Claudia Rosette, Avi Jorisch, Kori Schake, Andy McCarthy

Freedom of the press is one of America’s most precious rights and not only the ability but also the responsibility to the press to report the truth to the American people, especially in connection to their elected officials. It seems President Obama, before he was president, had a special relationship with certain news outlets that helped to hide important information about the Mr. Obama from the American people. On a separate front, it seems North Korea is willing to suspend their nuclear program in hopes to elicit food aid from the United States and other nations. Which side is lucking out on this deal? Claudia Rosett provides her take on this development.

SWIFT, Society for Worldwide Interback Financial Telecommunications, is the “lubricant that the global financial system rests on.” SWIFT’s function is to allow banks to communicate with one another, allowing bank A to give permission to bank B to offer credit to an individual or company etc.… If one bank cannot communicate with other banks then that bank and its investors are not able to move money, and this segregation from the rest of the financial sector is what is currently happening to Iranian banks. Congress has pressured SWIFT to cut off Iranian banks from the rest of the global market, but only now are they actually starting to take action. SWIFT has claimed it will only cut off the Iranian banks that have been blacklisted by the EU. Financial expert Avi Jorisch explains the impact to Iran’s economy if these banks are cut off from the rest of the world.

“The Iranians have not yet decided to develop a nuclear program,” is exactly what came out of the mouth of DNI James Clapper as he testified before Congress last week. Iran’s behavior obviously contradicts that assessment and the IAEA even disagrees with that statement because they feel the enrichment facilities are being housed inside military bases thereby making this a military project, not civilian. Iran seems to be above the 20% threshold in their enrichment process and at 20%, uranium can be used in creating a nuclear weapon. If Iran is creating a nuclear program for civilian use, which DNI Clapper seems to believe, then why wont they open their facilities to IAEA inspectors? Kori Schake provides her analysis on this growing threat.

Andy McCarthy, former United States Assistant Attorney expresses his concerns over the possible release of the “Blind Sheikh” who was responsible for killing Americans and seeking to kill many more and was captured in 1993. According to Al-Arabiya President Obama has agreed to release the Blind Sheikh along with other 40 Egyptian prisoners. Should the administration negotiate with Islamists on such terms?