[VIDEO] SCHADENBONER: HBO’s Footage of Ben Rhodes On Election Night: ‘I Can’t Even…’
Posted: May 31, 2018 Filed under: Foreign Policy, Politics, White House | Tags: 2016 Presidential Election, Ben Rhodes, Hillary Clinton, video Leave a comment
John Sexton writes: There’s a certain view of Ben Rhodes which arose in the aftermath of the Iran deal and specifically after the publication of that infamous NY Times profile in which Rhodes talked about creating an “echo chamber” of know-nothing journalists to push the deal. After that story, it was easy to see him as a kind of Machiavellian character manipulating people from behind the scenes.
Ben Rhodes, assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications at the White House, answers a question during the Reuters Washington Summit in Washington, October 24, 2013. REUTERS/Jim Bourg.
There a good reason Rhodes does his best work behind the scenes. He’s just a really bad actor. I mean ‘bad actor’ in the theatrical sense, i.e. someone who is playing a part in our national story with such overwrought pathos that it becomes unintentionally funny …
“I came outside just to process all this,” Rhodes says to the camera. “I can’t even….ah…uh…I can’t…I mean I, I, I, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t put it into words, I don’t know what the words are.”
… Rhodes has a book coming out about his experience in the White House. The NY Times profile of it suggests Obama’s reaction to Hillary’s loss wasn’t much better:
Riding in a motorcade in Lima, Peru, shortly after the 2016 election, President Barack Obama was struggling to understand Donald J. Trump’s victory.
“What if we were wrong?” he asked aides riding with him in the armored presidential limousine.
He had read a column asserting that liberals had forgotten how important identity was to people and had promoted an empty cosmopolitan globalism that made many feel left behind. “Maybe we pushed too far,” Mr. Obama said. “Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”
His aides reassured him that he still would have won had he been able to run for another term and that the next generation had more in common with him than with Mr. Trump. Mr. Obama, the first black man elected president, did not seem convinced. “Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »
Report: U.S. Gives Israel Green Light to Assassinate Iranian General Soleimani
Posted: January 11, 2018 Filed under: Foreign Policy, War Room | Tags: Assassination, Ben Rhodes, General Soleimani, Iran, Israel, Middle East Leave a comment
Al Jarida, a Kuwaiti newspaper which in recent years had broken exclusive stories from Israel, says Israel was ‘on the verge’ of assassinating Soleimani, but the U.S. warned Tehran and thwarted the operation.
NYT Plays Defense For Iranian Mullahs: Demonstrators ‘Ignored Calls For Calm,’ Defied ‘Moderate’ Iranian Leadership
Posted: January 2, 2018 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Crime & Corruption, History, Mediasphere, Terrorism | Tags: Anti-Israel Bias, Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Bias, Erdbrink, Hamas, Iran, journalism, media, New York Times, President Rouhani 1 Comment
Ben Shapiro writes: On Monday, The New York Times ran the latest in a series of despicable pieces dedicated to making excuses for the tyrannical Islamist Iranian despotism. Here’s their tweet on the regime’s killing of dissidents:
Yes, it’s the fault of the demonstrators, who have somehow merely refused to heed the decent calls for calm from the Iranian mullahs. Oddly, The New York Times never has such words for Palestinian rioters who throw rocks at Israeli troops at the behest of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. When that happens, it’s Trump’s fault or the Jews’ fault. Somebody else’s fault, anyway.
But when it’s democracy-seeking Iranians, then they’re the problem.
The piece itself, by Thomas Erdbrink, is a disaster area. It contains lines like this one:
Despite Mr. Rouhani’s diplomatic language, it was clear the demonstrators would be given no leeway…Mr. Rouhani has urged demonstrators to avoid violence but defended their right to protest. He did so again on Monday on Twitter.
Rouhani is a tool of the regime, of course, and a radical Islamist to boot, as well as a Holocaust denier. But according to the Times, he’s a moderate:
This time, it is the failure of President Rouhani, a moderate, to deliver greater political changes and economic opportunity, despite the lifting of some of the sanctions against Iran as part of the nuclear deal. Young people are especially angry. The average age of those arrested is under 25, one official said.
And the protests are about economics, not about the repressive regime. Of course, the regime has spent billions of dollars on terrorism abroad, including the maximization of its bloodshed in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. But it’s just that the Iranian government hasn’t redistributed the oil wealth enough. The Iranians probably just need Bernie Sanders or something. Read the rest of this entry »
Iran Deal & Project Cassandra: Iran Echo Chamber Smears Politico Reporter
Posted: December 27, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Foreign Policy, Mediasphere, White House | Tags: #MediaBuzz, Akihabara, Ben Rhodes, Hezbollah, Iran, Iran Deal, journalism, Katherine Bauer, Matthew Continetti, POLITICO Magazine Leave a comment
Josh Meyer is not an ideologue, not a partisan, not a quack.
Matthew Continetti writes: ;Nothing has been more tedious over the last year than the constant reminders that good journalism is “now more important than ever.” The implication, of course, is that solid, groundbreaking reporting was not as essential so long as a liberal Democrat was in power. I’ve long assumed that the factotums mouthing such clichés lack the self-awareness to understand the true import of their words. But maybe I’ve been wrong. Recent days brought evidence that, no, liberals really mean it: The only meaningful investigative work is that which reflects poorly on Republicans.
“Meyer points to congressional testimony from former Treasury official Katherine Bauer, who said last February, ‘These investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.'”
Earlier this week, for example, Politico Magazine published a story by Josh Meyer headlined “The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook.” This epic and copiously sourced piece relates how, “in its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it [Hezbollah, not the Obama administration] was funneling cocaine into the United States.”
“President Obama, in other words, slow-walked counter-narcotics efforts for the inane ‘greater good’ of paying Iran billions to pretend to shut down its nuclear program for ten years. This is the very definition of ‘stupid stuff.'”
The law-enforcement program in question is called Project Cassandra, which for eight years “used wiretaps, undercover operations, and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.”
[Read the full story here, at National Review]
However, as investigators came closer to unraveling the globe-spanning conspiracy, “the Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force.” Linger over that last item for a second.
“Meyer is not an ideologue, not a partisan, not a quack. He worked for the Los Angeles Times, for NBC News, and for the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative before joining Politico as a senior investigative reporter. His Twitter feed contains plenty of criticisms of President Trump and congressional Republicans. And his story is solid.”
Meyer cites “dozens” of interviews and documents as evidence. He quotes a veteran U.S. intelligence operative — the sort of guy whose every utterance is anonymously paraded in the newspapers and magazines so long as it’s anti-Trump — who says, “This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision.” And the reason for this systematic decision, presumably, was to make Hezbollah’s Iranian backers more willing to deal with the Obama administration on nukes.
“He explores different angles and gives his subjects fair comment. He’s produced a classic example of the good journalism that our betters tell us we need more than ever. Except our betters don’t like it, not one bit, because it reflects poorly on the most significant – yet dubious and controversial – achievement of Barack Obama’s second term.”
Meyer points to congressional testimony from former Treasury official Katherine Bauer, who said last February, “These investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.” President Obama, in other words, slow-walked counter-narcotics efforts for the inane “greater good” of paying Iran billions to pretend to shut down its nuclear program for ten years. This is the very definition of “stupid stuff.”
“‘Non-fact based anti-Iran Deal propaganda,’ sneers former deputy national security adviser and creative-writing expert Ben Rhodes.”
Meyer is not an ideologue, not a partisan, not a quack. He worked for the Los Angeles Times, for NBC News, and for the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative before joining Politico as a senior investigative reporter. His Twitter feed contains plenty of criticisms of President Trump and congressional Republicans. And his story is solid. He explores different angles and gives his subjects fair comment. He’s produced a classic example of the good journalism that our betters tell us we need more than ever. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Krauthammer: On Possible Unmasking, Democrats ‘Are Pretending It Is Not an Issue’
Posted: April 3, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, Russia | Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Charles Krauthammer, Democrats, Spying, Surveillance, Susan Rice, Unmasking, video 1 CommentCharles Krauthammer argued that the Russian investigation now involves multiple issues, and that it is a partisan maneuver to say that one or another is the only one that matters.
Stephen Miller writes:
…As the facts about who surveilled whom during the transition get sorted out, it is useful to remember why Trump’s team and his supporters have reason to be suspicious, thanks to a long documented history of Obama using shady surveillance tactics on both political opponents and international allies. Rhodes himself knows this history but that doesn’t seem to matter as he once again attempts to make people believe he fell out of the sky and onto Twitter on January 21st, 2017.
To help jog Rhodes’ memory, below are all the documented instances of the Obama administration using and in some cases abusing surveillance.
1. Fox News reporter James Rosen
In 2013 the news broke that Eric Holder’s Justice Department had spied on James Rosen. Obama’s DOJ collected Rosen’s telephone records as well as tracked his movements to and from the State Department from where he reported. Rosen was named as a possible co-conspirator in a Justice Department affidavit. Rosen claims that his parents phone line was also swept up in the collection of his records and DOJ records seem to confirm that. Despite the targeting of Rosen, there were no brave calls to boycott the White House Correspondents Dinner.
2. Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA
CIA officers penetrated a network used to share information by Senate Intel committee members, including Sen. Diane Feinstein, the committee’s Democrat chair. The bombshell New York Times report went on to disclose:
The C.I.A. officials penetrated the computer network when they came to suspect that the committee’s staff had gained unauthorized access to an internal C.I.A. review of the detention program that the spy agency never intended to give to Congress. A C.I.A. lawyer then referred the agency’s suspicions to the Justice Department to determine whether the committee staff broke the law when it obtained that document. The inspector general report said that there was no “factual basis” for this referral, which the Justice Department has declined to investigate, because the lawyer had been provided inaccurate information. The report said that the three information technology officers “demonstrated a lack of candor about their activities” during interviews with the inspector general.
The Obama White House defended CIA director John Brennan’s actions and response. Imagine that.
3. Prism
In 2013, it was revealed how the Obama administration and NSA were facilitating a secret government mass surveillance program called Prism, because the name Orwell would have been too obvious, I guess. Read the rest of this entry »
Former Obama Officials, Loyalists Waged Secret Campaign to Oust Flynn
Posted: February 14, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Foreign Policy, Politics, White House | Tags: Advertising, Arrest, Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Donald Trump, Free Beacon, Iran Deal, Michael Flynn, National Security Agency, Obama administration, President of the United States, Republican Party (United States) 1 Comment
Sources: Former Obama officials, loyalists planted series of stories to discredit Flynn, bolster Iran deal.
Adam Kredo reports: The abrupt resignation Monday evening of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is the culmination of a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald Trump’s national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, 
according to multiple sources in and out of the White House who described to the Washington Free Beacon a behind-the-scenes effort by these officials to plant a series of damaging stories about Flynn in the national media.
The effort, said to include former Obama administration adviser Ben Rhodes—the architect of a separate White House effort to create what he described as a pro-Iran echo chamber—included a small task force of Obama loyalists who deluged media outlets with stories aimed at eroding Flynn’s credibility, multiple sources revealed.
The operation primarily focused on discrediting Flynn, an opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, in order to handicap the Trump administration’s efforts to disclose secret details of the nuclear deal with Iran that had been long hidden by the Obama administration.
“The Obama administration knew that Flynn was going to release the secret documents around the Iran deal, which would blow up their myth that it was a good deal that rolled back Iran. So in December the Obama NSC started going to work with their favorite reporters, selectively leaking damaging and incomplete information about Flynn.”
Insiders familiar with the anti-Flynn campaign told the Free Beacon that these Obama loyalists plotted in the months before Trump’s inauguration to establish a set of roadblocks before Trump’s national security team, which includes several prominent opponents of diplomacy with Iran. The Free Beacon first reported on this effort in January.
“After Trump was inaugurated some of those people stayed in and some began working from the outside, and they cooperated to keep undermining Trump. Last night’s resignation was their first major win, but unless the Trump people get serious about cleaning house, it won’t be the last.”
Sources who spoke to the Free Beacon requested anonymity in order to speak freely about the situation and avoid interfering with the White House’s official narrative about Flynn, which centers on his failure to adequately inform the president about a series of phone calls with Russian officials.
Flynn took credit for his missteps regarding these phone calls in a brief statement released late Monday evening. Trump administration officials subsequently stated that Flynn’s efforts to mislead the president and vice president about his contacts with Russia could not be tolerated.
[Read the full story here, at freebeacon.com]
However, multiple sources closely involved in the situation pointed to a larger, more secretive campaign aimed at discrediting Flynn and undermining the Trump White House.
“It’s undeniable that the campaign to discredit Flynn was well underway before Inauguration Day, with a very troublesome and politicized series of leaks designed to undermine him,” said one veteran national security adviser with close ties to the White House team. “This pattern reminds me of the lead up to the Iran deal, and probably features the same cast of characters.”
The Free Beacon first reported in January that, until its final days in office, the Obama administration hosted several pro-Iran voices who were critical in helping to mislead the American public about the terms of the nuclear agreement. This included a former Iranian government official and the head of the National Iranian American Council, or NIAC, which has been accused of serving as Iran’s mouthpiece in Washington, D.C. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Krauthammer: Obama Was Soft on Iran, Trump Says ‘Those Days Are Over’
Posted: February 5, 2017 Filed under: Foreign Policy, Mediasphere, Politics, Self Defense, Terrorism, War Room, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Charles Krauthammer, Donald Trump, Iran Deal, Islamism, Israel, Jihadism, media, Middle East, news, nuclear weapons, Sanctions, video 1 Comment
Fake News: Postmodernism By Another Name
Posted: January 28, 2017 Filed under: History, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Ben Rhodes, Broadway theatre, Clintons, Cultural Marxism, Donald Trump, fake news, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fiction, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Jonathan Gruber, journalism, Marxism, Postmodern, Postmodernism, Progressivism, The New York Times, Twitter, Victor Davis Hanson Leave a comment
Victor Davis Hanson writes: After the election, Democrats could not explain the inexplicable defeat of Hillary Clinton, who would be, they thought, the shoo-in winner in November. Over the next three months until Inauguration Day, progressives floated a variety of explanations for the Trump win—none of them, though, mentioned that the Clinton campaign had proven uninspired, tactically inept, and never voiced a message designed to appeal to the working classes.
When a particular exegesis of defeat failed to catch on, it was mostly dropped—and then replaced by a new narrative. We were told that the Electoral College wrongly nullified the popular vote—and that electors had a duty to renege on their obligations to vote for their respective state’s presidential winner.
“Fake news is something quite different. It is not merely a public figure’s spinning of half-truths. It is largely a media-driven, and deliberate attempt to spread a false narrative to advance a political agenda that otherwise would be rejected by a common-sense public.”
Then followed the narrative of Trump’s racist dog-whistle appeals to the white working classes. When it was reported that Barack Obama had received a greater percentage of the white votes than did either John Kerry in 2004 or Hillary Clinton in 2016, the complaint of white chauvinism too faded.
“The methodology is to manufacture a narrative attractive to a herd-like progressive media that will then devour and brand it as fact—and even lobby for government redress.”
Then came the allegation that FBI Director James Comey had given the election to Trump by reopening the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails just days before Election Day. That fable too evaporated when it was acknowledged that Comey had earlier intervened to declare Clinton without culpability and would so again before November 8.
[Read the more here, at Hoover Institution]
Then came the trope that Vladimir Putin’s hackers stole the election—on the theory that the Wikileaks revelations had turned off the electorate in a way the Clinton candidacy otherwise would not have. That storyline then evolved into the idea of Russian propagandists and Trump supporters variously peddling “fake news” to websites to promulgate myths and distortions—as a grand plan to Hillary Clinton and give Trump the election.
More specifically, it was alleged that Trump’s exaggerations and fabrications—from his allegations about Barack Obama’s birth certificate to rumor-mongering about Ted Cruz’s father—had so imperiled journalism that the media in general was forced to pronounce there was no longer a need to adhere to disinterested reporting in the traditional sense.
“No one has described the methodology of fake news better than Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor for Barack Obama and brother of the president of CBS News, David Rhodes.”
The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour confessed that they could not be fair in reporting the news in the era of Donald Trump. Apparently, being fair had become tantamount to being a co-conspirator in Trump falsity. The New York Times in a post-election op-ed explained why it had missed the Trump phenomenon, admitting, but not necessarily lamenting, that its own coverage of the election had not been fair and balanced.
“Ben Rhodes cynically bragged about how the Obama administration had sold the dubious Iran deal through misinformation picked up by an adolescent but sympathetic media (for which Rhodes had only contempt).
Yet all politicians fib and distort the truth—and they’ve been doing so since the freewheeling days of the Athenian ekklesia. Trump’s various bombastic allegations and claims fall into the same realm of truthfulness as Obama’s statement “if you like your health plan, you can keep it”—and were thus similarly cross-examined by the media.
“As Rhodes put it, ‘The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.’”
Yet fake news is something quite different. It is not merely a public figure’s spinning of half-truths. It is largely a media-driven, and deliberate attempt to spread a false narrative to advance a political agenda that otherwise would be rejected by a common-sense public. The methodology is to manufacture a narrative attractive to a herd-like progressive media that will then devour and brand it as fact—and even lobby for government redress.
[Read the full story here, at Hoover Institution]
Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen has never been to Prague to negotiate quid pro quo deals with the Russians. Trump did not watch Russian strippers perform pornographic acts in the bedroom that Barack Obama once stayed in during a visit to Moscow. Yet political operatives, journalists, and even intelligence officers, in their respective shared antipathy to Trump, managed to lodge these narratives into the public consciousness and thereby establish the “truth” that a degenerate Trump was also a Russian patsy.
No one has described the methodology of fake news better than Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor for Barack Obama and brother of the president of CBS News, David Rhodes. Read the rest of this entry »
Mark Hemingway: Scandals Aplenty
Posted: January 6, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, Terrorism, White House | Tags: ABC News, Ben Rhodes, Benghazi, Bowe Bergdahl, Candy Crowly, Charlie Rose, David Axelrod, David Remnick, Fast and Furious gunrunning, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Glenn Thrush, Lois Lerner, Mark Hemingway, Solyndra, The Weekly Standard Leave a comment 
The media just pretended they didn’t exist.
Mark Hemingway writes: As achievements go, this would be one in which a modern president could take pride. But in making the claim for himself, Obama proves he cannot even accurately describe the events of his presidency. His tenure saw an astounding number of scandals: Benghazi, Fast and Furious gunrunning, Solyndra and green energy subsidies for campaign donors, cash for Iranian hostages, IRS targeting of conservative groups, spying on journalists, Hillary Clinton’s private email server, the Veterans Administration disaster, trading deserter Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders held in Guantánamo, droning American citizens without due process, and firing inspector general Gerald Walpin for investigating an Obama crony who was abusing federal programs. And that list isn’t exhaustive.
The media have certainly tried their best to buttress Obama’s claim to have presided over a scandal-free administration—starting long before he even made it. In 2014, New Yorker editor and Obama biographer David Remnick told the (skeptical) host of PBS’s Charlie Rose that the president had already racked up “huge” achievements. On his list: “The fact that there’s been no scandal, major scandal, in this administration, which is a rare thing in an administration.”
[Read the full story here, at The Weekly Standard]
Remnick was hardly alone. Veteran journalist Jonathan Alter wrote a column for Bloomberg back in 2011 headlined “The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal.” More recently, Glenn Thrush, then a Politico reporter, tweeted, “As Obama talks up legacy on campaign trail important to note he’s had best/least scandal-scarred 2nd term since FDR.” Even conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks last year declared the Obama administration “remarkably scandal-free.”
Remnick’s remark is particularly notable for how it presaged White House talking points. Obama’s chief campaign strategist David Axelrod was asked at the University of Chicago in 2015 about the administration’s broken promise to bar lobbyists from working for it. Axelrod admitted things hadn’t been “pristine” but said, “I’m proud of the fact that, basically, you’ve had an administration that’s been in place for six years in which there hasn’t been a major scandal.”
As Noah Rothman observed in Commentary, “The qualifier ‘major’ lays the burden on shoulders of the press to define what constitutes a serious scandal, and political media had thus far reliably covered the administration’s ethical lapses as merely the peculiar obsessions of addlebrained conservatives.”
So what would constitute a “major” scandal? Would it involve, say, dead bodies? The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gave thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels; they used some of them to kill dozens of people, including American border patrol agent Brian Terry. When Congress tried to investigate why the ATF gave away so many guns and failed to track them, the Department of Justice engaged in unprecedented stonewalling.
The department withheld 92 percent of the documents requested and forbade 48 relevant employees from speaking to congressional investigators. Attorney General Eric Holder was ultimately held in contempt of Congress, with 17 Democrats supporting the measure. An explanation for why the ATF gave thousands of guns to violent criminals has yet to emerge—but we are to understand that this is not a “major” scandal. Read the rest of this entry »
OH YES THEY DID: Secret Document Lifts Iran Nuclear Constraints, Cuts Time Tehran Would Need to Build Bomb by Half
Posted: July 18, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Diplomacy, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: Associated Press, Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Britain, China, Diplomat, France, Iran, Islamism, nuclear, Nukes, RUSSIA, Vienna Leave a comment
Breakout time would be reduced to six months, or even less if the efficiency is more than double.
VIENNA (AP) — Key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program imposed under an internationally negotiated deal will ease in slightly more than a decade, cutting the time Tehran would need to build a bomb to six months from present estimates of a year, according to a document obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
The document is the only part linked to last year’s deal between Iran and six foreign powers that hasn’t been made public. It was given to the AP by a diplomat whose work has focused on Iran’s nuclear program for more than a decade, and its authenticity was confirmed by another diplomat who possesses the same document.
12 Times the Obama Administration Caved to Iran on Nuclear Deal
The diplomat who shared the document with the AP described it as an add-on agreement to the nuclear deal. But while formally separate from that accord, he said that it was in effect an integral part of the deal and had been approved both by Iran and the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, the six powers that negotiated the deal with Tehran.
[Read the full story here, at the Associated Press]
Details published earlier outline most restraints on Iran’s nuclear program meant to reduce the threat that Tehran will turn nuclear activities it says are peaceful to making weapons.
But while some of the constraints extend for 15 years, documents in the public domain are short on details of what happens with Iran’s most proliferation-prone nuclear activity – its uranium enrichment – beyond the first 10 years of the agreement.
The document obtained by the AP fills in the gap. It says that as of January 2027 – 11 years after the deal was implemented – Iran can start replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines.
Centrifuges churn out uranium to levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes to much higher levels for the core of a nuclear warhead. From year 11 to 13, says the document, Iran can install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as the 5,060 machines it is now restricted to using.
Those new models will number less than those being used now, ranging between 2,500 and 3,500, depending on their efficiency, according to the document. But because they are more effective, they will allow Iran to enrich at more than twice the rate it is doing now.
Secretary of State John Kerry and the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, at the State Department on Wednesday. Credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The U.S. says the Iran nuclear agreement is tailored to ensure that Iran would need at least 12 months to “break out” and make enough weapons grade uranium for at least one weapon.
But based on a comparison of outputs between the old and newer machines, if the enrichment rate doubles, that breakout time would be reduced to six months, or even less if the efficiency is more than double, a possibility the document allows for.
The document also allows Iran to greatly expand its work with centrifuges that are even more advanced, including large-scale testing in preparation for the deal’s expiry 15 years after its implementation on Jan. 18. Read the rest of this entry »
Champagne Memories: Celebrating Barack Obama and Ben Rhodes’ Proudest Achievement
Posted: May 24, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Diplomacy, Mediasphere, War Room, White House | Tags: Ali Khamenei, Ballistic missile, Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Fars News Agency, Iran, Islamic republic, Missile, North Korea, The Times of Israel, United Nations Security Council resolution, United States Leave a comment
Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei on Monday said the United States cannot “do a damn thing” about the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program.
“They have engaged in a lot of hue and cry over Iran’s missile capabilities, but they should know that this ballyhoo does not have any influence and they cannot do a damn thing,” Khamenei said, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.
[ALSO SEE – The Iran Deal Wasn’t About Nukes At All – thefederalist.com]
Iran in March tested ballistic missiles, including two with the words “Israel must be wiped off the earth” emblazoned on them, according to the US and other Western powers. Under a nuclear deal signed last year between world powers and Iran, ballistic missile tests are not forbidden outright but are “not consistent” with a United Nations Security Council resolution from July 2015, US officials say.
According to the UN decision, “Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology,” until October 2023.
“The US and other powers are extremely sad at this issue and they have no other option; that is why they made huge efforts in order to bring the country’s decision-making and decision-taking centers under their control, but they failed and God willing, they will continue to fail,” Khamanei said on Monday.
The supreme leader, who has final say on state matters, lambasted the “arrogant” Western powers, arguing that efforts to shut down its nuclear program and missile tests were a pretext to meddle in Iran’s affairs. Read the rest of this entry »
Hey POTUS: Foreign Policy Magazine Just Called Your Foreign Policy Advisor an Asshole
Posted: May 6, 2016 Filed under: Diplomacy, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Donald Trump, Foreign policy of the United States, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Iraq War troop surge of 2007, McGeorge Bundy, Robert Gates, The New York Times 2 Comments![May 1, 2012 - Air Force One - President BARACK OBAMA works on his address to the nation with BEN RHODES, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication, aboard Air Force One before landing in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama marked the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death with a speedy trip to Afghanistan, signing a strategic pact with Kabul on Wednesday and delivering an election-year message to Americans that the war is winding down. Shortly after arriving under the cover of darkness, Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a strategic partnership agreement at the Afghan leader's palace that sets out a long-term U.S. role in Afghanistan, including aid and advisers..(Credit Image: © Pete Souza/The White House/ZUMAPRESS.com) (Newscom TagID: zumaamericasfive761628.jpg) [Photo via Newscom]](https://punditfromanotherplanet.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/zumaamericasfive761628.jpg?w=590&h=390)
‘Kind of like McGeorge Bundy meets Lee Atwater’
Thomas E. Ricks writes: The profile of one Ben Rhodes running in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine is not unsympathetic, which makes it all the more devastating.
Perhaps the key sentence is this: “His lack of conventional real-world experience of the kind that normally precedes responsibility for the fate of nations — like military or diplomatic service, or even a master’s degree in international relations, rather than creative writing — is still startling.”
“Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
Rhodes comes off like a real asshole. This is not a matter of politics — I have voted for Obama twice. Nor do I mind Rhodes’s contempt for many political reporters: “Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
“Obama’s hasn’t been an original foreign policy as much as it has been a politicized foreign policy. And this Rhodes guy reminds me of the Kennedy smart guys who helped get us into the Vietnam War. Does he know how awful he sounds? Kind of like McGeorge Bundy meets Lee Atwater.”
But, as that quote indicates, he comes off like an overweening little schmuck. This quotation seems to capture his worldview: “He referred to the American foreign policy establishment as the Blob. Read the rest of this entry »
The Iran Deal in 26 Seconds: Ben Rhodes ‘Anytime, Anywhere’ ‘We Never Said That’
Posted: July 15, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Diplomacy, War Room, White House | Tags: Airbnb, Ali Akbar Velayati, Allahpundit, Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Centrifuge, Elliott Schwartz, Enriched uranium, International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran, Iran Deal, John Kerry, Nuclear program of Iran, Nuclear weapon, Nukes, Obama administration, Sanctions against Iran, Tehran, Twitter, United Nations Security Council, Vienna 1 Comment
The Iran deal in 26 seconds pic.twitter.com/sZRRgrHKTa
— Elliott Schwartz (@elliosch) July 15, 2015
Sean Davis writes:
“Obama’s deal to lift sanctions on Iran and allow it to continue the purchase and production of enriched uranium is so bad that his own staff can’t even figure out how to spin for it. It’s so bad that Obama’s opponents don’t even need to craft their own arguments against it — they can just recycle the Obama administration’s arguments against the deal…”
CBS, ABC News Censor Benghazi
Posted: May 3, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Ben Rhodes, Benghazi, CBS, CBS News, Robert Lovell, Sharyl Attkisson, United States, White House 1 Comment
For TownHall, Katie Pavlic writes:
(read more)…Two major pieces of news surrounding Benghazi happened this week. The first: Emails showing Ben Rhodes edited talking points, proving the White House had a direct role in editing after a previous denial. The second: Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell, who was in charge of Africa Command at the time of the Benghazi attack, said he was never given orders from the State Department to send help to Americans on September 11, 2012.
Guess who didn’t mention any of this on their broadcast last night? CBS News. Other networks also failed to cover the story.
NBC, CBS Ignore Congressional Hearing on Benghazi; ABC Gives It Only 46 Seconds http://t.co/HqCczxzzaF
— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) May 2, 2014
It’s no surprise CBS News repeatedly squashed investigations into Benghazi by investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. She left the network earlier this year.
REWIND: Hillary’s Benghazi Lie
Posted: May 3, 2014 Filed under: U.S. News, War Room, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Benghazi, Libya, Obama, Obama administration, Susan Rice, United States 1 Comment
Remembering the injustice done to the grieving father of an American hero.
For National Review Online, Mona Charen writes: The Ben Rhodes memo revealing the duplicity of this administration on the subject of Benghazi reminds us about the character of those involved. That President Obama could lie so evenly and so passionately (remember the second presidential debate?) is perhaps not surprising at this stage. But let’s not forget what it took for Mrs. Clinton to lie to the grieving father of an American hero.
First, a refresher on the facts (as they were certainly known to the principals):
A convoy of well-armed terrorists rolled into the complex housing the American consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. The attackers sealed off streets leading to the consulate with trucks and then commenced the attack on the building using rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s, mortars, and artillery mounted on trucks. Ambassador Chris Stevens called Deputy Chief of Mission Gregory Hicks for help, saying “Greg, we’re under attack.” Hicks, who was in Tripoli, conveyed this up the line, but no help arrived.
The terrorists killed Ambassador Stevens and another American and set the building ablaze. (Two more Americans would die later attempting to protect the annex.) As soon as the next morning, Congressman Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, described the attack as a “commando-style event” with “coordinated fire, direct fire, [and] indirect fire.” A few days later the Libyan president said that it was a planned terrorist attack. He also said that the idea that it was a “spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous.” Yet a well-orchestrated disinformation campaign by the Obama administration managed to put the press off the story and mislead the American people. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Jay Carney Trying to Explain Things
Posted: May 2, 2014 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Ben Rhodes, Benghazi, Jay Carney, Jonah Goldberg, Jonathan Karl, Susan Rice, United States, White House, YouTube 3 Comments“Snake experts believe this behavior occurs in sick animals that are unaware of what they are doing.”
(Blame Jonah Goldberg’s G-File for snake-eating mental image)
BREAKING: Boehner to Form Select Committee on Benghazi
Posted: May 2, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption | Tags: Americans, Ben Rhodes, Benghazi, John Boehner, Susan Rice, Trey Gowdy, White House 4 Comments
UPDATE: Other news organizations confirm the report below that House speaker John Boehner will announce the formation of a select committee on Benghazi, led by Rep. Trey Gowdy.
House Speaker John Boehner is “seriously considering” appointing a select committee to investigate the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, according to a senior GOP leadership aide. The move comes after the revelation of an email from a top Obama national security official, Ben Rhodes, instructing Susan Rice to focus on an anti-Muslim internet video to explain the attacks.
“For the first time we have clear and public evidence that the White House was more involved in misleading the American people than it had previous admitted. And, second, it’s now proven that the administration withheld relevant documents from a congressional subpoena request…”
“The new emails this week were the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says the aide. “The Speaker was furious to learn that the admininstration withheld relevant documents from a congressional subpoena. He’s sick and tired of this evasion and obstruction from the administration, and wants a solution to finally force accountability, get to the truth, and provide justice.”
“…the administration has now demonstrated it is willing to flagrantly defy such subpoena requests, compelling the House to consider taking the strongest actions possible in an effort to ensure Americans have the truth about what happened.”
Boehner, who has paid careful attention to the Benghazi developments since the attacks, has resisted calls to appoint a select committee, preferring to allow the various committees of jurisdiction to pursue investigations of their slices of the attacks on their own. Aides say Boehner continues to believe that the work of those committees has been valuable. “The current committees investigating the attack have done good work, using their authority, including subpoena authority, to gather facts, interview hundreds of witnesses, and conduct dozens of hearings. But this week’s events demonstrate a new level of stonewalling and obfuscation by the administration that requires a new level of investigation.”
RT to share the news: The House will vote to establish a new #SelectCommittee on #Benghazi. pic.twitter.com/zpKW4b4Cap
— Speaker John Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) May 2, 2014
REWIND: SPSCI White Paper Talking Points for Use with the Media 14 September 2012
Posted: May 1, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, War Room, White House | Tags: 2012 Benghazi attack, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, White House 1 Comment
[VIDEO] Ben Rhodes: Political Hack
Posted: May 1, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Daily Caller, David Plouffe, Jay Carney, Neil Munro, Obama, Rhodes, Susan Rice, White House 2 CommentsThe Arizona senator wants to see Rhodes and others involved subpoenaed under a congressional select committee. “We have never heard from many of the key players that were involved in that, including Ben Rhodes, who we now see used to be a spokesperson for the NSC [National Security Council], obviously was the political hack for the Obama reelect.”
The goal of the appearances, said Rhodes, is “to convey that the United States is doing everything that we can to protect our people and facilities abroad; [and] to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, not a broader failure of policy.”
…The email is black-and-white evidence of deception and spin by top White House officials, who have denied since shortly after the 2012 attack that they tried to portray it as an out-of-control protest. In fact, the Cairo demonstration — which was not blocked by the Obama-supported Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt — was organized to demand the release of a jihadi locked up in a U.S. jail…
— Neil Munro, White House Correspondent
Emails sent by senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes to other top administration officials reveal an effort to insulate President Barack Obama from the attacks that killed four Americans.
Rhodes sent this email to top White House officials such as David Plouffe and Jay Carney just a day before National Security Adviser Susan Rice made her infamous Sunday news show appearances to discuss the attack.
The “goal,” according to these emails, was “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”
Rice came under fierce criticism following her appearances on television after she adhered to these talking points and blamed the attack on a little-watched Internet video.
The newly released internal White House e-mails show that Rice’s orders came from top Obama administration communications officials.
“[W]e’ve made our views on this video crystal clear. The United States government had nothing to do with it,” Rhodes wrote in the email, which was released on Tuesday by the advocacy group Judicial Watch…
– Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon
New Benghazi E-mails Show White House Telling Rice to Play Up Video to Protect Obama
Posted: April 29, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Politics, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Benghazi, Catherine Herridge, Fox News Channel, Judicial Watch, Susan Rice, White House 2 Comments
For The Corner, Andrew Johnson writes:
New e-mails in the days after the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack reveal that the Obama White House urged Susan Rice to “underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video” ahead of her controversial Sunday-show appearances.
Documents obtained by Judicial Watch show deputy national-security adviser Ben Rhodes providing Rice, as well as others on the e-mail, with a list of “goals” for handling the attacks. Two of them:
- “To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”
- “To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”
He wrote that the president and administration “find [the video] disgusting and reprehensible,” but said that “there is absolutely no justification at all for responding to this move with violence.”
Additionally, Rhodes recommended Rice herald President Obama ahead of the upcoming elections…(read more) The Corner
And for Fox News, Catherine Herridge reports:
Newly released emails on the Benghazi terror attack suggest a senior White House aide played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances — where she wrongly blamed protests over an Internet video.
More than 100 pages of documents were released to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Among them was a Sept. 14, 2012, email from Ben Rhodes, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.
The Rhodes email, with the subject line: “RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET,” was sent to a dozen members of the administration’s inner circle, including key members of the White House communications team such as Press Secretary Jay Carney. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Obama Gives Rushed Speech to Tout Nuke Deal with Iran’s Theocracy
Posted: November 24, 2013 Filed under: Breaking News, Diplomacy, U.S. News, War Room, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Daily Caller, Iran, Iran's nuclear program, Obama, Saudi Arabia, United States, White House 2 Comments
Throughout the speech, the president repeatedly swiveled his head as if he were addressing a large audience.
Neil Munro writes: President Barack Obama used a seven-minute late-night TV speech to maximize the PR impact of his nuclear deal with Iran’s Islamist theocracy.
Throughout the speech, the president repeatedly swiveled his head as if he were addressing a large audience.
But there were only a few officials in the White House’s formal State Room as he read the speech from two teleprompters positioned to his left and right, according to the pool reporter.
“Good evening. Today, [swivel] the United States — together with our close [swivel] allies and partners — took an important [swivel] first step toward a comprehensive solution that addresses [swivel] our concerns with [swivel] the Islamic Republic of Iran’s [swivel] nuclear program,” he declared.
EXPOSED: Anonymous White House Tweeter Revealed, Fired
Posted: October 23, 2013 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, White House | Tags: Ben Rhodes, Daily Beast, Deputy National Security Advisor, Huma Abedin, John Kerry, Joseph, Twitter, White House Leave a commentJofi Joseph, an official in the National Security Staff at the White House, was fired last week after being caught as the tweeter behind @natsecwonk, a feed that’s been leaking internal information since 2011.
Josh Rogin reports: A White House national security official was fired last week after being caught as the mystery Tweeter who has been tormenting the foreign policy community with insulting comments and revealing internal Obama administration information for over two years.
“I’m a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me”
Jofi Joseph, a director in the non-proliferation section of the National Security Staff at the White House, has been surreptitiously tweeting under the moniker @natsecwonk, a Twitter feed famous inside Washington policy circles since it began in February, 2011 until it was shut down last week.
“My friends call me Batman,” he once tweeted.
Two administration officials confirmed that the mystery tweeter was Joseph, who has also worked at the State Department and on Capitol Hill for Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Joe Biden. Until recently, he was part of the administration’s team working on negotiations with Iran.
During his time tweeting under the @natsecwonk name, Joseph openly criticized the policies of his White House bosses and often insulted their intellect and appearance. At different times, he insulted or criticized several top White House and State Department officials, including former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, Secretary of State John Kerry, and many many others. Read the rest of this entry »
pundit from another planet 