Iran

SOTU/Iranian Hostage Crisis Open Thread

M. Noonan42 Comments

Wonder if this will put a damper on Obama claiming success in the Iran deal during the State of the Union?

Iranian military forces seized two U.S. Navy boats Tuesday and are holding them in custody on Iran’s Farsi Island in the middle of the Persian Gulf, senior U.S. officials told NBC News.

Officials said it’s unclear whether the 10 American sailors who were aboard one of the small riverine boats had strayed into Iranian territorial waters before they were captured.

The officials said the Americans were on a training mission around noon ET when their boat experienced mechanical difficulty and drifted into Iranian-claimed waters and were seized by Iranian Coast guard.

Iran is claiming they were in Iran’s waters – naturally, our government is appearing to go along with this claim. Even if true, the proper response from a civilized power is to just warn them off, not seize them. This could, of course, just be one of those things that happen – but it could also be Iran seeing just how far they can go. They are already routinely insulting us and challenging us and seeing that Obama is willing to put up with anything rather than put his “legacy” deal with Iran in jeopardy. This just might be more in that game – and if it is, then expect some very aggressive Iranian action in the area soon…if we back down on this, Iran’s government will pretty much know for certain that Obama will not, under any circumstances, take on Iran.

Perhaps Obama should set up an empty chair for our national honor…

Out and About on a Sunday

M. Noonan18 Comments

A few recent polls show Trump fading in Iowa and Carson surging – which makes sense just on the fact that Carson is a much better fit than Trump for the highly socially conservative Iowa GOP. Be that as it may, Trump is for real. I thought he was a joke candidate. Then I thought he was a candidate surging because of the fury the GOP base has against the GOP establishment. But now it is different – and watching Trump on the trail reveals a man who is a quick learner. He still has massive obstacles to overcome to attain the nomination, but he’s starting to look like a political tsunami…something akin to the way Andrew Jackson came out of nowhere to completely overturn the political establishment in 1828 (and he’s also quite a lot like Jackson – supremely self-confident and determined to have his way, without too much concern about the legal and social niceties). In all the good and bad you can have in a President, the best good is a quick learner…because there is always a learning curve and the best pick it up fast (Obama, like Carter, has not learned a thing – likely because, also like Carter, he doesn’t think he has anything to learn). It remains to be seen if he can navigate his way to the nomination and then to the White House…if he does, the crucial aspect of whether he’ll be a good President is that ability to learn…and if he’s really smart, he’ll learn that the only way an Executive gets the government to do anything is to ceaselessly pester it with Presidential directives (Churchill was one of the few who knew this – and all his “pray give me the facts on one sheet of paper” and “action this day” memos were his way of just giving the bureaucracy no rest until they darned will did what he wanted them to do). The bottom line here is that if the establishment or even insurgents like Cruz want to beat Trump, then they’re going to have to out-campaign him. I don’t think he’ll implode for our entertainment at this point.

The Japanese have a hotel staffed by robots. A look at the future, folks – we’re not replicating ourselves and so we’re building a completely artificial world. Hopefully, this is only a temporary thing and we’ll snap out of it soon.

Climate alarmism – it is designed to scare you into compliance.

Why would Orthodox Russia ally with Islamist Iran? Because they both need oil to be north of $100 a barrel. Please note that China would not be pleased with oil that pricey – if we had anyone in DC with any diplomatic ability, at all, we’d be making hay with this situation. Bismarck said that success comes with hearing the hoof beats of history and grabbing hold of the tail as it goes by…unfortunately, our foreign policy is run by faculty lounge pinheads.

Tony Blair, in what I suspect is an attempt to placate the left in a bid to save Labour from a drubbing next election due to their kook-left party leader, has apologized for the Iraq war.

The prospect of Ryan becoming Speaker is actually a signal that the GOP is uniting. Don’t pop too many bottles of champagne, folks, but it is the way it is working. I see it as this: the TEA Party and the Establishment are getting on the same team. This means we’ll have to put up with some RINOism, and they’ll have to put up with some actual conservatism. This is the way it works, folks – always has and always will. Half a loaf is better than none.

Out and About on a Sunday

M. Noonan20 Comments

Sources say female troops were given special treatment to pass Ranger School. The thing is no enemy of the United States is going to cut us any slack. Any woman who wants to be in a combat unit should have to meet the exact same standards as the men – and no lowering of standards. In fact, I’d like to see the standards raised for all military services – perhaps even a smaller overall Army and Marines, but each soldier and Marine trained up to Special Forces quality. 250,000 such soldiers and Marines could make mincemeat of most global military forces.

Bill Clinton has identified the culprit in the Hillary e mail scandal: the Republicans.

Trump is claiming that his GOP rivals want to start World War Three over Syria. This is an exaggeration, of course – but that is Trump in a nutshell. But it must be kept in mind that unless we decide we want to back the Assad regime (and there is a case to be made for this – I’d set our price at the removal of Hezbollah from Lebanon), there is a risk of war with Iran and Russia, who are backing Assad (so, if we decide to fight Assad, they might decide to fight us). Careful thought is necessary in the Syrian mine field.

Hey, fellow Conservatives, just because it is a defense program doesn’t mean it isn’t a boondoggle. I’m pretty sure that about 1 in 3 dollars spent by Uncle Sam is waste, fraud or abuse. And that goes for military spending, as well. British Admiral Jacky Fisher in the early 20th century managed to reduce Naval spending while also providing Britain with a vastly more powerful Navy – big spending doesn’t necessarily translate into a strong military. I bet we can actually cut defense spending and get a more powerful military – and as we set about trying to get rid of regressive, anti-human social spending, we’ll need to find some military cuts so that our proposed reforms don’t come out as “cut welfare and spend on military”. Politics is an art – and you’ve got to play the game to win.

Corporations are selling each other corporate bonds in order to buy back their own stocks. I’m sure this will end well…

A lot of my fellow conservatives have taken strong issue with some statements by Pope Francis. Well, here’s something he said which will make you happy:

In this place which is symbolic of the American way, I would like to reflect with you on the right to religious freedom. It is a fundamental right which shapes the way we interact socially and personally with our neighbors whose religious views differ from our own. Religious freedom certainly means the right to worship God, individually and in community, as our consciences dictate. But religious liberty, by its nature, transcends places of worship and the private sphere of individuals and families.

In other words, liberals, religious liberty means we’re allowed to act upon our religious beliefs even in the public square.

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.