Former NBA star Dennis Rodman has been riding a wave of publicity for weeks now by praising the leader of North Korea, completely glossing over the communist state’s recent threats of nuclear war and flagrant human rights abuses.

Rodman recently drew a renewed burst of attention and criticism for his visit to the DPRK with a camera crew from VICE in late February. Since his return to the United States, Rodman has blazed a trail of confusing interviews in which he expressed his friendship with the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, propelling the ex-basketball star back into the spotlight.

The pattern continued in an exclusive interview with a Fargo, ND news station. In the interview, Rodman cited his friendship with Kim, which extends to Rodman wanting to go back to North Korea in August to vacation, when asked whether he still believes that North Korea doesn’t want war with the United States:

RODMAN: I sure do. I sure do. He doesn’t want to do anything. [...] I didn’t even want to try to meet the guy. The kid [Kim Jong-un] is awesome. But I think his grandfather and his father built this whole thing up. Because he has to do this. He doesn’t want to do anything. That much I do know.

“He wants to not fight. He asked me to tell Obama, ‘Please call me,’” Rodman continued. State Department officials have said repeatedly that Rodman’s trip to North Kore was not in any way sponsored by the U.S. government. “Dennis Rodman was a great basketball player, and as a diplomat, he was a great basketball player, and that’s where we’ll leave it,” Secretary of State John Kerry said when asked about the former Chicago Bulls star’s voyage.

Despite Rodman’s claims, North Korea has been doing a lot of saber-rattling since conducting its third nuclear test in December. Pyongyang on Monday declared that it had unilaterally withdrawn from the 1953 armistice agreement that ended fighting between the North and South, at least the second time it had made this claim. Ahead of new sanctions against the state, the North Korean state news agency issued its bluntest warning towards the U.S. yet:

“Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

Unimpressed, the United Nations Security Council on Thursday morning unanimously passed the sanctions package, following weeks of negotiation between the United States and China. The UN Human Rights Council also this week issued a new report on the atrocious human rights record on display from North Korea, including examples of torture, enforced disappearances, and an extensive system of prison camps. It is unclear whether the report will put a damper on Rodman’s summer plans.

Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper assured the panel that Iran would be unable to build a nuclear weapon without being detected.

Clapper was joined by newly-confirmed CIA Director John Brennan and other members of the U.S. intelligence community to present the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community [PDF]. The thirty-page document lays out the unclassified judgment of the nation’s spies and analysts about potential threats around the globe. Substantial space is given to the threat of cyber-actors, Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and transnational organized crime.

Within the section on the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the Assessment reaffirms that Iran has yet to decide to build a nuclear weapon. Even if it did, according to Clapper, Iran would not be able to do so in secret:

Of particular note, Iran has made progress during the past year that better positions it to produce weapons-grade uranium (WGU) using its declared facilities and uranium stockpiles, should it choose to do so. Despite this progress, we assess Iran could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon-worth of WGU before this activity is discovered.

Iran recently began installing advanced centrifuges in its Natanz uranium enrichment site, but has continued to convert its uranium stockpile into forms that are difficult to enrich further. Approximately 250 kilograms of 90 percent enriched uranium is required to create one nuclear weapon; Iran has yet to enrich uranium to that degree and has been careful to not allow its enriched stockpile come close to 250 kg.

The report, as presented by Clapper, went on to characterize Iran’s decision-making process as “guided by a cost-benefit approach,” running counter to neoconservative claims that Iran is an irrational actor.

Several members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have sent a letter [PDF] to the Obama administration demanding greater openness on all aspects of its counterterrorism-related targeted killing program.

The majority of the letter focuses on if and when armed drones could be used to target U.S. citizens on American soil, the topic of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)’s nearly thirteen-hour filibuster last week. Much like Sen. Paul, the Congresspeople behind the letter cite the vagaries of an unclassified white paper on when Americans could be considered viable targets as leaving them “deeply concerned.” That white paper — first leaked to the press last month — was a summary of several classified Department of Justice memos that go into further detail regarding the legal justification of the program.

In writing to President Obama, the members are calling for a full declassification of the DOJ memos related to targeting Americans and seeking to clarify what to them is an overly broad authority regarding the use of drones in carrying out administration policy, “including but not limited to”:

1. An unbounded geographic scope;
2. Unidentified ‘high-level’ officials with authority to approve kill-lists;
3. A vaguely defined definition of whether a capture is “feasible”;
4. An overly broad definition of the phrase “imminent threat,” which re-defines the word in a way that strays significantly from its traditional legal meaning; and
5. The suggestion that killing American citizens and others would be legitimate “under the Authorization for Use of Military Force and the inherent right to national self-defense.”

The questions put forward go beyond Paul’s concerns, which were almost entirely related to the domestic use of armed drones. Instead, the Progressive Caucus letter delves into the use of drones as a weapons platform overseas, particularly their use in “signature strikes“:

We also ask that you prepare a report for Congress outlining the architecture of your Administration’s drone program going forward, including your efforts to limit instances and remunerate victims of civilian causalities by signature drone strikes, broaden access to due process for identified targets and continue to structure the drone program within the framework of international law.

Many of the issues at play in the letter branch from the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that first cleared the path for retaliatory strikes against Al Qaeda, and has been used by the Obama administration as the justification for its strikes around the world against Al Qaeda and its affiliates. The broad nature of the AUMF has led to several Congressional Progressive Caucus members co-sponsoring a bill to fully repeal it, a move backed by the New York Times editorial board this weekend. Of those members, at least Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) would be in favor of replacing the AUMF with a narrower authorization, according to his office.