“Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped an intelligence bombshell on the world Monday and, with it, may have signed the death warrant for the 2015 Iran nuclear accord: Thousands of files seized from inside Iran definitively prove that the Islamic Republic has been deceiving the international community all along. (Only those willing to be deceived!) The regime lied to the International Atomic Energy Agency about the existence of a nuclear-weapons program, and, in direct violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), hid its massive archive of nuclear knowhow.
The response from President Donald Trump should be no different than his response to North Korea: maximum pressure until the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
…In 2015, when the Obama administration negotiated the JCPOA, critics warned that Iran would ultimately follow in the footsteps of North Korea, which reached its own nuclear agreement with America in 1994.In that accord, known as the Agreed Framework, North Korea promised to freeze its production of plutonium in exchange for heavy fuel oil and light-water reactors.As it turned out, the North covertly developed a uranium-enrichment program, which, when combined with its unabated development of ballistic missiles, turned it from a national-security problem to a national-security nightmare.
Just two and a half years into the JCPOA, it appears Iran’s intentions are equally nefarious: It is using the JCPOA to buy time to regain economic strength while continuing work on ballistic missiles and advanced centrifuges until it decides to build nuclear weapons. The regime’s own archive, as revealed by Netanyahu, confirms that Tehran is on a slow but clear path toward nuclear capability.
…Iran and North Korea have a long history of nuclear cooperation — and of nuclear deception. Now is the time for President Trump to hold both rogue regimes to the same denuclearization standard.“
Here’s the juice:
As did everyone in the Obama Administration connected in any way with this perfidious pact. And their continued, dogged defense of the insupportable bespeaks their willingness to betray their country for purely political purposes.
Since we’re on the subject of well-practiced liars more than willing to sell out America for personal gain, as Dan Henninger records at the WSJ, these are…
James Comey’s Judgment Days
Comey was temperamentally unfit ever to be director of the FBI, and never more so than during Donald Trump’s presidency.
As contributor Speed Mach observed, we advise you have an air-sickness bag available as you watch James Comey utterly abase himself. The man has obviously lied but once in his life, and that continuously.
“…Who is James Comey?
…James Comey’s interior struggle appears on every page of his book. A few hundred words past the first page, Mr. Comey declares, “I have learned that ethical leaders lead by seeing beyond the short term, beyond the urgent, and take every action with a view toward lasting values.”
It is a most unusual man who takes “every action” with a view toward lasting values. But as Mr. Comey makes clear, he is that man. He spends eight pages on the moral justification for his decision to prosecute Martha Stewart while he was U.S. attorney in New York. “There was once a time,” he says, “when most people worried about going to hell if they violated an oath taken in the name of God.”
He explains how as a young 6-foot-8 man, he would tell people who asked that he did indeed play basketball in college, though he had not: “This was a seemingly small and inconsequential lie . . . but it was a lie nonetheless. And it ate at me. So after law school, I wrote to the friends I’d lied to and told them the truth.”
The Catholic tradition places great emphasis on the value of conscience as a guide to behavior. Less well-known is its warning against developing a “scrupulous conscience,” which is an obstinate fascination with one’s own moral standing.
Mr. Comey describes going to the FBI cafeteria while director: He “never cut the line. Even when I wished I could . . . I thought it was very important to show people that I’m not better than anyone else. So I waited.”
One could go on with examples of his high-minded earnestness, but that would require quoting the entire book: his account of prosecuting Scooter Libby or opposing the Bush administration’s post-9/11 surveillance program, Stellar Wind; his pre-emption of Attorney General Loretta Lynch during the Clinton email-server investigation; and, of course, his crucible with Donald Trump.
In an intriguing contrast to his disdainful accounts of Presidents Bush and Trump, he recounts going home after a meeting with President Obama to tell his wife: “I can’t believe someone with such a supple mind actually got elected president.” They have much in common.
In fact, James Comey was temperamentally unfit (and, in our opinion, morally!) ever to be director of the FBI, and never more so than in our intense times.
Mr. Comey’s daily visits to his personal chapel of an apolitical “higher loyalty” impaired his professional judgment. Instead, he is judgmental. Judgmentalism is a flaw in an FBI director, because it undermines the objective credibility of his role. A high officer of government shouldn’t see his job as doing battle with the seven deadly sins…”
Particularly when it’s so obvious he himself is guilty of at least three, possibly four of them.
Meanwhile, the WSJ‘s Kimberly Strassel explains…
“…The increasingly poisonous interaction between Congress and the Justice Department also stems from a growing list of questions Republicans have about leading Justice Department officials’ roles in the events Congress seeks to investigate. Mr. Rosenstein’s name was on at least one of the applications for a warrant on Carter Page to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Dana Boente’s name is on another, and he’s now serving as the FBI’s general counsel.
We can’t know the precise motivations behind the Justice Department’s and FBI’s refusal to make key information public. But whether it is out of real concern over declassification or a desire to protect the institutions from embarrassment, the current leadership is about 20 steps behind this narrative. Mr. Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe —they have already shattered the FBI’s reputation and public trust. There is nothing to be gained from pretending this is business as usual, or attempting to stem continued fallout by hiding further details.
This week’s events—including more flat-out subpoena defiance—put a luminous spotlight on Speaker Paul Ryan. The credibility of the House’s oversight authority (or more precisely, what’s LEFT of it!) is at stake. Mr. Ryan’s committee chairmen have done remarkable work exposing FBI behavior, and they deserve backup. The quickest way to get Justice and FBI to comply with these legitimate requests is for Mr. Ryan to state strongly and publicly that he has zero qualms about proceeding down the road of contempt or impeachment if House demands are not met. This is the people’s government, not the Justice Department’s.“
Though if this next item is any indication of Paul Ryan’s intestinal fortitude, events don’t bode well for the ultimate triumph of the truth:
In a Reversal, Speaker Ryan Asks House Chaplain to Remain in Post
Catholic priest said he was asked to resign last month in part because of a prayer about the Republican tax law
For those who tuned in late, the Jesuit’s political prayer opposing Republican-led tax reform led Ryan, quite legitimately, to question whether the Progressive padre could effectively counsel all the members of the House.
Were we Speaker Ryan, we’d have asked the good Father one, simple question: show us another prayer in which you asked for similar fairness in a Dimocratic bill and you can keep your position. Otherwise, it’s time you sought alternate employment.
Which brings us to The Lighter Side:
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with this depiction of the 2020 Dimocratic dream ticket, courtesy of Jimmy Crilley:
Magoo
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