It looks as if the world may have reason to be grateful to the cruel musty old men who rule Iran (!) – for sparing it from the terrible “deal” Barack Obama thinks he has concluded with them.

The Ayatollahs will not comply with the agreement unless and until all sanctions against Iran are lifted.

But the Obama administration is telling America that Iran must first agree to comply before sanctions are lifted.

Dare we hope that this impasse will continue indefinitely? That the “deal” will fade away?

From DebkaFile:

The crowing [by the Democrats] this week over Barack Obama’s success in gaining congressional support for his Iranian nuclear deal against Binyamin Netanyahu’s defeat was premature. The July 14 Vienna deal between Iran and six world powers was just the first round of the game. Decisive rounds are still to come, before either of the two can be said to have won or lost.

The biggest outstanding hurdle in the path of the accord is Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his silence on where he stands on the deal whether by a yea or a nay. Without his nod, nothing goes forward in the revolutionary republic. So the nuclear accord is not yet home and dry either in Tehran or even in Washington.

While Obama gathered congressional support in Washington for the accord to pass, Khamenei made three quiet yet deadly remarks:

1. “Sanctions against Tehran must be lifted completely rather than suspended. If the framework of sanctions is to be maintained, then why did we negotiate?”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest answered him: “Iran will only see sanctions relief if it complies with the nuclear deal.”

There lies the rub. For the Obama administration, it is clear that Iran must first comply with the accord before sanctions are eased, whereas Tehran deems the accord moot until sanctions are lifted – regardless of its approval by the US Congress.

Here is the first stalemate, and not the last. … Long exhausting rounds lie ahead that could drag on longer even than the protracted negotiations, which Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif brought to a close in Vienna.

2. Khamenei next took the step of referring the accord to the Majlis (parliament) for approval, pretending that to be legally in force, the accord requires [its] majority vote … He put it this way, “I believe… that it is not in the interest of the majlis to be sidelined.”

This step was in fact designed to sideline President Hassan Rouhani, on whom Obama and Kerry counted to get the nuclear deal through, and snatch from him the authority for signing it – or even determining which body had this competence.

It had been the intention of Rouhani and Zarif to put the accord before the 12-member Council of Guardians for their formal endorsement. But Khamenei pulled this rug out from under their feet and kept the decision out of the hands of the accord’s proponents.

3. His next step was to declare with a straight face: “I have no recommendation for the majlis on how to examine it. It is up to the representatives of the nation to decide whether to reject or ratify it.”

This step in the nuclear chess game was meant to show American democracy up in a poor light compared to that of the Revolutionary Republic (sic). While Obama worked hard to bring his influence to bear on Congress, he, Khamenei, refrained from leaning on the lawmakers, who were freed to vote fair and square on the deal’s merits.

This of course is a charade. … The ayatollah exercises dictatorial control over the majlis through his minion, Speaker Ali Larijani. He has absolute trust in the lawmakers never reaching any decision on the nuclear deal, or anything else, without his say-so.

Congressional approval in Washington of the nuclear accord may give President Obama a fine boost but will be an empty gesture for winning endorsement in Tehran. It might even be counter-productive if American lawmakers carry out their intention of hedging the nuclear deal round with stipulations binding Iran to full compliance with the commitments it undertook in Vienna, or also continue to live with existing sanctions or even face new ones.

Still some room for hope then?

Hmm. What’s the betting Obama will cave to Ayatollah Khamenei? 

A Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis, has been jailed for contempt of court. She refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, even though ordered to do so by a US District Court Judge.

She is against same-sex marriage because, she says, her Christian faith teaches that homosexuality is wrong. Which it futilely does.

(But by saying that fobidding homosexuality is futile we do not mean to imply “same-sex marriage” makes sense. It doesn’t. It’s a farce. However many people of whatever sexual proclivities decide to form a union, there has to be at least one man and one woman among them for it to be marriage in the universal historical meaning of the word. It would be best to leave marriage to the religions, and for the state – or rather the states – to recognize Contracts of Union for all sorts of voluntary conjugal relationships.)

Kim Davis should issue the licenses whatever her thoughts and feelings about same-sex marriage, because it is her job to do so. The principle of “separation of Church and State” must apply to her case. She is as free as everybody else to express her opinion of same-sex marriage, homosexuality, Christian doctrine, and this horrible government with its ever more foolish laws and regulations that America is now groaning under; but not to refuse to do the job she is paid to do. 

What is wrong is that she has tenure. The proper reward for her refusal is dismissal.

Nobody should ever be unsackable. Most particularly, government employees should not be unsackable. Tens of thousands of them need to be sacked – urgently, The head of government, Barack Obama, needs to be sacked – urgently. Like Kim Davis, he doesn’t obey the law.

Government employees should not have trade unions: government negotiating terms of employment with itself is absurd.

Government employees should not have the vote (as some of our commenters have recently compellingly argued).

Bureaucrats all too easily get uppity and dictatorial. In Britain they are called “civil servants”. They may forget to be civil, but at least their job description defines their place as servants, not masters. Governments shoud be servants, not masters.

If Kim Davis cannot bring herself to do her job, she should leave it. She’s no doubt enjoying being a Christian martyr at present. Martyrdom is the non plus ultra of Christian virtue; best if it entails death, and best of all if it entails agonizing death. We hope Ms. Davis won’t go that far. We’re very much against it.

The first – arguably the only – duty of government is to keep the people safe. Safe from foreign attack. Safe from criminal depredation. Safe in title to property. Safe in entering into contract.

It must do this by guarding borders well; and by keeping a well trained and well quipped military, and being ready to use it against  foreign enemies.

And within its borders, by enforcing the rule of law, for which it must keep well-trained and well-equipped police forces.

The police are the strong arm of government.

What can the people do if the government demoralizes and weakens its police? Where shall they turn for protection?

If people are armed, they may survive, but insecurely.

Rebellion, riot, chaos, bloodshed is to be expected – which will allow a tyrannically minded government to give itself emergency powers and impose ever more oppressive rule.

The Democratic Party, still oppressively in power as the executive branch of government in the US, now openly demands the weakening and demoralizing of the forces of law and order, and cheers on those who defy the law and call for the killing of police officers.   

Matthew Vadum writes at Canada Free Press:

The Democratic National Committee has officially endorsed the increasingly violent Black Lives Matter movement whose paranoid radical left-wing members accuse police nationwide of systemic anti-black racism and brutality against black suspects.

Throwing their lot in with black racists and radical Black Power militants who have openly expressed support for the murder of police officers, Democrats embraced a statement that slams the U.S. for allegedly systemic police violence against African-Americans. The statement is not extreme enough for the Black Lives Matter movement whose leaders quickly rejected it. Last month members of the movement unveiled a list of policy proposals they claim will help to bring about “a world where the police don’t kill people.”

What’s especially interesting about the resolution that hundreds of delegates at the DNC meeting in Minneapolis on Friday approved is that it accuses American police of “extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American men, women and children.”

In other words, it is now official Democratic Party policy that there are roving death squads manned by police officers who specifically stalk and execute without trial black men, women, and children across America. Police in the United States today, says the DNC, are no better than the Sturmabteilung and Einsatzgruppen of Nazi Germany, the Soviet-era Cheka and NKVD, and the (Democrat-led) Ku Klux Klan, all of which used extrajudicial killings for political repression.

A copy of the draft resolution obtained by BuzzFeed News before the grotesque anti-American pander-fest Friday uses the same kind of inflammatory, dishonest wording Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground comrades used to endorse the Black Power movement and condemn the U.S. during their bombing sprees that wreaked havoc on American society.

The full wording of the resolution as approved by DNC delegates does not appear to have surfaced online but the draft states:

WHEREAS, the Democratic Party believes in the American Dream and the promise of liberty and justice for all, and we know that this dream is a nightmare for too many young people stripped of their dignity under the vestiges of slavery, Jim Crow and White Supremacy; and WHEREAS, we, the Democratic National Committee, have repeatedly called for race and justice — demilitarization of police, ending racial profiling, criminal justice reform, and investments in young people, families, and communities — after Trayvon Martin, after Michael Brown, after Tamir Rice, after Freddie Gray, after Sandra Bland, after Christian Taylor, after too many others lost in the unacceptable epidemic of extrajudicial killings of unarmed black men, women, and children at the hands of police …

WHEREAS, without systemic reform this state of unrest jeopardizes the well-being of our democracy and our nation;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the DNC joins with Americans across the country in affirming “Black lives matter” and the “say her name” efforts to make visible the pain of our fellow and sister Americans as they condemn extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American men, women and children …

(The Say Her Name campaign is an offshoot of Black Lives Matter that claims not enough attention is being paid to black female victims of police brutality.)

In the document the DNC also “renews our previous calls to action and urges Congress to adopt systemic reforms at state, local, and federal levels to prohibit law enforcement from profiling based on race, nationality, ethnicity, or religion, to minimize the transfer of excess equipment (like the military-grade vehicles and weapons that were used to police peaceful civilians in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri) to federal and state law enforcement; and to support prevention programs that give young people alternatives to incarceration.”

The DNC delegates approved the resolution on the same day a white sheriff’s deputy in Texas was shot to death allegedly by a black suspect in an unprovoked attack. The next day Black Lives Matter demonstrators marched near the Minnesota state fair chanting violent anti-police slogans and carrying signs reading “End White Supremacy.” Activists shouted “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon,” while walking (protected by police) on a highway south of the fair grounds.

We do not think the militarization of the police is a good thing. And we have observed that sometimes recently police have acted without due care and with unnecessarily intimidating and destructive violence. (See here, for instance.) But such  incidents do not justify a campaign against the police.

And have the Democrats ingratiated themselves with the cop-killing movement by declaring its support for them?

Apparently not:

The Black Lives Matter Network released a statement with a distinctly Leninist flavor pooh-poohing the DNC resolution of support:

A resolution signaling the Democratic National Committee’s endorsement that Black lives matter, in no way implies an endorsement of the DNC by the Black Lives Matter Network, nor was it done in consultation with us. We do not now, nor have we ever, endorsed or affiliated with the Democratic Party, or with any party. The Democratic Party, like the Republican and all political parties, have historically attempted to control or contain Black people’s efforts to liberate ourselves. True change requires real struggle, and that struggle will be in the streets and led by the people, not by a political party.

Some conservatives have loudly criticized the movement saying it is based on anti-American lies and that it fuels violence against police officers.

On Fox News Channel Monday, outspoken law-and-order advocate Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., a black man elected as a Democrat, blamed President Obama for the rise of Black Lives Matter.

Look [said the excellent Sheriff Clarke], President Obama has breathed life into this ugly movement and it is time now for good law-abiding Americans to rise up like they did [at a memorial] in Houston around that Chevron station [where a white sheriff’s deputy was shot], an outpouring, but it can’t just be symbolic. We now have to counter this slime, this filth coming out of these cop-haters.

Brian Kilmeade of Fox News Channel, responded, “Well, Sheriff, a lot of people listening right now will say, no, President Obama has shed light on a problem and that’s the way blacks are treated by law enforcement in this country for too long.”

[Clarke replied:]

That is a lie. President Obama didn’t shed light on anything. This is nothing more than an attempt to weaken the institution of policing. If there’s anything that needs to be straightened out in this country it is the subculture that has risen out of the underclass in the American ghetto. Fix the ghetto and then you’ll see a lesser need for assertive policing in these areas and then you’ll see less confrontation. Stop trying to fix the police. Fix the ghetto.

Kilmeade asked, “So, Sheriff, what is it like on the street for the cop? … Are things changed right now for a cop at any level when they go to do their job?”

Sure, they’re beleaguered right now and they’re beleaguered not out of fear of what’s going on on the street. Look, we take this on willingly. We volunteer for this service here. But what we’re beleaguered by is the fact that we don’t have any support from the political class. … I’m not going to stay off of this and I’m not going to leave it alone and stick my head in the sand about it. The problem isn’t the American police officer. Barack Obama won’t admit that these failed liberal urban policies have destroyed these great cities.

To recap, the DNC resolution was approved the same day sheriff’s deputy Darren H. Goforth, a 47-year-old white man, was gunned down near Houston, Texas, allegedly by 30-year-old Shannon J. Miles, a black man. Miles was apprehended the next day and is now charged with capital murder. … Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman (R) … said that his deputy was targeted “because he wore a uniform”. He pointed to Black Lives Matter for ramping up rhetoric “to the point where calculated, cold-blooded assassination of police officers” happens.

Miles allegedly killed Goforth execution-style, shooting him first in the back of the head and then standing over him and shooting him repeatedly. This is the same way two black heroes of the Black Lives Matter movement murdered cops. Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Wesley Cook, shot white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner to death in 1981 as he tried to arrest the perpetrator’s brother during a traffic stop. Abu-Jamal shot the policeman once in the back and then stood over him and shot him four more times at close range, once directly in the face. Assata Shakur, formerly known as Joanne Chesimard, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1973 killing of Werner Foerster, a white New Jersey State Trooper. During a traffic stop, Shakur shot Foerster once, and then as he lay helpless on the ground, shot him twice in the head with his own gun. She escaped from prison in 1979 and was granted political asylum in Communist Cuba where she remains to this day.

A rally by the New Black Panther Party in Texas two weeks before Deputy Goforth was murdered may have emboldened Miles to target the deputy. … Armed armed Black Panthers stood outside the Waller County jail where troubled young black woman Sandra Bland committed suicide this summer after being arrested for erratic driving and assaulting a police officer. The leader of the rally yelled at Harris County deputies through a megaphone:

You think we’re not pissed off a bunch about y’all killing our sisters? You think it’s okay? … You’re gonna stop doing what you’re doing, or we will start creeping up on you in the darkness. …

The revolution is on… Off the pigs … Oink Oink, Bang Bang!

Cop hatred, threats to kill police, the deterioration of law and order and the rule of law, and black nationalism: This is the new normal in Obama’s America.

And it’s now officially endorsed by the Democratic Party.

And things are bound to get worse before Barack Obama leaves the presidency at noon on January 20, 2017. 

… my golden door is barred to Christians,” says the Mother of Exiles, who earlier misspoke, and whose views on who is welcome to America have now evolved.

*

We do not like Christianity, but we are appalled by the persecution of Christians  by Muslims in the Middle East.

Donald Trump has noticed that the Christians in the Muslim countries of the Middle East, and those who fall under the rule of IS/ISIS/ISIL, are being persecuted almost to extinction – and that the Obama administration is unmoved by their plight.

From* the Refugee Resettlement Watch:

Trump speaks out on Syrian refugees: “We are saving the Syrian Muslims and not the Christians!”

Trump is almost right. It isn’t zero Christians, but it’s pretty close to zero.  Although we have admitted a small handful of Syrian Christian refugees, the vast majority are Muslims and mostly Sunni Muslims.  96% [of those] admitted so far in 2015 are Muslims.

But, don’t forget!

Led by the Senate Jihad Caucus, the push is on to admit 65,000 Syrians before Obama leaves office and the vast majority of those will be plucked from UN camps populated by mostly Syrian Sunni Muslims.

One man in America is trying to bring Middle Eastern Christians to safety in the US, for which he is now threatened by the  administration with imprisonment.

From* Creeping Sharia:

Living as a Christian in many parts of Iraq or Syria has become impossible – a one-way ticket to martyrdom at the hands of ISIS – yet it remains a near-impossible feat for these persecuted religious minorities to find refuge in America.

But if you can get to America and get your case in the hands of Robert DeKelaita, your chances are greatly improved.

As it turns out, this high-powered Chicago attorney may have been a little too successful. He’s gained asylum for thousands of persecuted Christian from Iraq, Syria and Egypt, and that caught the attention of the Obama Justice Department, which is known to be no friend of Middle Eastern Christians.

DeKelaita, 52, grew up in Kirkuk in the heart of Assyria, a portion of northern Iraq that is home to one of the world’s most ancient Christian communities. …

After Saddam Hussein took power, DeKelaita’s family emigrated to the U.S. in 1973 and settled in the Chicago area. …

He’s helped reunite hundreds of families in the U.S., most of them since 2003 when the U.S. invasion and overthrow of Saddam unleashed a wave of Islamic terror against Christians that far exceeded anything that was seen under the secular Baathist regime.

The Obama administration moved against DeKelaita in September 2014, raiding his office and scooping up whatever “evidence” they could find against him. He was indicted on charges of falsifying the asylum applications of 12 clients over a 10-year period, allegedly concocting “phony claims” of religious persecution. The government has delayed his trial twice while it seeks to firm up witnesses who will testify against him. Each count of immigration fraud carries a maximum of 10 years prison and a $250,000 fine. …

Some find it ironic that the Obama administration is going after a lawyer who helps persecuted Iraqi Christians gain asylum while it welcomed and granted asylum for more than 68,000 unaccompanied alien children from Central America last summer.

At the same time Central Americans are being greeted with a “catch and release” policy at the border, a group of 27 Assyrian Christians who made it to the border earlier this year are being detained indefinitely.

“The way that some of our federal judges view the plight of Christians in Iraq and the way some of the adjudicators view them, you would honestly think ‘what is wrong with these people?’” DeKelaita [said]. …

One judge told him: “To argue that Christians in Iraq are being targeted for their religious beliefs is to appeal to either ignorance or emotion.”  …

DeKelaita, after his indictment, learned that the FBI had been investigating him since 2008, soon after Obama took office. …

He points to the Obama administration’s attempt earlier this year to block an Iraqi nun from entering the country to testify before Congress on the issue of Christian persecution in the Middle East. After …  a public outcry, Obama relented and issued the visa to Sister Diana Momeka. …

The Obama-led Department of Homeland Security has detained 27 Iraqi Christian asylum seekers in California for six months, despite the fact that most of them have family who are U.S. citizens living in San Diego. …

One of DeKelaita’s biggest successes was in getting a judge to strike down an outdated and inaccurate report out of Europe that insisted there was no persecution of Christians in Iraq. …

Meanwhile, the slaughter continues in Iraq and Syria. Another 220 Assyrian families were kidnapped just last week in Syria and fears are growing that the men will face beheading, the women a life of servitude as sex slaves. Bishops in Syria and Iraq have put out desperate pleas for help, saying they feel abandoned by the West.

While it detains Iraq Christian asylum seekers, the Obama administration has been welcoming thousands of Muslim refugees from jihadist hotbeds in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, despite warnings from House Homeland Security Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, that some of these refugee programs may become a “jihadist pipeline” into the U.S.

Obama is not perturbed by jihadism. He is dropping the bar against admitting Muslim refugees who have links to terrorist organizations:

From a January 2014 report  by the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. plans to resettle thousands of Syrians displaced by their country’s civil war could hinge on those refugees receiving exemptions from laws aimed at preventing terrorists from entering the country.

A U.S. official stated publicly for the first time this week that some of the 30,000 especially vulnerable Syrians the United Nations hopes to resettle by the end of 2014 will be referred to the U.S. for resettlement.

More than two million Syrians have fled their country since the war erupted in 2011, creating the worst refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide, advocates say. About 20 countries, mostly in Europe, have agreed to take 18,000 Syrians, according to United Nations High Commission for Refugees, or UNHCR, the agency charged with referrals.

The U.S. has not set a specific target for how many refugees it will resettle. But at a Senate hearing Tuesday, State Department Assistant Secretary Anne Richard said, “We expect to accept referrals for several thousand Syrian refugees in 2014.”

Post-9/11 immigration laws designed to keep out terrorists have had the unintended consequence of ensnaring some innocent people. …

And rather admit a thousand terrorists than keep out one “innocent” Muslim. 

Anwen Hughes, a lawyer at Human Rights First …

One of those bleeding-heart organizations that do so much harm in the world …

who has studied the laws’ impact, said that the government has been “reactive, slow,” about giving exemptions up to now, and urged a swifter process, given the magnitude of the Syrian crisis.

The advocacy group has called on the U.S. to work to resettle 15,000 Syrians a year. The International Rescue Committee, another advocacy organization, is pressing the U.S. to set a goal of 12,000 Syrian refugees this year.

The U.S. leads the world in refugee resettlement. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the U.S. received 70,000 refugees from 65 countries, including more than 19,000 from Iraq. In that year, more than 1,340 Syrians already in the U.S. applied for asylum.

And you can safely bet that Anwen Highes wil not be investigated by Obama’s sniffing-dogs.

But aren’t we going too far when we blame Obama personally for this injustice?

No. He makes the decisions:

From a Fact Sheet of the American Immigration Council:

A refugee, as defined by Section 101(a)42 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), is a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country because of a “well-founded fear of persecution” due to race, membership in a particular social group, political opinion, religion, or national origin. This definition is based on the United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocols relating to the Status of Refugees, which the United States became a party to in 1968.

Each year the President, in consultation with Congress, determines the numerical ceiling for refugee admissions. For Fiscal Year (FY) 2015, the ceiling is 70,000.

Under Obama, the US has “pivoted eastward”:

Almost half of all refugee arrivals (46.4 percent, or 32,450) in FY 2014 came from the Near East/South Asia—a region that includes Iraq, Iran, Bhutan, and Afghanistan.

There are three principle categories for classifying refugees under the U.S. refugee program.

Priority One. Individuals with compelling persecution needs or those for whom no other durable solution exists. These individuals are referred to the United States by UNHCR, or they are identified by a U.S. embassy or a non-governmental organization (NGO).

Priority Two. Groups of “special concern” to the United States, which are selected by the Department of State with input from USCIS, UNHCR, and designated NGOs. Currently, the groups include certain persons from the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Iran, Burma, and Bhutan.

Priority Three. The relatives of refugees (parents, spouses, and unmarried children under 21) who are already settled in the United States may be admitted as refugees. The U.S.-based relative must file an Affidavit of Relationship (AOR) and must be processed by DHS.

The INA requires that the majority of prospective refugees make their individual well-founded fear cases.

The Christians of the Middle East have well-founded fears. But they are Christians. That, apparently, is enough to bar them from the US, which Obama has clearly stated is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world”. (Watch and listen to him saying so here.) And in his opinion, the more Muslim the better.

*

Footnote update, November 2019

*These links no longer lead to the source.

For reliable information on refugees and asylum seekers go here.

The Fed’s track record offers no evidence that the nation’s appointed gurus of monetary policy can either spur real economic growth or halt economic downturns.

This important article is from the Daily Signal of the Heritage Foundation, by Jim DeMint. We like it so much we are quoting it in full:

The Federal Reserve opened its annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Thursday. Its experts have assembled to discuss “inflation dynamics.” Concurrently, another group of economists and financial experts is meeting just down the road.  They’re discussing monetary policy, as well, but they’re considering questions never raised at Fed symposia—questions like: “Do we really need the Fed?”

It’s a question worth asking. America’s monetary system is the Achilles heel of the world’s economic system.

Something is seriously wrong when trillions of new dollars are created out of thin air to bail out big banks, “stimulate” the economy and buy government debt. And something is dangerously wrong when the political establishment is afraid even to discuss it.

The common assumption — in financial as well as political circles —is that America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, not only can manipulate monetary policy to keep the economy rolling, but that it must, if we are to avoid economic ruin.  But ample evidence suggests that this assumption is dead wrong.

Before reviewing that evidence, let’s start with a basic question: “Who decides what money is worth?”  The correct answer is: “We do—the people who use money to buy and sell things.”  As consumers, we decide how much money we are willing to trade for things we want.  As sellers, we decide how much money we require for providing a given product or service.

Money is a proxy for something of value, and it can — and should — work as a market commodity.  In a free market, the dollar price of products and services changes based on supply and demand – based on how we perceive the value of goods and services.  This dynamic is good and healthy for our economy.  But when the actual value of money is altered by a central committee in Washington it is not healthy … in fact, it can be dangerous.

Faith in the Fed is built on three arrogant conceits: that government can create wealth; that designated experts possess the perfect knowledge required to manipulate money for the common good; and that markets cannot sort themselves out without the coercive influence of technocrats.

But the Fed’s track record offers no evidence that the nation’s appointed gurus of monetary policy can either spur real economic growth or halt economic downturns.

Historically, money growth is almost perfectly related to inflation, and near completely divorced from real economic growth. In other words, increasing the money supply increases the prices of the food, machines, and buildings we buy, but in the end, it doesn’t give us more food, machines, and buildings.

As for halting downturns, The Great Depression, the great stagflation of the 1970s, the S&L crisis, and the 2008 financial crisis all occurred on the Fed’s watch. Some argue that the Depression shouldn’t count, because the Fed was just getting started. This conveniently allows them to throw out about 30 years of data — and if you do that, it certainly looks better for the Fed, because recessions were more frequent before World War II than after.

But inconveniently for those who argue the Fed was too young to work its magic in the late ‘30s, Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz demonstrated in A Monetary History of the United States, that it was a major player, even in its infancy. Moreover, Friedman showed that the Fed actually worsened – if not caused – the Great Depression.

Looking at the entire Federal Reserve period, then, we see a different picture.

In 1986 Christina Romer published a paper in the American Economic Review titled “Is the Stabilization of the Postwar Economy a Figment of the Data?”  Its answer to that question was pretty much “yes”.

In that paper, and in subsequent work, Romer and others provided evidence that the Fed really had not tamed business cycles. Some of this research shows that, even with those Depression years tossed aside, recessions since World War II have, on average, lasted longer than pre-war recessions (by almost three months) and taken longer to recover from (also by about three months).

Faced with that evidence, the Fed faithful try to narrow the discussion to the Volcker and Greenspan years, the so-called Great Moderation.  “See,” they say, “The Fed tamed inflation.” But while the variability in inflation came down during those “glory days,” the average annual rate of inflation actually increased—from 3.56 perent in 1948-1978 to 3.74 percent from 1979-2013.

And looking at the full era of the Fed, the record is even worse. The average rate of inflation runs about three times higher than what it was before (less than one-half a percentage point from 1790-1912, as best we can tell).

Some economists will argue that’s not a problem—that higher average inflation is okay because we don’t have as many wild price swings any more.  But most people understand that higher inflation is problematic, that not everything balances out. They realize that not everyone gets an automatic raise every year just because the Consumer Price Index has gone up.

But the fundamental problem with the Fed isn’t its track record. It’s the fact that centralization of monetary and financial power can be just as damaging to our freedoms as centralization of political power. It creates the perception among Americans that their economic futures are out of their control. Unfortunately, this perception is increasingly accurate.

The debasement of monetary policy over the last century is but one element of a larger crisis.  At its root is a presumption among our country’s political and cultural elites that they can override the wisdom and experience accumulated by mankind over the last several millennia.

Here is the text  of the “side agreement” between IAEA and Iran:

Separate Arrangement II agreed by the Islamic State of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency on 11 July 2015, regarding the Road-map, Paragraph 5

Iran and the Agency agreed on the following sequential arrangement with regard to the Parchin issue:

1. Iran will provide to the Agency photos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.
2. Iran will provide to the Agency videos of the locations, including those identified in paragraph 3 below, which would be mutually agreed between Iran and the Agency, taking into account military concerns.
3. Iran will provide to the Agency 7 environmental samples taken from points inside one building already identified by the Agency and agreed by Iran, and 2 points outside of the Parchin complex which would be agreed between Iran and the Agency.
4. The Agency will ensure the technical authenticity of the activities referred to in paragraphs 1-3 above. Activities will be carried out using Iran’s authenticated equipment, consistent with technical specifications provided by the Agency, and the Agency’s containers and seals.
5. The above mentioned measures would be followed, as a courtesy by Iran, by a public visit of the Director General, as a dignitary guest of the Government of Iran, accompanied by his deputy for safeguards.
6. Iran and the Agency will organize a one-day technical roundtable on issues relevant to Parchin.

For the International Atomic Energy Agency: Tero Varjoranta, Deputy Director General for Safeguards

For the Islamic Republic of Iran: Ali Hoseini Tash, Deputy Secretary of Supreme National Security Council for Strategic Affairs

And here’s interpretation and comment from The Big Story, by George Jahn:

An AP report has revealed that the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency has agreed with Iran that Iranian experts and equipment will be used to inspect Iran’s Parchin military site, located in not far from Tehran, where Iran is suspected of conducting covert nuclear weapons activity more than a decade ago.

Here are some questions and answers about the document, and what it means for the larger deal between Iran, the United States and five other world powers to limit Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions against Iran.

WHAT HAVE IRAN AND THE IAEA AGREED?

According to a draft document viewed by AP, Iran has agreed to cooperate with the U.N. in answering longstanding allegations about possible past work to develop nuclear weapons at its Parchin plant — but only with the Iranians conducting the inspections themselves.

Iran would collect its own environmental samples on the site and carry out other work usually done by IAEA experts. The IAEA will be able to review the Iranians’ work after the fact. The deal on Parchin was between the IAEA and Iran. The Obama Administration was not a direct party to the agreement, but apparently was aware of it.

WHAT DO OPPONENTS OF THE DEAL SAY?

Opponents of the broader deal are seizing an opportunity to say the entire exercise of negotiating with Iran is flawed, that it relies too much on trust of the Iranian government.

WHAT DOES THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SAY?

The Obama administration and other supporters say the wider agreement is focused on the future, with ample inspections, and that the side accord between Iran and the IAEA is focused on Iran’s activities in the past and therefore is not central to the overall deal.

HOW UNUSUAL IS THE AGREEMENT ON PARCHIN?

Any IAEA inspection of a country suspected of nuclear irregularities is usually carried out by agency experts. They may take swipes of residue on equipment, sample the air or take soil samples in attempts to look for signs of clandestine work on atomic arms or other potentially dangerous unreported activity.

The document on Parchin, however, will let the Iranians themselves look for signs of the very activity they deny — past work on nuclear weapons.

It says “Iran will provide” the agency with environmental samples. It restricts the number of samples at the suspect site to seven and to an unspecified number “outside of the Parchin complex” at a site that still needs to be decided.

The U.N. agency will take possession of the samples for testing, as usual. Iran will also provide photos and video of locations to be inspected. But the document suggests that areas of sensitive military activity remain out of bounds.

The draft says the IAEA will “ensure the technical authenticity of the activities” carried out by the Iranians — but it does not say how. …

WHY IS THE PARCHIN AGREEMENT IMPORTANT?

Any indication that the IAEA is diverging from established inspection rules could weaken the agency, the world’s nuclear watchdog with 164 members, and feed suspicions that it is ready to overly compromise in hopes of winding up a probe that has essentially been stalemated for more than a decade.

Politically, the arrangement has been grist for American opponents of the broader separate agreement to limit Iran’s future nuclear programs, signed by the Obama administration, Iran and five world powers in July. Critics have complained that the wider deal is built on trust of the Iranians, while the administration has insisted it depends on reliable inspections.

The separate agreement on past nuclear activities does not affect the broader deal signed in July. And it doesn’t appear yet that the revelation will change any votes in Congress for or against a resolution of disapproval, which President Barack Obama is expected to veto if it passes.

HOW DID THIS AGREEMENT HAPPEN?

It could be a matter of priorities.

The Obama administration’s main focus in the broader Iran deal — signed by the U.S., Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — is crimping Iran’s present nuclear activities so they cannot be used in the future toward making a bomb. Faced with more than a decade of Iranian resistance to IAEA attempts to probe the allegations of past weapons work at Parchin, there may be a willingness to settle for an agency report that is less than definitive — and methods that deviate from usual practices.

The IAEA also appears to have recognized that Iran will continue to insist the allegations are lies, based on false U.S., Israeli and other intelligence. After a decade of stalemate it wants to close the books on the issue and allow the U.N. Security Council to do so as well.

The alternative might well have been no inspection at Parchin of any kind. [As if this “inspection” is not exactly equivalent to no inspection – ed.]

WHAT DOES THE IAEA SAY?

Director General Yukiya Amano says, “The arrangements are technically sound and consistent with our long-established practices. They do not compromise our … standards in any way.” He says agreements with Iran on clearing up the nuclear arms allegations “are confidential and I have a legal obligation not to make them public – the same obligation I have for hundreds of such arrangements made with other IAEA member states“.

WHAT DO OTHERS SAY?

Ned Price, spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House: “We are confident in the agency’s technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran’s former program, issues that in some cases date back more than a decade. Just as importantly, the IAEA is comfortable with the arrangements, which are unique to the agency’s investigation of Iran’s historical activities.”

Olli Heinonen, in charge of the Iran investigation as IAEA deputy director general from 2005 through 2010, says he can think of no similar arrangement — a country essentially allowed to carry out much of the probe of suspicions against it. 

The agreement is sinister and ludicrous.

(And now we know there is a “Separate Arrangement I” that we know nothing of.)

Commander J. E. Dyer writes at Liberty Unyielding:

Kerry offered to give the Senators a classified briefing on the side agreement – even though he also stressed that the U.S. has not been given access to it.

The reaction of JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] supporters to the AP report has been to emphasize that this agreement is about resolving IAEA’s questions regarding Iran’s past activities.  The side agreement on Parchin isn’t about monitoring current or future activities, which are a separate issue.

The implication is that self-sampling and selfies are good enough for resolving the lingering questions about the past.  Going forward, suggest Team Obama and its allies, is where we’ll see the tough, unprecedentedly rigorous verification regime for Iran’s military-related nuclear work.

The big problem with that logic – even more important than the point that verifying Iran’s past activities is crucial – is that there is nothing written down about the nature of the verification regime for military-related activities going forward.  The JCPOA is silent as to methods and measures.  It does not describe a rigorous verification regime.  It doesn’t describe a verification regime at all.

All it says is that Iran and IAEA will develop agreements for inspecting the military-related sites IAEA requests access to.  If IAEA isn’t satisfied, it can appeal to the JCPOA’s Joint Commission – on which Iran is one of the eight voting members.

So the only model we have to go by, in judging how this verification process is going to work, is the text of the side agreement on Parchin.  And that text says we’re going to take Iran’s word for it. …

That approach isn’t good enough for the nuclear program of a radical regime that is still the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism.

Our readers can always rely on us to bring them the latest politically correct thinking and most radical opinions, and to keep them up-to-the-minute with information from the Compassion and Non-Judgmental Movement (CONJM).

Today’s CONJM Bulletin:

Item: In Democrat governed states, persons sentenced to prison are to be allowed to imprison and guard themselves.

Item: In states that still have the death penalty, the CONJM demands that until the death penalty is abolished and murderers sentenced to death are given their rightful freedom, they must be permitted to execute themselves in their own time, and may also choose the manner of their death. Social media response to this progressive idea suggests that most will choose to die from “old age”. Any who choose hanging, electrocution, gassing, or lethal injection will carry out the procedure by themselves on themselves, when and where they choose, with or without witnesses, as they prefer.

Item: In cities with progressive policing, burglars will be permitted to search  for the goods they themselves have stolen.

Item: Under debate at present – a progressive outcome being pretty well assured – is a proposal, amply seconded, that abductors should be left to locate their abductees themselves, and decide whether or not to proceed with further actions such as blackmail, rape, or murder without police interference.

Item: Finally, we are happy to report great success in the International Relations Department. Since it is headline news in the conservative press, we will quote a media report of this triumph of tolerance, trust, and Christian forbearance.

The report comes from the New York Post:

A secret side deal to the Iran nuclear agreement allows Tehran to send its own inspectors to investigate a site where it has been accused of developing nuclear weapons, it was ­reported Wednesday.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran hammered out the plan for self-inspections of the Parchin military complex, long suspected of being a test site for nuclear arms, according to The Associated Press.

The United States and five world powers were not privy to the negotiations, but were briefed on the deal as part of the larger package signed in July limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

Skeptical members of the GOP-led Congress have been demanding texts of any side agreements, but the Obama administration has insisted the arrangements are technical and that it didn’t have copies.

Intelligence agencies have long suspected Parchin was used to ­experiment with high-explosive detonators for nuclear arms.

Iran has refused international inspectors access to the site for years and under the new deal that will not change.

Instead, the IAEA will diverge from normal protocol and allow Tehran to use its own experts and equipment to search for evidence of nuclear-weapons experimentation at the site. 

Iran is to provide photos and videos to the IAEA while “taking into account military concerns”.

That wording suggests Iran will continue to keep off-limits areas of the complex Tehran has deemed of military significance.

Needless to say, Republicans and other bigots object to this great leap forward:

“This is a dangerous farce,” fumed Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“It is absolutely unacceptable, yet telling, that we are finding out the details of these agreements through The Associated Press,” said an outraged House Majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran probe as deputy IAEA director general from 2005 to 2010, said he could think of no similar concession to any other nation.

But the dear Leader takes no notice of the reactionaries and their so-yesterday narrow-minded opinions:

Team Obama defended the side deal and said it had confidence in the inspection program.

Another description of how Planned Parenthood tortures babies to death for profit:

Senator Robert Menendez explains why he will not support Obama’s appalling deal with Iran.

He boasts that he has supported President Obama “98% of the time in 2013 and 2014”, but cannot and will not support his deal allowing Iran to become a nuclear power.

His analysis of what is wrong with the agreement is detailed and excellent.

He denies that the only alternative is war, and offers ideas for a better deal (some strong and some weak, in our view).

It is an important speech, well worth hearing.

Dennis Prager talks plain good sense about the US-Iran nuclear “deal” in this video, published on August 3, 2015.

He speaks of evil being not dark, but bright. Which recalls the title of the book, Brighter than a Thousand Suns, by Robert Jungk, about the scientists who invented the atom bomb in the Manhattan Project. The title is a line from a verse in the Bhagavad Gita which one of the scientists, J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoted when the bomb was tested. As a desccription of an atomic explosion it is exaggerated of course, but frightening; and we all need to be frightened of the nuclear war that Obama has now made not just possible, but all too probable.

Prager’s best point, in our opinion, is that we are already at war with Iran. We have been for a long time.

We still think the best way to deal with Iran would be to bunker-bomb its nuclear facilities. And to keep doing so every time it rebuilds them.