Atlanta Mayor Flatly Rejects Demand From Local ‘Black Lives Matter’ Group to Cut Ties With ‘Apartheid Israel’

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The mayor of Atlanta on Monday flatly refused a demand by protesters associated with the Black Lives Matter movement to terminate the local police force’s cooperation and training with Israel.

Mayor Kasim Reed denied the request at a meeting with members of #ALTisReady — self-described as a “collective of student activists, community organizers and leaders working to amplify Black and other marginalized voices in Atlanta” — to discuss improving the relationship between police and the community, a week after hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Georgia governor’s mansion . . .

In a press conference following the meeting, Kasim told reporters:

There was a demand that I stop allowing the Atlanta Police Department to train with the Israeli Police Department. I’m not going to do that. I happen to believe that the Israeli Police Department has some of the best counter-terrorism techniques in the world and it benefits our police department from that long-standing relationship. That was a specific demand.

Over the last several months, the Black Lives Matter movement has become closely aligned with anti-Zionist and antisemitic movements, most notably the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) initiative. The logic behind the connection between the groups, according to anti-Israel activists, is that both are representing and defending dark-skinned minorities against oppressors. (Read more from “Atlanta Mayor Flatly Rejects Demand From Local ‘Black Lives Matter’ Group to Cut Ties With ‘Apartheid Israel'” HERE)

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Obama-Backed Syrian Rebels Brutally Decapitate Little Boy

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By Katie Zavadski. Members of an American-backed rebel group in Syria beheaded a young child in a grisly execution video.

The footage surfaced early Tuesday of members of Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki and a captured child in Handarat, near Aleppo. The young boy, who appears to be prepubescent, is then executed on the back of a pickup truck.

The gruesome videotaped murder of a child drew outrage on social media and the promise of an inquiry from the group’s leadership, which has previously received U.S.-made weapons and American funding. The group no longer gets such backing. But it’s also renewed questions about which rebels the American government has supported in Syria’s ongoing civil war. (Read more from “Obama-Backed Syrian Rebels Brutally Decapitate Little Boy” HERE)

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Pentagon Assembles Allied Nations to Plot out Next Stage of Islamic State Fight

By Missy Ryan. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter will gather defense ministers from allied nations this week to plan what officials hope will be the decisive stage in the campaign against the Islamic State, even as political upheaval and terrorist attacks strain the U.S.-led coalition battling the group.

At Wednesday’s meeting at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, Pentagon officials will present plans for upcoming battles in Iraq, where local forces are preparing to confront militants in the city of Mosul, and in Syria, where U.S.-backed fighters hope to eventually isolate militants in their de facto capital of Raqqa.

As they have in the past, senior American officials will press visiting ministers to commit additional troops and assets to the campaign, with a special focus on resources earmarked for efforts to stabilize and rebuild areas reclaimed from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. (Read more from “Pentagon Assembles Allied Nations to Plot out Next Stage of Islamic State Fight” HERE)

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Donald Trump Jr. Accuses Lewandowski of Trying to Sabotage Campaign

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Donald Trump Jr. accused former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski of trying to “sabotage” his father’s White House bid.

The younger Trump made the accusation to reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Wall Street Journal at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Wednesday.

According to Trump Jr., Lewandowski is bitter from being replaced as the campaign manager by Paul Manafort, the New York Times reported.

”[When] I see him go on TV knocking the guy that ultimately replaced him, I get it,” Trump Jr. said of Lewandowki’s attacks on Manafort.

“I understand. I’m human. I can understand why someone’s bitter about that, but that doesn’t help. You can’t claim to be an ally and then try to sabotage the guy that you’re upset with, who was brought in to work with you, and you couldn’t do that, couldn’t play with everyone, so we had to make a decision,” he added.

Lewandowski, who has been hired as a commentator for CNN, stated on the network that whoever signed off on Melania Trump’s speech to the convention, including Manafort, should do “the right thing and resign,” over the plagiarism controversy.

Trump Jr. alleged that Lewandowski has been saying derogatory things about the campaign to reporters. The former campaign manager has signed a confidentiality agreement and is therefore is limited in what he can say about Donald Trump, the candidate’s family or the campaign without opening himself up to a potentially costly lawsuit.

“Enough’s enough,” the presidential candidate’s oldest son said. “I’m not going to allow nonsense to be perpetuated because someone’s looking to get on TV for a few minutes.”

On replacing Lewandowski in June, Trump Jr stated, “I think he did great things initially for the campaign, but I think the campaign did have to evolve, did have to mature. … It had to have people in there who have done this before,” he said.

“I couldn’t be happier with Paul and his team.”

Lewandowski represented his home state of New Hampshire during the delegate roll call on Tuesday at the convention and recounted that the Granite State started Trump’s string of 38 primary victories. He described the Republican nominee as “his friend and the next President of the United States.”

(For more from the author of “Donald Trump Jr. Accuses Lewandowski of Trying to Sabotage Campaign” please click HERE)

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Federal Court Issues Voter ID Ruling That Could Impact Election

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A federal court ruled Wednesday that Texas’ voter identification law violates the U.S. Voting Rights Act prohibition on racial discrimination in elections.

In its 9-6 ruling, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the 2011 voter ID law makes it harder for blacks and Hispanics to vote, and asked a district court to make changes to the law before the general election in November. “The district court must ensure that any remedy enacted ameliorates [the law’s] discriminatory effect, while respecting the legislature’s stated objective to safeguard the integrity of elections by requiring more secure forms of voter identification,” the court said.

The law, Senate Bill 14, requires voters to present proof of identification, including a state driver’s license or ID card, a U.S. passport, an election ID certificate, a military ID card, a concealed handgun license or a U.S citizenship certificate with a photo.

Proponents said it prevents voter fraud, and noted that Texas makes it easy for voters to acquire ID cards free of charge.

In the ruling, however, Judge Catharina Haynes wrote, “The record shows that drafters and proponents of SB 14 were aware of the likely disproportionate effect of the law on minorities, and that they nonetheless passed the bill without adopting a number of proposed ameliorative measures that might have lessened this impact.”

Judges who disagreed with the ruling said, “Requiring a voter to verify her identity with a photo ID at the polling place is a reasonable requirement widely supported by Texans of all races and members of the public belonging to both political parties. The majority ruling ‘fans the flames’ of perniciously irresponsible racial name-calling.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the court had “wrongly concluded” that the law had a discriminatory effect. “Voter fraud is real, and it undermines the integrity of the election process,” he said in a statement.

The Texas Democratic Party, on the other hand, celebrated the ruling. “The most restrictive and discriminatory Republican voter ID law in country has been struck down,” it said. (For more from the author of “Federal Court Issues Voter ID Ruling That Could Impact Election” please click HERE)

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Faith, Politics and Mike Pence

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GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence makes no bones about the role of faith in his life. “I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” he is fond of saying.

As Pence takes to the stage Wednesday night in Cleveland, the time is ripe to look closer at the faith walk of the man who may well end up a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Early Years

Mike Pence grew up in a devout Catholic family that, according to the Indy Star, didn’t talk politics at the table. Sundays meant Mass at St. Columba, and like his three brothers, Pence served as an altar boy.

“Our life revolved around the church,” Gregory Pence, one of Mr. Pence’s two older brothers, told The New York Times.

When Pence went off to college at Hanover College in Indiana, he didn’t leave religion behind. Instead, he found fellowship with believers in other branches of the church body.

“I began to meet young men and women who talked about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” he would tell the Christian Broadcasting Network years later. He began seeking a deeper relationship with the Lord.

While attending law school at Indiana University, he spotted a girl playing a guitar in a church choir. Her name was Karen. As The New York Times tells it, “After they started dating, she bought a gold cross with the word ‘Yes’ engraved on it, and kept it stashed away in her purse until he proposed.”

Karen Pence “has been very much a part of his faith journey,” friend Mark Bailey told the Times, “He would refer to his wife as the prayer warrior of the family.”

At a Christian music concert in 1978, Mike Pence gave his life to Christ.

Faith in Action

“I think he will tell you very openly he made a commitment to Christ as a young adult,” the Indy Star quotes law school pal Bill Stephan as saying, “I think he’s pretty serious about his prayer life, and his actions and deeds reflect his faith. That’s part of what motivates him to public service.”

Inspired originally by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Kennedy, and later by Ronald Reagan, Pence’s political career has been particularly noted for his stance as a social conservative guided by his evangelical Christian beliefs.

As Indiana governor, Pence signed into law one of the most stringent abortion laws in the U.S., banning abortions when a fetus has a disability. Said Pence, “I sign this legislation with a prayer that God would continue to bless these precious children, mothers and families.” He’s fought to end federal funding to Planned Parenthood.

A strong believer in traditional marriage and religious rights, he championed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana, declaring in his 2015 State of the Union address:

I will not support any bill that diminished the religious freedom of Hoosiers or that interferes with the constitutional rights of our citizens to live out their beliefs in worship, service or work. … No one should ever fear persecution because of their deeply held religious beliefs.”

After intense pressure from LGBT activists, businesses and potshots from the President, Pence agreed to amend the act, but continues defending its core principle of religious liberty.

He also cited his faith in his defense of Israel, as the Religious News Service noted, telling AIPAC in 2009, “Let me say emphatically, like the overwhelming majority of my constituents, my Christian faith compels me to cherish the state of Israel.”

When Political Ambition Collided with Christian Conviction

Pence’s faith plays out in the political arena beyond just policies. He never dines alone with a woman who is not his wife, and while in Congress was known for avoiding booze-filled events if Karen was not present. “If there’s alcohol being served and people are being loose,” he told The Hill in 2001, “I want to have the best-looking brunette in the room standing next to me.” As the Times reports, “Fellow representatives sometimes joked about the need to clean up their language when he was approaching them in the halls of Congress.”

Pence had run for Congress before, but his religious convictions got steamrolled by his political ambitions.

In 1988 and 1990, Pence ran against incumbent Democrat Phil Sharp. Both times, Pence went negative. Very negative. A million advertising dollars worth of negative. In one ad, which the IndyStar said had been considered the most negative ad in Indiana history, Pence had an actor dressed as a Sheikh thanking Sharp for the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Pence lost both races. But crucially, he came to see his approach as un-Christianlike. “I really screwed up on this,” he told a colleague, “It’s not me.” He would publicly apologize to Sharp and publish an essay in 1991 titled “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner.”

“He vowed he would never run a negative campaign again,” political science professor Brian Vargus said in 2012, “And if you look, he has not.”

“It’s wrong,” Pence said that same year, “to use one’s brief moment in a political debate to talk about what’s wrong with your opponent, as opposed to what’s right with your ideas.”

Already the questions are mounting as to how Pence’s vow will play as he partners with a twice-divorced candidate who shoots out insults like a Gatling gun. Donald Trump, for his part, says he’s not expecting Pence to play the traditional V.P. attack dog roll. “I call her ‘Crooked Hillary’, he told 60 Minutes, “but I don’t think he should do it, because it’s different for him. … He’s not that kind of person.” When asked about it by The New York Times, Pence’s brother Gregory simply said, “Judge not, lest you be judged.”

Pence is expected to bring his irenic, gentlemanly manner to the campaign. “I’m a conservative, but I’m not angry about it,” he says. “Let’s be cheerful partisans and happy warriors.”

His faith is expected to be front and center as he seeks the second highest office in the land. And he can expect comments like this once uttered by a political columnist in Indiana and quoted by the Times, “Pence doesn’t simply wear his faith on his sleeve, he wears the entire Jesus jersey.”

But he can also be expected to express how crucial traditional values are the governance of our nation. As he told the Family Research Council’s Value Voters Summit in 2010, “Those who would have us ignore the battle being fought over life, marriage and religious liberty have forgotten the lessons of history. America’s darkest moments have come when economic arguments trumped moral principles.” (For more from the author of “Faith, Politics and Mike Pence” please click HERE)

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Alaska’s Governor Bill Walker: A Charlatan, Loyal to the Same Corrupt Forces Behind Most Politicians

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Since announcing his theft of $666 million of the People’s Permanent Dividend Fund several weeks ago, Governor Bill Walker has been doing a victory lap around the State of Alaska, presumably on the People’s dime. His message is self-congratulatory and goes something like this: “The legislature wouldn’t act to resolve the State’s budget crisis, so I did.”

Just like Governor Walker’s promise not to “steal” (his words, not mine) from Alaska’s Permanent Fund to provide revenue for our bloated state government, his self-congratulatory message is false. Rather than making the tough calls on the State’s budget, the governor took the easy way out by offending the constituency he’s apparently least concerned about: the People.

Let’s think about this for a minute. The governor claims he cut the PFD in half, by a thousand dollars. In reality, he cut it by about $1200 for every qualifying man, woman and child in Alaska, as the expected PFD absent his illegal act would have been $2200 rather than the governor’s decreed $1000. That’s a direct, 55% cut to the People.

And what did the governor do with respect to government agencies? Most were cut 5% or less. What does that tell you? He fears the lobbyists and bureaucrats more than he fears you. That’s the message. He’s done little heavy lifting to correct the budget deficit, taking the lazy way out by grabbing the easy money. Rather than really cutting the state budget, he cut hard-working Alaskan families’ budgets instead.

To make matters worse, now the Governor claims the ability to unilaterally determine the amount of all your future PFD’s with the mere stroke of a pen. He can pretty much take whatever he wants from you, perhaps so he can hire a few more crony consultants at a few hundred thousand dollars per whack.

Keep in mind, many Alaskans favor the recall of Governor Walker not because they are absolutely opposed to ever using the Permanent Fund for state government. Rather, they want to get rid of him because he failed to make the hard decisions and instead grabbed the easy money. And he lied to them.

Even after “stealing” your money, Governor Walker’s budget plan does not solve the crisis. It just puts a band-aid on it, putting off the hard decisions for the next governor.

Governor Bill Walker is no leader. He’s a charlatan, loyal to the same old corrupt forces behind most Alaskan politicians.

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It’s Time for the GOP to Demand A “McCexit”

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The world has been transfixed with an anti-establishment frenzy against aristocratic politicians and governments that have failed to listen to the voice and will of their people.

That anti-establishment battle is currently underway in the United States, where a vitriolic populace has given rise to Donald Trump. Across the ocean, in the United Kingdom (UK), British citizens implemented “Brexit,” a referendum to return sovereignty, formerly given to the European Union (EU), back to Britain.

Temperaments among the American people are similar, but the statesmen-like reaction to the public unrest in the U.K. is starkly different than what America is experiencing with our own politicians here at home. The success of the controversial “Brexit” campaign led to U.K.’s Prime Minister, David Cameron (a strong advocate for staying in the EU), to accept the wishes of the nation; in doing so, he stepped down, paving the way for fresh leadership, saying:

“[the country needs] fresh leadership” and “I love this country and feel honored to have served it … the will of British people must be respected.”

Those who led the Brexit campaign, like London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, and United Kingdom Independence Party leader (UKIP), Nigel Farage, were both positioned to surge in popularity and power. Yet, they also stepped away from the podium. Johnson, assumed to become Prime Minister, took his name out of contention; Farage retired.

There are certainly some who feel those politicians abandoned their objective to see Brexit through to fruition. However, it is also remarkable to contemplate that true statesmen might put country before careers; tough choices before lucrative ones.

Imagine, for a moment, if Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 42%) surveyed the deteriorating landscape of the Republican party and determined that the GOP required fresh leadership.

According to Gallup polls, McConnell is far more unpopular than even President Obama. President Obama has a national favorability rating just under 50 percent. McConnell’s favorability rating, however, is only 11 percent nationally.

There also appears to be a strong correlation between the Republican Party’s general popularity and McConnell taking over the Senate. In May, Pew Research showed that the Republican Party was more unpopular than it had been in the past two decades.

Why does this matter? There is a tremendous amount at stake if Republicans lose the Senate. Perhaps nothing is more important than how the Senate decides to handle the Supreme Court vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. If the Senate shifts to the Democrats in 2017, the Supreme Court (and our nation) will appoint a progressive to the bench, and the Court will, for the first time in 45 years, shift from conservative to liberal.

Among all the issues McConnell should seek to protect, the first is the Senate’s majority, and with it, the authority to confirm a new Supreme Court Justice, and protect the Court’s conservative majority. Yet, McConnell is the very person placing the Senate in jeopardy merely out of selfish desire for power and prestige.

McConnell is a liability to the Republican Party – and more and more people are beginning to realize this. (After all, he showed up to the GOPs largest event – the Republican National Convention – and was nearly booed off stage.)

McConnell’s colleagues are worried too. The Public Policy Polling organization concluded in a analysis of the Senate in May:

Mitch McConnell’s unpopularity continues to be a huge drag on the brand of Senate Republicans. Only 11 percent of voters nationally approve of the job he’s doing as Senate Majority Leader, to 61 who disapprove. Incumbents running for reelection across the country this year will be hurt by their association with him.

Whether you like McConnell or not, everyone can agree that the vulnerability in losing the Supreme Court will have an immense impact on all of our lives. McConnell has clearly become a burden on the party. A true statesman that cared for his constituency and country would step aside and allow new leadership to step in. But not McConnell.

The time has come for McConnell to exit. The time for America’s politicians to imitate British politicians is now; it’s time for the Republican Party to have a referendum on McConnell’s leadership. It’s time for America to have its “McCexit.” (For more from the author of “It’s Time for the GOP to Demand A “McCexit” please click HERE)

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THE 15-SECOND MP3 THAT CAN DESTROY HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN: I Suggest Using It as a Ringtone

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Talk about sounding like a dictator. In all seriousness, if enough people distribute this little gem, you can count on a Trump presidency from the voice factor alone.

CLICK HERE TO PLAY (OR RIGHT-CLICK TO DOWNLOAD).

(For more from the author of “THE 15-SECOND MP3 THAT CAN DESTROY HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN: I Suggest Using It as a Ringtone” please click HERE)

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The GOP Wants to Repeat This YUGE Mistake of the Great Depression

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In a section of the recently released 2016 Republican Platform titled “Regulation: The Quiet Tyranny,” the Party of Lincoln endorses re-imposing a regulation that would impact trillions of dollars’ worth of assets.

“We support reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which prohibits commercial banks from engaging in high-risk investment” state the document’s supposedly capitalist drafters, who ironically castigate President Obama for “regulating to death a free market economy that he does not like and does not understand.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

The part of Glass-Steagall to which the authors are referring concerns the ability for banks to provide both commercial and investment banking operations under the same roof. Prior to the passage of the then-President Bill Clinton-supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) of 1999, such combinations were largely verboten.

In the wake of the financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009, in a classic case of beginning with a narrative and looking for any points, no matter how tenuous, to back it up, Democrats contended that deregulation namely in the form of GLBA caused banks to take risks that crashed the financial system.

What commercial banks combining with investment banks had to do with a massive, government-fueled bubble in the housing sector, Glass-Steagall proponents have trouble explaining.

Republicans apparently have bought into the Democrat’s narrative and insist that it is their right to determine what risks are appropriate for banks to take, and restructure industries wholesale by government fiat.

When judging a piece of legislation like Glass-Steagall, it pays to look at what motivated the bill’s drafters to implement it in the first place.

The Heritage Foundation’s resident financial regulations guru Norbert J. Michel outlines this history in a piece that the Republican Platform authors appear to have ignored:

Glass–Steagall has attained near mythical status for securing a vital separation between commercial and investment banking in the U.S. Supposedly, this separation put an end to the risky financial activities that contributed to the Great Depression. Yet, the record shows that separating commercial and investment banking was little more than a long-time pet project of Senator Carter Glass, one of the original authors of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Glass viewed securities investments as a purely speculative activity and in virtually no way a legitimate commercial endeavor. Consequently, he believed that the only way to ensure bank safety was to restrict bank lending to short-term financing of commercial activity.

One reason this idea is flawed is that there was no general prohibition—before or after Glass–Steagall—against commercial banks providing operating loans to investment banks. That is, the firms engaged in the very speculative activity Glass abhorred regularly borrowed from commercial banks.[33] Regardless, the record shows that Glass had no empirical evidence to support his opinion. The definitive historical study of Glass-Steagall shows that “the evidence from the pre-Glass-Steagall period is totally inconsistent with the belief that banks’ securities activities or investments caused them to fail or caused the financial system to collapse.” In fact, the evidence suggests that pre-Glass–Steagall banks engaged in securities activities were safer than those exclusively engaged in commercial banking.

In light of the facts and evidence, and given the other nominally pro-free market designs in the Republican platform in paying lip service to sound money, abolishing Dodd-Frank and ending Too Big to Fail, the insertion of a line about reinstating Glass-Steagall is somewhat baffling. If Republicans even vaguely understand that the best constraint on banks like all other businesses is a market that punishes them for destroying value and rewards them for creating it – rather than socializing losses and privatizing profits – than why might they have included such an incongruent clause?

The cynic might point to some good old-fashioned extortion. Could it be that Republicans are in effect threatening existing business models in the financial services industry in order to entice bankers, traders and executives to pay for the privilege of not having to break up their businesses – that is, contributing to Republican candidates in order to sway them to swear off the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall?

While follow-the-money analysis is often fruitful, in this case such a rationale would seem inapt at first glance, given that members of the finance, insurance and real estate industries have contributed disproportionately to the GOP during the 2012 through 2016 election cycles.

Take a closer look at the numbers however, and you will note that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is not even in the top 20 recipients during the 2016 cycle from the “killers” on Wall Street, among others in the industry. In fact, according to Open Secrets, he is being outraised by Hillary Clinton at a rate of 49:1, with Clinton hauling $15.6 million thus far to Trump’s paltry ~$318,000.

There are any number of reasons why Wall Street might loathe Donald Trump, including a belief that Hillary Clinton can and will be bought off to protect its interests, while Trump is likely to spurn those with whom he has had contentious business dealings over the years.

Seen in this light, if Trump will never gain the financial service industry’s support, reinstatement of Glass-Steagall makes sense politically in keeping with his populist pose as a means of perhaps garnering the votes of Independents.

Whatever the rationale, Republicans should focus less on breaking up banks, and more on creating a free marketplace whereby financial institutions rise and fall of their own volition, and market participants determine appropriate levels of risk and price it accordingly. (For more from the author of “The GOP Wants to Repeat This YUGE Mistake of the Great Depression” please click HERE)

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The Iran Nuclear Deal Continues to Unravel

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The steady drip of disturbing revelations about President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement continues unabated. On Monday, the Associated Press reported that key restrictions on Iran’s uranium enrichment activities will significantly ease after ten years, long before those restrictions expire after 15 years.

The AP acquired a confidential document, leaked by an anonymous diplomat involved in the Iran nuclear issue, which it described as an add-on agreement in the form of a declaration submitted by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The document, the Joint Comprehensive Plan for Action, details Iran’s plans for expanding its enrichment activities and makes it clear that some of the most restrictive provisions of the nuclear agreement are relaxed after only ten years, although they will function as more permissive constraints for up to 15 years.

The published text of the nuclear agreement was vague on the exact timing of what happens to Iran’s uranium enrichment program after ten years.

But the new document indicates that after ten years, Iran plans to start replacing its current centrifuges with thousands of more advanced models that would be up to five times more efficient than the 5,060 centrifuges that it is allowed to operate currently under the agreement.

This concession could allow Tehran to enrich at more than twice the rate that it is now doing, even if the total number of operating centrifuges are reduced. This is a major concern because if the enrichment rate doubles, the time Tehran would need to stage a nuclear breakout would be reduced from the 12 months promised by the Obama administration to six months or less, much earlier than the administration had advertised when it was trying to sell the nuclear deal.

Fred Fleitz, a veteran analyst who has monitored Iran’s nuclear program for many years at the CIA, State Department, House Intelligence Committee, and Center for Security Policy, warned that although the permissive nature of the agreement was not news:

What is news is that the Obama administration is a party to another secret side deal to the [Joint Comprehensive Plan for Action] that explicitly recognizes Iran’s plan to greatly expand its uranium-enrichment program. Other secret side deals include one that allows Iran to inspect itself on possible nuclear-weapons-related work and another that possibly weakened IAEA reporting on Iran’s nuclear program.

The IAEA secret side deal that allowed Iranian personnel to inspect a suspected nuclear research site was exposed last year only after Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., traveled to IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria to ask questions about the nuclear agreement.

Cotton, a leading congressional opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, charged that the latest news about Iran’s declaration to the IAEA demonstrated that “the administration misled the American people about Iran.”

State Department spokesman Mark Toner denied that the new document was “secret” since it was known to the countries negotiating the deal, but he acknowledged that the details had been kept away from the public.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was much more enthusiastic about the newly revealed document. Yesterday, he crowed that it was created by Iran’s “negotiators and industry experts” and was a “matter of pride.”

Indeed, he should be proud. The document outlines how Iran plans to escalate its uranium enrichment efforts with the blessing of the Obama administration until it reaches the point where a nuclear breakout would require only a few weeks of work. (For more from the author of “The Iran Nuclear Deal Continues to Unravel” please click HERE)

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