Category Archives: Foreign
Robbed in Rio
It’s not all Zika virus and green diving pool water in Rio. There’s armed robbery too.
Robbed in Rio
Olympic gold medalist, Ryan Lochte and three other swimmers were pulled from a cab and robbed at gunpoint. The bad guys, dressed as cops, held a gun to Lochte’s head. Locate was like, “whatever”:
And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, ‘Get down,’ and I put my hands up, I was like ‘whatever.’ He took our money, he took my wallet. He left my cell phone, he left my credentials.”
Maybe Ryan was just throwing up his hands.
Update: The WSJ reports that the athletes didn’t report the robbery to police. The cops began an investigation after seeing media reports. The International Olympic Committee initially denied those reports because it claimed the United States Olympic Committee told them the heist never happened. Later in the day the USOC changed its story and said it did happen. Locate says the swimmers were under the influence at the time.
Update to the Update: Two of the allegedly robbed swimmers were pulled off their flights home for further questioning in Brazil. CNN says officials are suspicious of discrepancies in their stories and their “jocularity” following an armed robbery. Ryan Locate got out of town ahead of the the law.
Coincidence
Bill Clinton just happens to show up on the same tarmac as Attorney General Loretta Lynch the weekend before Hillary’s interview with the FBI.
An unmarked plane delivers a pallet stacked with $400 million in cash to Iran moments before five hostages are released.
Coincidence.
Let The Olympic Games Begin
Let the Ri0 Olympic games begin.
Here’s Jonathan Turley in USA Today:
Rio is the IOC’s most signature moment: games held in a lethally polluted area with some athletes who are viewed as equally dirty. Dirty air, dirty water, dirty games.
Obama Launders Iran Ransom Money
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was busted for paying hush money by making cash withdrawals that would be difficult to trace. Never mind that he was a perv trying to hide the fact that he had molested a high school wrestler. It was violating the $10,000 cash withdrawal limit that got him busted.
Well, the WSJ reported yesterday that the Obama administration tried to hide a $400 million cash payment to Iran. And it tried to hide the purpose of the payment – ransom of five hostages.
The Justice Department opposed the deal.
Michelle Kosinski of CNN asked White House spokesman Josh Earnest if the hostages would have been released without the payment. He refused to answer. Actually, Earnest’s drawn out unrelated responses were kind of amusing. You can see the exchange at the -41:11 mark of this C-SPAN video.
Ransom Laundry
The ransom was paid in Swiss Francs and Euros delivered by unmarked plane in the middle of the night. Since it’s against the law to trade dollars with Iran Dr. Krauthammer says the administration is guilty of money laundering.
Obviously, it wasn’t a coincidence. The reason that it was objected to by Justice, there is a statute that prohibits us from engaging in Iran dealing with dollars. So, they had to print the money here, ship it over to Switzerland, turn it into Swiss francs and euros and ship it over to Iran. If a private company had done this, this is called money laundering. The CEO would be in jail right now.”
He added, “The reason it was concealed is because it’s illegal. That’s why Congress wasn’t notified, because it’s scandalous for the administration to explicitly defy a law that says you can’t deal in American currency. And the second thing is, it isn’t only that it encourages terrorism in the future, it’s that the money is in cash. Why in cash? Because that you can’t trace it. It’s going to go straight to Hezbollah, straight to Hamas, straight to terrorists in Iraq.”
Update:
Andrew McCarthy in National Review maintains Obama committed a felony. He says the law restricts the transfer of value to Iran in any way.
By his own account, President Obama engaged in the complex cash transfer in order to end-run sanctions that prohibit the U.S. from having “a banking relationship with Iran.” The point of the sanctions is not to prevent banking with Iran; it is to prevent Iran from getting value from or through our financial system — the banking prohibition is a corollary. And the point of sanctions, if you happen to be the president of the United States sworn to execute the laws faithfully, is to follow them — not pat yourself on the back for keeping them in place while you willfully evade them. The president’s press conference is better understood as a confession than an explanation.
Hillary Lying About Email Again
Hillary picked up four bonus Pinocchios for lying to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.
More Lying
Here’s Hillary:
“Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”
And here’s Ron Fournier writing in The Atlantic :
That’s wrong and she knows it, which makes it a lie.
