Iran Deal Cartoon

VA hospital chief draws $179G salary despite missing 80 days over 1 year

DeWayne Hamlin, the top official of the Department of Veterans Affairs' Puerto Rico hospital, was absent from the hospital some 80 days in a one-year period, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Hamlin was paid $179,700 despite being absent from the hospital approximately one in three business days last year, according to "delegation of authority" documents by which he temporarily transferred his job responsibilities to deputies.
In April 2014, for example, he was absent from the 10th to the 18th, then from the 24th to the 27th. He also submitted a delegation document saying he would be gone the 28th and 29th. For part of that time, he was traveling to Florida, where he previously lived. He was arrested by Florida police while sitting in his car at 2:00 a.m. on the 26th.
Police said that he smelled of alcohol, twice refused to take a breath test, and that they found oxycodone for which he did not have a prescription. He reportedly refused to say where he got the painkiller.

Rubio to announce whether he'll join 2016 race on April 13

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio confirmed Monday on Fox News that he will announce April 13 whether he will be a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.
“I will announce on April 13th what I’m going to do next in terms of running for president or the U.S. Senate,” Rubio said on Fox News’ “The Five.”
Rubio has said he would not run for both offices in 2016, while his team has been moving ahead as though it were putting together a White House bid, including donors who helped previous presidential nominees collect tens of millions of dollars.
But Rubio faces steep challenges to win the nomination, including from his one-time mentor, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. He could face as many as 20 other rivals for the GOP nomination.
Rubio also told supporters to check the site www.MarcoRubio.com, which now reads, “Big announcement is coming! Will you be there?”
Rubio plans to sell a chance to win tickets to any campaign kickoff for $3.05, a nod to Miami's 305 area code. It would also a way for the nascent campaign to collect contact information from everyone who wants to be in the audience that day, including low-dollar donors.
A site for the announcement has not been finalized but Rubio's senior aides plan to visit the Miami area on Tuesday to scout options.
A first-generation immigrant whose parents fled Cuba, Rubio could make history as the nation's first Hispanic president. Rubio frames his pitch to voters as the embodiment of the American dream, a son of a maid and bartender who worked his way through law school and now sits in Congress.

Arab League to create joint military force

Leaders of the 22 countries that make up the Arab League are vowing to defeat Iranian-backed Shiite rebels in Yemen, and other countries, by creating a joint Arab military force that is setting the stage for potential Middle East clashes between U.S.-allied Arab nations and Tehran.
Members of the Arab League met in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss the growing threat to the region’s Arab identity by what they called moves by "foreign" or "outside parties" who have stoked sectarian, ethnic or religious rivalries in Arab states.
The Arab League is made up of 22 independent Arab states -- including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

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March 28, 2015 - Egyptian Pres Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi (ctr) Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby (left) and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, preside over a meeting of Arab heads of state, in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. El-Sissi endorsed a resolution creating an Arab military force, saying the Arab world was currently facing unprecedented threats.

Much of the rhetoric was aimed at Iran, which has consolidated its hold in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and, most recently, Yemen. Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi blamed Iran for what he said was its intervention "in many nations," while speaking to reporters after the summit.
The weekend meetings resulted in a resolution declaring a newly unveiled joint Arab defense force that would be deployed at the request of any Arab nation facing a national security threat. The force -- comprised of some 40,000 elite troops, war planes, navy ships and weapons -- could also be used to combat terrorist groups like the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
"The Arab leaders have decided to agree on the principle of a joint Arab military force," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Sunday, describing the growing threats to the region as "unprecedented.”
The Arab League will work with military representatives of its members to organize the voluntary force, the BBC reported.  Analysts say establishing the force could take months and it’s unlikely that all 22 members of the Arab League will join.
Saudi Arabia is already leading a 10-nation coalition to carry out airstrikes against Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen, which pit Sunni Arab nations against Shiite Iran. The strikes are in support of Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who was forced to flee after gains by the Houthi fighters. Saudi Arabia says the Houthis are backed by Iran, but the rebels deny receiving support from Tehran.
Pakistani officials said Monday that Pakistan will send troops to Saudi Arabia to join the coalition against the Yemeni rebels, Reuters reported.
The Saudi-led offensive against the Houthis would "continue until the militia withdraws and surrenders its weapons," Chief al-Arabi said.
"Yemen was on the brink of the abyss, requiring effective Arab and international moves after all means of reaching a peaceful resolution have been exhausted to end the Houthi coup and restore legitimacy," he added.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Sunday that the U.S.  is giving logistical and military support to the ongoing operation in Yemen to try to restore stability between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
“We obviously are interested in coordinating with GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries including militarily. This is something we're considering in light of the security challenges in the region,” Earnest said.
The Arab League agreement came as U.S. and other Western diplomats were pushing to meet a Tuesday deadline to reach a deal with Iran that would restrict its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Deadline day for Iran nuclear talks dawns with sides far apart on key issues

Diplomats tasked with crafting the framework of a permanent agreement on the status of Iran's nuclear program faced a long day and night of talks in Switzerland Wednesday, with no guaranteed of success.
Early Tuesday morning, top diplomats of four of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany met alone and then with Iran's foreign minister to try to bridge the remaining gaps.
"Long day ahead," Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a tweet announcing the early Tuesday morning start of the foreign ministers' meeting with Iranian officials.
The so-called P5+1 nations -- the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China -- have until midnight local time (6 p.m. Eastern Time) to hammer out an understanding that would serve as the jumping-off point to conclude a final deal by the end of June. The negotiation deadline has already been extended twice since an interim agreement was reached in November 2013, and it was not immediately clear what failure to meet this deadline would do for the future of the talks.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in the Swiss town of Lausanne since Thursday in an intense effort to reach a political understanding on terms that would curb Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Kerry and others at the table said the sides have made some progress, with Iran considering demands for further cuts to its uranium enrichment program but pushing back on how long it must limit technology it could use to make atomic arms. In addition to sticking points on research and development, differences remain on the timing and scope of sanctions removal, officials told the Associated Press.
Adding another layer of complexity to the difficult negotiations, The Wall Street Journal, citing Western officials, reported late Monday that there are signs that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has not granted his negotiators the power to budge from their positions on certain critical issues.
In particular, the Journal reported that Khamenei has repeatedly insisted that U.N. sanctions be lifted immediately once any deal takes effect. By contrast, the U.S. and the other nations involved have proposed that sanctions would be lifted gradually and be tied to Iran living up to promises it has made in any agreement.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday that Iran's expectations from the talks are "very ambitious" and not yet acceptable to his country or the other five negotiating: the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov left the talks on Monday and planned to return only if the prospects for a deal looked good.
Iran's deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told Iranian state television on Monday that the talks were not likely to reach any conclusion until "tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."
The Obama administration says any deal will stretch the time Iran needs to make a nuclear weapon from the present two to three months to at least a year. But critics object that it would keep Tehran's nuclear technology intact.
Officials in Lausanne said the sides were advancing on limits to aspects of Iran's program to enrich uranium, which can be used to make the core of a nuclear warhead.
Tehran has said it is willing to address concerns about its stockpiles of enriched uranium, although it has denied that will involve shipping it out of the country, as some Western officials have said. One official said on Monday that Iran might deal with the issue by diluting its stocks to a level that would not be weapons grade.
Uranium enrichment has been the chief concern in over more than a decade of international attempts to cap Iran's nuclear programs. But Western officials say the main obstacles to a deal are no longer enrichment-related but instead the type and length of restrictions on Tehran's research and development of advanced centrifuges and the pace of sanctions-lifting.
Over the past weeks, Iran has moved from demanding that it be allowed to keep nearly 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, to agreeing to 6,000. The officials said Tehran now may be ready to accept even fewer.
Tehran says it wants to enrich only for energy, science, industry and medicine. But many countries fear Iran could use the technology to make weapons-grade uranium.

Reid Cartoon

President Obama and the high price we paid for Bowe Bergdahl

After almost a year of debate, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been charged with desertion and misbehaving before the enemy.
This was the expectation and, I believe, the right decision. Bergdahl left his post in Paktika, Afghanistan, in the middle of the night in June 2009 after expressing his disappointment with U.S. policy there. Six brave soldiers died looking for him once he was taken by the Taliban. These were lives we never should have lost.
Furthermore, we are now facing the possibility of losing even more lives in this saga.

The Bergdahl trade was a bad one on every level.

Three main points highlight the absurdity of swapping five high-level Taliban terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay to bring Bergdahl back to the U.S., and the level of bad decision-making involved.
1. The swap itself.
In exchange for Bergdahl, we turned the prisoners over to the Qatari government, a so-called friendly government but one we have no good reason to trust at this level. And the supervised release is set to expire in just two months.
Recent reports suggest that at least three of the five Taliban leaders have attempted to “re-engage” with their old terror networks, the most disastrous outcome we could’ve expected from this.
To this end, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said, “I’ve seen nothing that causes me to believe these folks are reformed or [have] changed their ways or intend to reintegrate to society in ways to give me any confidence that they will not return to trying to do harm to America.”
It looks like Pompeo is right.
2. There was no congressional oversight of the swap.
The Obama administration went ahead with this deal on its own, leaving top figures in Congress in the dark.
Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) broke with President Obama on this, telling reporters, “It’s very disappointing that there was not a level of trust sufficient to justify alerting us.”
I’d say it’s more than disappointing. It’s an egregious overreach on the part of the administration and shows a complete disregard for process and for Congress itself. Moreover, as negotiations with the Iranians on a nuclear deal continue, the lack of congressional oversight there is increasingly worrying.
3. Susan Rice.
It’s almost as if I don’t need to write anything more on this beyond her name, but it’s important to make this clear. Rice went on all the Sunday shows arguing that Bergdahl served with honor and distinction. She praised the swap – and the decision-making that brokered the deal in the first place.
Just like on Benghazi, she has been proven wrong. And it’s understandable that many are questioning how she still has her job.
The Bergdahl trade was a bad one on every level.
This is not to say that I am not aware of, and cognizant of, the argument that the U.S. should never leave an American behind, especially in enemy hands. However, in this case, I believe it to be a principle that must be considered alongside competing priorities.
And the price we have now paid for a deserter is just much too high.

Military planning to spend billions on new Air Force One

The Pentagon is considering spending billions of dollars on three new Boeing 747s to use as Air Force One, the aircraft that shuttles the United States president.
According to CBS News, the current Air Force One fleet is getting old, and the U.S. military says it’s time for a new generation to carry future commanders in chief.
"We've got a pretty good size team working on it," said Air Force Col. Amy McCain, who is in charge of ordering the new Air Force One, according to the station.
McCain's team has grown to 80 people from 20 in the past year. The team is expected to swell to 100 shortly.

"It's actually cheaper in the long run to replace it."- Air Force Col. Amy McCain

Budget paperwork shows the military requested from Congress $102 million this year to buy the planes, with the numbers growing to more than $3 billion over the next five years. Those numbers do not include the final three years of the project, CBS reported.
Questions linger as to whether taxpayers can afford to buy a new presidential plane.
"The current airplane was fielded in 1991," McCain said. "It's the only 747-200 left in the United States that is flying. So it costs a lot more time and money to keep that airplane flying than it used to. It's actually cheaper in the long run to replace it."
"The top priority is an affordable aircraft that will meet the presidential requirements," McCain said. "We're buying up to three. It depends on all the availability of having two airplanes available for the president at any one time."
The Air Force expects to ink its first contract with Boeing sometime in 2015 for the next Air Force One, and wants to have the new 747s flying the president in 2023.