Kerry warns Iran nuclear talks ‘not open-ended’ amid more delays

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threatened Thursday to walk away from nuclear talks as he signaled that diplomats won't conclude an agreement over the coming hours -- another delay that this time could complicate American efforts to quickly implement any deal.
"This is not open-ended," Kerry told reporters outside the 19th-century Viennese palace hosting the negotiations. "We can't wait forever for the decision to be made. If the tough decisions don't get made, we are absolutely prepared to call an end to this process."
It was the strongest indication yet of U.S. frustration with Iran. It comes two days after President Barack Obama promised Senate Democrats the same response to Iranian intransigence, suggesting patience for continuing the current round of discussions was running out as it headed into its 14th day.
Thursday's latest delay for a comprehensive deal is significant. Iran is demanding prompt easing of economic penalties for nuclear concessions, and the longer it takes world powers to make good on their promises, the longer they'll have to wait for the Iranians to scale back their nuclear program.
Under U.S. law, the seven nations negotiating in Vienna have to complete the accord before the end of Thursday in Washington to avoid invoking a 60-day congressional review period during which President Barack Obama cannot waive sanctions on Iran. If they meet the target, the review would only be 30 days.
The specter of prolonged public relations campaigns for and against the pact also may not work in Obama's favor. The delay could imply that the U.S., Iran and other negotiating powers may end up having to push off the talks until September when any deal would again only amount to a 30-day review period.
"We will not rush and we will not be rushed," Kerry said.
"We would not be here continuing to negotiate just for the sake of negotiating. We're here because we believe we are making real progress toward a comprehensive deal," he said. But, he added: "We are not going to sit at the negotiating table forever."
Kerry spoke after discussing the state-of-play with other world powers for almost an hour Thursday evening. That conversation followed a flurry of other closed-door meetings, including a 45-minute session between Kerry and his Iranian counterpart.
"We're working hard, but not rushed, to get the job done," Zarif tweeted.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he would remain in Austria's capital for negotiations into Friday morning, citing "good things, but there is still work to do."
The current round of talks has already been extended twice since it started on June 27, as has an interim nuclear accord with Iran that these negotiations are meant to finalize. The preliminary deal was due to expire on June 30, then July 7 and then Friday. It would have to be renewed a third time if the talks go beyond Friday.
At an economic summit in Russia, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said his nation was preparing for a "post-sanctions" era, suggesting a deal may be in sight to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Kerry spoke by phone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was also in Russia and voiced optimism, saying he was prepared to return to Vienna.
And in what was widely seen as a hint that the talks might soon wrap up, the White House late Wednesday issued a brief statement saying President Barack Obama had conferred with the U.S. negotiating team through a secure video call.
The last time Obama held a secure conference call with his negotiators on the road was shortly before the framework for a final accord was reached on April 2 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Kerry, nursing a broken leg, has been in Vienna since June 26, while Zarif has made one short trip to Tehran for consultations. Other foreign ministers have come and gone. All but the top diplomats from Russia and China were present at Thursday's meetings.
When the talks missed their second deadline it raised new questions about the ability of world powers to cut off all Iranian pathways to nuclear weapons through diplomacy.
Long-standing differences persist over inspections of Iranian facilities and the Islamic republic's research and development of advanced nuclear technology.
New difficulties also have surfaced over the past few days. Iran is pushing for an end to a U.N. arms embargo on the country but Washington opposes that demand.

Conflict over Confederate flag spreads to Capitol Hill

Nazism at work?

WASHINGTON –  With South Carolina poised to take down its Confederate flag on Friday, the debate is quickly expanding to all symbols of the Confederacy -- and causing consternation among lawmakers.
The conflict over the Confederate flag spread to Capitol Hill Thursday in a politically-charged and emotionally-draining display from both House Democrats and Republicans, who accused each other of using the controversial and thorny topic as political leverage to advance their own agendas.
House Republicans abruptly abandoned plans to vote on a spending bill that included a provision to allow flying the Confederate flag in cemeteries operated by the National Park Service.
The vote would have reversed action the House had taken only hours earlier to ban the flags and underscores how toxic the fight over the flag – as well as other symbols linked to the Confederacy – has become.
“I actually think it is time for some adults here in the Congress to actually sit down and have a conversation about how to address this issue,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “I do not want this to become some political football. It should not. So I would expect you will see some conversations in the coming days.”
About an hour later, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., offered legislation to remove all state flags containing any portion of the Confederate battle flag emblem from the House side of the Capitol.
Republican lawmakers prevented the vote by referring it to a committee, while Boehner’s spokesman, Kevin Smith, accused Pelosi of pulling a “cheap political stunt.”
White House spokesman Josh Earnest questioned Republican priorities during his daily press briefing and said there was a sizeable group of GOP lawmakers who were “eager to protect the flag.”
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz also jumped into the drama, calling it an “example of the GOP’s abhorrent tone-deafness to what is happening across the nation in the wake of the Charleston tragedy.”
When the dust settled, any real action to continue or prohibit flying the Confederate flag on park service land appeared far off. First, the House amendment would have to be adopted. If it were to become law, it would take several more steps and need to pass the Senate, as well.
The Washington fallout came the same day South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a measure into law to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds where it has flown for more than five decades.
Before signing the legislation, Haley said the act of love and faith by the nine black victims who were gunned down by a white man during Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Church, had set in motion a chain of events that led to the flag’s removal. The man who has admitted to murdering the members of the Charleston church had been photographed multiple times standing in front of the Confederate flag.
Since then, states and towns across the country have been debating how to respond to the national momentum to remove Confederate symbols not only from government buildings but also from schools, streets and other public places. Questions linger over Confederate memorabilia, its place in society and the message it sends.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, said Thursday he supports the removal of some Confederate symbols, but called extreme measures to take down all symbols “political correctness run amok.”
In the past, Hogan has supported a move to remove the Confederate flag from specialty license plates, but pushed back Thursday against efforts to alter or remove official state symbols that have Confederate links, including the state song and state flag.
“Some of this other stuff to me... is really going too far. And it's political correctness run amok. Where do we draw the line?” he said.
In Nashville, a painting featuring an image of the Confederate flag was removed from the restaurant Acme Feed & Seed after complaints from patrons and criticism of both the establishment and one of the city’s mayoral candidates –an investor in the company – surfaced.
And even Walt Disney World turned political on Thursday, The amusement park announced it has taken down a banner bearing the Confederate flag was from a display of flags in Epcot’s American Adventure.

OPM chief shrugs off calls for her resignation

The government’s personnel office chief is rejecting bipartisan calls for her to step down following revelations that hackers stole the personal information of more than 21 million people on her watch.
Katherine Archuleta, director of the federal Office of Personnel Management, said she has no plans to step down and is committed to continuing her work for the agency. The White House, which had previously stated that President Barack Obama was confident in her leadership, said there were no plans to change its position despite the calls for her resignation.
The increased calls for Archuleta to be replaced came as the Obama administration disclosed Thursday that the number of people affected by the massive data breach was far higher than previously reported.
Hackers downloaded Social Security numbers, health histories or other highly sensitive data from OPM’s databases, affecting more than five times the 4.2 million people the government first disclosed this year. Since then, the administration acknowledged a second, related breach of systems housing private data individuals submit during background checks to obtain security clearances.
Officials said the same party was responsible for both hacks, but failed to identify what person or group perpetrated the hack. Numerous lawmakers have pointed the finger at China.
Word that the breach was far more severe than previously disclosed drew indignation from members of Congress who have said the administration has not done enough to protect personal data in their systems, as well as calls for Archuleta and her top deputies to resign.
House Republican leaders – Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Whip Steve Scalise – called for Archuleta’s resignation, and Boehner said the president must “take a strong stand against incompetence.”
Even Democrats joined the call for Archuleta to go. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia decried Archuleta for a “slow and uneven response” that he said had undermined confidence in her abilities.
"It is time for her to step down, and I strongly urge the administration to choose new management with proven abilities to address a crisis of this magnitude with an appropriate sense of urgency and accountability," Warner said.
Among the data the hackers stole: criminal, financial, health, employment and residency histories, as well as information about their families and acquaintances. The second, larger attack affected more than 19 million people who applied for clearances, as well as nearly 2 million of their spouses, housemates and others.
"Such incompetence is inexcusable," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, in repeating his calls for Archuleta's resignation. Chaffetz said Archuleta and her aides had "consciously ignored the warnings and failed to correct these weaknesses."
Yet Archuleta insisted Thursday she would not step down, telling reporters during a conference call, "I am committed to the work that I am doing."
"I truly understand the impact this has on our current and former employees, our military personnel and our contractors," she added.
Archuleta said the hackers obtained user names and passwords and that prospective employees used to fill out their background investigation forms, as well as the contents of interviews conducted as part of those investigations. But the government insisted there were no indications the hackers have used any of the data they obtained.
Members of Congress, including Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, said China was the main player behind the attack. Investigators have previously told The Associated Press that the U.S. was increasingly confident that China’s government – not criminal hackers – was responsible for the data breach.
Michael Daniel, Obama’s cybersecurity coordinator said Thursday that the government wasn’t ready to point an official finger at the hackers.
Still, he added cryptically, "Just because we're not doing public attribution does not mean that we're not taking steps to deal with the matter."
China has publicly denied involvement in the break-in.
The administration said it has stepped up its cybersecurity efforts by proposing new legislation, urging private industry to share more information about attacks and examining how the government conducts sensitive background investigations.
"Each and every one of us at OPM is committed to protecting the safety and the security of the info that is placed in our trust," Archuleta said. In early June, government employees received notice that OPM would offer credit-monitoring services and identity-theft insurance to those affected.
Meanwhile, the White House waited about a month before telling the public that hackers had stolen the personal information of millions of people associated with the government, people directly involved with the investigation told the AP last month.
"It's a treasure trove of information about everybody who has worked for, tried to work for, or works for the United States government," FBI Director James Comey said Thursday, describing the scope of the breach as "huge" and "a very big deal."

Billary Cartoon

NYSE repoens after trading stopped amid United Airlines, WSJ.com tech issues

Trading was halted for more than two hours on the New York Stock Exchange floor Wednesday after an internal technical issue was detected – which then set off speculation that a cyber-glitch at United Airlines and a temporary online outage at the Wall Street Journal newspaper were connected.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama had been briefed on the glitch that took out trading on the floor of the NYSE by White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco and chief of staff Denis McDonough.
He also said despite indications that it was not a cyber-breach, the administration was “keenly aware of the risk that exists in cyber space right now.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson tried to allay fears, saying, “It appears from what we know at this stage that the malfunctions at United and at the stock exchange were not the result of any nefarious actor.”
He added, “We know less about the Wall Street Journal at this point except that their system is back up again as is the United Airline system.”
Trading at the NYSE stopped around 11:30 a.m. ET though NYSE - listed shares continued to trade on other exchanges such as the Nasdaq.

More on this...

• Were tech glitches at NYSE and United a warning bell?

The NYSE, which is owned by Intercontinental Exchange and is the world’s largest stock exchange based on market capitalization, has experienced technical difficulties in the past. However, Wednesday’s issue by all accounts was out of the ordinary.
Shortly after the outage, which was unusual and symbolic, the NYSE tweeted that the issue was internal and not a breach.
"The issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber breach," the exchange tweeted. "We chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue."
Still, the timing of the event coincided with other cyber glitches.
The Wall Street Journal’s homepage displayed a 504 outage though other sections on the online paper’s website, continued to function. The homepage had been quickly restored following the outage.
“I think the Wall Street Journal piece is connected to people flooding their web site in response to the New York Exchange to find out what’s going on.” FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence committee. “In my business we don’t love coincidences, but it does appear that there is not a cyber-intrusion involved.”
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., the top Democrat on the cyber-security subcommittee, told Fox News that the NYSE incident has “the appearance” of a cyberattack and noted the coordination of multiple sites.
An FBI official told Fox News that the bureau has offered its assistance concerning the NYSE situation, but at this time it does not appear to be nefarious.
Stocks were already trading lower Wednesday when the glitch occurred. Traders had been worried about China’s inability to stop a steep drop in its own market. Traders have also been skittish as talks between Greece and its creditors seemed to have stalled.
U.S. stocks closed with sizable losses with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 261 points, Standard & Poor's 500 gave up 34 points and the Nasdaq was down 87 points.

Despite San Francisco criticism, Clinton once backed sanctuary city policies

High-profile Democrats now speaking out about San Francisco's "sanctuary" treatment of an illegal immigrant charged with the murder of a young woman weren't always so critical of the policies. 
Hillary Clinton and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., both criticized San Francisco for ignoring a federal request to hold Francisco Sanchez -- who already had been deported five times -- when he went into city custody in March. He was released in April, and is now in jail for the murder last week of Kate Steinle, 32. 
"The city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported," Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, said in an interview with CNN. "So I have absolutely no support for a city that ignores the strong evidence that should be acted on." 
But Clinton, when she was a New York senator running for president in 2007, was openly supportive of sanctuary city policies, which limit cooperation with federal immigration officials. 
Clinton said during an MSNBC debate that these policies exist to encourage people to report crimes. Without them, she said, "You will have people hiding from the police. And I think that is a real direct threat to the personal safety and security of all the citizens." 
Asked if she would allow sanctuary cities to disobey federal law, Clinton said: "Well, I don't think there is any choice. The ICE groups go in and raid individuals, but if you're a local police chief and you're trying to solve a crime that you know people from the immigrant community have information about, they may not talk to you if they think you're also going to be enforcing the immigration laws. Local law enforcement has a different job than federal immigration enforcement." 
Feinstein also has raised questions about San Francisco's actions, as has California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. 
California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democratic member of the House, has not spoken out on the case. 
Feinstein, in a letter, called on San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to start cooperating with federal immigration officials who want to deport felons such as Sanchez. 
"I strongly believe that an undocumented individual, convicted of multiple felonies and with a detainer request from ICE, should not have been released," Feinstein said. "We should focus on deporting convicted criminals, not setting them loose on our streets." 
Feinstein, though, got the ball rolling on the city's policies when she served as mayor from 1978-1988. She signed legislation in 1985 making the city a "sanctuary" for immigrant refugees from Central America. 
That policy was expanded significantly after Feinstein left office and now limits cooperation with federal officials for a range of illegal immigrant cases. 
Feinstein said in her letter that "dangerous criminals" should not be released. 
The mayor's office has said it reached out to Homeland Security officials to determine if there's a way to cooperate while still upholding the city's sanctuary policy. 
"Mayor Lee shares the senator's concerns surrounding the nature of Mr. Sanchez's transfer to San Francisco and release," said Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman for the mayor. "As the mayor has stated, we need to gather all of the facts as we develop potential solutions." 
San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi defended Sanchez's release and the city law requiring it to ignore ICE detainer requests. The sheriff said ICE could have obtained a warrant or court order to keep Sanchez in custody. 
"My long-held belief is that local law enforcement should not be in the civil immigration detainer business," Mirkarimi said last year. 
Sanchez entered a not guilty plea Tuesday in the shooting death of Steinle last week at a popular San Francisco tourist spot. 
His bail was set at $5 million and he could face life in prison if convicted in the murder.

Gowdy counters Clinton claim she 'never had a subpoena,' reveals document

House Republicans investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya on Wednesday released a March subpoena issued to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, one day after she said in a nationally televised interview that she "never had a subpoena" in the email controversy. 
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the Benghazi panel, said he had "no choice" but to make the subpoena public "in order to correct the inaccuracy" of Clinton's claim. 
Clinton told CNN on Monday that she "never had a subpoena," adding: "Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation." 
Gowdy said the committee issued the March 4 subpoena to Clinton personally after learning the full extent of her use of private emails while serving as secretary of state. 
Regardless of whether a subpoena was issued, "Secretary Clinton had a statutory duty to preserve records from her entire time in office, and she had a legal duty to cooperate with and tell the truth to congressional investigators requesting her records going back to September of 2012," Gowdy said in a statement. 
The dispute over the subpoena is the latest flashpoint in an increasingly partisan investigation by the House panel, which was created to probe the September 2012 attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. 
Gowdy and other Republicans have complained that Clinton and the State Department have not been forthcoming with release of her emails and note that the State Department has said it cannot find in its records all or part of 15 work-related emails from Clinton's private server. 
The emails all predate the assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility and consist mainly of would-be intelligence reports passed to Clinton by longtime political confidant Sidney Blumenthal, officials said. 
Gowdy has said the missing emails raise "serious questions" about Clinton's decision to erase her personal server, especially before it could be analyzed by an independent third-party arbiter. 
A Clinton campaign spokesman has said she turned over 55,000 pages of materials to the State Department, "including all emails in her possession from Mr. Blumenthal."

South Carolina House approves removal of Confederate flag

Just The Beginning.

BREAKING NEWS –  The South Carolina House approved taking down the Confederate flag from Capitol grounds early Thursday, a stunning reversal in a state that was the first to leave the Union in 1860 and raised the flag again at its Statehouse more than 50 years ago to protest the civil rights movement.
The move came after more than 13 hours of contentious debate, weeks after the deadly shootings of nine black church members, including a state senator, at a Bible study in Charleston. The House approved the Senate bill 93-27, and still has one more vote than appeared to be perfunctory since they had met two-thirds approval.
It is possible the flag could come down Thursday or Friday, but the exact timing is unknown.
The bill is set to go to Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, who supports it.
“Today, as the Senate did before them, the House of Representatives has served the state of South Carolina and her people with great dignity,” Haley said in a statement early Thursday. “I’m grateful for their service and their compassion. It is a new day in South Carolina, a day were can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state.”
A group of Republicans mounted an opposition Wednesday to immediately removing the flag from the Capitol grounds, but at each turn, they were beaten back by a slightly larger, bipartisan group of legislators who believe there must be no delay.
As House members deliberated into the night, there were tears of anger and shared memories of Civil War ancestors. Black Democrats, frustrated at being asked to show grace to Civil War soldiers as the debate crept into the 12^th hour, warned the state was embarrassing itself.
The closest vote in the GOP-controlled body came on an amendment to place the state flat beside the monument to Confederate soldiers at the front of the Statehouse.
Changing the Senate bill could have meant weeks or even months to remove the flag, perhaps blunting the momentum that has grown since the church massacre.
Republican Rep. Jenny Horne scolded fellow members of her party for stalling the debate with dozens of amendments as she reminded them she was a distant relative of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
She cried as she remembered the funeral of her slain colleague state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, who was gunned down as his wife and daughter locked themselves in an office.
"For the widow of Sen. Pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury and I will not be a part of it!" she screamed into a microphone.
Horne said she didn’t intend to speak but got frustrated with fellow Republicans.
Opponents of removing the flag talked about grandparents who passed down family treasures and lamented that the flag had been “hijacked” or “abducted” by racists.
Rep. Mike Pitts, who remembered playing with a Confederate ancestor’s cavalry sword while growing up, said for him the flag is a reminder of how dirt-poor Southern families fought Yankees not because they hated blacks or supported slavery, but because their lands was being invaded.
Pitts said those soldiers should be respected just as soldiers who fought in the Middle East or Afghanistan. Pitts then turned to a lawmaker he called a dear friend, recalling how his black colleague nearly died in Vietnam.
"I'm willing to move that flag at some point if it causes a twinge in the hearts of my friends," Pitts said. "But I'll ask for something in return."
The debate began less than one day after the U.S. House voted to ban the display of Confederate flags at historic federal cemeteries in the Deep South.
House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said Democrats were united behind the Senate bill, which would send the flag to the state's Confederate Relic Room — near the resting place for the final rebel flag that flew over the Statehouse dome until it was taken down in 2000.
Democrats didn't want any new flag going up because it "will be the new vestige of racism," Rutherford said.
After the break around 8 p.m., Rutherford said Democrats were willing to let the other side make their points, but had grown tired. He said while much had been said about ancestors of the Confederacy, “what we haven’t heard is talk about nine people slaughtered in a church.”
"The whole world is asking, is South Carolina really going to change, or will it hold to an ugly tradition of prejudice and discrimination and hide behind heritage as an excuse for it," Neal said.
Other Democrats suggested any delay would let Ku Klux Klan members planning a rally July 18 a chance to dance around the Confederate flag.
"You don't have to listen to me. But there are a whole lot of people outside this chamber watching," Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said.
Under the Senate proposal, the Confederate flag would have to come down within 24 hours of the governor signing the bill.
In Washington, the vote by the U.S. House followed a brief debate on a measure funding the National Park Service, which maintains 14 national cemeteries, most of which contain graves of Civil War soldiers.
The proposal by California Democrat Jared Huffman would block the Park Service from allowing private groups to decorate the graves of Southern soldiers with Confederate flags in states that commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. The cemeteries affected are the Andersonville and Vicksburg cemeteries in Georgia and Mississippi.
Also Wednesday, state police said they were investigating an unspecified number of threats against South Carolina lawmakers debating the flag. Police Chief Mark Keel said lawmakers on both sides of the issue had been threatened, but he did not specify which ones.