Victor Davis Hanson writes at American Greatness:

Because of the “Delta variant”.

Joe Biden is claiming, on his official Twitter page, that the Delta variant of Wuhan coronavirus is “deadlier” than other variants seen during the pandemic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom Biden administration officials continue to defend, is claiming the Delta variant “spreads more efficiently” and that unvaccinated individuals are most at risk for serious illness or death.

He said:

I’m here to talk to you today about the Delta variant that causes COVID-19. The comparison is it is transmitted much more efficiently, which means the chances of getting infected upon exposure is greater than the dominant variant that we have now in the United States.

Republican Senator Rand Paul, who has been debunking claims from Fauci for more than a year, is pushing back.

After the Delta variant, will there be another and another?

Our dictators don’t want to let go this excuse for controlling us?

It does seem as if they want to keep us all perpetually frightened, obedient, masked, impoverished.

But no! Surely not! Would those humanitarians conceive such an evil plan?

Is it possible, do you think?

POLITICO, usually partial to the Left and the Obama administration, has published a report by Josh Meyer that proves Obama wanted Iran to become a nuclear armed power.

It is further proof, if needed, that Obama wanted to get his “deal” with Iran at any cost, at all costs.

But why did he want to?

Because the “deal” allows Iran to become a nuclear power.  Ergo, wanting the deal that badly, was wanting a nuclear-armed Iran that badly.

Here’s Katie Pavlich’s summary of the story with selected quotations at Townhall:

Not only did the Obama administration negotiate the agreement without a guarantee Iran wouldn’t eventually build a nuclear bomb, President Obama and his State Department approved a number of secret side deals that have been exposed in the aftermath of negotiations. …

The “deal” or “agreement” does not merely lack “a guarantee Iran wouldn’t eventually build a nuclear bomb”, it positively permits Iran to build as many nuclear bombs as it likes after waiting a few years.

POLITICO is out with an astonishing report today [April 24, 2017] detailing the terms of a last minute prisoner swap deal made by the Obama administration just days before President Obama left the White House. It included the release of terrorists held by the United States and worse, the administration essentially gave immunity to an Iranian operative who had smuggled parts needed to build a nuclear bomb into Iran from China: 

When President Barack Obama announced the “one-time gesture” of releasing Iranian-born prisoners who “were not charged with terrorism or any violent offenses” last year, his administration presented the move as a modest trade-off for the greater good of the Iran nuclear agreement and Tehran’s pledge to free five Americans.

But Obama, the senior official and other administration representatives weren’t telling the whole story on Jan. 17, 2016, in their highly choreographed rollout of the prisoner swap and simultaneous implementation of the six-party nuclear deal, according to [the] POLITICO investigation.

In his Sunday morning address to the American people, Obama portrayed the seven men he freed as “civilians”. The senior official described them as businessmen convicted of or awaiting trial for mere “sanctions-related offenses, violations of the trade embargo”. 

In reality, some of them were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security. 

Yes, by Obama’s Justice Department.

Three allegedly were part of an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics with applications in surface-to-air and cruise missiles like the kind Tehran test-fired recently, prompting a still-escalating exchange of threats with the Trump administration.

It did not take long for the Justice Department to be brought to heel:

And in a series of unpublicized court filings, the Justice Department dropped charges and international arrest warrants against 14 other men, all of them fugitives.

Three of the fugitives allegedly sought to lease Boeing aircraft for an Iranian airline that authorities say had supported Hezbollah, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization. A fourth, Behrouz Dolatzadeh, was charged with conspiring to buy thousands of U.S.-made assault rifles and illegally import them into Iran.

The biggest fish, though, was Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, who had been charged with being part of a conspiracy that from 2005 to 2012 procured thousands of parts with nuclear applications for Iran via China. That included hundreds of U.S.-made sensors for the uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran whose progress had prompted the nuclear deal talks in the first place.

It is a deeply shocking story that needs to be read here at POLITICO in full.

It ought to cause widespread public outrage. But we doubt that it will.

As Scott Whitlock writes at Media Research Center’s NewsBusters:

While ABC, CBS and NBC on Monday and Tuesday found time to celebrate the return of “easy-going”, rested Barack Obama to the public scene, none of them covered the release of a blockbuster expose that reveals the buried secrets of the ex-President’s Iran deal giveaway.

Politico senior investigative reporter Josh Meyer authored [a report] that Obama secretly released 21 Iranian prisoners (not the seven originally claimed), men who were deeply involved in Iran’s missile and nuclear program. On Tuesday morning, despite a combined eight hours of air time, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS This Morning and NBC’s Today avoided the topic.

It was left to Fox News to cover the story. Meyer appeared on Happening Now and explained the real story behind the prisoner swap that propelled the nuclear deal:

The Obama administration when they rolled this out said there were seven people they were releasing as part of a deal for five Americans. But there were really 21 of them. There were seven people in the United States, either convicted or awaiting trial, on charges and then 14 fugitives. And besides downplaying the number, they also downplayed the severity of the charges … Many of these guys were high on the list of U.S. counter-proliferation effort to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

In his lengthy and well-sourced Politico story, Meyer detailed how the administration hid the identities of the Iranian prisoners who were being released …

The three evening shows on Monday ignored this blockbuster expose. Instead, journalists gushed about Obama’s return. CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley hailed, “Today, the man who never lost a presidential election made his first major appearance since leaving office.”

On Tuesday, CBS This Morning’s Dean Reynolds lauded, “Mr. Obama re-emerged yesterday with an easy-going manner that only a former president can appreciate.”

Nothing about the newest scandal of his administration.

So many journalists who cannot bear to face the truth!

But Tucker Carlson on his Fox News show last night (April 25, 2017) confronted a Democratic Congressman, Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), with the facts. [Watch it here.]

Carlson pointed out to him that he had been lied to, since the congressman had believed, and said, that  Obama administration officials had  briefed him fully on the contents of the deal.

But Mr. Swalwell was unmoved. He insisted to the last that the “deal” was good – because, he claimed, it stopped Iran getting nukes.

For such as he, the truth is what he wishes it to be.

Or perhaps he secretly shares Obama’s objective – a nuclear-armed Iran.

[Hat-tip for the Tucker Carlson interview to our commenter liz]

This map and the text come from an article by Katie Pavlich at Townhall:

Government watchdog Judicial Watch has released an unclassified map showing the military fleet positions the night of the 9/11 Benghazi terror attack. The map shows dozens of military ships, including two aircraft carriers and 13 destroyers, were stationed in the North Africa Area of Responsibility when radical Islamic militants stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing four Americans including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Diplomatic Security agent David Ubben, a survivor of the attack, waited severely wounded on a roof with Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty for 20 hours before help arrived. Woods and Doherty were killed during the waiting period.

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Randall R. Schmidt supplied Judicial Watch with the map and has been investigating the Benghazi attack for more than a year. Based on his experience as a fighter pilot, Schmidt has repeatedly said there is no reason why military forces could not have responded more efficiently to the attack.

“Destroyers could have responded to the attack,” Schmidt told Judicial Watch, adding that forces in the area are trained to do rapid response. “There were enough forces to respond.”