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08/16/2016 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

ISIS Killing Christians And Obama and The World Does Nothing

WARRI, Nigeria — The so-called Islamic State has different strategies in different parts of the world, but in Africa and in Europe, certainly, its core objective is becoming clear: to kill Christians. Its long-term goal: to provoke a new Crusade, reviving the holy wars of many hundreds of years ago in the belief that this time around Islam will win.

In practical terms, this focus on a single pervasive, easily targeted enemy is useful to a “caliphate” under pressure that is trying to keep its troops in line.

The way ISIS has handled its Nigerian disciples in the terror organization called Boko Haram, best known for kidnapping girls and using women and children as suicide bombers, is a perfect case in point.

Earlier this month, a man named Abu Musab al-Barnawi announced that he had taken over the infamous Boko Haram organization. And his first message as Boko Haram’s leader was as clear as it was concise—on his watch, the group’s main focus will be killing Christians.

According to an interview published this month by the self-proclaimed Islamic State group (ISIS), al-Barnawi threatened to bomb churches and kill Christians, but will no longer attack places used by Muslims.

The man described as the new wali, or governor, of ISIS West Africa Province (as Boko Haram wants to be known), said there is a plot by the Western nations to Christianize the region and also claimed that charity organizations are being used to achieve this, according to an interview published in the Islamic State newspaper al-Nabaa and translated by SITE Intelligence Group.

“They strongly seek to Christianize the society,” he said of these charities. “They exploit the condition of those who are displaced under the raging war, providing them with food and shelter and then Christianizing their children.”

The man who now runs Boko Haram said the group will deal with Christians by “booby-trapping and blowing up every church that we are able to reach, and killing all of those who we find from the citizens of the cross.”

Not only were al-Barnawi’s intentions clear, his agenda for Boko Haram also appears to be a clear script written by ISIS, to whom he answers. The new leader will be expected to deliver results that his predecessor, Abubakar Shekau, failed to achieve.

When Boko Haram under Shekau’s leadership pledged allegiance to ISIS last year, it looked like the group would adopt ISIS modus operandi and embrace its ultimate goal to lead Muslims toward an apocalyptic battle against “infidels,” and eventually create a unified, Muslim territory where it would enforce its extremist beliefs. But that didn’t turn out to be the case.

While ISIS, with a precise goal of gaining and inspiring its followers, developed strategies of achieving its aim, including citing the Quran in shaping its vision, and referencing the words of the Prophet in its statements, most of which it released on its well packaged online magazine, Dabiq, Boko Haram on the other hand showed it was a loosely organized group with militants lacking in strategy and erratic in behavior as it began to focus its attacks on the same Muslims it needed to inspire and recruit.

In recent months, rumors began to fly that Shekau had run into problems with the leadership of ISIS for his failure to obey its guidance.

In June, U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the nominee to lead the U.S. military’s Africa Command, told a congressional hearing that Boko Haram have fractured internally, with a big group splitting away from Shekau over his failure to heed to instructions from ISIS, including ignoring calls to stop using children as suicide bombers.

“He’s been told by ISIL to stop doing that,” Waldhauser said, using the U.S. government’s preferred acronym for Islamic State at his nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “But he has not done so. And that’s one of the reasons why this splinter group has broken off.”

“What concerns me is the breakoff group of Boko Haram who wants to be more ISIL-like,” said Waldhauser, “and consequently buy into the ISIL-brand of attacking Western interests.”

Boko Haram has lost ground to a more determined Nigerian military in recent months, and without territory it loses some of its draw for new recruits, but al-Barnawi’s anti-Christian focus is tried and tested by his mentors in the “caliphate,” who want to keep the Nigerian conflict turned up to a full boil.

Al-Barnawi’s anti-Christian rhetoric is already the focus of ISIS in Europe. On the day he was announced as Boko Haram’s new leader, ISIS used the latest issue of Dabiq to paint Christianity as a “false” religion and Christians as “cross worshippers.” It encouraged Muslims to attack churches in a ways similar to the atrocity in France last month, where two men entered a Catholic church in small town Normandy, slit the throat of an 86-year-old priest, and gravely wounded a nun.

ISIS has proven in the past that it is capable of following up on its warnings, and determined to do so, is why the threats by the leader of its so-called West Africa province must be taken seriously.

Before the Normandy attack, ISIS, in the fifth issue of its slick French-language magazine,Dar al-Islam, which came out last summer, listed French churches as targets in a campaign “to create fear in their hearts,” according to a CNN report last month.

The group’s planned attack on a church in Villejuif in the Paris area in April 2015 was thwarted by French police after the man who was supposed to carry out the operation accidentally shot himself in the leg. But after failing in Villejuif, it returned to carry out the murder in Normandy, showing it can hit where it said it’s going to hit—at a church. It isthreatening to do the same in cities like London and Washington, D.C., and now in West Africa. With the Normandy attack, it was trying to prove to the world that it can do what it says it will do.

The Christians of the Middle East, though a minority, and a dwindling one in many places, are targeted as well. In June, an Egyptian affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the murder of a priest in the Sinai Peninsula where it operates, describing him as a “disbelieving combatant,” in a way ISIS often describes non-Muslims.

ISIS has set an ambitious goal of fighting until “disbelievers” accept its options of conversion, submission by paying the infidel tax (jizyah), or death, and its removal of Shekau as Boko Haram leader is a clear indication that it wants its jihad to expand until “it covers all eastern and western extents of the Earth,” as it puts it in the fifth issue ofDabiq. In its home base straddling parts of Iraq and Syria, ISIS has persecuted all supposed infidels, including Yazidis—condemned as pagans and murdered or sold into slavery—as well as Christians.

This new global emphasis on “cross worshippers” is a return to the group’s jihadist roots, harking back to the 1998 declaration by Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and others that they would wage war on “Crusaders and Jews” around the world. A return to fundamentals is often the strategy of an organization trying to regain focus and rationalize its structure.

“It wouldn’t be easy for al-Barnawi to operate in the state at which Boko Haram is at the moment,” said Ushie Michael, a prominent Nigerian security analyst who has been following the activities of the group right from inception. “Shekau still has his faction, and there is most likely going to be a clash between both groups.”

As ISIS seeks to reposition Boko Haram, Shekau disagrees with the new arrangement, and as a recording purportedly from him suggests, the former leader—who described al-Barnawi as “an infidel” preaching “false creeds”—sees the announcement of a new head of the sect as a coup.

“At the beginning of these exchanges [with ISIS], I was deceived. I was made to articulate my beliefs in writing, but this was rejected,” Shekau said.

As things stand, Shekau has lost control of what remains of Boko Haram, and whether or not he agrees with this new development, it doesn’t change what ISIS intends to do. To achieve its ultimate ambition of securing a global caliphate through a global war, it must keep its recruits—whether in the field in the Middle East, or fighting as part of subsidiaries in Africa, or as “lone wolves” in Europe—focused on the enemy that’s at hand: Christians.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/14/isis-orders-its-franchises-to-kill-christians.html?via=twitter_page

08/15/2016 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

George Soros Behind Obama Destroying America

A leaked 2009 document marked “classified” from George Soros’ Open Society Institute calls the Obama presidency a “make or break” moment for “transformative change” in immigration reform, “racial justice,” and a myriad of other issues.

“We are living in a ‘make or break’ moment for building open society in America. There is no need to wax eloquent about why. The factors were not all in play even just a year ago,” Ann Beeson and Bill Vanderberg wrote in a document titled “Special Funding to Seize This Transformative Moment.”

Beeson is the former executive director of U.S. programs at the Open Society Foundations and is currently the executive director for The Center for Public Policy Priorities. Vandenburg is the program director for U.S. special initiatives and partnerships at the Open Society Foundations.

The”hacktivist” group DCLeaks released over 2000 files from Open Society Foundations and other Soros groups Saturday.

Beeson and Vandenberg wrote: “the abuses of the prior Administration began the wake up call. Obama raised the pitch by running – and winning – on a platform of transformative change. The global economic crisis then elevated the risks and opportunities for building a better society. There is now a perfect storm for real change. What is OSI’s role in this moment?”

The document states that OSI provide up to $10 million for projects. OSI now goes by the Open Society Foundations and was founded by Soros. It has a budget of $930.7 million in 2016.

“Without additional funds, many organizations and leaders will lack the capacity to take advantage of this historic moment, and the perfect storm may pass with no real change in its wake,” Beeson and Vandenberg wrote in the February 2009 memo.

The U.S programs division of OSI wanted “special funding” to four different areas. These are:
Advance the most challenging issues – including mass incarceration, immigration, drug policy, and structural inequality – as part of the transformative national agenda.
Ensure transparency, accountability and equity in the development and implementation of economic recovery plans
Increase public participation in policy reform efforts by those most impacted, including people of color, immigrant, and low-income communities
Integrate recent innovations in organizing and technology into more organizations and movements.
The memo then goes on to list organizations that should receive grants to achieve each of these goals. To push for criminal justice reform, the OSI said the Council of State Governments and the Justice Mapping Center among other groups should get support. “We could expand support for model reentry programs that provide training for former prisoners, such as a newly forming national Clean Energy Corps and the National Service Corps,” the memo states.

Beeson and Vendenberg wrote, “OSI should provide funding to strengthen the capacity of national groups focused on specific issues – racial justice, LGBT equality, women’s rights, and immigrants’ rights – to develop an over-arching equality agenda.” A group they identify as being able to take a “lead role in this effort” is the National Council of La Raza.

The memo states that a successful agenda “cannot be a typical liberal issue ‘laundry list.’” “If done thoughtfully, such an effort could build a left/ right coalition utilizing ‘common good’ or ‘shared fate’ framing.”

The OSI document also calls for funding in government transparency groups and organizations that encourage government spending towards programs that benefit minorities and previously incarcerated individuals.

The effort discussed in the memo rises up out of something referred to as “Unity 2009.” “In December and January, we also began discussions about an emerging table of organizations committed to supporting a new, large scale economic recovery policy campaign – a ‘new new deal.’ This effort is now called Unity 09.”

“The structure of the [Unity 2009] effort has changed significantly since we last discussed it, largely due to concerns raised by USP’s staff and General Counsel,” the memo states. It goes on to say that Unity 09 “will not be a new organization” but instead consist of various non-profits that collaborate.

“The initial Unity 2009 convening in DC included thirty-five organizational leaders. Several OSI grantees participated, including the Center for American Progress, Center for Community Change, National Council of La Raza, National Immigration Forum, and State Voices,” Beeson and Vandenberg wrote. “Beyond these groups, however, Unity 2009 lacks inclusion of people of color, immigrant, student, and faith community organizations.”

The memo points to John Podesta and Andy Stern as leaders in the Unity 2009 effort. It states that both “are well-connected with the new Administration and on the Hill.”

Stern is the former president of the Service Employees International Union and a current senior fellow at Columbia University. Podesta served as Counselor to President Barack Obama and Chief of Staff to former President Bill Clinton. He is currently Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Confidential Soros Document Calls Obama Admin ‘Make Or Break’ Moment For ‘Transformative Change’

08/15/2016 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Idiots From SEIU’s Fight for $15 Workers Aren’t Union and They Don’t make $15 an hour

On Friday evening, just before 7 p.m., in a darkened hall in the Richmond Convention Center packed with more than 1,000 low-wage workers and union organizers, Olimpia Barajas-Ames gave the signal.

A mother of one and an organizer with the Child Care Fight for $15 campaign in Las Vegas, Barajas-Ames stood up, holding a sign that read, “$15 minimum wage and union rights for all means organizers too.” That was the tip-off for other union organizers to slap on stickers and don tee shirts indicating they want a union for employees who work on labor organizing projects spearheaded by the 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union.

To outsiders, it may seem strange that union organizers are demanding a union of their own. But to Barajas-Ames and others who joined in the protest against SEIU, they are as much part of the precarious, low-wage workforce as workers at McDonald’s and Walmart are.

Jodi Lynn Fennell, also an organizer with the Child Care Fight for $15 campaign in Las Vegas, says, “Many SEIU organizers come from low-wage backgrounds. Childcare organizers come from childcare backgrounds. Fast-food organizers come from the fast-food industry. Many home healthcare organizers were once home healthcare aides themselves.”

For months, organizers in SEIU’s Fight for $15 campaign have been working with the Union of Union Representatives to demand representation. Currently, nearly 100 staff at SEIU are unionized under a contract with UUR that began 30 years ago. UUR launched an investigation of SEIU in 2015 and found it was outsourcing the work of its field organizers in violation of the contract. Earlier this year, many of SEIU’s field organizers formed an organizing committee to gain union representation and in April, 15 organizers submitted UUR membership cards.

The action by the Fight for $15 Staff Union Organizing Committee at the convention in Richmond, Virginia, is the latest tactic to pressure SEIU to recognize the union rights of all its organizers. After Barajas-Ames held up the sign for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and a union for organizers, she started walking toward the stage where SEIU president Mary Kay Henry was speaking.

Fennell, who joined, says, “Nearly 100 organizers and supporters gathered, moving up toward the stage peacefully. Our plan was simply to deliver a letter to Mary Kay Henry because she doesn’t make herself available to speak with us.”

Fennell wrote the letter that was to be presented to Henry. Fennell says last February, during a luncheon with Henry, the SEIU president said that “every worker deserves a union.” The letter called on SEIU to “lead by example” and “embody the movement’s basic principles of $15 and a union.” Fennell pointedly wrote, “If you say all workers must have a union, why is SEIU International denying my union rights and those of the entire Fight For $15 field staff?”

Fennell added that the UUR organizing campaign “is not about negativity. We want to enrich this movement with integrity so that we can strengthen the national Fight for $15.”

But they never got to hand the letter to Henry. Inside sources at SEIU say the union was prepared for such an incident, and sprang into action. Fennell says, “Security prevented us from getting to the stage.” Meanwhile, on the speakers’ platform, Henry stepped back and a group of African-Americans and Latino/as who sit on the national organizing committee for Fight for $15 stepped up.

One woman on stage with Henry grabbed the mic. She berated the staff organizers and their supporters below as cameras broadcast the convention. “Are you serious? Are you going to do this right now? Do you know what it is like to get paid $500 every two weeks? … You guys get paid enough. You have a chance to get a union. I don’t.”

As Henry stood smiling faintly behind the human wall, the speaker continued, “Do you know what it is like to have your kids homeless, sleeping in the back of a van? You will never know what that is like. They will never walk a day in our shoes.”

Fennell said of the accusatory remarks, “Everyone has different struggles, but this is not fighting over scraps. This is a movement about being in solidarity. We are not competing on who has it worse. We are not trying to pull each other down like crabs in a bucket.” She said her struggles include carrying $35,000 in student loan debt and nearly as much in medical debt.

Barajas-Ames says the UUR organizers stood before Henry for 15 minutes. As the speakers on stage led the crowd in chants of “$15 and a union,” Barajas-Ames says, “The security guards became hostile and aggressive, physically pushing us back. We stepped back and stood peacefully. Our signs were grabbed and torn up.”

Two child care workers at the convention who supported the action by the UUR organizing committee felt many in the audience were hostile: “They were all up in our face, chanting, ‘This is what democracy looks like.’ We had to jump over a table to get out.”

But that was just the beginning of the troubles for the members of the UUR organizing committee. Shortly afterward, Barajas-Ames and Fennell were personally called by the national director of the Child Care Fight for $15. The two organizers were told they would not be attending the events and protests on Saturday they had been organizing toward for months. Instead, they were to pack their bags as they were being flown out at 6 a.m. back to Las Vegas. Fennell claims the national director also told them, “We will be expecting you to pay for the cost of the hotel.”

Barajas-Ames and Fennell refuse to pay for the two nights they stayed at the Hilton Richmond Downtown, which would set each back more than $300. Barajas-Ames said that amount of money represented a car payment for her, while Fennell said it would be nearly 40 hours of work, as she often makes only $9 an hour given 60-hour workweeks and after out-of-pocket gas expenses. A total of five Fight for $15 organizers who support UUR were shipped home for trying to bring attention to their cause.

Fennell says, “This represents the exact same type of retaliation that corporations do to low-wage workers.”

A UUR representative claims this is part of a broader pattern. “SEIU has been fostering anti-union sentiment for months among the national organizing committee. We think they are creating divisions between the workers and the staff organizers’ campaign.”

UUR estimates more than 100 SEIU organizers who have been outsourced should be covered by its contract, although it has only identified 40 to 50 of them. Of this group, UUR says about 10 have left in the last six months because of the difficult working conditions or retaliatory actions by SEIU. UUR has already filed one “unfair labor practice” charge with the federal government and plans to file a second on August 14.

The outsourcing is blatant, the staff organizers claim. Fennell says her job is determined solely by SEIU. “I was hired by a regional director for SEIU. All my communication is with SEIU. I work in an SEIU office.” But her paycheck, like Barajas-Ames’s, comes from the “Ardleigh Group.” One former employee calls it a “faceless, shadowy” corporation that acts as a pass-through to hide employer responsibility. SEIU documents appear to show it using paper outfits to funnel money to the Ardleigh Group, which then pays workers on SEIU projects who say they are being denied their legal union rights.

UUR president Conor Hanlon told the Raw Story, “The treatment of the Fight for $15 Organizers fits the same pattern that we see from private-sector employers across the country which turn to franchises, temp agencies, and so-called independent contractors rather than hire employees directly. We believe that rather than participate in the disastrous race to the bottom SEIU should commit to its organizers who, like all workers, deserve a career path, fair treatment, and good pay and benefits.”

In addition to accusing SEIU of “evading responsibility of its employment practices,” UUR alleges that SEIU engages in discriminatory employment practices. These include “women are paid less than men, Black staff are paid less than non-black staff, and Latina/Latino staff are more likely to be hired as temporary employees rather than full-time employees.”

Fennell says SEIU’s habit of overworking and underpaying organizers leads to “extraordinarily high” turnover, which harms labor organizing and the goal of improved social services. “We feel passionate about creating affordable child care for all. We can serve our community better when we have the same worker rights as the child care workers who we are fighting for.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/exclusive-some-of-seius-fight-for-15-workers-arent-unionized-and-dont-make-15-an-hour/

08/11/2016 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Loretta Lynch Declined FBI Request To Investigate Clinton Foundation

The Department of Justice declined a FBI request to open up a public integrity investigation into the Clinton Foundation, CNN reported on Wednesday.

According to the news network, the FBI made the request earlier this year, but the DOJ said it did not have enough evidence to open a formal probe. CNN reported:

The Clinton Foundation was not part of the recent investigation into her private server; it was separate. The FBI went to Justice Department earlier this year asking for it to open a case into the foundation, but the public integrity unit declined. The Justice Department had looked into whether it should open a case on the foundation a year prior and found it didn’t have sufficient evidence to do so.

Opposition to the FBI’s request — if the report is accurate — is likely to raise even more questions about whether the DOJ is acting impartially. Attorney General Loretta Lynch came under fire last month after it was revealed that she met in secret on her government airplane with Bill Clinton in late June.

The meeting occurred days before the FBI and DOJ were set to interview Hillary Clinton as part of its investigation into whether Clinton or her aides mishandled classified information by using a private email system.

Lynch has insisted that she did not discuss the investigation with the former president. It has also been reported that the Clinton campaign has considered asking Lynch to remain as attorney general if Hillary Clinton is elected president.

The CNN report helps settle a question that government officials have largely avoided addressing.

FBI Director James Comey declined last month to say whether an investigation into the Clinton Foundation was underway.

Clinton’s campaign spokesman Brian Fallon recently said that there is “no evidence” that the Clinton Foundation is or was under investigation.
Though the DOJ decided not to pursue a public integrity investigation, new questions about the Clinton Foundation were raised on Tuesday after the watchdog group Judicial Watch released a new set of emails showing that a top adviser for the non-profit asked Clinton’s State Department aides to help out several individuals — including a major Clinton Foundation and a close associate. (RELATED: Clinton Foundation Official Asked Hillary’s State Dept. For Favors For Donor, Associate)

The Clinton Foundation official was Doug Band. He has worked for Bill Clinton for years and now runs the consulting firm Teneo Strategies.

In an April 25, 2009 email, Band asked Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills to help put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury in touch with the State Department’s “substance person” on issues related to Lebanon.

Chagoury, a longtime Clinton donor who was once a close associate of Nigerian dictator Sani Abache, has given between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation. In 2009 he pledged $1 billion to help with a project undertaken by the Clinton Global Initiative, a Clinton Foundation offshoot which Band helped advise.

“This is very important,” Band said in his request to Mills and Abedin. “He’s key guy there and to us.”

In another April 2009 email, Band forwarded an email to Mills, Abedin and another Clinton aide, Nora Toiv, entitled “A favor.”

The individual seemingly asked for a job with the State Department.

“Important to take care of [redacted],” Band wrote.

On April 29, 2009, Band emailed the same trio of advisers asking: “Can someone pls call [redacted]? He calls me every day and we owe him some attention.”

It is unclear who the individual was, but Abedin told Band that she would place the call. Band’s remark that “we owe him some attention” suggests that the functions of the Clinton Foundation overlapped with the State Department.

Abedin and Toiv later landed a job at Band’s firm, Teneo.

The Clinton campaign denied to CNN that the Band emails were evidence of collusion between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

“Neither of these emails involve the secretary or relate to the Foundation’s work,” Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin told the network. “They are communications between her aides and the President’s personal aide, and indeed the recommendation was for one of the Secretary’s former staffers who was not employed by the Foundation.”

Notably, Schwerin’s comment does not address Band’s request on behalf of Chagoury, the major Clinton Foundation donor.

http://linkis.com/dailycaller.com/2016/Nh9GI

08/08/2016 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Black Only Classes At College! That’s Right Segregation Is Back

An Illinois college has restricted certain sections of a mandatory introductory course to black students.

“While helping my son register for college at Moraine Valley Community College, we noticed that the required course College 101 has two sections limited to African-American students,” one concerned parent told The Chicago Tribune. “He wants to know why there are not two sections limited to Asian-American students? How about Native American students?”

This segregation of students by race seems odd, especially considering the course’s emphasis on diversity.

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“[College 101] provides an opportunity to assess your purpose for college, assess your study strategies, set college and career goals, examine your values and decision-making skills, and develop an appreciation for diversity,” the course catalog states.

But Jessica Crotty, Moraine’s assistant director of communications, made the case for segregation, saying the school periodically reserves certain course offerings for various demographics of students, including veterans.

“Sometimes we set aside sections for specific populations, including veterans and older students,” Crotty noted.

“The focus can be on specific issues they face,” she explained. “For example, veterans face a specific set of challenges. Students feel comfortable and are more likely to open up because they’re with other students who are like them.”

Conversely, Michael Olivas, acting president of University of Houston Downtown, told Inside Higher Ed that he feels such exclusionary program offerings are misguided, however pure the intentions behind them may be.

“I think it’s ill-advised, arguably subject to legal challenge, and you don’t want to wave the flag in front of the bull,” he argued, saying that even support services targeted at specific demographics should be available to all students to avoid creating potentially counterproductive perceptions.

08/08/2016 by The Doctor Of Common Sense

Iran’s Ex-President Asks Obama For $2 Billion Dollars In Frozen Assets

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is asking President Obama to release nearly $2 billion in Iranian assets frozen in a New York bank account.

Ahmadinejad, who left office in 2013 but may be eyeing a new run for president next year, told Obama in a letter that the “property seizure” is “counter to all international legal principles and rules.” Continuing to withhold the money, Ahmadinejad added, could further deepen the “historical distrust” between the two nations.

“Your campaign slogan was ‘change,’” Ahmadinejad wrote to Obama in the letter, published on Monday by the private Tasnim News Agency. However “the same hostile policies along with the same trend of enmity were pursued,” he warned.

“I passionately advise you not to let the historical defamation and bitter incident be recorded under your name.”

The frozen assets have been a continued point of friction between Washington and Tehran for years, and the letter from Ahmadinejad could stir up new anxieties about the blocked money just as public attention is returning to the U.S.-Iranian relationship. The White House has been on defense in recent days, following the revelation that it secretly sent $400 million in cash to Iran to resolve a decades-old financial dispute. Over the weekend, Iran announced that it had executed a nuclear scientist who had provided information to the U.S.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled 6-2 that the $1.75 billion worth of assets held by the U.S. could be distributed to more than 1,000 victims of terrorism sponsored by Iran, including the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut and the 1996 attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Khobar Towers. Congress had directly intervened in the case to shuttle the money to the victims, and the Obama administration had also advocated for the ruling.

Iran is appealing the case at the International Court of Justice.

Both the State Department and the White House declined to immediately comment on the letter.

Ahmadinejad, a hard-liner in Iran’s political system, served as its president from 2005 to 2013, during which the chasm deepened between the U.S. and Iran.

The relationship between the two powers has thawed somewhat in recent years, following the election of President Hassan Rouhani and the completion last year of the international nuclear deal. However, the countries remain at odds on many issues, and Iranian leaders have expressed frustration with the outcome of the nuclear pact, which is under strain in the U.S.

Rouhani is expected to run for a second term next year, but he may meet opposition from Ahmadinejad and others who question the deal’s impact.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/290709-ex-iranian-president-pens-letter-to-obama-asking-for-2-billion-in

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