Vox Sentences: Meet Ash Carter, the (likely) next Defense Secretary

1. Can Ash catch 'em all?

Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter stands in the pouring rain during the dignified transfer of Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Christian of Warwick, New York on the tarmac in the pouring rain at Dover Air Force Base May 7, 2013 in Dover, Delaware. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• Obama is expected to appoint Ashton Carter as the next Secretary of Defense.

  [NYT / Helene Cooper and Mark Landler]

• Carter, a nuclear physicist by training, previously served as Deputy Secretary of Defense, and was an Under Secretary for Obama and an Assistant Secretary for Clinton.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• He is not to be confused with Toronto Maple Leafs right winger Carter Ashton.

  [Wikipedia]

• Carter's nomination is not expected to face much in the way of congressional opposition.

  [LA Times / WJ Hennigan and Kathleen Hennessey]

• He was responsible for implementing the Obama administration's defense budget cuts, including sequestration.

  [Daily Beast / Shane Harris and Tim Mak]

• As Deputy Secretary, he effectively ran the Pentagon and left the actual Secretarys to handle policy, which apparently annoyed outgoing Secretary Chuck Hagel.

  [Foreign Policy / Gordon Lubold]

• Carter has faced criticism for opposing cuts to nuclear weapons programs.

  [Defense One / Kingston Reif]

• He also coauthored a striking 2006 op-ed calling on the US to attack North Korea in retaliation for missile tests.

  [Washington Post / Ashton Carter and William Perry]

2. Israel's elections

Tzipi Livni (L) and Yair Lapid (R). (Jim Hollander/AFP/Getty Images)

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called new elections, less than two years since the last ones.

  [NYT / Isabel Kershner]

• Netanyahu lost his majority in parliament by firing Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Lapid and Livni each run centrist parties whose representatives Netanyahu needs to maintain a majority in parliament.

• The proximate cause of the Lapid and Livni firings was Netanyahu's proposed law declaring Israel "the national state of the Jewish people."

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The concern was that the law ostracized Arab Israeli citizens and threatened Israeli democracy.

• The polls suggest Netanyahu's Likud party will gain seats, as will the religious Jewish Home party, while Livni and Lapid will lose seats.

  [Knesset Insider / Jeremy Saltan]

• According to the most recent poll, right-wing and/or religious parties would go from 61 seats (out of 120) to 76.

• Former Likud MK Moshe Kahlon's newly formed economic populist party is expected to do well.

  [Jerusalem Post / Niv Elis]

• Not related to the elections, but Nathan Thrall's report on tensions in East Jerusalem is worth a read.

  [London Review of Books / Nathan Thrall]

3. Iraq updates

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi speaks at a meeting at the Waldorf Astoria hotel on September 25, 2014 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

• Iraq's central government has reached a deal with the Kurdish region to share oil revenue and military resources.

  [NYT / Tim Arango]

• The hard part, as always, will be getting Sunnis on board.

  [Mother Jones / Kevin Drum]

• An argument that dividing up the country is unwise (an outcome the deal renders less likely, not that it was ever probable).

  [Foreign Affairs / Nicholas Sambanis and Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl]

• The wife of ISIS's leader was captured in Lebanon, which could yield considerable insight into the group's operations.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• She was trying to move to Lebanon on a fake passport.

  [NY Mag / Katie Zavadski]

• If you want a bit more gloom in your Iraq news, it turns out the Iraqi army was paying 50,000 soldiers who just never showed up.

  [Slate / Ben Mathis-Lilley]

4. Misc.

• John Boehner has a plan to avoid a government shutdown that Senate Democrats are open to.

  [CS Monitor / Francine Kiefer]

• Airport security officials are considering an outright ban on carry-on luggage.

  [NY Mag / Jessica Roy]

• No more Social Security benefits for Nazis.

  [McClatchy / David Lightman]

• Google's plan to provide 4G coverage from solar-powered balloons is somehow working.

  [Slate / Will Oremus]

• The US divorce rate peaked in the 1970s and '80s and is now almost as low as it was in the '60s.

  [NYT / Claire Cain Miller]

• Karen lives with her adoptive parents in Missouri. Her Guatemalan birth mother says she was kidnapped. Should she go back?

  [Guernica / Erin Siegal McIntyre]

• Is the New Orleans school district really "market-based"?

  [Medium / Peter Cook]

• Mike Ehrmantraut will be on Better Call Saul — here's a clip.

  [Slate / Sharon Shetty]

5. Verbatim

• "Pizza Hut is now testing technology that allows diners to order within seconds, using only their eyes."

  [Washington Post / Drew Harwell]

• "If the idea of everyone belonging to the same race ‘means "racism" then yes, we’re racists.'"

  [Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris via London Review of Books / Alexander Clapp]

• "You will not be arrested for using drugs in Amsterdam."

  [Amsterdam Public Health Service via Washington Post / Christopher Ingraham]

• "Arriving back at the O2 arena, Erik received his name tag, which read, as he’d requested: WHITE KANYE WEST."

  [NY Mag / Ben Wallace]

• "Wandering is an unsuitably whimsical word for what has been described as the most high-risk behaviour associated with dementia."

  [Toronto Star / Amy Dempsey]