Who likes the Iranian nuke deal? Anyone?

Former Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly has been meeting with an Iranian official in an effort to save the nuclear deal he helped put together.

President Trump has a May 12 deadline for renewing the deal or bailing out of it.

Kerry’s efforts come on the heels of Israel revealing it has a half ton of documents showing that Iran continues to work toward developing a nuclear arsenal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is not accusing Iran of violating the deal, but is pointing out the deal is so weak Iran doesn’t need to break it, while it continues its nuke development. “I say that a deal that enables Iran to keep and hide all its nuclear weapons know-how, is a horrible deal,” he said.

The deal was supposed to be that Iran would curb its bid for nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting sanctions that were hurting the nation’s economy.

Surprise! Surprise! Today The Wall Street Journal is reporting there is labor strife all over Iran due to lousy economic conditions. Teachers, steelworkers, hospital staff and others have walked off the job.

The paper says the workers are angry at their employers and the government, because the nuclear deal has failed to deliver. There is high inflation and unemployment and the country’s currency is dropping in value.

“Where in the world is a worker whose wage is four times below the poverty line forced by the police to work?” WSJ quotes an Iranian activist as saying. “This is a crime. This is slavery.”

Remember those pallets of cash delivered by the Obama administration? Apparently a lot of that was spent on supporting fighting in Syria and supporting Hezbollah.

Kerry appears to be fighting for a deal nobody likes, even the Iranians.

Imagine what will happen if Trump backs out of the deal.

An Iranian protester in December. (Getty Images)

What do you call someone who knowingly finances terrorists?

The law:

18 U.S. Code § 2339C – Prohibitions against the financing of terrorism:

(a)Offenses.—

   (1)In general.—Whoever, in a circumstance described in subsection (b), by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and willfully provides or collects funds with the intention that such funds be used, or with the knowledge that such funds are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out—

   (A)

an act which constitutes an offense within the scope of a treaty specified in subsection (e)(7), as implemented by the United States, or

   (B)

any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act,

shall be punished as prescribed in subsection (d)(1). …

   (d)Penalties.—

   (1)Subsection (a).—

Whoever violates subsection (a) shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.

The lawless:

The Wall Street Journal

DAVOS, Switzerland — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said some of the funds freed up by the implementation of the Iranian nuclear deal could end up in the hands of the hard-liner Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and wouldn’t rule out the possibility that they could be used for terrorism, but he insisted the money isn’t driving Iranian provocation in the region.

Republicans in Washington were quick to condemn Mr. Kerry’s comments, citing his acknowledgment in a television interview and a later meeting with reporters that the money could support terrorist activities. …

Mr. Kerry said on CNBC that the U.S. so far isn’t seeing “the early delivery of funds going to that kind of endeavor,” but added: “I’m sure at one point we will.”

Secretary of State John Kerry (AP photo)

See the video here.

Obama never lets the facts get in the way of his faith in the global warming apocalypse

Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline with Joe Biden and John Kerry at his side. (White House photo)

Never let the facts get in the way of the optics.

Obama has rejected construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, it was in all the papers.

The wire story that bannered the front of the Las Vegas newspaper accurately quoted Obama as saying the debate over the pipeline proposals was overinflated and, “All of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”

The story also stated matter-of-factly that the “pipeline would have little impact on greenhouse gas emissions.”

Define little. The State Department actually said that not building the pipeline would increase greenhouse emissions by 28 to 42 percent more than if the pipeline were built, because the tar sands oil would still be produced but shipped in a less clean manner.

The rejection of the pipeline has nothing to do with whether it would be clean or dirty or produce good jobs, but perception. Obama said:

America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change.  And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.  And that’s the biggest risk we face — not acting.

Today, we’re continuing to lead by example.  Because ultimately, if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky.

Uninhabitable in our lifetimes? The predicted warming is 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 70 years.

The pipeline would have created 9,000 construction jobs and 40,000 ancillary jobs, but that does not cast a shadow over the optics.

Of course there were hosannas from the front pews of the church of green. “That gives him new stature as an environmental leader, and it eloquently confirms the five years and millions of hours of work that people of every kind put into this fight,” said Bill McKibben, founder of the climate group 350.org.

But nobody in the press is correcting them.

 

 

Obama administration resurrects his ban-the-bomb stance from his student days

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Secretary of State John Kerry talk about banning the bomb (Getty Images)

You may say he is a dreamer, but he’s not the only one.

Out of the blue the Obama administration’s Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz are calling for a new round of talks in an attempt to revive the nuclear test ban treaty that the Senate nixed in 1999.

After giving Iran the green light to develop its own nuclear weapons at some time in the vague future — after Obama is out of office presumably — now seems like an odd time to resurrect Obama’s youthful, naifish dream of a nuke free world.

“I don’t think I was that unique at that time,” Obama has since said of his 1983 article in a Columbia University publication calling for for nuke-free world, “and I don’t think I’m that unique today in thinking that if we could put the genie back in the bottle, in some sense, that there would be less danger — not just to the United States but to people around the world.”

Nevada Test Site bomb test (Nevada State Museum)

There hasn’t been a full-blown, so to speak, nuclear weapon test at the Nevada Test Site since 1992, according to a Review-Journal article by Keith Rogers.

“From 1951 through 1992, the test site’s role focused on full-scale tests of nuclear weapons. During that time, 100 were conducted in the atmosphere until the Limited Test Ban Treaty took effect in 1963. That was followed by 828 that rumbled through the desert after they were set off below ground in shafts and tunnels,” Rogers writes. “The last one, Divider, was conducted on Sept. 23, 1992. What followed was a moratorium that has been extended indefinitely.”

But what has followed are underground subcritical tests. There have been at least two dozen of those.

But those apparently would not violate a nuclear test ban treaty. According to Lawrence Livermore scientists, in these experiments chemical high explosives are detonated next to samples of weapons-grade plutonium to obtain information about what happens to the plutonium in a matter of microseconds. No critical mass is formed — no self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction or detonation.

Earlier this summer the Air Force did drop a dummy nuke bomb at the Tonopah Test Range. The tests are designed to assure the continued reliability of the weapon’s parts.

According to Politico, shortly after Kerry and Moniz started talking about a test ban treaty, Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican called the effort “almost comical.”

“It wasn’t in our national security interests then, it’s not in our interests now, and it won’t be in the future,” Cotton was quoted as saying in a statement. “If the Obama administration intends to ‘reopen’ the discussion over Senate ratification of the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) then I intend to ‘reopen’ the fight against it.”

How confident are we that our current nuclear weapons still work as intended after all these decades? Just asking.

 

The pope on climate change: Have faith and believe … and tithe, above all tithe

It seems entirely appropriate that a man whose life’s preoccupation is a matter of faith would go before Congress and preach about the need to combat climate change.

“I call for a courageous and responsible effort to ‘redirect our steps,’ and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States — and this Congress — have an important role to play,” Pope Francis said in his prepared speech.

“Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a culture of care and an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature,” the pope said.

Pay no attention to the fact that all the global warming models have been wrong for 20 years, have faith and believe. Oh yes, and tithe. Above all tithe — with higher power bills, a weaker economy and fewer jobs. This will affect especially the poor, who Obama and the pope claim to care about.

“The tremendous reduction in absolute poverty since 1990 — from about 50% to under 20% of the human race — has been driven in large part by increasing access to abundant, affordable, reliable energy derived mostly from fossil fuels,” said Cornwall Alliance Founder and National Spokesman Dr. E. Calvin Beisner. “It would be a great tragedy to slow, stop, or reverse that trend in the name of fighting global warming, a phenomenon that is turning out to be much smaller than earlier thought.”

Though the climate models predicted a warming of 0.3 degrees Celsius over the past 17 years, there has been none, even though the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere rose 8 percent during that time — which represents 34 percent of all extra CO2 added to the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution.

But I’m sure Harry Reid, John Kerry and Al Gore were in amen corner applauding the pope’s every word. Never let the facts get in the way of the other guy’s need to sacrifice for your cause.

 

But the pope also warned:

“We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind.”

To which we say, amen.

 

Trump is not a Republican

Donald Trump cannot call himself a Republican and contribute thousands of dollars to the likes of Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Charlie Rangel and Shelley Berkley.

Look it up on fec.gov.

His excuse? Just currying favors.

“As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal. “As a businessman, I need that.”

For no heed to how they were ruining the country and the economy, just look out for No. 1.

WSJ allowed as how Trump has given to more Republicans than Democrats over time, but …. he gave nearly $10,000 to Harry Reid and $5,000 to Ted Kennedy. Days after donating $2,000 to George W. Bush in 2003, he gave the same amount to John Kerry.

The paper didn’t bother to mention the $67,000 for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or the $24,000 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Trump also donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. WSJ said Trump was “practicing situational politics” — a polite way of saying turncoat?

Trump

 

Media shouting ‘Amen’ in the front pew of the Church of Global Warming

Obama and John Kerry don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society because global warming and extreme weather due to greenhouse gas emissions is a settled scientific fact. And Harry Reid is busily shutting down coal-fired power plants so his green energy campaign contributors can build expensive solar and wind farms on public land in the desert.

But, as Nicholas Loris at the Heritage Foundation points out, the facts have a way of clouding the narrative.

“The available climate data simply do not indicate that the earth is heading toward catastrophic warming or more frequent and severe natural disasters,” Loris writes. “Testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last December, Dr. Roger Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, emphasized that ‘there exists exceedingly little scientific support for claims found in the media and political debate that hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and drought have increased in frequency or intensity on climate timescales either in the United States or globally.’”

Though the climate models predicted a warming of 0.3 degrees Celsius over the past 17 years, there has been none, even though the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere rose 8 percent during that time — which represents 34 percent of all extra CO2 added to the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution. So why should we rely on the models to predict catastrophic warming in the future?

What are the benefits of eliminating carbon output, besides to Harry Reid’s contributors? The Heritage Foundation calculated that eliminating coal from America’s energy portfolio would within a decade kill nearly 600,000 jobs and cut the income of a household of four by more than $1,200 year.

“We could grind all economic activity to a halt, hold our breaths forever, and cut carbon emissions to zero in the U.S. — and still wind up lowering average temperatures by no more than 0.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century,” Loris reports. “And that’s using a climate calculator developed by the Environmental Protection Agency.”

But we must have faith and believe, climb into the front pew of the Church of Global Warming and shout, “Amen.” That’s what most in the media are doing.