What does the U.S. get out of the nuclear treaty with Iran?

November 26, 2013

Writer

What happened this weekend? Why would I be holding a black umbrella? Anybody who knows who Neville Chamberlain is, he used to like to hang out with a black umbrella all the time. What did Neville Chamberlain do? Oh, nothing, just negotiated peace in his day with Adolf Hitler.

In fact, this is the now suddenly wet copy of his letter to the Hitler youth, signed by Neville Chamberlain, saying you know what, peace in our day, it’s great. It’s wonderful. Really? So who’s the Neville Chamberlain of our day? Well, somebody that doesn’t understand that negotiation can be tough. Sometimes you don’t always get what you want, but you know, there’s some sort of compromise involved, unless you’re a dictatorship from Iran, and you’re negotiating with this administration. Then the world is your oyster, you know?

You get like…it’s like a massive all-expenses-paid shopping spree to the mall of your choice. Let’s see, I know, I want to be able to keep most of my nuclear infrastructure – check. I want to be able to continue enriching uranium – check. I want to have the UN inspectors come in but only on the buildings that I approve – check. I also am demanding that the economic sanctions are lifted – check.

What exactly did we get? I mean, the only thing they, you know, didn’t get was explicit permission and blessing to wipe Israel off the map. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, there’s another one I forgot to tell you about – really? Would you be surprised? One could argue that blowing up Israel is implied in this outcome.

It was a very good deal for Iran. In fact, Iran loves this deal. And Iran loves the deal, but so does Syria. Syria loves this deal. Who else? Russia, they love this deal. Hmm, those seem like the bad guys.

Now, who doesn’t like this deal? Well, there’s Saudi Arabia and Israel, and well, me. Netanyahu in fact told his cabinet that what was achieved in Geneva was not a historic agreement but a historic mistake. Oh, I’m sorry, is somebody talking about Neville Chamberlain again? The world has become a much more dangerous place, because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step towards attaining the most dangerous weapons in the world.

Now, what is the upside for the United States of America? What did John Kerry get us in this deal? Well, he is kind of like the Lando Calrissian of negotiators. Remember him? Where Darth Vader comes in, and he says I’m altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further. Remember that scene? That’s kind of where we are.

The president spun it this way. Listen carefully.

VIDEO
President Obama: For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program. The key parts of the program will be rolled back.

Stop, stop, stop. What his teleprompter is telling him to say – notice he’s carefully reading that. There’s nobody in the room, and he’s still looking on – anyway, he said we have halted the progress. I’m sorry, what? We have halted the progress. Halted the progress?

So what you’re saying, Mr. President, is a really misleading way to describe that a deal has been struck that allows Iran to continue enriching uranium, and the big accomplishment is that Iran can’t increase the amount of production. Oh, as if they’re re going to follow that rule if they I’m altering the deal – remember that part?

Iran is giddy over this steel. The Ayatollah is celebrating a huge victory. In fact, he said, “The new government was able to legitimize the Iranian nation’s nuclear program on the international stage and take the initial step in a way that the nuclear rights and the enrichment rights of the Iranian nation are acknowledged by world powers which for years had tried to deny it.” That’s fantastic. Let’s come back to that, should we?

Iranian negotiators were welcomed home over the weekend as national heroes. Their currency jumped 3%. If you want to look at the scoreboard, Iran’s winning, and it’s a landslide. What does it tell you when the crazy men from Iran are closer to telling people the truth than our own president?

This deal is a dream come true for Iran. For ten years, the world has been trying to halt their enrichment programs, not to slow down the progress, halt it. This system allows them to continue now. The world finally caved. We blinked. And what happened in all of those secret meetings that the Obama administration held in the months prior to the deal?

I don’t think we’ve done these secret meetings since 1979 when Jimmy Carter and Mika Brzezinski’s dad – you remember, she’s the one on MSNBC, you know, with the Morning Joe, yeah, her dad and Jimmy Carter were the ones that…yeah, if I remember right, that didn’t work out so well. I’m just saying, but here we go again. Gee, it’s almost like we should learn from the past so we don’t continue making the same mistake over and over again.

So what message does this deal send to other unstable nations like North Korea? Well, stay the course. There’s lesson number one. My jaw dropped when I saw the president actually say this:

VIDEO
President Obama: We approached these negotiations with a basic understanding, Iran, like any nation should be able to access peaceful nuclear energy.

That is fantastic, isn’t it? I’m glad we finally have this concession out of the president, because we don’t have the right. There hasn’t been a new nuclear plant here since 1974 because if we build a new nuclear plant, oh my gosh, the sky will fall. It’ll be the worst thing ever. They’re so dangerous. Wouldn’t it be nice if the president encouraged the increase of nuclear production?

He just says everybody has a right to peaceful nuclear energy, and since, how does he say it, electricity rates have necessarily skyrocketed up 42% in less than a decade, maybe he should get on that nuclear energy bandwagon. Here’s the other thing, can I ask where are all the environmentalists on the Iran front?

After Fukushima, the world was freaking out about nuclear energy. You remember? The death toll from the big fallout is still zero, but Germany and Italy promised to phase out nuclear energy. Hold on just a second, so the environmentalists are saying that you’re confident that Iran can safely run a nuclear power plant more so than we can? Suddenly the left is totally cool with nuclear energy?

I mean, why in the world would they trust Iran over Germany, Italy, Japan, and America? I mean, that’s the logical choice, isn’t it? This is not a negotiation. It was never a negotiation. The administration leaned forward and got railroaded by Iran, and I’m not sure the administration didn’t get everything it wanted.

First of all, it’s off the front page today of people talking about how bad ObamaCare is.

We get nothing, nada, zip, except a crazy nation which is one step closer to obtaining nuclear weapons.

Counting cookies? Here are the CRAZIEST ways people predict the election.

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Every four years, America faces the same question: who will win the presidential election?

Top political scientists and media companies devise elaborate polls, complex formulas, and sophisticated projections to calculate who will win the election at any given moment. Even Stu has thrown his hat in the ring with Plusecast, a one-stop shop for all your polling questions. But these methods aren't the only ways to predict who will be the next commander-in-chief.

From cookies to football, here are some unorthodox ways to predict the next president:

The Cookie Poll

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Can cookies really predict the next president? According to Busken Bakery, they are more accurate than you might think.

Busken Bakery, has been using cookies to predict the winner of presidential elections since Regan beat Mondale in 1984, and has only been wrong once. Their method is simple: they sell cookies with the faces of both candidates and tally the sales of each. Whoever sells the most cookies is predicted to win. The simplicity of this method is its strength, and the only time it was wrong was the 2020 election. Currently, President Trump is far outstripping VP Harris, selling 23,477 cookies compared to her 8,781 cookies (as of 8/15). Busken posts daily updates on their Instagram, here.

Busken isn't the only bakery to make presidential predictions. Lochel's Bakery in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania has gained popularity recently. Lochel's has correctly predicted three of the last four elections by selling red and blue cookies printed with the names of the candidates. The current count for Lochel's is 28,212 for Trump and 2,097 for Harris. Again, Lochel's posts daily updates on their Instagram, here.

According to the cookies, this election is looking pretty sweet for President Trump!

Vegas Odds

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It's time to put your money where your mouth is.

It's not just political scientists who cook up election predictions. Casinos and sports betting services get in on the action. What could be a better way to predict an election than by asking people to put their hard-earned dollars on the line?

The big casinos and sports betting sites all have odds on the election, and Trump tends to be the favored candidate. If you are unfamiliar with betting odds in the U.S., the simple explanation of how they work is the smaller the number the better the odds. Here is the spread for three of the big betting sites:

bet365- Trump: -138, Harris: +110

BetMGM- Trump: -137, Harris: +110

Caesars- Trump: -145, Harris: +120

While you shouldn't take this as a sign to put all your money (or any) on President Trump, it is an optimistic sign!

The Redskins Rule

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The Redskins Rule is a well-documented correlation between the outcome of the presidential election and the performance of the Washington D.C. football team, the Redskins (now The Commanders). The rule is that if the Redskins win their last home game before the election, the incumbent party will win the election. If the Redskins lose, the challenging party will win the election. This rule is surprisingly accurate and held true for every election between 1940 and 2000.

If this rule is to be believed, the determining game is on Sunday, October 27th when the Redskins/Commanders play the Chicago Bears in Washington D.C. If the Bears win, that should mean Trump will win the election. If the Redskins win, then Harris will win.

But there is the fact that the rule has been broken several times since 2000. Has the charm worn off? And does it even count anymore if the team is no longer called the Redskins? Only time will tell!

Glenn joined Trump for an eventful weekend in the Southwest

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We are mere weeks away from the election, and President Trump has been making every day count.

This last weekend, Trump held two rallies back to back in the southwestern corner of our country—one just outside Coachella, California, and the other in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Glenn joined Trump in Arizona, along with thousands of other Americans, to support the former president in his final push towards election day. The polls still show a very tight race. Every vote matters, and with so much at stake, Trump has to finish strong.

Catch up with Trump and Glenn's busy weekend below:

Coachella

On Saturday the 12th, thousands of Donald Trump supporters flocked to Calhoun Ranch, an area not far from the famous Coachella fairgrounds, and braved the heat, drawn by Trump's promise to "Make America Great Again."

The headlining event of the rally was the alleged third assassination attempt on President Trump, although the Trump campaign doesn't see it that way. The action started when the alleged assassin, Vem Miller, was arrested while trying to enter the rally using allegedly fake press credentials and was charged with illegal possession of a handgun, a shotgun, and a high-capacity magazine. Miller has not admitted to an attempted assassination, and in fact, claims to have been a strong Trump supporter since 2018. Miller claims the firearms were purchased as a defensive measure after he received death threats linked to his work in the media. He also claims that the press credentials are not fake, and the mix-up was caused by the fact that he uses a different name on his press credentials as a safety precaution.

The Trump campaign, Secret Service, and FBI do not believe this was an assassination attempt, but in this heated political climate, one can never be too safe.

Prescott Valley

As soon as his rally in Cali was over, Trump hit the road to prepare for his next rally. On Sunday the 13th Trump held a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona, where both Glenn and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake gave opening remarks.

In Glenn's short, yet powerful speech, he emphasized the importance of this election and highlighted all that was at stake— this is a battle of good and evil. He brought up the Left's attempt to erase women through transgender ideology and how that ideology encourages the predation of children. Glenn furthered the case of good versus evil by citing the Left's obsession with abortion. Glenn called abortion the sacrifice of a child's body for the convenience of the parents, a perversion of Christ's sacrifice of His body for us. Glenn called for God's Army to stand up and fight back against evil, using our voices and most importantly, our vote.

Glenn also lambasted Kamala for a recent interview where she admitted she wouldn't have changed anything if she had a chance to do her term as VP over again. He laid into her for marketing herself as an agent of change, while simultaneously defending the status quo. Glenn pointed out that if anyone wants to change the country for the better, Trump is the man to do it: Trump is the candidate for change, not Kamala.

Glenn: What I saw on the ground in Asheville gave me hope

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The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care.

I’ve seen a lot of destruction in my life. I’ve walked through war zones and cities torn apart by riots, and I've stood at the sites of natural disasters that leave communities devastated. But what I saw in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.

Houses were washed down rivers, upside down and crushed. Train tracks, strong enough to support locomotives, were left suspended in midair after the earth beneath them was eroded away. Semi-trucks, rolled by the force of the floodwaters, now lie like children’s toys, tossed and overturned hundreds of feet from the road. Whole towns have been uprooted and scattered — debris from homes miles away, stacking up like dominoes, bridges that stood for decades washed out by water so high that it flowed six feet over their tops.

'You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.'

I stood there, looking at this idyllic small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I thought, “This will take years to rebuild. Maybe even decades.” But I didn’t just see destruction. I saw something far more powerful than nature’s wrath: the resilience of the American spirit.

My expectations for the government’s assistance were low before I arrived in Asheville, given its failing track record in previous natural disasters, but its response to Hurricane Helene victims — or lack thereof — was a new category of negligence. But the people in Asheville weren’t waiting on FEMA or the federal government to swoop in. They knew no one was coming.

The bridges were out, roads were destroyed, and the mountains had isolated them from outside help. But instead of despair, I saw hope. Instead of panic, I saw action. People were taking care of each other, and that is the America I remember, like in the days after 9/11 when we came together regardless of political party, race, or background. We didn’t care about who voted for whom. We just saw our neighbors hurting, and we asked, “Are you OK? What can I do to help?”

I saw that again in North Carolina. I saw it in the man who turned his Harley-Davidson dealership into a helicopter landing zone, shoveling mud out of his showroom just so rescue teams could land. I saw it in the volunteers flying missions across treacherous terrain, getting the elderly and the injured out of danger. They weren’t asking for government permission. They were doing what needed to be done.

Adam Smith, a retired Special Forces veteran who is coordinating the landing of helicopters in Asheville, told me that the FAA is trying to shut down the operation because it isn’t federally regulated. He told the feds that they’re going to leave because he has a helicopter landing in a few minutes that will actually help people while they are barking orders from Washington.

One story stood out to me. We landed to help evacuate an elderly woman with a broken hip and a severe infection. She just had surgery, but because her family didn’t have insurance, the hospital pushed her out as fast as it could. Her wound became infected, and her leg was on fire. We helped airlift her to get her desperately needed antibiotics and treatment. There were no government resources to help her to an emergency room.

As we loaded the woman into the helicopter, her grandson turned to me and said, “You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.” That hit me hard because it’s the truth. It’s the way America used to be, and it’s the way we need to be again.

As I flew through those mountains in the helicopter, I couldn’t help but think of Billy Graham. I’d visited Asheville about 10 years ago to see him, and I remember thinking how beautiful and peaceful the town was. Today, it’s unrecognizable. The destruction is overwhelming. But the people are stronger than ever.

The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care. I saw it firsthand. We found a FEMA truck parked under a tree, its workers sitting at a card table in the shade. They weren’t doing anything to help.

But we’re Americans. We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need Washington to save us. We need each other. This is the America that Billy Graham spoke to me about — the America that will rise again in times of trouble. And while the government might fail us, we will not fail each other. And that’s exactly what I saw in North Carolina — Americans stepping up, taking care of their neighbors, and rebuilding their communities.

This is what I told the people of Asheville: You are not forgotten. There are millions of Americans who love you, who are praying for you, and who are ready to help. Because that’s what we do. We don’t wait for permission. We roll up our sleeves and take care of our own.

And to the rest of America, I say this: It’s time to remember who we are. It’s time to stop looking to Washington for solutions and start looking at each other. Because when the chips are down, it’s not the government that’s going to save us. It’s you and me, and if we stand together, nothing — no hurricane, no flood, no disaster — can break us.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

UPDATE: Will Florida survive Hurricane Milton?

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For the second time in two weeks, Florida is in the path of a major hurricane.

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall sometime tonight, Wednesday, October 9th, somewhere near Tampa Bay. This will mark the first time in a hundred years the city has been hit directly by a hurricane, raising concerns about the preparedness of the city's infrastructure. Milton, which was rated a category five hurricane earlier this week, has been reduced to a category four as it approaches land and is expected to make landfall as a powerful category three.

The Sunshine State has already begun to feel the effects of the historic storm, with strong winds and heavy rains battering Tampa Bay this morning. Many are still trying to evacuate or prepare for the storm as conditions worsen. Highways have slowed down, and gas has run short. Residents are preparing for the worst.

The federally recognized "Waffle House Index" is in red, meaning that several Waffle House locations in the Tampa Bay area will be shut down. Waffle House prides itself on being open 24/7, no matter the conditions, so for them to shut down, if only for a brief time, indicates that severe damage to the area is anticipated.