Obama outmaneuvered by Iran: No Deal

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Iran got the money, got the freeze lifted, got a billion from Obama, who got …… yellow cake  on his face.

I was not alone when I called this deal a farce. I warned, railed and shook my fist. Netanyahu said, “No deal is better than a bad deal. That the deal that is being discussed in Geneva right now is a bad deal. It’s a very bad deal. Iran is not required to take apart even one centrifuge. But the international community is relieving sanctions on Iran for the first time after many years. Iran gets everything that it wanted at this stage and it pays nothing…”

Of course, Iran is changing the terms, issuing new “red lines.” This was the obvious outcome. So we are supposed to believe that Obama and his quisling administration didn’t know? I believe that they knew very well, and that this was the desired outcome all along.

Obama is turning our allies, and eventually our freedom, over to our most vicious enemies.

“Iran Throws Monkey Wrench Into Nuclear Deal,” Reza Kalilli, Yahoo, May 18, 2014
Iran has thrown up new roadblocks to reaching a deal with the P5+1 world powers over its illicit nuclear program.

Three days of negotiations in the fourth round of Geneva discussions ended Friday in arguments and confrontations when the Iranian team presented their country’s new “red lines,” diminishing any hope by the Obama administration to claim victory in its approach to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, according to reports from Iran.

Hossein Shariatmadari, a former torturer and now managing editor of the conservative newspaper Keyhan, the mouthpiece of the country’s supreme leader, in an Op-Ed published Saturday revealed details of the Geneva negotiations and congratulated the Iranian delegation for its steadfast demand that the country has a right to pursue nuclear development.

The Obama administration hoped that with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif showing an eagerness to solve the nuclear issue and address the West’s concerns, there would be a possibility for a negotiated solution. An interim agreement penned last November in Geneva was touted as a “historic nuclear deal.”

Under that agreement, Iran — in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief — limited its enrichment activity to the 5 percent level with a current stockpile of over 10 tons (enough for six nuclear bombs), converted much of its 20 percent enriched stock to harmless oxide and agreed to allow more intrusive inspections of its nuclear plants by the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspections were limited to only agreed-on facilities.

The final draft of the agreement to address all of Iran’s nuclear facilities and activities, along with its missile program, was planned to be finalized this July.

“The Obama administration and its allies were drunken happy after the initial agreement,” said Shariatmadari, who had previously criticized the Iranian negotiating officials for being soft with their Western counterparts. “With this delusion, that with the continuation of negotiations they could wrap up the issue, they had come prepared to Geneva with their demeaning requests of security ‘breakout’ or preventive measures of (possible military dimensions). … To present these conditions as their winning cards on the negotiating table, they could not imagine in their wildest dreams that this time the Iranian negotiators on the other side of the table … were aware of the opponents’ tricks.”

The red lines that the Iranian delegation presented, as stated by Shariatmadari, are:

• The expansion of Iranian nuclear research and development.

• The acceptance of Iran’s need for enrichment on a level that feeds the need of the country (the country has over 19,000 centrifuges, far more than is needed for peaceful nuclear purposes, and would like to expand).

• The preservation of the Arak heavy-water plant (the plant once operational could produce plutonium and serve the ruling clerics with a second path to nuclear weapons).

• No interference or limitation to the country’s military and defensive measures (the Islamic regime is under U.N. sanctions for developing ballistic missiles and it currently holds the largest missile stockpile in the Middle East with ranges capable of reaching as far as Europe).

• The removal of all sanctions at once as opposed to step-by-step relief (the U.N. resolutions and sanctions in place are the results of efforts by several U.S. administrations and over a decade of negotiations).

“These (red) lines, which the enemy had never expected to see, at first caused their disbelief and then their anger to the level of shouts and arguments,” Shariatmadari wrote. “The opponents thought that the conditions set by the Iranian delegates were meant to increase (Iran’s) negotiating power, but when faced with their absolute resolve … they realized that their dreams were swept away and that the Geneva 4meeting had failed.”

According to a source within the regime’s intelligence community, the leadership will not give up its nuclear ambitions, and the Revolutionary Guards see themselves as the dominating power in the Middle East and beyond. They believe that the Obama administration will not engage militarily and that the regime needs to weather the sanctions regime, which has already cracked due to the initial Geneva agreement.

The post Obama outmaneuvered by Iran: No Deal appeared first on Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs.

Young People Will Reject Liberalism’s Lies

Kurt Schlichter / Townhall Columnist

 

When the whole shoddy edifice of the progressive project collapses under its own dead weight, it will largely be because the liberals forgot to breed enough mindless minions to keep shoring it up. The left has always depended on a never-ending parade of credulous children to revitalize its dwindling ranks as the march of time and maturity depletes them. Liberal youth would grow up, look around, realize how progressivism is a disaster, and largely stop buying into the nonsense.

But now, young people are wising up earlier. This is bad news for liberals, but great news for America.

Our youth – those in college and younger – are starting to reject the nonsense pushed by the progressive clown car of communism-lite. This presents an opportunity for the most counterintuitive of alliances, that of those entering adulthood and those of us who entered it long ago and are now reaping the benefits of liberalism’s shameful transfer of wealth and power to those of us who have already made it on the backs of those just starting out.

We need to distinguish the youth from the older Millennials, who are famously infatuated with The One. And we even need to distinguish among the Millennials, because some of that generation have rejected the value-free values of their cohort. In particular, we must note those glorious Millennial warriors who have served their Nation in war. Their selfless service has justly earned them a place of honor in America’s Valhalla, where the heroes of Lexington, Iwo Jima and Ia Drang await their coming to the places at the table their courage has earned them.

But the rest of the Millennial generation just needs to be slapped.

Maybe they will learn too, albeit through the magic of pain. Maybe it’s too late. Regardless, their younger brothers, sisters and gender-indefinite siblings have seen the Millennials’ eager embrace of progressivism repaid with the expectation that they will bear the full cost of the political payoffs liberals promised to more useful and wealthy Democrat demographics. People like me, an established trial lawyer in the bluest part of the bluest state. Obama has been just awesome for folks like me, and that unjust awesomeness has been paid for by a Millennial generation mired in debt and unemployment. But it often seems that this travesty bothers me more than it bothers them.

Maybe we should rename the Millennials “the Suckers.”

Jindal: Obamacare Can and Should Still Be Repealed

Katie Pavlich / Townhall Columnist

 

A few weeks ago Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who is no doubt a serious candidate for the 2016 presidential election, essentially said Obamacare would be very difficult at this point to repeal.

“I think it’s going to be difficult to turn the clock back. People get assumed and accustomed to receiving things, particularly things that they get for free,” he told a crowd of students at Harvard’s Institute of Politics on Friday

Writing in an op-ed for FoxNews.com today, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (also a possible 2016 presidential candidate) seems to be firing back at that notion by arguing not only can Obamacare be repealed, but the hard work to get it done must continue. (bolding is mine)

According to those in the elite salons of Washington, ObamaCare cannot be repealed. The conventional wisdom on the cocktail circuit contends that once you mandate health insurance for millions, you cannot unmandate it. This theoretical belief has become accepted in Washington as a dogmatic article of faith. And the Obamacrats and most of the press believe that repeating this mantra often enough will make it so.

Of course, many Beltway insiders claim that ObamaCare cannot be repealed because they wish to preserve the financial windfalls the law has brought them.

But even many conservative “thinkers” in Washington have given in to ObamaCare fatalism. They may not say so in public, but they fully believe that talk of the law’s repeal exists only in the land of unsophisticated rubes.

The country that won two world wars and put a man on the moon cannot, it is believed, repeal a disastrous public policy. Says who? Why not?

The idea that ObamaCare cannot be repealed defies both logic and real world justification, on multiple levels.

Shots fired? Jindal has never been shy about taking on Washington politicians on both sides of the aisle, but as we inch closer to 2016, anti-Washington talking points and arguments are sure to heat up outside the Beltway. Further, Obamacare won't only be a major issue for the 2014 midterms, but for the 2016 presidential election as well.

UPDATE: I should add Jindal has launched an organization, America Next, with a goal of promoting conservative based healthcare reform.

Netanyahu: Modi keen to deepen ties with Israel

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

We may hope that this heralds the beginning of a new international counter-jihad alliance, consisting of all the nations that are most threatened today by the global jihad. Fantasy-based policymaking and willfully ignorant analysis have prevented even the contemplation of such an alliance for years now, but reality cannot be avoided forever.

“Modi keen to deepen ties with Israel: Netanyahu,” PTI, May 18, 2014:

Jerusalem, May 18: India’s Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi has expressed his desire to “deepen and develop” ties with Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

“On Friday, I spoke with the Prime Minister-elect of India. There too there is a clear expression of the desire to deepen and develop economic ties with the State of Israel,” Netanyahu told his cabinet at its weekly meeting.

Netanyahu, who is looking to strengthen economic ties with Asia which is likely to overtake the Jewish state’s close ally United States as the largest export destination, has recently put a lot of emphasis on promoting bilateral trade with India, China, Japan and other Asian countries.

Netanyahu did not lose time in reaching out to Modi – all set to be India’s next prime minister after BJP secured a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha polls – as part of his goal to benefit from untapped potential in the huge market there.

Israel may have a “staunch new ally” in South Asia with India’s election of Modi to the position of Prime Minister, New York-based International Business Times reported yesterday amid speculation here that ascendance of BJP would also bring back the hype around India-Israel ties.

The two countries have been negotiating a Free Trade Agreement for the last several years. While relations between India and Israel have deepened and diversified ever since diplomatic relations were established in 1992, the five years of BJP rule in the past gave a major impetus to the ties.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited India in 2003 and prominent BJP leaders – L K Advani and Jaswant Singh – had come to Israel to discuss cooperation in wide ranging fields.

Israel’s support to India during the Kargil war had helped build a relationship of trust which saw defence cooperation between the two countries registering a significant high. PTI

Op-ed:

Left to die by an administration run amok
By: Diane Sori

"This was basically an elaborate scheme to cover up patient wait times..."
- Dr. Samuel Foote, retired VA doctor turned whistleblower

They fought for our country...their blood stains the soil of foreign enemy lands...and yet when they come home...many to a hero's welcome...they are being denied rightful medical services.

Dysfunctional bureaucratic red tape unlike any stonewalling ever seen before now faces our veterans on a daily basis. And these brave warriors who put their very lives in harm's way to keep us safe and free at home cannot get much needed medical care but a traitor to America can.

Recently, muslim sympathizer Chuck Hagel...the most miserable excuse of a Secretary of Defense we've ever had...approved convicted felon Pvt. Bradley Manning's request to undergo hormone therapy and surgery to become a woman. The man found guilty of leaking classified government information (the Wikileaks scandal) is going to get what amounts to taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgery moving to the head of the line as our veterans...many of whom sadly come home NOT whole...sit and wait for services that might NEVER come. 

And to that effect enter center stage the Veterans Affairs (VA) Healthcare Scandal along with its par for the course cover-up. This newest scandal amongst the many facing the Obama administration involves the hiding of unacceptably long wait times for vets seeking (or actually being denied) medical treatment they are rightfully entitled to. By the creating of 1.5 million 'false' records, this allowed the VA (comprised of 1700 hospitals and clinics across the country handling 80 million outpatient visits a year) to collect monies for care and services NEVER rendered, causing many veterans to die who might have been saved. By this action, I believe, the VA has actually assisted in what could be called 'criminally negligent homicide' as the Obama administration once again looks away even while Capitol Hill hearings into these charges is ongoing.

And as the VA says it has reduced wait times of outpatient appointments to within 14 days of a veterans 'desired date' request...which by the way is NOT true... allegations are being sounded by whistleblowers in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, and Wyoming about VA administrators actually ordering thousands of appointment requests by veterans to be placed on a so-called 'secret' unofficial list in an effort to improve their hospital's performance record...hence their salaries...by basically shifting around appointments and manipulating wait lists to cover for what in reality is overly long delays for primary and follow-up appointments. And while allegations are being sounded that VA employees faced reprisals by administrators if they refused to manipulate appointment books, and as these very same administrators issued orders that if a veteran died while awaiting treatment their names were to be removed from the wait lists, a traitor to America moves to the front of the line to get sex change surgery.

There is something so very wrong with this picture...a picture designed and created to make the VA, and especially the administrators, look good on paper and NOTHING else. And looking good on paper translates into administrative salary increases, and sadly, that is the bottom line as far as they are concerned. 

And as nightmare stories start to surface about veterans being denied medical services...like the one out of Arizona where dozens of patients at one hospital died (possibly as many as 40) while languishing on a hidden waiting list without ever being given an appointment....while officials at the hospital shredded documents and faked evidence to make it seem as if waiting times were under control...and the one that claims all this 'supposed' bruhaha is because the VA is NOT paying local doctors and hospitals in a timely manner...the VA does admits there is a problem, but a problem NOT of their doing as those in the Obama administration face genuine condemnation while continuing to play the 'pass the buck' game yet again.

Claiming the problem lies with the NON-VA Care Program...a program where the VA pays for veterans to go to local doctors or hospitals with an authorization letter (a voucher) where they get treated...payments to said doctors...of which the VA claims there are NOT enough of...and hospitals are often late causing some veterans having to be turned away.

So with Veterans Affair Secretary Eric Shinseki (a former general now the darling of the left for speaking out against the Iraq war) in the hot seat for claiming he knew nothing about the all-encompassing abuse in the VA under his command, he's now spewing that he's “mad as hell" about the whole affair. Words a bit late in coming if you ask me. And even though he read some talking points before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee investigating the abuses...Shinseki claiming he's working on fixing the problems is kind of a mute point as he does so while our veterans continue to be hurt and continue to die.

And who is called to task by Obama and crew for this most grievous of disservices done to our vets...just a few 'faceless' bureaucrats that have been placed on what's called 'temporary administrative leave' and a scapegoat in the guise of Veterans Affairs Undersecretary, Robert Petzel, who tendered his immediate resignation NOT saying he was scheduled to retire very shortly anyway.

In other words our hurting veterans have been delegated to just another mere slap on the wrist by Barack HUSSEIN Obama and his crony Shinseki...as the man who closed the World War II Memorial to our aging heroes...as the man who found time to personally chastise an old racist's wiretapped phone conversations from half a world away...that man has done NOTHING to help our vets as he sent his mouthpiece Jay Carney (who whined that there was "just a suggestion of a scandal" at the Veterans Affair Department) to read a prepared statement that he was “concerned and angry about the allegations." 

NO he was NOT and is NOT concerned about the pain and sorrow our veterans face, and his lack of concern proves for all to see that Barack HUSSEIN Obama has NO concern whatsoever for anything that involves helping those who fight for America on foreign soil.

And the bottom line in all this is that as per The Financial Times, “If the evidence of mismanagement continues to accumulate, the Obama administration will find itself not in another partisan knife-fight, but under fire from both parties in a Congress where the uniformed military is venerated.” And that on top of Benghazi might bring a long overdue end to a man and his administration who defame, dishonor, and slander our military...our troops...our veterans...every chance they get.