Monthly Archives: March 2015

Lying With Statistics

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Yesterday The Federalist posted an article about the latest unemployment numbers from the Department of Labor. There was rejoicing that the unemployment rate had dropped to 5.5 percent. You might want to hold off on that rejoicing for a bit.

The article includes a chart showing what the unemployment number actually is when you add in the labor force dropouts:

Unemployment Rate With Labor Force Dropouts March 2015

As you can see, the actual unemployment rate is closer to 10 percent. So, if you know anyone who is unemployed and can’t understand why it is so hard to find a job, show them the real numbers. It might make them feel better.

The article explains:

This decline (the decline in the labor force participation rate) has significant effects on the official unemployment rate. People who are unemployed and eventually stop looking for work are no longer counted as being part of the labor force, which means they’re no longer counted by U.S. statistical agencies as being unemployed (you can read in detail about the math underlying this dynamic here). The result? An artificially low official unemployment rate.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that you can make statistics say pretty much anything you want them to say.

I Think We Have Run Out Of Pinocchios

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John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line today detailing some of the recent lies told by President Obama. Because the press so rarely points out these lies, Mr. Hinderaker listed a few.

President Obama claims that it is undeniable that the planet is getting warmer (tell that to the people in Massachusetts).

Power Line notes:

Far from being undeniable, the claim that “the climate is getting warmer” is false. Satellite measurements show that there has been no warming for around 18 years, a fact that has caused great consternation among climate alarmists:

In 2009, Kevin Trenberth, one of the leading alarmist scientists, wrote in an email: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

Global warming has been used as an excuse for various things–including the veto of the Keystone Pipeline. The fact that it is currently  non-existent does not seem to bother the President or the press.

Another lie has to do with justification for gun control.

The article reports:

During the same town hall, Obama lamented his inability to get gun control legislation through Congress:

Increased gun control measures would go a long way toward cutting down on America’s homicide rate, President Obama said during a town-hall event on Friday.

“Our homicide rates are so much larger than other industrialized countries, by like a mile,” he said during a speech at Benedict College in South Carolina.

“Most of that is attributable to the easy, ready availability of firearms, particularly handguns.”

There are two things wrong with Obama’s claims. First, the homicide rate in the United States is relatively low, and falling. The World Bank has compiled homicide rates by country; most are higher than ours, some many times higher. To be sure, some “industrialized” countries have lower rates than we do. Norway, for example, has a murder rate that is only a fraction of ours. But the reasons are entirely demographic: I would wager that the homicide rate among Norwegian-Americans is even lower than Norway’s.

The article at Power Line notes that the homicide rate in America is now half of what it was during the Clinton Administration–despite the fact that many more people own guns now than did then.

The article concludes:

Barack Obama is not the only Pinocchio in political life, but more than any other public figure I can think of, he seems to think he is entitled to make up his own facts. That sense of entitlement probably results from the press’s unwillingness to point out his many errors.

I would love to have a President who did not lie, but if that is not possible, I would at least like to have a press that points out what the truth is.

 

Twisted Logic

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Breitbart.com posted an article today about President Obama’s remarks about the “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, fifty years ago.

The article reports:

Obama, who has enacted two executive amnesty programs for illegal immigrants since 2012, said that deporting DREAMers “is not true to the spirit” of the civil rights movement.

“The notion that some kid that was brought here when he was two or three years old might somehow be deported at the age of 20 or 25 even though they’ve grown up as American, that’s not who we are,” he reportedly said in an interview with Sirius XM’s Joe Madison, according to The Hill. “That’s not true to the spirit of what the march on Selma was about.”

I don’t even know where to begin. I have sympathy for the people who were brought here as children and had no voice in the matter. However, I also have sympathy for those people waiting in line and paying the fees involved to come to America legally.

We don’t have to deport these children. However, if they have broken laws or committed crimes (that includes identity theft and social security fraud), they need to be sent back with their families to whatever country they are from. There is an attitude that comes from breaking the law that is not needed in America. Many of these grown-up children have families in other countries that their parents routinely send money to. If laws have been broken, these grown-up children and their families need to be sent back to their relatives. If they have kept out of trouble, they need to be put on a path to citizenship–but not given instant citizenship. They need work permits, but do not need to be eligible for welfare benefits.

Meanwhile, the civil rights movement has no relationship to illegal aliens. The civil rights movement was a group of American citizens standing up for their rights. Illegal aliens are here illegally. They have already broken the law. We need to remember that.

The article concludes:

As Breitbart News has noted, “the civil rights movement of the 1960s was about ensuring that black Americans received all of the rights they were due as citizens of the United States while today’s pro-amnesty movement is about demanding full rights for non-citizens who entered the country illegally.”

But that has not stopped amnesty advocates like Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who has said that the amnesty movement is “our Selma,” from trying to link the amnesty movement to the black civil rights movement.

Amnesty advocates will reportedly flock to Selma this weekend to try to push the false narrative that amnesty for illegal immigrants is akin to the black civil rights movement.

The Skeletons Are Beginning To Fall Out Of The Closet

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Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, is alleged to have family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (National Review, July 2013). The Muslim Brotherhood took over the government of Egypt and was later removed from power. There are some valid questions about the role the Obama Administration played in the Muslim Brotherhood takeover and the role the Obama Administration played in resisting the ousting of the Brotherhood. Inquiring minds want to know, and Judicial Watch plans to help them find the answers.

Judicial Watch posted the following announcement yesterday:

Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department seeking any and all communications – including emails – from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Chief of Staff Huma Abedin with Nagla Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi, from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00321)).   This latest lawsuit will require the State Department to answer questions about and conduct thorough searches of Hillary Clinton’s newly discovered hidden email accounts.  Judicial Watch also has nearly a dozen other active FOIA lawsuits that may require the State Department to search these email accounts.  Huma Abedin is also alleged to have a secret account as well.

Judicial Watch submitted its original FOIA request on August 27, 2014. The State Department was required by law to respond by September 26, 2014 at the latest to Judicial Watch’s request for:

  1. Any and all records of communication between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Nagla Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi, from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013; and
  2. Any and all records of communication between former State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin and Nagla Mahmoud from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013.

To date, the State Department has not responded.

Ms. Mahmoud threatened Mrs. Clinton after Morsi was ousted.  According to JihadWatch.org:

In the words of El-Mogaz News, Morsi’s wife “is threatening to expose the special relationship between her husband and Hillary Clinton, after the latter attacked the ousted [president], calling him a simpleton who was unfit for the presidency.  Sources close to Nagla confirmed that she has threatened to publish the letters exchanged between Morsi and Hillary.”

The report continues by saying that Nagla accuses Hillary of denouncing her former close ally, the Brotherhood’s Morsi, in an effort to foster better relations with his successor, Egypt’s current president, Sisi—even though, as Nagla laments, “he [Morsi] was faithful to the American administration.”

“Now we know why the State Department didn’t want to respond to our specific request for Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s communications,” stated Tom Fitton.  “The State Department violated FOIA law rather than admit that it couldn’t and wouldn’t search the secret accounts that the agency has known about for years.  This lawsuit shows how the latest Obama administration cover-up isn’t just about domestic politics but has significant foreign policy implications.”

It will be interesting to see if Judicial Watch ever obtains any of those records.

 

 

 

 

Some Perspective On Parallel Government

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Yesterday Commentary Magazine posted an article entitled, “Clinton’s Parallel Government and Obama’s Great Miscalculation.” The article deals with some of the implications of the recent revelation regarding Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State using a private email account and her own private server. This is not normally the way government business is conducted.

The article points out:

Operating her own server would have afforded Clinton additional legal opportunities to block government or private subpoenas in criminal, administrative or civil cases because her lawyers could object in court before being forced to turn over any emails. And since the Secret Service was guarding Clinton’s home, an email server there would have been well protected from theft or a physical hacking.

But homebrew email servers are generally not as reliable, secure from hackers or protected from fires or floods as those in commercial data centers. Those professional facilities provide monitoring for viruses or hacking attempts, regulated temperatures, off-site backups, generators in case of power outages, fire-suppression systems and redundant communications lines.

There are a few interesting things here. How many investigations into the Benghazi attack failed to note the private email account? If the investigations missed that, what else did they miss? How many people in the Obama Administration received emails relating to government business from this private email account and failed to notice that it did not come from a government email account? Was this noted? Did anyone care?

The article concludes:

…Sometimes the Clintons’ parallel government works in Obama’s favor, such as Clinton’s Benghazi disaster. Her independent email server and private addresses enabled her to hide her correspondence on the attack, which also shielded the rest of the administration from that scrutiny. Obama is infamously secretive about his own records and his administration’s unprecedented lack of transparency was a good match for the Clintons.

But it also meant a certain degree of this went beyond his control. Hillary’s family foundation, which essentially became a super-PAC for foreign governments, was supposed to have donations vetted. They didn’t. They were supposed to have Bill Clinton’s paid events cleared. And they did–they were cleared by Hillary’s State Department. They weren’t supposed to accept foreign-government money while Hillary was secretary of state. They did.

Clintonworld operated as a distinct, independent entity for its own purposes while also running American foreign policy. The phrase “conflict of interest” does not even begin to approach the disturbing ethical calculations here. But it can’t be argued that Obama didn’t know what he was getting the country into. He just thought he could control it. He was wrong, and he was wrong to try. And we’re only beginning to see the consequences.

This could get interesting. There is, after all, no honor among thieves.

 

 

The Cost Of Executive Amnesty

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One of the talking points of the Obama Administration regarding executive amnesty is that it will be good for the American economy. That is debatable considering the number of legal Americans currently unable to find jobs, but what it is about to do to the American taxpayer is definitely destructive.

Judicial Watch posted an article on its website today detailing the cost of President Obama’s executive amnesty.

The article reports:

The U.S. government will spend nearly half a billion dollars, expand its workforce by 3,100 and open a 280,000-square-foot compound in Virginia to carry out President Obama’s amnesty order, according to detailed government figures provided to Judicial Watch.

The numbers are breathtaking and include a $647,590 monthly rent bill for a new facility at 2200 Crystal Drive in Arlington Virginia. It will be the processing headquarters for two Obama amnesty plans—Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA)—that will allow millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. Last month a federal court in Texas blocked the amnesty order, but records show the administration is ready to pull the trigger if it succeeds in appealing the ruling.

The article goes on to break down the administrative costs of executive amnesty–both the initial cost and the ongoing cost. This is an unbelievably bad deal for all Americans. We do need to streamline our immigration policies, but we cannot successfully assimilate three thousand people in a matter of months without bankrupting federal and state governments.

Executive amnesty is a nightmare waiting to happen.

Someone Needs To Stop This Runaway Train

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The Daily Caller is reporting today that the legalization of illegal aliens that the Obama Administration had stated would begin in February 2015 actually began in November 2014.

The article reports:

But on March 3, Obama’s lawyers admitted to the judge that officials had already given three-year DACA amnesties to 100,000 younger people, according to a March 4 article in the Washington Examiner.

 “Out of an abundance of caution, however, Defendants wish to bring one issue to the Court’s attention,” said the administration’s document given to the judge. “Between November 24, 2014 and the issuance of the Court’s [Feb. 16] Order, USCIS granted three-year periods of deferred action to approximately 100,000 individuals who had requested deferred action under the original 2012 DACA guidelines.”

The officials excused the deception by claiming that the announced Feb. 18 start-date “may have led to confusion about when USCIS had begun providing three-year terms of deferred action to individuals already eligible for deferred action under 2012 DACA.”

The lack of respect the Obama Administration seems to have for the Constitution and for the American people is simply amazing. Hopefully the judge in Texas will put a stop to this since Congress does not seem to be able to.

 

 

President Obama Seems To Be The Only One Missing The Point

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Yesterday Western Journalism posted an article about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s speech before Congress. The irony in the article is that many of the gulf state Arab leaders agree with Prime Minister Netanyahu–not President Obama on how to deal with the Middle East. It also occurs to me that since Prime Minister Netanyahu lives in the Middle East, he might know more about how things work than someone who does not live there.

The article reports:

Tzvi Yechezkieli, the Arab affairs expert of Channel 10, said that many Arab commentators supported the content of Netanyahu’s speech. He cited a commentator on Al-Arabiya TV, who had said that he could have written a large part of the speech.

Yechezkieli said that the Arab countries are convinced that Obama will not safeguard their security interests in the current negotiations with Iran and will not protect them against Iranian aggression.

Evidently Israel is not the only country in the region worried about Iranian aggression.

The article quotes the Saudi Daily Al-Jazirah columnist Dr. Ahmad Al-Faraj:

“I will conclude by saying the following: Since Obama is the godfather of the prefabricated revolutions in the Arab world, and since he is the ally of political Islam, [which is] the caring mother of [all] the terrorist organizations, and since he is working to sign an agreement with Iran that will come at the expense of the U.S.’s longtime allies in the Gulf, I am very glad of Netanyahu’s firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration’s anger and fury. I believe that Netanyahu’s conduct will serve our interests, the people of the Gulf, much more than the foolish behavior of one of the worst American presidents. Do you agree with me?”

President Obama has behaved like a petulant child during the run-up to the speech, the speech, and after the speech. It would be nice to have a President who looked past himself and was watching out for the interests of America and our American allies in the Middle East.

 

Disrespect For The Law

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Yesterday the New York Times reported that during her time as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton did not use a government email account, but strictly used her personal email account to conduct government business. This is a violation of the law that states that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

The article reports:

Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

…Under federal law, however, letters and emails written and received by federal officials, such as the secretary of state, are considered government records and are supposed to be retained so that congressional committees, historians and members of the news media can find them. There are exceptions to the law for certain classified and sensitive materials.

Mrs. Clinton is not the first government official — or first secretary of state — to use a personal email account on which to conduct official business. But her exclusive use of her private email, for all of her work, appears unusual, Mr. Baron said. The use of private email accounts is supposed to be limited to emergencies, experts said, such as when an agency’s computer server is not working.

This is another example of the Clintons playing fast and loose with the law. Anyone who supports a presidential run by Hillary Clinton is opening the way for a president and cabinet that have no respect for the laws that are supposed to govern America.

Today In Congress

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be speaking before a joint session of Congress this morning. Today’s Wall Street Journal had two very good articles that provide context for his speech.

Bret Stephens posted an article entitled, “Israel and the Democrats,” and Chris Steward posted an article entitled, “In What Way Is Iran A Reliable Negotiating Partner?”

Bret Stephens reminds us that the Democrat party has traditionally supported the nation of Israel. He points out that the Democrat Party is on the cusp of abandoning the state of Israel.

The article reports:

But that party is evaporating. A 2014 Pew survey found that just 39% of liberal Democrats are more sympathetic to Israel than they are to the Palestinians. That compares with 77% of conservative Republicans. During last summer’s war in Gaza, Pew found liberals about as likely to blame Israel as they were to blame Hamas for the violence.

That means the GOP is now the engine, the Democrats at best a wheel, in U.S. support for Israel. The Obama administration is the kill switch. Over the weekend, a defensive White House put out a statement noting the various ways it has supported Israel. It highlighted the 1985 U.S.-Israel free-trade agreement and a military assistance package concluded in 2007. When Barack Obama must cite the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as evidence of his pro-Israel bona fides, you know there is a problem.

…Yet the calendar chiefly dictating the timing of Mr. Netanyahu’s speech was set by John Kerry , not John Boehner , when the secretary of state decided that the U.S. and Iran would have to conclude a framework deal by the end of this month. Mr. Netanyahu is only guilty of wanting to speak to Congress before it is handed a diplomatic fait accompli that amounts to a serial betrayal of every promise Mr. Obama ever made to Israel.

Bret Stephens goes on to list the betrayals of Israel by the Obama Administration. Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

Chris Steward reminds us of the history of America’s relationship with Iran and Iran’s intentions and actions toward western civilization.

He points out:

Iran is a state sponsor of terror and has been officially listed as such for more than 30 years. It has developed an extensive military-industrial complex, the Defense Industries Organization, which is capable of supplying all of its own military equipment, weapons and ammunition. With this capability, Iran has become the primary supplier of weapons to two other state sponsors of terror, Sudan and Syria, as well as the primary sponsor of other foreign terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, Hamas and numerous Shiite militias in Iraq. With Iran’s help, Hezbollah has stockpiled about 60,000 surface-to-surface rockets in Lebanon while Hamas has stockpiled about 10,000 surface-to-surface rockets in Gaza, all for the stated purpose of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

Tehran’s regime suppresses internal dissent and has executed tens of thousands of its own citizens for opposing the regime. It is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. military personnel in Iraq through improvised explosive devices supplied to Shiite militias in the past decade. Iran counts as close allies Russia, China and North Korea, which team with the regime in developing ballistic missiles and nuclear capabilities.

Iran is not just a problem for the Middle East. In South and Central America it has engaged in money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, counterfeiting, promoting jihad, and plotting terrorist attacks.

Why in the world are we negotiating with these people? And why in the world are we condemning Israel for telling the truth about the futility of these negotiations?

 

For Your Consideration

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I am not familiar with the source of this story, so please understand that I am not endorsing it–although I suspect it may be true. I am posting it because I doubt it will ever appear in the American media.

A website called Radixnews reported on February 24th that Iran has accused America of helping Israel with its nuclear weapons program in 1987.

The article reports:

Officials from the Islamic Republic of Iran claim they have documents that prove the United States assisted Israel in its development of a hydrogen bomb, which they claim is a crime according to international laws, according to the Iranian news media. And there is suspicion that President Barack Obama declassified the documents and released them to a left-wing think-tank to hurt Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Iranians published a copy of a 129-page memorandum they claim is one of about 100 copies distributed by the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) while under contract with the Pentagon in 1987. The Iranian press reported that Israeli nuclear facilities that were built independently were similar in structure to U.S. nuclear facilities such as Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories which are key facilities for creating and testing nuclear weaponry, Iranian-controlled news agencies reported.

The article concludes:

According to Iranian news reports, the information was released after Grant Smith, director of the left-wing Washington think-tank Institute for Research on Middle Eastern Policy, submitted a Freedom of Information Act application in 2012. When he was never given the requested documents, Smith filed a lawsuit in September 2014, and a judged ruled that the Pentagon must comply with the request. According to the Iranian news stories, Smith in his lawsuit outlined how the U.S. government failed to comply with federal laws at the time that Israel was developing a nuclear program.

“It’s our basic position that in 1987 the Department of Defense discovered that Israel had a nuclear weapons program, detailed it and then has covered it up for 25 years in violation of the Symington and Glenn amendments, costing taxpayers $86 billion,” said Smith during a hearing before a judge in the District of Columbia in late 2014.

I wonder if the Jewish Americans who support President Obama will ever realize the threat to Israel he represents.

Isn’t it interesting that Israel has had nuclear weapons for more than twenty years and no one in the Middle East has felt threatened by this fact. It is common knowledge that when Iran obtains nuclear weapons that a nuclear arms race will begin in the Middle East. That tells us all we need to know–the Arab countries know their neighbors better than America does.

Has Anyone In The Obama Administration Read The U.S. Constitution?

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TownHall.com is reporting today that President Obama is “very interested” in the idea of raising taxes through unilateral executive action.

The Sixteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The U.S. Constitution also states:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 1:

The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

Note that in both cases, Congress is tasked with the responsibility of levying taxes.

The article reports:

Obama’s preferred option would be for Congress to pass a corporate tax hike that would fund liberal infrastructure projects like mass transit. But if Congress fails to do as Obama wishes, just as Congress has failed to pass the immigration reforms that Obama prefers, Obama could take actions unilaterally instead. This past November, for example, Obama gave work permits, Social Security Numbers, and drivers licenses to approximately 4 million illegal immigrants.

The President has frequently exceeded his executive authority. Congress has been reluctant (or toothless) to fight back. Unless members of Congress from both political parties begin to stand up to these power grabs, by the time President Obama leaves office, our country will be unrecognizable. It’s time to put the good of America above party politics.

 

Remember The Tenth Amendment?

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The Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Hill is reporting today that the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, formed by President Obama after three events last year which involved the death of black Americans, has recommended that all officer-involved shootings be reported to the federal government. I believe that this recommendation is in direct violation of the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The states are in charge of local police departments–not the federal government. This is a dangerous consolidation of power by the federal government.

The article reports:

The Obama spokesman said the administration would take into account whether a state or local agency was following the recommendations when considering grant applications.

“[T]he president has asked the Community Oriented Policing Services Office at the Department of Justice to take responsibility for advancing the work of the task force, including prioritizing grant funding to law enforcement agencies that meet appropriate benchmarks that are related to these recommendations,” Earnest (White House press secretary Josh Earnest) said. 

This is how government takeovers work–we have seen it in education–the government gives money for education to states if the states are willing to comply with certain government programs. If the states do not comply, they do not get government money–it is a subtle takeover of something that the states are supposed to control.

A government takeover of local police departments is a serious threat to our representative republic. Also note that the government has been giving used military equipment to our local law enforcement agencies–equipment that is not appropriate for use on the streets of towns and cities in America.

The Problem With Iran

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We have been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program since 2013. Yahoo News posted a timeline of highlights in American-Iranian relations. During that time, most of what Iran has done is buy time to continue its nuclear program.

The article reports:

October 2013: Burns and Sullivan hold a fourth secret meeting with Iranian officials, and then a fifth, this time joined by chief U.S. negotiator Sherman. The framework nuclear deal hashed out in the early secret talks begins to gain clarity. A new round of larger nuclear talks with world powers is held in Geneva at which Sherman meets publicly with Zarif.

November 2013: World powers meet Iran again in Geneva. Burns and Sullivan are among the U.S. delegation but are not identified as such. They are kept hidden from public view, entering meeting rooms only after photographers and journalists are escorted out. They stay at a separate hotel from the main delegation and enter the talks through service entrances.

Nov. 23, 2013: Western powers and Iran reach initial deal on curbing Iran’s nuclear program.

Note that in 2013 the goal was to curb Iran’s nuclear program. That is not where we are today. We have forgotten our goal of never allowing Iran to go nuclear.

Michael Rubin posted an article at Commentary Magazine today about the current negotiations with Iran. In the article, he points out the fact that Iran is holding Americans hostage–even as we are negotiating about their nuclear program.

The article lists four hostages:

  • Saeed Abedini. Iran has long been hostile to Christianity. While the Iranian city of Isfahan hosts a large Armenian community which thrives today, the Armenian Christians settled in Isfahan only because they were forcibly relocated there from northwestern Iran as the shah at the time doubted their loyalty. Non-Orthodox Christians have special difficulty in Iran. Past State Department human-rights reports, for example, depict the disappearance and murder of priests and, especially, evangelical Christians whose community is small but growing in Iran. Abedini, a 34-year-old from Idaho, was arrested during a 2012 trip to Tehran to visit family and sentenced to eight years in prison. He is a married father of two small children.
  • Robert Levinson. A former FBI agent whom Iran alleges to have worked for a CIA contractor visited Kish Island, an Iranian free-trade zone which is visa-free, in an effort to research a cigarette smuggling case when he was seized by Iranian intelligence in 2007. While the Iranians have sought at times to deny responsibility or knowledge of Levinson’s case, the state-run Iranian press acknowledged Iranian involvement. He remains the longest-held Iranian hostage. Perhaps reflecting its role as the ­de facto lobby of the Islamic Republic, the National Iranian American Council has distinguished itself by omitting Levinson in its calls for the release of hostages.
  • Amir Hekmati. A former American Marine, Hekmati was arrested in August 2011 while visiting family in Tehran. Charged with espionage, he was initially sentenced to death, a sentence later commuted. While some Iranians might look askance at his military service, it should be remembered that because Iran has conscription, many male Iranian graduate students seeking to come to the United States to continue their education or to visit family have served in the Iranian military. The charges were more ridiculous considering Hekmati sought and received permission from Iranian authorities in the United States before traveling. Hekmati had briefly launched a hunger strike which he subsequently suspended.
  • Jason Rezaian. The Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Rezaian was arrested on undisclosed security-related offenses on July 22, 2014, and initially held incommunicado. On January 15, 2015, an Iranian prosecutor announced that Rezaian would stand trial in a revolutionary court. His case is slated to be heard by one of Iran’s most notorious hanging judges.

The article concludes:

When the State Department counsels quiet diplomacy, what diplomats are seeking is enough distraction to sweep the problem under the rug. They should not be able to. Indeed, there should not be another meeting held, let alone incentive given or payment made, until they are happily at home and reunited with their families. Quite the contrary, there should be no end to sanctions and punishment until the Americans—all four—come home.

We should not be negotiating nuclear arms with people who hold our citizens hostage. Until these hostages are released, we should tighten economic sanctions.