The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
When the Trump Team Comes Looking for
the Secrets of liar-nObama’s Iran File
by Claudia Rosett
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NYT to 'Rededicate' Itself to Honest Reporting
The Leftmedia really blew it in this election cycle, not because they misread opinion, but because they tried to dictate it. And The New York Times was at the forefront of that effort, including its August front-page call to abandon what was left of objective journalism in favor of defeating Donald Trump. On Friday, the paper's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., penned a letter to readers promising to "reflect" on the paper's coverage. He wrote, "We aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor." If you believe the Times has the slightest intent to report honestly after Trump's election — especially when the same letter claims to "believe we reported on both candidates fairly" — we have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you. Likewise if you buy that anyone at the Times thinks they, and not Trump's voters, are the ones who blew it.
New York Post columnist and former Times reporter Michael Goodwin got it right: "Because [the Times] demonized Trump from start to finish, it failed to realize he was onto something. And because the paper decided that Trump's supporters were a rabble of racist rednecks and homophobes, it didn't have a clue about what was happening in the lives of the Americans who elected the new president." The real purpose of Sulzberger's letter was to stop the bleed of subscribers. But the Times will no doubt continue its elitist ways of condescension and grossly biased reporting, further driving a wedge between it and the rest of the country. It's just what leftists do. ~The Patriot Post
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Some Call for California Secession
What do American citizens do when things don't go their way? Well, if they're California leftists they call for secession "to become [their] own nation." As Silicon Valley venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar said, "It's the most patriotic thing I can do." That's right, for some California leftists the definition of patriotism is to leave one's country when the opposing political party wins the election.
As liberals across the nation struggle to come to grips with the election of Donald Trump, California Democrats may feel it more acutely than others. California, the most populated state in the union and holding 55 electoral votes, went almost three to one in favor of liar-Hillary Clinton, 61.5% to 33.3%. In fact, if liar-Clinton ends up winning the final popular vote total, she can thank the Golden State. And yet, before the state's ballots were done being tallied the election had been called for Trump.
Will California secede? Of course not. Notably there are a lot of conservatives in California, however outnumbered at present -- recall that Ronald Reagan was a Californian! However, if California did manage to leave the union, it would be a long time before America saw another Democrat in the White House again. The truth is, leftists, for all their calls for tolerance and acceptance, have the most difficulty tolerating and accepting ideas and leadership with which they disagree. And protesting the election and making threats of secession do nothing but reinforce the hypocrisy of the Left.
And a footnote: Donald Trump has established a good relationship with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto. As an alternative to secession, perhaps Donald can convince Enrique to open the Mexican state of Baja Norte to all the California leftists who hate America! ~The Patriot Post
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Yes, Trump's Going to Dump the Iran Deal
by FRED FLEITZ
by FRED FLEITZ
{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ In the days following Donald Trump's victory, a variety of experts - mostly Trump critics - pronounced that, despite Trump's frequent statements during the presidential campaign... that the July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is one of "the worst deals ever made by any country in history," he has no choice but to stick with the agreement after he assumes office. Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif was one of the first to insist as much, claiming a Trump administration cannot back out of the nuclear deal because it is not a bilateral agreement between the United States and Iran but "an international understanding annexed to a Security Council resolution." In a November 11 Foreign Policy article, he argued Trump can undermine the Iran deal but cannot directly dismantle it because the JCPOA is a multilateral agreement "codified by the UN Security Council." Any attempt by a Trump administration to renegotiate the deal would violate international law and isolate the United States, Parsi said... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/yes-trumps-going-to-dump-the-iran-deal?f=must_reads
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George Soros Demands Voters
Return Control of Country to Him
by Daniel Greenfield
{frontpagemag.com} ~ George Soros and other rich liberals who spent tens of millions of dollars trying to elect liar-Hillary Clinton are gathering in Washington for a three-day... closed door meeting to retool the big-money left to fight back against Donald Trump. The conference, which kicked off Sunday night at Washington’s pricey Mandarin Oriental hotel, is sponsored by the influential Democracy Alliance donor club, and will include appearances by leaders of most leading unions and liberal groups, as well as darlings of the left such as House Democratic leader Nancy Pulosi, Sen. Elizabeth dinky-Warren and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairman Keith Ellison, according to an agenda and other documents obtained by POLITICO...
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U.S. Officials ‘Concerned’ as Iran, Russia
Plan $10 Billion Arms Deal
by Adam Kredo
{freebeacon.com} ~ U.S. officials are expressing concern about a budding arms pact between Iran and Russia estimated to be worth more than $10 billion... according to State Department officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon and expressed alarm over the “increased Iranian military capability.” Iran’s negotiations with Russia for new weapons and military hardware come after senior officials in Tehran dismissed the recent election of Donald Trump and warned his incoming administration against taking a firmer stance against the Islamic Republic’s continued military buildup. Iran is angling to purchase T-90 tanks, artillery systems, and aircraft from Moscow that are expected to keep the Islamic Republic fully armed over the next several years, according to reports in Iran’s state-controlled media... http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-officials-concerned-iran-russia-plan-10-billion-arms-deal/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=65981b16dd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-65981b16dd-45611665
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PA Vows to Make US Miserable
If It Moves Embassy to Jerusalem
by ifcj.org
{ifcj.org} ~ One of the promises of the incoming American administration is to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem... Israel Hayom reports that if this move should occur, the Palestinian Authority has threatened that it will "unleash all diplomatic weapons" against the United States: The Palestinian Authority on Sunday vowed to "unleash all diplomatic weapons" at its disposal to prevent President-elect Donald Trump's administration from meeting its campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Russian news network RT quoted Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour as saying such a move would be in violation of international law and U.N. resolutions, and that should any steps be taken to realize it, the Palestinian Authority would "make life miserable for the White House."... http://www.ifcj.org/news/stand-for-israel/PA-Vows-to-Make-US-Miserable-If-It-Moves-Embassy-to-Jerusalem.html?utm_campaign=sfi%20daily%20dispatch&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email
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Arab Countries Accuse Iran of Sponsoring Terror
by ifcj.org
{ifcj.org} ~ Nearly a dozen Arab nations have submitted a letter to the United Nations accusing Iran of what we already know to be true - that the Islamic Republic is a sponsor of terrorism... The Times of Israel reports that eleven countries cautioned U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Iran has increased its support of terrorist groups since the signing of the nuclear deal: A UN watchdog on Monday hailed a letter by nearly a dozen Arab nations that accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism throughout the Middle East, and of ramping up its support of jihadist groups since the signing of its nuclear deal with the US-led P5+1 nations last year. The October 27 letter to outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon cautioned that Iran “continues to play a negative role in causing tension and instability in our region,” and cited Tehran’s “expansionist regional policies, flagrant violations of the principle of sovereignty and constant interference in the internal affairs of Arab States.”... http://www.ifcj.org/news/stand-for-israel/Arab-Countries-Accuse-Iran-of-Sponsoring-Terror.html?utm_campaign=sfi%20daily%20dispatch&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email
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When the Trump Team Comes Looking for
the Secrets of liar-nObama’s Iran File
by Claudia Rosett
{aim.org} ~ Thursday’s cordial meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack liar-nObama was a reassuring ritual of democracy. But liar-nObama was far from convincing when he told Trump “we are now going to do everything we can to help you succeed.” There are some highly disparate ideas here about what constitutes success, both foreign and domestic. There are also big areas in which one might reasonably wonder if liar-nObama and his team are in a quandary over the prospect of a Trump administration inheriting the internal records of the most transparent administration ever.
Take, for instance, the Iran nuclear deal, liar-nObama’s signature foreign policy legacy, the chief accomplishment of his second term. The liar-nObama administration’s Iran file has been a realm of murk, crammed with dangerous concessions and secret side deals for terror-sponsoring Tehran — to a degree that has left some critics wondering if liar-nObama’s real aim was to empower Iran as the hegemon of the Middle East equipped with ballistic missiles to complement its “exclusively peaceful” nuclear program.
The cherry on top — officially separate from the nuclear deal, but highly coincident — was the liar-nObama administration’s secret conveyance to Iran early this year of cash totaling $1.7 billion for the settlement of an old claim against the United States.
Like liar-nObama’s other legacy achievement, the unaffordable Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. liar-nObamacare, these Iran dealings were so intricate, extensive and opaque that we are still discovering just how duplicitous the official narratives were. liar-nObama never submitted the Iran nuclear deal as a treaty for ratification by the Senate. Instead, he rushed the deal to the United Nations Security Council for approval less than a week after the final text was announced, and left Congress wrestling through the ensuing weeks, during the summer of 2015, to try to extract vital details from the elusive liar-nObama and his team, subject to a legislative bargain so convoluted that the process, and the deal, never came to a vote.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s focus on the $1.7 billion “settlement” paid to Iran, which liar-nObama and Secretary of State John hanoi-Kerry, apparently with no prior notice to Congress, announced this past January. liar-nObama and hanoi-Kerry did not mention at the time that the administration was shelling out the funds in cash, to be airlifted into Iran — a form of payment especially handy for Iran’s illicit ventures, such as terrorism and procurement for its ballistic missile program the usual role of ballistic missiles — which Iran has continued testing — being to carry nuclear weapons, which liar-nObama has assured us Iran under his deal is not developing.
liar-nObama and his team also neglected to mention that $1.3 billion of his administration’s cash bonanza for Tehran had come from the pockets of American taxpayers, via an obscure channel at Treasury called the Judgment Fund. It took months before such specifics came to light, which they did thanks not to the administration, but to the efforts of the press, and a number of persistent questioners in Congress — to whom the administration sent tardy and evasive replies.
Questions continue to swirl around this cash-for-Iran arrangement. Was it a ransom for American prisoners released by Iran on the same day the liar-nObama administration announced the $1.7 billion settlement? The liar-nObama administration has repeatedly asked the public to swallow the logical fallacy that because it is not U.S. policy to pay ransom, this was not a ransom.
Why did the administration — until outed in August and September in a series of stories by the press — make a secret of the cash, the conduits and the dates of delivery? What were — what are — the full terms of this confidential arrangement? Which, according to a Sept. 29 report in The Wall Street Journal, included, as part of a package of three secret documents signed in Geneva, U.S. backing for the lifting of UN sanctions on two Iranian state banks blacklisted for financing Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Why have the relevant texts of all this wheeling and dealing been kept secret? Why has the administration repeatedly stonewalled questions from Congress? What were the machinations behind liar-nObama’s claim, after The Wall Street Journal on August 3 broke the story of the first tranche of $400 million in cash for Iran, that the U.S. government had no choice but to pay Iran with a mountain of hard-currency banknotes? Based on what internal calculus did the administration refuse to provide public confirmation for another few weeks — until after the news broke in the press — that the additional $1.3 billion in taxpayers funds had also been paid in cash? On the basis of what information, precisely, did Attorney General Loretta Lynch certify that Treasury paying out those tax dollars to Iran was in the interest of the United States?
The government of terror-sponsoring Iran knows the answers to many of these questions. The American public does not. But we can reasonably speculate that as this cash-for-Iran saga unfolded, it left a trail of records within the liar-nObama administration. Classified, quite likely — but surely there are some illuminating documents that someone with the proper clearances might wish to read.
Once upon a time, we would have called this a paper trail; these days it would more likely be digital. But at the very least, there ought to be the secret texts, the related justifications, requisitions and all the to-and-fro that would presumably be involved in the State Department, the Pentagon and Treasury at the behest of the Justice Department, on behalf of State, with the blessing of President liar-nObama, secretly organizing cash shipments totaling $1.7 billion for Iran — and then, for months, despite persistent questions from Congress and the press, covering it up. Add to that the overlap — or was it, as appears more likely, the coordination? — of all that clandestinely conveyed cash with the return of American hostages. Then amplify this scene dramatically, to include the manufacturing of the mothership Iran nuclear deal itself, and the related handling of sanctions (which, as the 2014-2015 Iran talks stretched out from the initially planned six months to 17, appeared, despite administration protests to the contrary, to be ever more casually enforced).
Which brings us back to America’s presidential election a mere three days ago, in which it sure looks like liar-nObama and his team were blind-sided by Trump’s defeat of liar-Hillary Clinton. Misled by their own narratives, by their echo chamber in the press, by erroneous polls, by the same arrogance that begat the presidential rule of pen-and-phone and Ben-Rhodes-narratives, liar-nObama and his team were expecting a handover to liar-Hillary. She might not agree with them on everything, but as a former insider herself, as a candidate who was running to continue liar-nObama’s trajectory and cement his legacies, she wasn’t someone whose access to the Iran file was likely to cause anyone currently in the White House to lose sleep (provided she’d really ditched her non-secure home-server proclivities).
And then liar-Hillary lost.
Instead, here comes Trump. It’s a good bet that until Tuesday night, the liar-nObama White House never expected any such imminent intrusion by the Trump team into its closets. Trump has called the Iran nuclear deal “disastrous,” and has said, variously, that he’ll dismantle the Iran nuclear deal, or renegotiate it. On Thursday, one of Trump’s foreign policy advisers, Walid Phares, told CNN that Trump will demand changes in the deal.
Whatever Trump does with the Iran deal, once he takes office he’s entitled to have access to what’s actually in it — preserved in full, including any secret documents, understandings, promises or related bargains. This should include information that holds the answers to a great many lingering questions, among them the full rationale and terms of liar-nObama’s prolific concessions to Iran — not least, the $1.7 billion cash payola to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Even with such access, assuming the records are in good-faith preserved and turned over in full, disentangling the truth from the liar-nObama narrative could be complicated. Andy McCarthy, on PJMedia, warns the Trump transition team against trusting liar-nObama’s politicized intelligence on ISIS and al-Qaeda. It would be folly to rule out similar bias on Iran.
But if liar-nObama has any desire to see his signature Iran deal sustained, presumably he, or his team, will have to divulge to his successor whatever his end of this bargain actually and fully entails, beneath the narrative and behind the official gloss. Otherwise, with no particular help from Trump, the deal may implode anyway. For liar-nObama, during this transition period, it is, one might suppose, an unexpected and not entirely comfortable choice.
Take, for instance, the Iran nuclear deal, liar-nObama’s signature foreign policy legacy, the chief accomplishment of his second term. The liar-nObama administration’s Iran file has been a realm of murk, crammed with dangerous concessions and secret side deals for terror-sponsoring Tehran — to a degree that has left some critics wondering if liar-nObama’s real aim was to empower Iran as the hegemon of the Middle East equipped with ballistic missiles to complement its “exclusively peaceful” nuclear program.
The cherry on top — officially separate from the nuclear deal, but highly coincident — was the liar-nObama administration’s secret conveyance to Iran early this year of cash totaling $1.7 billion for the settlement of an old claim against the United States.
Like liar-nObama’s other legacy achievement, the unaffordable Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. liar-nObamacare, these Iran dealings were so intricate, extensive and opaque that we are still discovering just how duplicitous the official narratives were. liar-nObama never submitted the Iran nuclear deal as a treaty for ratification by the Senate. Instead, he rushed the deal to the United Nations Security Council for approval less than a week after the final text was announced, and left Congress wrestling through the ensuing weeks, during the summer of 2015, to try to extract vital details from the elusive liar-nObama and his team, subject to a legislative bargain so convoluted that the process, and the deal, never came to a vote.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s focus on the $1.7 billion “settlement” paid to Iran, which liar-nObama and Secretary of State John hanoi-Kerry, apparently with no prior notice to Congress, announced this past January. liar-nObama and hanoi-Kerry did not mention at the time that the administration was shelling out the funds in cash, to be airlifted into Iran — a form of payment especially handy for Iran’s illicit ventures, such as terrorism and procurement for its ballistic missile program the usual role of ballistic missiles — which Iran has continued testing — being to carry nuclear weapons, which liar-nObama has assured us Iran under his deal is not developing.
liar-nObama and his team also neglected to mention that $1.3 billion of his administration’s cash bonanza for Tehran had come from the pockets of American taxpayers, via an obscure channel at Treasury called the Judgment Fund. It took months before such specifics came to light, which they did thanks not to the administration, but to the efforts of the press, and a number of persistent questioners in Congress — to whom the administration sent tardy and evasive replies.
Questions continue to swirl around this cash-for-Iran arrangement. Was it a ransom for American prisoners released by Iran on the same day the liar-nObama administration announced the $1.7 billion settlement? The liar-nObama administration has repeatedly asked the public to swallow the logical fallacy that because it is not U.S. policy to pay ransom, this was not a ransom.
Why did the administration — until outed in August and September in a series of stories by the press — make a secret of the cash, the conduits and the dates of delivery? What were — what are — the full terms of this confidential arrangement? Which, according to a Sept. 29 report in The Wall Street Journal, included, as part of a package of three secret documents signed in Geneva, U.S. backing for the lifting of UN sanctions on two Iranian state banks blacklisted for financing Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Why have the relevant texts of all this wheeling and dealing been kept secret? Why has the administration repeatedly stonewalled questions from Congress? What were the machinations behind liar-nObama’s claim, after The Wall Street Journal on August 3 broke the story of the first tranche of $400 million in cash for Iran, that the U.S. government had no choice but to pay Iran with a mountain of hard-currency banknotes? Based on what internal calculus did the administration refuse to provide public confirmation for another few weeks — until after the news broke in the press — that the additional $1.3 billion in taxpayers funds had also been paid in cash? On the basis of what information, precisely, did Attorney General Loretta Lynch certify that Treasury paying out those tax dollars to Iran was in the interest of the United States?
The government of terror-sponsoring Iran knows the answers to many of these questions. The American public does not. But we can reasonably speculate that as this cash-for-Iran saga unfolded, it left a trail of records within the liar-nObama administration. Classified, quite likely — but surely there are some illuminating documents that someone with the proper clearances might wish to read.
Once upon a time, we would have called this a paper trail; these days it would more likely be digital. But at the very least, there ought to be the secret texts, the related justifications, requisitions and all the to-and-fro that would presumably be involved in the State Department, the Pentagon and Treasury at the behest of the Justice Department, on behalf of State, with the blessing of President liar-nObama, secretly organizing cash shipments totaling $1.7 billion for Iran — and then, for months, despite persistent questions from Congress and the press, covering it up. Add to that the overlap — or was it, as appears more likely, the coordination? — of all that clandestinely conveyed cash with the return of American hostages. Then amplify this scene dramatically, to include the manufacturing of the mothership Iran nuclear deal itself, and the related handling of sanctions (which, as the 2014-2015 Iran talks stretched out from the initially planned six months to 17, appeared, despite administration protests to the contrary, to be ever more casually enforced).
Which brings us back to America’s presidential election a mere three days ago, in which it sure looks like liar-nObama and his team were blind-sided by Trump’s defeat of liar-Hillary Clinton. Misled by their own narratives, by their echo chamber in the press, by erroneous polls, by the same arrogance that begat the presidential rule of pen-and-phone and Ben-Rhodes-narratives, liar-nObama and his team were expecting a handover to liar-Hillary. She might not agree with them on everything, but as a former insider herself, as a candidate who was running to continue liar-nObama’s trajectory and cement his legacies, she wasn’t someone whose access to the Iran file was likely to cause anyone currently in the White House to lose sleep (provided she’d really ditched her non-secure home-server proclivities).
And then liar-Hillary lost.
Instead, here comes Trump. It’s a good bet that until Tuesday night, the liar-nObama White House never expected any such imminent intrusion by the Trump team into its closets. Trump has called the Iran nuclear deal “disastrous,” and has said, variously, that he’ll dismantle the Iran nuclear deal, or renegotiate it. On Thursday, one of Trump’s foreign policy advisers, Walid Phares, told CNN that Trump will demand changes in the deal.
Whatever Trump does with the Iran deal, once he takes office he’s entitled to have access to what’s actually in it — preserved in full, including any secret documents, understandings, promises or related bargains. This should include information that holds the answers to a great many lingering questions, among them the full rationale and terms of liar-nObama’s prolific concessions to Iran — not least, the $1.7 billion cash payola to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Even with such access, assuming the records are in good-faith preserved and turned over in full, disentangling the truth from the liar-nObama narrative could be complicated. Andy McCarthy, on PJMedia, warns the Trump transition team against trusting liar-nObama’s politicized intelligence on ISIS and al-Qaeda. It would be folly to rule out similar bias on Iran.
But if liar-nObama has any desire to see his signature Iran deal sustained, presumably he, or his team, will have to divulge to his successor whatever his end of this bargain actually and fully entails, beneath the narrative and behind the official gloss. Otherwise, with no particular help from Trump, the deal may implode anyway. For liar-nObama, during this transition period, it is, one might suppose, an unexpected and not entirely comfortable choice.
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