Cash to Iran Cartoons

Cotton says cash to Iran sends 'dangerous' message to bad guys worldwide

Sen. Tom Cotton suggested Sunday that he’ll accept President Obama’s explanation that the roughly $400 million in cash to Iran amid the country holding several Americans captive was part of a decades-old settlement, but said the move sends a “dangerous” message to terrorists and others around the world.
“He said this payment was not a ransom,” the Arkansas Republican and major critic of Obama’s recent Iran nuclear deal, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“It doesn't really matter though what President Obama says. It matters what the Iranians think and it matters what dictators and terrorists and gangsters all around the world think. And they clearly think that this was a ransom payment … That's why it's so dangerous.”
Cotton also accused administration officials of stonewalling Congress and the American public about the specifics of the deal and the cash delivery roughly six months ago, continuing his criticism last week of the settlement.
“We didn't know the cash payment, for instance,” Cotton said. “We didn't know that it was paid for with bills that could be easily laundered or used for terrorism or support for Iran's allies throughout the region. And we didn't know that the Department of Justice opposed it. … There are still a lot of questions left to be answered. And the Obama administration continues to stonewall on this.”
The first-term senator also used a litany of strong words to describe the money delivery, in Euro notes, and how the administration behaved, including acting like a “third world gun runner” and a “drug cartel to the world’s most dangerous terror state.”
News reports surfaces Tuesday about of the money being flown to Tehran in an unmarked aircraft -- on pallets and wrapped in cellophane. Within hours, the administration said the delivery and the release of the hostages were unrelated.
And Obama said Thursday at the Pentagon: “We announced these payments … many months ago. They were not a secret. It was not a nefarious deal. … We do not pay ransom for hostages."
The administration had announced in January that the U.S. government would give roughly $1.7 billion to Iran and release frozen Iranian assets in connection with a failed, 1970’s-era arms deal, instead of potentially paying more through arbitration.
On Sunday, Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine tried to end the controversy, arguing in part that the only new news was Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump thinking there was a video of the cash delivery.
“There's just no 'there' there,” Kaine, of Virginia, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” also insisting that the timing of the delivery and hostage release did not look like the paying of ransom.
“Nope,” he said. “We don't pay for hostages. We don't negotiate for hostages.”

Gingrich on Clinton's latest email explanation: new way to 'lie about lying'

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday that Hillary Clinton’s latest attempt to explain her email scandal -- that her brain had a “short circuit” -- is a “very dangerous” excuse and a new way to “lie about lying.”
“She now has a fundamental way of saying, ‘I didn’t quite lie to you; I just short-circuited,' ” Gingrich, a Georgia Republican and top supporter of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, also told “Fox News Sunday.” "It’s one thing to lie, it’s another to lie about lying."
He was joined on the show by California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra who, like other Clinton supporters, is trying to move past Clinton as secretary of state using a private email server and the related FBI investigation.
“While we want to make more of it, like [FBI Director James] Comey said, let’s move on,” said Becerra, who tried to turn the debate with Gingrich to Trump’s immigration policy, calling him an “immigrant basher.”
“He just wants his immigrants to be legal,” Gingrich told Becerra, who is joining others in questioning the legal status of Trump’s immigrant wife, Melania.
Gingrich and Becerra also sparred over each of their candidate’s economic policies and plans to defeat the Islamic State terror group.

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Becerra repeated the argument that Trump’s plan would cost the U.S. economy a “breathtaking” 3.5 billion jobs. And he backed Clinton saying last week that Obama didn’t have enough time to fully execute is economic recovery plan, including a nearly $1 billion stimulus plan.
“He had a chance with $900 million and blew it,” Gingrich said. “You campaign on things being good enough. We’ll campaign on things should be better. And we’ll see who wins.”
Becerra criticized Trump’s plan to defeat ISIS, arguing it’s in large part based on allowing the U.S. military to torture detainees and “cozying up” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Kasich hints at Trump endorsement, says Ohio victory 'really difficult'

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is long gone from the Republican presidential primary but on Sunday hinted about finally endorsing Donald Trump while also predicting Trump winning his home state will be “really difficult."

Kasich, whose only primary win was in Ohio, has created problems for the Trump campaign, despite conceding in May to the GOP presidential nominee -- refusing to endorse Trump or attend official events during the party’s nominating convention last month in Cleveland.
Such actions appear to have so far hurt efforts to create state party unity and Trump’s chances of winning Ohio, considering no GOP presidential nominee has been elected to the White House without winning the state.
“He's going to win parts of Ohio where people are really hurting," Kasich told CNN's "State of the Union." “But I still think it's difficult if you are dividing to be able to win Ohio. I think it's really, really difficult."
The so-called battleground state -- which voted in 2008 and 2012 for President Obama -- has 18 electoral votes, in the contest to get 270.
And the campaigns for Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have already made several stops in Ohio since their respective party’s nominating conventions concluded a couple of weeks ago.

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Winning Ohio and other so-called Rust Belt states, whose populations and economies have dwindled over recent decades with the decline of U.S. manufacturing, appears essentially in what would or could be Trump’s narrow path to victory.
"There will be sections he will win because people are angry, frustrated and haven't heard any answers,” Kasich also said Sunday. “But I still think it's difficult if you are dividing to be able to win Ohio."
Polls show Clinton and Trump deadlocked in the state.
Kasich on CNN also left open the possibility of endorsing Trump, a bitter primary rival, with less than 100 days remaining before Election Day.
"We still have time. That's something I think about a little bit but not a lot," he said.
Kasich also attempted to explain his decision not to attend the convention, saying, "If I weren't prepared to get up there and endorse the nominee, I thought it was inappropriate to go.”

Giuliani: Clinton refusal to seek police endorsement shows Dems as ‘anti-law enforcement party’

Hillary Clinton’s decision not to seek the endorsement of The Fraternal Order of Police is a sign that the Democrat presidential nominee leads “an anti-law enforcement party,” former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said on Sunday.
Giuliani, who supports Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, said on “Fox and Friends” that he sees an anti-police atmosphere developing in America, and he blames Clinton and the Democrat Party for fomenting those feelings.
“It comes right from the top, it includes Hillary, and she’s made herself a part of it,” Giuliani said. “You don’t even go talk to and seek the endorsement of one of the major police unions in the country?”
During her campaign, Clinton has voiced support for the Black Lives Matter movement, which grew out of recent controversial shootings of black men by police officers. Clinton also invited mothers whose sons were killed by police officers to speak on stage at the Democratic National Convention – though the same convention also featured a speech by Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez.
Still, Clinton's decision not to seek The Fraternal Order of Police’s stamp of approval makes Clinton just the second Democratic presidential candidate in at least the last 20 years not to do so. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, also did not seek the endorsement of the union, which represents 335,000 members. The FOP endorsed Bill Clinton in 1996, but has given the nod to Republicans in 2000, 2004 and 2008. The union did not endorse any candidate in 2012.
“We were talking to the highest levels of the campaign, and we had all indications that she was going to return the questionnaire,” FOP President Chuck Canterbury told The Hill on Friday. “And on the deadline date we were advised that they declined.”

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Clinton’s campaign, speaking to The Hill, did not directly address why the form wasn’t submitted, but instead focused on how “Hillary and her team had engaged law enforcement throughout the campaign.”
“As she said from the beginning of her campaign, across the country, police officers are out there every day inspiring trust and confidence, honorably doing their duty, putting themselves on the line to save lives,” Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson said. “She believes we must work together to build on what’s working and to build the bonds of trust between police and the communities they serve – because we are stronger together.”
Trump has submitted his endorsement paperwork, and Canterbury stressed Trump’s “long history of being friendly to law enforcement.”
Giuliani said the choice not to submit the FOP questionnaire is indicative of the extreme left swing of the current Democrat Party and its presidential candidate.
“I think this only makes the point that the Democratic Party has gone so far to the left now – so far to the left – that it won’t even seek the endorsement of the major police organization in the country,” Giuliani said.