Obama Has 'Secret' 55th Birthday With Celebs

NewsMax

"Guests invited to President Barack Obama's 55th birthday party in the White House reportedly included a star-studded roster from Hollywood, and the sports and music worlds — secret details that were leaked out via social media.

"Guests were asked not to tweet any pictures or spill any details when formal word of the Friday night party was announced, but "some did anyway," the New York Times reports.

"Magic Johnson tweeted a picture of he and his wife ahead of the party and the Rev. Al Sharpton took to Twitter to announce his departure at 1:10 a.m. Saturday from Obama's "last birthday as President."

"The Times reports others spotted at the event included the talk show host Ellen DeGeneres; former NBC star Grant Hill; and "Star Wars" creator George Lucas. Singer-songwriter Nick Jonas gushed in a tweet that he'd "never forget" the evening, while the Times said Paul McCartney was a guest and performed for the 55-year-old president and First Lady Michelle Obama. The Times didn't report its source."

More on this today: Military K9 Handler Describes Hillary’s Profanity-Infused Tirade about His Dog

 

"I can only hope that all Americans don’t have to face a regular dose of Hillary Clinton’s version of the “charm offensive” after November’s election."

The original story of this sergeant's encounter with Hillary:

I helped with sweeps of her DV Quarters and staff vehicles. Her words to me? “Get that Fucking dog away from me.” Then she turns to her Security Detail and berates them up and down about why that animal was in her quarters. For the next 20 minutes while I sit there waiting to be released she lays into her detail, slamming the door in their faces when she’s done. The Detail lead walks over apologizes and releases me. I apologize to him for getting him in trouble. His words “Happens every day, Brother”

Legal Insurrection "The post was shared over 200,000 times on Facebook, and it turns out that Staff Sgt. Eric Bonner was a 39th Security Forces Squadron military working dog handler and was on duty at the time of a Hillary Clinton visit to Foreign Minister Babacan."

 . . . "It turns out that the author, Eric Bonner, is real and the graphic is based on a recollection the K9 serviceman offered on Facebook.

He writes:

Being a K9 handler in the Military I got to do a few details involving Distinguished Visitors. Mostly Generals, DOD Officials, and Secretaries of Defense. I was lucky enough to pull two awesome details. George W Bush, and Obama.

GW looked at me, said “Man, who’d you piss off” high fived me, and continued on. I was climbing down from a catwalk I stood on for 4 hours with nothing but Dust and a radio to keep me company. The radio died early on. It was pretty sweet.

Obama, as he was walking out to his plane in Turkey, said “What the hell kind of dog is that?!” In reference to Suli.

One of my Last details was for Hillary when she was Secretary of State. She was in Turkey for whatever reason. I helped with sweeps of her DV Quarters and staff vehicles. Her words to me? “Get that Fucking dog away from me.” Then she turns to her Security Detail and berates them up and down about why that animal was in her quarters. For the next 20 minutes while I sit there waiting to be released she lays into her detail, slamming the door in their faces when she’s done. The Detail lead walks over apologizes and releases me. I apologize to him for getting him in trouble. His words “Happens every day, Brother”

. . .
 "So what did our hero get for his vivid account? Some time in Facebook jail!  While it should be noted that Facebook apparently told Bonner that his name needed to be verified, the timing is, as he notes, interesting.

"The key passage:

Facebook suspended my account until my name could be Verified. The timing of it was interesting. They wanted me to provide government ID. Which ultimately I did not end up providing. End Result? As you can see my profile is back up and running. However, I feel like this won’t be the end of this type of “Contact.”

"Why would Hillary Clinton berate a security detail assigned to protect her and her staff in an unstable region of the world? I would suggest that perhaps her brain short-circuited after her corkscrew landing." . . .

comicallyincorrect.com

Cotton: Clinton discussed executed Iranian scientist on email

Rick Moran: Did Clinton emails doom Iranian nuke scientist to death?

. . . "While US State Department officials apparently burned Amiri by leaking his status as a defector/spy, Clinton's emails made it clear he was returning to Iran to spy for the US. Did that fact seal Amiri's fate?

"That the poorly disguised identity of Amiri appeared in a supposedly unclassified email is a major breach of security - especially since the US was arranging his return to Tehran. "

Washington Examiner  "Hillary Clinton recklessly discussed, in emails hosted on her private server, an Iranian nuclear scientist who was executed by Iran for treason, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Sunday.

" 'I'm not going to comment on what he may or may not have done for the United States government, but in the emails that were on Hillary Clinton's private server, there were conversations among her senior advisors about this gentleman," he said on "Face the Nation." Cotton was speaking about Shahram Amiri, who gave information to the U.S. about Iran's nuclear program.

"The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of keeping the country safe." . . .

The UK Mail supports Cotton's charge: Clinton's private server held emails about Iranian nuclear 'spy' who was executed today: Hillary's aides discussed their scientist ‘friend’ and his 'problematic' decision to return home

"Richard Morningstar, a former State Department special envoy for Eurasian energy wrote to Clinton: 'We should recognize his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence.

"'Our friend has to be given a way out. Our person won't be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave so be it.'

"Senior adviser Jake Sullivan sent another email about Amiri on July 12, 2010." . . .

Politico, however makes no direct reference to emails calling Amiri "friend".

CNN Politics:  . . . "The just-released emails, which were sent to Clinton back in 2010, seem to support what State Department sources have long maintained: that Amiri was not abducted, but a defector and paid informant who changed his mind about helping the U.S.

"The emails also appear to offer insight into the department's plans to get Amiri back to Iran safely." . . .

Fascists & Theocrats

Mike Adams

"Several months ago I received a scathing rebuke from a gay professor who we will call Rod – because that is his name. He was angered by my insistence that a Christian musician should not be forced to perform at gay weddings. He asserted that the “cost of doing business” is that you must “accommodate” all segments of the population, regardless of your religious beliefs. In other words, he articulated the belief that every single business has to serve every single customer in order to “accommodate the public” – even if that means attending religious services that violate his conscience. In that sense, he seemed every bit as unhinged as Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson. 

"I did not think much of Rod’s statement and simply discarded it without a second thought. The reason for my flippancy is that Professor Rod writes me quite often. He messages me on social media and emails me repeatedly. For a guy who seems to hate me he almost seems to like me. So I generally ignore him in the hope he will go away.

" Last week, however, Professor Rod sent a message that I simply could not discard." . . .    
“homo fascists”?

Clinton Chooses Black Lives Matter Over Law Enforcement Support

Daily Caller  . . . "After almost a year of meeting with Black Lives Matter representatives, Clinton failed to garner the support of the movement’s co-founder Alicia Garza, but she managed to receive the endorsement of mothers championed by the Black Lives Matter movement.

"Garza recently slammed Clinton, saying the former secretary of state only “uses black people for votes” and “photo ops,” but doesn’t “do anything for black communities” after getting elected.

"Nevertheless the Clinton-Kaine campaign touts the support she received during the Democratic National Convention from mothers of the Black Lives Matter movement.
. . .

"According To Canterbury, the union was only snubbed once before by a presidential candidate—John Kerry in 2004. The last time FOP endorsed a Democrat was in 1996, when the union endorsed Clinton’s husband, Bill.

"The Clinton camp refused to say why they vigorously sought out the support of Black Lives Matter over Law Enforcement. However, Clinton Campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson told The Hill, “Throughout her career, Hillary Clinton has been committed to our law enforcement officers.' ”

The Media vs. America

Jeffrey Lord 

 . . . "Never once - not once - did I hear Donald Trump mention the Khans, the now famous parents of a son killed in battle in Iraq. Even more to the point? In talking with many people in the audience  before and after the rally, no one - say again not a single soul - mentioned the Khans. What I did hear from Trump was talk about jobs, trade, the economy, ISIS and more. Which was the talk from members of the audience when I spoke to many of them before and after the rally. They volunteered directly to me, conversation after another, their thoughts about ObamaCare, a sick child, jobs, trade, pride in America, Hillary and so on.

"And yet? Mysteriously when I returned home and turned on the television or checked on-line it seemed to be all-Khan all-the-time. As if Trump had spent the evening re-hashing the whole subject yet again. Which he had not.

"In my conversation with Donald Trump himself he was upbeat, every bit as enthusiastic as his audience. Yet what was the media take on the Trump campaign this week? Here’s ABC’s Jon Karl:" . . .   Via Lucianne

Facebook Omits Israeli Flag From 2016 Rio Olympics Page

Haaretz  "Special section allows users to add frame with participating countries' flags to pictures or videos. Israel added to feature after Israeli olympic committee's request."

"Facebook omitted the Israeli flag from its list of countries participating in the 2016 Summer Olympics on a special page in honor of the opening of the games in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.

"The Olympic Committee of Israel sent a letter to Facebook on Thursday asking it to correct the error. The company said it was dealing with the issue, and it had been fixed by Thursday afternoon.

"The special section includes an icon of the Olympic torch that, when clicked, gives the user access to a set of tools Facebook developed in the games’ honor. One of those tools allows the user to add a frame with participating countries’ flags to pictures or videos that he posts to Facebook. The tool uses the MSQRD app, which Facebook purchased.
But the Ynet website reported that Israeli surfers soon noticed the Israeli flag was missing from the menu that enables users to select a flag to include in their frame. Instead of Israel, the English-language list offered “independent athletes,” while the Hebrew-language list offered nothing at all.
"The Olympic Committee of Israel confirmed Ynet’s report. Committee spokeswoman Bruria Bigman told Haaretz that the panel began getting complaints from surfers Wednesday evening about the absence of Israel’s flag. The committee then sent an urgent letter to Facebook asking it to fix the problem before Thursday afternoon's update. "
Oded Yaron has worked at Haaretz since 2000 and writes about technology.

Olympic Committee of Israel — Wikimedia Commons

Hat tip to Joe Newby

The Mendacity* Behind Obama's Mockery of the Cash-for-Iran Story

Mendacity  1. The condition of being mendacious; untruthfulness.  2. A lie; a falsehood.

Claudia Rosette

"It is not at all clear to me why it is that cash, as opposed to a check or wire transfer, has made this into a news story."   -- President Barack Obama, Pentagon Press Conference, August 4, 2016

 

"Thus did President Obama scold those who are now asking why his administration secretly airlifted $400 million worth of cash to Iran this past January, just as Iran was releasing four American prisoners. By Obama's account, there's nothing to see here. Not only did Obama deny, despite the striking coincidence of timing, that the payment was a ransom. He also mocked anyone who might see the story of the cash itself as troubling news, or newsworthy at all. Obama dismissed such reactions as "the manufacturing of outrage in a story that we disclosed in January."

"Welcome, once again, to the vertigo of the Obama "narrative," in which the priority of his "most transparent" administration is not to deal honestly with the American public, but to spin a web of half truths, enmeshed in complexities, to cover up highly questionable uses of power -- and then, if caught red-handed, use the bully pulpit to deride and dismiss the critics." . . .

Photo added, TD

5. Finally, there's the ugly matter of Obama belittling anyone who might question or criticize his cash payola for Iran. . .  It's even worse when the president, caught out by the press, chooses to defend himself by denigrating the reporters, and his fellow citizens generally, as sensation-seeking fools. The best retort by now, no matter what the presidential mockery, is don't stop following the money. 

L.A. Times Op-ed bares media bias in Clinton coverage

Joe Newby

. . . "For his part, Raimondo observed, “This transparent bias is a national phenomenon, infecting both print and television media to such an extent that it has become almost impossible to separate coverage of the Trump campaign from attempts to tear it down.”

"Had Raimondo substituted the term “national disgrace” for “national phenomenon,” his analysis could easily pass the smell test." . . .

After US president said Israeli officials consider accord a ‘game changer,’ Liberman’s ministry likens it to 1938 capitulation to Nazis

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman at a meeting of the
 Foreign  Affairs and Defense Committee on July 18, 2016.

"Israel on Friday bitterly rejected US President Barack Obama’s claim that its officials now support last year’s nuclear deal with Iran. Far from accepting Obama’s assertion, the Israeli Defense Ministry compared the year-old accord to the Munich Agreement signed by the European powers with Nazi Germany in 1938.

. . . 

" 'A top minister close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, furthermore, directly contradicted Obama’s assertion that Israel now backs the accord. “I don’t know to which Israelis he (Obama) spoke recently. But I can promise you that the position of the prime minister, the defense minister and of most senior officials in the defense establishment has not changed,” Tzachi Hanegbi told The Times of Israel.

“ 'The opposite is the case. The time that has elapsed since the deal was signed proved all our worries that, regrettably, we were justified before the deal was made,” said Hanegbi, a minister who works in the Prime Minister’s Office and who until recently chaired the Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee." . . .

Obama To Play 300th Round Of Golf While In Martha’s Vineyard…

What in Heaven's name can make this man as popular as he is? Do those who say they like Obama do so because they are afraid to criticize him? Who'd have ever said they didn't like the Beatles? You are expected to or else.  TD

Weasel Zippers

"Reminder: George W. Bush (also an avid golfer) played only 24 rounds of golf during his presidency. Bush stopped playing in 2003, saying that he “felt it was not appropriate to be seen golfing while American troops fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.' ”

Ransom or what?

comicallyincorrect

Jonah Goldberg: When Is a Ransom Not a Ransom? When It’s Inconvenient to Call It That  
. . . "Now, because of this pas-de-deux of asininity, not only have we given the Iranians untraceable walking-around money to give to its terrorist proxies, we’ve also given them every incentive to kidnap more Americans — which is exactly what they’ve been doing. But at least the folks at the State Department can sleep soundly knowing that they didn’t really pay a ransom — it just looks that way."

Rich Lowry: The Ransom that Dare Not Speak Its Name . . . "At the most basic level, if the U.S. government were paying ransom to Iran, this is what it would look like: A cargo plane stuffed with wooden pallets of $400 million in foreign currency, obtained by the U.S. government from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, landing in an airport in Tehran reportedly the same day the hostages were released. The director Michael Bay couldn’t ask for better material." . . .

Weekly Standard: Kerry Says $400 Million Iran Story Is Not New  " 'This story is not a new story," Kerry told reporters in Argentina. "It doesn't represent anything the American people weren't told by the president and by the administration. What it does represent is a policy of common sense.' "

Well, yes, it was. If your enemy holds hostages you desperately want back and asks money for them, you could say it is "common sense" to pay the money, just as it is "common sense" to give the schoolyard bully your lunch money. How will that all work out for you?

UK Mail:Could Trump have been right? Propaganda film suggests Iran DID videotape cash-drop plane and photograph shipment of cash during January prisoner swap

Salon: Congress was right: The Iran deal is a travesty — and Obama is to blame

. . . "These latest developments undoubtedly confirm what conservatives and other pro-Israel activists have been arguing throughout this entire episode. They’re yet another reason why people who don’t like flawed GOP nominee Donald Trump will still have a hard time voting for Hillary Clinton, given her prominent role in helping usher in this flawed deal. They also tarnish President Obama’s legacy, despite his brag last week at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia that he’d “shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program' ” . . .

The Wall Street Journal has a story on it but you have to register to read it.