Bundestag member Erika Steinbach and Iranian-born pastor Mahin Mousapour called for much stronger sanctions for Muslims who abuse Christians in Germany at a press conference on Monday.
Highlighting the fact Christians suffer violence, harassment, and death threats in migrant lodgings, Ms. Mousapour criticised Germany for granting Islam “too much respect”. Declaring anti-Christian hate attacks an affront to German values, politician Erika Steinbach advocated the government deport migrants who insult or attack Christians.
At the press conference Ms. Mousapour, who converted to Christianity more than 25 years ago, reported that Christians face various forms of persecution in migrant housing.
Ms Mousapour warned that Christians living in migrant housing are told they are “impure as a dog” and deserved death for rejecting Islam.
“Toys of Christian children are being destroyed, Christian asylum seekers are told not only to wash their dishes after eating but also that they must clean the entire kitchen as it would otherwise be ‘unclean’. Many Muslim asylum seekers call all Christians unclean. Church services are held in secret, bibles and crucifixes have to be hidden,” she explained. (Read more from “Christians Forced to Hide Bibles Amid Migrant Muslim Death Threats” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/bible-873315_960_720-1.jpg640960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-12 01:48:022016-08-12 03:52:09Christians Forced to Hide Bibles Amid Migrant Muslim Death Threats
…Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Obama demanding the release of $2 billion in Iranian funds that were seized from bank accounts in New York earlier this year.
The money was taken to compensate family members of victims of the 1983 bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran under a Supreme Court ruling in April. In all, 1,300 American victims have a legal claim to the money.
Ahmadinejad — known for his anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism — is said to be considering a political comeback and may be using Obama as a pawn to improve his standing.
“It is the clear expectation of the Iranian nation that the particular case of property seizure … be quickly fixed by your excellency and that not only the Iranian nation’s rights be restored and the seized property released and returned, but also the damage caused be fully compensated for,” says the letter from Ahmadinejad, which was made public Monday . . .
The letter comes as Obama is already taking heat for sending Iran $400 million in cash last January just as it released four American detainees. (Read more from “Iranian President Asks His Friend Mr. Obama to ‘Fix’ a $2 Billion Court Ruling” HERE)
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The major news networks of ABC, CBS and NBC have remained silent on the Christian genocide perpetrated by ISIS, the Media Research Center (MRC) reports.
The number of Christians driven from their homes, raped, mutilated, crucified or otherwise executed by members of the Islamic State is “staggering,” writes Matt Philbin.
Christian holy sites are being destroyed for “cultural cleansing,” entire villages in Nigeria have been slaughtered, Christian students murdered in classrooms in Kenya, and churches bombed in Pakistan and Syria.
At least 1,131 Christians are known to have been murdered by the Islamic State for religiously motivated purposes, and that’s “just the tip of the iceberg”:
ISIS has publically beheaded or burned alive Christians for refusing to renounce their faith and convert. In Syria, the group crucified dozens. ISIS broke up Christian and Yazidi families and sold young girls into sex slavery. It destroyed Christian holy sites in an attempt to erase all pre-Islamic history, and announced it will continue to wage war against “the Jews, the Christians, the pagans, and the apostates.”
A March 18, 2016 article in the Christian Science Monitor cited the evangelical Christian group Open Doors, which found that more than 7,000 “Christians were killed because of their faith last year,” and that doesn’t necessarily include the numbers from Iraq, Syria, or even North Korea, where accurate data are difficult to obtain.”
Meanwhile, the mainstream American media has ignored these acts of genocide. In a study by MRC, the media watchdog found:
Between January 2014 and June 2016, the network evening news shows referred to persecution against Christians in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia just 60 times. Despite telling of murders, forced religious conversions and mass displacement, the networks refused to add up the thousands of atrocities to what they clearly amount to: genocide. Just six of the 60 reports used the word genocide. Put another way, over two years, they mentioned the Christian genocide on just four separate days. Even when Secretary of State John Kerry officially declared in March 2016 that ISIS was engaging in genocide, CBS didn’t report it.
Comparatively, the media referred to the “genocide” in Darfur even before the George W. Bush administration officially acknowledged the Sudanese horror as such. Subsequently, the mainstream networks referred to the Darfur “genocide” 38 times in a two-year period.
When the mainstream networks have referred to the slaughter of Christians by ISIS as “genocide,” they’ve done so in a manner minimizing the global tragedies:
The six instances where the networks have used “genocide” or equivalent terms, they’ve tended to lump Christians in with Yazidis and Shia Muslims as victims, echoing the Obama administration’s reluctance to focus on the anti-Christian violence. During the two years MRC Culture analyzed, one source has recorded 226 Muslim- on-Christian attacks. At least 125 churches have been attacked. According to one Christian group, 7,000 Christians worldwide were killed because of their faith in 2015 alone. Yet even when the Obama administration has (officially and unofficially) called the Christian persecution in Iraq and Syria genocide, the networks almost never used the word.
The journalists working for mainstream news can’t plead ignorance to the situation. As the MRC states, “By their own reporting, hundreds of thousands of Christians are ‘on the run’ from their homes, mass graves have been found, and Christians have been made to ‘convert or die.’”
Connecting said dots, it can lead to only one conclusion: genocide.
The silence is deafening. (For more from the author of “Why Is the Mainstream Media Completely Ignoring Christian Genocide by ISIS?” please click HERE)
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The opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Friday featured a video focusing on the controversial issue of climate change.
Discussion over whether or not the Olympics were an appropriate forum for political topics like climate change or race relations has been ongoing for months, with former Olympic medalist Caitlin Jenner — who was a man known as Bruce Jenner when he won a gold medal in 1976 — telling HBO’s Bill Simmons “absolutely not” when asked that question on Wednesday.
The opening of the summer Olympics disregarded Jenner’s objections, including fireworks, musical acts, costumed performers and a climate change themed video narrated by Oscar winner Judi Dench, with maps and graphics showing climate data and demonstrating potentially harmful scenarios that climate change activists say could happen if action isn’t taken to prevent further damage to the planet.
With roughly 30 percent of the world’s rainforest and more than half the Amazon rainforests within the country, Brazil seems to be a logical place for a discussion on climate change to occur since if there are any negative effects, Brazil would be uniquely harmed by them.
The climate change portion of the opening ceremony spurred plenty of reaction on social media, with many showering praise upon the Olympics for tackling what they perceive to be such an important subject.
Rio Olympic Opening Ceremony achieves historic importance by educating billions of viewers about climate change. Bravo!#OpeningCeremony
However, the controversial nature of the issue meant that a lot of people were not complimentary. Skeptics have said that the climate change issue has been exaggerated by alarmists and dispute the idea that it is a catastrophic problem.
Many of these people likewise took to social media to show their displeasure with the opening ceremony.
"We are going to show how climate change is affecting zzzzzzzzzzzzzz" #OpeningCeremony
Iran has executed a nuclear scientist who allegedly accepted millions in bribes spying for the U.S., the country’s state-controlled media announced Sunday.
The strange saga of Shahram Amiri began in 2009, during Democratic presidential nominee Hillary’s Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. Amiri was making a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia when he abruptly vanished without a trace. A few months later, Iran accused the U.S. of kidnapping Amiri with Saudi cooperation, but the U.S steadfastly denied this.
In early 2010, though, news reports started coming out claiming Amiri was a long-time U.S. spy inside Iran, and that his disappearance was a carefully planned CIA operation to allow him to defect to the U.S.
But things only got weirder from there. In June, 2010, Amiri resurfaced in two homemade videos where he claimed he had been kidnapped by the U.S. He said U.S. officials had tortured him and offered mammoth bribes to get nuclear secrets from him, but he claimed to have resisted all these efforts. Amiri also expressed a wish to return to Iran, which he did one month’s later to a hero’s welcome.
At the time of his return, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amiri had returned home after Iranian officials threatened to kill his son. Meanwhile, Iran’s official Fars news service claimed Amiri was actually a double agent, who had obtained secret information from U.S. intelligence during his stay in the U.S. (Read more from “Iran HANGS Spy Who Gave the US Valuable Nuclear Information” HERE)
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The Games of the XXXI Olympiad [Friday] in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As you watch the parade of nations, you may notice Russia’s contingent of Olympians is noticeably smaller. That’s because well over 100 Russian athletes have been banned from competing in the Olympics for their use of performance-enhancing drugs.
In December 2014, the World Anti-Doping Agency began looking into allegations that Russia was running a state sanctioned doping operation for its Olympic athletes. The anti-doping agency’s investigations found that Russia had indeed operated a state-sponsored doping operation for athletes competing at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and the 2014 Winter Olympics that Russia hosted in Sochi.
One of the investigative reports, released on July 18, stated that Russia’s “Ministry of Sport directed, controlled, and oversaw the manipulation of athlete’s analytical results or sample swapping … ” The report also cites the active engagement of the Centre of Sports Preparation in Russia and the Russian Federal Security Service.
The head of the International Olympic Committee described Russia’s actions as a “shocking and unprecedented attack” on the integrity of the sport and on the Olympic games.
Nothing about Russia’s doping program should be shocking; rather, it is yet another example of the brutal nature of the Russian regime. As The Heritage Foundation has described, the regime is “an autocracy that justifies and sustains its hold on political power by force, fraud, and a thorough and strongly ideological assault on the West in general, and the U.S. in particular.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime defines itself against the United States. Putin sees Russia as a great power and undoubtedly sees Olympic medal counts as another means to solidify his country’s great power status.
At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Russia came in 11th in the overall medal count, winning only three gold, five silver, and seven bronze medals. In Sochi, however, at the apex of the state-sponsored doping operation, Russia won 13 gold medals, 11 silver, and nine bronze, coming in first in the overall medal count.
Russia also seeks to make a mockery of international norms, values, and standards of conduct. The doping scandal shows a complete lack of respect for the integrity of sport as well as for the international organizations that organize the Olympic Games and the countries and athletes that participate from across the globe.
In July, the International Olympic Committee decided against issuing a blanket ban for Russian athletes at the Olympics, instead largely leaving the decision to the international federations of each sport to decide whether Russian athletes would be individually banned from participating.
The World Anti-Doping Agency criticized the International Olympic Committee’s decision not to issue a blanket ban, saying that the investigations “exposed, beyond a reasonable doubt, a state-run doping program in Russia that seriously undermines the principles of clean sport embodied within the World Anti-Doping Code.”
While some Russian athletes will be able to compete at the Olympics in Rio, the doping scandal has once again highlighted the criminal nature of the Russian regime, a nature that is at the very heart of the country’s actions at home and abroad.
The next president must come into office approaching Russia as it actually is, not as the U.S. wishes it might be. Russia is not a fit international partner, the size and scope of the doping operation, as well as the government’s involvement in directing it, once again drive this point home. (For more from the author of “Russian Olympics Cheating Is Emblematic of the Nature of Putin’s Regime” please click HERE)
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Tomorrow, the 2016 Summer Olympics will begin in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Americans have participated in the summer Olympic games since 1896, and have won more summer gold medals than any other country.
How do you like them apples, world?
Americans should be proud that we athletically kick butt. This year, our nation will root for 554 Americans competing in 27 different sports. As we cheer in support of our athletes donning the red, white, and blue, the government has a different message: win – and you’ll pay.
That’s right, our government levies a tax on every Olympic medal won. Currently, the U.S. Olympic Committee (no, not part of the government) awards cash prizes to accompany medals won. A gold medal comes with $25,000, a silver $15,000, and $10,000 for bronze.
That may sound like a lot of dough. But, in the world of international competitiveness and sport, that’s reasonably low compared to some countries. In 2012, Russian and Italy paid substantial sums to their Olympic winners. Russia, for example, pays $135,000 per gold medal, $81,600 for silver and a bronze will fetch $54,400.
Yet, the cash awards won by Americans – and the value of the medals themselves (valued at $600 per gold, $315 per silver, and $3 per bronze) – are considered “earned income from abroad” from the IRS’s perspective. The amount of tax each athlete would have to pay depends on the amount of other income that athlete earns, in addition to the medal and cash prize.
Take America’s most decorated Olympian of all time, swimmer Michael Phelps. In 2014, he received lucrative endorsements from companies including Under Armour, Visa, Subway, and HP, just to name a few. It was expected that such endorsements brought him a yearly income in the millions.
Therefore, assuming that Phelps makes at least $400,000 each year, he likely pays the top marginal income tax rate, or 39.6 percent. So, one could reasonably assume that if Phelps wins more gold for the U.S., he’ll have to pay the government roughly $10,000 in taxes – per gold medal.
Some congratulations, right?
Sure, Phelps can afford $10,000 per gold medal. But Phelps is a bit of a phenomenon. Most Olympians aren’t necessarily rich, and many live off meager stipends or wages while they train. Others must take on part-time jobs. U.S. Olympian wrestler, Jared Frayer, worked, for example, as a teacher; Gwen Jorgensen, a U.S. tri-athlete, works as an accountant. The list goes on.
If anything, it’s the principle that should matter. I mean, really, upon the glorious return of those who represent America, should we really be so eager to slap them with a tax bill? It’s as Hillary Clinton said in 2009 in Pakistan, “We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move …” Apparently, moving too fast in some aspects (swimming, track, biking, etc) gets you taxed even more!
I agree that the U.S. taxpayer should not subsidize our Olympic athletes – and the government doesn’t. In fact, the U.S. is only one of three countries that avoids offering financial help to Olympians; and as successful as we have been in those games, perhaps we’re all the better for it.
To be fair, the IRS doesn’t merely just pick on U.S. Olympians. They tax anyone who is awarded a monetary prize. As their website claims, prepare to pay a tax penalty if you’ve been awarded, “in a drawing, quiz show program, beauty contest, or other event.”
Surprisingly, these screwy tax laws have even convinced certain individuals to forfeit great achievements over the years. One Forbes article states:
Most people just pay the tax, but you could avoid taxes by declining an award. One famous example was George C. Scott, who declined a Best Actor Academy Award for Patton. You can even decline a Nobel Prize, and six Nobel laureates have done it.
Even Obama, the lover of taxes, avoided paying a chunk of taxes on his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize (eye roll) by donating it to charity.
In the end, I don’t believe in just giving Olympians better tax treatment. Instead, this is the perfect anecdote in how truly unpatriotic our tax code is for all Americans. Our tax code is littered with 2.4 million words that most of us don’t understand. It’s a tax code that demands 8.9 billion hours of our time to comply; and costs the economy $409 billion annually. So, when our Olympians win this year for America, just remember, we all lose to our government. (For more from the author of “US Olympians to Pay Insane Penalties for Winning” please click HERE)
Because Mr. Obama’s partners in peace deserve nuclear capabilities, what with their super-happy-fun humiliation of the U.S. Navy, their spread of terror throughout the world, plus collecting $400 million for American hostages.
“Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant has been built based on Russian technology and we have agreed on construction of eight more nuclear reactors for the country,” President Putin said on Friday… Russia built Iran’s only operating nuclear power reactor, at Bushehr.
…The Islamic Republic signed the Bushehr contract with Russia in 1995 and the nuclear power plant reached its full capacity by August 2012. It is located about 18 kilometers South of the provincial capital.
But at least the “Death to America” crowd is cooperating with the IAEA:
…“We are not obliged to introduce to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the nuclear facilities that we are to build in the future and only 180 days before entry of nuclear substances there, we will inform the IAEA of them,” Salehi said.
Hey, I guess this counts as another of Hillary’s many accomplishments! (For more from the author of “RESET: Russia to Build Eight (8) New Nuke Plants in Iran” please click HERE)
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The fallout from the revelation that the Obama administration paid $400 million in cash to Iran continued on Thursday when one of the four American hostages freed on the same day described how his trip home was delayed under murky circumstances.
Pastor Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American Christian pastor who was imprisoned in Iran, told Fox Business Network in an interview that he was taken out of his prison cell and brought to an airport in Tehran. There, a plane was waiting for him and other freed American prisoners, Abedini said. But before they could be flown home, Abedini said he and the other prisoners had to wait several hours for another plane to land first.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that a $400 million cash payment to settle a longstanding legal claim was delivered to Iran on palettes aboard an unmarked plane on the same day in January when Abedini and the other hostages were freed. The nuclear deal with Iran was also implemented that day.
Critics quickly charged that the transfer of cash to Iran—money it was already owed—amounted to a “ransom” payment.
When Fox Business Network’s Trish Regan suggested to Abedini that the plane he said he was waiting for could be the plane that delivered the $400 million to Iran, the pastor said he wasn’t told the details of the hold-up.
“They didn’t talk about money,” Abedini said. “They just told me about the plane. The reason they said you are here in the airport is because we are waiting for another plane. After that, they never told anything to me and I didn’t see anything.”
Abedini said he and the other freed hostages ended up spending the night at the airport waiting for the second plane.
Under those circumstances, Regan asked Abedini if he thought the U.S. government paid a ransom for his freedom.
“I don’t believe they will use this money for just building an orphanage, but I prefer that the politicians answer this question,” Abedini said.
At a press conference Wednesday, a deputy spokesman for the State Department would not clarify the timeline for reporters.
“As to the timing, I simply don’t—I can’t answer conclusively that these hostage—or these detainees, Americans, were on a plane before that money arrived,” said the spokesperson, Mark C. Toner.
President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has tried to settle criticism of the cash payment.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday, Obama said that the administration publicly announced on the day of the hostage release, and implementation of the nuclear deal, that it had also settled a $1.7 billion financial dispute with Iran over a failed arms deal dating back to the Iranian revolution.
The administration did not mention at the time that the first installment of that payment—the $400 million in cash—was paid in stacks of foreign currency that were flown to Iran on the same day the prisoners were released.
“This wasn’t some nefarious deal,” Obama said. “It wasn’t a secret. We were completely open about it. The only bit of news is that we paid cash.”
“The reason is because we couldn’t send them a check and we couldn’t wire the money. We don’t have a banking relationship with Iran which is part of the pressure we applied on them,” Obama added, referencing American sanctions that prevent dollars from being used in a transaction with Iran.
Obama’s defense hasn’t stopped critics from demanding more answers.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Friday asking about the Justice Department’s involvement in the cash payment.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that senior Justice Department officials had objected to the cash payment, worried it would be seen as a ransom.
They were overruled by the State Department, the newspaper said.
“There are serious questions about this administration’s policies regarding paying ransoms to terrorists and state-sponsors of terrorism,” Grassley wrote in the letter. (For more from the author of “Freed American Pastor’s Story Adds More Questions to Dispute over Iran Cash Payment” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Money_Cash.jpg20003008Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-05 21:18:522016-08-05 21:18:52Freed American Pastor’s Story Adds More Questions to Dispute over Iran Cash Payment
Count the Department of Justice among those who thought it was a boneheaded idea to drop $400 million cash in the Iranian ayatollah’s hands the same day four American prisoners were released.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story of the secret cargo plane of cash Tuesday, the timing and manner of the flight raised alarms with senior Justice Department officials. As one told the WSJ, “People knew what it was going to look like, and there was concern the Iranians probably did consider it a ransom payment.”
The State Department rejected DOJ’s concern and carried out the payment. On Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry flatly denied any connection between the pallet of cash and the prisoner swap and implementation of the nuclear deal. “The United States does not pay ransom and does not negotiate ransoms,” Kerry told reporters while in Buenos Aires. “It is not our policy.”
President Obama himself scoffed at the notion he’d paid a ransom to Iran, telling reporters Thursday, “This wasn’t some nefarious deal.” But an interview of one of the prisoners conducted after his release challenges that assertion.
Timing Is Everything
A quick timeline may help explain DOJ’s alarm and the growing suspicion.
Way back in 1979, when Jimmy Carter was still in the White House, the Shah of Iran dropped $400 million into a Pentagon account to purchase U.S. fighter jets. Soon after, the Shah was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution and Carter canceled the deal, understanding that arming America-hating Islamists is never a good idea. The $400 million was frozen after those Islamists stormed our embassy, taking 56 Americans hostage.
In the decades since, Iran has wanted its money back with billions in interest, with the two sides endlessly haggling over the matter at an international court at The Hague.
Meanwhile, in recent years, Iran has been arresting Iranian-Americans, holding four in captivity like aces in a poker game as the Obama urged the terrorist nation to accept a deal over its nuclear program.
But what about the four hostages? John Kerry declared they are not part of the nuclear negotiations.
Obama got his Iran nuke deal last summer, with the agreement scheduled to formally go into effect January 2016.
The hostages remained rotting in prison. The public pressure mounted.
Suddenly, after 36 years — and entirely coincidentally, claims the White House — Obama decides it’s time to settle the matter of the $400 million. He’s going to give Iran back its $400 million, plus $1.3 billion in taxpayer money. And — entirely coincidentally — the hostages were being freed. Said Obama on January 17, “With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well.”
The time was right, indeed, if you were one of those four hostages. Obama forgot to mention that the initial payment to Iran had already happened nearly simultaneously with the release of the prisoners. The White House Wednesday refused to clarify whether the money had to be delivered before the four were freed.
However, also on Thursday, Fox News played a clip of an interview they conducted with one of the prisoners, Saeed Abedini, the day he was freed. Abedini said that they kept being delayed “hours and hours” at the airport even though their plane was there and the pilots were ready. When he asked about the delay, he was told repeatedly they could not leave “until the other plane arrives” and “if that other plane doesn’t come we’ll never let you go.”
The Delivery
It’s not just the timing that made the deal suspicious. It was the delivery. The money wasn’t wired. There was no delay until a proper arrangement of U.S. funds could be made. There was no ceremony with a big check acknowledging this diplomatic breakthrough-cum-lottery-win for Iran. The administration got hold of $400 million in francs and rubles, packed it on a pallet, loaded it onto an unmarked cargo plane and landed it into the waiting arms of the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism. And our hostages were free.
No wonder the Justice Department thought the arrangement smelled an awful lot like a ransom payment. Still, the State Department rejected DOJ’s concerns and went ahead with its fly-by-night operation.
The Justice Department isn’t exactly denying the Wall Street Journal account, telling the newspaper the agency “fully supported the ultimate outcome of the administration’s resolutions of several issues with Iran.” “Ultimate outcome” is legal-speak for “At least they got the prisoners back in one piece.” A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the latest WSJ story.
Let’s add one more curious event to the timeline. Remember how Iran grabbed two boats full of U.S. sailors, made them kneel at gunpoint, made them appear in videos, made some of them cry, made a mockery of international law and standards? Remember John Kerry gushing over the Iranians like girls at a Justin Bieber concert? That happened just days before this magical congruence of cash flying one way, hostages flying the other and the Iran nuclear deal officially going into effect.
With Obama desperately needing the Iran deal to be implemented without a hitch, with the hostages still in limbo, with a settlement over the $400 million not yet announced, did the Iranians want to wring a few more concessions or a few more dollars out of its enemy? Or was it yet another coincidence?
John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and “Old News”
Secretary of State Kerry attempted to dismiss the significance of the WSJ bombshell, telling reporters, “This story is not a new story. This was announced by the president of the United States himself at the same time.”
His predecessor, current candidate for president Hillary Clinton, said almost exactly the same thing, like it was from a script: “Well,” she says in the clip below, “the White House talked about this and this is kind of old news. It was first reported about seven or eight months ago.”
“Old news” is a familiar phrase to those who have followed Clinton scandals. As Politistick.com notes when a scandal emerges the Clinton strategy is to deny, deflect, delay and then declare any further revelations as “old news.” Still, in this case, Hillary was not at the helm when the deal was completed, and indeed her answer above is carefully couched in phrases like, “as I understand.”
Meanwhile, Clinton’s opponent Donald Trump is being roasted for suggesting he watched Iranian government video of the Iranians unloading the $400 million. It was actually file footage from Fox News of the January prisoner release. Curious how quickly the media moves away from Obama’s actions to Trump’s mouth.
The “But the Sale Was Going to End” Defense
There’s an old joke. A woman comes home from the department store with a new dress. “Honey, I made us $50!” “Great, dear. How?” “This dress was $100, but I got it half off!” Secretary Kerry is waiving that dress in defending the payment to Iran. He claims agreeing to pay $1.7 billion to Iran to settle the matter of the $400 million was a win for America. “We believe this agreement … actually saved the American taxpayers potentially billions of dollars,” Kerry said. “There was no benefit to the United States of America to drag this out.” After 36 years, how does dragging it out a few weeks make a difference?
The notion that we had to pay Iran this money right now because the only alternative was paying billions more later struck a familiar chord. As President Obama and Kerry were pushing the Iranian nuclear deal, they repeatedly stated that the only alternative to signing the deal they negotiated was war.
This was one of the false narratives — what others would call “lies” — White House adviser Ben Rhodes admitted he created in order to sell the Iranian nuclear deal.
In the wake of Rhodes’ boast and the events surrounding the $400 million payment, it’s no stretch to suggest that while America citizens were ransomed, our credibility was destroyed. (For more from the author of “DOJ Protested Payment to Iran; Prisoners Told They Couldn’t Leave ‘Until Other Plane Arrives” please click HERE)
