[VIDEO] Copy of Iran ‘side deal’ backs reports Tehran would have major role in nuke site inspections

A draft document exclusively obtained by Fox News supports reports that Iran would play a major role in inspections at its controversial Parchin nuclear site, by providing U.N. inspectors with crucial materials. 

The so-called side deal, labeled "Separate arrangement II," says Iran will "provide to the [International Atomic Energy Agency]" photos and videos of locations and environmental samples, "taking into account military concerns." 

Details of the arrangement were first reported by the Associated Press. 

CLICK TO READ THE AGREEMENT

The agreement also provides that the agency would ensure the "technical authenticity" of activities -- in other words, ensuring nuclear work was not meant for weapons development -- but the IAEA would use Iran's "authenticated equipment." 

This would be followed by a visit from the IAEA director general. 

The details of the agreement for Parchin, where Iran has long been suspected of trying to build nuclear weapons, have fueled concerns from critics. 

"The agreement looks like Iran calls the shots, vetoing technical inspections when they want, where they want at the Parchin military site," House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said in a statement. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News the side agreement is a "joke" and threatened to withhold millions of taxpayer dollars "until I get to look at this side deal." 

The IAEA, though, has called the original AP report -- which also suggested Iran would be able to self-police inspection of the Parchin site and use its own experts -- a misrepresentation. 

"I am disturbed by statements suggesting that the IAEA has given responsibility for nuclear inspections to Iran. Such statements misrepresent the way in which we will undertake this important verification work," IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said in a statement. 

A senior Obama administration official also told Fox News, "There is no 'self-inspection' of Iranian facilities, and the IAEA has in no way given responsibility for nuclear inspections to Iran. Not now and certainly not in the future." 

The official called the IAEA-Iran arrangements "technically sound and consistent with the agency's long-established practice." 

Via: Fox News

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Not News: Unarmed White Teen Killed by Cop; Two White Cops Killed by Blacks by Larry Elder

The media enthusiastically remind us that it's the first anniversary of the death of Ferguson's Michael Brown, a death that spawned the so-called Black Lives Matter movement.

In a September speech at the United Nations, President Barack Obama said, "The world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri -- where a young man was killed, and a community was divided."

Never mind that both a grand jury and the federal Department of Justice exonerated the officer who shot and killed Brown. Never mind that neither the physical evidence nor eyewitness testimony corroborated the assertions that Brown had his hands up or that he said, "Don't shoot."

Never mind that cops, fearing false accusation of racial profiling and police brutality, are increasingly reluctant to engage in proactive policing -- to look for suspicious activity in an effort to prevent crime. As a result crime has gone up, particularly in cities with high-profile cases of alleged racial profiling.

Call it the "Ferguson effect."

In New York City a black man, Eric Garner, was killed by police in 2014 as he resisted arrest. A grand jury found insufficient grounds to indict any of the officers involved. Still it became a cause celebre. In New York City, shootings rose 20 percent during the first half of 2015, compared to the previous year.

In Baltimore, Freddie Gray, a black man who resisted arrest, was placed in a police van, slipped into a coma shortly after arriving at the station and died a week later. Days of riots followed and six officers were indicted in connection with Gray's death. During the riots, Baltimore's mayor told the police, as she put it, to give "those who wished to destroy space to do that." Cops got the message. As in New York, they backed off, doing little more than responding to radio calls -- no more proactive policing. As a result, Baltimore is experiencing crime levels unseen in decades. Murders have increased 48 percent in the first six months of 2015 -- with most of the homicides occurring after Freddie Gray's April 19 death.

Never mind, according to the Centers for Disease Control, police shootings of blacks are down almost 75 percent over the last 45 years, while police shooting of whites remained level. And never mind that the media engages in selective concern.

Selective concern?

In just the last two weeks, two cops, who happened to be white, were killed by two suspects, who happened to be black. And an unarmed white teen was killed by a cop.

In Tennessee, Memphis police Officer Sean Bolton approached an illegally parked car, apparently interrupting a drug deal that was taking place inside. The car's passenger got out, engaged Bolton in a physical struggle and shot the officer multiple times. Bolton, a 33-year-old Marine vet who served in Iraq, died at the hospital. After a two-day manhunt, the murder suspect, on a supervised release following a bank robbery conviction, turned himself in.

In Louisiana, Shreveport Officer Thomas LaValley was dispatched to investigate a potential prowler, an armed man reportedly threatening a family member inside a house. When LaValley arrived, he was shot multiple times, and pronounced dead at the hospital. The alleged shooter, wanted on an attempted second-degree murder charge for a shooting three weeks earlier, was captured the next day.

In South Carolina, an unarmed teenager was shot and killed by a cop. Zachary Hammond, 19, was out on a first date when he was fatally shot by a Seneca police officer during a drug bust. His date, who was eating an ice cream cone at the time of the shooting, was later arrested and charged with possession of 10 grams of marijuana. The shooting is under investigation. But the police claim Hammond was driving his car toward the police officer who was attempting to make the stop, an act that resulted in the officer firing two shots, striking Hammond in the shoulder and torso.

The Hammond family wonders why so little national attention has been focused on their son's death. "It's sad, but I think the reason is, unfortunately, the media and our government officials have treated the death of an unarmed white teenager differently than they would have if this were a death of an unarmed black teen," said Eric Bland, the family's attorney. "The hypocrisy that has been shown toward this is really disconcerting. The issue should never be what is the color of the victim. The issue should be: Why was an unarmed teen gunned down in a situation where deadly force was not even justified?" 

COPYRIGHT 2015 LAURENCE A. ELDER

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM 

Via: Real Clear Politics

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Obama Turns to U.N. to Outmaneuver Congress

Last March, 47 Republicans led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote a letter warning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that a future U.S. president could legally revoke any nuclear deal that had been negotiated by Barack Obama’s administration with the stroke of a pen. They clearly didn’t realize that the White House has a way of making that much harder to do.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, on Monday circulated a legally binding draft to the 15-member U.N. Security Council that, if adopted, would give the body’s backing to the landmark nuclear pact trading billions of dollars in sanctions relief for greater international scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear energy program. It also instructs states to refrain from taking any actions that would undermine the agreement. The 14-page draft resolution, obtained by Foreign Policy, is likely to be put to a vote by early next week.

The decision to take the deal to the Security Council before the U.S. Congress has concluded its own deliberations on the agreement places lawmakers in the uncomfortable position of potentially acting contrary to a resolution that is binding on the administration by voting down the deal. The strategy has infuriated some Republican lawmakers, who see the administration making an end run around Congress.

During a Tuesday phone call to Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) pressed him to put off a Security Council vote. “I urged that the Obama administration not seek action at the U.N. Security Council on the agreement before Congress can review it in detail during the legislatively mandated congressional review period,” Royce said in a statement.

Congress is currently weighing whether to accept or reject the deal brokered by the United States, Iran, and five world powers. Under the terms of a U.S. law passed this year, lawmakers can prevent the president from lifting congressional sanctions on Iran, which would blow up the landmark nuclear deal.

Via: Foreign Policy

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Law Prof.: Obama’s Climate Agenda Is About Changing The Constitution

President Barack Obama’s push to unilaterally commit the United States to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions in the coming years is about changing the constitutional system that similarly hampered former President Bill Clinton’s global warming goals, according to a law professor.

In a congressional hearing Thursday, George Mason University law professor Jeremy Rabkin told lawmakers that Obama’s argument that he unilaterally commit the U.S. to a United Nations agreement without Senate ratification was “a real change in our Constitution.”

“So, now we’re going to have some body, in some entity, in some foreign country that’s going to be directing us?” Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions asked Rabkin during Thursday’s hearing on Obama’s emissions-reduction promise to the United Nations.

“We have certain background assumptions about how our government is supposed to work, that’s why we have a Constitution,” Rabkin responded.

“And what this is fundamentally about is saying, ‘ah, that’s old-fashioned, forget that, that didn’t work for [President Bill] Clinton– we’re moving forward with something different which the president gets to commit us,’” Rabkin added. “That’s a real change in our Constitution.”

Late last year, Obama committed the U.S. to cut CO2 emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025. Obama made the pledge in conjunction with China’s government, which promised to merely peak its CO2 emissions by 2030. Republicans immediately came out against Obama’s pledge, saying it was unworkable and they wouldn’t ratify it.

The threat of Senate opposition successfully scared Clinton into abandoning his plan to get lawmakers to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in the 1990s, but the Obama administration is arguing its international climate pledge doesn’t even need congressional approval.

The U.S. submitted a document to the UN last year that suggested a “bifurcated approach” to a deal on global warming. The president says it is not a treaty the Senate needs to ratify, as it requires every country to submit individual CO2-reduction promises they will use domestic policies to achieve.

Obama wants to make signing a global climate deal part of his presidential legacy, but knows such an agreement would never be ratified by a Republican-controlled Senate. Therefore, the administration is doing everything it can to argue a UN deal would not need lawmakers’ approval.

Here’s the problem, though: Any promise made by Obama to the international community on this scale would likely need to be ratified by the Senate in order to be considered a treaty, according to Rabkin.

“The word treaty is usually reserved for things that are ratified by the Senate,” he told lawmakers.

Via: Daily Caller

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The Americans are coming! Some in a Texas county fear an Obama-led U.S. military invasion.

Bastrop County Republican Chairman Albert Ellison outside the GOP Headquarters in Bastrop, TX: “The Obama administration has a history of attacking Texas.” (Erich Schlegel/For The Washington Post)

By Kevin Sullivan July 4 at 8:32 PM  

BASTROP, Texas — The office of the Bastrop County Republican Party is in an old lumber mill on Main Street, with peeling brown paint and a sign out front that captures the party’s feelings about the Obama administration: “WISE UP AMERICA!”

Inside, county Chairman Albert Ellison pulled out a yellow legal pad on which he had handwritten page after page of reasons why many Texans distrust President Obama, including the fact that, “in the minds of some, he was raised by communists and mentored by terrorists.”

So it should come as no surprise, Ellison said, that as the U.S. military prepares to launch one of the largest training exercises in history later this month, many Bastrop residents might suspect a secret Obama plot to spy on them, confiscate their guns and ultimately establish martial law in one of America’s proudly free conservative states.

They are not “nuts and wackos. They are concerned citizens, and they are patriots,” Ellison said of his suspicious neighbors. “Obama has really painted a portrait in the minds of many conservatives that he is capable of this sort of thing.”

Across town at the Bastrop County Courthouse, such talk elicits a weary sigh from County Judge Paul Pape, the chief official in this county of 78,000 people. Pape said he has tried to explain to folks that the exercise, known as Jade Helm 15, is a routine training mission that poses no threat to anyone.

Bastrop City Council member Dock Jackson, 62: “I don’t think we would have seen this kind of reaction if he weren’t African-American.” (Ilana Panich-Linsman/For The Washington Post)

Pape chaired a public meeting this spring and invited a U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesman to answer questions about Jade Helm. The meeting drew more than 150 people carrying signs that read “No Gestapo in Bastropo,” “Keep America Free” and “Dissent is Not a Conspiracy Theory.” Some asked whether the Army was bringing in Islamic State fighters, if the United Nations would be involved, and whether the military was planning to relieve local gun owners of their firearms.

Via: Washington Post

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[VIDEO] EXCLUSIVE: Bolton: Everyone’s Underestimating Walker, And Here’s Where He’ll Hit Hillary

Republican presidential contender Gov. Scott Walker is seen as a top presidential pick with one big weakness: a lack of foreign policy experience. As a Midwestern governor critics say he hasn’t built the foreign policy chops necessary to lead in our tumultuous world, but former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton has one thing to say to those critics.

What do you think?

You’re underestimating him.

What do you think?

In a sit-down interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation, Bolton said some people assume Walker lacks foreign policy credibility, and Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton’s got a long tenure at State to hold over his head.

What do you think?

But not so fast.

“When it comes to foreign policy, Hillary has such a long string of notable failures and scandals, that what is often overlooked is … while she was at the State Department and the Obama Administration, the Middle East fell into turmoil, we alienated our close ally, Israel, Russia set the stage for war and expanding its influence in Europe, and China expanded their island building in international waters,” Bolton said.

What do you think?

Russia, Israel, China and the Middle East are at the very least four pretty big weaknesses to exploit, he said. Clinton, in Bolton’s view, lacks the ability to make the big, tough policy decisions.

What do you think?

“I think foreign policy, in many respects for many voters, is a surrogate for leadership,” Bolton told TheDCNF. “The voters are not going to get involved in the intricacies, they don’t care if somebody can name the prime minister of Uganda, that’s not really the test for them. They want to look at the candidates and say ‘I think that one can make the big decisions.'”

Via: Daily Caller

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[VIDEO] NYT Report: Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Has Grown 20% Over Last 18 Months Of Negotiations, State Department’s Harf “Totally Perplexed”…

International inspectors report that Iran's stockpile of nuclear fuel has increased about 20 percent over the past 18 months of negotiations, according to The New York Times.

The increase in Iran's stockpile was based on a report issued Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors nuclear programs for the United Nations.

The report also said Iran had stopped producing certain types of highly enriched uranium since January, 2014 and halted work on facilities capable of producing nuclear bombs.

The Times noted that should negotiators finalize a deal before a June 30 deadline, Tehran would have to reduce its stockpile by more than 9 tons within months.

The newspaper also reported that Western officials and experts were unsure how or why Iran's stockpile had increased. Some have speculated it was to give them leverage in talks.

The Obama administration has long maintained that Tehran's nuclear program has been "frozen" as international negotiators work to secure a deal with new limits.

A deal brokered between the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China with Iran would lift some sanctions on Iran in exchange for new limits on its nuclear program.

A framework outlined April 2 would force Iran to reduce its nuclear stockpile to 300 kilograms, or about 660 pounds.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who has led U.S. talks to secure a deal, met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Saturday in Geneva.

Kerry cut short his trip and returned to Boston on Monday after a cycling accident in France over the weekend left him with a broken leg.

The State Department maintains the June 30 deadline remains set.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest described the report from international inspectors as just a "snapshot in time" amid ongoing talks.

Via: The Hill

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Memorial Day 2015

We need to remind ourselves that Memorial Day is not just another three-day weekend or a day when all manner of sales are offered to those who want to go shopping. It is a day set aside to honor the ultimate sacrifice of those who have fought to defend our nation and take military action in foreign nations. We honor, too, those who suffered wounds and returned home.

We like to think of America as a nation that has gone to war only when we had to, but a new book, “America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or Been Invaded with Almost Every Country on Earth” tells a different story based on history.

As documented by its authors, Christopher Kelly and Stuard Laycock, America, “has invaded or fought in eighty-four out of 194 countries (countries recognized by the United Nations and excluding the United States) in the world. That’s 43 percent of the total. And it hasn’t been militarily involved with just ninety or a hundred countries. It has had some form of military involvement with a spectacular 191 out of 194. That’s more than 98 percent.”

“Most people,” the authors note “would probably agree that much of what America has done around the world has clearly been wise and noble (as in helping liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny.) Some, however, have been wrong and/or unwise. And some of what America has done has been in-between. In some sense, it’s like looking at the history of one’s own family. And, indeed, all of it—the liberations, the fiascos, and follies—is, in some sense, part of the history of every American citizen.”

That’s why it is a good idea to pause on Memorial Day because as an American it is part of your history. “Americans are always hoping for peace but usually preparing for war” says the authors who remind us that “the American eagle is an ambivalent bird holding arrows in the talons of one foot and an olive branch in the other.”

Via: Canada Free Press

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EPIC FAIL: UN climate talks fall apart as 132 countries storm out

Poor countries pulled out of the United Nations climate talks during a fight over transferring wealth from richer countries to fight global warming.

The G77 and China bloc led 132 poor countries in a walk out during talks about “loss and damage” compensation for the consequences of global warming that countries cannot adapt to, like Typhoon Haiyan. The countries that left claim to have the support of other coalitions of poor nations, including the Least Developed Countries, the Alliance of Small Island States and the Africa Group.

Poor countries have demanded that the developed world give them $100 billion annually by 2020 to prepare for the impacts of global warming, such as heat waves and droughts. Brazil even put forward a proposal last week that would have made rich countries pay for historical greenhouse gas emissions.

Via: Daily Caller

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Shutdown Delays U.N. Probe of U.S. Human Rights Record; GOP Blamed

(CNSNews.com) – A United Nations’ review of the United States’ compliance with international human rights norms will not happen as scheduled because of the partial government shutdown, and the chairman of the reviewing body blames the Republican Party.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Committee was due to have examined the U.S. record on Thursday and Friday, but reluctantly agreed to postpone the session at the request of the U.S. government.

The discussion, which is expected to include scrutiny of such controversial issues as Guantanamo Bay detentions, National Security Agency surveillance and “stand your ground” laws, has been moved to next March.

The committee’s chairman, Nigel Rodley, said as he opened a three-week session on Monday that the panel was normally unwilling to grant extensions at short notice, but he felt he had no choice on this occasion.

The U.S. delegation had made it clear that it was willing to participate in the scheduled review, but could not, “for reasons that had been widely covered in the media.”

Rodley, a British international law professor, then went further, laying the blame for the rare postponement squarely at the door of the GOP and its stance on Obamacare.

Via: CNS News
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UN climate report sneaks in worldwide carbon emissions limits

The United Nations’ climate report has already garnered criticism from scientists, but now fights are brewing around the 2,200-page document’s advocacy for a global cap on carbon dioxide emissions.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its fifth assessment of the Earth’s climate which asserted “95 percent” certainty that global warming was manmade while receiving criticism for glossing over the lack of significant warming in the last 15 years.

One highly contentious paragraph in the report states that society cannot emit more than one trillion tons of carbon dioxide for global temperatures not to warm more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

“[F]or warming due to CO2 emissions alone to be likely less than 2°C at the time CO2 emissions cease, total cumulative emissions from all anthropogenic sources over the entire industrial era would need to be limited to about… one trillion tonnes of carbon,” reads the report.

More than half of this carbon allowance has been used, according to the New York Times, and the report’s authors noted that carbon emissions would have to be limited even more than one trillion tons once other greenhouse gases other than carbon are taken into account.

“Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time,” said Thomas F. Stocker, IPCC co-chairman. “In short, it threatens our planet, our only home.”

UN scientists have not so subtly suggested that countries effectively limit their economic development, since the carbon-intensive energy is the main driver behind rapid industrialization in developing nations like China and India. This suggestion of a global carbon cap was not welcomed by developing nations who fear that their share of the emissions “pie” would be diminished through bullying from developed countries.

“Despite a concerted disinformation campaign to the contrary, there has been no increase in hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or droughts over the past 50 years—a period over which we supposedly used half of our carbon budget for all time,” economist David Kreutzer of the conservative Heritage Foundation told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Via: Daily Caller

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Kerry to sign UN arms treaty opposed by Senate, NRA

Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to sign an arms trade treaty opposed by the Senate and the gun lobby as early as Wednesday, and Republicans aren't happy about it.

Kerry's plan to sign the treaty on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City this week has sparked immediate criticism from GOP opponents. 

“This treaty is already dead in the water in the Senate, and they know it,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services. “The Administration is wasting precious time trying to sign away our laws to the global community and unelected U.N. bureaucrats.”

A majority of Senate oppose the treaty because it covers small arms, making ratification impossible in the short term.

Kerry had already announced in June that the administration would sign the treaty as soon as it was satisfied with its translations into the different official U.N. languages. Reuters reported that he is likely to sign the treaty this week.

The news sparked immediate criticism from Republicans. 

An Inhofe amendment to the Senate Budget resolution in March blocking the U.S. from joining the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty garnered 53 “yes” votes.

The National Rifle Association insists the pact is a U.N.-backed gun grab. Advocates of the treaty say it's only aimed at regulating international sales to prevent terrorists and other rogue actors from getting their hands on weapons.

Via: The Hill

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SMUG AS ALWAYS

President Obama told the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday morning that the “world is more stable now than it was five years ago.”

“Just as we reviewed how we deploy our extraordinary military capabilities in a way that lives up to our ideals, we’ve begun to review the way that we gather intelligence so that we properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share,” he said.

“As a result of this work and cooperation with allies and partners, the world is more stable than it was five years ago,” he added.

Obama did note, however, that “dangers remain.”

“Even a glance at today’s headlines indicates that dangers remain,” Obama said. “In Kenya we’ve seen terrorists target innocent civilians in a crowded shopping mall, and our hearts go out to the families of those who have been affected. In Pakistan nearly 100 people were recently killed by suicide bombers outside a church. In Iraq killings and car bombs continue to be a terrible part of life.”

“Meanwhile, al-Qaida has splintered into regional networks and militias which doesn’t give them the capacity at this point to carry out attacks like 9/11, but it does pose serious threats to governments and diplomats, businesses and civilians all across the globe.”

Shortly before Obama took the stage, according to the Guardian, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff offered a strong condemnation of America’s National Security Agency surveillance.

Via: Daily Calller

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PUTIN: A Plea For Caution From Russia: "Recent Events...Have Prompted Me To Speak Directly To The American People and...leaders"

By: Vladimir V. Putin (Op-Ed; New York Times)

Recent events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.
Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

Via: Fox News

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Obama: I'm Bypassing the 'Hocus Pocus' of the United Nations

President Obama said that the U.S. talk of military action in Syria is bypassing the "hocus pocus" of the U.N.:

"Frankly, if we weren't talking about the need for an international response right now, this wouldn't be what everybody would be asking about," said Obama at a press conference this morning. "You know, there would be some resolutions that were being proffered in the United Nations and the usual hocus pocus, but the world and the country would have moved on. So trying to impart a sense of urgency about this, why we can't have an environment in which over time, people start thinking this we can get away with chemical weapons use--it's a hard sell, but it's something I believe in."

Via: The Weekly Standard

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