The Iran deal and America's credibility

John Kerry Will Fix The Middle East… By Becoming President?
. . . "He reportedly told Abbas pal, Hussein Agha, that, “he could broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace process” that was far superior to Trump’s plan. Really? I may need to check my calendar to be positive, but didn’t Kerry already have four full years to work out a deal between Israel and the Palestinians? Nothing seemed to come of that except for vastly deteriorated relations between Israel and the United States, with Hamas still actively digging tunnels and firing missiles at our ally." . . . 

American Military News: US withdrawing from ‘defective’ Iran nuclear deal and imposing ‘highest level’ economic sanctions, Trump announces  “ 'The United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal,” Trump said, calling the deal “defective at its core” and a “disastrous deal” that gave the Iranian “regime of great terror” billions of dollars.

“ '[…] America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail [and we] won’t allow American cities to be threatened with destruction,” he said, later saying that the withdrawal will help keep Americans safe.

“ 'The Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror. No action taken by the regime has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them,” the President said.". . .

Weekly Standard: Trump Withdraws From ‘Defective’ Iran Deal  . . . "The Treasury Department said that sanctions will be subject to either 90- or 180-day wind-down periods, allowing foreign companies to withdraw their business, and will then come into effect. Trump described the penalties as “the highest level of economic sanctions.' ” . . .

Can America's Credibility Survive the Death of the Iran Nuclear Deal?  . . . "Meanwhile, those Iranians who negotiated in good faith, and agreed to place severe limits on their nuclear program, will be accused by JCPOA opponents within Iran that they were fools for naively believing U.S. assurances." . . .

McCain wants to be Wellstone II

Don Surber  "Paul Wellstone was the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants who wrestled his way through college. Literally. He was the undefeated Atlantic Coast Conference wrestling champion in his weight class. He went on to teach political science. Then he ran for and won a Senate seat and served 12 years.

"But he is best known for his disastrous funeral, which Democrats turned into an embarrassing campaign rally. His name is now synonymous with inappropriate politicization of apolitical events.

"Senator John McCain decided to hold Wellstone II as his funeral.

"He invited George W. Bush and Barack Obama -- his rivals who schlonged him for the presidency -- but has banned President Trump from attending.

"Showing all the loyalty of jackrabbit, on McCain's way out, he has denounced his running mate Sarah Palin, proving once and for all he and his staff sabotaged her. What man does that to a woman? Or for that matter, another man.

"But that is McCain.

"In arranging his funeral as a display of Never Trumpism -- and I hope the tirades are loud and mean (I want these people to expose their hate and anger) -- McCain has shown he learned nothing from Wellstone's experience." . . .

"The funeral - memorial service for Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone turns into a Democrat political rally."

And of course they lost.

Did America dodge a bullet over Hillary Clinton's failing health?

Since Hillary has always lied to the public about such matters, yet her health problems were obvious, it very likely was a factor in why she lost the 2016 election. And if it wasn't obvious to everyone back then, it's certainly obvious now. One more instance of Hillary Clinton lying to us to conceal a potential crisis. Obviously, America dodged a bullet from that alone by not electing her.

Monica Showalter "Hillary Clinton was spotted in public in New York, wearing what appeared to be a back brace, sticking out from her clothing despite her being covered up by a heavy coat and scarf in 80-degree weather.

"The Daily Mail has an excellent set of papparazzi photos here.

"So much for her phyician's "excellent" bill of health, something that should raise question's about the value of such reports, or else her medic's credibility. And it says a lot about Hillary Clinton herself that she continually lies about her increasingly obvious chronic health problems.

"We've known for years that she's had health problems. She had a fall and a concussion in 2012, with blurry double vision, requiring her to wear glasses, which seemed to be a factor in her resignation as Secretary of State.

"Out on the campaign trail, there were suspiciously long bathroom breaks, which made her late for her television appearances at at least one presidential candidate's debate, quite a noticible attention-getter. Always, always, there were excuses - that the bathroom was too far away, that the whole bathroom needed to be cleared out for Hillary, so that Hillary could "go," that women always take longer than men to do their business in the bathroom. If any of that were true, it would have been worked out before the debate. It wasn't, and Hillary tried to laugh it off." . . .

What happened in John McCain's life?

The Devil and John McCain  . . . "On the way to vainglorious heliocentricity, John McCain as a U.S. senator was unconvincing as a selfless statesman, an indefatigable advocate of his own press clippings.  In his thirty years in the U.S. Senate, John McCain accomplished nothing, neither for his constituents nor for the nation.  Yet he dreams of odes and eulogies, delivered by rivals and friends alike, for whom he could rarely muster a kind word, let alone a graceful final gesture.

"McCain gleefully bargained away, or more aptly auctioned off, his respected if not sympathetic heroic image – a man of inestimable courage and endurance under unimaginable circumstances.  He morphed into an opportunistic sunshine patriot, malignantly self-centered, whose reward was fleeting adoration by media liberals using McCain to attack their antagonists when convenient.

"John McCain could be trusted for a sound bite trashing presidents of his own party and voting against the interest of everyday Americans when it mattered, but little else.  His passing will be mourned, customarily so.  Whatever demons having possessed John McCain's better instincts will mercifully search for a different host.  Even Daniel Webster wouldn't be able to rescue McCain's ignoble political reputation."

McCain’s exit

"It is not too late for Senator McCain to go out graciously."

"I admire Sen. John McCain for his bravery, patriotism, and his public service.  Further, I can understand why he would have animosity toward President Trump, in light of then-candidate Trump's untoward comments about McCain's war record. 

"Having said that, I am disturbed by Sen. McCain's continued attacks on our president, including his recent request that President Trump not attend his funeral.

"First, McCain should know better than to play into the Left and their media enabler's game, whereby just about every Republican is attacked as a racist. Indeed, civil rights icon John Lewis alleged that McCain’s 2008 general election rallies were similar to those held by George Wallace.  A McCain campaign video was compared to “an over-the-top parody of fascist campaign propaganda from a movie, and sounds like Triumph of the Will.” The Obama campaign claimed that McCain was playing racial politics for daring to suggest that Obama was preemptively accusing him and the GOP generally of racism.  Obama himself stated that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.' ” . . .

 " . . .McCain pulled his punches by hardly attacking Obama's connections to racists like Jeremiah Wright and terrorists like Bill Ayers. (One also has to wonder about the McCain campaign's weak oppo research, which failed to uncover the recently surfaced 2005 photo of a smiling Sen. Obama with Louis Farrakhan.)  McCain’s defeat subjected the country to eight years of failed progressive policies by Obama, who divided the public with his focus on redistribution and identity politics.

Michelle Obama Puts Women in Their Place

The truth is Obama and Clinton are doing a disservice to the very cause they claim to support. You can’t be for female empowerment and then chastise women when they empower themselves to make a choice that you don’t like.

Lewis Morris

"Michelle Obama took American women to task at the recent United States of Women Summit in Los Angeles. Was it for failing to think for themselves? Was it for not standing up for their rights? No, it was for declining to mindlessly and unanimously line up as a gender to support and elect Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“In light of this last election, I’m concerned about us as women and how we think,” the former first lady told the friendly, lefty crowd. “What is going on in our heads where we let that happen, you know?”

"Obama expressed amazement that a plurality of all American women (and 52% of white women) voted for Donald Trump, even though Clinton was supposedly the Most Qualified Candidate™ in the history of the republic — and a woman to boot*. According to the twisted, identity-based Democrat worldview, that alone should have been enough for every woman in the country to pull the lever for Hillary.

"The reasons for Clinton’s loss have been explained in rich detail, so there is no reason to go over all that again here. What is curious, though, is that a year and a half removed from her well-deserved defeat at the polls, people are still pushing the narrative that women voters are to blame for her loss." . . .

*I thought sexism was evil. TD

Kim Jong Un Has Secret Meeting With Xi Jinping In China; Says He’s Committed To Denuclearization

Yeshiva World

"North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a northern Chinese port city and pledged his continuing commitment to denuclearization ahead of his expected summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, state media said Tuesday.

"The meeting Monday and Tuesday in Dalian is the second between Xi and Kim in recent weeks, following Kim’s March visit to Beijing — his first since taking power six years ago.

"In comments carried Tuesday night by Chinese state media, neither leader was quoted as directly referring to either the planned Trump meeting or Kim’s summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in late last month.

"However, state broadcaster CCTV quoted Xi as saying China “supports North Korea to stick to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and supports North Korea and the U.S. in solving the peninsula issue through dialogue and consultation.' ” . . .

The Lowest Rated Show On Fox News Beats the Highest Rated Show on CNN

iOTW Report  "The least-watched prime time program on Fox News drew more viewers than its most-watched counterpart on CNN.

What became of Murdock's "leftist" heirs who took over Fox News?

“ 'Fox News at Night with Shannon Bream” drew an average of 1.5 million viewers in the month of April, according to Nielsen ratings reported by the Conservative Tribune. CNN’s most-watched show, “Anderson Cooper 360,” had an average audience of 1.1 million and placed a distant 24th among cable programs."

From the comments to this article:

"I wonder how much of cnn ratings are just tv’s left on in waiting rooms."

"More beauty tips from Stormy Daniels’s lawyer, yeah, that’s the ticket! Gotta get us more Stormy…"

"waiting rooms and airport lounge captive audiences ?"

"Solution? Double down – again – on asinine, vitriolic, anti-US fake news; and high school level material."

Mossad to Khamenei and Iran: 'Kilroy was here'

Peter Skurkiss

Secondly, Israel figuratively writing Kilroy was here on the bedroom door just might hasten the regime change that the Iranian people and the world have been praying for.  What's that, you say?  A second Nobel Peace Prize for Donald Trump?

"It was quite a revelation in late April when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed the world that Iran had intensified its efforts to hide evidence of its nuclear weapons program after signing the deal in 2015. The proof for this came from documents and computer discs seized by Mossad agents from a secret warehouse in Tehran.

Europe and Iranian apologists in the U.S. say Bibi didn't present anything new.  Translation: We knew that the Iranians were lying, but we pretended not to see.  Indeed, according to Rob Malley, a former senior official in Obama's National Security Council and a member of the team negotiating with Iran, the agreement was made possible only by letting Iran lie about the past while promising to be honest in the future.

"According to the British newspaper the Telegraph:

The documents include official letters, spreadsheets, blueprints, photographs, videos and more, all attesting to the Iranian regime's clandestine plans to build nuclear weapons. One document proclaimed an ominous mission statement for the covert programme: to 'design, produce and test fire warheads, each with ten kiloton TNT yield for integration on a missle.'

. . . 

Chelsea Manning vows to eliminate US borders, close prisons and abolish ICE before it commits 'ethnic cleansing' as she campaigns for Maryland Senate seat

I fear millions of Americans are capable of buying into all this.

UK Daily Mail

Manning was arrested on May 29 in Kuwait and on June 5 she was charged with leaking classified information
Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison but only served seven after former President Barack Obama granted her clemency allowing her to be released last year
The leak was the biggest breach of classified data in the history of the US   

"Manning, right, chats with Kelly Wright, communications director for Manning's senatorial campaign, in Manning's apartment. She says she doesn't, in fact, even consider herself a Democrat, but is motivated by a desire to shake up establishment Democrats who are 'caving in' to President Donald Trump's administration"

"Chelsea Manning is no longer living as a transgender woman in a male military prison, serving the lengthiest sentence ever for revealing US government secrets. 

"She's free to grow out her hair, travel the world, and spend time with whomever she likes.

"But a year since former President Barack Obama commuted Manning's 35-year sentence, America's most famous convicted leaker isn't taking an extended vacation. 

"Far from it: The Oklahoma native has decided to make an unlikely bid for the U.S. Senate in her adopted state of Maryland.

"Manning, 30, filed to run in January and has been registered to vote in Maryland since August. She lives in North Bethesda, not far from where she stayed with an aunt while awaiting trial. 

"Her aim is to unseat Sen. Ben Cardin, a 74-year-old Maryland Democrat who is seeking his third Senate term and previously served 10 terms in the U.S. House."  . . .  Read more...

Restore the rule of law, treat Kerry like Manafort and Flynn

Frontpage

The left and its rogue Never Trumper allies ceaselessly lecture us about the “Rule of Law.” Let’s have their version of the rule of law. And let’s apply it to Kerry, Rhodes, Malley and all the rest.

"On January 19, 2017, John Forbes Kerry left his job at the State Department. Addressing Foggy Bottomers in the C Street lobby, he ended his speech by declaring, "This is not an end. This is a beginning. It’s a new beginning." That’s just what departing politicos usually say, but he meant it.

"Next January, a report appeared that Kerry had met with a top negotiator for the PLO in London.

"The secret back-channel negotiator, Hussein Agha, was a close confidant of terrorist dictator Mahmoud Abbas, the racist PLO boss who around this same time had delivered a speech in which he cursed President Trump, shouting, “May your house be destroyed.” Agha was a frequent collaborator with Robert Malley, who allegedly ran Soros and Obama’s back channel to Hamas. Obama fired Malley during the campaign, but once in office brought him back in a variety of roles including as a lead negotiator on the Iran Deal scam and the National Security Council’s point man for the Middle East. Malley now heads Soros’ International Crisis Group and continues undermining America and defending the Iran Deal.

"Kerry urged Agha to tell the PLO boss to “be strong”, “play for time” and “not yield to President Trump’s demands.' ” . . .

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

Tehran John: Trump Goes After Kerry For Helping Iran
"President Trump has until Saturday to make a decision about the future of the agreement. European officials are begging him to keep the U.S. in, while offering a number of fixes. Iran's reaction has been threatening, especially after Israeli intelligence revealed last week the deal was built on a pile of lies."

Outrageous Redactions to the Russia Report

Andrew C. McCarthy

The FBI and DOJ have been burying the investigators’ questionable judgments and information helpful to Flynn.

"Cute how this works: Kick off the week with some “the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted” bombast from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, by which he rationalizes that his defiance of subpoenas and slow-walking document production to Congress — which is probing investigative irregularities related to the 2016 campaign — is required by DOJ policy and “the rule of law.” Then end the week with the Friday-night bad-news dump: the grudging removal of DOJ and FBI redactions from a House Intelligence Committee report on Russia’s election meddling. 

"Now that we can see what they wanted to conceal, it is clear, yet again, that the Justice Department and the FBI cannot be trusted to decide what the public gets to learn about their decision-making. 

"They tell us that their lack of transparency is necessary for the protection of national security, vital intelligence, and investigative operations. But what we find out is that they were concealing their own questionable judgments and conflicting explanations for their actions; their use of foreign-intelligence and criminal-investigative authorities to investigate Michael Flynn, Trump’s top campaign supporter and former national-security adviser; and their explicitly stated belief that Flynn did not lie in the FBI interview for which Special Counsel Robert Mueller has since prosecuted him on false-statements charges.

"It is simply ridiculous for President Trump to continue bloviating about this situation on Twitter and in friendly media interviews, and for congressional Republicans to continue pretending that the problem is Justice Department and FBI leadership — as if Trump were not responsible for his own administration’s actions. The president has not only the authority but the duty to ensure that his subordinates honor lawful disclosure requests from Congress. 

"What happened with these redactions is inexcusable. " . . .

'Political Bully' Echoes Trump, Calls Child Refugees 'Gangsters and Thugs' on 'Madam Secretary'

MRC "Well, this is a timely coincidence. Within a week of the Trump administration announcing that it will end the 1999 temporary protected status for Hondurans, CBS’s Madam Secretary features the Secretary of State fighting for refugee status of Honduran children against a "political bully." I guess the show has more foresight than I thought, though still not enough to let their Hillary icon or liberal biases go. As the Democrats have been learning lately, you can’t win them all.

"The May 6 episode “The Things We Get To Say” follows reporter Neal Shin (Tim Kang) as he observes an average day for Madam Secretary Elizabeth McCord (Téa Leoni). This day happens to be perfect since Elizabeth and her staff are handling a Honduran refugee crisis occurring just south of the border. In overcrowded and unsanitary detention centers in Mexico, many Honduran children are dying without care, requesting aid from the United States. There is even a sad online video depicting the children holding a funeral for their friends. Despite already working on a comprehensive immigration reform bill for Congress, they begin mulling over the prospect of giving them refugee status.

"Of course, no controversial political move could be made without everyone’s favorite right-wing partisan hack Senator Morejon (José Zúñiga) chiming in. Once word spreads about the Hondurans, Morejon immediately goes on air and blasts the policy as letting in “gangsters and thugs,” paralleling Trump’s controversial statements on illegal immigrants coming in from Mexico.

Morejon: I believe in the dreams of immigrants who want to contribute to our great nation. But I simply cannot support legislation on immigration put forth by this president when his administration is offering refuge to gangsters and thugs.

"Funny how the episode didn't bring up the fact that many refugees dubbed “minors” brought to the U.S. are actually adults or that gangs like MS-13 are sending in younger members. After all, bringing up those facts would have offered a counter-argument, and this series, with its several ridiculous positions, can’t afford that." . . .