Devious Disguises for Terrorists

New strategy of #ISIS revealed! Cleverly disguised twitter accounts using pictures of cute #kittens. pic.twitter.com/Fx0lbjBttD
— Renny (@ThillingHeroics) March 16, 2015

Even evil fanatics like kittens. 

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

Netanyahu the Eighth, 80 years into the Iranian-American war. (Artist's Rendition)

In his speech to congress, Israeli PM Netanyahu came out strongly against a deal with Iran to limit their nuclear program.  

Now, a decade may seem like a long time in political life, but it's the blink of an eye in the life of a nation. It's a blink of an eye in the life of our children. We all have a responsibility to consider what will happen when Iran's nuclear capabilities are virtually unrestricted and all the sanctions will have been lifted. Iran would then be free to build a huge nuclear capacity that could product many, many nuclear bombs. 
Iran's Supreme Leader says that openly. He says, Iran plans to have 190,000 centrifuges, not 6,000 or even the 19,000 that Iran has today, but 10 times that amount -- 190,000 centrifuges enriching uranium. With this massive capacity, Iran could make the fuel for an entire nuclear arsenal and this in a matter of weeks, once it makes that decision. 
My long-time friend, John Kerry, Secretary of State, confirmed last week that Iran could legitimately possess that massive centrifuge capacity when the deal expires.

The exact details of a deal aren't public, but it seems likely that Netanyahu has someone privy to the secret talks keeping him up to date.  That said, I find it highly unlikely that these details are concrete.  Things can change very rapidly in negotiations.

So why the pressure?

The easiest answer is that this is a political ploy designed to win Netanyahu a few more votes in the Israeli parliament.  The second answer is that Netanyahu doesn't trust Obama to make a good deal with Iran.  This could put pressure on Obama to negotiate harder.  It could be an attempt to damage Obama politically, seeing as Israel is (for now) very popular in the US.

The best answer is probably e) All of the above.

How Republicans Learned to Stop Worrying, and Love the Bomb

47 Senate Republicans just sent a letter to the supreme leader of Iran, reminding him that they don't like him, and have some power to reject a nuclear deal because -> constitution.

Why would Republicans try to sabotage a deal with Iran?

Well, many reasons.  

If I had to guess, I'd say the fundamental dynamic underlining this letter is that it's a part of a GOP strategic calculation along these lines:

-If Obama can get a good deal, when push comes to shove no one will block it.
-The Senate may not pass it, but anything reasonably strong will probably stay alive, simply because at the end of the day (some) republicans are perfectly aware invading Iran is a bad idea.
-Republicans think they have more to lose should they appear weak in front of their base than if they attack the deal and it still is passed.
-If the deal fails, it can be blamed entirely on Obama and most of the public will be none-the-wiser

It's not always easy to discern the difference between ideological blinders and genuine democratic-political necessity: a politician who makes idiotic decisions could be doing so because he/she is an idiot, or because that decision is genuinely what their constituents want and will help them politically. Obviously it's always some of both, but it's difficult to untangle the two.

I'm going a bit off the reservation here, but if I had to guess, I'd say that many establishment republicans are less concerned with the possibility of Iran becoming a nuclear state then they would ever admit. For one, Israel has been crying wolf for so long that "being concerned with Iran" is more of a political shibboleth than an actual worry. When it comes to the hard political realities, I don't buy it that all 47 of these senators actually want to sabotage the nuclear deal. Some probably think this nonsense won't actually matter when it comes down to it, but god forgive them if pass up the chance to score short term political points in the mean time.

Ideology definitely plays into this though. In the mind of the right, the only reason the US wouldn't be able to stop Iran from getting a nuke is weakness on Obama's part. You might call this "Reagan Syndrome", where all it takes to defeat our enemies is to stand strong, call out the axis of evil for the evil things they are (along with lots of patriot chest-thumping), and they will fold because they cannot stand up to our democratic perfection and military prowess. All you need to do is shout "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" and it will single-handedly bring down the USSR.
That's my armchair-psychoanalysis, at least. Mind you, sometimes threats and force are warranted and useful, but republicans tend to go off the reservation when the country is led by a democratic president. Their bias is that democrats are weak, always, forever, regardless of the circumstances. 'Obama is playing into Iran's hand, how could he be so naive? He must be selling out Israel because he hates them' etc. etc.