Vox Sentences: The fallout from the Iran deal

1. Selling the deal

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani talks about the nuclear deal at a press conference in Tehran on April 3, 2015. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

• On national Iranian television, President Hassan Rouhani touted the nuclear deal outline reached with the United States as an agreement that "benefits everyone" and opens Iran to the world.

  [NYT / Thomas Erdbrink]

• The leader of Friday prayers in the capital, Tehran, expressed support for the deal, "a sign that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other hardliners will back the accord."

  [Reuters / Sam Wilkin and Babak Dehghanpisheh]

• Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to express strong opposition to the deal and insisted that any agreement include Iranian recognition of Israel's right to exist.

  [NYT / Jodi Rudoren]

• Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-TN) has planned an April 14 committee vote on a bill to require congressional approval for a deal; he says he doesn't want to hold a vote in the full Senate without a veto-proof majority.

  [ABC News / Devin Dwyer, John Parkinson, and Arlette Saenz]

• And Corker will need a veto-proof majority, as Obama has already said he'd reject the bill.

  [Newsweek / Jonathan Broder and Matthew Cooper]

• Obama can unilaterally suspend most sanctions without talking to Congress at all, so unless there's enough Democratic support for Corker's bill to break a veto, he doesn't really need Congress.

  [Lawfare / Jack Goldsmith]

• Then again, the administration is scared enough of the bill getting that level of support that it's lobbying Congress hard to reject it.

  [Politico / Burgess Everett]

• Issues in the deal that still need to be resolved: if Iran's enriched uranium will be exported or just watered down, whether sanctions will be lifted gradually or as soon as a deal is signed, and if Iran will discuss past nuclear work with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors.

  [Christian Science Monitor / Peter Grier]

• The Iran foreign ministry's fact sheet on the deal suggests "all of the sanctions will be immediately removed after reaching a comprehensive agreement."

  [Belfer Center / Payam Mohseni]

• But Secretary of State John Kerry has stated the sanctions will be lifted in phases.

  [CNN / Elise Labott, Mariano Castillo, and Catherine Shoichet]

• Nuclear proliferation experts tell Max Fisher this is a far better deal than they expected.

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

• Veteran diplomat and Bush/Obama administration vet Bill Burns agrees: "We would create an inspection regime unparalleled in intensity, going well beyond current international standards."

  [NYT / Williams Burns]

• But former weapons inspector Charles Duelfer is skeptical: "inspectors can be no tougher than the body that empowers them — in this instance the UN Security Council … Do we really want to depend on Vladimir Putin?"

  [Politico / Charles Duelfer]

• Critics argue that the deal will give Iran more money to do stuff like back the Assad regime in Syria or finance Hezbollah — which it will, but any deal would, and the alternative is faster Iranian progress toward a bomb.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

2. A very meh jobs day

Federal Reserve Bank Board Chairwoman Janet Yellen gets her head in the game. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• 126,000 jobs were gained in March, according to the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics job report, well below projections.

  [Vox / Danielle Kurtzleben]

• The report broke a 12-month streak of reports showing over 200,000 jobs gained; worse, strong January and February job growth numbers were revised downward, so the US gained 69,000 fewer jobs in those months than previously thought.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Ben Casselman]

• Among the causes: bad weather (which depresses construction hiring) and the strong dollar (which hurts manufacturing companies that export goods abroad).

  [Washington Post / Matt O'Brien]

• The low price of oil also appears to be hurting jobs in oil and gas extraction.

  [Jared Bernstein]

• Over the last three months, the US gained an average of 197,000 jobs a month; if that rate keeps up, jobs won't fully recover from the recession until the summer of 2017, nearly a decade after it started.

  [Hamilton Project]

• The report also found that the labor force shrank and year-over-year wage growth stayed around the 2 percent mark, barely above inflation.

  [Vox / Danielle Kurtzleben]

• This is just one month's report, of course, but most metrics other than the jobs numbers have been fairly weak lately too.

  [NYT / Neil Irwin]

• Matt Yglesias: if the Fed clarified that it won't respond to good economic news by raising interest rates, we'd finally get consistent, strong job growth.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

3. Thirty lost years

Anthony Ray Hinton, freed from death row after 30 years. (Equal Justice Initiative)

• Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent 30 years on death row in Alabama, has finally been released.

  [Al.com / Kent Faulk]

• Last year, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned his conviction after concluding his right to a fair trial had been violated.

  [NYU]

• Hinton's initial defense counsel had mistakenly thought he could only pay $1,000 for an expert witness, and so hired someone to analyze the ballistics evidence who was blind in one eye and struggled to use a microscope.

  [NYT / Jesse Wegman]

• After the Supreme Court ruling, three experts failed to link the bullets in the case to the weapon Hinton allegedly used to kill two people, and so prosecutors dropped charges in his retrial.

  [Washington Post / Abby Phillip]

• There are 194 inmates on death row in Alabama; it is the only state where judges regularly impose death sentences in spite of juries recommending life.

  [New Yorker / Paige Williams]

4. Misc.

• FDA regulation has made condoms — and sex — far, far, safer. But LV Anderson argues it's also robbed Americans of condoms that actually feel good.

  [Slate / LV Anderson]

• The Warren Buffett–controlled Clayton Homes dominates the American mobile home industry, doing everything from building to selling to lending at high interest rates that leave customers drowning in debt.

  [Center for Public Integrity / Daniel Wagner and Mike Baker]

• In several states, you can wind up on the sex offenders' registry for crimes that have nothing to do with sex.

  [Washington Post / Abby Phillip]

• This year's Reddit April Fools' joke is a surreal but kind of ingenious mind game.

  [Slate / Jacob Brogan]

• Ja Rule turned down the role in 2 Fast 2 Furious that wound up going to Ludacris; as a result, Luda's acting career took off, and he's been in three additional Fast & Furious movies, while Ja Rule is … Ja Rule.

  [Grantland / Thomas Golianopoulos]

5. Verbatim

• "On the way to prison after stopping an evil drug lord, Dom was Down By Law. J-j-j-j-j-Jarmusch!"

  [The Verge]

• "The new rule … stands out as one of the only policy changes in memory that makes life for sex offenders in the United States easier rather than harder."

  [Slate / Leon Neyfakh]

• "At the center was Mr. White himself: thin, 28 when the book was published, with unruly dark hair, penetrating eyes and veins running down his forearms that made them resemble hydraulic pork shanks."

  [NYT / Dwight Garner]

• "Early on, when my wife and I were dating, we went to the grocery store, and I told her that sometimes I just buy birthday cakes, and I eat them. And she said: 'Really? I do, too.'"

  [Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to NYT / Mark Leibovich]

• "In the public imagination, sex workers exist in a vacuum devoid of family, romantic relationships, neighbors, and colleagues."

  [New Republic / Alana Massey]

• "If the technology of targeting the victims is new, the technology of killing them is ancient and intimate."

  [NYT / Tahmima Anam]

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