allow Congress to vote first.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on Monday called it an "end-run around Congress."
"I don't know why they're going to the United Nations [first]," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told "Fox News Sunday."
Cardin and Barrasso were joined by several top-ranking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in urging a pause at the U.N.
Congress has 60 days to review the deal -- and then vote for or against it, or take no action. "I think they should have gone to the United Nations after the 60-day review," Cardin said. "They don't gain anything by doing it earlier."
But the Obama administration argued that they were still showing deference to Congress, and that the U.N. shouldn't be hamstrung during that review period.
"They have a right to [vote on the deal], honestly. It's presumptuous of some people to suspect that France, Russia, China, Germany, Britain ought to do what the Congress tells them to do," Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC's "This Week." "They have a right to have a vote.  But we prevailed on them to delay the implementation of that vote out of respect for our Congress so we wouldn't be jamming them."
The vote Monday authorizes a series of measures leading to the end of U.N. sanctions that have hurt Iran's economy. But the measure also provides a mechanism for U.N. sanctions to "snap back" in place if Iran fails to meet its obligations.
The resolution had been agreed to by the five veto-wielding council members, who along with Germany negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. It was co-sponsored, and approved, by all 15 members of the Security Council.
The document specifies that seven resolutions related to U.N. sanctions will be terminated when Iran has completed a series of major steps to curb its nuclear program and the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that "all nuclear material in Iran remains in peaceful activities."
All provisions of the U.N. resolution will terminate in 10 years, including the snap back provision.
But last week the six major powers -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- and the European Union sent a letter, seen by The Associated Press, informing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that they have agreed to extend the snap back mechanism for an additional five years. They asked Ban to send the letter to the Security Council.
Following the endorsement, Israel's ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor blasted the move.
"If the international community refuses to see this as a tragedy, that is a grave strategic error. But if it is aware of the tragedy, and it still chooses to pursue this dangerous path, that is a catastrophe," he said.
U.S. Ambassador Power, in remarks that drew the rebuke from Iran's representative, said the nuclear deal doesn't change the United States' "profound concern about human rights violations committed by the Iranian government or about the instability Iran fuels beyond its nuclear program, from its support for terrorist proxies to repeated threats against Israel to its other destabilizing activities in the region."
She urged Iran to release three "unjustly imprisoned" Americans and to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who vanished in 2007.
"But denying Iran a nuclear weapon is important not in spite of these other destabilizing actions but rather because of them," Power said.
Under the nuclear agreement, Iran's nuclear program will be curbed for a decade in exchange for potentially hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of relief from international sanctions. Many key penalties on the Iranian economy, such as those related to the energy and financial sectors, could be lifted by the end of the year.