A treaty has been reached with the fox. He will determine whether he has raided the chicken coop, and we will accept his findings.

AP:

Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms, operating under a secret agreement with the U.N. agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press.

. . . .

The agreement in question diverges from normal procedures by allowing Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence of activities it has consistently denied — trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran probe as deputy IAEA director general from 2005 to 2010, said he could think of no similar concession with any other country.

The White House has repeatedly denied claims of a secret side deal favorable to Tehran.

Of course they have. They’re liars.

This is, of course, astounding — even for an administration whose mendacity seems never-ending. But the press will issue a collective yawn.

And the fox will lick his chops and tell you that he has not found any missing chickens at all.

Not one.

UPDATE: Ted Cruz on this latest revelation:

“Enough,” Cruz told TheBlaze in a statement. “Enough of the concessions, capitulations and backroom deals that make up President Obama’s catastrophic nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

He continued: “The most recent revelation that Iran will be selecting its own inspectors to verify the nature of its nuclear program is made all the more egregious by the fact that as the single largest contributor to the IAEA (support that is mandated in the JCPOA) United States taxpayers will be paying for a farce that is a direct threat to their own security.”

Yeah, but what does Donald Trump think?

I’ll say this for Donald Trump: he has ignited a debate on birthright citizenship (anchor babies) and . . . he turns out to be right.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, in relevant part:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

That’s my bold type.

Mark Levin quotes the author of this citizenship provision, Sen. Jacob Howard, as saying this:

Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, [meaning the states – their jurisdiction] is, by virtue of natural law and national law, a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great issue in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.

Now: a quick side note. Those who have carefully followed my posts on legal interpretation know that the stated opinion of the author of legislation or a Constitutional provision is not the final word. We do not appeal to the subjective intent of the person who wrote the words. That way lies incoherence and the latest ObamaCare decision.

But an opinion like this is not to be utterly discounted, either . . . because it is a clue as to the proper interpretation of language, according to the original understanding of the public at the time of ratification.

And that original understanding of the 14th Amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.” clearly meant people who owed political allegiance to this country.

I am unaware of anyone disputing Sen. Howard’s characterization, and no reason to believe that what he says is wrong. If you want more meat on the bones, this excellent piece by Ann Coulter provides it.

There is some ignorant commentary out there saying that denying birthright citizenship to anchor babies of illegals would “repeal the 14th Amendment” or require a Constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court decision. But the Supreme Court has never held to the contrary. Peruse the links above and you’ll see that the Court has, at most, come up with unpersuasive dicta.

Which is not to say they wouldn’t rule that way, if presented the question today. As I said on Twitter tonight:

On birthright citizenship: The Supreme Court would never read something into the 14th Amendment that wasn't there when it was ratified.

— Patterico (@Patterico) August 20, 2015

But they haven’t yet. A stopped clock and a narcisstic buffoon are right on occasion. Score one for Sir Poofylocks.

UPDATE: DRJ offers this link to the (long-standing) work of University of Texas at Austin Law Professor Lino Graglia on this issue.

[guest post by Dana]

The Center for Medical Progress released another Planned Parenthood video today. It is nothing less than the fullness of evil unmasked in all its hideous strength and might:

A former procurement technician who helped harvest organs at Planned Parenthood said she saw a baby boy’s heart beating outside his body before the child’s body parts were extracted.

Tragically, these tiny silent gifts from God are doomed to a pain unimaginable as they endure a barbaric death. It is an abomination, unspeakable and unimaginable, and yet that is precisely why it must be spoken about. Consider yourselves warned:

Holly O’Donnell, a former procurement technician at StemExpress, said at Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose a co-worker named Jessica brought over the most fully developed baby she had ever seen and said, “I want you to see something kind of cool.”

There she saw the “closest thing to a [fully-developed] baby I’ve seen.”

“It had a face. It wasn’t completely torn up,” she said. “Its nose was very pronounced.”

“She has one of her instruments, and she taps the heart, and it starts beating.”

“I’m looking at this fetus, and it’s heart is beating,” O’Donnell said in astonishment.

“I don’t know if that constitutes it’s technically dead, or it’s alive,” she continued.

Dr. Ben Van Handel, the vice president of Novogenix Laboratories, says on the video “there are times when, after the [abortion] procedure is done, that the heart is still beating.”

O’Donnell said that, after showing her the child’s beating heart, Jessica told her, “This is a really good fetus, and it looks like we can procure a lot from it.”

And it gets worse:

She then asked O’Donnell to remove the baby’s brain with scissors through the baby’s face.

“I can’t even describe what that feels like,” O’Donnell said. “That was the moment I knew I couldn’t work for the company anymore…even if it was the cure for some disease.”

Warning: graphic images:

Death becomes a welcome friend. These are the silent witnesses of the evil among us. With their last breath, they fall gently into the open arms of God, close to His beating heart of perfect love as He welcomes them home.

–Dana

The main problem with Donald Trump’s candidacy is not his immigration stance, or his narcissism, or his stupid hair. No, the real problem is that Trump is a distraction from the true conservative choice: Ted Cruz.

This is Part 1 of what I expect to be a multi-part series on Cruz’s superiority to Trump. I’ll keep these posts relatively bite-sized (for me) because I am short on time and so are you. Today’s point: Cruz has something Trump doesn’t: demonstrated backbone within the political process.

The current success of Trump and Carson in the polls, to me, reflects a typical and understandable American sentiment: a hatred of political “insiders” and a desire to look outside that process for someone different. But why do Americans do that? It’s because it’s so rare for someone inside the political process to stay true to what they said they would do. So Americans naturally turn their gaze outside Washington.

But what is a better indicator of someone’s willingness to fight the establishment: mere outsider status, or a demonstrated track record of fighting the establishment as an elected official? Clearly the latter.

An example makes the case. Pretend we are in 2008, in a hypothetical alternate universe in which Donald Trump and Ron Paul each seeks to be the big-L Libertarian Party candidate. Pretend that you are a committed Libertarian Party supporter who must choose between Trump and Ron Paul. (Yes, I’m asking you to pretend you’re a little crazy. It’s a hypo!) Trump brings to the table his hyper-inflated sense of self-importance and a collection of radical libertarian proposals, many of which directly contradict his past positions. Ron Paul brings to the table his long track record of voting in a libertarian manner in Congress — an institution that swallows most men whole and corrupts them entirely. Which man gives a committed libertarian better reasons to believe they will actually do what they say? Of course you would have to cast your vote for Paul.

But you’re not a crazy person who supports the Libertarian Party. You’re a conservative who is tired of watching Republicans march off to Washington and stab you in the back the second they get there.

I recently read Ted Cruz’s book (thanks, DRJ!) and it is packed with stories of Cruz standing up for principle when it counts. When a bunch of GOP’ers plan to betray the principles they campaigned on, and gather in a back room to collude to make their sell-out look good, Ted Cruz is the kind of man who will stand up and say: No! He doesn’t just talk the talk. He has walked the walk.

Cruz has paid a heavy price for these shows of principle, in terms of his standing with other Senators. You can’t stand in the well of the Senate and call your Majority Leader a liar and expect people to like you. They will run to their favored Politico media outlets and leak all manner of dishonest pablum designed to make you look bad. Cruz knows that. But he stands up to them anyway.

America doesn’t need another outsider who will become One of Them the second he gets to Washington. America needs someone who has shown they can be on the inside and still fight for those on the outside.

That man is not the narcissistic blowhard who is currently the GOP front-runner.

That man is Ted Cruz.

The sooner conservatives wise up and recognize this, the sooner we can get to work electing the right man.