August 6, 2016

Someone should tell Fox News it's not nice to make fun of seniors with memory loss.

Because clearly that is that is Bullsh*t Mountain's motive in hauling out the master dealer of the Iran-Contra Scandal, Oliver North, to talk about anything to do with Iran.

The final report of the Independent Counsel on the Iran Contra matter referred to North as "a Marine lieutenant colonel assigned to the National Security Council staff beginning in 1981 until he was fired on November 25, 1986, was the White House official most directly involved in secretly aiding the contras, selling arms to Iran, and diverting Iran arms sales proceeds to the contras."

He also played Congress and the special prosecutor against each other, getting immunity from Congress for his testimony in the affair and then claiming both immunity and classified info when it came to cooperating with the further investigations. And right wing media made him a hero for it.

And now they bring this fired military embarrassment, a man with obviously no security clearance and nothing but tough talk and right wing ideology on more than once to shovel lies about the return of frozen assets to Iran. Because Obama.

See if you can count the number of right wing lies and talking points in just a clip of the full transcript via Fox News:

NORTH: Lookit, the $400 million transfer to Tehran is just the latest in a seven- year history of Obama regime lies, deceits and dissembling! Think about it, Fast and Furious, the IRS enemies list, the "Obama care," keep your health care, Benghazi, before, during and after, the e-mail cover-up by State and Clinton about what happened in Benghazi, and of course, the ISIS is now on the ropes again.

Lookit, the responsibility to protect people in Libya by killing Gadhafi has left a terrible caricature of American's foreign policy. And the whopper of all, and he touched on it in his press conference, the existential threat of Iran's nuke deal and the nuclear ICBM research and development with North Korea really isn't what it is.

HANNITY: OK, but...

NORTH: It's loony!

HANNITY: You know, and of course, by the way, we need jobs for jihadis and John Kerry equates global warming as as big a danger to the world and the United States as ISIS.

I guess the thing that stands out to me is, imagine a Republican president -- imagine that on the same day that hostages are released, they have an unmarked cargo plane, that they went to Switzerland and other countries to pour in euros and francs, and I assume dollars and other currencies, $400 million, and in the dark of night, fly this unmarked cargo plane into Tehran!

Now, Josh Earnest said today that they've been completely transparent about the whole issue. Well, they never mentioned the $400 million that was transferred at the time they were getting the hostages released! So did they pay a ransom here, is the big question?

NORTH: Yes, this was a ransom. Lookit, the very first demand by the Iranians when I met with them in 1985 was a refund of the $400 million from the shah, a down payment on weapons he'd wanted to buy. That's what they wanted from Jimmy Carter. That's what they wanted from me.

You know, it turns out I was actually a better negotiator than John Kerry. We didn't send money to the Iranians! They paid us! I know. I was the one who had to sit down on the other side of the table with the likes of Ahmadinejad and Rouhani. What they wanted first of all was that $400 million. They got it from this administration. The Israelis shipped Tows, and we got hostages and Iranian money. Tows weren't -- Tows were doctored so they wouldn't work, and we had an interpreter, thank God, who was there and can confirm that.

We used the money from the ayatollahs to support a pro-democracy movement in Central America. Is that the right thing to do? Apparently, a lot of people decided otherwise. But we didn't have to do things like they did it.

Oliver North is such a liar. And the biggest lie he tells here is that somehow his completely illegal covert operations against the will of the Congress is just "a matter of opinion" that "people" decided. No, Oliver North, you were fired from the National Security Administration for what you did. The only reason you didn't go to prison is, the judge in your case decided to be lenient:

Mr. North, the former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and National Security Council aide, was convicted of destroying documents, accepting the gift of a $13,800 home security system and abetting the obstruction of Congress. Judge Gesell could have imposed a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and fines of $750,000. Instead, he imposed a $150,000 fine, two years of probation, a three-year suspended sentence and an order to perform 1,200 hours of community service.

Crooks and Liars and many other outlets, including the White House, have already debunked the "money as ransom" lie. But Fox News viewers clearly have no memory of the past, either distant or recent.

It's a dirty shame that Fox News takes advantage of their disability.

H/T Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors, whose post on Oliver North's appearance on Fox Business the same day, is entitled "Eiron, the Goddess of Irony, laughed so hard she farted."

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