The latest political headlines powered by NBC News

In two major speeches, President Obama sent strong signals this week about what he envisions for the military in a post-Sept. 11 era, a new path which can be described in a word: downsized.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama congratulates a graduate as another one celebrates at the United States Naval Academy graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Md., Friday, May 24, 2013.

The president said the United States will have stricter limits on drone attacks overseas and telegraphed a new emphasis on fighting terrorism, based more on focusing on targeted, isolated threats and less on an over-arching projection of force.

Just as the government’s mission is changing, so is that of the U.S. military.

Both are shrinking in scale.

During Obama’s four and a half years in White House, military spending has declined and the military active duty force has shrunk by about 29,000. American soldiers and Marines are no longer engaged in combat in Iraq and in Afghanistan their presence will soon dwindle to a residual force.  “A perpetual war -- through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments -- will prove self-defeating,” the president said in a speech Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington.

This weekend some who died in those conflicts will be commemorated at Arlington National Cemetery and other cemeteries across the nation.

While saying that “our nation is still threatened by terrorists,” Obama contended that “we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.”

As Obama has shown by his aversion to any involvement in the Syrian civil war and by his tightly calibrated “lead from behind” strategy to support the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi in Libya, he’s determined to not be the president that leads America into another traditional ground combat war.

In his speech Thursday he warned that “putting boots on the ground” in Syria or elsewhere would lead to “more U.S. deaths, more Black Hawks down… and an inevitable mission creep in support of such raids that could easily escalate into new wars.”

Obama’s risk aversion contrasts with a leading Democrat of the Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright. In 1993 Albright, then the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, urged intervention in the Balkans war, challenging the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and Vietnam War veteran) Gen. Colin Powell: ''What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?''

Obama reminds Americans of the costs of war – especially measured in the things that military outlays might have purchased -- lamenting that the dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan limited “our ability to nation-build here at home. “

He cautioned Thursday that “unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight….”

Yet in some ways, while some of the threats to the nation are new, the U.S. military in the Obama era remains much as it was in the Bush or Clinton eras. In an era of lone-wolf terrorists and suicidal jihadists, the United States is still equipped for an old-style war against nation-states on sea or on land.

Even with the sequester cutting about 8 percent in available funds for the Pentagon this year, military outlays will amount to about 18 percent of all federal outlays.

According to the London-based think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the U.S. defense budget “still equals that of the next 14 nations combined.”

While he is looking forward to an era when American soldiers won’t be in combat, Obama still committed to expensive investments in weapons and hardware.

In his speech to the class of 2013 at the Naval Academy Friday, Obama promised “a shipbuilding plan that puts us on track to achieve a 300-ship fleet” over the next 30 years, “with capabilities that exceed the power of the next dozen navies combined.” 

And then there’s the cost of the hardware purchased over the past ten years.

One telling example of maintenance cost was supplied at a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on defense.

The MRAP is a heavy Army vehicle developed in a crash program in 2007 to help prevent the deaths and mayhem caused by improvised explosive devices in Iraq. Each MRAP costs up to $1 million.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno told the Senate subcommittee that “we have 21,000 MRAPs today in our inventory,” but only 4,000 will be deployed with active Army units. Another 4,000 will be held reserve “in case we need them for other contingencies.” That leaves an excess of 13,000 vehicles.

“We can't afford to sustain 21,000 MRAPs because it would be in addition to all the other equipment that we have to sustain,” Odierno told the senators. “We think by keeping 8,000 of them, we can fund that, we can sustain that.”

At the same time as taxpayers pay for maintaining MRAPS and building ships, Obama presides over the military health care and retirement system, one of the largest social welfare organizations in the world.

As long ago as 2008, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned Congress that “health care is eating us alive. Our health care budget in 2001 was $19 billion; our request this year is for almost $43 billion.” And Gates noted in that testimony that in a few years, nearly two-thirds of Pentagon health care expenditures would be for military retirees, not for the active or reserve force.

The cost pressure comes not just from health care: the Congressional Budget Office recently reported that spending for military retirement pay and survivors’ annuities will rise by more than 30 percent over the next decade – even though the number of military retirees and their survivors will remain flat over that period. Most of the growth will occur because benefits are adjusted for inflation.

Even without “perpetual war,” there will be long-term costs to maintaining a large military.

This story was originally published on Sat May 25, 2013 10:42 AM EDT

They’ve been given an inch – can they take a mile? 

The national controversy involving revelations that the IRS has subjected conservative groups to extra scrutiny in their applications for tax-exempt status has evolved into a fill-in-the-blanks scandal for Republicans, who have substituted their own narrative for every gap in the Obama administration’s explanation for the abuses. 

Though the available evidence suggests the IRS fiasco is more an outgrowth of incompetence and mismanagement within the agency than a nefarious plot by President Barack Obama to target his political enemies, there are enough blind spots in the administration’s explanations to give Republicans enough of a pretext to float theories of much broader, more insidious scandals. 

“One of the things I want to know is everybody that had a significant income that contributed to Romney, I want to know what their audit rate was,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said on “Morning Joe” on Thursday. “Because the indications are out of Oklahoma right now that if you happen to be a conservative and are wealthy and gave to Romney, you got an audit where you’ve never gotten an audit before.” 

(A spokesman for Sen. John Cornyn, R, tweeted that his office was fielding similar reports out of Texas.) 

The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, took to the floor of the Senate on Thursday to assert that it is “clear” that the IRS targeting goes well beyond rogue officials. (In a separate op-ed for the Washington Post, McConnell asserted that efforts sought by Democrats – legislatively and through the Federal Election Commission – to force shadowy political groups to disclose their donors were akin to the IRS targeting.) 

"The facts we've seen so far point to something far more systemic than that. And it shouldn't surprise anybody,” McConnell said. 

As of now, there is little more than anecdotal evidence to support an assertion that the targeting of conservatives within the IRS extends beyond processing applications for tax-exempt status. And even then, the IRS inspector general who conducted the investigation into those abuses, J. Russell George, told congressional hearings over the past week that his audit uncovered no evidence that partisanship had fueled the abuses, or that any outside official directed IRS officials to target conservative groups. 

But IRS officials’ own accounting for the abuses at the agency and the Obama administration’s own confused explanation about its own knowledge of the controversy have injected enough gray area for Republicans to use. And it adds to an existing feeding frenzy about Benghazi, and the administration’s work to monitor journalists’ activities in a leak investigation. 

The decision on Wednesday by Lois Lerner, the IRS official in charge of the tax-exempt division, to invoke her Fifth Amendment right to not offer self-incriminating testimony obviously offered GOP lawmakers something to latch onto. The clearly inept performances by former commissioners Steven Miller and Douglas Shulman, both of whom denied having any prior knowledge of the abuses of conservatives, and failed to act on any preliminary indication of the misconduct that crossed their desk, has also been easy fodder. 

The White House – largely by its own admission at this point – similarly botched the manner in which it explained its own knowledge of the scandal. White House press secretary Jay Carney was forced to revise the administration’s explanation several times over; it was only this week when he acknowledged that the White House learned of the scandal in late April through White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler, who conveyed the information to senior staff, but not the president himself. 

“It's pretty inconceivable to me that the president wouldn't know,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said during an interview Wednesday night on Fox News.

The irony, of course, is that top Republicans are making these allegations just as they openly admit at the same time that they lack any evidence whatsoever of presidential involvement in the IRS’s actions.

“We don’t have anything to say that the president knew about this. In fact, he says he learned about it on television,” Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“That may be the case,” Camp added. “But we need to know who started this and why it was allowed to continue for so long.”

And as recently as Thursday, as top Republicans continued to voice their conspiracy theories about the IRS, Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam, Republicans’ chief deputy whip, conceded again there’s no evidence that Obama had been involved in the IRS abuses.

“There’s no evidence that leads it to the Oval Office,” he said on “Daily Rundown” on Thursday. “And I think this is a situation where we need to be very careful and get the facts out and not come to conclusions and speculations before the facts speak for themselves.”

This story was originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 1:17 PM EDT

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama speaks at the commencement ceremony for the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Friday, May 24, 2013.

In a speech to the graduating class of 2013 at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., President Barack Obama challenged the 1,047 graduates to “live with integrity” and help restore trust in a military that has been stained by recent charges of sexual assault, just as other American institutions have been shaken by misconduct. “We need your honor… we need values now more than ever,” he urged them. “Even more than physical courage, we need your moral courage.”

“Those who commit sexual assault are not only committing a crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that make our military strong,” he said.

He drew a parallel between financial chicanery on Wall Street, the recent Internal Revenue Service scandal of targeted scrutiny of conservative groups, and the sexual assault incidents in the military, saying “If we want to restore the trust that the American people deserve to have in their institutions, all of us have to do our part -- and those of us in  leadership, myself included -- have to constantly strive to remain worthy of the public trust.”

“In recent decades many Americans have lost confidence in many of the institutions that help shape our society,” Obama noted. But “institutions do not fail in a vacuum. Institutions are made up of people – individuals – and we’ve seen how the actions of a few can undermine the integrity of those institutions .”

“Our military remains the most trusted institution in America,” he declared. “When others have shirked their responsibilities our armed offices have met every mission we’ve given them.”

But he added, “we must acknowledge that even here – even in our military -- we’ve seen how the misconduct of some can have effects that ripple far and wide.”

In recent weeks members of Congress have reacted in dismay to spate of military sexual misconduct scandals, including two cases in which the officers in charge of dealing with sexual assault cases were allegedly involved in crimes against women.

A recent Defense Department report estimated that 26,000 cases of sexual assault occurred in Fiscal Year 2012, a 37 percent increase from FY2011.

Two bills have been introduced to try to remedy the sexual assault problem. One by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D- Mo., would require a dismissal or a dishonorable discharge for a member of the military found guilty of rape or sexual assault.

Another bill offered by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. would remove the decision whether to take a case to special or general court-martial out of the military chain of command and give discretion to military prosecutors for crimes punishable by one year or more in confinement, except crimes uniquely military in nature.

“Just as you’ve changed over the past four years, so too have the challenges facing our military,” Obama told the Annapolis graduates. He touched on the themes he had addressed on Thursday when he delivered a major speech at the National Defense University re-orienting his strategy on terrorism.

He said Friday, “Let me say as clearly as I can: the United States of America will always maintain our military superiority, and as your commander in chief, I am going to keep fighting to give you the equipment and support required to meet the missions we ask of you and also make sure you are getting the pay and benefits and support that you deserve.”

The president said he would carry out a ship-building schedule that would achieve a 300-ship fleet with capacities that exceed the power of the next dozen nations’ navies combined.

Obama said in his speech Thursday that while “our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue,” that “this war, like all wars, must end.” He also warned against being “drawn into more wars we don't need to fight.”

Obama narrowed the parameters for the use of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, to kill terrorists overseas and renewed his efforts to persuade Congress to agree to close the Guantanamo detention site in Cuba.

This story was originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 11:51 AM EDT

After clearing the first hurdle in some of the most delicate legislative jockeying in recent memory, advocates of a comprehensive immigration reform bill are already looking to the next stage of the legislation’s progress as it heads toward a high-profile airing in the full Senate.

While some groups aligned with Democrats failed to secure their desired changes to the sweeping Senate legislation as it worked its way through 30 hours of debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, many are looking to the floor debate as a second shot to include their priorities in a final bill.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Immigration activists gather on Capitol Hill in Washington on Monday, May 20, 2013, before the Senate Judiciary Committee began working on a landmark immigration bill to secure the border and offer citizenship to millions.

And Republicans who are supportive of the reform effort, led by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, are all but certain to support changes to the bill’s border security provisions in the effort to bring more conservatives into the fold.

Mindful of how previous attempts to overhaul the nation's immigration system disintegrated under pressure, however, all sides are proceeding with caution to maintain an underlying framework of compromise that -- so far -- remains unscathed.

“The center has held, so part of the calculation going forward is how to make it through the Senate floor in the same fashion,” said Clarissa Martinez De Castro, the director of immigration policy for the National Council of La Raza.

Her organization, along with other immigrant advocacy groups, had lobbied for provisions to allow more flexibility for family members of U.S. citizens to become eligible for visas.

One amendment -- considered the most politically palatable of the possible options -- would have restored visa eligibility for the adult children or siblings of citizens if separation would mean “extreme hardship” for the family. But despite an emotional push by sponsor Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, the provision failed by a 7-11 vote in committee.

Mee Moua, the executive director of the Asian American Justice Center, said that the defeat of that amendment was “short-sighted” but that her group is hopeful for a second chance.

“We feel that there’s actually been some space that’s been created for us to continue the conversation,” Moua said. ‘We’re hopeful that the floor process -- with 100 senators -- means there’s still an opportunity for us.”

LGBT activists also suffered a defeat Tuesday night when ally Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy -- acknowledging his colleagues’ fears that it would splinter the bill’s underlying compromise -- pulled an amendment that would have recognized same-sex marriages in immigration law.

But their fight to write the protections into the final bill may depend as much as on the Supreme Court’s calendar as it does on Senate politics.

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act at the end of its term in late June or early July. A favorable DOMA decision for gay rights activists would largely resolve what they see as discrimination written into immigration law now.

But that ruling is no guarantee.

“Our position today is if the bill is moving towards the vote and we do not have a Supreme Court ruling in hand -- or we have a bad ruling in hand -- we’d certainly want to look at the options for an amendment on the floor,” said Steve Ralls of Immigration Equality, one of the groups that excoriated Gang of Eight Republicans for labeling the LGBT measure a deal-breaker, leading Leahy to withhold it. “If we don’t have a resolution from the court, the Senate has a responsibility to our families to support a floor amendment."

Unions may also push to change provisions inserted Tuesday to win the support of Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, who secured the relaxation of hiring regulations for high-tech firms seeking temporary skilled workers from abroad. After winning the changes -- which were panned by the AFL-CIO, which worked on the bill’s original compromise language regarding temporary workers -- Hatch announced that he would vote for the bill  in committee but that he could still vote against it once it comes to the floor.

There will also be a slate of amendments from the other side of the aisle, both from Republican opponents of the bill attempting to gut its central tenets and from those hoping to woo more conservatives to vote for the final product.

Republicans who support the bill's framework are considering amendments that tighten security provisions in a way that remains compatible with the bill's proposed path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. That effort is likely to include amendments that would shift responsibility for border security planning and enforcement from the Department of Homeland Security -- the object of mistrust by many conservatives -- into the hands of Congress.

Even if the bill passes the Senate with a large bipartisan majority, with activists setting their sights as high as 70 or 75 votes, it faces uncertainty in the Republican-controlled House.

After seeming on the brink of collapse late Thursday, members of a House bipartisan group said they were still on track to introduce their own compromise legislation next month.

And House leaders, led by Speaker John Boehner, wrote Thursday that they will not vote on a Senate-passed measure without input from the lower chamber.  

“The House remains committed to fixing our broken immigration system, but we will not simply take up and accept the bill that is emerging in the Senate if it passes,” they wrote. “Rather, through regular order, the House will work its will and produce its own legislation.”

But exactly what that House legislation will look like -- or if it will be palatable to a majority of lawmakers -- remains unclear.

Related stories:

• PHOTOS: Aerial search for illegal border crossings along active Rio Grande
• Immigration bill clears hurdle with 13-5 approval by Senate committee
• Reid signals delay in potential fight over Senate rules change
• Senate panel gives green light to test biometric exit program
• Conservative talkers, grassroots groups push anti-immigration reform effort

This story was originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 3:59 AM EDT

Drew Angerer / The New York Times via Redux Pictures

Supporters of immigration reform cheer after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration laws on Tuesday.

A sweeping bill to overhaul the nation's immigration system cleared its first major hurdle late Tuesday night, with the 18-member committee charged with completing a first round of legislative edits voting to advance the amended bill to the full Senate.  

The vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee was 13-5.  

Three Republicans - Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah -- joined the panel's 10 Democrats to vote in favor of the bill. 

Flake and Graham are both members of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" that originally drafted the 844-page immigration legislation. Hatch's support was won after the Utah lawmaker secured changes to the bill's provisions for the hiring of high-skilled foreign workers.  

Five Republicans - Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Sessions of Alabama -- voted against the legislation. 

The measure will now head to the Senate floor. 

In a statement, President Barack Obama - who has made the passage of immigration reform the top legislative goal of his second term -- lauded the committee for its "open and inclusive process" and said the legislation as approved is "largely consistent with the principles of commonsense reform I have proposed." 

"I encourage the full Senate to bring this bipartisan bill to the floor at the at the earliest possible opportunity and remain hopeful that the amendment process will lead to further improvements," he said. 

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not serve on the panel but is a crucial player in wooing fellow conservatives to support the bill, similarly praised the committee but noted that "work still remains to be done."

"Immigration reform will not become law unless we can earn the confidence of the American people that we are solving our immigration problems once and for all," he said, adding that he is "optimistic" that the bill can be satisfactorily improved on the Senate floor. 

On Tuesday, the top Republican in the upper chamber affirmed that he will not block the immigration proposal from being debated by the full Senate.

“I think the Gang of Eight has made a substantial contribution in moving the issue forward," Sen. Mitch McConnell told reporters. "I’m told that the Judiciary Committee hasn’t in any fundamental way undone the agreements that were agreed by the eight senators, so I’m hopeful we can get a bill that we can pass here in the Senate.”

In an emotional moment shortly before final passage, committee chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont announced that he would not call for a vote on an amendment that would have recognized the marriages of same-sex spouses in immigration law. 

Republicans in the bipartisan Gang of Eight said the LGBT measure would have broken apart the fragile coalition crafted by the bill's drafters. 

As written, the bill would open a 13-year path to citizenship for qualified undocumented immigrants, establish a new program for low-skilled temporary workers, require new border security strategies and implement a nationwide employment verification system. 

Conservatives who oppose the reform proposal say that it fails to secure the border adequately and does not do enough to prevent a new wave of illegal immigration into the country.

Throughout five days of marathon work sessions, senators on the panel tweaked the bill's provisions for modifying immigrant worker programs, tracking foreign nationals who overstay visas and implementing new border security measures along the nation's southern border. 

But Flake and Graham -- the two Republican members of the Gang of Eight who serve on the committee - joined with Democrats to vote down amendments deemed a threat to the "Gang of Eight" compromise.

When the final vote was announced, attendees in the hearing room broke into cheers of "Si se puede!" and "Yes we can!" 

This story was originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 8:04 PM EDT

Lois Lerner, the IRS official who oversees the agency’s division in charge of tax-exempt organizations, has been placed on administrative leave, a source told NBC News on Thursday. The IRS has selected Ken Corbin as acting director during Lerner's absence.

Lerner, whose responsibility for the targeting of conservative groups at the IRS has become a point of scrutiny in the controversy, had come under bipartisan fire. Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., wrote acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel earlier on Thursday seeking Lerner’s suspension.

Lerner had appeared before a House committee on Wednesday, but invoked her Fifth Amendment rights, and declined to testify. She offered a broad declaration denying any wrongdoing, however, which has prompted some Republicans to conclude she had effectively waived her Fifth Amendment rights. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who heads the oversight panel before which Lerner appeared, suggested Thursday he’ll seek to recall her as a witness.

This story was originally published on Thu May 23, 2013 5:52 PM EDT

President Barack Obama was repeatedly interrupted by a heckler whose taunts slowed the delivery of a major national security speech in the Washington, D.C. area.

The unidentified heckler began shouting at the president toward the tail end of his highly-anticipated address, when he touched upon U.S. policy toward detainees suspected of terrorist acts.

Obama was forced to pause three separate times and talk over the protester, interrupting the flow of the closing section of the speech at National Defense University.

“I'm about to address it ma'am, but you've got to let me speak,” Obama scolded the woman. “Why don't you sit down and let me tell you exactly what I'd do."

The antiwar group Code Pink, which often interrupts high-profile political events with vocal protests against U.S. foreign policy and national security strategy, said its founder Medea Benjamin was the person responsible for the interruption.

Though the president appeared somewhat irritated by the interruption, he said he was willing to cut the woman “some slack, because it’s worth being passionate about.”

He added after another interruption: “The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. Obviously I do not agree with much of what she said. And obviously she wasn’t listening to me and much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong.”

Thursday wasn’t the only instance in which Obama was interrupted during a high-profile speech. During remarks last year about immigration at the White House, a conservative reporter, Neil Munro, heckled the president with a question about the impact of his announcement that day.

This story was originally published on Thu May 23, 2013 3:06 PM EDT

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated Thursday that he may postpone a confrontation with Republicans over stalled nominations until after the Senate considers the bipartisan immigration bill that the Judiciary Committee OK’d Tuesday.

“I am not going to do anything to interfere with the immigration bill,” he said.

At issue was the so-called “nuclear option,” a possible move by Reid and the Democrats to unilaterally curb filibusters by a simple majority vote, instead of by 67 votes as required by Senate rules.

Reid charged at a press conference Thursday that Republican foot-dragging had delayed or blocked confirmation of several key Obama nominees, with Republican senators submitting more than 1,100 written questions to Gina McCarthy, Obama’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

McCarthy, Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez, consumer financial watchdog Richard Cordray,  and five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board are awaiting confirmation.

“Presidents need to have the team they want when they want them – and this is not working” Reid said told reporters. “It is time for this gridlock to end – that is my message.” He added, “There are no threats – we simply want the Senate to work the way that it should.” 

He added later, “We’re not threatening anybody with anything.”

But Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y. argued that “the public would be happy to hear that the Senate is changing the way it is doing business. So the other side (the Republicans) must be careful – if they think they can win a debate over whether the Senate should change its rules, they might very well be mistaken.”

In a big victory for Obama, the Senate unanimously voted Thursday to confirm Sri Srinivasan to serve on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Senate Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R- Ky. indicated Wednesday that Republicans supported Srinivasan, a lawyer who has served in the Solicitor General’s office in both the Bush and Obama administrations, calling him "a nominee we all agree on.... We like him."

Discussing Srinivasan, Schumer smiled as he said to reporters, “We may be seeing him coming before the Senate again soon,” – a reference to speculation that Obama might nominate Srinivasan to the Supreme Court if a vacancy occurs. 

But looming in the weeks ahead is a potentially incendiary standoff over what many Democrats are urging: a change in Senate rules to end filibusters of nominees.

In 2005, Senate Republicans threatened to use the “nuclear option” after Democrats blocked votes on nominees to the federal courts by President George W. Bush. The roles were reversed in 2005 with Democrats supporting filibusters of nominee and Republicans accusing them of obstructionism. Eventually the two sides settled their dispute and allowed several Bush nominees to be confirmed to the federal bench.

Reid reminisced Wednesday about the agreement that Democrats had struck with Republicans on confirming those nominees. He said, “We agreed to put some people on the bench that we have regretted since then -- Janice Rogers Brown, Thomas Griffith, Brett Kavanaugh” – all of whom are judges now serving on the D.C. Circuit appeals court.

This story was originally published on Thu May 23, 2013 1:42 PM EDT

In a major address Thursday President Barack Obama sought to reframe the nation’s counterterrorism strategy, saying, “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That's what our democracy demands.”

Speaking at the National Defense University in Washington Obama said, “America is at a crossroads. We must define our effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror' - but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America."

In an attempt to define a new post-Sept. 11 era, Obama outlined new guidelines for the use of drones to kill terrorists overseas and pledged a

renewed effort to close the military detention center in Guantanamo Bay.  In the speech, Obama argued that, “In the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaida will pose a credible threat to the United States.” He warned that “unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight.”

With efforts under way in Congress to redefine the 2001 authorization to use military force (AUMF) against al Qaida, Obama said he would work with Congress “in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further.”

Toward the end of Obama’s address as he discussed the Guantanamo detainees, he was repeatedly interrupted by heckling from Medea Benjamin, founder of the antiwar group Code Pink, whose members have frequently been arrested for disrupting hearings on Capitol Hill – but Obama patiently said that Benjamin’s concerns are “something to be passionate about.”

“We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison's warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’ Neither I, nor any president, can promise the total defeat of terror,” he declared. 

As part of his redefinition of counterterrorism, the president announced several initiatives:

• Setting narrower parameters for the use of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, to kill terrorists overseas and to limit collateral casualties;
• Renewing efforts to persuade Congress to agree to close the Guantanamo detention site in Cuba where 110 terrorist suspects are being held;
• Appointing a new envoy at the State Department and an official at the Defense Department who will attempt to negotiate transfers of Guantanamo detainees to other countries. 
• Lifting the moratorium he imposed in 2010 on transferring some detainees at Guantanamo to Yemen. Obama imposed that moratorium after it was revealed that Detroit “underwear bomber” Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab was trained in Yemen.

Obama argued that when compared to the Sept. 11, 2001 attackers, “the threat today is more diffuse, with Al Qaida's affiliates in the

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama talks about national security, Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington.

Arabian Peninsula – AQAP – the most active in plotting against our homeland. While none of AQAP's efforts approach the scale of 9/11 they have continued to plot acts of terror, like the attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.”

So he said, “As we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.”

He said that the current threat is often from “deranged or alienated individuals – often U.S. citizens or legal residents – (who) can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad. That pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood, and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.”

In discussing his drone strategy he indicated his remorse over the innocent people who had been killed: “it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in all wars. For the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred through conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

There remains considerable doubt about Obama’s ability to persuade a majority in Congress to change the current law on releasing detainees held there.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Demonstrators stand near a mock drone at the gates of Fort McNair where President Barack Obama will speak at the National Defense University in Washington May 23, 2013.

The defense spending bill which Obama signed into law last year prohibits any transfers to the United States of any detainee at Guantanamo who was held there on or before Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama became president.

And the law sets a very high legal bar for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to transfer a detainee to his country of origin or to any other foreign country.

Hagel would need to certify to Congress that the detainee will not be transferred to a country that is a designated state sponsor of terrorism. The country must have agreed to take steps to ensure that the detainee cannot take action to threaten the United States, U.S. citizens, or its allies in the future.

The law allows Hagel to use waivers in some cases to transfer detainees.

In a mostly skeptical and sometimes dismissive reaction to Obama’s speech, key Republican senators said at a press conference that he still had not offered a coherent plan for what to do with the different types of detainees held at Guantanamo, some of whom they said need to be held indefinitely, while others might be eligible for release.

Obama’s 2008 opponent, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., said that “to somehow argue that al Qaida is ‘on the run’ comes from a degree of unreality that to me is really incredible.” He argued that al Qaida is “expanding all over the Middle East” and in North Africa. He said repealing the congressional authorization to use military force “contradicts the reality of the facts on the ground.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R- Ga., the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted that 56 of the Guantanamo detainees are Yemenis and that since 2010 the Yemeni government has “absolutely not” shown any indication that it can prevent released detainees from planning and carrying out terrorist attacks on Americans. “If we were to transfer those individuals to Yemen, it would be just like turning them loose,” Chambliss told reporters.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R- S.C. said “I believe we're in a war that's not winding down; we're in a war that's morphing. And the theme of the speech was that this war is winding down…. the justification for closing Gitmo is that we've destroyed the al Qaida leadership” but “that is not true.”

Speaking a day before Obama’s speech, Ben Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-founder of the Lawfare blog which covers detainee news, said, “I don’t see any significant change in congressional sentiment right now” on closing the Guantanamo site.

Obama has “got a lot of domestic pressure from his base to be seen to be doing something and he’s also got a hunger strike there (at Guantanamo) — and I think there’s a lot of genuine sentiment in the administration that they want to do something (about Guantanamo) so they’re committed to another push and trying again – but the question of what they actually could get done is a difficult question. There’s very limited latitude.”

This story was originally published on Thu May 23, 2013 2:00 PM EDT

NBC's Domenico Montanaro looks at the day in politics. The focus is President Obama's speech on America's use of drones. But there's some campaign news, too, with Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., in Iowa and ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., making his first campaign stop in his bid for mayor of New York.

The sponsor of a new bill to combat sexual assault in the military pledged Thursday that her legislation would ensure that “never again will a victim have to salute an assaulter."

The effort, led by Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, would require a dismissal or a dishonorable discharge for a member of the military found guilty of rape or sexual assault.

The new legislation – the second bill aimed at addressing sexual assault in the military this month – comes just the day after the Army disclosed that the commander of Fort Jackson, S.C., is being investigated for charges including adultery and a physical altercation.

The incident is just the latest in a string of military sexual misconduct scandals, including two separate cases of men charged with dealing with sexual assault cases being involved in crimes against women.

While the bill would also both prohibit commanders from nullifying or changing a sexual assault conviction, it would not require a charge of sexual assault to be handled outside the chain of command, a provision included in a competing measure sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.

Proponents of McCaskill’s measure fear that Gillibrand’s legislation may face too much opposition from the Pentagon to pass through Congress.

"The important thing is to try to get as many of us to agree so we don't end up with a party line vote,"  McCaskill said.  "I am tired of trying to legislate around the gridlock in Congress."

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who is a cosponsor of both bills, said that action is necessary to help protect women in the armed services.

"What is not acceptable is for us to take half measures, or to do nothing, or pass something that cannot become law,” she said.

They aim to have the measure included in the annual Defense Authorization Act.

Kasie Hunt contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Thu May 23, 2013 12:26 PM EDT

Obama to scale back his administration’s drone policy… Also expected in his 2:00 pm ET national security speech: better securing diplomatic facilities and stating his desire to close Gitmo… About that Holder letter… WaPo on the White House trying to shield Obama from IRS investigation… Cruz: “I don’t trust the Republicans”… Scott Walker heads to the Hawkeye State… And Happy (upcoming) Memorial Day weekend.

Pool / Getty Images

President Barack Obama delivers remarks at a concert honoring singer-songwriter Carole King with the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at the White House on May 22, 2013.

*** Obama to scale back drone policy: In his first major national security speech of his second term, President Obama today is expected to both defend -- but also announce changes to -- his administration’s use of drones to kill suspected terrorists and foreign enemies. “A new classified policy guidance signed by Mr. Obama will sharply curtail the instances when unmanned aircraft can be used to attack in places that are not overt war zones, countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia,” the New York Times reports. “The rules will impose the same standard for strikes on foreign enemies now used only for American citizens deemed to be terrorists” -- i.e., force can be used against targets who are 1) an imminent threat against Americans, and 2) cannot be feasibly captured. The Times also says that the Obama administration will shift control of drone strikes from the CIA to the U.S. military. “The significance is the Pentagon will now control the drone program, which increases transparency both for Congress and the American people,” NBC terrorism analyst Roger Cressey said on “TODAY” this morning.

*** What’s also expected in the speech: A White House official, per NBC’s Shawna Thomas, says that the president’s speech also will discuss better securing U.S. diplomatic facilities (after the 2012 Benghazi attack), balancing security while protecting civil liberties at home (see the leak investigations), and stating his desire to close the Guantanamo Bay prison (an action which Congress opposes). Don’t be surprised if Obama says something along the lines of, “We will never send another detainee to Gitmo” as a way to express his willingness to close the facility. And don’t be surprised if he addresses -- head on -- the Justice Department’s seizure of reporters’ phone records in its prosecution of national security leaks. Obama delivers his remarks at 2:00 pm ET at the National Defense University in DC.

*** About that Holder letter: Obama’s remarks come a day after Attorney General Eric Holder released a letter acknowledging -- for the first time by the administration -- that four American citizens were killed in U.S. drone strikes. NBC’s Pete Williams says the letter discloses what had been widely reported and known: that three citizens were killed in counter-terrorism operations, including Anwar al Awlaki. The letter also gives the legal justification for those drone strikes. And finally, Williams adds, it discloses the death of an additional U.S. citizen, Jude Kenan Mohammed, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in North Carolina for taking part in a plot to stage a terror attack against US military targets. Speaking of drones, the Feb. 2013 NBC/WSJ poll found that 64% of Americans favored using them to target suspected members of Al Qaeda and other terrorists, while 12% opposed and another 22% didn’t have an opinion. And in a separate question, 42% said the program should be continued, and 28% said it should be changed or modified.

*** The Shield: Turning from national security to the domestic/political controversies hitting the Obama administration, the Washington Post notes what we did yesterday about the IRS story -- that the White House’s top goal was to ensure that Obama had nothing to do with it. “This account of how the White House tried to deal with the IRS inquiry … shows how carefully Obama’s top aides were trying to shield him from any second-term scandal that might swamp his agenda or, worse, jeopardize his presidency.” The Post story also reveals that the White House brought in many of the old hands to manage the P.R. relating to the inspector general’s report. “Late last week, [White House Chief of Staff Denis] McDonough summoned Plouffe and a cadre of former Obama and Clinton advisers — including Stephanie Cutter, Robert Gibbs, Anita Dunn, Paul Begala and Mike McCurry — to the White House for two separate public relations strategy sessions. White House aides said they urged getting out information about the IRS situation as quickly as possible, and provided advice on refocusing attention on Obama’s jobs agenda.”

*** Cruz: “I don’t trust the Republicans”: Here’s something you don’t see every day: A U.S. senator announcing, on the Senate floor, that he doesn’t trust his own party. Of course, in his first few months in office, Ted Cruz isn’t your average senator. “The senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans,” Cruz said, per Politico referring to Sen. John McCain in the debate over whether to go to conference in the budget negotiations. “Let me be clear, I don’t trust the Republicans. I don’t trust the Democrats and I think a whole lot of Americans likewise don’t trust the Republicans or the Democrats because it is leadership in both parties that has got us into this mess.”

*** Scott Walker heads to the Hawkeye State: Meanwhile, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker today travels to Iowa, where he addresses the Polk County, IA GOP dinner that begins at 7:00 pm ET. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Walker could very well be the most significant 2016er on the GOP side that no one is talking about right now. There is A LOT of room for a presidential candidate who hails from outside of Washington.

*** State shopping isn’t the best policy for success: Don’t miss the piece on the “Daily Rundown” site about how politicians who run for office in one state and then another usually don’t have that much success.

*** Happy Memorial Day: Lastly, to get an early start on the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, your morning First Read note won’t be publishing on Friday. We’ll return on Tuesday. Happy Memorial Day!!!

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower