@POTUS (which is the twitter handle for President Obama) is in New Orleans on the 10th Anniversary of Katrina. +The Guardian reported on it earlier:
It was striking to see how both @POTUS and New Orleans Mayor Landrieu had aged since the past 10 years. It was quite an image as Mayor Landrieu (then the Lt. Governor of Louisiana) was on the boat helping to rescue people. We are also just as certain as the Guardian that the President did not have to wait for a table when he visited Willie Mae's!!!
Our team has been On the" prowl" during the morning Daily Roundup. This is an excerpt from the Daily 202 that +Washington Post publishes with their take on the state of the deal with Iran right now and as it featured a recent image of Khameini at a recent speech in Tehran:
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on August 17 (EPA/Posted on the Supreme Leader’s official web site)
— Increasingly, on the Iran deal, it’s very likely that Senate Democrats will muster the votes necessary to block a veto override. Privately, some leading deal critics acknowledge they’ve steeled themselves for this outcome. Republicans think they can probably secure the 60 votes for a resolution of disapproval but not two-thirds to overcome the president’s rejection.
The new D.C. parlor game is: who will be the 34th senator that clinches the win for Obama? PowerPost’s Karoun Demirjian notes that some of the “undecided” Democrats will almost certainly support the agreement, but they don’t want to be the decisive vote because of the political risks. Someone like Michael Bennet, the former DSCC chairman, probably fears drawing heavy fire from outside groups during his 2016 reelection campaign in Colorado, for example. Senators like Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal or Michigan’s Gary Peters might be more willing to speed the White House momentum.
Among the undecided Democrats are several members with aspirations to take on bigger leadership roles, such as Maryland’s Ben Cardin, Delaware’s Chris Coons and Virginia’s Mark Warner. Obama did a round of local TV interviews on the deal yesterday, targeting the undeclared Democrats, including on D.C. stations (which reach Cardin and Warner’s constituents).
The next big question, once Obama gets to 34, is if the president can reach 41. That would allow Senate Democrats to filibuster and spare Obama the need to use his veto pen. But that’s a much heavier lift: 12 of the 15 undecided Senate Democrats would need to rally behind a deal that’s still very controversial.
All indications are that the deal will be approved not withstanding the concerted lobbying effort against the deal. Wendy Sherman was on MSNBC's The Last Word last night refuting assertions by the current GOP front runner, Donald Trump, on the Iran deal. She underscored how it is very hard to "hide" evidence of nuclear activity as repeatedly underscored by the leading experts in the World.
However, as we went to press, a report just came in from +i24news EN on an +International Atomic Energy Agency statement on Iran having built an extension at Parchin--one of the disputed military sites.
As our team has continued its' on-going assessment, this from the UK Foreign Secretary was telling:
This was as Donald Trump spoke about what he has deemed a "bad" Iran deal and plans he has for a joint rally with Ted Cruz in Washington to oppose the deal.
This is a major development:
What is critical to understand is that many of these prominent Iranians have suffered at the hands of the Islamic Republic--and yet they have come out in support of the deal. We also wanted to underscore this true picture of Iran Today that speaks volumes:
