Talk About Liars

President Trump has been called a congenital liar. This claim seems to be raw politics since anybody listening to the Orangeman understands that he is fill of bluster ... but not a “keep your doctor” liar. So this blog post will try to determine how truthful Trump is when he says that Obama gave Iran $150 billion to sign the nuclear deal ... plus $1.8 billion in hard cash on pallets flown into Tehran in the dead of night.

Let’s get started by listening to Obama’s then Secretary of State John Kerry’s obfuscating take on this issue: John Kerry Bloviating. Wow! Nothing to see here folks ... everything was above board!

However, notice in that video that Kerry never specifically denied the $150 billion number. Rather he said that this agreement was saving the U.S. taxpayers money because we would not be paying all the accumulating interest on the assets we had frozen around the world ... $12 billion of which was frozen in 1979 after Iran had seized our embassy in Tehran and held our diplomats hostage for 444 days. Forty years of compound interest grows this $12 billion into quite a tidy sum ... plus other asset we froze around the world as a result of sanctions the Bush White House had placed on Iran because of its terrorist activities and nuclear ambitions. Bottom line: this $150 billion number appears close to being correct ... see: Truth to Fiction. AND any accumulated interest on the $12 billion should go to the American people for the embassy insult ... not paid by them!

Kerry makes another weasel claim in this video, OK it was a big number but Iran owed lots of countries lots of money, so they really only got part of this money. (The above hyperlink claims it was about $56 billion.) Hold on pilgrim ... if I have a mortgage on my house of $100K and $30k on a car loan ... and I win $200K in the lottery, does the state (ignoring tax implications) only give me $70K? Of course not! Kerry’s assertion is full of excrement.

And insofar as Obama handing Iran $1.8 billion in various cash currencies as ransom in exchange for American hostages, read the following: Fortune Magazine Article.

Now, kind reader, who is the liar after all?

Afterward: not on the money topic but important to ask about the Iran nuclear deal ... for what reason other than producing atomic bombs was (and is) Iran enriching uranium? This would be equivalent to our believing that Xi is building aircraft carriers to transport soybeans back to China.

$99,999,999.99

Two days after it paid Iran $400M in cash to release four American hostages, the Obummer administration made 13 wire transfer payments of $99,999,999.99 to the salivating mullahs there ... theoretically paying off the rest of $1.7B that some international agency said we owed Iran ... see: NY Sun Articl e. Now there are at least five things seriously wrong with these transactions. You, dear reader, are now challenged to list these travesties (hint -- one is that we still might owe Iran 13 cents). First reader to get them all right wins a "Black Lives Matter" tee shirt.

Reality

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -- Albert Einstein

Kafka is alive and well. He has hacked into the program in that super-mega-giga-computer that Elon Musk believes is running the software simulation hundreds of years from now that has created our current reality. To me, it seems like the world is loosing it balance ... or perhaps it is just a bunch of 22nd century programmers having some fun with our lives? Not only has our current  political process gotten bizarre, but every day events seem to present themselves as head-scratchers. In particular, here are two news items that seem to be three-sigma events.

The black Milwaukee police officer, who shot and killed a black armed thug, turns out to be a part-time rapper and classmate of the very man he shot. Except for the police uniform this would be a forgettable commonplace event in this Blatz-beer  city ... see: Powerline Blog Posting. So effectively blue pants, a blue shirt and a badge have just caused extensive rioting, arson and looting in Milwaukee ... Strange!

For another real dose of reality, the Obummer administration fessed up today ... under the cover of the Olympic's swimmers' scandal ... that it really did pay $400 million as a quid pro quo for the release of four American prisoners ... ransom that is ... see: NY Post Story. This is after many months of adamantly denying same ... including President Obummer. I guess we are all so used to these scum bags lying that they are not even shamed by this revelation ... How very sad!

Smell Test

Prior to leaving on his last summer vacation to Martha's Vineyard, President Obummer held a press conference in which he handled reporters' questions ... some of which focused on America's $400 million cash payment to Iran on the same day this past January in which four American hostages were flown out of Iran. He patiently explained that this was not ransom ... but the reason we gave Iran pallets full of hard foreign currency (rather than dollars) was that the United States had no banking relations with Iran ... see: NTK Video.

Since the White House reporters have no desire to follow up on such presidential obfuscation (taqiyya?), I would like to have  asked the following question, "Mr. President, we must have wire transfer banking relationships with other countries which have wire transfer relationship with Iran. Could we not have transferred this money by wire through one of these countries?"

Also, it has also been disclosed on Fox Business channel on Thursday by one of these four hostages that they were delayed in a plane on a runway in Tehran for over two hours until, as he was told, such time as "another plane landed." Was this other plane the one with the cash? Most likely it was ... which surely suggest that this was a tribute payment.

Furthermore, I would have asked another question, "Mr. President, was this payment the equivalent of $400 million or $1.7 billion?" It seems that there is some purposeful confusion about the actual amount of this ransom ... and pallets full of cash suggests to me that it was more money than $400 million.

It would have been nice to know the real facts in this matter and not get the typical administration runaround ... that doesn't pass the smell test.

Afterward: See also: Powerline Blog.

Hell Year -- Month 7

I have written many times before about the hazing that Obummer is putting this country through in his last year in office ... see: Hell Year, Hell Year -- Month 3. and Hell Year -- Month 4. We are now in month seven of this hell year and it has just been revealed that Obummer paid $400 million in ransom this past January to spring five American citizens from Iran prisons ... see: Wall Street journal Article. It is illegal in this country to pay ransom in U.S. currency ... so, what did Obummer and Valerie Jarrett do? Why they transferred 400 million U.S. dollars to Switzerland, had it converted to other currencies, Swiss francs, Euros, etc., loaded it on pallets and shipped it on an unmarked cargo plane, at night, into Teheran ... the same day that these hostage were release. And we are supposed to believe that this was not tribute paid to those malodorous Mullahs?

Pleeease ...

And in a coincidental matter, today our fearless leader has also commuted the sentences of 214 felons ... 67 who were in for life ... all in one fell swoop ... most of whose offenses include the serious trafficking of drugs ... see: ABC News Story. Unlike what was stated in this referenced article, over one third of these convictions involved the illegal possession of firearms ... likely quite a few more were not counted since many of these gun charges were plea-bargained away. Now, I think I haven't heard Obummer talk about guns for a few days ... and I have forgotten his stance on gun laws ... does he think we need any more such laws that won't be enforced or will be forgiven?

Thank you sir! May I have another?