The State Department's top official for Africa on Friday shot down proposals to reunify the West African country of Mali by force following a rebellion by nomadic Tuaregs and Islamist militants.

The comments by Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson come as several multinational organizations — notably the United Nations, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) — are discussing the viability of a peacekeeping mission in Mali. A military coup overthrew the country's government in March, and rebel groups in the north grabbed the opportunity to seize control of the northern part of the country and declare an Islamic breakaway state last month.

“We are coordinating closely with our mission in the United Nations to press the African Union and ECOWAS to define a clear mission for their proposed ECOWAS peacekeeping mission in Mali,” Carson said in written testimony before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa. “That said, we think an ECOWAS mission to militarily retake the north is ill-advised and not feasible.”

The Topline: Forgive yourself for missing the news Thursday that the Supreme Court issued rulings on more than just the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — minutes before the healthcare decision was announced, the high court first said that the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to falsely claim military honors, was not constitutional.

The court found that the law, passed in 2006 and signed by former President George W. Bush, did not comply with the First Amendment, striking a victory for free-speech advocates and a blow to military groups that backed the law. But the justices who were in the majority of the 6-3 decision also said Congress could try again with new legislation that was written more narrowly, to show actual harm from the deception about military medals.

That’s likely to happen in the near future. Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) has a bill for a new Stolen Valor Act he introduced last year, which would make it illegal to benefit from lying about military honors and medals. Heck issued a statement on the court’s ruling — before his statement on healthcare, even — saying he plans to push his bill forward now because it would “pass constitutional scrutiny.”

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Despite recent gains, American officials are still coping with an increasingly "volatile situation" in Iraq, punctuated by one of the most violent months in the country since U.S. forces pulled out six months ago. 

The House’s defense appropriations bill on Thursday joined the list of spending bills that the White House has threatened to veto over the caps in the Budget Control Act (BCA).

The Obama administration said Thursday that it would recommend a veto of the current version of the measure because it violated the spending caps set in the BCA.

The House’s defense bill that passed the committee last month had a base budget of $519 billion, which was about $3 billion above the Obama administration’s budget request. The House made spending cuts elsewhere in the non-defense discretionary budget to allow for the increased defense spending, which Republicans say is necessary to lessen the risk from $487 billion in cuts over the next decade to the defense budget due to the BCA caps.

Moscow is pushing through deliveries of Russian-built helicopters to Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad despite international efforts to block the sale. 

American and NATO commanders are considering carrying out their own cross-border raids into Pakistan to root out terror cells along the country's border with Afghanistan. 

House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) is getting himself involved in the Appropriations Committee’s defense bill, moving to strike a provision from the legislation that would ban military sponsorship of NASCAR and other sporting events.

McKeon has filed a motion in the House Rules Committee to throw out the bill’s provision that would block the sports sponsorship. He argued in a letter to Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) that the provisions fell under his committee’s jurisdiction, not Appropriations, and that the measure would require the Pentagon to make new determinations such as what was a “semi-professional sporting event.”

Thomas Donohue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — and no friend of the Obama administration — said Thursday that he helped instigate the latest push to get the United States to accede to the United Nations's Law of the Sea Treaty.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) repeatedly drew attention to Donohue's support in a bid to deflect conservative attacks during his panel's fourth hearing on the treaty. Some critics have alleged that Kerry is pushing the treaty to ingratiate himself with the White House in order to gain the secretary of State job if President Obama is reelected. 

“Everybody's kind of got it wrong so far,” Kerry said. “I was actually out to dinner with Tom Donohue, maybe a year and a half ago ... and at the very end of the dinner Tom turned to me and said, 'when are you going to get this Law of the Sea Treaty done?' And I was completely taken aback.”

The court overturned the Stole Valor Act, ruling that the law on lying about military honors violates the First Amendment.