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[Photo: Emily Morter via Unsplash]

K. T. McFarland’s Big Fat Email [UPDATED]

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[NB: Update at the bottom of this post.]

I am posting this on the fly, haven’t yet fully digested what I just read. All I can really do right now is roll my eyes as I wave my hands in the air and scream about the stupid that burns.

You need to read this article, Emails Dispute White House Claims That Flynn Acted Independently on Russia; this bit in particular just boggles my mind although it’s not the only thing in this article which made me ululate.

Excerpt, The New York Times

And of course it’s Obama’s or the Democratic Party’s fault she was taken out of context here. Uh-huh. And Clinton should be impeached.

This bit is nearly as mind-blowingly whack:

Excerpt, The New York Times

“Political malpractice” is not the first thing that comes to mind here, Mr. Cobb.

UPDATE — 9:00 PM EST —

NYT’s Michael Schmidt has now provided K. T. McFarland’s full quote to clarify what was meant in the email.

We’re supposed to believe the context is about spin McFarland anticipated Obama (or the unspecified Democrats in the NYT’s article) would employ against Trump.

However lawyer Ty Cobb’s explainer-cum-apologia doesn’t sound like McFarland and others on the transition team were merely indulging in speculation.

Any time now I expect someone in the administration will not only say openly that Trump authorized the transition team to discuss dropping the sanctions, but that it isn’t illegal when the president does it.

Except in the U.S. we only have one president at a time.

Iran Begins Uranium Enrichment at Qom Tuesday, Enrichment Scientist at Natanz Assassinated Wednesday

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Fars News photo of the aftermath of the bomb that killed Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton railed Tuesday against Iran’s beginning of operations at its Qom uranium enrichment facility, which is buried deep within a mountain to protect it from bunker-buster bombs. Less than 24 hours later, the Deputy Director of the Natanz enrichment facility was assassinated when a bomb attached to his car exploded in northern Tehran. Iran is blaming Israel,citing similarities of this attack with two previous attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists, attacks in which Iran says the US also was complicit.

Despite the fact that Iran’s new uranium enrichment plant at Qom is designed to enrich uranium to only 20%, well short of the 90%+ that is needed for nuclear weapons, the US response to the start of operations there paints it as a highly provocative act:

“This step once again demonstrates the Iranian regime’s blatant disregard for its responsibilities and that the country’s growing isolation is self-inflicted,” Clinton said in a statement.

/snip/

“The circumstances surrounding this latest action are especially troubling,” Clinton said.

“There is no plausible justification for this production. Such enrichment brings Iran a significant step closer to having the capability to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium.”

Clinton rejected Iran’s assertion that it needed to enrich uranium to produce fuel for a medical research reactor, saying Western powers had offered alternatives means of obtaining such fuel but their offers had been rejected by Tehran.

Remarkably, Clinton also called for Iran to return to the “P5+1” talks, apparently having missed Iran’s Foreign Minister stating last week that Iran is ready to return to these critical talks aimed at diffusing the tension over Iran’s nuclear technology.

It appears that the US is having a bit of trouble with message management over its actions in relation to Iran. Over at Moon of Alabama, b reports on an embarrassing incident yesterday in which transcription from a “senior administration official” in the Washington Post got a bit too candid and had to be revised. Read more →