Senate Democrats Block Effort To Kill Iran Nuclear Deal

U.S. President Barack Obama achieved perhaps the greatest foreign policy victory of his six years in office on Thursday, when a Republican-backed effort to kill the Iran nuclear agreement was narrowly blocked in the U.S. Senate, clearing the way for the deal's implementation.

Forty Democrats and two independents voted to block a resolution disapproving of the pact in the 100-member chamber, one more than the minimum needed to keep it from advancing.

"This vote is a victory for diplomacy, for American national security, and for the safety and security of the world," Obama said in a statement after a vote he termed "an historic step forward."

Senate Republicans insisted the fight was not over, however.

The Senate's Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, immediately took steps to clear the way for the chamber to consider the matter again, hoping some Democrats would vote differently next time.

"We'll revisit the issue next week and see if maybe any folks want to change their minds," he said in a speech angrily denouncing the vote.

Under a law Obama signed in May, Congress has a 60-day period ending on Sept. 17 to pass a resolution disapproving of the international agreement.

If such a resolution were to pass, and survive Obama's promised veto, it would bar the president from waiving many U.S. sanctions on Tehran, a key component of the nuclear deal.

But there was no sign any votes would change, and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid bluntly responded, "This matter is over with."

Reid urged McConnell to move on to other legislation, including bills providing long-term highway and transportation funding and urgent legislation to fund the government in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 and avoid a government shutdown.

"This is a situation where he's (McConnell) lost the vote and it's a situation where he is just not in touch with reality as it exists," Reid said.

The defeat came despite an intense $40 million lobbying campaign against the agreement, largely by conservative pro-Israel groups.

Although the nuclear deal was reached after two years of negotiations with Iran by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vociferously opposed the agreement. Netanyahu said the deal demanded too little from Iran in exchange for sanctions relief and would strengthen a country he sees as a threat to Israel's existence.

HOUSE REPUBLICANS VOW TO FIGHT ON

Republican in the House of Representatives meanwhile pushed ahead with legislation critical of the nuclear accord. They raised the possibility of filing suit against Obama over the Iran deal or attaching Iran-related legislation to a bill funding the government.

"This is a bad deal with decades-long consequences for the security of the American people and our allies. And we’ll use every tool at our disposal to stop, slow, and delay this agreement from being fully implemented," House Speaker John Boehner told a news conference.

Republicans are already using the Iran deal in campaigning against Democrats in the 2016 election. On Wednesday, Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz were among the headliners at a raucous anti-deal rally on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol.

But House Republicans split over how to handle the agreement, after weeks of marching in lockstep in opposition to the nuclear deal, announced on July 14.

This week, as Democrats gathered more than enough votes to protect the nuclear deal, House Republicans came up with their own plan for three Iran-related votes after a rebellion by some of the party's most conservative lawmakers.

On Thursday, House members voted strictly along party lines, with 245 Republicans voting yes and 186 Democrats voting no, to pass a resolution finding that Obama had not complied with terms of the Iran nuclear review act he signed in May.

Some Republicans argued that the 60-day window for reviewing the deal had never opened because Obama had not sent Congress details of what they termed "secret side deals" regarding inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.

The House was to vote on Friday on two other Iran-related measures, a resolution of approval of the Iran deal that Republicans hoped to defeat by a wide margin, and a separate one that would bar Obama from waiving sanctions.

But none of the three would have a direct impact on the nuclear pact similar to that of a disapproval resolution, a mechanism outlined in the Iran review act.

The House has not scheduled a vote on its own resolution of disapproval. And there are no plans now for the Senate to vote on legislation similar to the three measures being considered in the House.

The 42 members of the Senate Democratic caucus who supported the nuclear deal on Thursday are also far more than the 34 senators whose votes would be needed to sustain an Obama veto.

Source:Reuter

U.S. to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees: White House

President Barack Obama has directed his administration to prepare to take in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, the White House said on Thursday.

It is the first specific commitment the United States has made toward increasing its acceptance of refugees from the war-torn country.

Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the United States has taken in 1,500 refugees, with 300 more expected to be cleared by October.

But refugee advocates and some members of Congress say taking in an additional 10,000 refugees does not go far enough toward addressing the humanitarian crisis triggered by the war, which has prompted a massive refugee influx into Europe.

In a letter distributed to House Democrats and seen by Reuters, Democratic Representative David Cicilline asked Obama to accommodate 65,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2016. Religious groups have called for the United States to accept 100,000 Syrian refugees.

European countries have taken in waves of migrants fleeing violence. Germany allowed 20,000 in over the weekend and is preparing for 800,000 this year.

Melanie Nezer, vice president of HIAS, a global refugee advocacy group, said allowing 10,000 more refugees from Syria is not an adequate response to the crisis at hand.

"This is totally within the realm of what the current system on autopilot could do. This is not time for autopilot. This is time to really ramp things up," said Nezer.

The United States is conducting air strikes in Syria as part of its effort to fight against Islamic State. The United States currently admits annually a total of 70,000 refugees from around the world, and is due to increase that total by 5,000 for the fiscal year starting in October.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest would not say whether the 10,000 Syrians would be a part of or in addition to that total.

Earnest said national security was a top concern for admitting Syrians, a country rife with anti-American militants, noting that intensive security screening for refugees could take up to 18 months.

"I do feel confident in telling you that the president will not sign off on a process that cuts corners when it comes to the basic safety and security of the American people and the U.S. homeland," Earnest told reporters.

The additional background checks and processing will require a "significant financial commitment" from Congress, Earnest said.

Congress cannot block the administration from setting limits on the number of refugees it admits from each region. But it can block funding needed for staffing agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services that handle the screening and resettlement procedures.

House Appropriations Committee aides said they had yet to receive a request for more money to accommodate an increase in Syrian refugees and declined to comment on the likelihood of approving such an increase unless it is formally submitted.

Senior Republican Senators Bob Corker and Lindsey Graham have said they are open to the idea of allowing more refugees, as long as they are subjected to security screenings.

Defiant Kentucky Clerk's Backers: Fire Aides Over Gay Marriage Licenses

Supporters of Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples due to her religious beliefs, said on Wednesday that any of her deputies who provide the documents without her permission should be fired.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Davis released on Tuesday after six days in jail, warning her not to interfere with her deputy clerks who are issuing the licenses, or face further sanctions.

Bunning had found Davis, clerk for Rowan County in eastern Kentucky, in contempt after she stopped issuing licenses to any couples, citing her belief as an Apostolic Christian that a marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

The issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky and other states has become the latest focal point in the long-running debate over gay marriage in the United States.

Ante Pavkovic, one of the people who helped organize pro-Davis rallies outside the Grayson, Kentucky, detention center where Davis was jailed, lectured the deputy clerks not to violate their oaths of office. He criticized Bunning and the U.S. Supreme Court justices who backed gay marriage.

"Do not join them in this any further, and if you can't do that, then you should just quit," Pavkovic, 49, of North Carolina, said, standing in the clerk's office in Morehead, Kentucky.

He waved a sign in the faces of the deputy clerks that read, "Fire the cowardly clerks that are lawbreakers." He was asked to leave by a deputy sheriff.

Davis will return to her $80,000-a-year job on Monday after spending time with family, a spokeswoman for her attorney said. However, her lawyer, Mat Staver, founder of Christian religious advocacy group Liberty Counsel, said on Tuesday her position had not changed, raising the possibility she could return to jail if she moves to block the issuance of licenses.

Asked on Wednesday if Davis would fire the deputies or take any other action if they issued licenses, Liberty Counsel attorney Harry Mihet did not address the question.

He said Davis loved her deputies, adding they were forced by judicial threats to issue the licenses. He reiterated that she was looking for a solution that did not violate the law or the consciences of the deputies.

Raising the stakes further, deputy clerk Brian Mason said on Wednesday he would continue issuing marriage licenses after Davis returns, even if she tells him not to. "I'm still going to issue licenses," he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in late June legalizing it in all 50 states, but a small number of elected clerks and lower-level judges have voiced opposition on religious grounds.

At the Rowan County clerk's office on Wednesday, the first of seven gay couples to obtain marriage licenses since Friday returned to have the documents legally filed. Ten licenses in all have been issued.

"The ante has been upped at this point," Nashia Fife, secretary-elect of the Rowan County Rights Coalition, which supports the rights of gay couples to get marriage licenses, said of Bunning's warning to Davis not to interfere.

Staver, Davis' lawyer, said his client still wants an accommodation to remove her name and her authority from the marriage certificates.

Bunning secured assurances from five of the six deputy clerks that they would comply with the court order and issue licenses to all legally eligible couples. Only Davis' son Nathan refused, but he was not jailed.

Critics Push U.S. To Help Europe By Taking More Refugees

The United States came under more pressure on Sunday to help Europe find sanctuary for a flood of immigrants displaced by war and chaos, but Washington showed no signs of planning a dramatic increase in its intake of refugees.

David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee and a former British foreign secretary, called on the United States to bring out "the kind of leadership America has shown on these kind of issues" in the past.

"The United States has always been a leader in refugee resettlement but 1,500 people over four years is such a miniscule contribution to tackling the human side of this problem," Miliband said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

State Department spokesman John Kirby, in an interview with Reuters late on Saturday, offered no indication the United States would be greatly boosting the number of immigrants it would allow into the country. He cited the $4 billion U.S. contribution to refugee relief and reconfirmed the Obama administration's position about security concerns.

"There is a significant vetting process here for folks from Syria that we have to follow," he said, adding that the Obama administration had been in contact with European allies and was exploring options.

U.S. authorities want to prevent militants from Islamic State or al Qaeda from slipping into the country as refugees.

But there are risks to sticking to current policy and not playing a more active role in helping Europe. Another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that, given the graphic images of the refugees' plight, Washington may face an international image problem for admitting only a small number compared with European countries.

Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, said the United States had not put a quota on the number of refugees it would accept. She said the UNHCR had submitted almost 16,300 refugees for resettlement in the United States and would continue submitting cases for consideration.

'FUNDAMENTALLY FALLS ON EUROPE'

Europe has been operating without a consensus on what do with the flood of refugees.

Austria and Germany, which expects to receive 800,000 refugees and migrants this year, have opened their borders in recent days to thousands of mostly Syrian refugees who had been stranded in Hungary. Pope Francis on Sunday called on every Catholic parish and religious community in Europe to take in at least one refugee family.

    Since the Syrian conflict began in early 2011, the United States has taken in 1,500 refugees from there, the vast majority this year. Kirby said as many as 1,500 more refugees could be admitted by the end of 2015 and maybe more next year.

A new Facebook group, Open Homes, Open Hearts US, was circulating an online petition urging Obama administration officials to "greatly increase the number of Syrian refugees who are resettled in our country and let them know you would be willing to welcome an individual or a family into your home." The group's page had almost 4,800 likes as of Sunday night.

Immigration has become a major issue in the campaign leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Billionaire businessman Donald Trump has risen to the top of the Republican field with a hardline stance calling for deportation of undocumented migrants and a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but said last week he would consider allowing Syrians into the United States.

Another Republican presidential candidate, John Kasich, also appearing on ABC's "This Week," said he favored a somewhat enhanced U.S. role with the refugees but that the situation was not primarily a Washington problem.

"I think we do have a responsibility in terms of taking some more folks in, making sure they assimilate," he said. "This is fundamentally an issue Europe has to come to grips with. We can provide some humanitarian aid to them."

Writing in the New York Times, Michael Ignatieff, a former leader of Canada's Liberal Party and now a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, said the United States, Canada and Middle East nations were wrong to consider the crisis as Europe's problem.

The United States and its allies have a responsibility to the Syrian refugees - estimated at 4 million since civil war began in their homeland - since they are arming Syrian rebels and fighting Islamic State in the country, he said.

"Blaming the Europeans is an alibi and the rest of our excuses - like the refugees don’t have the right papers - are sickening," Ignatieff wrote.

He called on the United States and Canada to take in a minimum of 25,000 Syrians and said pressure on those governments may intensify after publication in the past week of dramatic photographs of the refugees' plight.

Immigrants in U.S. should 'speak American': Ex-VP nominee Palin

Immigrants to the United States should "speak American," former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said on Sunday, adding her voice to a controversy triggered by Donald Trump's criticism of fellow Republican White House hopeful Jeb Bush's use of Spanish.

"It's a benefit of Jeb Bush to be able to be so fluent in Spanish, because we have a large and wonderful Hispanic population that is helping to build America," Palin said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"On the other hand, you know, I think we can send a message and say: 'You want to be in America? A, you better be here legally, or you're out of here. B, when you're here, let's speak American.' I mean, that's just, that's - let's speak English," added Palin, Republican presidential nominee John McCain's running mate in 2008.

Palin, who is popular among some U.S. conservatives, said that "a unifying aspect of a nation is the language that is understood by all." Most of the illegal immigrants in the United States come from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries.

Bush on Thursday rejected the notion offered by Trump that people should speak only English in the United States. Bush, who is fluent in Spanish and frequently breaks into the language at his events, vowed to keep speaking Spanish whenever he feels like it.

Trump, the Republican front-runner whose hardline stance on illegal immigration is a hallmark of his bid for the party's nomination in the November 2016 election, said: "We're a nation that speaks English."

U.S. Clerk Jailed For Gay Marriage Defiance; Dispute Goes On

A Kentucky county clerk was jailed on Thursday for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and a full day of court hearings failed to put an end to her two-month-old legal fight over a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding same-sex marriage.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning found Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in contempt then elicited a pledge from five of her six deputies to issue the licenses. But attorneys for Davis said she would deny them that authority, raising questions about the validity of any licenses they might issue.

The 49-year-old woman, who has emerged as a darling of social conservatives, has refused to issue licenses to any couples, gay or straight, since the U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry under the U.S. Constitution, citing her beliefs as an Apostolic Christian.

"Marriage is a union between one man and one woman," the soft-spoken Davis told the court under questioning by her attorney.

Bunning warned the deputies they would be back in court if they refused to resume issuing licenses on Friday. "I would hate to have to come back to Ashland," he said, referring to the court venue. He said it would be up to same-sex couples to decide whether to test the validity of the licenses.

Davis, who broke down crying earlier in her testimony, was led away by U.S. marshals after the first hearing, where Bunning held her in contempt and ordered her jailed. She did not attend the subsequent hearings, but communicated through her attorneys.

Thursday's proceedings were the culmination of months of legal wrangling and refusals by Davis to abide by a judge's order to do her job, drawing global attention and protests from those both for and against gay marriage rights.

Before and during the hearings, about 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Ashland, Kentucky, courthouse, some chanting slogans and many holding signs. As word of the ruling emerged, supporters of same-sex marriage erupted in cheers.

Davis was being held at the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Kentucky. Her son Nathan, the one deputy who would not agree to issue gay marriage licenses, was not jailed.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Thursday said it was "appropriate" for a federal judge to resolve the matter.

"No public official is above the rule of law, certainly not president of the United States, but neither is the Rowan county clerk," he said.

Davis' jailing drew instant criticism from her supporters with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee tweeting, "Kim Davis in federal custody removes all doubts about the criminalization of Christianity in this country."

Christian lobbying group Family Research Council said religious freedom in the United States was under attack. It urged Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to call for a special session of the state legislature to alter the law to accommodate clerks like Davis.

In a statement the governor said a special session was unnecessary and too costly. He said Bunning's decision spoke for itself and the courts were settling the matter, giving access to marriage licenses to Rowan County residents.

He said he had no authority to relieve county clerks of their statutory duties by executive order.

Another Republican presidential candidate, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told MSNBC before the ruling that Davis had to abide by the Supreme Court ruling.

'THE WORD OF GOD'

Davis told Fox News earlier she was ready to go to jail for her beliefs.

“I’ve weighed the cost and I’m prepared to go to jail,” she told Fox in an interview published on Thursday. “This has never been a gay or lesbian issue for me. This is about upholding the word of God.”

Police kill bystander when New York undercover gun buy goes bad

 A police officer shooting at a fleeing suspect during an undercover gun buy that went wrong killed a 61-year-old bystander in the New York City suburb of Mount Vernon, police said on Saturday.

Two suspects were taken into custody during the investigation into the sale of illegal guns, the New York Police Department said in a statement. The undercover officer in the Bronx on Friday met a suspect who said he had guns for sale and directed the officer to drive to Mount Vernon. A second suspect got into the back seat of the officer's car, pointed a gun at his head and demanded money, the NYPD said.

After the officer gave him cash, the suspect attempted to flee and the officer tried to stop him. When the suspect pointed his gun, the officer fired several times at the suspect, striking him three times in the torso, police said.

A man standing behind the suspect was also hit in the torso. The bystander, identified as Felix Kumi, 61, of Mount Vernon, died early Saturday morning at Jacobi Hospital, police said.

One suspect, identified as Jeffrey Aristy, 28, of the Bronx, was arrested on gun and drug sale charges. The second suspect, identified only as a 37-year-old male, was also taken to Jacobi Hospital and also has charges pending.

Source: Reuter