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Day 321 Of The Dictatorship Of COVID-19, Day 321 Of America And The World Held Hostage Back in 1979 Americans taken hostage in Iran and ABC News coining the phrase "America Held Hostage" as illustrated in this first of many late night special reports... And here we are in 2021 the Dictatorship of COVID-19 and Americans held hostage like Gayle Meyer... Don McLean's "American Pie" was all over the radio back in 1972 and many phrases in that song including "The Day The Music Died". It will be 62 years ago this Wednesday "The Day The Music Died" February 3,...

On Saturday, the State Department secured the release of Xiyue Wang, an American graduate student who was being held prisoner in Iran for the past three years. Wang had been conducting research in Iran as part of his doctoral thesis when he was arrested in 2016 and charged with spying for the United States government.  As part of the exchange, the U.S. released Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian scientist who had been arrested and convicted last year for violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. According to The New York Times, U.S. officials are calling Soleimani's release a low price to pay...

Given that Mika Brzezinski's late father Zbigniew served as Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, you knew that Morning Joe would go out of its way to celebrate Carter on the occasion of his becoming the oldest living former President. And sure enough, on today's show, Joe Scarborough glorified Carter as an "extraordinary human being, a wonderful man," working in a gratuitous swipe at President Trump by adding, "just a great contrast with, unfortunately, what we're struggling through right now." Scarborough commended Carter for Camp David, and even claimed that his support for human rights contributed to the fall of the...

Ken Taylor, Canada's ambassador to Iran who sheltered Americans at his residence during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis has died. He was 81. Taylor's wife, Pat, said Ken died Thursday after a two-month battle with colon cancer. Taylor kept the Americans hidden at his residence and at the home of his deputy, John Sheardown, in Tehran for three months. Taylor facilitated their escape by arranging plane tickets and persuading the Ottawa government to issue fake passports. Born in 1934 in Calgary, Taylor was heralded as a hero for helping save the Americans -- a clandestine operation that had the full...

Martin Williams was a First Secretary at the British Embassy in Iran when militants invaded the US Embassy in November 1979, taking 52 hostages and sparking an international crisis that lasted 14 months. In his Oscar-winning film Argo, director and star Ben Affleck tells how six American diplomats hid in the Canadian Ambassador’s house in Tehran until the CIA arranged an ingenious escape plan – after they had been callously turned away when they sought shelter at the British Embassy. Here Mr Williams, 71, who later was High Commissioner to Zimbabwe and New Zealand, says this is a gross misrepresentation...

For example, one will virtually never hear that the Palmer Raids, Prohibition, or American eugenics were thoroughly progressive phenomena. These are sins America itself must atone for. Meanwhile, real or alleged “conservative” misdeeds — say McCarthyism — are always the exclusive fault of conservatives and a sign of the policies they would repeat if given power. The only culpable mistake that liberals make is failing to fight “hard enough” for their principles. Liberals are never responsible for historic misdeeds because they feel no compulsion to defend the inherent goodness of America. Conservatives, meanwhile, not only take the blame for events...

WEST POINT, N.Y. — Former Iranian hostage Barry Rosen touched down on an American tarmac 30 years ago and spilled into the arms of a wife and two young children lost to him during 444 days of captivity. Then came the exhilarating bus ride to West Point along a route lined with yellow ribbons and thousands of cheering people, waving and chanting, "USA! USA!"

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (Nov. 16) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Monday that he had no regrets about his handling of the Iran hostage crisis more than 30 years ago, saying he didn't attack the country as his advisers proposed because thousands of people would have died. Islamic militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, and seized its occupants. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days. Carter acknowledged that his failure to bring the hostages home — including a botched rescue mission in which eight U.S. servicemen died — led to his election defeat...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Having repeatedly vowed to "cut off the hand" of any attacker, Iran's president shifted to the leg on Friday to underline his determination to resist Western pressure over its nuclear program. "You, the enemies of the Iranian nation, know that this nation will break the leg of anyone who wants to violate its rights," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a rally in the southeastern province of Kerman. "We will not be harmed by your opposition and it will be you who ... will be harmed," Ahmadinejad, known for his fiery anti-Western speeches, said according to the official IRNA...

Royal Navy Arrests On TV Updated: 17:25, Thursday March 29, 2007 New footage of 15 British marines and sailors being seized by Tehran's armed forces has been aired on Iranian TV. More to follow...

Sailor's Release Delayed Updated: 13:44, Thursday March 29, 2007 Britain will continue to seek United Nations' condemnation of Iran - despite an Iranian threat to delay the release of woman sailor Faye Turney. An Iranian negotiator said the release of the 26-year-old mother would be held up if Britain took the issue of the captives being held in Iran to the UN Security Council or if it freezed relations. Mrs Turney is the only woman in the group of 15 sailors and marines held captive since last Friday. Yesterday the service personnel were shown on Iranian TV and Tehran said...

Former President Jimmy Carter campaigns on behalf of his son, Jack Carter, at a public library in Henderson, Nev., Monday, Sept. 11, 2006. The former president came to town after his son, who is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, was hospitalized. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)

LONDON Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter criticized the British government on Thursday for quickly adopting controversial policies of the Bush administration regarding the Iraq war and the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. "I've been really disappointed in the apparent subservience of the British government's policies related to many of the serious mistakes that have been originated in Washington," Carter said in an interview BBC-TV's news show "Nightline." In the past, Carter said, British governments had used a "strong voice" to help shape joint U.S.-British policies as part of the long-standing special relationship between two of the world's greatest democracies. But under Prime Minister...

New Haven, CT (AHN)-Millionaire businessman and Democratic Ned Lamont said Wednesday the U.S. is weaker because of the war in Iraq backed by rival Sen. Joe Lieberman, and he called for shifting forces to Afghanistan and elsewhere. During a speech at Yale Law School, Lamont said, "We have sacrificed our daughters and sons and our treasure in a war we didn't have to fight. We have ignored the real threats and security needs in the war we should be fighting, the one against the terrorists. ... Senator Lieberman believes that President Bush has it right in Iraq. I believe that...

New Haven, Conn. -- Democrat Ned Lamont said Wednesday the U.S. is weaker because of the war in Iraq backed by rival Sen. Joe Lieberman, and he called for shifting forces to Afghanistan and elsewhere. "We have sacrificed our daughters and sons and our treasure in a war we didn't have to fight," Lamont said. "We have ignored the real threats and security needs in the war we should be fighting, the one against the terrorists. ... Senator Lieberman believes that President Bush has it right in Iraq. I believe that he's dangerously wrong." The Democrat, who upset the three-term...

Jack Kelly: Meet the worst ex-presidentAn odious Iranian will see Jimmy Carter on his U.S. visitSunday, September 03, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The State Department has granted a visa to Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran, to visit the United States.           Mr. Khatami is coming this week chiefly to attend meetings at the United Nations. He also will speak at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; at a function sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Arlington, Va., and at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. And he will meet with former president...

A few weeks ago, Jimmy Carter gave an interview to the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, mostly on the recent Lebanon conflict. It was classic Jimmy Carter -- at once moralizing and morally confused, ill-informed and preachy -- illustrating why the American people voted him out of office after just one term and the politically partisan Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize. Take first the former president’s historical illiteracy. "Under all of its [the Bush administration's] predecessors there was a commitment to peace instead of preemptive war," Carter claimed. But is that really so? What about the Spanish-American War...

LONDON, Aug 27 (Xinhua) -- Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said the Iraq invasion had subverted the fight against terrorism and instead strengthened al-Qaeda and the recruitment of terrorists, according to a British paper report on Sunday. In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Carter said that if he had still been president, he would never have considered invading Iraq in 2003. "However, I wouldn't have excluded going into Afghanistan, because I think we had to strike at Al-Qaeda and its leadership," he said. "But then, to a major degree, we abandoned the anti-terrorist effort and went almost...

When I wrote about Jimmy Carter's antics recently, some suggested I should quit wasting my time discussing someone so irrelevant. Well, I'd be happy to comply, except that their assumption is incorrect. What this misguided and increasingly bitter man says, especially on foreign soil, does matter. Don't forget that the Democratic Party leadership embraces Carter, as witnessed by his prominent role in the party's national convention, where he called President Bush -- in no uncertain terms -- a liar. Remember that when you're tempted to think of Carter as just a benign senior statesman. I'll concede Carter has done some...

Former US president Jimmy Carter lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair for being "so compliant and subservient" to the Bush administration in Washington. "I have been surprised and extremely disappointed with Tony Blair's behaviour," Carter told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper as he promoted his new book "Faith and Freedom." "I think that, more than any other person in the world, the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington, and he has not," said the 81-year-old former head of state. He faulted Blair for not having been a constraint on US President George W. Bush's decision...