Iran

Weekend Open Thread

M. Noonan13 Comments

The rumors are starting to fly thick and fast about a Biden run. My view: he’ll get in…but it might be a lot later than people think. Could even be after the New Hampshire primary. It has happened before – specifically, in 1968 when Bobby Kennedy entered the race after New Hampshire revealed the weakness of Johnson.

A few liberal fascists are urging Uncle Sam to bring RICO charges against global warming doubters – nothing says “science” like using the heavy club of government to stifle debate.

More and more people are coming to the understanding that our inaction in Syria is because we don’t want to upset our new friends in Tehran. The Syrian people are being thrown to the wolves in the name of this new policy – much as the Poles were thrown to Stalin in service to FDR’s idea that Stalin would be a nifty post-War partner for us. I suspect our Syrian policy will work out as well as our Polish policy did.

Turns out, The View sucks. But you already knew that.

No one at the EPA has been fired over the EPA’s poisoning of a river. Government is just a word for things we do together – and it’s ok that all of us dumped pollution. It’s only bad if a private company does it, you see?

McConnell Finding a Little Backbone?

M. Noonan19 Comments

Thanks to the Corker Bill, there was really no way for the GOP to stop Obama’s Iran deal – but we should be able to at least get a disapproval to Obama’s desk and force him to veto it…so far, the Senate GOP under McConnell has failed to do this (because Democrats, when push comes to shove, are always Democrats first and last – party loyalty comes before common sense); but now he’s got a plan:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to force Democrats to walk the line on the Iran nuclear agreement, teeing up a vote on a contentious amendment on the deal.

The Republican leader scheduled a procedural vote on an amendment that would block President Obama from lifting sanctions against Iran under the nuclear deal until Iran publicly supports Israel and releases Americans currently held in Iranian prisons…

Among the many glaring errors of the Iran deal is our failure to obtain release for Americans held by Iran. I think I read somewhere that Kerry claimed he brought them up again and again – but I simply don’t believe it; it is a no-brainer and a no-cost concession from Iran. Obama and Kerry were giving them the world on a platter and I’m sure if we had pressed the matter, they would have given the Americans up. That they haven’t tells me that either we never asked, or we asked only once and the Iranians refused, and Obama/Kerry let the matter drop because they were that fearful of derailing the deal.

At any rate, it is good political theater to force the Democrats to vote on something like this – of course, it would have been better political theater if we had forced Obama to submit the deal like a normal treaty and watched it go down in flames.

The Unraveling

Cluster8 Comments

It’s unfortunate that our country had to get to this point, but the end of our current “progressive” nightmare is near. The free fall of the Dow has exposed the fragility of the economy; the Planned Parenthood debacle has exposed the ugly truth about abortion; the self inspections and recent SAM purchases by Iran have exposed the sheer stupidity of our foreign policy; the Black Lives Matters movement has exposed the failure of liberal social justice policies; and the Hillary email and IRS scandals have exposed the dishonesty of progressive Democrats. It’s all unraveling on every front, right in front of our eyes, let’s hope conservatives can seize the day.

“……..raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people”.  – Ronaldo Magnus

Out and About on a Wednesday

M. Noonan11 Comments

It appears that the Iran deal will allow Iran to inspect itself to determine if Iran is keeping its end of the bargain. As I said, the Iran deal wasn’t to prevent Iran from getting nukes – the Iran deal was to remove sanctions from Iran so that Iran can become our “partner” in the Middle East. Partner in what remains to be seen.

So, the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement wanted to a get a singer scheduled for a Spanish music fest to come out in favor of the BDS position. Singer refused. Singer was disinvited to perform. Usual bit of Progressive fascism for the most part – but the key to this one is that the singer in question was the only person asked to make the pro-BDS statement…and the singer is Jewish-American. In other words, the Jew was singled out for Special Handling. Anyone want to claim the left isn’t increasingly anti-Semitic? In the end, the disgusting nature of this forced the music fest to back down, apologize and re-invite the singer…but how many less famous Jews are getting ground up in this sort of thing? And how many of our Progressives even remotely realize that they are backing people who would massacre every Jew in Israel, if given the chance?

Once again – no, the e mail scandal will not force Hillary out of the race. In fact, it might even work to her advantage in 2016 with LIV. My bet is that by December or so the “investigation” will be complete and Hillary won’t be charged…this will work out in the MSM to Hillary being cleared of all wrong-doing and any GOP attempts to bring it up in 2016 will be “why are you re-hashing old news?”. Rely on it: Hillary will only be kept out of the White House by a great candidate running a great campaign. To be sure, this stuff does help a bit by attacking Hillary’s credibility in the overall public mind…but that was already a bit of a given. We have to beat her by beating her. Nothing else will do it for us.

Newest Planned Parenthood video indicates that PP may, from time to time, engage in a bit of infanticide if the child comes out alive. This has been a given in the abortion industry for a long time – you can’t be sure the kid is dead prior to extraction. Almost always, the child is dead – but there’s no way to be 100% certain about it, and so it appears that some children come out alive. The bottom line about abortion is that it is a nasty business where the end-product is a dead child and, very often, a poor woman struggling for years with the mental anguish (you’re “pro-choice” and don’t believe me about that last? Then go here and see. I dare you). Given that it is all about death-dealing, it is bound to be unpleasant in almost all respects. It has gotten a mental pass from the people because the use of euphemism has allowed people to turn aside and pretend they dont’ know what is happening. These videos end all that.

ISIS beheads 82 year old antiquities scholar – in case you forgot that these are savages who need to be defeated.

In better news, a bunch of Yazidi women have formed a military unit to kill ISIS goons. These women, by the way, risk death and worse if they are ever captured by ISIS. What saddens me is that we don’t want to fight ISIS as much as these women do.

They keep telling us that the economy in in great shape and that unemployment is dropping like a rock…but if this is so, why are wages flat? Two possible explanations:

1. There is no job growth and Uncle Sam is just faking the numbers

2. There is job growth but the importation of millions of illegals with Uncle Sam’s encouragement is keeping wages flat.

Take your pick, but either case is bad for the people.

On the Iran Deal, Obama Gets Tough…

M. Noonan10 Comments

With his fellow Americans, of course – not with the Iranians:

President Obama: I realize that resorting to force may be tempting in the face of the rhetoric and behavior that emanates from parts of Iran. It is offensive. It is incendiary. We do take it seriously. But superpowers should not act impulsively in response to talks… Just because Iranian hardliners chant ‘Death to America” does not mean that that’s what all Iranians believe. In fact, it’s those hardliners that are more satisfied with the status quo. It’s those hardliners chanting “death to America” who’ve been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican Caucus.

So, there you go – the only people who want to kill the Iran deal are those on the side of the Iranian hardliners! Kerry is also out there warning us against upsetting the Iranian hardliners…and they’ll be mad as wet hens if we don’t do this deal! So mad, I guess, that they’ll start sponsoring terrorism and building up nuclear weapons…

This is getting unreal – the Obama position is that if you don’t want his deal, then you want war. Here’s just a small bit of advice for Obama and Kerry – the alternative to the deal isn’t war, but simply no deal. Status quo. And that means Iran’s government is still hobbled by sanctions and has much fewer resources for sponsoring terrorism and building nuclear weapons.

To me, the whole thing is clearly not about getting Iran to stop being Iran, but about getting sanctions lifted. Obama and Kerry appear to believe that we can befriend Iran’s current government and they’ll work with us for peace and stability in the Middle East…that it will be a peace of the grave for many and the stability of Iranian tyranny doesn’t seem to concern Obama. To Progressives any sort of peace is superior to any sort of war – and if it is a bunch of foreigners living far away who are paying the blood price for our peace, no problem at all.

Of course, we’ll get war, eventually. The thing about helping tyrannical regimes to gain in power and prosperity is that this merely provides them with more sinews for war, as well as convincing them we are a paper tiger which can be defied at will.

And, Now, Back to the Fun…

M. Noonan30 Comments

Yesterday was an experiment and it will become permanent. I spent a day away from the Internet. No Facebook, no Twitter, no reading the news. It was wonderful. I’m thinking that I’ll give up the internet for Lent. Really, boys and girls, if you don’t do it, already, then make it part of your life: unplug from time to time. The ‘net has become like the TV in 1984.

Anyways…

John Kerry says that Iran isn’t allowed to use the bucket of money we’re giving them for terrorist operations. I’m sure you’ll all sleep soundly tonight.

Trump really messed up on his comments about McCain. I’ve got lots of problems with McCain. I hope he draws a TEA Party challenger. I think he’s often a bit of a jerk in the demeaning way he deals with GOP base. But, no matter how you slice it, McCain is a war hero. The recent poll showing Trump leading the primary field nationwide had a little tid-bit in it for the detail-minded: the day after Trump’s insulting comment broke, his support dropped like a rock. He won’t win a single primary and he’ll never be President.

Monk Rock? Well, we Catholics are rather dangerous, transgressive outsiders these days…

Saudi’s threaten military action against Iran. So, Obama has fundamentally transformed us – it is not backwards, corrupt monarchies taking a stand for decency in the world instead of the United States.

The Democrat party has decided that writing off the elderly vote is best – Obama Administration proposes to deny self-defense rights to people on Social Security if third party’s handle their bills.

Walker up by 9 in Iowa. Walker wins Iowa, NH and SC, he’s the GOP nominee.

Out and About on a Friday – and Saturday and Sunday…

M. Noonan24 Comments

You know, just to keep things going.

Ok, so criminal justice reform is getting more front-burner. A genuinely bi-partisan group of people is looking for ways to reform our broken system. What I’d like:

End jail time for small time possession of illegal drugs. Anything less than a few ounces, maybe write the guy a ticket. No more jail time for failure to pay fines. End civil asset forfeiture. No more three strikes laws. Civil penalties for prosecutors who convict the innocent, or do fishing expeditions like the “Jon Doe” investigation in Wisconsin.

That would be a good start.

China seems to be dumping US Treasuries.

Women and minorities are obtaining concealed carry permits – a lot of concealed carry permits. Liberals won’t know what to do about this. As for us – it just means that, in the long run, a lot of women and minorities will eventually be voting conservative.

The guy who killed our Marines here at home spent a lot of time over in the Middle East. Someone please tell me why we allow easy travel between the Middle East and the United States.

Obama’s approval rating is 44.7%. Just keep in mind that it is very hard for a party to out-do it’s President’s approval rating on election day. To depress you, maybe what happens is Trump goes Perot next year and the final result is Hillary, 45%, Walker 42%, Trump 13%.

I actually spent some time reading the Iran deal. It is just terrible, as you suspected. Of course, people can read it different ways…I read it like an Iranian mullah who wants to do whatever he pleases. In that reading Iran…gets to do whatever it pleases. Seriously. 24 day waiting period for inspections. We not only have to lift sanctions, but help Iran gain market share and stamp on any State or local government which doesn’t want to do business with Iran. We have to give them scientific help of the best sort. And we have to obey the “spirit” of the deal – which is undefined. And if there’s a dispute about the implementation of the deal then we have 35 days to see it Iran’s way and if we don’t, then the deal binds us to see it Iran’s way. This isn’t diplomacy – this is Obama helping Iran to become the dominant power of the Middle East and pretending that he’s just making a nuke deal.

We are becoming a nation of cowards.

Hillary ain’t too popular.

From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there’s nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends. – Hilaire Belloc