Is the Chicago Mafia emulated regime back on the blackmail trail again or are these all simply coincidence? No need to look them up as I have posted them all here if you are interested. If not, the headings say enough themselves. However, blackmail and extortion appear to be good reasons for these opinion changes.. I'm not saying that they are it just looks that way, right?
B.O. got into the senate through leaked details of his opponents divorce, which caused him to quit the senate race leaving b.o. unopposed in the senate race.
QUESTION: Why Did Jack Ryan Drop Out of Illinois Senate Race in 2004 (which paved the way for Obama’s rise)
Posted on December 28, 2011 by Kevin DuJan // Cocktail Party GOP, General Stupidity
http://hillbuzz.org/question-why-did-ja ... rise-89310
Roberts changed his opinion in the 11th hour and made illegal changes to the obamacare law to pass it.
Is it a bit strange that in the 11th hour Roberts changed his opinion obamacare court decision ?
http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/did-nsa-blac ... obamacare/
Was David Petraeus blackmailed over Benghazi?
http://www.floppingaces.net/2013/05/13/ ... -benghazi/
Out of the blue the head of the opposition to the Iran deal approves of it and then suddenly resigns.
Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal Wow What a flip flop!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/world ... -deal.html
A letter appears in the hour of need to reveal the pro Iran deal opinions of 36 retired generals and admirals. Amazing, is it not?
Spontaneous opinions of 36 Retired generals and admirals back Iran nuclear deal.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150 ... _deal.html
All of a sudden the Iran deal is going to cost us dire financial consequences if it isn't approved. ....... I would never have seen that coming in my wildest dreams.
John Kerry Warns of Dire Consequence for the Dollar if Congress Rejects Iran Deal ... Not threatening at all is it?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/08 ... iran-deal/
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QUESTION: Why Did Jack Ryan Drop Out of Illinois Senate Race in 2004 (which paved the way for Obama’s rise)
Posted on December 28, 2011 by Kevin DuJan // Cocktail Party GOP, General Stupidity
http://hillbuzz.org/question-why-did-ja ... rise-89310
Dear HillBuzz,
I had always heard that Jack Ryan dropped out of that race (the 2004 Senate race where Barack Obama ultimately was elected to the Senate). Are you saying that the Repubs pressured him out, or that he could have run if they had stuck by him?
(Backstory: When Jack Ryan was running against Dr Utopia for the US Senate, the Ryans’ (sealed) divorce records were mysteriously unsealed and leaked to the press. Though the divorce itself was amicable – Jeri “Seven of Nine” Ryan had nothing to do with the leak – the records were deeply embarrassing to Jack Ryan. He ended up leaving the race. The Party of Stupid decided to run Alan Keyes in his place. And that’s how Barack Obama became a U.S. Senator.)
Thanks,
A.A.
*************************************
Dear Readers,
The above was a comment that I lifted off another thread and wanted to answer here because a lot of people don’t know the story of how Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency was set in motion. The only reason Obama is President today is because the criminally stupid Cocktail Party fools in the Illinois GOP — the very same people who are pushing Willard “Mittens” Romneycare’s nomination in 2012 — demanded Jack Ryan withdraw from the Senate race in 2004 after he had already won the nomination.
Ryan is the ex-husband of Jerri Ryan, a woman who played a cyborg of some sort on the Star Trek series that many people apocryphally believe starred Katherine Hepburn as a spaceship captain; Ryan, the actress, currently plays a mortician on some CBS show where Dana Delany drinks chardonnay while solving crimes as a medical examiner. During their marriage, Jack Ryan used to openly talk about sexual fantasies he had of his wife Jerri, the most graphic of which is that Jack wanted to fly his wife to Paris and take her to the Cleopatra Club — which was a high-priced sex dungeon where the two of them could have sex in front of other wealthy people while utilizing various swings and other contraptions. The Ryans never did any of this — it was purely Jack’s fantasy, and he wanted to do this with his own wife (while other men and women watched them). When filing for divorce, Jerri’s divorce attorney put references to these fantasies into the filing to embarrass Jack (who wanted to have a political career). The intent on Jerri’s part was to force a quick and lucrative divorce settlement so that the Cleopatra Club fantasies would never get out into the open.
In essence, Jerri Ryan blackmailed Jack Ryan into a much more generous divorce settlement than she would have received if she hadn’t made his unrealized sex fantasies a part of the filing.
The divorce agreement was supposed to be sealed and unavailable to reporters; once she had her loot, Jerri Ryan never talked about any of the Cleopatra Club stories again. Her intent was never to hurt Ryan, just to blackmail him for the best divorce settlement possible.
Flashforward to 2004. The Obama Senate campaign illegally obtains Jack Ryan’s sealed divorce filing and sees the Cleopatra Club references. Obama’s operatives release the embarrassing sexual fantasy material to the media, and the criminally stupid Cocktail Party here in Illinois makes the decision to force Ryan to withdraw from the Senate race after he was already picked as the nominee. I need to use bold for this, but Jack Ryan would have won that Senate race if the Cocktail Party GOP establishment had not forced him off the ballot.
Barack Obama would not have been elected to the Senate in 2004, and he would not have been elected President in 2008. None of the terrible things that have happened to our country in the last three years would have taken place if the criminally stupid Cocktail Party hadn’t forced Ryan to withdraw from the Senate race for having sexual fantasies about his own wife.
After they got rid of Jack Ryan, the Cocktail Party decided it was Alan Keyes’ turn to run for Senate…even though he had never lived in Illinois. Keyes quickly bought as small a parcel of land as he could find and the Cocktail Party slapped him onto the ballot to run against Obama. The end result wasn’t even close.
A Senate race the Republicans would have won was lost in Illinois because the Cocktail Party GOP establishment insisted “Alan Keyes was more electable” and they maneuvered to take the man people wanted to vote for off the ballot and force their “it’s his turn!’ candidate in his place.
That’s all in bold, too, because the Cocktail Party is up to these sorts of trick in Virginia and in other states as the 2012 primary race is underway and they are doing everything they can to force Willard “It’s His Turn!” Romneycare onto voters as the GOP nominee…when fewer people want this than wanted Alan Keyes in 2004 here in Illinois.
This is how the “Party of Stupid” has earned its reputation.
But — amazingly — EVERY SINGLE PERSON responsible for this still has his job with the Illinois GOP, is still calling the shots in Illinois, and is currently working for the Romneycare campaign.
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Did NSA blackmail Roberts to OK Obamacare?
Klayman: 'Tyranny is greater today than in 1776'
Published: 05/18/2014 at 9:08 PM
http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/did-nsa-blac ... obamacare/
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts may have been blackmailed to approve Obamacare after being spied on by the NSA and CIA, says Larry Klayman, the attorney who has come to be known as “the NSA slayer” for his successful legal battles against the National Security Agency.
During an appearance Sunday night on Aaron Klein’s New York City radio show on 970 The Answer, Klayman suggested the blackmail possibility when asked by a caller if the Supreme Court could be sued for its approval of the Affordable Care Act.
“Unfortunately, there’s no way to sue the Supreme Court for decisions that it makes. There should be, and there should be a way to remove these justices for making decisions like that,” explained Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch who now heads Freedom Watch.
Chief Justice John Roberts
“But let’s take this possibility: Why did Chief Justice Roberts at the eleventh hour change his decision? He was going to side with the other justices and find that Obamacare was unconstitutional. Is it something that was dug up on him by the NSA or the CIA? Was that used against him to blackmail him?
“These are the kinds of things [the government is doing], and that’s why it’s so scary what’s going on with the NSA and the CIA. It can happen in a democracy. So that may help explain it, and perhaps we can reach these issues through the NSA cases that we brought, the NSA/CIA cases. I intend to get the truth on this.”
Klein himself sounded taken aback by Klayman’s suggestion.
“This is actually a staggering response to believe the government could have spied on a Supreme Court justice … and that information is somehow utilized … against him to pass Obamacare,” Klein said. “This is huge.”
Klayman warned that “every aspect of Americans’ lives is being accessed and monitored by the government.”
“It’s not just telephone metadata that’s being monitored,” he alleged. “They’re also listening to the content, that’s coming out in recent weeks.
“I’m a lawyer. I have an attorney-client privilege, and I can no longer talk to my clients on the telephone and expect that there’s any confidentiality. It changes the whole nature of how you operate.
“We also know that the NSA and CIA – as Communist China, as Russia can do, as any sophisticated country – they can turn your cell phone on anytime and listen to you. And they do.”
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Was David Petraeus blackmailed over Benghazi?
http://www.floppingaces.net/2013/05/13/ ... -benghazi/
By DrJohn 49 Comments Mon, May, 13th, 2013 3,472 views
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CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus Resigns After Affair
The Benghazi affair is on fire and it could possibly go nuclear soon.
It is now very clear that the Obama regime scrubbed the truth from the Benghazi talking points.
Politics: It would be naïve to expect any White House to ignore the political implications of a foreign policy crisis occurring two months before a presidential election. But there is a reason why no White House admits to finessing a tragedy: It’s unseemly. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland injected politics into the U.S. response to Benghazi when she raised objections to draft “talking points” being prepared for Rice’s television appearances.
One paragraph, drafted by the CIA, referenced the agency’s warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months prior to the attack, as well as extremists linked to the al-Qaida affiliate Ansar al-Sharia. In an email to officials at the White House and intelligence agencies, Nuland said the information “could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …”
The paragraph was deleted. The truth was scrubbed.
It was the Obama regime who politicized Benghazi:
“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my building’s leadership.” With that sentence, one in a series of emails and draft “talking points” leaked to Jonathan Karl of ABC News, the Obama administration was caught playing politics with Benghazi.
We are still speculating as to who altered the talking points but there are hints that Steven Hayes might know:
[O]ne previously opaque aspect of the Obama administration’s efforts is becoming somewhat clearer. An email sent to Susan Rice following a key White House meeting where officials coordinated their public story lays out what happened in that meeting and offers more clues about who might have rewritten the talking points…
Nuland wrote that the changes did not “resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership.” She did not specify whom she meant by State Department “building leadership.” Ben Rhodes, a top Obama foreign policy and national security adviser, responded to the group, explaining that Nuland had raised valid concerns and advising that the issues would be resolved at a meeting of the National Security Council’s Deputies Committee the following morning. The Deputies Committee consists of high-ranking officials at the agencies with responsibility for national security—including State, Defense, and the CIA—as well as senior White House national security staffers…
According to the email, several officials in the meeting shared the concern of Nuland, who was not part of the deliberations, that the CIA’s talking points might lead to criticism that the State Department had ignored the CIA’s warning about an attack. Mike Morell, deputy director of the CIA, agreed to work with Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to edit the talking points. At the time, Sullivan was deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department’s director of policy planning; he is now the top national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. Denis McDonough, then a top national security adviser to Obama and now his chief of staff, deferred on Rhodes’s behalf to Sullivan…
The sender of the email spoke with Sullivan after the meeting, reminding him that Rice would be doing the Sunday morning shows and needed to receive the final talking points. Sullivan committed to making sure Rice was updated before the Sunday shows.
The blame for the changes, clearly done at the White House level, was then dumped on the CIA:
“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney said. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”
It is also well known at this time that David Petraeus was astonished to see how his assessment was freed of the truth:
In an email at 2:44 p.m. to Chip Walter, head of the CIA’s legislative affairs office, Petraeus expressed frustration at the new, scrubbed talking points, noting that they had been stripped of much of the content his agency had provided. Petraeus noted with evident disappointment that the policymakers had even taken out the line about the CIA’s warning on Cairo. The CIA director, long regarded as a team player, declined to pick a fight with the White House and seemed resigned to the propagation of the administration’s preferred narrative. The final decisions about what to tell the American people rest with the national security staff, he reminded Walter, and not with the CIA.
This candid, real-time assessment from then-CIA director Petraeus offers a glimpse of what many intelligence officials were saying privately as top Obama officials set aside the truth about Benghazi and spun a fanciful tale about a movie that never mattered and a demonstration that never happened.
Petraeus has even called the altered talking points “useless.”
Petraeus twice briefed members of Congress and on both occasions the event was closed to the public. The first assessment for Congressional members came a few days after the September 11 attack in Benghazi and the second one came on November 16, 2012.
Note that it was back in November when the disparity in initial and final talking points was discovered:
House Intelligence Committee member Peter King, R-N.Y., told reporters that the original CIA talking points regarding the attack clearly attributed the incident to al Qaeda affiliates, but that the talking points changed after being vetted by several agencies, including the Justice Department and State Department. “No one knows yet exactly who came up with the final talking points,” King said.
“The original talking points prepared by the CIA were different than the final ones put out,” King continued. Originally, he said, they were “much more specific on al Qaeda involvement.”
Apparently Petraeus offered two versions of the Benghazi situation:
Former CIA Director David Petraeus testified on Capitol Hill Friday that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in September was an act of terrorism committed by al Qaeda-linked militants.
That’s according to U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-New York, who spoke to reporters after a closed hearing in the House, which lasted an hour and 20 minutes.
King said Petraeus’ testimony differed from an earlier assessment the former CIA director gave lawmakers just days after the September 11 attack, which left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
“He (Petraeus) … stated that he thought all along he made it clear that there was significant terrorist involvement, and that is not my recollection of what he told us on September 14,” King said.
“The clear impression we were given (in September) was that the overwhelming amount of evidence was that it arose out of a spontaneous demonstration, and was not a terrorist attack,” he said.
What changed in between the first briefing and the testimony?
Paula Broadwell.
A timeline:
Benghazi attack: September 11, 2012
Petraeus briefing for Congress: September 14, 2012
Presidential election: Novermber 6, 2012
Petraeus resigns: November 9, 2012
Was David Petraeus being blackmailed to toe the line? Here’s why it could be possible. The FBI discovered that Petraeus was having an affair with his biographer and when he was confronted with the evidence, Petraeus asked that he be allowed to “step down” on his own.
The CIA Director being under investigation is no small deal, yet the White House did not notify Congress:
Some lawmakers wonder why the FBI didn’t notify the White House and relevant congressional committees earlier – before the election – that the CIA director was under investigation.
“The FBI should have had an obligation to tell the president,” Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Peter King (R) said Sunday on CNN. “It just doesn’t add up.”
“I have real questions about this. I think the timeline has to be looked at,” Rep. King said. “I’m suggesting there’s a lot of unanswered questions.”
King also says Petraeus still should testify before his committee this coming week on the Benghazi attack.
That the FBI did not notify Obama of an investigation of the Director of the CIA is simply and utterly incredulous. Eric Holder knew of the affair since late summer 2012:
The FBI apparently was sitting in two inquiries. One involved the extramarital affair uncovered between Petraeus and biographer Paula Broadwell. The other involved “inappropriate communications” between lead commander in Afghanistan Gen. John Allen and Jill Kelley, a woman tied to the Petraeus scandal.
Though the FBI investigation that stumbled onto Petreaus’ affair had been underway since as early as June and Holder knew since late summer, the Justice Department did not loop in Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — who then told the White House — until last Tuesday.
“Last Tuesday”- election day. So Obama learned of the affair on Tuesday.
Or maybe it was Wednesday.
Still, the timing of the notification was curious. The Justice Department reportedly told Clapper about the probe on Election Day. Clapper told the White House the following day, and Obama learned the day after that, according to administration officials.
Holder knew of the investigation of the Director of the CIA and he didn’t tell Obama? You believe that only if you are a complete idiot.
One wonder whether more scrubbing has taken place than was know.
At the Washington Times, John Curl warns of the re-emergence of David Petraeus:
Despite protestations by the White House, this scandal is just beginning. And the White House has picked a very bad scapegoat: the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA follows RFK’s edict: “Don’t get mad, get even.” And when the CIA gets even, it isn’t pretty.
With the White House putting all blame on the agency, expect push back this week — nuclear push back. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former director forced to resign after a sex scandal, is a dangerous man to the Obama administration. Mad and intent on getting even, he’s already talking, telling one reporter the talking points were “useless” and that he preferred not to use them at all. The floodgates will open this week, and by the end of business Friday, the scandal will be full blown.
Very possible.
Petraeus is known to be a team player yet the White House holding Petraeus’ affair as a sword of Damocles over Petraeus’ head would help assure of his participation. He was conveniently kept quiet until after the election and then resigned almost immediately afterwards. Once Petraeus resigned in shame over the affair anything he had to say about Benghazi would then be tarnished. Now he and the CIA serve as the Obama’s patsies for the removal of the truth from the talking points.
It’s all too convenient.
By the way, have you heard about the IRS scandal?
That’s also way too convenient.
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Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/world ... -deal.html
By MICHAEL R. GORDONAUG. 11, 2015
WASHINGTON — When the bipartisan advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran decided last week to mobilize opposition against the nuclear deal with Tehran, Gary Samore knew he could no longer serve as its president.
The reason: After long study, Mr. Samore, a former nuclear adviser to President Obama, had concluded that the accord was in the United States’ interest.
“I think President Obama’s strategy succeeded,” said Mr. Samore, who left his post on Monday. “He has created economic leverage and traded it away for Iranian nuclear concessions.”
As soon as Mr. Samore left, the group announced a new standard-bearer with a decidedly different message: Joseph I. Lieberman, the former senator from Connecticut and the new chairman of the group.
“It’s a bad deal,” said Mr. Lieberman, who believes that lawmakers have a chance to block the accord even if that means overcoming a presidential veto. “If the Iranians are pressured more, I think we can get a better agreement.”
Continue reading the main story
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Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with Hossein Fareydoun, center, the brother of Iran's president, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in Vienna in July.
Iran’s President Defends Nuclear Deal in Blunt RemarksJULY 23, 2015
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Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif defended the nuclear deal in the Iranian Parliament on Tuesday. A delay will allow Iran to see how the American Congress reacts to the deal.
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Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Geneva on Saturday.
Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating NegotiationsJUNE 1, 2015
To get that message across, the group has announced a multimillion-dollar television and digital media campaign.
Photo
Gary Samore was president of United Against Nuclear Iran. Credit Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Associated Press
Yet it is Mr. Samore’s quiet departure as president of the organization that is resonating among the small community of experts who have pored over the agreement.
Mr. Samore helped establish the organization in 2008, well before serious nuclear talks were underway. The aim was to strengthen the international economic sanctions against Iran, which Mr. Samore was convinced had been mounting a clandestine effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Mr. Samore, who traveled to Iran in 2005, is well known to the Iranians. At a dinner that Mr. Samore attended during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, repeated assurances that Iran’s nuclear efforts were entirely peaceful.
“We are all united against a nuclear Iran,” he quipped, as he cast a glance at Mr. Samore.
Mr. Samore, who now runs the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, initially said that the chances of a successful negotiation were dim. But after the framework of an accord was announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April, he praised it as a good first step.
Mark D. Wallace, the chief executive of the group and a diplomat in the George W. Bush administration, said that the organization’s members had sought to keep an open mind. But after the final terms became clear, “The opposition was nearly unanimous,” he said.
With that move, it was clear that Mr. Samore needed to move on.
“We had an honest discussion that I wouldn’t be able to continue to serve as president if UANI was going to come out against the agreement, since I support it,” Mr. Samore said.
“Nonetheless, I support the work that UANI has done in the past to strengthen sanctions, and I think they will have a role to play in the future to maintain nonnuclear sanctions if the deal goes forward,” he said. (He will continue to serve on the group’s advisory board.)
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Though he backs the accord as the most that can be achieved diplomatically, Mr. Samore is skeptical that the agreement will open a new chapter in American-Iranian relations.
“The best you can achieve with diplomacy is delay in the hope that at some point a new Iranian government emerges that is not committed to developing nuclear weapons,” he said.
And if that leadership does not materialize, Mr. Samore acknowledges that Iran might vastly expand its nuclear enrichment program after core elements of the agreement expire in 15 years.
He is also not convinced that Iran will continue to adhere to the accord once economic sanctions are lifted. Even so, he argues, the accord will put the United States in a stronger position to respond than a congressional rejection would.
“We will have bought a couple of years, and if Iran cheats or reneges we will be in an even better position to double down on sanctions or, if necessary, use military force,” Mr. Samore said. “If I knew for certain that in five years they would cheat or renege, I’d still take the deal.”
A version of this article appears in print on August 12, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Retired generals and admirals back Iran nuclear deal
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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150 ... _deal.html
Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
Posted: Wednesday, August 12, 2015, 1:07 AM
Three dozen retired generals and admirals Tuesday released an open letter supporting the Iran nuclear deal and urging Congress to do the same.
Calling the agreement "the most effective means currently available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons," the letter said that gaining international support for military action against Iran, should that ever become necessary, "would only be possible if we have first given the diplomatic path a chance."
The release followed a similar letter sent over the weekend to President Obama by 29 of the nation's leading scientists, who called the Iran deal "technically sound, stringent and innovative" and said it would "provide the necessary assurance in the coming decade and more that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons."
The letters provide the White House with additional backing as it wages an increasingly uphill fight to protect the agreement from congressional destruction. Lawmakers will decide next month whether to "disapprove" the deal, a vote that appears sure to win near-universal GOP support and a significant number of Democratic defections.
The administration's fight now is to persuade enough Democrats to vote to sustain an Obama veto of the disapproval. Some Democrats have said they favor the deal, while others, including Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, in line to be the next Democratic leader in the Senate, have voiced opposition.
Signers of the military letter include retired general and flag officers from every branch of service. They include four-star Marine Gens. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Joseph Hoar, former head of the U.S. Central Command; and Gens. Merrill McPeak and Lloyd Newton of the Air Force.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Harold Robinson, a rabbi and former naval chaplain who currently chairs the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces, also signed.
'No better option'
"There is no better option to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon," the letter said. "Military action would be less effective than the deal, assuming it is fully implemented. If the Iranians cheat, our advanced technology, intelligence and the inspections will reveal it, and U.S. military options remain on the table."
"And if the deal is rejected by America," it said, "the Iranians could have a nuclear weapon within a year. The choice is that stark."
The Israeli government is adamantly opposed to the agreement, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been in the forefront of a campaign to build public opposition in this country.
Robinson said he decided to speak out to demonstrate that "those of us who love Israel in the United States are not of one mind and one voice on this matter. I thought it was important to represent some of the diversity within the American Jewish community."
'Totally flawed'
Schumer, a strong supporter of Israel, on Tuesday said Washington should press other nations to further isolate Iran until it makes deeper nuclear concessions. That drew a sharp reaction from Secretary of State John Kerry.
Even if the U.S. were to back away and other countries lifted their sanctions, Schumer contended that "powerful" secondary sanctions would prevent many foreign governments from doing business with Iran and would force them into new negotiations with Tehran. He cited the French oil company Total as one that would suffer if it dealt with Iran, because then it would be locked out from the U.S. market.
"We have that powerful tool, and if used, I think that's a better, better chance in a very difficult world than an agreement that is so totally flawed," Schumer said.
"Are you kidding me?" said Kerry, addressing a Reuters Newsmaker event across town in New York. "The United States is going to start sanctioning our allies and their banks and their businesses because we walked away from a deal? And we're going to force them to do what we want them to do, even though they agreed to the deal we came to?"
Kerry's comments came shortly after Schumer told reporters why he decided last week to oppose the agreement.
Schumer's defection was seen as a significant blow to Obama's effort to sell the Iran deal to Congress. Since then, however, a handful of Senate Democrats and several House Democrats have announced their support.
Schumer was asked by reporters if he would lobby colleagues to vote with him.
"Certainly, I'm going to try to persuade my colleagues that my viewpoint is right, but anyone who thinks you can force somebody to vote with you in the Senate doesn't understand the Senate," he said.
"This is a vote of conscience. It was a vote of conscience for me. It will be a vote of conscience for my colleagues."
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John Kerry Warns of Dire Consequence for the Dollar if Congress Rejects Iran Deal
Aug. 12, 2015 10:00am Sharona Schwartz
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/08 ... iran-deal/
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Secretary of State John Kerry warned that the dollar could lose its place as the world’s reserve currency should Congress reject the Iran agreement.
“That is a recipe very quickly, my friends, businesspeople here, for the American dollar to cease to be the reserve currency of the world – which is already bubbling out there,” Kerry said Tuesday at a Reuters event in New York.
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks about the Iran Deal on August 11, 2015 in New York City. The U.S. Congress has until September 17 to approve a bill either supporting or rejecting the deal. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks about the Iran deal, Aug. 11, 2015 in New York City. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Kerry was referring to the prospect of the United States departing from the five other world powers that negotiated the agreement and insisting its allies continue to comply with U.S. sanctions — something he said would lead to the U.S. dollar losing its position as the world’s reserve currency.
“Can you imagine trying to sanction them after persuading them to put in phased sanctions to bring Iran to the negotiating table, and when they have not only come to the table but they made a deal, we turn around and nix the deal and then tell them you’re going to have to obey our rules on the sanctions anyway?” Kerry said.
Kerry’s warning about the dollar was the latest effort by the Obama administration to present a dire scenario in the event that Congress does not approve the agreement.
In a speech last week, President Barack Obama warned that the alternative to the Iran agreement was war.
“The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon,” Obama said.
Kerry also warned that the U.S. could lose its military standing in the world should Congress reject the deal and insist its allies concede to U.S. sanctions on Iran.
“If the United States were to behave that way, not only would we have lost them with respect to the sanctions, but we will lose their support if we have to use military action,” Kerry said. “Can you imagine Israel and the United States taking military action because we forced a situation where Iran goes back to what it was doing because we wouldn’t live by the deal that we already agreed to, which the United Nations has already approved 15 to nothing in the Security Council? It doesn’t make sense.”
Yet even it Congress were to reject the deal, it is difficult to imagine that Europeans and others would completely backtrack from their lifting of sanctions, given that companies are already lining up to open business ties and ministers have been flying to Tehran to promote trade since mid-July.
Several economists rejected Kerry’s claim about the standing of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, at least in the short term, with one describing the reasoning as “laughable.”
Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX Strategy, BK Asset Management, told Reuters: “The reality of the situation is that the U.S. dollar hasn’t been this strong in decades. The thought that it could be replaced as a reserve currency is laughable at this point on a geopolitical basis and nothing in the Iran deal even remotely touches upon that issue.”
A currency expert told CNN Money that Kerry’s predication was “an exaggeration.”
“I think he is factually wrong,” Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, told CNNMoney. “I think this was rhetoric and an exaggeration, but it shows the high stakes politics involved.”
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Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/world ... -deal.html
By MICHAEL R. GORDONAUG. 11, 2015
WASHINGTON — When the bipartisan advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran decided last week to mobilize opposition against the nuclear deal with Tehran, Gary Samore knew he could no longer serve as its president.
The reason: After long study, Mr. Samore, a former nuclear adviser to President Obama, had concluded that the accord was in the United States’ interest.
“I think President Obama’s strategy succeeded,” said Mr. Samore, who left his post on Monday. “He has created economic leverage and traded it away for Iranian nuclear concessions.”
As soon as Mr. Samore left, the group announced a new standard-bearer with a decidedly different message: Joseph I. Lieberman, the former senator from Connecticut and the new chairman of the group.
“It’s a bad deal,” said Mr. Lieberman, who believes that lawmakers have a chance to block the accord even if that means overcoming a presidential veto. “If the Iranians are pressured more, I think we can get a better agreement.”
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
*
The Iran Deal in 200 WordsJULY 15, 2015
*
Congressman for Family of Iran Prisoner, Amir Hekmati, Backs Nuclear DealJULY 30, 2015
*
Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with Hossein Fareydoun, center, the brother of Iran's president, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in Vienna in July.
Iran’s President Defends Nuclear Deal in Blunt RemarksJULY 23, 2015
*
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif defended the nuclear deal in the Iranian Parliament on Tuesday. A delay will allow Iran to see how the American Congress reacts to the deal.
Iran Lawmakers to Wait 80 Days Before Voting on Nuclear DealJULY 21, 2015
*
Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Geneva on Saturday.
Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating NegotiationsJUNE 1, 2015
To get that message across, the group has announced a multimillion-dollar television and digital media campaign.
Photo
Gary Samore was president of United Against Nuclear Iran. Credit Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Associated Press
Yet it is Mr. Samore’s quiet departure as president of the organization that is resonating among the small community of experts who have pored over the agreement.
Mr. Samore helped establish the organization in 2008, well before serious nuclear talks were underway. The aim was to strengthen the international economic sanctions against Iran, which Mr. Samore was convinced had been mounting a clandestine effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Mr. Samore, who traveled to Iran in 2005, is well known to the Iranians. At a dinner that Mr. Samore attended during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, repeated assurances that Iran’s nuclear efforts were entirely peaceful.
“We are all united against a nuclear Iran,” he quipped, as he cast a glance at Mr. Samore.
Mr. Samore, who now runs the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, initially said that the chances of a successful negotiation were dim. But after the framework of an accord was announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April, he praised it as a good first step.
Mark D. Wallace, the chief executive of the group and a diplomat in the George W. Bush administration, said that the organization’s members had sought to keep an open mind. But after the final terms became clear, “The opposition was nearly unanimous,” he said.
With that move, it was clear that Mr. Samore needed to move on.
“We had an honest discussion that I wouldn’t be able to continue to serve as president if UANI was going to come out against the agreement, since I support it,” Mr. Samore said.
“Nonetheless, I support the work that UANI has done in the past to strengthen sanctions, and I think they will have a role to play in the future to maintain nonnuclear sanctions if the deal goes forward,” he said. (He will continue to serve on the group’s advisory board.)
Though he backs the accord as the most that can be achieved diplomatically, Mr. Samore is skeptical that the agreement will open a new chapter in American-Iranian relations.
“The best you can achieve with diplomacy is delay in the hope that at some point a new Iranian government emerges that is not committed to developing nuclear weapons,” he said.
And if that leadership does not materialize, Mr. Samore acknowledges that Iran might vastly expand its nuclear enrichment program after core elements of the agreement expire in 15 years.
He is also not convinced that Iran will continue to adhere to the accord once economic sanctions are lifted. Even so, he argues, the accord will put the United States in a stronger position to respond than a congressional rejection would.
“We will have bought a couple of years, and if Iran cheats or reneges we will be in an even better position to double down on sanctions or, if necessary, use military force,” Mr. Samore said. “If I knew for certain that in five years they would cheat or renege, I’d still take the deal.”
A version of this article appears in print on August 12, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
B.O. got into the senate through leaked details of his opponents divorce, which caused him to quit the senate race leaving b.o. unopposed in the senate race.
QUESTION: Why Did Jack Ryan Drop Out of Illinois Senate Race in 2004 (which paved the way for Obama’s rise)
Posted on December 28, 2011 by Kevin DuJan // Cocktail Party GOP, General Stupidity
http://hillbuzz.org/question-why-did-ja ... rise-89310
Roberts changed his opinion in the 11th hour and made illegal changes to the obamacare law to pass it.
Is it a bit strange that in the 11th hour Roberts changed his opinion obamacare court decision ?
http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/did-nsa-blac ... obamacare/
Was David Petraeus blackmailed over Benghazi?
http://www.floppingaces.net/2013/05/13/ ... -benghazi/
Out of the blue the head of the opposition to the Iran deal approves of it and then suddenly resigns.
Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal Wow What a flip flop!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/world ... -deal.html
A letter appears in the hour of need to reveal the pro Iran deal opinions of 36 retired generals and admirals. Amazing, is it not?
Spontaneous opinions of 36 Retired generals and admirals back Iran nuclear deal.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150 ... _deal.html
All of a sudden the Iran deal is going to cost us dire financial consequences if it isn't approved. ....... I would never have seen that coming in my wildest dreams.
John Kerry Warns of Dire Consequence for the Dollar if Congress Rejects Iran Deal ... Not threatening at all is it?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/08 ... iran-deal/
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QUESTION: Why Did Jack Ryan Drop Out of Illinois Senate Race in 2004 (which paved the way for Obama’s rise)
Posted on December 28, 2011 by Kevin DuJan // Cocktail Party GOP, General Stupidity
http://hillbuzz.org/question-why-did-ja ... rise-89310
Dear HillBuzz,
I had always heard that Jack Ryan dropped out of that race (the 2004 Senate race where Barack Obama ultimately was elected to the Senate). Are you saying that the Repubs pressured him out, or that he could have run if they had stuck by him?
(Backstory: When Jack Ryan was running against Dr Utopia for the US Senate, the Ryans’ (sealed) divorce records were mysteriously unsealed and leaked to the press. Though the divorce itself was amicable – Jeri “Seven of Nine” Ryan had nothing to do with the leak – the records were deeply embarrassing to Jack Ryan. He ended up leaving the race. The Party of Stupid decided to run Alan Keyes in his place. And that’s how Barack Obama became a U.S. Senator.)
Thanks,
A.A.
*************************************
Dear Readers,
The above was a comment that I lifted off another thread and wanted to answer here because a lot of people don’t know the story of how Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency was set in motion. The only reason Obama is President today is because the criminally stupid Cocktail Party fools in the Illinois GOP — the very same people who are pushing Willard “Mittens” Romneycare’s nomination in 2012 — demanded Jack Ryan withdraw from the Senate race in 2004 after he had already won the nomination.
Ryan is the ex-husband of Jerri Ryan, a woman who played a cyborg of some sort on the Star Trek series that many people apocryphally believe starred Katherine Hepburn as a spaceship captain; Ryan, the actress, currently plays a mortician on some CBS show where Dana Delany drinks chardonnay while solving crimes as a medical examiner. During their marriage, Jack Ryan used to openly talk about sexual fantasies he had of his wife Jerri, the most graphic of which is that Jack wanted to fly his wife to Paris and take her to the Cleopatra Club — which was a high-priced sex dungeon where the two of them could have sex in front of other wealthy people while utilizing various swings and other contraptions. The Ryans never did any of this — it was purely Jack’s fantasy, and he wanted to do this with his own wife (while other men and women watched them). When filing for divorce, Jerri’s divorce attorney put references to these fantasies into the filing to embarrass Jack (who wanted to have a political career). The intent on Jerri’s part was to force a quick and lucrative divorce settlement so that the Cleopatra Club fantasies would never get out into the open.
In essence, Jerri Ryan blackmailed Jack Ryan into a much more generous divorce settlement than she would have received if she hadn’t made his unrealized sex fantasies a part of the filing.
The divorce agreement was supposed to be sealed and unavailable to reporters; once she had her loot, Jerri Ryan never talked about any of the Cleopatra Club stories again. Her intent was never to hurt Ryan, just to blackmail him for the best divorce settlement possible.
Flashforward to 2004. The Obama Senate campaign illegally obtains Jack Ryan’s sealed divorce filing and sees the Cleopatra Club references. Obama’s operatives release the embarrassing sexual fantasy material to the media, and the criminally stupid Cocktail Party here in Illinois makes the decision to force Ryan to withdraw from the Senate race after he was already picked as the nominee. I need to use bold for this, but Jack Ryan would have won that Senate race if the Cocktail Party GOP establishment had not forced him off the ballot.
Barack Obama would not have been elected to the Senate in 2004, and he would not have been elected President in 2008. None of the terrible things that have happened to our country in the last three years would have taken place if the criminally stupid Cocktail Party hadn’t forced Ryan to withdraw from the Senate race for having sexual fantasies about his own wife.
After they got rid of Jack Ryan, the Cocktail Party decided it was Alan Keyes’ turn to run for Senate…even though he had never lived in Illinois. Keyes quickly bought as small a parcel of land as he could find and the Cocktail Party slapped him onto the ballot to run against Obama. The end result wasn’t even close.
A Senate race the Republicans would have won was lost in Illinois because the Cocktail Party GOP establishment insisted “Alan Keyes was more electable” and they maneuvered to take the man people wanted to vote for off the ballot and force their “it’s his turn!’ candidate in his place.
That’s all in bold, too, because the Cocktail Party is up to these sorts of trick in Virginia and in other states as the 2012 primary race is underway and they are doing everything they can to force Willard “It’s His Turn!” Romneycare onto voters as the GOP nominee…when fewer people want this than wanted Alan Keyes in 2004 here in Illinois.
This is how the “Party of Stupid” has earned its reputation.
But — amazingly — EVERY SINGLE PERSON responsible for this still has his job with the Illinois GOP, is still calling the shots in Illinois, and is currently working for the Romneycare campaign.
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Did NSA blackmail Roberts to OK Obamacare?
Klayman: 'Tyranny is greater today than in 1776'
Published: 05/18/2014 at 9:08 PM
http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/did-nsa-blac ... obamacare/
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts may have been blackmailed to approve Obamacare after being spied on by the NSA and CIA, says Larry Klayman, the attorney who has come to be known as “the NSA slayer” for his successful legal battles against the National Security Agency.
During an appearance Sunday night on Aaron Klein’s New York City radio show on 970 The Answer, Klayman suggested the blackmail possibility when asked by a caller if the Supreme Court could be sued for its approval of the Affordable Care Act.
“Unfortunately, there’s no way to sue the Supreme Court for decisions that it makes. There should be, and there should be a way to remove these justices for making decisions like that,” explained Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch who now heads Freedom Watch.
Chief Justice John Roberts
“But let’s take this possibility: Why did Chief Justice Roberts at the eleventh hour change his decision? He was going to side with the other justices and find that Obamacare was unconstitutional. Is it something that was dug up on him by the NSA or the CIA? Was that used against him to blackmail him?
“These are the kinds of things [the government is doing], and that’s why it’s so scary what’s going on with the NSA and the CIA. It can happen in a democracy. So that may help explain it, and perhaps we can reach these issues through the NSA cases that we brought, the NSA/CIA cases. I intend to get the truth on this.”
Klein himself sounded taken aback by Klayman’s suggestion.
“This is actually a staggering response to believe the government could have spied on a Supreme Court justice … and that information is somehow utilized … against him to pass Obamacare,” Klein said. “This is huge.”
Klayman warned that “every aspect of Americans’ lives is being accessed and monitored by the government.”
“It’s not just telephone metadata that’s being monitored,” he alleged. “They’re also listening to the content, that’s coming out in recent weeks.
“I’m a lawyer. I have an attorney-client privilege, and I can no longer talk to my clients on the telephone and expect that there’s any confidentiality. It changes the whole nature of how you operate.
“We also know that the NSA and CIA – as Communist China, as Russia can do, as any sophisticated country – they can turn your cell phone on anytime and listen to you. And they do.”
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Was David Petraeus blackmailed over Benghazi?
http://www.floppingaces.net/2013/05/13/ ... -benghazi/
By DrJohn 49 Comments Mon, May, 13th, 2013 3,472 views
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CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus Resigns After Affair
The Benghazi affair is on fire and it could possibly go nuclear soon.
It is now very clear that the Obama regime scrubbed the truth from the Benghazi talking points.
Politics: It would be naïve to expect any White House to ignore the political implications of a foreign policy crisis occurring two months before a presidential election. But there is a reason why no White House admits to finessing a tragedy: It’s unseemly. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland injected politics into the U.S. response to Benghazi when she raised objections to draft “talking points” being prepared for Rice’s television appearances.
One paragraph, drafted by the CIA, referenced the agency’s warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months prior to the attack, as well as extremists linked to the al-Qaida affiliate Ansar al-Sharia. In an email to officials at the White House and intelligence agencies, Nuland said the information “could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …”
The paragraph was deleted. The truth was scrubbed.
It was the Obama regime who politicized Benghazi:
“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my building’s leadership.” With that sentence, one in a series of emails and draft “talking points” leaked to Jonathan Karl of ABC News, the Obama administration was caught playing politics with Benghazi.
We are still speculating as to who altered the talking points but there are hints that Steven Hayes might know:
[O]ne previously opaque aspect of the Obama administration’s efforts is becoming somewhat clearer. An email sent to Susan Rice following a key White House meeting where officials coordinated their public story lays out what happened in that meeting and offers more clues about who might have rewritten the talking points…
Nuland wrote that the changes did not “resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership.” She did not specify whom she meant by State Department “building leadership.” Ben Rhodes, a top Obama foreign policy and national security adviser, responded to the group, explaining that Nuland had raised valid concerns and advising that the issues would be resolved at a meeting of the National Security Council’s Deputies Committee the following morning. The Deputies Committee consists of high-ranking officials at the agencies with responsibility for national security—including State, Defense, and the CIA—as well as senior White House national security staffers…
According to the email, several officials in the meeting shared the concern of Nuland, who was not part of the deliberations, that the CIA’s talking points might lead to criticism that the State Department had ignored the CIA’s warning about an attack. Mike Morell, deputy director of the CIA, agreed to work with Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to edit the talking points. At the time, Sullivan was deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department’s director of policy planning; he is now the top national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. Denis McDonough, then a top national security adviser to Obama and now his chief of staff, deferred on Rhodes’s behalf to Sullivan…
The sender of the email spoke with Sullivan after the meeting, reminding him that Rice would be doing the Sunday morning shows and needed to receive the final talking points. Sullivan committed to making sure Rice was updated before the Sunday shows.
The blame for the changes, clearly done at the White House level, was then dumped on the CIA:
“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney said. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”
It is also well known at this time that David Petraeus was astonished to see how his assessment was freed of the truth:
In an email at 2:44 p.m. to Chip Walter, head of the CIA’s legislative affairs office, Petraeus expressed frustration at the new, scrubbed talking points, noting that they had been stripped of much of the content his agency had provided. Petraeus noted with evident disappointment that the policymakers had even taken out the line about the CIA’s warning on Cairo. The CIA director, long regarded as a team player, declined to pick a fight with the White House and seemed resigned to the propagation of the administration’s preferred narrative. The final decisions about what to tell the American people rest with the national security staff, he reminded Walter, and not with the CIA.
This candid, real-time assessment from then-CIA director Petraeus offers a glimpse of what many intelligence officials were saying privately as top Obama officials set aside the truth about Benghazi and spun a fanciful tale about a movie that never mattered and a demonstration that never happened.
Petraeus has even called the altered talking points “useless.”
Petraeus twice briefed members of Congress and on both occasions the event was closed to the public. The first assessment for Congressional members came a few days after the September 11 attack in Benghazi and the second one came on November 16, 2012.
Note that it was back in November when the disparity in initial and final talking points was discovered:
House Intelligence Committee member Peter King, R-N.Y., told reporters that the original CIA talking points regarding the attack clearly attributed the incident to al Qaeda affiliates, but that the talking points changed after being vetted by several agencies, including the Justice Department and State Department. “No one knows yet exactly who came up with the final talking points,” King said.
“The original talking points prepared by the CIA were different than the final ones put out,” King continued. Originally, he said, they were “much more specific on al Qaeda involvement.”
Apparently Petraeus offered two versions of the Benghazi situation:
Former CIA Director David Petraeus testified on Capitol Hill Friday that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in September was an act of terrorism committed by al Qaeda-linked militants.
That’s according to U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-New York, who spoke to reporters after a closed hearing in the House, which lasted an hour and 20 minutes.
King said Petraeus’ testimony differed from an earlier assessment the former CIA director gave lawmakers just days after the September 11 attack, which left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
“He (Petraeus) … stated that he thought all along he made it clear that there was significant terrorist involvement, and that is not my recollection of what he told us on September 14,” King said.
“The clear impression we were given (in September) was that the overwhelming amount of evidence was that it arose out of a spontaneous demonstration, and was not a terrorist attack,” he said.
What changed in between the first briefing and the testimony?
Paula Broadwell.
A timeline:
Benghazi attack: September 11, 2012
Petraeus briefing for Congress: September 14, 2012
Presidential election: Novermber 6, 2012
Petraeus resigns: November 9, 2012
Was David Petraeus being blackmailed to toe the line? Here’s why it could be possible. The FBI discovered that Petraeus was having an affair with his biographer and when he was confronted with the evidence, Petraeus asked that he be allowed to “step down” on his own.
The CIA Director being under investigation is no small deal, yet the White House did not notify Congress:
Some lawmakers wonder why the FBI didn’t notify the White House and relevant congressional committees earlier – before the election – that the CIA director was under investigation.
“The FBI should have had an obligation to tell the president,” Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Peter King (R) said Sunday on CNN. “It just doesn’t add up.”
“I have real questions about this. I think the timeline has to be looked at,” Rep. King said. “I’m suggesting there’s a lot of unanswered questions.”
King also says Petraeus still should testify before his committee this coming week on the Benghazi attack.
That the FBI did not notify Obama of an investigation of the Director of the CIA is simply and utterly incredulous. Eric Holder knew of the affair since late summer 2012:
The FBI apparently was sitting in two inquiries. One involved the extramarital affair uncovered between Petraeus and biographer Paula Broadwell. The other involved “inappropriate communications” between lead commander in Afghanistan Gen. John Allen and Jill Kelley, a woman tied to the Petraeus scandal.
Though the FBI investigation that stumbled onto Petreaus’ affair had been underway since as early as June and Holder knew since late summer, the Justice Department did not loop in Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — who then told the White House — until last Tuesday.
“Last Tuesday”- election day. So Obama learned of the affair on Tuesday.
Or maybe it was Wednesday.
Still, the timing of the notification was curious. The Justice Department reportedly told Clapper about the probe on Election Day. Clapper told the White House the following day, and Obama learned the day after that, according to administration officials.
Holder knew of the investigation of the Director of the CIA and he didn’t tell Obama? You believe that only if you are a complete idiot.
One wonder whether more scrubbing has taken place than was know.
At the Washington Times, John Curl warns of the re-emergence of David Petraeus:
Despite protestations by the White House, this scandal is just beginning. And the White House has picked a very bad scapegoat: the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA follows RFK’s edict: “Don’t get mad, get even.” And when the CIA gets even, it isn’t pretty.
With the White House putting all blame on the agency, expect push back this week — nuclear push back. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former director forced to resign after a sex scandal, is a dangerous man to the Obama administration. Mad and intent on getting even, he’s already talking, telling one reporter the talking points were “useless” and that he preferred not to use them at all. The floodgates will open this week, and by the end of business Friday, the scandal will be full blown.
Very possible.
Petraeus is known to be a team player yet the White House holding Petraeus’ affair as a sword of Damocles over Petraeus’ head would help assure of his participation. He was conveniently kept quiet until after the election and then resigned almost immediately afterwards. Once Petraeus resigned in shame over the affair anything he had to say about Benghazi would then be tarnished. Now he and the CIA serve as the Obama’s patsies for the removal of the truth from the talking points.
It’s all too convenient.
By the way, have you heard about the IRS scandal?
That’s also way too convenient.
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Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/world ... -deal.html
By MICHAEL R. GORDONAUG. 11, 2015
WASHINGTON — When the bipartisan advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran decided last week to mobilize opposition against the nuclear deal with Tehran, Gary Samore knew he could no longer serve as its president.
The reason: After long study, Mr. Samore, a former nuclear adviser to President Obama, had concluded that the accord was in the United States’ interest.
“I think President Obama’s strategy succeeded,” said Mr. Samore, who left his post on Monday. “He has created economic leverage and traded it away for Iranian nuclear concessions.”
As soon as Mr. Samore left, the group announced a new standard-bearer with a decidedly different message: Joseph I. Lieberman, the former senator from Connecticut and the new chairman of the group.
“It’s a bad deal,” said Mr. Lieberman, who believes that lawmakers have a chance to block the accord even if that means overcoming a presidential veto. “If the Iranians are pressured more, I think we can get a better agreement.”
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
*
The Iran Deal in 200 WordsJULY 15, 2015
*
Congressman for Family of Iran Prisoner, Amir Hekmati, Backs Nuclear DealJULY 30, 2015
*
Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with Hossein Fareydoun, center, the brother of Iran's president, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in Vienna in July.
Iran’s President Defends Nuclear Deal in Blunt RemarksJULY 23, 2015
*
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif defended the nuclear deal in the Iranian Parliament on Tuesday. A delay will allow Iran to see how the American Congress reacts to the deal.
Iran Lawmakers to Wait 80 Days Before Voting on Nuclear DealJULY 21, 2015
*
Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Geneva on Saturday.
Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating NegotiationsJUNE 1, 2015
To get that message across, the group has announced a multimillion-dollar television and digital media campaign.
Photo
Gary Samore was president of United Against Nuclear Iran. Credit Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Associated Press
Yet it is Mr. Samore’s quiet departure as president of the organization that is resonating among the small community of experts who have pored over the agreement.
Mr. Samore helped establish the organization in 2008, well before serious nuclear talks were underway. The aim was to strengthen the international economic sanctions against Iran, which Mr. Samore was convinced had been mounting a clandestine effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Mr. Samore, who traveled to Iran in 2005, is well known to the Iranians. At a dinner that Mr. Samore attended during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, repeated assurances that Iran’s nuclear efforts were entirely peaceful.
“We are all united against a nuclear Iran,” he quipped, as he cast a glance at Mr. Samore.
Mr. Samore, who now runs the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, initially said that the chances of a successful negotiation were dim. But after the framework of an accord was announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April, he praised it as a good first step.
Mark D. Wallace, the chief executive of the group and a diplomat in the George W. Bush administration, said that the organization’s members had sought to keep an open mind. But after the final terms became clear, “The opposition was nearly unanimous,” he said.
With that move, it was clear that Mr. Samore needed to move on.
“We had an honest discussion that I wouldn’t be able to continue to serve as president if UANI was going to come out against the agreement, since I support it,” Mr. Samore said.
“Nonetheless, I support the work that UANI has done in the past to strengthen sanctions, and I think they will have a role to play in the future to maintain nonnuclear sanctions if the deal goes forward,” he said. (He will continue to serve on the group’s advisory board.)
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Though he backs the accord as the most that can be achieved diplomatically, Mr. Samore is skeptical that the agreement will open a new chapter in American-Iranian relations.
“The best you can achieve with diplomacy is delay in the hope that at some point a new Iranian government emerges that is not committed to developing nuclear weapons,” he said.
And if that leadership does not materialize, Mr. Samore acknowledges that Iran might vastly expand its nuclear enrichment program after core elements of the agreement expire in 15 years.
He is also not convinced that Iran will continue to adhere to the accord once economic sanctions are lifted. Even so, he argues, the accord will put the United States in a stronger position to respond than a congressional rejection would.
“We will have bought a couple of years, and if Iran cheats or reneges we will be in an even better position to double down on sanctions or, if necessary, use military force,” Mr. Samore said. “If I knew for certain that in five years they would cheat or renege, I’d still take the deal.”
A version of this article appears in print on August 12, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Retired generals and admirals back Iran nuclear deal
0 comments
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150 ... _deal.html
Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
Posted: Wednesday, August 12, 2015, 1:07 AM
Three dozen retired generals and admirals Tuesday released an open letter supporting the Iran nuclear deal and urging Congress to do the same.
Calling the agreement "the most effective means currently available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons," the letter said that gaining international support for military action against Iran, should that ever become necessary, "would only be possible if we have first given the diplomatic path a chance."
The release followed a similar letter sent over the weekend to President Obama by 29 of the nation's leading scientists, who called the Iran deal "technically sound, stringent and innovative" and said it would "provide the necessary assurance in the coming decade and more that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons."
The letters provide the White House with additional backing as it wages an increasingly uphill fight to protect the agreement from congressional destruction. Lawmakers will decide next month whether to "disapprove" the deal, a vote that appears sure to win near-universal GOP support and a significant number of Democratic defections.
The administration's fight now is to persuade enough Democrats to vote to sustain an Obama veto of the disapproval. Some Democrats have said they favor the deal, while others, including Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, in line to be the next Democratic leader in the Senate, have voiced opposition.
Signers of the military letter include retired general and flag officers from every branch of service. They include four-star Marine Gens. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Joseph Hoar, former head of the U.S. Central Command; and Gens. Merrill McPeak and Lloyd Newton of the Air Force.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Harold Robinson, a rabbi and former naval chaplain who currently chairs the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces, also signed.
'No better option'
"There is no better option to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon," the letter said. "Military action would be less effective than the deal, assuming it is fully implemented. If the Iranians cheat, our advanced technology, intelligence and the inspections will reveal it, and U.S. military options remain on the table."
"And if the deal is rejected by America," it said, "the Iranians could have a nuclear weapon within a year. The choice is that stark."
The Israeli government is adamantly opposed to the agreement, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been in the forefront of a campaign to build public opposition in this country.
Robinson said he decided to speak out to demonstrate that "those of us who love Israel in the United States are not of one mind and one voice on this matter. I thought it was important to represent some of the diversity within the American Jewish community."
'Totally flawed'
Schumer, a strong supporter of Israel, on Tuesday said Washington should press other nations to further isolate Iran until it makes deeper nuclear concessions. That drew a sharp reaction from Secretary of State John Kerry.
Even if the U.S. were to back away and other countries lifted their sanctions, Schumer contended that "powerful" secondary sanctions would prevent many foreign governments from doing business with Iran and would force them into new negotiations with Tehran. He cited the French oil company Total as one that would suffer if it dealt with Iran, because then it would be locked out from the U.S. market.
"We have that powerful tool, and if used, I think that's a better, better chance in a very difficult world than an agreement that is so totally flawed," Schumer said.
"Are you kidding me?" said Kerry, addressing a Reuters Newsmaker event across town in New York. "The United States is going to start sanctioning our allies and their banks and their businesses because we walked away from a deal? And we're going to force them to do what we want them to do, even though they agreed to the deal we came to?"
Kerry's comments came shortly after Schumer told reporters why he decided last week to oppose the agreement.
Schumer's defection was seen as a significant blow to Obama's effort to sell the Iran deal to Congress. Since then, however, a handful of Senate Democrats and several House Democrats have announced their support.
Schumer was asked by reporters if he would lobby colleagues to vote with him.
"Certainly, I'm going to try to persuade my colleagues that my viewpoint is right, but anyone who thinks you can force somebody to vote with you in the Senate doesn't understand the Senate," he said.
"This is a vote of conscience. It was a vote of conscience for me. It will be a vote of conscience for my colleagues."
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John Kerry Warns of Dire Consequence for the Dollar if Congress Rejects Iran Deal
Aug. 12, 2015 10:00am Sharona Schwartz
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/08 ... iran-deal/
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Secretary of State John Kerry warned that the dollar could lose its place as the world’s reserve currency should Congress reject the Iran agreement.
“That is a recipe very quickly, my friends, businesspeople here, for the American dollar to cease to be the reserve currency of the world – which is already bubbling out there,” Kerry said Tuesday at a Reuters event in New York.
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks about the Iran Deal on August 11, 2015 in New York City. The U.S. Congress has until September 17 to approve a bill either supporting or rejecting the deal. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks about the Iran deal, Aug. 11, 2015 in New York City. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Kerry was referring to the prospect of the United States departing from the five other world powers that negotiated the agreement and insisting its allies continue to comply with U.S. sanctions — something he said would lead to the U.S. dollar losing its position as the world’s reserve currency.
“Can you imagine trying to sanction them after persuading them to put in phased sanctions to bring Iran to the negotiating table, and when they have not only come to the table but they made a deal, we turn around and nix the deal and then tell them you’re going to have to obey our rules on the sanctions anyway?” Kerry said.
Kerry’s warning about the dollar was the latest effort by the Obama administration to present a dire scenario in the event that Congress does not approve the agreement.
In a speech last week, President Barack Obama warned that the alternative to the Iran agreement was war.
“The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon,” Obama said.
Kerry also warned that the U.S. could lose its military standing in the world should Congress reject the deal and insist its allies concede to U.S. sanctions on Iran.
“If the United States were to behave that way, not only would we have lost them with respect to the sanctions, but we will lose their support if we have to use military action,” Kerry said. “Can you imagine Israel and the United States taking military action because we forced a situation where Iran goes back to what it was doing because we wouldn’t live by the deal that we already agreed to, which the United Nations has already approved 15 to nothing in the Security Council? It doesn’t make sense.”
Yet even it Congress were to reject the deal, it is difficult to imagine that Europeans and others would completely backtrack from their lifting of sanctions, given that companies are already lining up to open business ties and ministers have been flying to Tehran to promote trade since mid-July.
Several economists rejected Kerry’s claim about the standing of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, at least in the short term, with one describing the reasoning as “laughable.”
Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX Strategy, BK Asset Management, told Reuters: “The reality of the situation is that the U.S. dollar hasn’t been this strong in decades. The thought that it could be replaced as a reserve currency is laughable at this point on a geopolitical basis and nothing in the Iran deal even remotely touches upon that issue.”
A currency expert told CNN Money that Kerry’s predication was “an exaggeration.”
“I think he is factually wrong,” Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, told CNNMoney. “I think this was rhetoric and an exaggeration, but it shows the high stakes politics involved.”
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Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/world ... -deal.html
By MICHAEL R. GORDONAUG. 11, 2015
WASHINGTON — When the bipartisan advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran decided last week to mobilize opposition against the nuclear deal with Tehran, Gary Samore knew he could no longer serve as its president.
The reason: After long study, Mr. Samore, a former nuclear adviser to President Obama, had concluded that the accord was in the United States’ interest.
“I think President Obama’s strategy succeeded,” said Mr. Samore, who left his post on Monday. “He has created economic leverage and traded it away for Iranian nuclear concessions.”
As soon as Mr. Samore left, the group announced a new standard-bearer with a decidedly different message: Joseph I. Lieberman, the former senator from Connecticut and the new chairman of the group.
“It’s a bad deal,” said Mr. Lieberman, who believes that lawmakers have a chance to block the accord even if that means overcoming a presidential veto. “If the Iranians are pressured more, I think we can get a better agreement.”
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To get that message across, the group has announced a multimillion-dollar television and digital media campaign.
Photo
Gary Samore was president of United Against Nuclear Iran. Credit Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Associated Press
Yet it is Mr. Samore’s quiet departure as president of the organization that is resonating among the small community of experts who have pored over the agreement.
Mr. Samore helped establish the organization in 2008, well before serious nuclear talks were underway. The aim was to strengthen the international economic sanctions against Iran, which Mr. Samore was convinced had been mounting a clandestine effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Mr. Samore, who traveled to Iran in 2005, is well known to the Iranians. At a dinner that Mr. Samore attended during a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, repeated assurances that Iran’s nuclear efforts were entirely peaceful.
“We are all united against a nuclear Iran,” he quipped, as he cast a glance at Mr. Samore.
Mr. Samore, who now runs the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, initially said that the chances of a successful negotiation were dim. But after the framework of an accord was announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April, he praised it as a good first step.
Mark D. Wallace, the chief executive of the group and a diplomat in the George W. Bush administration, said that the organization’s members had sought to keep an open mind. But after the final terms became clear, “The opposition was nearly unanimous,” he said.
With that move, it was clear that Mr. Samore needed to move on.
“We had an honest discussion that I wouldn’t be able to continue to serve as president if UANI was going to come out against the agreement, since I support it,” Mr. Samore said.
“Nonetheless, I support the work that UANI has done in the past to strengthen sanctions, and I think they will have a role to play in the future to maintain nonnuclear sanctions if the deal goes forward,” he said. (He will continue to serve on the group’s advisory board.)
Though he backs the accord as the most that can be achieved diplomatically, Mr. Samore is skeptical that the agreement will open a new chapter in American-Iranian relations.
“The best you can achieve with diplomacy is delay in the hope that at some point a new Iranian government emerges that is not committed to developing nuclear weapons,” he said.
And if that leadership does not materialize, Mr. Samore acknowledges that Iran might vastly expand its nuclear enrichment program after core elements of the agreement expire in 15 years.
He is also not convinced that Iran will continue to adhere to the accord once economic sanctions are lifted. Even so, he argues, the accord will put the United States in a stronger position to respond than a congressional rejection would.
“We will have bought a couple of years, and if Iran cheats or reneges we will be in an even better position to double down on sanctions or, if necessary, use military force,” Mr. Samore said. “If I knew for certain that in five years they would cheat or renege, I’d still take the deal.”
A version of this article appears in print on August 12, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Head of Group Opposing Iran Accord Quits Post, Saying He Backs Deal . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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