Vox Sentences: Obama sends 450 more troops to Iraq

450 more

An American trainer works with an Iraqi army soldier in April. (John Moore/Getty Images)

• President Obama has decided to send 450 more American troops to Iraq to train Iraqi forces to fight ISIS.

  [NYT / Michael Gordon and Julie Hirschfeld Davis]

• This brings the total US presence to about 3,500.

  [Washington Post / Missy Ryan and Greg Jaffe]

• The troops will be positioned in al-Taqaddum, close to ISIS territory, so as to train local Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar province, whose provincial capital was recently seized by ISIS, and coordinate the anti-ISIS offensive in the area.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The administration is clear that the new troops will not be sent into combat.

  [Time / Mark Thompson]

• Here's the case that more resources for the current counter-ISIS strategy, and not a new one, is the right approach in Iraq.

  [War on the Rocks / Douglas Ollivant]

• Here's the case that the US strategy on ISIS needs a fundamental rethinking.

  [Washington Institute / Michael Knights]

Canon law update

(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)

• Pope Francis is creating a new tribunal to discipline Catholic bishops who cover up or fail to prevent sexual abuse by priests.

  [NYT / Elisabetta Povoledo and Laurie Goodstein]

• The tribunal, proposed by Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley at the orders of the papal commission on sexual abuse by clergy, responds to decades of complaints that the Vatican is slow to take action against episcopal wrongdoing; only the Pope is allowed to fire bishops, which can take years.

  [National Catholic Reporter / Joshua McElwee]

• Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a psychologist who used to treat priest-offenders: "It’s putting bishops on notice. It’s saying: ‘If you don’t deal with this, you have to face the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,’ and no one wants to face the CDF."

  [Washington Post / Michelle Boorstein and Abby Ohlheiser]

• Neither John Paul II nor Benedict XVI, Francis's two immediate predecessors, established mechanisms to hold bishops accountable.

  [NYT / Elisabetta Povoledo and Laurie Goodstein]

• The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests' president Barbara Blaine is skeptical: "As long as clerics are in charge of dealing with other clerics who commit and conceal child sex crimes, little will change. Church officials should join us in reforming secular abuse laws so that clerics who hurt kids and hide predators will be criminally charged."

  [SNAP]

Probably a bigger deal than chemtrails

(Bruce Bennett/Getty Images News)

• The EPA has released a finding opening the door to regulations of greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes, but won't act until the UN agency on civilian air travel agrees to international emissions standards.

  [FT / Ed Crooks]

• Some environmentalists think the UN standards are likely to be too weak; for example, they might only apply to new aircraft designs, not all new aircraft.

  [Washington Post / Chris Mooney]

• A World Resources Institute report has called for fuel economy improvements in the 2-3 percent range annually, which the EPA could enact without Congress.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• Commercial aircraft account for about 3 percent of US carbon emissions, but that share is expected to grow.

  [Washington Post / Chris Mooney]

Misc.

• McDonald's is hiring former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs to help build a "modern, progressive burger company," whatever that means.

  [Washington Post / Colby Itkowitz]

• It is always worth reading pieces about the bizarre and fascinating political subculture that is the "neoreactionary" movement, and this article is no exception.

  [Slate / David Auerbach]

• Last year, Iggy Azalea had her first two Hot 100 singles hit #1 and #2 simultaneously. This year, she had to cancel a tour after selling barely 20 percent of tickets in some arenas. What happened?

  [Washington Post / Soraya Nadia McDonald]

• Did the temperance movement make American beer so much blander than the rest of the world's?

  [Business HIstory / Ranjit S. Dighe]

• A randomized study found that women who participated in a program designed to help them "avoid rape" were less likely to be sexually assaulted. Is that progress, or victim-blaming?

  [NYT / Jan Hoffman]

Verbatim

• "Oscar is a furball coughed up after the digestion of the hippy, the freak, the punk, the raver, the new-age traveler, the eco-warrior, the lifestyle anarchist."

  [New Inquiry / Sam Keogh]

• "The assertive new glasses pre-empt the gibe of 'four eyes' by saying, I know I am, but what are you?"

  [NYT Mag / Troy Patterson]

• "Our welfare estimates suggest that if (counterfactually) Medicaid recipients had to pay the government’s cost of their Medicaid, they would not be willing to do so."

  [Amy Finkelstein, Nathaniel Hendren, and Erzo F.P. Luttmer via Marginal Revolution / Tyler Cowen]

• "If you can’t get any job better than ‘fast food worker’ without a college degree, and poor people can’t afford college degrees, that’s a pretty grim situation, and obviously unfair to the poor. On the other hand, if can’t you get married without a tulip, and poor people can’t afford tulips, that’s also a pretty grim situation, and obviously unfair to the poor. But the solution isn’t universal tulip subsidies."

  [Slate Star Codex / Scott Alexander]

Song of the Day

• Augustines, "Nothing To Lose But Your Head"

  [YouTube]