Turkey playing “Obama for a fool”: trades gold for oil to circumvent Iran sanctions

/0 Comments/in , /by

Turkey has exchanged nearly 60 tons of gold for several million tons of Iranian crude oil, despite its promises to uphold Western sanctions on Iran’s energy sector, according to recent Turkish reports.

By using gold instead of money, Turkey is able to skirt Western sanctions on Iran’s oil trade, particularly those pertaining to SWIFT, the global money transfer service that until recently assisted the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian financial institutions.

Over the past several months, Turkey has given Iran 60 tons of gold, or more than $3 billion, according to a July 8 report on the Turkish news site Vatan Online. The report was translated by the Open Source Center, a translation service used by the CIA.

The exchanges raise questions about the Obama administration’s decision to grant Turkey a temporary waiver exempting it from U.S. sanctions to Iran, according to foreign policy experts and those on Capitol Hill who speculated that the revelation could spur Congress to pass a new round of Iran sanctions to prevent such trades.

“The idea that Turkey needs a waiver for more time to disconnect itself from the Iran oil trade is ludicrous,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq. “Turkey is playing Obama for a fool.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: BullionVault

Romney slams Obama’s pandering statement to Spanish TV that Chavez is no threat to US interests

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Republican Mitt Romney chided President Barack Obama on Wednesday for playing down “the threat” posed by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez as he sought to portray the Democrat as soft on national security, an issue that may resonate with Latino voters in November’s election.

Romney was reacting to remarks Obama made to a Spanish language television station that Chavez’s actions over recent years had “not had a serious national security impact” on America.

“This is a stunning and shocking comment by the president. It is disturbing to see him downplaying the threat posed to U.S. interests by a regime that openly wishes us ill,” Romney said in a statement. “President Obama’s remarks continue a pattern of weakness in his foreign policy, one that has emboldened adversaries and diminished U.S. influence.”

Pushing back, Obama’s campaign team accused Romney of playing into the hands of the leftist Venezuelan leader by granting him the international attention that he craved.

“Hugo Chavez has become increasingly marginalized and his influence has waned. It’s baffling that Mitt Romney is so scared of a leader like Chavez whose power is fading,” said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: William Hernández

Obama widens lead over Romney by six points in latest poll of registered voters

/11 Comments/in , /by

President Barack Obama expanded his lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney to 6 percentage points in the White House race this month as voters became slightly more optimistic about the economy, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday.

Four months before the November 6 election, Obama leads Romney among registered voters 49 percent to 43 percent. In June, Obama held a slim 1-point lead over the former Massachusetts governor.

Obama’s improved standing was fueled in part by a slight rise in optimism about the future, with the number of Americans who think the country is on the wrong track dropping 5 percentage points to 58 percent.

Obama’s approval ratings ticked up 1 point to 48 percent and the number of Americans who disapprove of his job performance dropped 3 percentage points to 47 percent.

The shift follows a low point for Obama in June as economic worries deepened and Romney consolidated Republican support after clinching the party’s nomination to challenge him in November. Obama had led Romney by 7 points in May’s poll.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: DonkeyHotey

40,000 Iranian agents on American’s Doorstep, Awaiting Orders from Tehran

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Iran has expanded its terror network and now has tens of thousands of agents in Latin America, according to a former Iranian official who has witnessed the regime’s crimes against humanity inside Iran and has knowledge of its terror network targeting the West.

In interviews with the opposition outside Iran, the official revealed that more than 40,000 of the regime’s security, intelligence and propaganda forces successfully have been placed over time in Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela.

These forces consist mostly of former interrogators, torturers and security forces along with the members of the Quds Forces.

Many of them, according to the source, are other nationalities, such as Afghans, Lebanese, Iraqis and Somalis.

Hassan Rahim Pour Azghodi, a member of The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution in Iran and a noted ideologist and theorist of the Islamic regime who visited Ecuador, Venezuela and several other Latin American countries last year, is a former interrogator and a torturer who is now a close adviser of Ghassem Soliemani, the chief commander of the Quds Forces, the source said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit:  Stop the Inhumanity

Russia’s Putin: US, the West is on the Decline

/6 Comments/in , /by

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday the West’s influence was waning as its economy declines but warned Russian diplomats to be on their guard against a backlash from Moscow’s former Cold War enemies.

In a biennial speech to Russian ambassadors, Putin also took a shot at the West by condemning any unilateral actions to solve international disputes and underlined the importance of resolving such conflicts through the United Nations.

His remarks suggested that Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, would keep on defending ally Syria at the United Nations over its military crackdown on an popular uprising that has evolved into an armed insurgency.

“Domestic socio-economic problems that have become worse in industrialized countries as a result of the (economic) crisis are weakening the dominant role of the so-called historical West,” Putin told a meeting of Russian ambassadors from across the world.

He told the envoys, gathered in Moscow, that they should try to influence events where Russian interests were at stake.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: World Economic Forum

Video: Proof that Terrorists are entering US from Mexican Border

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Watch this short news documentary regarding terrorists that have already crossed our southern border.

Photo credit: dotcompals

Gallup: Virtually no support for third party candidacy in 2012

/1 Comment/in , , /by

U.S. registered voters show limited support for third-party candidates this year, with the vast majority preferring Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. A June 7-10 Gallup poll asked a special presidential preference question, listing three third-party candidates in addition to Obama and Romney. Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson is the choice of 3% of registered voters and Green Party candidate Jill Stein the choice of 1%. Another 2% volunteer Ron Paul’s name and 1% mention someone other than the listed candidates.

Gallup periodically asks a vote preference question during presidential election years, in which interviewers read the names of all candidates who will appear on the ballot in a large number of states, as one way of measuring third-party support. These findings reflect Gallup’s first such measurement in 2012. The resulting data suggest 5% of U.S. voters could vote for a third-party candidate this year, which could rise if Paul changes course and runs as an independent.

The standard presidential preference question included in Gallup Daily tracking mentions only Obama and Romney by name and finds a consistent 1% volunteering the name of some other candidate as their choice for president. The 1% is in line with the vote for third-party candidates in recent presidential elections when no high-profile third-party candidate (like Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, and Ralph Nader in 2000) ran.

Prominent third-party candidates have tended to receive significantly higher support in polls taken earlier in election years than they wind up getting on Election Day. This is based on a comparison of registered voter preferences in June with the final election vote share in years when higher-profile third-party candidates were included in Gallup’s presidential preference questions. In general, the candidates wound up getting a fraction of their June estimated support — in most cases, less than half.

The drop in support during the campaign is likely due to two factors. First, historically, third-party candidates’ support typically drops as the campaign approaches Election Day, perhaps because voters realize the candidates have little chance to win. Second, generally speaking, support for third-party candidates tends to be higher in the broader pool of registered voters than in the smaller group of actual voters.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: ryenski

Maine’s Governor calls the IRS the “new Gestapo”

/1 Comment/in , , /by

Gov. Paul LePage used his weekly radio address to blast President Obama’s health care law and described the Internal Revenue Service as the “new Gestapo.”

The IRS description was a reference to a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires Americans not insured by their employers or Medicaid to buy health insurance or pay an annual penalty when filing their tax returns. The provision, known more broadly as the individual mandate, was the subject of a multi-state lawsuit, but was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

LePage said the court decision has “made America less free.”

“We the people have been told there is no choice,” he said. “You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo — the IRS.”

Maine Democratic Party Chairman Ben Grant, responding to LePage’s remarks, said, “We’ve come to expect a bunch of nonsense from Gov. LePage, but this is a step too far. There appears now to be no limit to the extreme language he will use to misinform, degrade and insult people. Somebody needs to explain to him that he’s the governor of a state, and not a talk radio host. I demand a full apology on behalf of all those who suffered at the hands of the real Gestapo.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: MaineDOE

83% of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare

/3 Comments/in , , /by

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

The DPMA, a non-partisan association of doctors and patients, surveyed a random selection of 699 doctors nationwide. The survey found that the majority have thought about bailing out of their careers over the legislation, which was upheld last month by the Supreme Court.

Even if doctors do not quit their jobs over the ruling, America will face a shortage of at least 90,000 doctors by 2020. The new health care law increases demand for physicians by expanding insurance coverage. This change will exacerbate the current shortage as more Americans live past 65.

By 2025 the shortage will balloon to over 130,000, Len Marquez, the director of government relations at the American Association of Medical Colleges, told The Daily Caller.

“One of our primary concerns is that you’ve got an aging physician workforce and you have these new beneficiaries — these newly insured people — coming through the system,” he said. “There will be strains and there will be physician shortages.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: Andrew Aliferis

Obama knows no shame: The Pathetic Attempt to Blame Fast and Furious on Bush

/1 Comment/in , , /by

Obama administration officials must remind each other daily that they will never have to accept responsibility for anything that goes wrong on their watch as long as they can find some way to blame their troubles on George W. Bush.

So it should surprise no one that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and the administration’s surrogates are vociferously claiming that Operation Fast and Furious, the gun-walking scandal run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is all Mr. Bush’s fault. Fast and Furious was a program that resulted in Congress holding Mr. Holder in contempt for lying, put a couple thousand guns into the hands of Mexican drug gangs and led to the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent and as many as 200 Mexicans.

Obama spokesmen claim it all began under Mr. Bush and a little-known operation also run out of Phoenix, dubbed Operation Wide Receiver. The Bush-era program involved a few hundred guns and was designed and run by U.S. and Mexican agents who planted electronic tracking devices in the guns so the agents could follow the guns on both sides of the border. The idea was to compile evidence that could be used to prosecute gang kingpins.

A few of the guns vanished, however, as some of the batteries powering the implanted tracking devices failed, and in a few cases, gang members discovered and destroyed the devices. As soon as this was reported to Washington, the whole operation was canceled to prevent more guns from falling into the wrong hands. A vast majority of the guns involved were traced and retrieved; no one was killed; and the project was shelved as a bad idea.

Two years later, many of the same ATF and Justice Department officials in Phoenix came up with and launched a very different program they called Fast and Furious. Straw purchasers were allowed to buy more than 2,000 guns from dealers along our southern border who were pressured by government officials to look the other way. There was no attempt to trace or follow the guns; the Mexican government was not informed of the operation; and even ATF’s own agents in Mexico were kept in the dark.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: USDAgov