[ExI] Trump Directed Use of Taxpayer Money for Ads Praising His Presidency

[John Clark]

On Sun, Oct 4, 2026 at 4:47 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

*>>> **The USA didn’t start a war with Iran.  Iran started a war with the
>> USA.  John you are old enough to remember the 1979 revolution. *
>
>
>
> *>>…Oh for Darwin's sake! That was 47 years ago and the average Iranian is
> 35 years old….*
>
>
>
> *> We aren’t punishing the Iranians John.  We are trying to save them. *
>

*I have to say Spike that although you're claiming to be Mr. Neutral you
really don't sound like him, you sound like the military PR guy during the
Vietnam war who said  "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it"
after the US had bombed a provincial capital to oblivion and killed
hundreds or thousands of civilians. *


> *> They will overthrow their tyrannical theocratic government, save
> themselves*
>

*Just before Donald started the war the Iranian government was more
unpopular with the Iranian people than it had been in decades, there were
actually riots in the streets; but history has shown that the quickest way
for a dictator to massively improve his popularity is for his country to
get invaded by another country, especially if that other country is a
member of a different religious franchise. I'm sure Donald didn't mean to
do it, but he threw the ayatollahs a lifeline. *

*> We can survive without buying that oil.  But Iran cannot survive without
> selling it. *


*And yet Donald seems much more anxious about finding a way to get out of a
war that he started than the Iranians are, he keeps saying he's in
negotiation with the Iranians and they are desperate to find a solution,
but the Iranians are saying they are not even talking to us and don't give
a damn about what we have to say.*
*And when the war started Donald insisted he would demand nothing less than
unconditional surrender and regime change, so what more is there to say to
them? *

*>>… if Joe Biden had started a war with Iran and it had flopped as
>> spectacularly as this one… John K Clark*
>
>
>  *> It didn’t flop.*


*No Mr. Neutral, it flopped. Just 24 hours after the war started Donald
claimed that the US had already won, but it is now 7 months later and the
war grinds on with no end in sight. *

*>>> **It was clear enough they were refining uranium in order to nuke
> Israel. *
>
>
>
> *>>…And why was that? Because during his first administration Donald
> unilaterally pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal….*
>
>
>
> *> Sounds to me like a deal where they secretly refine uranium.*
>

*ME: When President Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal in
2018 was there any hard evidence that Iran had been cheating?*

*GROK**: *" *No. There was no hard evidence that Iran was cheating on the
core nuclear restrictions of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action)
at the time of the U.S. withdrawal in May 2018.* The International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), the independent body responsible for verifying
compliance, repeatedly certified that Iran was meeting its nuclear-related
obligations under the deal. U.S. intelligence assessments and statements
from senior Trump administration officials at the time aligned with this.
IAEA Verification Record

>From Implementation Day (January 16, 2016) through the period leading up to
and immediately after the U.S. exit, the IAEA issued multiple quarterly
reports confirming Iranian compliance with key limits. These included:

   - Caps on the number of centrifuges (no more than 5,060 IR-1s at Natanz
   in the agreed configuration).
   - Uranium enrichment limited to 3.67% U-235.
   - Low-enriched uranium stockpile below the 300 kg limit (well under it
   in reports).
   - No pursuit of the original Arak heavy-water reactor design, and
   related fuel and reprocessing restrictions.
   - Continuous monitoring, seals, cameras, and access to declared nuclear
   sites.

Reports around February 2018 (shortly before the withdrawal) and subsequent
ones (including the first post-withdrawal report) continued to affirm this.
The IAEA Director General at the time, Yukiya Amano, stated that Iran was
implementing its nuclear-related commitments.
Minor, Quickly Resolved Issues

The only documented exceedances were minor and temporary ones involving the
heavy-water stockpile limit of 130 metric tons:

   - Early 2016: Brief overage (around 0.9 tons), resolved by exporting
   excess.
   - November 2016: Slight overage (~0.1 tons / 100 kg), again resolved
   quickly by shipping excess out (including to Oman for storage pending sale).

These were detected promptly due to the deal’s monitoring regime. Iran
exported the excess, returned to compliance, and the Joint Commission (the
deal’s implementation body) addressed interpretive questions. Analyses from
groups like the Carnegie Endowment noted these were not major noncompliance
and were rapidly fixed; they did not involve enrichment levels, centrifuge
numbers, or weapons-related activities.

No IAEA findings indicated Iran was producing highly enriched uranium,
operating prohibited centrifuges at scale, or engaging in prohibited
nuclear-weapons-related research under the deal’s Section T at that time."

*John K Clark*
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