Tag Archives: government

The Latest From Greece: A Quick Rundown

by dgod36 Posted on July 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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A quick summary of Greece to start my morning (or ease you into lunch if you’re on the East coast):

The Greek parliament has passed the first batch of legislation demanded by the Europeans.
This seriously split Syriza, and could even lead to the downfall of the government. In the meantime, there was rioting in the streets of Athens.
The European Central Bank responded by providing €900 million to Greece’s banks. It’s not much, and capital controls will stay in place for a while. But it keeps the ATMs churning out €60 per day, which is better than €0 per day.
Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, said it was “uncontroversial” that Greece needs substantial debt relief. It all depends on Greece keeping its side of the deal. So now both the ECB and the IMF—two-thirds of the Troika—are publicly on board with debt relief.

That’s about it for now. Amid the chaos, things are moving forward. Nonetheless, the religious types among you should give thanks daily that you don’t live in Greece.

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The Latest From Greece: A Quick Rundown

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Hillary Clinton’s Big Economic Speech Abridged to 500 Words

by RileyAustin Posted on July 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton gave her big economic speech today. As is my wont, I plowed through the transcript and excerpted only those parts that are actual policy proposals. This is sometimes a judgment call, but I think I got most of them. I didn’t include any vague prescriptions that she promised to explain in detail in later speeches.

By my count, Hillary’s laundry list includes 26 specific proposals, some with more detail than others. Not bad, even for a Clinton. So for those of you who aren’t interested in the blah blah blah, and just want the meat, here’s the Reader’s Digest version of the speech, condensed to about two minutes of reading time.

Let me begin with strong growth.

….Empower entrepreneurs with less red tape, easier access to capital, tax relief and simplification…. business tax reform to spur investment in America, closing those loopholes that reward companies for sending jobs and profits overseas….comprehensive immigration reform….infrastructure bank that can channel more public and private funds, channel those funds to finance world-class airports, railways, roads, bridges and ports….greater investments in cleaner, renewable energy right now.

….Fund the scientific and medical research that spawns innovative companies and creates entire new industries….breaking down barriers so more Americans participate more fully in the workforce — especially women….family-friendly policies….fair pay and fair scheduling, paid family leave and earned sick days, child care are essential to our competitiveness and growth.

….Beyond strong growth, we also need fair growth.

….We have to raise the minimum wage and implement President Obama’s new rules on overtime….crack down on bosses who exploit employees by misclassifying them as contractors or even steal their wages….defending and enhancing Social Security….encourage companies to share profits with their employees….reforming our tax code….Buffett Rule….closing the carried interest loophole….the decline of unions may be responsible for a third of the increase of inequality among men….we have to get serious about supporting workers.

….Every 4-year old in America should have access to high-quality preschool in the next ten years….80% of your brain is physically formed by age of three….intervention to help those often-stressed out young moms understand more about what they can do and avoid the difficulties that stand in the way of their being able to get their child off to the best start….reviving the New Markets Tax Credit and Empowerment Zones to create greater incentives to invest in poor and remote areas.

….The third key driver of income alongside strong growth and fair growth must be long-term growth.

….A new $1,500 apprenticeship tax credit….reform capital gains taxes to reward longer-term investments that create jobs more than just quick trades….Make sure stock buybacks aren’t being used only for an immediate boost in share prices….Empowering outside investors who want to build companies but discouraging “cut and run” shareholders who act more like old-school corporate raiders.

….Serious risks are emerging from institutions in the so-called “shadow banking” system….I will appoint and empower regulators who understand that Too Big To Fail is still too big a problem….ensure that no firm is too complex to manage or oversee….prosecute individuals as well as firms when they commit fraud or other criminal wrongdoing….when the government recovers money from corporations or individuals for harming the public, it should go into a separate trust fund to benefit the public.

And the obligatory paean to bipartisanship and comity:

….You know passing legislation is not the only way to drive progress. As President, I’ll use the power to convene, connect, and collaborate to build partnerships that actually get things done. Because above all, we have to break out of the poisonous partisan gridlock and focus on the long-term needs of our country.

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Hillary Clinton’s Big Economic Speech Abridged to 500 Words

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Donald Trump Just Issued Another Insane Rant About Mexico

by NoemiSmalley Posted on July 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is a dumb person who is dumb. For a very long time that dumbness didn’t really come with consequences. He had his TV show and his hotels and a lot of fans in the Republican party. Sure, people knew he was a lunatic, but none of his corporate business partners really cared. That changed a few weeks ago when from his mouth biliously flowed some totally racist nonsense about Mexicans being rapists. Ever since the blow back from businesses newly ashamed of their association with Trump has been unflagging. Univision? Gone. Macy’s? Gone. NBC? Gone.

Today, Donald Trump issued a statement aimed presumably to stop the bleeding. It is insane and will not have the desired effect.

Read it! Or don’t. You don’t have to read it. Read it if you enjoy reading insane ramblings. Don’t read it if that isn’t your cup of tea.

Statement from Donald J. Trump:

I don’t see how there is any room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the statement I made on June 16th during my Presidential announcement speech. Here is what I said, and yet this statement is deliberately distorted by the media:

“When Mexico (meaning the Mexican Government) sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you (pointing to the audience). They’re not sending you (pointing again). They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs.They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people! But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people. It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.”

What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc. This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a 5 time deported Mexican with a long criminal record, who was forced back into the United States because they didn’t want him in Mexico. This is merely one of thousands of similar incidents throughout the United States. In other words, the worst elements in Mexico are being pushed into the United States by the Mexican government. The largest suppliers of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs are Mexican cartels that arrange to have Mexican immigrants trying to cross the borders and smuggle in the drugs. The Border Patrol knows this. Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world. On the other hand, many fabulous people come in from Mexico and our country is better for it. But these people are here legally, and are severely hurt by those coming in illegally. I am proud to say that I know many hard working Mexicans—many of them are working for and with me…and, just like our country, my organization is better for it.

The Mexican Government wants an open border as long as it’s a ONE WAY open border into the United States. Not only are they killing us at the border, but they are killing us on trade … and the country of Mexico is making billions of dollars in doing so.

I have great respect for Mexico and love their people and their peoples’ great spirit. The problem is, however, that their leaders are far smarter, more cunning, and better negotiators than ours. To the citizens of the United States, who I will represent far better than anyone else as President, the Mexican government is not our friend…and why should they be when the relationship is totally one sided in their favor on both illegal immigration and trade. I have pointed this out during my speeches and it is something Mexico doesn’t want me to say. In actuality, it was only after my significant rise in the polls that Univision, previously my friend, went ballistic. I believe that my examples of bad trade deals for the United States was of even more concern to the Mexican government than my talk of border security.

I have lost a lot during this Presidential run defending the people of the United States. I have always heard that it is very hard for a successful person to run for President. Macy’s, NBC, Serta and NASCAR have all taken the weak and very sad position of being politically correct even though they are wrong in terms of what is good for our country. Univision, because 70% of their business comes from Mexico, in my opinion, is being dictated to by the Mexican Government. The last thing Mexico wants is Donald Trump as President in that I will make great trade deals for the United States and will have an impenetrable border–only legally approved people will come through easily.

Interestingly, Univision has just announced they are attempting to go public despite very poor and even negative earnings, which is not a good situation for a successful IPO or high stock price—not to mention that I am currently suing them for breach of contract. Remember, Univision is the one who began this charade in the first place, and they are owned by one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest backers. After the speech was made, there were numerous compliments and indeed, many rave “reviews”—there was very little criticism. It wasn’t until a week after my announcement that people started to totally distort these very easy to understand words. If there was something stated incorrectly, it would have been brought up immediately and with great enthusiasm.

The issues I have addressed, and continue to address, are vital steps to Make America Great Again! Additionally, I would be the best jobs President that God ever created. Let’s get to work!

Continued – 

Donald Trump Just Issued Another Insane Rant About Mexico

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We’re coming for you, Cuba

by WendyAehbeqyip Posted on July 2, 2015

We’re coming for you, Cuba

By on 2 Jul 2015commentsShare

Hey there, Cuba. Now that we’ve cleared up that whole embargo thing — you know, the one that left you economically crippled for decades — we’re gonna go ahead and ruin what little good came out of it. That cool?

When the U.S. banned the export of non-food and medical goods to Cuba back in 1960, we not only forced the little country to grow up without internet or new cars, we also inadvertently turned it into an environmental haven. But now, thanks to our sudden bout of generosity, we’re gearing up to turn that boring old haven into the resort towns and cruise ship destinations that we love so much. Here’s more from the New York Times:

Already, American corporations are poised to rush into a country only 90 miles from Florida’s shores.

[…] Cruise ship companies and hotel chains like Marriott and Hilton have indicated their enthusiasm. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” Frank Del Rio, chief executive officer of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, said in an interview. “Cuba and the cruise industry are just a match made in heaven, waiting to happen.”

But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who went to Cuba with a congressional delegation in 2013, told the Times that he doesn’t think ruining Cuba will be that easy: “I don’t think they’re so lustful of development that they will just roll over and completely prostitute themselves to whomever comes by with a checkbook.”

That would be good, because U.S. corporations certainly won’t think twice about what they’re ruining with those checkbooks, even though some of it sounds pretty awesome. Here’s more from the Times:

Over the last two decades, Cuba has taken steps to preserve its natural resources and promote sustainable development. Environmental problems remain, including overfishing and the erosion and deforestation left from earlier eras. But the ministry overseeing environmental issues has a strong voice. And since 1992, when Fidel Castro denounced “the ecological destruction threatening the planet,” in a speech to the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, a series of tough environmental laws has been passed, including regulations governing the management of the coastal zone. The government has designated 104 marine protected areas, though some still exist only on paper, with no administration or enforcement, and it has set a goal of conserving 25 percent of the country’s coastal waters.

[…]

The collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991 and the continued isolation by the United States forced the country to fend for itself. With the tools of big agriculture — fuel for heavy machinery, chemical fertilizers, pesticides — out of reach, farming moved away from the increased sugar production that characterized the Soviet era, turning more to organic techniques and cooperatives of small farmers. Oxen replaced tractors, and even today a farmer walking behind his plow is a common sight in the countryside.

Hmm … on second thought, Cuba, you’re kinda making us look bad. Cover it all with water slides and Walmarts!

Source:
Cuba’s Environmental Concerns Grow With Prospect of U.S. Presence

, The New York Times.

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We’re coming for you, Cuba

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The US Government Spent Hundreds of Millions on Afghan Health Clinics. Now It’s Not Sure It Can Find Them.

by RozellaMccune Posted on July 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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The US government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on heath care facilities in Afghanistan as part of its efforts to rebuild the war-torn country. The problem is that two government agencies involved with the project can’t seem to agree on whether they know where the facilities are located—or even whether they’re all in Afghanistan.

Under the US Agency for International Development’s Partnership Contracts for Health program, the US government helps support basic health care needs for people across Afghanistan. As of March 2015, it had spent more than $210 million on the program, spread across 641 individual facilities.

But the location data USAID gave to a federal inspector general doesn’t seem to line up with actual facilities. John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), who leads the group charged with making sure Afghanistan reconstruction resources are used appropriately and lawfully, told USAID in a June 25 letter that the location data are incorrect—sometimes wildly so—for nearly 80 percent of the 641 health care facilities the agency is helping to support. Using geospatial data from the Army Geospatial Center, SIGAR tried to verify location data for the list of facilities that USAID provided.

“Thirteen coordinates were not located in Afghanistan,” Sopko wrote, noting that six were in Pakistan, six were in Tajikistan, “and one was located in the Mediterranean Sea.” There were also 13 cases where USAID reported two distinct facilities at the same location, more than 150 coordinates that didn’t clearly identify a specific building, and 90 cases where a location wasn’t provided, Sopko wrote. “To provide meaningful oversight of these facilities, both USAID and the Afghan government need to know where they are,” he added.

USAID says the data SIGAR used for its analysis is Afghan government data rather than USAID data, that USAID data is accurate, and that the agency knows how to find these clinics and monitor them, thank you very much.

“Local staff, third-party monitors, Afghan Government officials, and the benefiting community do not use GPS to navigate, let alone to find a health facility, because they are familiar with the area or from the community benefiting from the project,” Larry Sampler, an assistant to the administrator for Afghanistan and Pakistan affairs for USAID, said in a statement provided to Mother Jones. Sampler said USAID has put in place a “rigorous” monitoring system to oversee these clinics.

A USAID spokesperson further said the agency has its own set of data, distinct from Afghan government data, and that it is working with the Afghan government to bolster its record-keeping, a process that has already improved the Afghan data in the time since SIGAR requested information in the first place.

In response, a SIGAR spokesperson told Mother Jones that the information was originally requested in the course of an ongoing investigation into the Partnership Contracts for Health program, and that SIGAR went forward with the information provided by USAID. When asked why USAID didn’t just give SIGAR the correct data if it had it, a USAID spokesperson said, “The separate USAID data came from third party site visits that took place after May of 2014. I believe that SIGAR’s initial request for the data was informal in nature. SIGAR did not express concerns about the data with us prior to this inquiry letter.”

The point might seem trivial, but the geospatial data within geotagged photos, along with site visits, are used by USAID to verify that inspections actually take place. In a country where civilian travel is incredibly difficult, geotagged photos with precise location data are one of the best ways to ensure work is getting done and money is being spent correctly. In order to inspect these costly facilities, it’s helpful to agree on where to find them.

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The US Government Spent Hundreds of Millions on Afghan Health Clinics. Now It’s Not Sure It Can Find Them.

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Why Chris Christie Is Fighting the Release of His Media List

by CarriWinning Posted on June 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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For years, the news media has been battling New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for access to a host of ostensibly public records. In February, Mother Jones’ Molly Redden reported that Christie’s administration was fighting 23 open-records requests in court, on everything from Bridgegate to Christie’s out-of-state travel and contracts awarded in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. These fights over records aren’t just minor squabbles between pesky reporters and a prickly governor—they are costing New Jersey taxpayers serious money. As of September 2014, the Christie administration had shelled out $441,000 reimbursing lawyers for plaintiffs who successfully sued for records (and that doesn’t include other costs, such as government lawyers’ time).

Even when the Christie administration loses, it doesn’t go down without a fight. The New Jersey Watchdog, an independent investigative reporting outlet, reported Monday that the Christie administration is challenging a court’s order to release a comprehensive media list that was created by the governor’s communications office. The communications office is staffed by 16 people who earned more than $1.3 million in taxpayer-funded salaries last year.

The list, requested by the New Jersey Watchdog, includes “contact information for roughly 2,500 reporters, producers and editors, subdivided into categories, which enables Christie and his staff to selectively target efforts to promote their political ambitions,” according to the outlet. The Christie administration is arguing that providing the list would give the New Jersey Watchdog an unfair competitive advantage over other media outlets and is refusing to release it under a law that allows the government to withhold records that include trade secrets or proprietary information of government contractors.

“New Jersey Watchdog does not bid on government contracts,” Mark Lagerkvist, the site’s reporter and editor, wrote Monday. “It is a non-profit investigative news site that freely shares its content with other news outlets.… The governor’s argument suggests the governor has a proprietary, or ownership interest in the list. But the governor’s office is not a private business. And while the media list may be a valuable asset for his political future, it is not Christie’s property.”

Lagerkvist told Mother Jones that his attorney will file a response to the administration’s challenge and the judge in the case will likely schedule a hearing to decide the matter.

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Why Chris Christie Is Fighting the Release of His Media List

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Edward Snowden Didn’t Expose the NSA’s Bulk Phone Collection Program. Leslie Cauley Did.

by AracelyBaragwan Posted on June 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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The LA Times complains today that President Obama left someone out when he praised Congress for reforming the Patriot Act to end the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone records:

Unacknowledged by the president was the man who can fairly be called the ultimate author of this legislation: former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has been charged with violating the Espionage Act and is now living in exile in Russia. Without Snowden’s unauthorized disclosures two years ago, neither the public nor many members of Congress would have known that the government, acting under a strained interpretation of the Patriot Act, was vacuuming up and storing millions of Americans’ telephone records. That program will end after a six-month transition period under the bill signed by Obama.

I don’t want to minimize Snowden’s contribution here. He exposed a vast amount of official secrecy and lying, and did it in a way that produced a lot of public attention. Whether you love him or hate him, he deserves a ton of credit for doing what he did.

But it’s been a long-running pet peeve of mine that hardly anyone ever credits the person who was really the first to expose the NSA’s bulk data collection program: Leslie Cauley of USA Today. Here she is in May 2006, seven years before Snowden’s disclosures:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime….The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders.

….For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others….With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans.

…..Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

The big difference between Cauley and Snowden isn’t so much in what they revealed about the bulk collection program, but simply that the world yawned at Cauley and did nothing. It wasn’t until Snowden revealed far more about the NSA’s activities that the bulk collection program finally got the attention it deserved.

Snowden deserves credit for that—and, obviously, for providing lots of concrete evidence about the nature of the program. But when it comes to exposing the bulk collection program itself? Cauley told us all about it nearly a decade ago. She’s the one who deserves credit for making it public in the first place.

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Edward Snowden Didn’t Expose the NSA’s Bulk Phone Collection Program. Leslie Cauley Did.

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Big Oil Uses Toxic Chemicals to Clean Up Spills. Will the Feds Finally Make Them Stop?

by ColbySambell Posted on April 24, 2015

Mother Jones

Oil and dispersant in the Gulf of Mexico, a month after BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill began James Edward Bates/TNS/ZUMA

Five years ago this week, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and setting off the worst oil spill in US history. The images are unforgettable: The Gulf of Mexico on fire. Pelicans emerging from the water entirely covered in thick, black oil. Planes flying overhead, spraying more than a million gallons of an oil-dispersing chemical called Corexit in an attempt to control the spill.

Fast forward five years, and dispersants like Corexit are at the center of a growing political battle, as scientists and policymakers raise questions about their potential to harm the environment, wildlife, and human health. Right now in Washington, DC, the Environmental Protection Agency is developing new rules governing dispersant use—rules many experts worry won’t go nearly far enough to protect the public and natural resources. On Tuesday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), introduced legislation to temporarily ban dispersants until more tests are done to guarantee their safety.

Corexit is a go-to product for energy companies like BP when they’re dealing with massive spills. Dispersants don’t actually get rid of oil. But by breaking the oil up and submerging it in the water column, the chemicals make it easier for microbes to consume the oil. At least in theory. These days, some scientists are raising questions about how effective the 1.8 million gallons of Corexit dumped into the Gulf really was in achieving this. Dispersants have other benefits for oil companies, though. By moving oil out of sight, they quell public fears, facilitate PR, stabilize stock prices, and—potentially— help the polluters avoid stiff fines.

But all that Corexit may have done significant damage in the Gulf. One 2012 study found that in laboratory tests, mixtures of Corexit and oil were up to 52 times more toxic to microscopic animals known as rotifers than oil alone. Several leading scientists believe that the use of dispersants contributed to the environmental catastrophe that occurred throughout the Gulf, including the destruction of coral reefs. Studies have found that dispersants—as well as dispersant/oil mixtures—are more deadly to coral and coral larvae than oil by itself. A new report from the Government Accountability Project, a national whistleblower organization, describes the damage to Gulf coral as “arguably the most devastating and revealing of impacts documented in the five years since the BP spill.” This is particularly significant because coral reefs form a natural barrier against hurricanes and provide a habitat for thousands of marine species.

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Big Oil Uses Toxic Chemicals to Clean Up Spills. Will the Feds Finally Make Them Stop?

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The GOP’s Campaign to Make You Hate The IRS Is Kind of Genius

by ChristaWrigley Posted on April 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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People hate the IRS. Of course they do! When Pew Research asked people earlier this year how they feel about various parts of the government, every agency received positive marks—except the IRS. And last month, Rasmussen found that a scant 31 percent of voters trust the tax agency to fairly enforce the law. Let’s face it: the agency tasked with taking money out of paychecks is never going to be popular.

But people have even more reason to despise encounters with the agency these days, thanks to a concerted effort by Republicans in Congress to slash the tax collector’s budget. From the front page of today’s Washington Post:

Since 2010, Republicans on Capitol Hill have slashed the IRS budget by $1.2 billion, or about 17 percent, adjusting for inflation. Just this fiscal year, $346 million was cut.

By contrast, cuts across the rest of the government have been far more modest and concentrated. Between 2012 and 2014, automatic spending reductions shrank non-defense spending, as adjusted for inflation, by 1.3 percent, while IRS spending was chopped 5.6 percent, according to Scott Lilly, a budget expert at the Center for American Progress.

Those budget cuts have made dealing with the IRS this tax season a true pain in the ass. As the Washington Post details, just four in ten callers to the IRS’s help line are actually able to get assistance from a real human, while the number of unintentional hang-ups from an overworked phone system have ballooned. And the cuts are actually costing the government: thanks to a 5,000-person reduction in the agency’s staff over the past four years, tax cheats can more easily skate by.

Attacking the IRS is one of the simplest lines a politician can roll out. It’s a favorite rhetorical turn for presidential candidate and senator Ted Cruz, who’s said he’d like to “abolish the IRS, take all 125,000 IRS agents and put them on our southern border,” to applause at this year’s CPAC.

Meanwhile, Democrats are wary about offering an equally vocal defense of the IRS, hesitant to be tarred as just typical tax-and-spenders. Sure, President Obama has included increases for the agency in his congressional budget requests, but it’s never been a major issue that he’d consider wielding his veto pen over. But without a more robust defense, the IRS could wither away and replace the DMV as a punch line for why government doesn’t work.

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The GOP’s Campaign to Make You Hate The IRS Is Kind of Genius

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The Iranian Nuclear Deal: What the Experts Are Saying

by PreciouKKNV Posted on April 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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Shortly after the participants in the Iranian nuclear talks announced that a double-overtime framework had been crafted, I was on television with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who is something of a celebrity rabbi, a failed congressional candidate, and an arch-neoconservative hawk who has been howling about a potential deal with Iran for months. Not surprisingly, he was not pleased by the news of the day. He declared that under these parameters, Iran would give up nothing and would “maintain their entire nuclear apparatus.” Elsewhere, a more serious critic, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who last month had organized the letter to Iran’s leaders signed by 47 GOP senators opposed to a deal, groused that the framework was “only a list of dangerous US concessions that will put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons.”

These criticisms were rhetorical bombs, not statements of fact. Under the framework, Iran would give up two-thirds of its centrifuges used to enrich uranium and would reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (which is the raw material used to develop bomb-quality highly-enriched uranium) from 10,000 kilograms to 300 kilograms. These two developments alone—and the framework has many other provisions—would diminish Tehran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon. Its nuclear apparatus would be smaller, and under these guidelines, Iran’s pathway to nuclear weapons, while certainly not impossible, would be much more difficult. Yet because politics dominates the debate over this deal—as it does so often with important policy matters—foes of the framework could hurl fact-free charges with impunity.

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The Iranian Nuclear Deal: What the Experts Are Saying

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