===
As generally happens those at risk wake up after it is too late. (See 1 below.)
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Immigration can be a benefit but it can also be a threat to our nation's ability to remain competitive, viable as a manageable republic.
This presentation of what Congress has done to explode the numbers is interesting. You decide what you feel about the consequences and this video.
https://youtu.be/muw22wTePqQ
One person's view. (See 2 below.)
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A possible reason why it might be a bad deal and other commentary. You decide. (See 3, 3a, 3b, 3c and 3d below.)
And most disgusting occurrence of all. (See 3e below.)
As for myself, I believe Obama is more interested in placing Iran's future above that of America's. (See 3f below.)
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I am surprised to find the liberal Washington Post in agreement with what I have written.
The Iran Deal became a bad one because Obama was willing to allow it and the refugee problem is also because Obama allowed it. Now Russia is sending troops into Syria to protect the tyrant Obama pledged he would not allow to remain in office.
With respect to the Iran Deal,Obama ignored his own demands and now demands we do as well
Is it possible The Nobel Peace Committee could take Obama's medal back? (See 4 below.)
===
Baltimore made a very large settlement before the trial of their six police officers and proved that not only do Black Lives Matter but dead ones sure pay off better!
The settlement is outrageous both as to its timing and to the amount considering the factual circumstances surrounding the death which have yet to be proven as to cause as well as the limits for such in Maryland etc.
Meanwhile, several days ago Hillary did not apologize for her actions and then when her ratings continued to sink she apologized.
Today, after an interview, she showed what she has been told she must - heart. This is the tenth time I
believe she has engaged in using the re-set button that did not work with Russia but might with Demwits because they have limited choices - nominate a Socialist, a woman who lies like a Turkish Rug or a Doofus who has seldom been right on anything.
She said she did not think when she decided to hide her information, classified or otherwise, from the public though she was a public official. She has also told us that when she did what she did the State Department knew it and approved. Does our State Department now approve of what she did? Appears they do because they have been cleaning up her e mails as they release them by extracting parts etc.
Maybe the Demwits can get some of the Republicans who will not make the grade to run under their banner.
===
Dick
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1)
US Jews Wake Up: Muslim J-Street Head is 'Anti-Israel'
Two weeks after the election of a Muslim to head J-Street, more of her anti-Israel positions are coming to light.
By Hillel Fendel
Amna Farooqi, the new president of J Street U (J Street's student subsidiary), is a "radical Muslim who spews hatred for Israel and its leaders, supports violence against Israel, and supports anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS)." So writes the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), summing up increasingly prevalent Jewish sentiment.
Daniel Greenfield, writing for FrontPageMag.com, had a different take on the same concept: Behind Farooqi's agenda "is the traditional conspiratorial idea that Jews have a great deal of power," he says. J Street U and its media allies are trying to sell Amna Farooqi as a pro-Israel Muslim, Greenfield writes, "when really she's just infiltrating the Jewish community because she thinks it's a more effective tactic."
Greenfield quotes her as saying, "Because I was Muslim I had a sense of Muslim solidarity with Palestinians… I got involved in this because I want to make change, and I think the American Jewish community has more agency. If I thought moving the American Muslim community would move this – they just don’t have the role in it…"
In another article, Greenfield writes that Farooqi told one public gathering, "We are not here to talk about the pro-Israel conversation on campus. We are here to talk about the occupation." She further avowed that the coming year for J Street U is going to be all about "year-long anti-occupation work."
"J Street has lost its right to claim it is pro-Israel and pro-Peace," the ZOA summed up.
Sample tweets or retweets by Farooqi include, "Wonder how many American Jews hear of the horror inflicted on Gaza this summer?" and "Wonder what Bibi would say if Palestinians applied his Iran logic to their situation "We must stop aggression at all costs". She also implied support for Palestinian terrorism when she tweeted, "Every movement exercises a range of acts of resistance."
Farooqi is a 21-year-old University of Maryland student, the daughter of Pakistani parents. She grew up in a Washington, D.C. suburb in what she called a "fairly religious" Muslim home. At the J Street Conference in March of this year, she condemned Israel for "occupation," "oppression," and "racism [that is] pervasive and draining." She has often mentioned the "horror inflicted [by Israel] on Gaza this summer."
The ZOA also brings to light Farooqi's sympathy for Palestinian-Arab terrorists convicted of committing murderous acts against Israelis, in that she has retweeted the following: "You know where the Palestinian Gandhi is? In Israeli prison."
Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz has said, "I went back and I read every single J Street press release from the first day of its existence. I could not find a single one of them that praised Israel. How can you be a pro-Israel organization and never express any pro-Israel views? "
ZOA President Morton Klein stated: "J Street U's new radical Muslim president, Amna Farooqi - who apparently supports the Hamas terrorist organization over Israel, supports violence against Israeli Jews (which she labels "resistance"), supports anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions, and promotes ugly lies against the Jewish State of Israel and her leaders - makes clear that J Street no longer has any right to claim to be 'pro-Israel, pro-peace.'"
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2)
Losing Our Civil Society
By Frosty Wooldridge
If you watch the evening news, you witness the loss of our “civil society” at an ever-accelerating rate of speed. Make no mistake, more than a few criminals stalk and kill women. Snipers shoot at people driving down the highway from California to Michigan. Over 6,000 African-Americans kill 6,000 African-Americans annually. That’s 16 black deaths daily at the hands of other blacks. In the past month, eight police officers lost their lives to execution-style killings.
In Washington DC, former Secretary of State battles to maintain her honor while she’s lived a life of lies and deceit. Planned Parenthood sells baby body parts for profit. President Obama hides his history by sealing all records of his previous life in America and in Indonesia. He hides the fact that he carries a bogus Social Security number. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) fights to hide his criminal real-estate dealings from the public.
At the state level, my own Mayor of Denver hides the fact that he visited brothels before becoming a public servant. Colorado’s governor hired illegal aliens in his restaurants before becoming mayor of Denver and governor of our state: John Hickenlooper. One of his employees executed Officer Donny Young in the back of the head.
If we could expose the enormous amount of corruption in our U.S. Congress, a huge number of congressmen and senators would see jail time.
"There was no shortage of candidates for CREW's list this year, and 11 of the 20 members are joining it for the first time," the report stated. "In addition, one member, Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.), has been under investigation by no fewer than six separate authorities -- quite the rap sheet for a freshman."
The CREW list details crimes from the top 20 members who face indictments for crimes.
In Ferguson, Missouri, a 6’7”, 290 pound, 17 year old, robbed a store, walked down the street, and attacked a police officer. After Michael Brown died because of his attack on the cop, Al Sharpton—a known race-baiter, income tax swindler and national disgrace—created “Hands up don’t shoot” to burn down the city.
Another African-American created “Black Lives Matter” and condones execution of police officers.
A cameraman and reporter at a TV station suffered execution by a disgruntled employee in the last week.
If you look at the Somalian immigrants in New York City, Chicago and Minneapolis, Minnesota—you see them returning to Africa and the middle east to participate in jihad or just plain terror.
Right now in America, somewhere between 12 million and 31 million illegal aliens live stealth lives in America. According to Ann Coulter in her book, Adios America: The Left’s Plan to Turn America into a Third World Hellhole, she researched and supported the fact that 31 million people jumped our borders in violation of our laws. They broke our civil society into a fractured and lawless “world’s second largest underground economy” that sends over $80 billion annually back to home countries. Thus, besides the corruption in Congress, the USA features an $18 trillion national debt.
All the while, a questionable President Obama supports and encourages more lawlessness by not enforcing our existing laws. He avoids impeachment because Congress’ fear that if they did impeach him, African-Americans would turn America into another Watts, Detroit or Ferguson firebomb.
We face multiple fracturing via Boston Marathon Bombers, Fort Hood killer, Fort Dix Six bombers, Times Square car bomber, 9/11, beheadings in Oklahoma, New Jersey, Phoenix and South Carolina. And more to come!
MS-13 drug gangs operate in every major city in America. Illegal alien pregnant women birth their illegal children in our country at 350,000 to 400,000 year after year.
“More than 30 other cities have also reported increases in violence from a year ago. In New Orleans, 120 people had been killed by late August, compared with 98 during the same period a year earlier. In Baltimore, homicides had hit 215, up from 138 at the same point in 2014. In Washington, the toll was 105, compared with 73 people a year ago. And in St. Louis, 136 people had been killed this year, a 60 percent rise from the 85 murders the city had by the same time last year.” Journalist Monica Davey
Not one single member of Congress or this president stands up to uphold the rule of law. Thus, we face more cop killings, and more black killings by black killers. We face an Islamic madman- dominated Iran who will soon possess an atomic bomb—with no consciousness of the end result other than “Allah Akbar.”
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3)
Rouhani Says Iran Will Not Abide by Security Council Resolution
It now seems inevitable that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will win enough support in Congress to become U.S. law. While the Iran deal’s proponents and detractors can debate the merits of the deal, the sharp partisan lines on assessment of the deal affirm what a partisan football U.S. national security has become. That is unfortunate, and a relatively recent development (while controversial, Congressional votes to engage militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq were bipartisan), all the more so because President Obama might have had bipartisan support had he consulted more broadly to strengthen the accord during the period of negotiation. Instead, he and Secretary of State John Kerry engaged in a Catch-22: There could be no fair criticism of the accord until all the details were known, and then once negotiators reached an agreement, it was too late to criticize.
In reality, however, there could have been a much stronger agreement. Obama and Kerry forfeited leverage, as Iran’s economy began to plunge into the abyss. It was the diplomatic equivalent of entering into a poker game with a royal flush and losing to a pair of twos. There are many reasons to be skeptical of the agreement and critical of its final parameters:
- The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is weaker than previous non-proliferation agreements with South Africa and Libya.
- The inspection and verification mechanisms are also weaker than previous agreements and fall short of the Agreed Framework ratified by 124 other countries.
- The JCPOA frontloads Iranian rewards, allowing it to cheat or walk away from the deal without consequence.
- Acquiescing to Iran conducting its own sampling at Parchin, where Iran is alleged to have conducted nuclear weapons work, sets a dangerous precedent for future disputes.
In short, whenever U.S. and Iranian negotiators hit a brick wall, the United States acquiesced. According to this compilation by the Foreign Policy Initiative’s Tzvi Kahn, Obama and Kerry crossed more than a dozen of their own red lines.
But whenever the Obama and Kerry compromised, Iran sensed not goodwill, but rather a weakness to exploit. Hence, the latest from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani should not surprise. Speaking on Iranian television on Saturday, August 29, Rouhani declared:
“We have formally announced that we are not committed to these provisions [related to missiles] mentioned in UN resolution [2231]. In the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the Vienna nuclear deal] itself we have explained that a violation of the UN resolution does not mean violation of the JCPOA.”
Hence, Obama and Kerry sought to bypass Congressional debate and violate the spirit of the Corker-Cardin compromise by going directly to the United Nations before Congress could debate the JCPOA. The Security Council unanimously adopted the new resolution. According to the UN’s press release:
The Security Council today coalesced around a sweeping resolution that endorsed the 14 July agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, setting out a rigorous monitoring mechanism and timetable for implementation, while paving the way for the lifting of United Nations sanctions against that country… The Council, through the 104-page text, including annexes that detailed the sanctions-related provisions and listings, requested the International Atomic Energy Agency to undertake verification and monitoring of Iran’s compliance. It reaffirmed that Iran should cooperate fully with the Agency to resolve all outstanding issues. Upon receipt of a positive report from the Agency, the Council would terminate sanctions set out in resolutions adopted between 2006 and 2015.
Now Rouhani — the supposed moderate in whom Obama has placed his trust—has says he looks at the commitments laid out in the Security Council resolution in an à la carte manner. It’s not just a matter of Iran deciding unilaterally that it will not abide by international commitments with regard to missiles. It is not too late for Congressmen affirming the deal to gaze into the crystal ball of what weak inspection and verification mechanisms as well as a lackluster Iranian commitment to abide mean. Tehran is gambling on American partisanship and Congressional venality. Alas, for Iran, it’s a winning bet.
3a)
Did the Administration Out-Maneuver Itself on Iran Deal, Spelling its Defeat?
U.S. President Barack Obama
Photo Credit: screen capture from WhiteHouse.gov
Ever since U.S. President Barack Obama's Nuclear Iran Deal racked up the 34 Senators who will ward off efforts at a veto override, many people folded the deck and moved on to the next issue.
Even people adamantly opposed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action hammered out by Iran and acquiesced to by Secretary of State John Kerry and his negotiating team are acting as if, literally, it's a done Deal.
But it isn't.
There are currently circulating several proposals to send the negotiators back to the negotiating table. All of them rely on straight readings of the law. In fact, it is the administration that already voided the deal by failing to follow the procedures laid out in the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015.
As Andrew McCarthy first pointed out on Sept. 5 in the National Review, and as Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS-4) and attorney David Rivkin pointed out in a Washington Post op-ed published on Sept. 6, the very first section of the INARA requires the president to provide Congress with the JCPOA, "including all related materials and annexes.'
Congress should have been given all information about the agreement, including that information which we now know is contained in the secret side deals, neither of which the President nor his negotiating team informed Congress existed. It was only by chance that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Rep. Pompeo learned of the existence of those side deals from International Atomic Energy Agency employees in July, while meeting with them in Vienna
And providing the information now is too late, according to the INARA, as McCarthy points out: the act dictates that it was to have been done “not later than five days after reaching the agreement” — meaning July 19, since the agreement was finalized on July 14.
McCarthy's article is a must-read. He provides additional ways in which the administration has mishandled its obligations under the INARA, which is the very legislation it relies on to claim victory once it attained 34 Senators. Ordinarily an international agreement like this one would require 67 Senators to support it for passage, but the INARA flipped that on its head, and required 67 Senators to oppose it in order to defeat the bill.
Pompeo and Rivkin's formulation of how the administration has defaulted on its obligation under INARA is slightly different, although it also builds on their failure to provide the necessary information in a timely fashion to Congress.
According to this view, because the administration has failed to provide Congress with the secret side deal addressing the possible military dimensions of Iran's former nuclear weapons program, the 60 day review period provided Congress under the INARA has not yet begun, and because that information had to be provided "to Congress between July 10 and September 7," the window has closed.
There is yet another move to have the JCPOA be reclassified through litigation as a treaty, which the vast majority of legal and congressional scholars agree it clearly is.
There are still more legal maneuvers under consideration, all of which reveal an administration and its supporters so punch drunk on victory they failed to notice that a key element (or elements) they thought put the deal in the bag for them is actually the key to its unraveling.
But someone in Congress has to step forward and make the arguments. All the haranguing against the deal is meaningless unless it is actually defeated.
About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools. You can reach her by email: Lori@JewishPressOnline.co
3b)Iran’s interpretation of the nuclear deal is not an easy sell
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has had to sell the nuclear deal to his people as energetically as President Obama has. He and his technocratic assistants have been forced to clarify their interpretation of the agreement in the process, yielding some interesting insights into what the Iranians think they have committed to and gained. (Click here for quotations and links to sources.)
- Not a treaty…but binding. Rouhani and the negotiators have been explicit that the deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) is not a treaty, protocol, or convention, and thus does not need to be ratified by the Iranian Parliament. They face criticism from various Parliamentary and clerical factions for refusing to submit it for a vote. They have not suggested, however, that the agreement is any less binding for that.
- Iran can pursue the development of missiles without any restrictions. Rouhani has argued repeatedly that the only restrictions on Iran’s missile development are in UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (by which the UN implemented the deal), not in the JCPOA itself, and are therefore not restricted by the agreement.
- Iran can violate the UN Security Council Resolution without violating the JCPOA. Rouhani and his technocrats have declared that a violation of UNSCR 2231 does not constitute a violation of the JCPOA. Sanctions do not, therefore, snap back if Iran violates the UNSCR— but only if it violates the agreement.
- Iran intends to violate the UNSCR restrictions on weapons sales and imports. Rouhani has said, “We will sell and buy weapons whenever and wherever we deem it necessary… we will not wait for permission from anyone or any resolution.” Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly said that the restrictions in the UNSCR “are not binding for us.” Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) head Ali Akbar Salehi said that in UNSCR 2231 weapons “bans became restrictions…This means that the weapons ban has been shoved aside.” Iranian Minister of Defense Hossein Dehghan has said that Iran is negotiating to purchase Sukhoi fighter aircraft from Russia.
- Iran has not agreed to inspect Parchin itself… or to let anyone else inspect it. Rouhani’s technocrats have denied Associated Press reports of a secret protocol by which Iranian inspectors would “inspect” Parchin. They have not, however, indicated that there is any agreement by which anyone else would inspect it. Iranian military and IRGC leaders have, on the contrary, repeatedly denied that there will be any inspections of military facilities. Neither Rouhani nor his technocrats have corrected them.
Someone is in for disappointment. Either the Iranian government will, indeed, violate bans on weapons procurement and missile development and will, as it has claimed, receive full sanctions relief, or the disappointment of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the people will be deep. If the Guards and Iran’s businessmen are made happy, on the other hand, then the US and the EU will not have gotten (or implemented) the deal they were promised. Only one thing is perfectly clear: Rouhani’s interpretation of the nuclear deal cannot be reconciled with Obama’s. That is a problem.
- All sanctions will be lifted. Rouhani and his aides continue to promise the Iranian people that all sanctions will be lifted, not just nuclear-related sanctions, as the Obama administration claims. He has spoken of “the complete and simultaneous removal of the economic sanctions.” Salehi has said “the EU will cancel their own sanctions after 90 days and the American president will also cancel sanctions.” Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht Ravanchi stated that anything related to Iran’s economy including “financial, banking, transportation, and insurance” will be lifted when sanctions are lifted. (Click here for additional statements.)
3c) Alan Dershowitz on Iran Nuclear Deal: ‘I’m Furious With President Obama’
Long-time Democrat, Israel defender and famed law professor Alan Dershowitz told a synagogue audience on Saturday night that he was “furious” with President Obama over the Iran nuclear deal.
Speaking at Manhattan’s illustrious Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side to a crowd gathered for the pre-high-holiday Selichot prayer service, Dershowitz implied he had been betrayed by the president he had formerly championed.
He recounted being invited to the Oval Office before Obama’s reelection in 2012, where the president had committed to being vigilant on the Iranian nuclear issue. Obama has now crossed many of his own red lines, said Dershowitz, who backed Obama in two elections.
The international law expert, who just published The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Now Stop Iran from Getting Nukes? –– a book he completed in 11 days — went on to point out that not a single senator who announced support for the deal was of the opinion that it was a good agreement.
He also asserted that the P5+1 powers have entered into an as yet unseen secret side deal with Iran, which negates the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s central premise: that “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”
The former Harvard scholar said the deal was worse than Russian roulette, because there is a “more than a one-in-six chance under this deal that Iran will develop nuclear weapons.”
As someone who knows the Israeli prime minister, he insisted that Benjamin Netanyahu is “not going to preside over a second Shoah [Holocaust],” and if it came to the “terrible tragic choice” of allowing Iran to go nuclear or taking military action, the premier would chose the latter.
The current battle in Congress over the upcoming vote on the nuclear deal will by no means end the issue, Dershowitz added, saying, “The small battle has been lost; the big battle is just beginning.”
His remarks followed those of Park East’s senior rabbi, Arthur Schneier, who called for Jewish unity on the Iran issue in his annual “State of World Jewry” address, preceding the Selichot prayers. The prestigious gathering, led by Chief Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, has been described as “a major occasion for the city’s most prominent socialites, a must-attend event for the wealthy and powerful.”
3d)
Hold Iran to the Language in the Deal
The agreement says that ‘under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.’
President Obama now has the votes to sustain his promised veto of the expected congressional rejection of the Iran deal. But even some in Congress who will vote for the deal have expressed concern about Iran ultimately obtaining a nuclear arsenal. According to recent polling, this fear is widely shared by the general public.
There is still a way to reduce the odds of that understandable fear materializing. The key lies in the words of the deal itself. In both the “preface” and the “preamble and general provisions,” the following commitment is made: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” This noteworthy provision is rarely mentioned by supporters of the agreement, yet it may turn out to be its saving grace, because it is the only provision that sets no time limit on the prohibition against Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
That President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and other administration officials do not point to this reaffirmation may suggest that they view it as merely hortatory rather than as an integral and enforceable component of the agreement. Whether or not these words are binding as a technical matter of law, they represent a public reaffirmation by the Iranian government of its intentions in entering into this agreement. If Iran does not have those intentions, the public ought to be aware of that.
The public must also now be told whether the other signatories to the agreement understood that Iran has agreed that “under no circumstances” will it “ever” seek nuclear weapons—even after the various time frames of the deal expire.
Mr. Obama has been anything but clear about time frames. In his July 14 statement announcing the agreement, he described it as a “long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” thus implying that Iran will never—or at least not for a very long time—be allowed to become a nuclear weapons power. In an interview with the Forward on Aug. 31 he said Iran will have “explicitly . . . violated international agreements that they entered into” if it ever pursues a nuclear weapon.
But critics point to language in the deal that suggests a much shorter time frame. President Obama himself, in an earlier interview on April 7 with National Public Radio, raised the “fear” that in “year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.”
Moreover, on Aug. 5, less than a month after he announced the deal and assured the world that “Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon,” President Obama said in his American
University address that “the first SALT Treaty with the Soviet Union lasted five years. The first START Treaty lasted 15 years. And in our current situation, if 15 or 20 years from now, Iran tries to build a bomb, this deal ensures that the U.S. will have better tools to detect it, a stronger basis under international law to respond, and the same options available [as today].”
Why did the president talk about the duration of past treaties if the deal itself explicitly prohibits Iran from “ever” pursuing nuclear weapons? The American public has the right to know whether this deal is intended to prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear arsenal, or merely postponing such a catastrophic eventuality.
Congress has the power to resolve that ambiguity by enacting legislation declaring that Iran’s reaffirmation that it will never obtain nuclear weapons is an integral part of the agreement and represents enduring U.S. policy.
It may be too late to change the words of the deal, but it is certainly not too late for Congress to insist that Iran comply fully with its provisions. To ensure that the entirety of the agreement is carried out, including that critical reaffirmation, Congress should now enact a law authorizing the president (and his successors) to employ military force to prevent Iran from ever developing or acquiring nuclear weapons. In this way Iran will be on notice that the president or a successor already has the legislative authorization to act and does not have to seek further authority from Congress.
The benefits of passing such legislation now are clear: The law would underline the centrality to the deal of Iran’s reaffirmation never to acquire nuclear weapons, while at the same time providing a deterrent against Iran violating its reaffirmation and an enforcement authorization if it does.
Such a law should be attractive to Republicans who oppose the deal as written, and to Democrats who may be troubled by it but who want to back their president. President Obama could veto it, but he would be hard pressed to explain his opposition to a law that accepted the language of the deal at face value, and that reiterated his own statements that the military option remains on the table if Iran were to violate the deal’s terms. A law based on these two elements—adopting Iran’s reaffirmation as official U.S. policy, and authorizing in advance a tough response if it breaks its promise—may be an alternative Congress and the American people can live with.
Mr. Dershowitz is a professor of law emeritus at Harvard Law School and the author of the new book, “The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Stop Iran From Getting Nukes?” (Rosetta Books and Gatestone Institute).
3e)
How The Iran Lobby's Money Is Rallying Support for Obama's Iran Deal
One of the many unanswered questions about P5+1 agreement with Iran is why so many Congressional Democrats are rallying behind the President on this issue when recent polls show the majority of Americans want Congress to reject the deal.
Part of the reason is obvious: they are supporting a president from their own party, but a not-so-obvious reason may be that Iranian lobbyists are making big campaign donations to Democrats and are funding pro-deal propaganda.
Writing in Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield pointed out that many of the Democratic legislators who announced their support for the deal are getting money from the Iran lobby, specifically the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) :
IPAC maxed out its contributions to Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), and Al Franken received the same $5,000 during the 2014 election cycle.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the Iran Lobby’s third Dem senator, didn’t bother playing coy like her colleagues. She came out for the deal a while back even though she only got half the IAPAC cash that Franken and Markey received.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) who represents the state with the largest Jewish population in America surprised many with her support of the deal. Per Greenfield, she didn't just get money from IAPAC when she first ran for Congress:
Gillibrand had also picked up money from the Iran Lobby’s Hassan Nemazee. Nemazee was Hillary’s national campaign finance director who had raised a fortune for both her and Kerry before pleading guilty to a fraud scheme encompassing hundreds of millions of dollars. Nemazee had been an IAPAC trustee and had helped set up the organization.
(…) Nemazee had donated to Gillibrand and had also kicked in money to help the Franken Recount Fund scour all the cemeteries for freshly dead votes, as well as to Barbara Boxer, who also came out for the Iran nuke deal. Boxer had also received money more directly from IAPAC.
Getting IPAC cash on the House side were Mike Honda (D-CA), Andre Carson (D-IN), Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Donna Edwards (D-MD), and Jackie Speier (D-CA), each one of them supports Obama's P5+1 turkey.
But the Iran Lobby’s biggest wins weren’t Markey or Shaheen. The real victory had come long before when two of their biggest politicians, Joe Biden and John Kerry, had moved into prime positions in the administration. Not only IAPAC, but key Iran Lobby figures had been major donors to both men.
That list includes Housang Amirahmadi, the founder of the American Iranian Council, who had spoken of a campaign to “conquer Obama’s heart and mind” and had described himself as “the Iranian lobby in the United States.” It includes the Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN) board members who had fundraised for Biden. And it includes the aforementioned Hassan Nemazee.
A member of Iran’s opposition had accused Biden’s campaigns of being “financed by Islamic charities of the Iranian regime based in California and by the Silicon Iran network.” Biden’s affinity for the terrorist regime in Tehran was so extreme that after 9/11 he had suggested, “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran”.
That list includes Housang Amirahmadi, the founder of the American Iranian Council, who had spoken of a campaign to “conquer Obama’s heart and mind” and had described himself as “the Iranian lobby in the United States.” It includes the Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN) board members who had fundraised for Biden. And it includes the aforementioned Hassan Nemazee.
Another part of the Iran lobby pushing the deal is The Ploughshares Fund. Ploughshares is not pushing the deal directly, but its financing many of the other groups pushing Congress to vote “yes.” Michael Rubin exposed the Plowshares money in a recent Commentary piece.
According to Rubin, The Ploughshares Fund is “a multimillion-dollar group which defines itself as a foundation seeking nuclear disarmament but which has, for several years, taken a consistently apologetic line toward Iran.” Ploughshares has been throwing its weight behind influential organizations such as the National Iranian American Council, the Arms Control Association, and the Atlantic Council, among others, in an attempt to garner support for the deal, Rubin reported. Ploughshares gave $150,000 to the National Iranian American Council for “advocacy” about the Iran Deal, $210,000 to the Arms Control Association to “influence US policy toward Iran,” and another $25,000 to fund an “expert workshop” and press briefings, according to Rubin.
Per its annual report, Ploughshares also gives money to the anti-Israel group, J Street ($100,000) which has worked to promote the Iran agreement.
“In short, Ploughshares spread millions of dollars around to pro-administration groups to support whatever Iran Deal came out of Vienna. To criticize the Iran Deal would be to risk a significant source of funding—double digits percentages of their total budget in most cases—of these various groups,”
Organizations receiving funding from Ploughshares rarely acknowledge they're being lobbied. They produce biased analysis and host one-sided panel discussions in order to advance the agenda they are being paid to move forward.
“Hence, various organizations hosted one-sided panels in the wake of the Iran Deal announcement with multiple Ploughshares grantees without acknowledging their funding from the Ploughshares grantees.”
At various times during the debate about his Iran agreement, President Obama has talked about nefarious lobby money pushing against peace. Something that many have commented was a not-so-veiled reference to the anti-Semitic meme that some hidden “Jewish lobby” controls the government (to be honest the only hidden Jewish lobby I know of is in my Synagogue, and it needs a paint job – two coats).
There is a lobby that neither the president nor the congressional supporters of his deal will talk about. The supporters of the Iran regime. The pro-Iranian lobbyists, either through campaign cash or directly in support of the deal, are a huge force in trying to give Obama his short-term legacy, the P5+1 agreement. Long-term, that deal may very well be remembered by the ultimate war to end all wars waged by an apocalyptic Iran.
3f)A side agreement could void the Iran deal
By Mike Pompeo and David B. Rivkin Jr.
The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, which requires the president to submit to Congress the nuclear agreement reached with Iran, represents an exceptional bipartisan congressional accommodation. Instead of submitting an agreement through the constitutionally proper mechanism — as a treaty requiring approval by a two-thirds majority in the Senate — the act enables President Obama to go forward with the deal unless Congress disapproves it by a veto-proof margin. Unfortunately, the president has not complied with the act, jeopardizing his ability to implement the agreement.
The act defines “agreement,” with exceptional precision, to include not only the agreement between Iran and six Western powers but also “any additional materials related thereto, including . . . side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings, and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.” But the president has not given Congress a key side agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This document describes how key questions about the past military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program will be resolved, as well as the precise operational parameters of the verification regime to which Tehran will be subject.
This omission has important legal consequences. At the heart of the act is a provision, negotiated between Congress and the White House, freezing the president’s ability to “waive, suspend, reduce, provide relief from, or otherwise limit the application of statutory sanctions with respect to Iran” while Congress is reviewing the agreement.
That review period was supposed to take 60 days and is triggered the day the president submits the agreement to Congress. However, because the president failed to submit the agreement in full, as the law requires, the 60-day clock has not started, and the president remains unable lawfully to waive or lift statutory Iran-related sanctions. Indeed, since the act also provides for the transmittal of the agreement to Congress between July 10 and Sept. 7, the president’s ability to waive statutory sanctions will remain frozen in perpetuity if Congress does not receive the full agreement Monday .
Congress must now confront the grave issues of constitutional law prompted by the president’s failure to comply with his obligations under the act. This is not the first time this administration has disregarded clear statutory requirements, encroaching in the process upon Congress’s legislative and budgetary prerogatives. The fact that this has happened again in the context of a national security agreement vital to the United States and its allies makes the situation all the more serious.
For Congress to vote on the merits of the agreement without the opportunity to review all of its aspects would both effectively sanction the president’s unconstitutional conduct and be a major policy mistake. Instead, both houses should vote to register their view that the president has not complied with his obligations under the act by not providing Congress with a copy of an agreement between the IAEA and Iran, and that, as a result, the president remains unable to lift statutory sanctions against Iran. Then, if the president ignores this legal limit on his authority, Congress can and should take its case to court.
Mike Pompeo, a Republican, represents Kansas in the House and is a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. David B. Rivkin Jr., a constitutional litigator and a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, served in the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations
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Smoke rises from the detonation of an ancient temple in Palmyra, Syria, in this photo on a social media site used by Islamic State militants. (Uncredited/Associated Press)
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Obama’s Syria achievement
Smoke rises from the detonation of an ancient temple in Palmyra, Syria, in this photo on a social media site used by Islamic State militants. (Uncredited/Associated Press)
This may be the most surprising of President Obama’s foreign-policy legacies: not just that he presided over a humanitarian and cultural disaster of epochal proportions, but that he soothed the American people into feeling no responsibility for the tragedy.
Starvation in Biafra a generation ago sparked a movement. Synagogues and churches a decade ago mobilized to relieve misery in Darfur. When the Taliban in 2001 destroyed ancient statues of Buddha at Bamiyan, the world was appalled at the lost heritage.
Today the Islamic State is blowing up precious cultural monuments in Palmyra, and half of all Syrians have been displaced — as if, on a proportional basis, 160 million Americans had been made homeless. More than a quarter-million have been killed. Yet the “Save Darfur” signs have not given way to “Save Syria.”
One reason is that Obama — who ran for president on the promise of restoring the United States’ moral stature — has constantly reassured Americans that doing nothing is the smart and moral policy. He has argued, at times, that there was nothing the United States could do,belittling the Syrian opposition as “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth.”
He has argued that we would only make things worse — “I am more mindful probably than most,” he told the New Republic in 2013, “of not only our incredible strengths and capabilities, but also our limitations.”
He has implied that because we can’t solve every problem, maybe we shouldn’t solve any. “How do I weigh tens of thousands who’ve been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?” he asked (though at the time thousands were not being killed in Congo).
On those rare occasions when political pressure or the horrors of Syrian suffering threatened to overwhelm any excuse for inaction, he promised action, in statements or White House leaks: training for the opposition, a safe zone on the Turkish border. Once public attention moved on, the plans were abandoned or scaled back to meaningless proportions (training 50 soldiers per year, no action on the Turkish border).
Perversely, the worse Syria became, the more justified the president seemed for staying aloof; steps that might have helped in 2012 seemed ineffectual by 2013, and actions that could have saved lives in 2013 would not have been up to the challenge presented by 2014. The fact that the woman who wrote the book on genocide, Samantha Power, and the woman who campaigned to bomb Sudan to save the people of Darfur, Susan Rice, could apparently in good conscience stay on as U.N. ambassador and national security adviser, respectively, lent further moral credibility to U.S. abdication.
Most critically, inaction was sold not as a necessary evil but as a notable achievement: The United States at last was leading with the head, not the heart, and with modesty, not arrogance. “Realists” pointed out that the United States gets into trouble when it lets ideals or emotions rule — when it sends soldiers to feed the hungry in Somalia, for example, only to lose them, as told in “ Black Hawk Down,” and turn tail.
The realists were right that the United States has to consider interests as well as values, must pace itself and can’t save everyone. But a values-free argument ought at least to be able to show that the ends have justified the means, whereas the strategic results of Obama’s disengagement have been nearly as disastrous as the human consequences.
When Obama pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq, critics worried there would be instability; none envisioned the emergence of a full-blown terrorist state. When he announced in August 2011 that “the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” critics worried the words might prove empty — but few imagined the extent of the catastrophe: not just the savagery of chemical weapons and “barrel bombs,” but also the Islamic State’s recruitment of thousands of foreign fighters, its spread from Libya to Afghanistan, the danger to the U.S. homeland that has alarmed U.S. intelligence officials, the refugees destabilizing Europe.
Even had Obama’s policy succeeded in purely realist terms, though, something would have been lost in the anesthetization of U.S. opinion. Yes, the nation’s outrage over the decades has been uneven, at times hypocritical, at times self-serving.
But there also has been something to be admired in America’s determination to help — to ask, even if we cannot save everyone in Congo, can we not save some people in Syria? Obama’s successful turning of that question on its head is nothing to be proud of.
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