Former Iran Hostages: React to the Nuclear Deal, ‘We Negotiate with Our Enemies and Stab Our Allies in the Back’

[H/T Breitbart] — A nuclear deal between the U.S., Iran and other world powers has been described as a trust-building step after decades of animosity that hopefully will lead to a more comprehensive deal down the road.

But for many of the Americans who were held hostage at the start of the Iranian revolution, trusting the regime in Tehran feels like a mistake.

“It’s kind of like Jimmy Carter all over again,” said Clair Cortland Barnes, now retired and living in Leland, N.C., after a career at the CIA and elsewhere. He sees the negotiations now as no more effective than they were in 1979 and 1980, when he and others languished, facing mock executions and other torments.

The hostage crisis began in November 1979 when militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and seized its occupants. In all, 66 were taken hostage. Thirteen were released less than three weeks later in 1979; one was released in July 1980; the remaining 52 were released Jan. 20, 1981.

Retired Air Force Col. Thomas E. Schaefer, 83, called the deal “foolishness.”

“My personal view is, I never found an Iranian leader I can trust,” he said. “I don’t think today it’s any different from when I was there. None of them, I think, can be trusted. Why make an agreement with people you can’t trust?”

Schaefer was a military attache in Iran who was among those held hostage. He now lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., with his wife of more than 60 years, Anita, who also takes a dim view of the agreement: “We are probably not very Christian-like when it comes to all this,” she said.

The weekend agreement between Iran and six world powers _ the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany _ is to temporarily halt parts of Tehran’s disputed nuclear program and allow for more intrusive international monitoring of Iran’s facilities. In exchange, Iran gains some modest relief from stiff economic sanctions and a pledge from Obama that no new penalties will be levied during the six months.

To be sure, the former hostages have varying views. Victor Tomseth, 72, a retired diplomat from Vienna, Va., sees the pact as a positive first step.

Tomseth, who was a political counselor at the embassy in Tehran in 1979, had written a diplomatic cable months before the hostage crisis warning about the difficulties of negotiation with the Iranians.

Still, he said in a phone interview Monday that it is possible to cut a mutually beneficial deal with them.

“The challenge is Iranian society and politics is so fragmented that it’s difficult to reach a consensus,” he said _ a problem that is also present in the U.S.

He said he considers the deal “in a category of an initial confidence measure.”

John Limbert, 70, of Arlington, who was a political officer held hostage during the crisis and later became deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran in 2009 and 2010, also supports the deal. He said he does not view it in terms of whether Iran can be trusted, but whether the regime recognizes that a deal is in their own interest.

“I would say there is a consensus among the leadership, and the consensus is, `We like to stay in power. We like our palaces. … We’ve seen the alternatives in Egypt and Tunisia,” where established regimes have been toppled, Limbert said.

He said it’s a mistake to be overly pessimistic about the prospects for a deal.

“If we and the Iranians could never agree, then Victor and I and all our colleagues would still be in Tehran,” he said. “The problem has been that our reality has been for the last 34 years that anything the other side proposed, you could never accept because by definition it had to be bad for us, because otherwise why would they propose it?”

For other hostages, though, their experience has led them to the conclusion that attempting to negotiate and expecting Iran to live up to its end of the bargain is a losing proposition. Sgt. Rodney “Rocky” Sickmann, 56, of St. Louis, then a Marine sergeant, remembers clearly being told by his captors that their goal was to use the hostages to humiliate the American government, and he suspects this interim deal is in that vein.

“It just hurts. We negotiated for 444 days and not one time did they agree to anything … and here they beg for us to negotiate and we do,” he said. “It’s hard to swallow. We negotiate with our enemies and stab our allies in the back. That doesn’t seem good.”

The deal may also have a direct effect on some of the hostages who have long fought to sue the Iranian government for damages. The new agreement calls for $4.2 billion in frozen Iranian assets to be released, which could make it more difficult to collect a judgment on any successful lawsuit.

“And what do we get out of it?” asked Barnes. “A lie saying, `We’re not going to make plutonium.’ It’s a win-win for them and it’s a lose-lose for us.”

General: Obama Purposely Weakening U.S. Military

Here’s yet another article on the great work Gen. Paul Vallely is doing, the first one published earlier today can be found here.

[H/T WND] — WASHINGTON – A former deputy commanding general of the U.S. Pacific Command says President Obama seeks to “seize control over national security” and, bypassing Congress, singlehandedly weaken the U.S. military.

Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, retired, charges in a 21-page position statement made available to WND, titled “The Obama Military – Evolution and Legacy,” that Obama already has begun working with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons without a treaty, which would require Senate ratification.

“This would allow Obama and the executive branch to unilaterally cut our military capability and nuclear weaponry and ignore the treaty clause of the Constitution,” said Vallely, who has also served as a senior military analyst for Fox News Channel. Vallely has also charged, along with several other top generals, that Obama is purging the military by firing top-level commanders and that his ultimate goal is to “destroy U.S. military superiority” to the “advantage of our global enemies.”

In his capacity as chairman of the organization Stand Up America, Vallely previously called for the resignations of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and certain congressional leaders, issuing a “national call to action” aimed at bringing about those resignations.

Vallely is far from the only one worried about a plunge in military capabilities under Obama’s administration.

Frank Gaffney, former acting assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration, has asserted that placing women in combat is just the latest example of a “deliberate and systematic wrecking operation” the administration has conducted against the U.S. armed forces since 2009.

In addition, the Obama administration has directed measures to reduce the Pentagon budget by $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years, said Gaffney, currently president of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy.

In turn, this is bringing about the elimination or slowing of virtually all modernization programs, reduction in maintenance of worn-out weapons systems and other equipment and diminished training and cutting back in benefits, such as the plan the Pentagon has ordered to cut out commissary privileges at all of the military’s 178 U.S. and 70 foreign bases.

Further, Obama’s social agenda now includes changes in the law to allow open homosexuality in the ranks of the American armed forces.

Response? Increased foreign aggression

The undermining of the U.S. military hasn’t been lost on other countries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, all of whom have become more militarily aggressive during the Obama administration.

Robert Fisher, a Chinese military affairs specialist, says the Chinese leadership is “not impressed” with the administration’s decisions regarding next-generation stealth aircraft and its retirement of more than half of the Navy’s warships.

At the same time, Beijing has deployed its “carrier killer” missile, the Dong Feng-21D, that can be fired from a mobile launcher as Beijing begins to show greater military assertiveness in the East and South China Seas.

Retired Navy Capt. Joseph John tells WND the “bigger picture” is that “the U.S. armed forces have been under relentless attack by the occupant of the Oval Office for five years.”

A Naval Academy graduate, John had three tours of duty in Vietnam, served as an al-Qaida expert for the FBI, and was a commanding officer with SEALs embedded on special operations. As chairman of Combat Veterans For Congress PAC (Political Action Committee), he has helped elect 20 combat veterans to Congress.

“I believe there are more than 137 officers who have been forced out or given bad evaluation reports so they will never make flag [officer], because of their failure to comply to certain views,” John told WND.

“The truly sad story is that many of the brightest graduates of the three major service academies witnessing what the social experiment on diversity … is doing to the U.S. military, are leaving the service after five years,” he said. “We are being left with an officer corps that can be made to be more compliant, that is, exactly what Obama needs to effect his long range goals for the U.S. military.”

In an email to WND, John outlined what he termed “a very few of the most egregious” aspects of Obama’s “attack” on the military over the past five years.

He referred specifically to the Rules of Engagement in combat that were put in place after Obama took office, claiming the changes resulted in very high casualty rates in Afghanistan, including the loss of 17 members of SEAL Team 6 in one incident.

“The Rules of Engagement precluded the use of suppression fire at a landing zone,” John noted.

Endangering safety

Retired Air Force pilot Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson, who was a senior military aide to President Bill Clinton, also asserts that Obama’s national security policies are weakening the military and endangering the country’s safety.

Author of the recent book, “Conduct Unbecoming – How Barack Obama is Destroying the Military and Endangering our Security,” Patterson said Obama is underfunding and misusing the military, making America more vulnerable.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, recipient of the U.S. military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, as well as other top retired officers, say Obama’s agenda is decimating the morale of the U.S. ranks to the point members no longer feel prepared to fight or have the desire to win.

“There is no doubt he [Obama] is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him” over such issues as “homosexuals, women in foxholes, the Obama sequester,” Brady told WND.

Brady, a legendary “Dust Off” air ambulance pilot in Vietnam who described his experiences in “Dead Men Flying: Victory in Viet Nam,” said, “The problem is military people will seldom, while on duty, go on the record over such issues, and many will not ever, no matter how true.

“I hear from many off the record who are upset with the current military leadership and some are leaving and have left in the past,” he said.

Brady, who has served as president of the Congressional  Medal of Honor Society, referred to additional problems in today’s military including “girly-men leadership [and] medals for not shooting and operating a computer. This president will never fight if there is any reason to avoid it and with a helpless military he can just point to our weakness and shrug his shoulders.”

Retired Army Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, who was a founding member of Delta Force and later deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence under President George W. Bush, tells WND it is worrying that four-star generals are being retired at the rate that has occurred under Obama.

“Over the past three years, it is unprecedented for the number of four-star generals to be relieved of duty, and not necessarily relieved for cause,” Boykin said. “I believe there is a purging of the military. The problem is worse than we have ever seen.”

‘Demand resignation’

Vallely said the current crop of political leadership at the federal level must be forced to resign by the “demand resignation” process which he explained requires massive grassroots protests and social networking. As an example, he cited the public and media pressure that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Vallely also has announced the formation of a “provisional leadership council” – a citizens’ commission – to scrutinize Obama administration actions on national security and economic issues.

To begin the process of “reclaiming America,” Vallely envisions an “American Leadership Council” to be comprised of 12 people who would hold “America’s interests first, not their own,” and be people from “proven leadership,” not “talking heads” and “community organizers.”

“These must be people who have led large businesses and/or held military positions of consequence,” Vallely said. “These must be people who hold loyalty, fealty and love for this country first, and most of all, they must be trustworthy.”

He told WND that he intends to announce their names shortly.

“Under the Obama administration, the military has not been appropriately used to improve diplomatic relations, largely because the military is not viewed as a mechanism to achieve diplomatic success,” Vallely said. “Instead, Obama employs it as a ‘nation-building’ tool, a function quite anathema to its very definition.”

“Now, it’s not even fighting, just assassinating individuals. Retreat is now known as ‘drawdown’ and victory is now known as ‘nation-building’ or ‘transitioning,’” he said.

Vallely said that while conservatives see the military as a “crucial component” of diplomacy,  Obama views it as a “hindrance.”

“Changing diplomacy,” he said, “therefore is being carried out in a number of ways by the Obama administration: diminishing the military role and leadership in diplomacy; manipulating the rules of engagement; and making the U.S. military irrelevant elsewhere.”

America Has Come to a Crossroads: Brutally Honest Perspective from U.S. Major General Paul Vallely

[H/T Stand Up America] — America is imploding and we are at a critical crossroads. It is now obvious; from the ObamaCare debacle, to the myriad scandals, to our ever burgeoning debt, to the neutering of our world power status, to the rise of our enemies, and the demise of our allies’ trust in America; implosion is imminent.

Obama has taken the seeds of our demise, planted by progressives for over a century now, and amplified their growth at an astonishing rate. We are in a death spiral in terms of whom and what America is, was, and will become. Our ‘exceptionalism’ is the first casualty; we are imploding from within as past Soviet leaders predicted would be the only way we could be vanquished.

How, or better yet, can America recover from it its economic, political, and cultural death spiral? It appears to many of us, at home and abroad, that the United States is in a continual downward spiral, but the challenges can be overcome and we can recover and reverse that death spiral!

Even Hillary Clinton said in an interview with CNN yesterday that the world is now “de-Americanizing”; they don’t trust us anymore. Clearly she is separating herself from the very actions of the Obama Regime that she helped create but she should have also said that Obama is “de-Americanizing” the USA as well. In addition, Obama, through John Kerry has just now destabilized the entire Middle East with the newly announced P5+1 agreement with the Mullahs of Iran. The Sunni world, along with the Israelis, is now in more danger, not less.

Here at home, the stakes are very high for us now as well. But for our forthcoming younger generations it is rapidly getting worse. Therefore, our youth need to be more involved, they need to be included, and they must become self-motivated to understand this critical intersection we have arrived upon. If not, we will implode, and it will be quick. But how do we get there, and what do we do collectively?

The answer is leadership; people with vision and common sense, people who are not politics first, rather they are America first. They are needed more than ever to chart a new roadmap for America, both domestically and internationally. They need to be cultivated into leadership.

Having had the opportunity to meet with many members of our younger generations over the past year, I am encouraged by their changing vision of America. To steal a part of a phrase from a past television show, I call this group the “thirty-do-somethings” (25 -40 years of age), they are the future of this great country. There is a catch though. If they are to be the new leaders, they cannot be the “Kool-Aid” drinkers of the current leadership. They must become intimately aware and knowledgeable of the true intent of our founding fathers, not people who blithely couch talk of the Constitution, twisting and torturing its tenets to persuade people to buy fraudulent ideas like ObamaCare.

Encouragingly, I notice a more serious discussion of our country’s dilemmas and concern for their future and that of their children. I am not an alarmist by nature, but when I turn on the TV each day and watch the news, I see and hear very few positive reports of our government leadership and their stark inability to solve the nation’s problems. But now, alarmingly, I worry more than any time in my life. The amount of TV/radio and newspaper interviews that I do per month forces me each day to keep up with the national and international news more than ever.

The most serious questions I get are variations on a few different themes:

• Are we approaching the end of the United States as we have known it, as it was designed?
• Can we ever recover, how do we recover, and how long will it take?
• Are we fast becoming a ‘statist’ nation, a ‘mob-ocracy’ of centralized control?
• Can we overcome the current establishment two-party politics, where party comes first instead of “We the People”?
• Where do we stand in the global political sphere now?

America is asking these questions more regularly and with more urgency and anxiety. These are not normal times and the stakes ARE VERY HIGH and time is of the essence. Just in the past few weeks, with the unveiling of all the lies and deceptions, I can feel the temperature rise among listeners asking these questions of me. They are deeply fearful now, though I have been trying to warn folks for a long time, they are now feeling the heat and it’s not a pretty picture, for millions. That number will be rising as many predict, now that people see the harm, to themselves and their young ones.

The Constitution requires that all laws ‘be faithfully executed’, but far too many are not by the Executive Branch. In fact, the ‘rule-of-law’ and the ‘balance of powers’ has for all intents and purposes been cast aside by an executive that picks winners and losers. They decide which laws to enforce, and which to ignore. In fact, they legislate from the executive pen and bench; rule by fiat is now the norm. In fact, it has also spread to the Senate where one man, Majority Leader Harry Reid has effectively become the sole Senator. Dare not cross the man from Nevada, or be labeled and neutered.

In addition, the ‘oversight power’ of Congress has been neutered as well. In the House of Representatives, it is no longer about enacting legislation, it is all about investigations. Why, because they have been overwhelmed by the Executive Branch with an almost unquantifiable amount of scandals. The hearings are so numerous, yet achieve so little, even with the power of the subpoena. Why, because witnesses stone-wall, they claim no knowledge, they hide under the Fifth Amendment, and the documents they receive are useless so often because of redactions or they just are not provided. What do the other party’s representatives, supporters of Obama do instead; they claim it’s all just politics. At some point, we need to understand that a lie is no longer just a political tool, it’s a crime.

Overwhelming the system is now the standard and there is no way to ensure that Executive Leadership faithfully enforces our laws or is held accountable.  These self-serving political failures have become destructive to the well-being, liberty and happiness of most American citizens. It must be recognized that “New Guards” for future personal safety and National Security must peacefully be put into place by citizens beginning with votes at the ballot box. Failed leadership can no longer stand if the Constitution and the Republic are to be preserved for our children and all future generations.

Cicero said it best:

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly.

But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”

The facts (factoids – like Obamacare) are now becoming more recognized with the most recent dastardly additions of: countless political deceptions, lies, national economic destruction, manipulation of statistics, purposeful job-killing, and the demise of America’s middle class.

There is no Administration help for the massive unemployment of Black Americans, and the politically purposeful illegal alien invasion of the United States is killing us all. With over forty percent of the people within the fifty state borders now receiving food stamps, we have become a nation of ‘entitlement’. If you add up all these facets, the only conclusion is treason; treason to the sovereignty of each separate state and to the citizens within the several states, all perpetuated by the elected and appointed inside the Washington DC beltway.

An extensive analysis has been undertaken into the several national crises by Stand Up America US and its “Americans Project”. We who care greatly about the Republic, the People and the Constitution know now that action must be taken immediately. Necessary and workable solutions have been developed to help solve and fix what has without question stunted our Nation’s ability to clearly, legally, and peacefully function as a Constitutional Republic.

To begin the process of reclaiming America, we are establishing the ‘American Leadership Council’. The idea is to identify twelve people who hold America’s interests first, not their own. These must be people from proven leadership positions, not ‘talking heads’ and ‘community organizers’. These must be people who have led large businesses and/or held military positions of consequence. These must be people who hold loyalty, fealty, and love for this country first, and most of all, they must be trustworthy.

I intend to begin the process by acting as the inaugural chairman of the council under the banner of ‘The Americans Project’ and I am currently talking with people with these critical characteristics to join us. Our goal is to provide an alternate core of leadership to that which governs us so badly now, in both major parties, across all levels of government. We want you, the people, to have another choice, a place to go that you can trust.

A place where fellow constitutionalists, young and old, inclusive of all races and creeds, can go to ask questions, knowing the answer will not be some political primrose path or Potemkin village. It will be the place where prospective candidates can come for the best advice, and if they fit the mold, they will gain our blessing and backing. Independent constitutional leadership, selected by ‘American Leadership Council’ will be that leadership.

The council will have a set of goals based upon the KEY NATIONAL ISSUES that must be solved if the United States of America are to become economically solvent, remain peaceful, to once again become nationally secure, and to reclaim our standing on the global stage. When the council is fully populated, we will then post position and policy papers that address these issues:

• Constitution of the United States – The Constitution as it was originally established and amended in the Bill of Rights must remain in absolute and total effect. We must get back to this first before we can attend to any single issue.
• National Defense – A strong national defense of well-trained Active Duty, Guard and Reserve Forces must be reconstituted and realigned with readiness, technology, and speed as its core. Posse Comitatus shall be the backbone and social experimentation must end.
• Economic Issues – Government is not the cure, it is the problem. Big government’s days must end now. The Federal Reserve must be abolished and big banks must be broken up just like Standard Oil was long ago. All economic functions will be turned back over to the US Treasury including the power to coin and to print and issue currency.
• Internal Revenue Service – The IRS must eventually be abolished. How? We must revisit and abolish the 17^th Amendment and employ a “fair” or “flat” tax system where all have skin in the game. Income taxes are a control mechanism, not a wise device to fund the government, anywhere in the USA.
• Immigration – The illegal alien invasion of the United States will be stopped with secure borders finally established where no one can get through illegally. Our visa system must be revamped with more thorough vetting and tracking. Severe penalties (financial and criminal) for employers who hire illegal aliens must be enforced and there should be zero services provided other than emergency medical care, then deportation.
• Homeland Security – The DHS and FEMA have both grown far beyond the intentions of reasonable and responsible leadership control. Law enforcement shall be a state, county, or local function only. The DHS will be disbanded and certain functions will be merged into other departments more suited to the task.
• Energy – The Department of Energy must be abolished and certain specified oversight functions would be moved to the Department of Commerce and/or to the States. No more ‘crony green capitalism’ and ‘junk science’ fear tactics that enrich charlatans.
• Education – The Department of Education must be abolished (Along with “Common Core” or any other foreign born design) and its functions and all funding responsibility will be returned to each individual state, territory and the District of Columbia.
• EPA – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must be abolished with responsibilities and functions to revert to each individual state. Conflicts will be resolved at the Department of Commerce while working with the states. “Regulation Nation” must end because the law of diminishing returns is crushing our economy.
• Federal Agency Locations – Selected Agencies will be moved from the ‘beltway’and disbursed into the interior for cost-effective and long-term security reasons as well as seeking more diversified hiring of highly qualified civilians.
• Federal Property – All unused or unneeded federal facilities must be re-purposed in the redistribution of agencies to the interior and special attention must be paid to areas in decline. All other facilities shall be sold to the highest bidders. All federal lands will revert to the state except for the park systems, national security, and military bases.
• Entitlements
  • ObamaCare – The partisan and destructive Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care ACT (PPACA, aka ObamaCare) will be repealed and replaced with a market based system that crosses state borders. Tort reform shall be a priority.
  • Medicare and Medicaid will revert to pre-2009 status.
  • Social Security – Necessary changes and revisions will be made to the existing Social Security System to ensure self-funding.
• Public Service Employee Unions – The Executive order that allows unions to exist in government will be rescinded. Government unions must be made illegal through Legislative action.
• The United Nations – The United States must reduce its funding levels commensurate with an egalitarian system. The US should then work to move the UN to another nation and consider withdrawal in full.
• Department of Defense – Begin a systematic process to reorganize the Department of Defense into an organization of National Security that can prepare us for today and tomorrow with “forward strategies” that secure America. Redundancies must be removed, reunification of branches must be investigated, and all security aspects of Foreign Service protection shall fall back into the DoD.

Enough is Enough.

Our national call to action requires all of us to get our country on back on track, join us today! God save the Republic!

SEAL Team 6: Were They Murdered by Our Own Government?

On August 6, 2011, in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda insurgents perched on top of a tower with RPGs shot down a decrepit Vietnam-era CH-47 helicopter (Extortion 17, packed with 30 Special Ops forces, most of them part of the elite SEAL Team 6.)

It was the worst loss of life in a single day since the war in Afghanistan began. Per the Obama regime, it was simply the result of a “lucky shot” by al-Qaeda. Per documentation, including the 1300-page military report, heavily redacted and suppressed by the Obama regime, this is a lie among a host of lies.

SHOCK: Almost 80 Million with Employer Health Care Plans Could Have Coverage Cancelled, Experts Predict

[H/T Fox News]: Almost 80 million people with employer health plans could find their coverage canceled because they are not compliant with ObamaCare, several experts predicted.

Their losses would be in addition to the millions who found their individual coverage cancelled for the same reason.

Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute said that in addition to the individual cancellations, “at least half the people on employer plans would by 2014 start losing plans as well.” There are approximately 157 million employer health care policy holders.

Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute added, “the administration estimated that approximately 78 million Americans with employer sponsored insurance would lose their existing coverage due to the Affordable Care Act.”

Last week, an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, showed the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predicted up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.

According to projections the administration itself issued back in July 2010, it was clear officials knew the impact of ObamaCare three years ago.

In fact, according to the Federal Register, its mid-range estimate was that by the end of 2014, 76 percent of small group plans would be cancelled, along with 55 percent of large employer plans.

The reason behind the losses is that current plans don’t meet the requirements of ObamaCare, which dictate that each plan must cover a list of essential benefits, whether people want them or not.

“Things like maternity care or acupuncture or extensive drug coverage,” said Veuger. “And so now the law is going to force them to buy policies that they could have gotten in the past if they wanted to but they chose not to.”

Some plans already have been canceled and employers are getting sticker shock at the new, higher prices under ObamaCare.

One of them is David Allen, president of a company bearing his name in Boulder, Colorado. He told a Congressional hearing recently that his carrier discontinued his company policy because it wasn’t compliant with ObamaCare.

“It does not meet the minimum standards as stipulated under the law. Due to this one change,” he said, “our premiums are now scheduled to increase by 52.3 percent in January 2014.”

Roy said that is not unusual. “The old plans that are being cancelled are meaningfully cheaper than the new plans that are ObamaCare compliant.”

A new wave of cancellations and sticker shock will emerge just before next year’s elections.

“They’re going to start doing that in the summer or early fall but certainly before the midterm elections,” said Veuger.

BREAKING: Obama Secretly Elevates Iran to 7th World Power

[H/T DEBKA] — DEBKAfile’s exclusive Washington sources reveal exclusively: President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry secretly agreed to elevate Iran to the status of seventh world power, as a strong inducement for signing the interim nuclear accord in Geneva Sunday, Nov. 24, for living up to its obligations in the coming six months and for then signing a comprehensive agreement.

While Iran has always demanded respect and equal standing as a regional power, never in their wildest dreams had the ayatollahs expected to be granted big power standing, with an authoritative role recognized by the six big powers for addressing issues in a broad region spanning the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and Western Asia, including Afghanistan.

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report that President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif presented this awesome achievement Monday to their hard-line critics at home, who accused them of giving away too much in terms of Iran’s nuclear program for the sake of a deal with the West.

We come home from Geneva with recognition as a world power, they replied.

The small print of Iran’s new rating is not yet in place, but Western sources familiar with the new US-Iranian understandings say they would not be surprised to find President Rouhani sitting in future summits on the same side of the table as the six powers who faced Iran in the Geneva negotiations. Zarif would also attend future foreign ministers’ meetings as an world-class equal.
Jerusalem and Riyadh are aghast at this development. Our Jerusalem sources report that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has kept it back from his cabinet colleagues, has been holding back-to-back confidential consultations with the heads of Israel’s security and intelligence services and the high IDF command to decide how to handle Obama’s sudden replacement of Israel with Iran as America’s No. 1 ally in the region.
Most immediately, a hostile Iran with a role in the ongoing US-sponsored negotiations with the Palestinians does not bear thinking off.

The Saudi royal house is deep in similarly anxious and angry discussions.
Some of DEBKAfile’s Western and Israeli sources in the two capitals say Israel and Saudi Arabia both find Iran’s promotion to world status more shocking and deleterious even than its pretensions to a nuclear weapon. Neither had imagined the Obama administration capable of an about face so extreme.
DEBKAfile has obtained full details of the secret US-Iranian deal as concluded between Kerry and Zarif in Geneva and endorsed by the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers. They will be revealed in the coming DEBKA Weekly Issue No. 613 out next Friday, Nov. 29.

The Best Anti-Obama Video Ever Made

A very thoughtful and intriguing 2012 video on the destructiveness of Obama made by Jewish Task Force (JTF).

This video was made prior to the 2012 election in hopes of dissuading people to vote for Obama. To nobody’s surprise, many of the points made not to vote for Obama are becoming reality.