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Politico Magazine published an excerpt from Ambassador Dennis Ross’ latest book “Doomed to Succeed: The US–Israeli relationship from Truman to Obama,” which highlighted how President Barack Obama succeeded with the Iran Deal at the expense of the two allies’ relationship. According to Ross, National Security Adviser Susan Rice told the national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abe Foxman that in reacting to the deal, which Israel knew little about, Netanyahu did everything “but use ‘the n-word’ in describing the president.” In his book, Ross argues that “It didn’t have to play out that way.” Per Politico: From the outset of...

Moscow (AFP) - Russian TV has taken its gung-ho coverage of air strikes in Syria to another level by airing cheery weather forecasts for its fighter jets bombing Syria. A female forecaster on the state-owned Rossiya 24 rolling news channel told viewers that Syria's weather in October was "ideal for carrying out operational sorties. ' Standing in front of an image of a bomber and the headline "Flying weather", the forecaster gave a straight-faced analysis of the perfect conditions for bombing. Light cloud cover "will not make flying more difficult and will not influence the systems for aiming weapons," she...

On September 3, 2015, not two months after the July 14 announcement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action at Vienna and its celebration at the White House and in Europe, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dropped a bombshell. In a speech to the Iranian Assembly of Experts, he backtracked from the agreement, demanding a new concession: that the sanctions be "lifted," not merely "suspended."[1] If that term is not changed, said Khamenei, there is no agreement. If the West only "suspends" the sanctions, he added, Iran will merely "suspend" its obligations. Giving further credence to his threat, he announced...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the UN General Assembly today in New York City. At one point the auditorium broke out is applause after Netanyahu’s comments on Iranian threats. The US delegates refused to applaud. Netanyahu told the General Assembly: “Here’s a general rule that I learned and you must have learned in your lifetime. When bad behavior is rewarded it only gets worse.” The General Assembly audience broke out in applause. The US delegates sat silent. US Delegates Refuse to Applaud Netanyahu at UN – Kerry and US Ambassador Power Skip Speech (VIDEO) Jim Hoft Oct 1st,...

Benjamin Netanyahu is the 11th scheduled speaker, after Georgia (9th) and Lesotho (10th). Live stream at link.

“The detonation of an improvised nuclear device would produce intense heat, resulting in many patients with severe burns,” says a September 30 news release from the Department of Health and Human Services. The announcement says HHS has contracted for the development of “four novel products to treat severe thermal burns.” The products will boost the number of treatment options in case of disaster, and they’ll also be used in “routine” burn care situations. The four treatments—one commercially available right now and three in development—“will be added to the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) or managed by vendors to help protect people...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flies to New York ahead of U.N. address on Thursday • "Each time that I address the U.N. I feel the privilege and great honor of telling the truth before the world on behalf of the citizens of Israel," Netanyahu says. During his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make the case against the nuclear deal world powers reached with Iran in July and sound the alarm on Islamic extremism, both in Israel and beyond. Netanyahu, who spoke with reporters at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Tuesday shortly before departing...

<p>TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian news agency says President Barack Obama and Iran’s foreign minister shook hands when they ran into one another on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.</p> <p>Tuesday’s report by the official IRNA agency quotes an unnamed diplomatic official as saying Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif came upon Obama “accidentally” and the two shook hands.</p>

President Obama chided Iran for focusing on violent rhetoric rather than doing work to advance its economic interests during his speech Monday before the United Nations General Assembly, saying that “chanting ‘death to America’ does not create jobs or make Iran more secure.” “That path is now available to a nation like Iran, which, as of this moment, continues to deploy violent proxies to advance its interests,” Obama said. “These efforts may appear to give Iran leverage in disputes with neighbors, but they fuel sectarian conflict that endangers the entire region and isolates Iran from the promise of trade and...

The Iranian president said that America's support for Israel provides an excuse for terrorism worldwide. "If we did not have the US military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the US’s unwarranted support for the inhumane actions of the Zionist regime against the oppressed nation of Palestine, today the terrorists would not have an excuse for the justification of their crimes," Rouhani said.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. Thomas Erdbrink, the Tehran bureau chief for The New York Times, looks at what message Mr. Rouhani has for international leaders and how it might be received. What’s different from the last time President Rouhani spoke to the General Assembly? Mr. Rouhani, Iran’s leader since 2013, now has something to show for his presidency at the assembly: He concluded a nuclear deal with six world powers, including Iran’s nemesis, the United States. And, for the first time in years, Iran can look forward to...

The Republican candidates for U.S. president who are attacking the nuclear deal with Iran could hardly find the country on a map, or know that Tehran is the capital, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Sunday. "Sometimes when I would have time, some of it was broadcast live and I would watch it -- some of it was quite laughable. It was very strange, the things that they spoke of," he said through an interpreter. "Some of them wouldn't even know where Tehran was in relation to Iran. Some of them didn't know where Iran was geographically,...

The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency insisted Monday that a probe of a suspected nuclear weapons research site in Iran does meet strict agency standards, while acknowledging that Iranian experts provided samples from the site for analysis. Such sampling is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told reporters that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested. The arrangement was first revealed in confidential draft agreement between the sides seen last month by The...

I suppose that headline is a bit optimistic -- the media is very good about suppressing stories that expose them as frauds; see the Gosnell coverage. But we're coming to a point where the media's continue refusal to acknowledge the obvious is going to become very embarrassing to them. IBD states the obvious. (I can't quote it because it's short, but it dispels so much of the previous myth-making here; do read it.) Suggesting, to me, that we're about to hit the moment of Peak Media Embarrassment is the fact that the tech community is now openly referring to this...

UNITED NATIONS: Pope Francis on Friday threw his support behind Iran's accord with major powers as he backed a goal of global abolition of nuclear weapons. The Iran agreement "is proof of the potential of political goodwill, exercised with sincerity, patience and constancy," Francis said in an address to the United Nations. "I express my hope that this agreement will be lasting and efficacious, and bring forth the desired fruits with the cooperation of all the parties involved," he said. Francis made his remarks a day after a friendly welcome at the U.S. Congress, where many Republican lawmakers have vehemently...

Each year the United States gives approximately $8 billion in mandatory payments and voluntary contributions to the United Nations and its affiliated organizations. The biggest portion of this money – about $3 billion this year – goes to the U.N.’s regular and peacekeeping budgets. If that seems like a lot, it is—far more than anyone else pays And it’s also, in some cases, bad value for money. The U.N. system for calculating member nations’ “fair share” payment toward its regular and peacekeeping budgets has increasingly shifted the burden away from the vast majority of the 193 members and onto a...

The sister of the boy who brought a suspected hoax-bomb to his Texas high school said she was suspended from a school in a prior bomb scare. Her suspension occurred in 2009 while she was attending middle school in the same district. Lesley Weaver, a spokeswoman for the district, said school officials can’t release any information about the 18-year-old sister’s episode because the Sudanese parents won’t sign the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, The school has already sent the form to the immigrant Sudanese parents, but they won’t sign it, she said. The sister is named Eyman Mohamed. “I...

Mayor Beth Van Duyne of Irving, Texas is blaming death threats received by Irving’s police chief, police officers, teachers and school administrators on President Barack Obama for his hasty support before the facts were known. Fourteen-year-old high school freshman Ahmed Mohamed was briefly arrested after bringing a suspicious ‘briefcase clock’ to school last week.Mohamed’s claim to have made the clock himself has been exposed by experts as a hoax. The experts state Mohamed took a manufactured digital alarm clock (a 1986 Radio Shack Micronta brand clock-radio) out of its housing and placed it in a pencil box that made it...

TEHRAN, Sep. 22 (MNA) – Iran’s Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces has said Iran’s forces ‘actively welcomes first strike by Israel against Iran only to precipitate their own annihilation.’ Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi who was talking to reporters on the sidelines of the Army parade held on the occasion of Sacred Defense Week, said that Iran had not perceived any threat by any of its neighbors; “we will definitely confront any threat and would wipe Israel out of the map; we actively welcome first strike and provocation by the Zionist regime only to initiate an operation which brings the regime...

60 Minutes traveled to Tehran for an interview with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani last week (whole thing and a little more here). Steve Kroft conducted the interview. Among other things, Kroft joined President Obama in defaming the American opponents of the deal with Iran. This is part and parcel of the operation of CBS News as an arm of the Democratic Party (see, e.g., Sharyl Attkisson’s invaluable memoir Stonewalled). David Rhodes is the president of CBS News and the brother of Obama national security adviser Ben Rhodes. But it is worse than that. There is a long and dishonorable tradition...