Fighting raged overnight [Tuesday night] and in the early hours on Tuesday on the outskirts of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine despite an agreement reached by the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers a day earlier.
And a significant fraction of the rebel troops in the fight are Russian Green Men.
Russia wants Ukraine back in the Russian empire. Full stop.
…to the plaint that Congress’ bill asserting its capacity to approve or disapprove Obama’s coming Executive Agreement with Iran regarding the latter’s nuclear weapons program would fatally imperil those negotiations?
Now the guy who sits in the Secretary of State’s chair, John Kerry, is saying
Yesterday there was a compromise reached in Washington regarding congressional input. We are confident about our ability for the president to negotiate an agreement, and to do so with the ability to make the world safer.
The only change of substance was to withdraw a requirement that President Barack Obama certify every 90 days that Iran was not supporting terrorist organizations anymore.
But the bill no longer imperils negotiations? It never did, of course, that was just Obama’s knee-jerk reaction to anything Republican. The true change, if change it was, was the bill’s passage out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and onto the Senate floor by a unanimous 19-0 vote.
Here’s an example of the 10th Amendment in action:
While the United States and Iran edge closer to a nuclear deal, nearly two dozen US states are imposing their own sanctions against Tehran—a move some say could derail fragile talks between the two countries.
The states, though, say they aren’t budging. In fact, Kansas and Mississippi are even considering adding more sanctions.
And
Several states across the country have put their own measures in place to punish Iran-linked companies operating in certain sectors of its economy, directing public pension funds with billions of dollars in assets to divesting from the firms and sometimes barring them from public contracts[.]
Other states doing this sort of thing include Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Oregon, among others.
Would that the White House had similarly capable judgment.
Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy cred.
At a moment when foreign policy figures to loom larger in this presidential race than in recent election cycles, none of Mrs Clinton’s prospective opponents can match her credentials as a four-year secretary of state. Ordinarily that would be a strong selling point. Yet Mrs Clinton also is tied to Obama-era overseas initiatives that have largely proved unpopular and she’ll be hard-pressed to cite concrete achievements that she made happen on her watch, analysts say.
However, not only is she tied to Obama’s foreign policy failures, she has her own…accomplishments…from her stint sitting in the Secretary of State’s chair. Many of you might remember her 2008 Presidential campaign ad about answering the 3 am call. When she got exactly that call from a consulate that was under attack, Clinton’s attitude, as she said so defiantly in front of a House committee hearing, was “What difference, at this point, does it make!?
Then there are all of those emails she exchanged with her staff and Foreign Service officials—on her personally owned, set up, and maintained email server—of which she turned over to State print copies (only) of carefully selected emails and equally carefully and deliberately erased the rest. Which turnover and erasure she did only last fall after the emails were demanded. She is refusing to turn over her server for forensic analysis.
Then there’s her evident disinterest in the details of foreign affairs, details that might seem unimportant but that in their aggregate contribute to the laughingstock nature of State and of the United States on the world stage. Details like a red button she gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a button ostensibly labelled “Reset” in English and in Russian. What the Russian word actually meant was “overcharge.” This carelessness was typical of Clinton’s time in the Secretary’s chair.
President Barack Obama told Congress to be quiet regarding his “deal” with Iran over the latter’s nuclear weapons program. Now he’s sending his guy who sits in the Secretary of State’s chair to tell them directly.
[Secretary of State John] Kerry said he would brief House members on Monday and senators on Tuesday. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to take up the legislation on the same day.
The administration should be free to negotiate without interference until the June 30 deadline for a final agreement, Kerry said on CBS’ Face the Nation.
Kerry also said that Congress should “hold their fire” regarding the “deal” until it’s finalized.
The Corker-Menendez bill only would give Congress to the authority to approve or disapprove that finalized deal on an up or down vote. It wouldn’t even be relevant until there is a final deal on which to pass judgment. There’s no fire here to hold.
Is what’s being “negotiated” so fragile that enacting legislation that has effect only after negotiations have been completed would interfere with those negotiations? If that’s the case, just what is it that’s actually being negotiated, and with whom?
Oh, wait—just be quiet. Your Betters are on the job.