Iran Nuclear Cartoons

UN agency says Iran in compliance of landmark nuclear deal

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The U.N. nuclear agency says that Iran has taken its heavy water producing plant offline for maintenance, a move that keeps it from violating a landmark nuclear agreement by keeping the amount of the reactor coolant under the limits proscribed by the deal.
A confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency seen by The Associated Press said Friday that a May 27 inspection showed "the plant ... shut down" for maintenance. It says Tehran's heavy water stockpile then was 128.2 metric tons, just under the limit of 130 metric tons (over 143 tons.)
Heavy water cools reactors that can produce plutonium used to make the core of nuclear warheads. The IAEA last year said that Tehran had slightly exceeded the limit, but later said it was again in compliance.

Reports: Sessions offered to resign amid tensions with Trump

The relationship between President Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has become so frayed, Sessions recently suggested that he could resign from his post, multiple media reports said on Tuesday.
Trump reportedly turned down the offer. The reported offer was not a formal one, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Trump has been angry with Sessions-- one of his most vocal and earliest supporters-- ever since Sessions recused himself in March from the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections between Moscow and Trump campaign aides.
Sean Spicer, the top White House spokesman, declined to say Tuesday whether Trump has confidence in Sessions.
"I have not had that discussion with him," Spicer told reporters during a White House briefing, adding: "if I haven't had a discussion with him about a subject, I tend not to speak about it."
Charles Krauthammer, a contributor on Fox News, told “Special Report” that the last time Spicer said he did not speak to Trump about a member of his administration, then-FBI Director James Comey was fired days later.
“This is really bad,” Krauthammer said. He went on, “If you can’t absorb this one issue on which he disagrees and you have to get rid of him, no one is safe (in the White House).”
ABC News reported that the frustrations between Trump and Sessions is mutual. The Justice Department declined to comment for the ABC report. FoxNews.com could not immediately confirm reports.
The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, reported that Sessions told Trump that he needed more freedom to do his job successfully and he could resign if that was what Trump wanted.
A source told the paper the conversation occurred right before Trump’s overseas trip.
On Monday, Trump took to Twitter to publicly criticize the department's legal strategy in defending his proposed travel ban barring the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries.
"The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.," Trump tweeted Monday, ignoring the fact that he oversees the department and signed the second version of the ban.
"The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court - & seek much tougher version!" he added.
Trump has denied any collusion with Russia, deriding the story as a "witch hunt" and "fake news" invented to explain away the Democrats' loss in November.
The New York Times reported Monday that Trump partially blames Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the investigation for the eventual appointment of a special counsel.

Anthem Insurance Pulls Out of Ohio Obamacare

Another sure sign Obamacare is on it’s way out as the nation’s second largest health insurance company says it’s done with the legislation.
Anthem announced on Tuesday it will no longer be part of the “Affordable Care Act” in Ohio by next year.
This comes after both Aetna and Humana pulled out of the market earlier this year.
Insurance companies say it’s due to the health care law’s uncertain future, unpredictable marketplace, and cost.
Anthem’s CEO is now weighing whether to remove the company entirely from Obamacare.

President Trump: No Funds to Radical Ideologies

President Trump reiterates there cannot be funding for “radical ideologies” as Middle Eastern leaders cut diplomatic ties to Qatar.
During President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia last month, he said the world needed to strip terrorists organizations of their access to funds.
The President took to twitter on Tuesday to applaud those countries for refusing to fund extremism.
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all say they refuse to support extremist groups in the country.
Qatar denies any support of radical extremism, saying the crisis is “fabricated.”

Qatar Cartoons

As Gulf states cut ties with Qatar, Trump team debates Muslim Brotherhood terror designation

There’s a battle inside the Trump administration over what to do about the Muslim Brotherhood, the group at the center of Monday’s pivotal decision by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to cut ties with Qatar over allegations it supports terrorism, experts familiar with the situation say.
The debate reaches deep inside Washington politics, where Qatar has poured money in recent years, deepening a rift in American policy circles over what to do about the Muslim Brotherhood. The immensely influential group has long been considered a supporter of terrorism by several key American allies including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The camps inside the White House, according to sources, break down to two groups: On one side is a political group led by Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and the other side is led by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Generals McMaster and Mattis are said to be concerned about America’s deep military commitment to Qatar, where the U.S. operates a key airbase; Bannon is said to want to push for an official designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Arab nations cut ties with Qatar in new Mideast crisis
When asked if the U.S. is considering changing its position, a State Department official told Fox News: “The Muslim Brotherhood is not a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
The sources say there was a high-level White House meeting between the two factions about two months ago, and the Bannon team gave way amid significant pushback. And it wasn’t just from the national security team.
“The real pushback was in the public. Several dozen analysts writing pieces online how this would destroy our diplomatic relations and diminish American influence around the world,” said Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, “they argued it would look Islamophobic.”
For example, the prestigious Brookings Institute, which considers itself non-partisan, said “there is not a single American expert on the Muslim Brotherhood who supports designating them as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
Shadi Hamid, a Brookings Senior Fellow, wrote on the Institute’s website that most Islamists belong to “mainstream Muslim groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Hamas denies Qatar to expel leaders, but says some to move
“Mainstream Islamist groups accept the nation-state and work within the structures of the nation-state,” he wrote. “These groups are not stoking revolution or orchestrating terrorist attacks.”
Experts who have had close ties to Bannon worry that such analysis is getting through to the president.
“There is now a real danger that President Donald Trump, who came to office promising a very different approach to the whole phenomenon of what he called radical Islamic terrorism at the time, and is now calling Islamist extremism, is being subjected to some of the same seduction that the Brothers were able to engage in during past presidents,” said Frank Gaffney of the right-leaning Center for Security Policy.
Gaffney argued that such influence is suspect because Brookings, like some other big Washington think-tanks, has taken millions in funding from Qatar, the country accused of supporting terrorism by many of its neighbors. Qatar gave Brookings a $14.8 million, four-year donation in 2013, and has helped fund a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world.
“I think at best they are useful idiots when it comes to what the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to do,” Gaffney told Fox News, “at worst they are absolutely on board with it.”
Schanzer could not speak specifically about Brookings, but “what I can say is that Qatar spends a lot of money to make sure their perspective is heard in Washington.”
He says that’s problematic “because at the very least certain aspects of the discussion are being omitted because of a patron-client relationship.”
Those aspects of the discussion involve a growing belief among prominent former officials that at least some factions of the Brotherhood deserve greater scrutiny than the U.S. has subjected the group to in recent years.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served six presidents, including President Obama, recently told Fox News that the terrorist group Hamas is a direct offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is generally regarded as the ideological forerunner of both al-Qaeda and ISIS,” Gates said. “It seems to me, by and large, if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, maybe it's a duck.”
Gaffney goes even further, “I think what we’re dealing with is not terrorism anymore. What the Brits are facing is an actual Islamic insurgency.”
But the Brotherhood is not a “homogeneous” organization, said Schanzer.
“The Brotherhood in Tunisia is a political, non-violent organization and the Prime Minister of Morocco is in a Muslim Brotherhood arm,” he said, “On the other hand you’ve got two violent factions in Egypt and the Brotherhood in Yemen has long standing ties to Al Qaeda. These are the kinds of differences that a treasury designation process could highlight.”
That’s why Gates cautions the Trump administration to get more information before an official declaration of the Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
“I'm not sure we've investigated potential financial channeling from using Muslim Brotherhood resources and their networks to channel money to terrorist groups,” Gates said, “And I think if that's not already being done, that's a potential lucrative intelligence target.”
Schanzer agrees. He told Fox News there is a possible compromise solution.
“Task Treasury to research the various factions of the Brotherhood to determine which are supporting terrorism,” he said, “let the intelligence do the talking, and potentially lower the political temperature.”

Trump rips DOJ for 'watered down' travel ban, seeks swift court hearing

President Trump called out the Justice Department on Monday morning for pushing a “watered down” version of his controversial travel ban executive order, while also urging the DOJ to seek an expedited hearing in front of the Supreme Court to begin the ban's enforcement.
Trump’s travel ban – placing temporary restrictions on travel from several Muslim-majority countries – has been blocked by the courts since Trump signed the original executive order in January. He signed a revised travel ban in March, and that also was blocked from implementation by judges.
“People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” Trump wrote in the first of four tweets. “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C. The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court - & seek much tougher version!”
“In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political!”
A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment on Trump's tweets.
Trump’s tweets come in the wake of Saturday’s deadly London attacks, and an increasing string of Islamist assaults around the globe.
Both versions of the Trump travel ban prompted nationwide protests and fierce Democratic opposition. The ban's themselves were "watered down" versions of Trump's campaign proposal of a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.