As President nObama extended again his self-imposed deadlines for landing the Spruce Goose of a nuclear negotiation with Iran, the administration dropped a bomb of its own on one of the harshest critics of the deal. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., will face a load of federal charges for his relationship with a Medicare mega-doc in Florida, for whom Menendez did favors. The payola charges have been rattling around at the Justice Department for years so why did they have to drop as Menendez’s main issue – opposition to the nObama nuke deal – was hitting yet another milestone moment amid deepening opposition? Why not do it before the legislation Menendez is sponsoring to constrain the administration’s Iran dealings was underway? Doing it now looks too much like the administration is sending a message to critics and, fairly or not, further stamps the nObama Justice Department as a political operation.
[In the latest Fox News poll, 76 percent of voters say President nObama should be required to get congressional approval on an Iran deal.]
The political consequence of the timing was made more pungent to congressional Republicans coming, as it did, alongside another decision from the Justice Department: No charges will be brought against the central figure in the IRS political targeting scandal, Lois Lerner, for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena. Lerner has been stonewalling investigators about her role in the agency’s targeting of nObama’s political enemies. This twin-bill of highly charged decisions from the Justice Department could be all coincidental, but if that were so, prudence would demand outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder do something to prevent the appearance of impropriety. It seems instead that that he is just fine with that. -Fox News
David Axelrod wrote that President nObama had publicly opposed same-sex marriage despite his personal support for the practice because of political pressures. nObama said that Axelrod’s claim was not true. In February, the president told BuzzFeed that his 2012 flip was, as he had previously maintained, the result of a long spiritual evolution, and that he eventually came to reconcile his Christian faith with his desire for equality. It was not, nObama and his spokespeople said, an instance of the pandering to voters as cultural norms changed. And yet, when asked about the Indiana religious liberty law, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest condemned on nObama’s behalf those who justified discrimination on religious grounds: “I do think that, in the mind of the president, the thought that we would have state legislatures in the 21st century in the United States of America passing laws that would use religion to try to justify discriminating against people because of who they love, is unthinkable.” WaPo’s Chris Cillizza points out that the high dudgeon from White House ignores some basic math: “After all, President nObama has opposed gay marriage for longer than he’s supported it in the, to borrow Earnest’s words, ‘21st century in the United States of America.’” -Fox News
Indianapolis Star: “Indiana Republicans said Thursday morning that they are presenting an addition to the controversial RFRA legislation that will make it clear no one ‘be able to discriminate against anyone at any time.’ Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, and House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis said at a press conference at the Statehouse that leaders will present the proposal to lawmakers [today] after speaking with corporate and civic leadership this week. ‘Hoosier hospitality had to be restored,’ Bosma said. … ‘It was never intended to discriminate against anyone,’ Long said. ‘That perception led to the national protests we’ve seemed’
More - “[Long and Bosma] spent 90 minutes meeting late Wednesday evening discussing the deal with top staff and Gov. Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Jim Atterholt…The deal was hammered out in private between Bosma, Long, Atterholt and a small handful of business leaders, including Republican powerbroker and Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Mark Miles, throughout the day Tuesday and Wednesday. However early discussions about the ‘fix’ began last Friday, one day after Pence signed the law in a private ceremony.” -Fox News
The Judge’s Ruling - Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano traces the circuitous constitutional route that led to Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act and concludes: “Because discrimination based on sexual orientation is not prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Indiana and all other states are free to prohibit it or to look the other way in the face of it. But they are not free to encourage it or to make it lawful.” -Fox News
As the nation marks the sesquicentennial of the War Between the States – which on this day in 1865 saw the Confederate line at Petersburg breeched – the Library of Congress has posted the first of over 500 rare Civil War photographs from the collection of Robin G. Stanford of Houston, Texas. During the past four decades, the 87 year-old Texas grandmother has gathered images that include Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield, Ill., draped in black-and-white mourning cloth, scenes of plantation life during the war and haunting battlefield images, including a battlefield from the Virginia Wilderness campaign a year after the war, trees stripped by musket fire. “It took 40 years, maybe” to gather, Stanford told the Washington Post. “I’m a little old lady, so I’ve had plenty of time to do it.” The images can be viewed here. More images will be added each month, until all are online. -Fox News
(Norvell Rose) - Given their dismal ability to offer a forecast that’s anything close to accurate, one has to question why anyone other than market-watching broadcast media eager to fill empty air time would pay attention to what economists have to say...Equally curious, one might notice, is the shameless ability of the leftists to declare a loser to be a winner as they smear a thick coating of glossy lipstick on the pig that is the nObama economy. PoliticusUSA — the website that touts itself as offering “real liberal politics” — has just put so much spin on the latest jobs report from the government that any reasonable visitor might suffer a debilitating bout of dizziness just reading their post. http://www.westernjournalism.com/breaking-this-ugly-new-jobs-record-shows-obamas-economy-lays-an-egg-just-in-time-for-easter/?utm_source=MailChimp&utm_medium=email&utm_content=top-story&utm_campaign=DailyEmail04.03.15
(Melanie Batley) - Former Secretary of State Hilly Clinton has spoken out against the religious freedom measures put into motion by Indiana and Arkansas in keeping with her party but her position puts her in opposition to a similar law signed by Bill Clinton when he was president, according to The Washington Post...Clinton has made a number of comments denouncing the Indiana legislation. In a tweet last week, she described its passage as "sad news" and discriminatory against homosexuals. She also said the Arkansas law would permit unfair discrimination against LBGT Americans. But in signing the law, Indiana GOP Gov. Mike Pence pointed to the 1993 federal law as the basis for his state's law, the Post said. And he pointed out that Illinois approved a similar law that had the backing of Barack nObama when he was a state senator. http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Hillary-Clinton-Bill-Clinton-law-religious-freedom/2015/04/03/id/636328/?ns_mail_uid=29878495&ns_mail_job=1615470_04042015&s=al&dkt_nbr=jhzfijhx
Sunni-Shiite conflict has become the dominant political and strategic fissure in much of the Middle East.
(meforum.org) - The assembling of a Sunni coalition to challenge the advance of an Iranian proxy in Yemen, and the subsequent announcement in Sharm al-Sheikh of the formation of a 40,000 strong Arab rapid reaction force are the latest moves in a war which has already been under way in the Middle East for some time.
This is a war between Sunni and Shia forces over the ruins of the regional order. It is a war which is unlikely to end in the wholesale victory of one or another of the sides. Rather, it will end when the two forces exhaust themselves. What the region will look like when this storm passes is anyone's guess.
The two sides in this war differ in significant ways. The Saudi and Arab League announcements constitute an attempt by the Sunnis to narrow the gaps in unity and effectiveness between themselves and their Shia opponents.
The Shia side is a united bloc, gathered around the structures of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Iranians are an overtly anti-western and anti status-quo force, seeking a new Middle East order with themselves at its head. In their propaganda, they characterize themselves as an alliance of authentic Muslim forces, arranged against the west and its hirelings.
In reality, they are a gathering of almost exclusively Shia groupings, but a cohesive and united one. It is possible that the traditions of clandestinity and cross-border communication of a long subaltern regional minority assist in the Shia advantage in this regard.
In the Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Qods Force, the Iranians possess an instrument perfectly designed for the current moment in the region. This force is a gathering of professional revolutionaries whose specific trade is the mobilizing and direction of proxy political-military organizations.
The context of the current war is one in which states have collapsed and separated into their separate sectarian components.
In Yemen, Iraq, Syria and in a less kinetic way Lebanon, would be 'successors' to the state organized on a sectarian or ethnic basis are fighting one another.
In such a context, the existence of a state agency whose specific field of expertise is the creation and maintenance of sectarian political-military organizations is an enormous advantage. The Sunnis have no equivalent of the IRGC and the Qods Force.
Its existence and its skills are behind the domination of Lebanon by Hizballah, the survival of the Assad regime in Syria, the current Shia militia mobilization against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Ansar Allah (Houthi) offensive in Yemen.
The Sunni side in this war has been since its inception a far more disparate, confused and cumbersome affair.
There are a number of reasons for this. There is no Sunni equivalent of Iran, no single powerful state which gathers and directs all other forces under its wing.
For the last forty years, the most powerful Sunni Arab states formed the key components of the regional alliance headed by the United States. If Iran was the 'guiding' hand behind the Shia challenge to the regional status quo, then the organizing force behind the pro-status quo Sunni states was the US.
But in the last half decade of emergent sectarian war in the region, the United States has been absent, entirely unaware of the dynamic of events. So the Sunnis have been adrift.
The US has sought to appease both the Iranians, and the radical, anti-western element among the Sunnis – the Muslim Brotherhood. All this apparently as part of an effort to withdraw from the region and leave the keys with whoever seemed most inclined to grab them.
What the events of the last week confirm, however, is that the 'status quo' Sunni powers, the once-allies of the United States, are now determined to organize themselves independently, given the absence of a US guiding hand.
The commitment of nine Sunni-majority countries to the Saudi-organized alliance is the fruit of an ambitious attempt by Riyadh to create a new, regionally-led counter bloc to the Iranians.
Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Pakistan, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates are on board. The drive to halt the advance of the Iran-supported Houthis movement in Yemen is the first test of this new and unfamiliar gathering.
Success remains uncertain. Egyptian ships have been dispatched to the area. Air strikes have begun. But the wars of the present time in the Middle East are not primarily high-tech affairs. Air power certainly plays an important role. But in the end, these are grinding militia contests, fought out on the ground.
In such a war, the Shia Islamist and tribal guerrillas of the Houthis and their IRGC guides are likely to enjoy a certain advantage. The difficult terrain of Yemen is likely to exacerbate this.
This raises a further difficulty for the Sunnis.
So far, the experience of Iraq and Syria indicates that the only Sunni forces that have gone toe to toe with the Iran-backed element and held their ground are Islamists. Note the recent conquest by a force led by al-Qaeda affiliate (and Qatar client) Jabhat al Nusra of Idleb city in north west Syria.
Idleb is the second provincial capital to fall to the anti-Assad forces in four years of civil war. The first was Raqqa, further east. It's now controlled by the Islamic State.
What this means is that the pushback against the Iranians as led by the Sunni Arabs is likely to involve Sunni jihadis, and Muslim Brothers (Hamas last week also declared its support for the Saudi initiative).
Nor has the Saudi initiative ended divisions among the Sunnis. The split between pro and anti Muslim Brotherhood elements has been only papered over. Earlier this month, Qatar and Turkey, the main MB-supporting Sunni states, signed a separate military accord.
This mobilization contains nothing in it of regional reform. It is a sectarian gathering par excellence.
But for all the cautions and caveats, the emergence of the Saudi-organized coalition for Yemen and the announcement of the new Arab force to deploy in the region are developments of high, perhaps historical significance. They represent the Sunni picking up of the gauntlet thrown down a while back by the Iranians.
This war was a long time coming. It emerged in stages. It has been here for a while. This week, with the announcement of the Saudi-led alliance in Yemen, its full dimensions have become plainly visible. A new chapter is beginning in the region.
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