Yeah, About That 'Mysterious' $400 Million...
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
AUG 3, 2016
Here is how The Stupid starts.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran lost his job in 1979. He died a year later in Cairo. That's 37 years ago, if you're keeping score at home. For 37 years, the United States and Iran have been dickering at the Hague over the settlement of an arms deal that this country cut with the Shah when he was our boy in that part of the world. (Saddam Hussein was our boy, too. Life was complicated back then.)
In January, possibly because everybody involved got tired of windmills and tulips and really good beer, the two countries finally settled matters. As Agence France-Presse reported at the time, the U.S. agreed to pay $400 million in cash and $1.3 billion in interest to settle the claim first filed on behalf of a government that had been overthrown for nearly four decades.
The repayment, which settles a suit brought under an international legal tribunal, is separate from the tens of billions of dollars in frozen foreign accounts that Iran can now access after the end of nuclear sanctions. But the timing of the announcement, one day after the implementation of the Iran nuclear accord, will be seen as pointing to a broader clearing of the decks between the old foes. US President Barack Obama defended the settlement in a televised statement from the White House, saying it was for "much less than the amount Iran sought." "For the United States, the settlement could save us billions of dollars that could have been pursued by Iran. There was no benefit to the United States in dragging this out," he said.
At the time of the settlement, obvious anagram Reince Priebus stomped his little feet and complained, probably because the settlement came hard on the heels of the Iranian nuclear deal and coincided with the release of four Americans who had been in Iranian custody. But the story faded from view until Wednesday, when The Stupid started in earnest, thanks to The Wall Street Journal
more
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a47304/iran-400-million-prisoners/
= new reply since forum marked as read
has an email detailing how Secretary Clinton put on a John Kerry disguise to negotiate this "ransom" and then personally flew the money over to Iran, where she kept $50M of it for the Clinton Foundation
Why would ANY major news outlet fact check a story before putting it on the air?
I can't remember if it was NBC or CBS running the story because my husband was switching back and forth between the two last night. And then Colbert did a big bit on it last night because of course it couldn't possibly be a coincidence.
Why can't anyone verify or fact check anything anymore?
They've been throwing shit against the wall for so long, and in these VERY desperate times(Hillary surging, Trump slumping), they are using a semi-automatic RECTUM!
