Vox Sentences: Netanyahu's aggressive, befuddling speech to Congress

1. "My Bibi don't understand me anymore"

Netanyahu addresses Congress. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

• Today was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's big speech before Congress (the one he arranged without White House permission). Here's the video.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• Or, if you prefer, here's a two minute video summarizing it.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• And the full transcript here.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• This crucial passage summarizes Netanyahu's argument that the nuclear deal President Obama is pursuing with Iran would end in disaster: "Would Iran be less aggressive when sanctions are removed and its economy is stronger? If Iran is gobbling up four countries right now while it's under sanctions, how many more countries will Iran devour when sanctions are lifted?"

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• But he suggested that his ideal outcome is a tougher deal, which he thinks threatening sanctions will help achieve.

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

• Foundation for Middle East Peace president Matt Duss points out there's a hole in that logic: "There we go: Iran is run by crazy suicidal apocalyptic mullahs who will crack under greater economic pressure."

  [Matt Duss]

• The White House reacted with roughly the amount of disdain you'd expect given its bad blood with Netanyahu.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (CA): "I was near tears throughout the Prime Minister’s speech – saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States as part of the P5 +1 nations, and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation."

  [Nancy Pelosi]

• ("P5 + 1" refers to the permanent five members of the UN Security Council — US, UK, France, China, Russia — plus Germany; this is the team negotiating a deal with Iran.)

• A senior administration official told Jake Tapper that the speech had "literally, not one new idea; not one single concrete alternative; all rhetoric, no action."

  [Jake Tapper]

• Another (or maybe the same one?) told the Jerusalem Post's Michael Wilner that "the logic of the prime minister’s speech is regime change."

  [Michael Wilner]

• Realistically, other than inaction, military action or attempting to replace the regime is the only policy alternative to cutting a deal — and it's probably worse.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Netanyahu also reiterated concerns that Iran will literally nuke Israel. That's implausible; the real danger is that having a nuke emboldens them to provide greater support to extremist groups in the region.

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

• Jeffrey Goldberg: the speech might end up serving its purpose if it makes Congress more skeptical of whatever deal the administration reaches.

  [The Atlantic / Jeffrey Goldberg]

2. Feds in Ferguson

An MLK day march in Ferguson, MO. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

• A preliminary Justice Department report has found that Ferguson, MO "relied on tickets from racially skewed traffic stops of African Americans to help balance the city's budget."

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• The report describes blatant racial bias in the town's police department: "Of the cases in which the police department documented the use of force, 88 percent involved blacks, and victims of the 14 dog bites recorded by the department all were black."

  [AP / Eric Tucker]

• "Blacks make up 67 percent of the population in Ferguson. But they make up 85 percent of people subject to vehicle stops and 93 percent of those arrested. Blacks are twice as likely to be searched as whites, but less likely to have drugs or weapons."

  [NPR / Carrie Johnson]

• The report also contains an email in which someone using a city email address joked that Obama's presidency would be cut short, because "what black man holds a steady job for four years."

  [Vox / Jenée Desmond-Harris]

• The findings suggest that Ferguson either needs to cut a deal with the Justice Department, or face a lawsuit from the federal government for violating citizens' civil rights.

  [NYT / Matt Apuzzo]

• Civil rights lawyer Lisa Bloom: "To everyone who criticized the Ferguson protestors: they were right, you were wrong."

  [Vox / Jenée Desmond-Harris]

3. Shutdown shut down

Nancy Pelosi may have handed over the gavel to John Boehner, but days like today show he still needs her. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

• After much sturm und drang, Congress finally funded the Department of Homeland Security through September.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) mostly used Democratic support to get it done; no Democrats voted no, while Republican nays outnumbered yeas 167 to 75.

  [House Clerk]

• The February deadline for funding DHS was devised as a way to give House Republicans a place to vent without disrupting the entire government; in retrospect, it appears to have served that purpose well.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein]

• Jonathan Bernstein argues that Boehner, once again, has proven himself an excellent Speaker: "On one hand, the speaker gave the radicals and those who voted with them a moment of triumph when they spiked the bill. On the other, it was a good reminder for most mainstream House conservatives … that the alternative to Boehner is chaos."

  [Bloomberg View / Jonathan Bernstein]

4. Misc.

• Disgraced former General David Petraeus (remember him?) is pleading guilty to sharing classified information with his then-mistress; prosecutors are recommending probation.

  [NYT / Michael Schmidt and Matt Apuzzo]

• Sweden or Norway seems like your best bet if you want to take advantage of the currently-strong dollar; Russia and Ukraine are even cheaper but, uh, y'know.

  [Washington Post / Darla Cameron and Dan Keating]

• There's a stock fund that hasn't picked a new stock since 1935. It's performed surprisingly well since.

  [Reuters / Ross Kerber]

• The case that AI is not going to kill us all: it won't be able to self-replicate, it won't have human-like desires, and it won't trigger an "intelligence explosion."

  [Re/code / Jeff Hawkins]

• These cartoonists don't understand how network neutrality works.

  [agoodcartoon.tumblr.com]

5. Verbatim

• "Tonette jokes that I never forget our wedding anniversary because it is Reagan’s birthday."

  [Scott Walker via Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• "Medium is now a place to post text of varying lengths, where it will be arranged chronologically by author and presented in a central homepage feed. Is it just Tumblr for rich people?"

  [The Atlantic / Robinson Meyer]

• "That status quo may be flawed, sclerotic and corrupt … but the country as a whole seems invested in muddling along with our system in a way that, say, Germans in the Weimar era or Americans during the antebellum crises ultimately were not."

  [NYT / Ross Douthat]

• "The launch of a new word in China is threatening to break the internet, with the character being shared millions of times despite no-one knowing what it means."

  [Telegraph / Graham Ruddick]

• "Eyewitnesses often grow more confident about their statements over time, regardless of whether they’re actually accurate."

  [Boston Globe / Kevin Hartnett]

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