Open Thread - Secretaries of State Edition

Two Secretaries of State and two topics for today:

Number One: Below is a transcript of current Secretary of State John Kerry form his Sunday appearance on "Meet the Press" with Chuck Todd defending his current negotiations and recent non-agreement agreement pending with Iran:

QUESTION: Let me move to Iran because Iran is on the state sponsor of terror list. Why – how is it that you can do a nuclear agreement and trust a country to abide by that agreement that you also believe, that our government believes, is a state sponsor of terror?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, the bottom line is the word you used, “trust.” We don’t trust. There is no element of trust in what we’re doing. You have to build trust, and that takes place over a long period of time.

This is an agreement that is based on transparency, accountability, verification. You have to be able to know what is happening. And we believe the President’s responsibility and my responsibility in support of him is to guarantee and protect the security of our country and of our friends and allies. And we believe that this agreement does that. We know that the American people overwhelmingly would like to see if we could resolve this question of Iran’s nuclear program peacefully. And that’s what we’re trying to do, but it requires a protocol of visibility, of accountability, of insight, of transparency --

QUESTION: Yeah.

SECRETARY KERRY: -- so that we know what Iran is doing. And over a long period of time we believe that we can indeed do what’s necessary to make the guarantees that are important to everyone. Now --

QUESTION: Well --

SECRETARY KERRY: -- what’s key here is that what we have done shuts off the four principal pathways to a bomb for Iran in the Natanz facility, in the Arak plutonium facility, in the Fordow underground facility, and also the covert program. We think that – we don’t think – the science tells us that we have an ability to know what Iran is doing and to be able to shut off those pathways to a bomb. That makes the world safer.

QUESTION: And there are plenty of people that say if your – what you say the agreement is is the agreement, there are plenty of people, even some Republicans, who say it’s a good agreement. However, the leader of Iran, the ayatollah – and everybody knows this is the guy that calls the shots – he tweets this out in English: “I trust our negotiators but I’m really worried as the other side is into lying and breaching promises. An example was the White House fact sheet.”

And when you look at the differences, whether it’s President Rouhani and what he has said or what the ayatollah has said: The United States has said there’s going to be a gradual relief of sanctions based on progress, the Iranians say there’s immediate sanction relief; the U.S. says there’s limits on uranium enrichment, the Iranians say there’s no mention of enrichment limits; the U.S. says there’s restrictions on Iranian research, the Iranians say there is no restrictions on research and development.

Why are they publicly lying, if that’s what they’re doing?

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I’m not going to get into accusations back and forth. That doesn’t help our process. It’s not going to solve any problems --

QUESTION: Are they being truthful? Are the Iranians truthful here?

SECRETARY KERRY: Let me just say this to you, Chuck. They’re going to say the things that they feel they need to say with respect to their deal at home. And all I can tell you is this: When we did the interim agreement, there were these same kinds of discrepancies, or spin if you want to call it that, with respect to what the deal was or wasn’t. But in the end, the deal was signed and the deal has been agreed to and lived up to. No one contests that Iran has lived up to every component of that agreement, and the deal is what we said it was.

Now, with respect to the fact sheet that we put out, just yesterday the Russians released a statement saying that the statement released by the United States is both reliable and factual. So I will stand by every word that I have uttered publicly, and I will be briefing the United States Congress in full – the House tomorrow, the Senate the next day – and we will lay out all of the details to them, some of which are obviously classified, but we will have a long discussion about what the facts are.

QUESTION: All right. But if the Iranians insist that immediate sanction relief has to take place, immediate, that all sanctions have to be gone, will you walk away from that deal?

SECRETARY KERRY: Again, I’m not going to get into one side’s or another side’s characterization of what the deal is or isn’t. We’ve made clear what our needs are, what our expectations are. We’ve made it very clear that if we can’t achieve our goals we will not sign a deal, and we’ve said that again and again to Congress, to the world. We want a good deal. We believe that the outlines, the parameters that we have laid out thus far, are the outlines of that good deal. Now, is it perfect yet? No. Are there things that need to be done? Yes. That’s why we have another two and a half months of negotiation.

And what we’re looking for --

QUESTION: Right.

SECRETARY KERRY: -- is not to have Congress interfere with our ability inappropriately by stepping on the prerogatives of the executive department of the president and putting in place conditions and terms that are going to get in the way of the implementation of a plan.

QUESTION: I understand.

There are two quotes in this interview that bother me. The first is Kerry's public declaration that "[t]here is no element of trust in what we’re doing." I find that odd for the Secretary to pronounce that he has no trust of the people with whom he is negotiating. Not odd that he does not trust them, but odd that he would make such a public declaration. I cannot put my finger on why I think this is odd, but just that it is odd.

The other statement that bothered me is that he is looking for Congress not to "interfere...by stepping on the prerogatives of the executive department of the president and putting in place conditions and terms that are going to get in the way of the implementation of a plan." Hummm, isn't that why we have Congress. Isn't it the function of Congress to check and balance the "prerogatives of the executive department"?

Number Two: The second Secretary of State issue is actually of the recent declaration of Hillary Clinton that she is officially running for President (Yay!). You may or may not know that her main office has opened in hip and cool (and very expensive) Brooklyn, New York. Well, at least there are few New Yorkers who are not necessarily pleased that Hillary is running -

Over one hundred posters have been popping up all over NYC since her announcement on Sunday. No one knows who is putting them up, but it is clearly a pointed response to Clinton's "Super Volunteers'" warning to the press that there are certain words that they dare not use when describing Candidate Clinton as they would be considered code words for micro-aggressive misogyny. Yeah, that's a thing now and you have been warned...

Discuss...

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Iran: What's the Dealio?

Obama and Iran have entered into an historic agreement. Essentially, they have agreed to disagree and to look the other way while Iran builds a nuclear bomb. This is perhaps not the deal most people expected, but with Obama in charge was there really ever any other possibility? Here are the problems with the deal.

(1) It's Iran: In all deals with Iran, there is always one overriding problem: you just can’t trust Iran to keep to anything they agree to. No deal with Iran is worth the paper it is printed on. So if you reach a deal with Iran, then you are already a failure... and a moron.

(2) Fuzzy Promises: Turning to the deal specifically, the next problem is that the deal leaves all the key areas fuzzy. Here are some examples:

● Iran will be limited in its research and development into improved centrifuges, though apparently the limits are rather fuzzy and both sides already disagree about what they are. Those improved centrifuges, by the way, can’t be used to enrich uranium for ten years. After that, all bets are off. So expect an "Obama bomb" in 2025.

● Iran must uninstall some of its current centrifuges. That sounds good, except they are allowed to replace them with the more efficient centrifuges they are working on. Also, the numbers don’t make sense. When this process began, they had 12 centrifuges. They brought this up to 20,000 over time. They only run 9,000. Now we are told they need to reduce that amount to 6,000. That’s way more than 12, and it leaves 14,000 centrifuges ready to be run whenever they feel like breaking the agreement.

As an interesting aside, we are also told that Iran can’t enrich any more uranium. But if that is true, why let them spin the 6,000 centrifuges? The only reason to do that is to enrich uranium... which they aren’t allowed to do... except they can spin 6,000 centrifuges.

● Iran is required to reduce its current stockpile of enriched uranium from ten tons to just a few pounds – less than is needed to make a bomb. But no timeline is given for this, nor is a method specified. Obama is claiming Iran will export the material to places like France, but Iran is claiming they can dilute it rather than getting rid of it. That will leave the stuff ready to be returned to military use at any point. It's a bit like "diluting" bullets by storing them with chocolate.

● The IAEA and the US wanted Iran to admit that they have been researching bomb design and detonators and to identify what they've achieved. Some groups even suspect Iran has developed a detonator. Iran has refused to answer this. The agreement is really vague on this point and even team Obama only says that Iran “will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns,” with no mention of what those measures are.

Essentially, on every significant issue, Iran has agreed to do something, but that something is always nebulous and vague and, even then, disputed.

(3) Trust, Don't Verify: Obama’s talking points meant to sell us on his “brilliant” plan also do a good deal of misleading bait and switch work. For example, Obama claims that the agreement subjects poor Iran to extensive snooping by international inspectors, with some surveillance lasting for up to 25 years! Sounds great, only, there will be no inspections allowed of military sites... where the Iranians would be building the bomb. Sure, you can look in my garage, but not in my secret lab in the basement.

And don’t worry about all those centrifuges Iran has because they aren’t allowed to spin them at the secret sites... only, no one is allowed to snoop at those sites, so no one but Iran will know what is happening there. Yet, John Kerry flat out lies in an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe: “To be clear, there is no aspect of this agreement that is based on promises or trust. Every element is subject to proof.” Right. Except the key provisions.

Obama also claims that sanctions could be snapped back into place if Iran cheats, but the agreement doesn’t actually allow that. Instead, it includes a dispute resolution provision that will likely take years before sanctions could be re-imposed... if ever.


So there you have it. I can’t say I’m disappointed per se because this is exactly what I would expect from an agreement negotiated by Obama. Seriously did you expect anything better?

Anyways, the way I see this going is that Iran will do whatever it wants and Obama will try to cover for them until it becomes too obvious to sustain. Then he will blame the next administration. In the meantime, Saudi will develop its own nuclear bomb. What happens next is anybody’s guess. Pakistan and India have avoided a nuclear war and Pakistan is batshit crazy. But Pakistan also doesn’t have Israel as a scapegoat, nor do they have a terrorist wing who would happily transport a bomb to some western city and set it off.

I guess the only thing we can say for sure is that Obama’s policy of pretend problems don’t exist is about to leave the world a much more dangerous place... again.

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Netanyahu Speaks...

I am not sure if anyone has been paying attention (yeah, right...), but Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech to a Joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday. Depending on what political sites one goes to, it was a either triumph that helped or a failure that did not. But there is no mistaking that it was a dynamic speech by a world-class speaker. If you didn't get a chance to here it, let's go to the tape...[or read it if you prefer - transcript - LINK]



Frankly, I wasn't going to listen to the whole speech, but I was compelled to listen to the entire 40+ minutes. Just on it's face, rich-baritoned voiced Bibi Netanyahu is a compelling speaker and someone who commands to be listened to, but it is much deeper than that. The tag line to an editorial in the NY Post from John Podhoretz sums up exactly what I thought - LINK:

"It was a triumph — because, unlike Obama, Netanyahu had something of surpassing importance to say, and he said it with force, with strength, with conviction and with grace."

The only word I would add to that would be "clarity". He spoke with such a clarity that I have not heard from any world leader or politician in many years. He did not mince words or couch them in politically correct feel-good jargon. He spoke with clarity about the risk that the world is taking by making a "bad deal" with Iran and why Israel is most at risk.

I implore you to read it, listen to it, whichever you prefer. Whatever you might think about whether a foreign leader should have been allowed to speak before a joint meeting of our Congress with or without Obama's permission, it was important for him to be able to speak to the most "august" body about the existential threat to Israel and to the world at large. If we appease and acquiece for the sake of making any deal, we are all at risk. He explains it much better than I could recount, so judge for yourself and we can discuss.


Several Democrats chose not to attend and here is the list of those members who chose not to attend. To me they are all an embarrassment to Democracy, but that's just me. With one change - at the urging of his constiuents, Charlie Rangel (D/NY) actually did attend, but he is still an embarrassment (but that's just for so many other reasons...)

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Sending Messages News Round-Up

I was going to write something brilliant tonight, but let’s do a bit of a news roundup instead. There have been quite a few interesting little tidbits of late. Today’s theme is sending a message.

● The Iranians Are Coming!: The Iranian Navy is actually sending a ship to our shores. Yes, they are. According to their Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad, they are doing this to “send a message.” Seriously. What possible message could the Iranians be sending – “We are pathetic!”? These guys are dumbships. They don’t seem to realize that the message their little show of farce shows is just how overmatched they are. This is the sort of thing that not only exposes them as hopelessly incapable of competing with us, but also as too stupid to understand why that is. Frankly, I’m hoping they sink on the way... or get captured by pirates. That would be fitting.

● Run Joe, Run!: Slow Joe Biden got a message the other day when the latest polls showed him 61% behind Hillary. This sends an interesting double message. The message tells us that the Democrats are unified behind Hillary (though Cuomo wasn’t in the poll). At the same time, her topping out at 73% suggests that the Democratic fringe will be restless.

As an aside, the Republicans were a little closer. Paul Ryan led Jeb Bush 20% to 18% with Christie third at 13%. There is a message here too: the non-reel ‘merikan candidates total 88%. This is further proof of what I’ll talk about later this week, which is that the fringe is failing.

● Russia is Great!: Russia is trying to send a message with the Olympics. They have done their best to copy what China did with the Olympics to create a spectacle which is supposed to tell the world that Russia is a modern, powerful country... rather than a backwards land of strongmen and corruption.

Yep.

Too bad they (1) didn’t finish the hotels, (2) don't have water you can use, (3) started threatening journalists and falsely accusing them of lies when those reporters exposed problems, and (4) have been playing political games with opponents. All this does is reinforce that Russia is a sh*thole kelptocracy.

● Silence Sends A Message Too: It’s been almost two weeks since Obama’s pathetic state of the union in which he promised to make himself a dictator by Executive Order. His silence has been deafening. Once again, Obama has promised to charge out there and somethingsomething only to pretty much blow it off. We have a lazy, lazy president, folks.

Interestingly, this weekend (notice the weekend announcement to downplay it), Eric Holder announced that they will try to maximize the federal benefits given to gay couples. Wow. Let’s put this into perspective. The law already requires that from Holder. So what he just promised is to do what he was already required to do. I wonder if Obama’s followers are going to figure this one out?

● Foul Language: Obama’s new top diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, was forced to apologize to the EU after being caught on tape saying “F*ck the EU” over their attempts to intervene in the Ukrainian crisis. Nice. This is after a string of embarrassment with Obama appointed-ambassadors. Obama is causing himself problems everywhere. What's the message? "I'm a danger to myself and others."

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Indifference, Belligerence and Brilliance

As we prepare for a Turkey-Day shortened week, a bit of foreign policy news has struck. //chirping Hello? Is this thing on? Hello? Come on people, go with me. There’s a moment of brilliance at the end of this article.

● Ayatollah Rockenrolledya: Obama came up with an agreement that on the surface sounds like it will work in Iran. The goal is to negotiate a long term treaty stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons. This current deal would last six months, which would give everyone time to negotiate the longer deal. Under this deal, Iran will give up the following:

● Iran will halt (for six months) the installation of new centrifuges which are used to enrich uranium.

● Supposedly, this agreement caps and limits the amount and type of uranium Iran is allowed to enrich.

● Iran will stop working on some key components of their heavy-water reactor, which they need to produce plutonium.

● Iran will allow nuclear inspectors into Iran.

In return, we have agreed as follows:

● We will let them access about $7 billion in frozen assets.

● We will exempt them from Obamacare.

As I said, on the surface, this sounds like a good deal. They stop doing bad things, we get to inspect them and watch them on a daily basis, and the price was letting them have some of their toys back. Sounds good... if it works out that way.

Here’s the thing though. First, I can’t see Iran agreeing to this because we’re not giving anything up and we’re certainly not giving them what they want. So I suspect there's more to this and we should wait to hear the full price. Also, the Iranians are talented liars and they’ve played this game before of seeming to agree and then not agreeing. Nothing they’ve agreed to at this point really slows them except for a couple months tops. So I see this as nothing more than an agreement to keep talking. Still, if it works, I will happily give Obama credit for solving one of the world’s lasting problems... if it works.

As an aside, neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia are doing the happy dance about this.

That’s it for the good news.

● Afghanistan Sticking with 4th Century countries, Obama is trying to push a deal on Afghanistan in which 9,000 US troops would stay in the country to help fight off the Taliban for at least another decade. The Afghans have pushed off the vote on this horrible idea until next year because they are having problems getting their enrollment website working, but they’ll take it. Ug.

● So we’re going to continue to risk US lives to protect a cesspool of sub-humanity with no real end game.

● Leaving a rump force only makes things a lot more dangerous for the troops who stay.

● So much for the trillion dollars in budget savings Obama was counting heavily on.

We’ve already been in Afghanistan (2001-present) more than twice as long as World War II took from start to finish (1939-1945), and adding ten more years means we will be there almost 4 times longer than World War II took. Does this strike anyone as wrong?

● Su casa es mi casa: Ug. China is setting up an “air defense identification zone” over some islands that Japan controls. That’s a bit like putting your mailbox in front of the neighbor’s driveway. Japan apparently has put together a plan to shoot down any drones China sends into the area, whereas China has warned that shooting down its drones would constitute “an act of war.” This could get ugly.

● Hot In The City: Public masturbation is on the rise (pardon the pun) in Vancouver. You would think this wouldn’t be a problem in Canada in the Winter, but apparently it is. Sounds like another horrible side-effect of global warming.

● The Noble Mailbox: Finally, I leave you with this thought. Have you ever thought about how incredible the mailbox is? It’s just a box, on a poll, with a door in the front and sometimes one in the back, and a little flag to alert the mailman that something is waiting inside. It’s so simple we don’t even notice it. Yet, it connects you to the world.

In this day and age of bells and whistles and operating systems and things that are obsolete by the time you buy them, think about the mailbox. It’s design cannot be improved. It is perfection, and it is elegant in its simplicity, and that is something truly special.

There is little in life that we can look at and say that we’ve found perfection, but the mailbox is one of those things. The next time you go get your mail, think about how amazing this little box is and what it says about us humans.

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A Stunningly Good Article

Speaking as a blogger, the news sucks these days. Seriously, if the world were a Scrabble game, I would toss all my letters back into the bag and start over. So lets string some news items together and pretend this was all one long, solid piece of analysis.

● EPIC OPEC FAIL: The US has quickly become the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. Ha ha. Saudi Arabia formerly had the crown, but now we have it. Next time King Dontcarehwathescalled Abdul comes to Washington, he’ll be bowing to Obama!

● Obamacare In Motion: Obamacare’s failure just keeps getting uglier. New numbers being reported suggest that the states who actually got their websites to work have signed up. . . well, almost no one. According to a report from a consulting firm, the 12 states who are running their own healthcare portals (and actually have them up and running), have signed up a total of 49,100 people. That’s 3% of the 1.4 million people those states were expected to sign up.

Or is it? See, that 49,100 includes Medicaid signups in several of those states. Medicaid signups don’t count toward the solvency of Obamacare. So the numbers are even worse than that. And almost all of those signups are in California or New York, which is ominous for state market places in other states... not that anyone will miss them. People in North Dakota (30 people), the District of Columbia (5 people), North Carolina (1 person), Alaska (0 people), and Delaware (4 people) don’t seem to care.

At the same time, more than 15,000,000 people are expected to received policy cancellation notices in the next couple months. Ho ho ho! Merry Upyoursmas! Some speculate, however, that the real number could ultimately approach 50 million. Still, you’re talking about 305 people hurt for every one “helped.”

● Oregon Ducks and Covers: Oregon led the Obamacare bandwagon. They promised to build a website that would skool the nation and signup a gazillion smelly hippies to their plan... man. Ironically, but not coincidentally, their website remains down and not a single hippy has been able to sign up yet... man. Personally, I think Oregon needs to be punished by being pushed into the sea. But if you want something less drastic, how about we sell the Commune State to China and let the Chinese show them how a real commune works?

● Iran Intoproblems: Team Obama admitted this week that they’ve been talking to the Iranians since day one of his administration. Apparently, there was a deal most everyone was happy with in which Iran would stop enriching uranium in exchange for dropping some sanctions. But then the whole thing blew up (no pun intended) when France apparently demanded more concessions.

This is actually a difficult issue because the Iranians are crazier and less responsible than talk radio hosts. So you can’t really trust them. At the same time, there is no military solution unless we want to take over the whole country, which we don’t. Sanctions don’t really work... ask Cuba. So there’s really no good answer.

Even worse, there is a complex web of interests around this. The US just wants Iran to stop being a threat. Pakistan kind of likes Iran all tied up. Saudi Arabia wants them tied up too – Saudi Arabia is Iran’s mortal enemy in the region and is p*ssed that we’re talking to Iran. Israel is the rhetorical target of Iran and typically receives the brunt of Iran’s tantrums. They would like to see Iran bombed back into the pre-stone age. China sees Iran as an ally against the US. Europe’s goal is inactivity with dignity. The American public has no taste for war with Iran. Talk radio has no taste for anything but war with Iran... unless it happens. Good grief. This is unworkable.

Frankly, I’ve said this before, but the only solution is a sort of grand bargain with Iran. Offer Iran what it wants, which is respect, friendship and joint influence in the region, if they agree to stop all this stupidity. If they don’t, kill their leaders... tell them there will be consequences.

● If A Moron Falls On Cable And No One’s Watching: Alec Baldwin is drawing about 150,000 people to his show on MSNBC. At least it’s more people than Obama got to sign up for Obamacare.

● Droning On and On: According to the CIA, 87 nations now possess drones. This makes me wonder what’s wrong with the rest? Building a drone isn’t like building a stealth fighter. All you need is balsa wood and a lawnmower engine. In fact, I suspect if you look hard enough online, there’s probably a drones.com somewhere. Commentarama should buy a drone and then send mocking letters to the countries that don’t have one.

● 2016 Shuffle: Arg. 2016 is starting to take shape and I’m not at all thrilled with what I’m seeing. On the left, there seems to be a push to oust Hillary with Elizabeth “Fake Injun” Warren. Warren has a couple of good ideas, but is otherwise cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Seriously, she’s the deep end of the dipsh*t pool and she could well become the nominee.

On our side, there seems to be an establishment push to make Chris Christie the guy. Arg. Listen to me very closely if your name is Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan or Bobby Jindal... get your timid butts out there into the news and start driving this party. You need to win over the establishment right now and the public at large. If you don’t, you will be crushed by Christiasaurus Rex.

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Here Comes “The Republican War On Jews”

Obama has a Jewish problem. That’s been pretty obvious. You just can’t keep attacking people without them eventually getting upset. And Romney is now trying to win over Jewish votees. So it’s time for Obama to whip out the dirty tricks. Here comes the War on Jews.

Let’s start with the obvious. Obama lacks popularity. Anyone who has followed his approval rating knows that it looks like the famous Al Gore “hockey stick” only held the other way around. Check out this graph from Rasmussen, which shows a quick fall followed by remarkably stable unpopularity.

Obama has made this worse with policies that have hurt people and rhetoric that offends them. What this means is that Obama no longer has broad popularity and he needs to spend his time trying to excite his supporters group by group. That’s why we had the War on Women meme, the War on Hispanics/Immigrants meme, the War on Blacks meme, the War on the Poor meme, the War on the Middle Class meme, and a few others I’ve probably forgotten. Now it’s time for the War on Jews.

Obama’s popularity among Jews is fading. He’s down to 68% according to Gallup, though the real number is likely lower. Why? Well, his policies have largely undermined Israeli security in favor of the Palestinian radicals he knew in his youth. ObamaCare threatens Medicare, which is very popular with older Jewish voters in places like Florida. And his attacks on bankers have a distinctly anti-Semitic ring to them, so much so that the Wall Street community has openly complained about his rhetoric and have begun to close their wallets. And with Romney now making a play for Jewish support, it’s clearly time to act.

Hence, Nancy Pelosi fired the opening shots in the new meme this weekend when she claimed that Republican-leaning Jews are “being exploited” and that Republicans are merely “using [support for] Israel as an excuse, what they really want are tax cuts for the wealthy. So Israel, that can be one reason they put forth.” In other words, Jews, like blacks and women and everyone else before them are too stupid to realize that the Republicans are only lying to them about their beliefs and only want their votes so we can cut taxes on the wealthy. This woman is insane.

Interestingly, Pelosi must have realized calling Jews stupid was a bad move, so she quickly added this little contradiction: “And they’re smart people. They follow these issues. But they have to know the facts.” How can they both know the issues and yet not know the facts? That’s like saying, “he understands football, he just doesn’t know how football works.” Then she proceeded to explain some of the facts these silly deluded Jews didn’t know:

“The fact is that President Obama has been the strongest person in terms of sanctions on Iran, which is important to Israel. He’s been the strongest person on whether it’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling, any of these weapons systems and initiatives that relate to Israel. He has been there over and over again.”

Ok, so they didn’t realize that Obama has been pushing sanctions, that he’s been “the strongest person” on various weapons systems being built by Israel, and that he’s been to Israel. Uh... if they don’t know these “facts” then can we really say they know the issues? These aren’t factors anyone who “knows the issues” could have missed. Frankly, I’m finding her whole line of “you’re so deluded but you’re really smart but you don’t actually know jack” a tad bit insulting. Also, I should point out that Obama has not yet visited Israel even once since he's been in office, so she’s lying. . . as usual

Anyway, this weekend also saw Obama using foreign policy for electoral gain. Romney has been talking about Israel. He also just visited. And his speeches have gone down rather well. Said Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu about Romney’s Nevada foreign policy speech, “Mitt, I couldn't agree with you more.” Netanyahu also pointed out this about those sanctions Pelosi thinks Israel wants:

“We have to be honest and say that all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota. And that's why I believe that we need a strong and credible military threat coupled with the sanctions to have a chance to change that situation.”

So much for Pelosi’s facts. Romney, by the way, said in Israel that he has a “zero tolerance” policy toward Iran obtaining nuclear capability and said:

“Make no mistake: the ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way. My message to the people of Israel and the leaders of Iran is one and the same: I will not look away; and neither will my country.”

One of his advisors even said that Romney would respect Israel’s right to strike Iran unilaterally.

So guess what mysteriously happened this weekend? SOMEONE let slip that Team Obama has presented Israel with a plan of attack for striking Iran. Let’s be honest. Obama’s national security team chose this weekend to leak that they have a plan to attack Israel because Romney’s speech was very well received and his support among Jews is growing. This leak is a disgusting political ploy which risks the lives of US personnel in the event of an attack, and it fits the pattern of leaks Team Obama has been guilty of in trying to make their effete foreign policy seem more muscular. Heads needs to start rolling for these leaks.

This administration really needs to be shown the door.

99 days to go!

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Are We About To Bomb Iran? Yep.

I mentioned the other day that Obama seems to be getting ready to bomb Iran before the election. Not only do I stand by that, but I think the evidence for it is growing. If I’m reading the signs right, look for three weeks of bombing at the end of August.

Before we hit the evidence, let me dispel a few conservative myths. Contrary to what people with Obama Derangement Syndrome will tell you, Obama’s foreign policy is remarkably similar to Bush’s foreign policy. His rhetoric is weaker, but his actual policies are the same. Indeed, he’s almost been trigger-happy by comparison. He’s authorized thousands of drone strikes in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and throughout Africa (things Bush was afraid to do), he’s authorized the bombing of Libya, and he’s sent US troops into a half-dozen conflicts. He’s authorized the killing of American citizens who are suspected terrorists, he hasn’t renounced “enhanced interrogation,” and he even tried to erase the legal existence of the people they are holding at Gitmo. All in all, he’s been more than willing to fight.

Moreover, his latest chest thumping about killing Osama bin Laden, tells us that he thinks it will be vital to his re-election to appear tough. What this means is that Obama is willing and able to strike and most likely sees it as being in his interests to strike before the election.

But how do we know he will strike Iran? Well, for starters, he’s been laying the groundwork for some time. For two years, Obama spoke incessantly about sanctions while promising carrot after carrot if Iran would just play nice. They didn’t. And he can now tell his supporters he tried. Then last year, things began to change. The IAEA issued a stinging report saying that not only was Iran cheating, but that they would soon have a bomb. Meanwhile, Obama’s people created this bizarre story of Iran working with Mexican narco-gangs to assassinate people in the US. That story didn’t wash (except Rick Santorum believed it) but it signified a rhetorical shift toward getting the public ready for a possible attack. And with each of the Republican candidates buying into the need for an attack (except Ron Paul), Obama now has a green light to act.

At the same time, Obama apparently authorized the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and authorized the use of sophisticated computer virus attacks against Iran’s nuclear capabilities. These are acts you take before an attack, not when you are just passing time.

Now we’re suddenly getting a slew of clues that something is imminent:

● A few weeks ago, Obama moved a second aircraft carrier into the region. American attacks in the modern era always use two carriers. And they are rarely together otherwise.

● The troops in Iraq, who would have been a major target for Iranian counter-attacks, have been removed to safer Arab countries.

● A few months ago, Obama approved the sale of a sophisticated anti-missile system to the United Arab Emirates for $3.6 billion. Why would something like that be needed? To make them less nervous about hosting US troops should hostilities break out and to protect US troops in the country.

● Then last week, we learned that the Air Force positioned F-22 Raptors (the latest generation stealth fighter/penetrator) in those very same UAE. The F-22 is the perfect plane to get through Iran’s defensive grid. The Air Force claims this is all just a normal deployment, except that’s not true. The Air Force does not send F-22 Raptors to just anywhere.

● Yesterday, Obama signed an Executive Order allowing the US to boycott anyone who still does business with Iran. Notice the lack of fanfare. That’s key here because when countries aren’t ready to fight, they bang the table and make threats. When they are preparing to fight, they go silent and don’t trumpet their actions. And my guess is this Order will allow the seizure of assets at a critical time.

● Also yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu for the first time mentioned moving elections up from November to August. Why? Because you can’t start an attack if you’re going to go before the voters right after it begins. This suggests the timeline is a late-August attack.

● And then this came out last night. The Pentagon has leaked that it is revising its defense strategy in accordance with current threats. Mentioned in the assessment is that U.S. Central Command is conducting “war planning” for Iran, with the belief that we can destroy Iran’s conventional armed forces in about three weeks “using air and sea strikes.” Further, the Pentagon is “now conducting a step-by-step surge of forces in the Gulf.” Specifically mentioned were “maintaining two aircraft carriers in the region and increasing the number of mine-detection ships and helicopters” as well as the deployment of the F-22. In other words, everything I mentioned above.

All this tells me that the Pentagon is getting ready to strike. It’s building the military capability and it has already assured the neighbors, who no doubt already gave a green light or we would be hearing screaming. Politically, Obama has clearly coordinated with Israel and is factoring this attack into his election plan. He’s also set the Treasury up to seize Iranian assets once the shooting starts.

Based on Israel and how unlikely it is that the Air Force would leave the F-22’s sitting over there too long or the Navy would leave two carriers floating in the gulf longer than necessary, I would expect an attack no later than the end of August, with the current plan being three weeks of bombing.

So the next question is will this help Obama's re-election chances? I doubt it. Weak- appearing leaders tend to get hurt when they start wars because people see it as a desperate attempt to look tough. Libya gave Obama his standard three point bounce which faded almost before it was recorded. I would expect this will give him a 10% bounce, which will fade in week two of the bombing and go negative if bombing goes on beyond three weeks. . . which it will. Plus, as he's shown with his Afghanistan garbage, he will quickly try to politicize it, and that will truly anger average Americans.

Thoughts?

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Iran: Sanctioning Stupity

I always enjoy it when The Economist presents insanely stupid liberal arguments with a straight face. That’s high entertainment, like exquisite parody. The latest example involves an attempt to explain why Obama is doing just fine in his efforts to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. This argument is so awful that a child could see the problems with it. But apparently, The Economist can’t.

The Economist’s argument runs like this. First, they claim that Obama is on the verge of solving the Iranian problem because he just signed a measure into law which imposes “sanctions of unprecedented severity.” Yep. Specifically, these sanction will “ban” sales of Iranian oil to Europe, Japan and South Korea, who currently account for 40% of Iran’s sales. It will also “punish any foreign financial institution transacting business with Iran’s central bank.” This is meant to pressure Iran into stopping its development of nuclear weapons and “to show a jumpy Israel that there is an alternative to a military attack.” This is important because a military attack would raise tensions and might not actually work.

Makes sense, right?

Well, that depends on whether or not you keep reading the article. For in the very next breath, The Economist admits that skeptics “are entitled to ask” if sanctions will really work, “given that a variety of sanctions over the past 30 years has failed to change Iran’s behavior.”

Ok, let’s stop right there. This 30-years-of-failure fact tells us that the skeptics have been 100% right for 30 years now and what The Economist proposes has a miserable track record of absolute failure. Hence, the skeptics are more than just “are entitled to ask.” To the contrary, they are entitled to laugh uproariously at this idiotic suggestion. Indeed, what The Economist is doing fits Einstein’s definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Also, let’s be clear, this is the same Economist which claims that sanctions against Cuba can’t work but which now says they will work in Iran.

So why does The Economist think these will work? Because these sanctions are different. These are “sanctions of unprecedented severity” (sounds like “rodents of unusual size”). Indeed, according to The Economist, these sanctions will finally hurt the regime because they will stop Iran from selling its oil! Ah ha! Take that you Iranians! And take that too you dirty “Republican candidates” who are cynically trying to “depict Mr. Obama as weak.”

Yep, Obama is great. The end.

Oh wait, there are more words in this article. Words like this: “China, which is Iran’s biggest trading partner and has little truck with sanctions, will probably take up much of the slack created by Europe and America’s Asian allies.” Hmm. So Iran will shift its sales from Europe to China and Iranian sales will decrease by exactly 0%. Interesting. And no one at The Economist thought this might make their description of these as “sanctions of unprecedented severity” suddenly seem rather ridiculous? No one thought that Iran suffering NO economic consequences at all from these sanctions meant their estimate that “the latest sanctions will cause [Iran] more pain,” could perhaps be completely and utterly wrong?

It gets worse.

See, it turns out that this could be bad for Europe and the US: “the fragile economies of Europe and America would suffer if Iran’s oil exports disappeared from the world market.” Now think about this. This means these powerful sanctions will result in ZERO harm to Iran, but could tip the West into recession, thereby weakening Iran’s enemies. Yet The Economist, with a straight face, says this is “nevertheless worthwhile.”

Soooooo, let me see how this logic works. Doing something that hurts you but not the person you want to hurt is worthwhile because it will somehow force them to change their behavior. Hmm. Well, in that light, I think we should shoot pineapples up the rear ends of everyone who works for The Economist. That might just be what’s needed to stop Iran. Sure, I can guarantee you that it won’t actually do anything to Iran and it will certainly hurt the staff at The Economist, but it’s “nevertheless worthwhile” because. . . well, because it is. Problem solved, crack the bubbly!

Idiots.

Anyways, the pineapple sitters at The Economist aren’t done supporting their argument. They say, it’s clear that Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz is proof that the mere threat of these sanctions has put the regime under strain.

Of course, it’s more likely the Hormuz threat is a direct response to Israel fueling up its jets. But let’s not confuse The Economist with facts or logics as they clearly are not equipped the handle either. Also, for the record, this is the same threat Iran makes whenever something displeases it. They made it during the Iran-Iraq war, in response to the 30-years of ineffective sanctions, in response to UN reports, in response to Gulf Wars I & II, Saudi saber rattling, movies they didn’t liked, etc. In other words, thinking this threat shows a regime under pressure is purely wishful thinking.

The Economist also thinks Iran is worried about the Arab Spring. Of course, it conveniently ignores the fact that Iran already had its spring and the springers lost.

Finally, it suggests offering Iran “a carrot” by telling it everything it stands to gain if it just starts playing nice. This is idiocy. Can they really believe that Iran doesn’t know what it could gain or lose either way and hasn’t made a rational decision that it has more to gain going this route? “Wait Ahmed, you mean the Americans will open a McDonalds in Tehran if we stop trying to kill them? Why has no one told me this before?!”

The Economist also suggests we could promise to enrich their uranium for them. Yay! Never mind that this was only ever a temporary suggestion to slow Iran’s own enrichment and it’s been offered twice, by France the first time and then Brazil and South Africa the second, and Iran laughed it off because they want to build a bomb.

Liberalism is a mental condition and articles like this prove it. No human being with even a hint of intelligence could think that a plan which would do no harm except to the person proposing the plan will cause a bad guy to become a good guy. Yet here it is. I am honestly at a loss for words to describe how stupid this is.

I swear I’ve been punked.

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Fruits, Newts and Nuts

Let’s keep is simple today. Let’s do a bit of a news roundup mixed with some discussion questions. Feel free to add your own thoughts on anything else that comes to mind.

● You Dirty Fruits: Check out the article Patti found (HERE) dealing with Islam’s war against the perverted fruits and vegetables that will lead women astray. Not coincidentally, Saudi Arabia just executed a woman for “sorcery.” The religion of peace, huh? Sounds like an Erectile-Dysfunction-Idiocracy.

● Our Impotent President, Part 507: Speaking of impotence, the military lost a drone the other day over Iran. Obama failed to allow the military to destroy the drone. This news has gone virtually unreported, but here’s why it’s important. In the 1990s, when Clinton decided to bomb Serbia, a stealth fighter crashed. The US failed to recover most of that plane. It is now believed that Chinese agents acquired the parts and used them to engineer their own stealth fighter, which they recently showed to the world. Letting Iran have this drone was stupid. It gives Iran the capability to make very long range, cheap drones. If a fleet of these things appears over Israel in a couple years, think back on Obama’s decision.

● Tebowmania: Is Tim Tebow for real? How far will Denver go? Is this the greatest story or what? Where does all the hate come from against this kid? And do you think God really is helping Tebow... maybe just a little?

● International What?: With Climategate 2.0 heaping fresh disgrace upon climate change enthusiasts, the UN has gone on the offensive and proposed an International Climate Court of Justice to make Western governments pay for their climate crimes. This would impose a mandate to “respect the rights of Mother Earth” and to pay a “climate debt.” If you ever had doubts about the motivates of these enviro-fascists, this should settle it.

● Liar of the Week: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the vile DNC Chair proved yesterday that she’s delusional as well. In an interview on Fox, Debbie Dumbass actually claimed that it is a myth that unemployment went up under Obama. She repeated this several times, finishing thusly:

“Unemployment is nearing right around where it was when President Obama took office and it's dropping. You just said it's been increasing and that's not true.”

For the record, unemployment was 6% when Obama took office, it’s 9% now and that’s after millions of people stopped looking for work and thus stopped counting against the number. So is Debbie Dumbass that stupid or is she just a pathological liar?

● Newt Watch: I have resigned myself to Newt being our nominee. Hail Nero! But some conservatives and moderates (and whackos) are trying to warn us:

■ Glenn Beck: Beck said yesterday he would support Ron Paul in a third party bid before he would vote for Newt.

■ Rep. Pete King (NY): King credits Newt with winning back the House for Republicans in the 1990s. What does he think about Newt as our nominee? “He’d be a terrible nominee.” Why? Because Newt’s destructive and he’s in it for himself: “It’s not like, with Newt, you end up dying for a noble cause. You end up dying for Newt Gingrich, because he puts himself in the center of everything.”

■ New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu: Sununu gave the most direct warning:

“He has a personal priority over all else. The country comes maybe second or third. Philosophy comes maybe fifth. This is a man who is unable to prioritize needs in a constructive way. And frankly, his colleagues saw that when he was leader. . . This man is not stable.”

■ Former Gingrich collaborator Marvin Olasky: “Wisdom is knowing the difference between good and bad ideas. Newt is very intelligent; he has lots of ideas. But I’m not sure he always distinguishes between good and bad.”

■ NYT RINO David Brooks: “Gingrich loves government more than I do.”

■ National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru: “The people who know Gingrich best — the ones who worked for him, or worked with him, or watched him closely as journalists in the 1990s — have almost all concluded that he is a bad fit for the presidency. That judgment is shared by conservative and moderate congressmen, by people who support Romney and people who want an alternative to [Romney]. The common denominator is alarm at what Gingrich would do to the Republican party as nominee and to the country as president.”

● Write Ins/Drop Out: Finally, a question. Several readers (looking at T-Rav and Indi) have said they will write in the name of a suitable candidate when they get to vote. The Elves seem to be contemplating moving to Singapore. I’m buying a new pitchfork. Anyway, given the other available choices in this primary, it’s hard to say a write in would be a wasted vote. But do you think writing in someone’s name helps?

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Primer: Obama/Holder v. Iran

I figured you might like a primer on the new Iranian issue, as it’s all over the headlines and it’s an issue which could actually lead to war if mishandled -- although that’s extremely unlikely. Here’s what’s up:

● What Happened: On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DEA and FBI had foiled a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador and blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies. This plot was supposedly masterminded by Iran’s “elite” Quds military unit. The Quds are a special unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard whose job it is to “export” Iran’s Islamic revolution to other countries.

According to Holder, Manssor Arbabsiar (a Corpus Christi, Texas car salesman) was tasked by the Iranian government with finding someone to carry out the killing and the bombings. Arbabsiar turned to the nastiest of the Mexican drug cartels, Los Zetas, a group of former special forces soldiers who started their own cartel. I wrote about Los Zetas here: LINK. Arbabsiar wanted Los Zetas to do both the killing and the bombings and he wanted them to agree to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East into Mexico.

However, the person Arbabsiar contacted turned out to be a DEA informant. Whoops.

● Team Obama’s Response: The administration accuses Iran and describes this as: “a dangerous escalation of Iran's long-scale use of violence.” The reason they claim Iran did this was “the Iranians watch the Saudis roll tanks in Bahrain, and they see a key ally in Syria going down, so they step up the Quds Force.”

Joe Biden has been sent forth from the Idiotorium to take the lead on this. He described this as “really over the top” and said it was “an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises on which nations deal with one another.” He also said that “no options have been taken off the table” for dealing with this, though the administration has already ruled out military action. Instead, they are considering sanctions, the standard response by liberals when they don’t know what to do.

● The Saudi Response: Saudi Arabia and Iran are bitter regional rivals largely because their versions of Islam consider the other to be heretics. The Saudi embassy said this was “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions,” and their former head of intelligence said Iran will have to “pay the price.” They have not been more specific yet. However, Saudi Arabia does not have a military capable of defeating Iran.

● The Iranian Response: For its part, Iran denies involvement. They told the UN they are “outraged” and “strongly and categorically reject these fabricated and baseless allegations, based on the suspicious claims by an individual.” Tehran claims Obama has fabricated this to “divert attention from the Wall Street uprising.” Ha ha! They also repeated claims the US has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years.

For the record, the only link so far to Iran is that the car dealer apparently is a cousin of someone in the Qud and he visited Iran right before $100,000 was wired into the informant’s account by the car dealer. The FBI claims this was wired from a Qud bank account.

● The World Reaction: The world reaction has been skeptical. Iranian experts say that Arbabsiar does not fit the profile of the typical Iranian agent, who tend to be professionals. And they say it’s unlikely Iran would be behind such a plot. Similarly, an Iranian expert in Berlin said these claims would be viewed with skepticism as “everyone is extremely skeptical about US intelligence revelations” and added, “I don’t regard it as impossible but rather improbable, even if the details of the story presented by the attorney general are essentially true.”

One western diplomat said: “I don't believe Iran's regime was behind the plot. If we assume it was Iran's plot, it would seem like a group of professional gangsters hiring a careless agent for their most important project. It's impossible.”

Even a senior American law enforcement official said (on condition of anonymity) that the US isn’t quite sure what this was and it was likely a “rogue plan. . . so outside their normal track of activity.”

● Some Questions: This all leaves us with some odd questions. If we assume Holder is correct, then what will Obama do about it? Even Clinton dropped a few cruise missiles on Sudan after the embassy bombings in Africa. So Obama can’t just pretend this didn’t happen.

But if Holder is wrong, then is he simply wrong or is there more to this?

I never like conspiracies as an answer, especially when there are more likely answers -- such as this guy just being a nut job. But it is extremely coincidental that the day after Darrell Issa starts talking about subpoenaing Holder to answer for what are likely criminal acts related to Fast and Furious, that Holder manages to unveil a huge distraction involving the very elements of Fast and Furious -- DEA, drugs, Mexican cartels and cross border crime. This is one of those coincidences you can’t put in films or people will lose their suspension of disbelief.

My normal response would be to trust professional law enforcement. BUT we’ve already seen how compromised they’ve been by Democratic Justice bosses, such as when Janet Reno ordered the Branch Davidian attack to show that she was tough or the Elian Gonzalez deportation to show Castro goodwill or Holder’s actions in Fast and Furious itself, where potentially hundreds of lives have been taken or destroyed by Holder’s attempt to use the ATF for political purposes. Trust is in short supply here.

So I think we should keep an open mind at this point and not assume anything unless and until strong, verifiable, independent proof is provided.

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Some Thoughts On Iran

Several people have asked me in recent months what we should do about Iran. Unfortunately, I am forced to admit that there is no clear path forward. Iran presents a real dilemma. Nevertheless, there are some options. So let’s talk about the Iranian problem.

For starters, we need to acknowledge some of the facts. First, let’s consider Iran’s perspective:

Motivation: Iran has genuine motivations that we need to consider -- they are not just causing trouble, which is the false narrative adopted by our media. Geographically, Iran is easily the most important country in the region. It is a large country that dominates the Persian Gulf. It sits between the combustible Middle East, the combustible Afghanistan, the combustible Pakistan, and the ever-more important India. And it is the most populous country in the region. Iranian influence runs throughout the region and, without the United States as a counter-balance, Iran would be the biggest player.

Historically, Iran views itself as the cradle of civilization. At one point, it was far advanced compared to the Western World, and it, i.e. the Persian Empire, spread from Iran to Greece to Libya to China and well into India. Thus, Iran has a proud and ancient history. But the Persian Empire fell and the region came to be dominated by foreign powers -- from the Ottomans to the British. That colors their present thinking, as they see themselves as a much more significant force than they have become, and they bristle at the idea of outsiders controlling them.

Legitimate Reasons To Go Nuclear: Our media likes to paint Iran’s civilian nuclear ambitions as false, and it wonders why the Iranians would want nuclear power when they sit on so much oil. The answer is simple -- they can’t use the oil they have. Iranian oil is “sour crude” meaning that it is polluted and difficult to refine. Iran has no refineries that can handle this type of crude. Thus, despite sitting on all that oil, Iran suffers from gasoline and fuel shortages. Adding civilian nuclear energy actually makes sense for them.

Nuclear Rights And Wrongs: Many countries object to the idea that the rest of the world can tell them whether or not they can have the right to develop nuclear power. And indeed, even under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, any member can develop nuclear energy for civilian purposes.

Now let’s consider the counter argument:

Civilian Use My Glowing Green Ass: Despite their assertion that they are only looking to develop nuclear power for civilian purposes, the evidence is overwhelming that the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons. They have been caught working on triggers for bombs, trying to enrich uranium far beyond civilian usefulness, and skillfully hiding everything they’ve been doing. There is no definitive proof yet that they have an active weapon’s program, but you’d have to be an idiot not to see what they are doing.

Madness In Their Method: If Sweden went nuclear, few would be concerned. But Iran is not being run by stoic Swedes. Iran is being run by insane as~holes. From their crazy Ayatollahs to the fruity Ahmadinijad, these are guys who would clearly like to use an atomic weapon. From their sponsorship of Hezbollah, to their war with Iraq, to the terrorist bombings to which they’ve been linked, to the shooting of British cops from their embassy in Britain, to their involvement in the bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina, to their repeated hostage taking, these guys have shown no restraint. They’ve even taken recently to murdering demonstrators and opposition candidates. Combined with Ahmadinijad’s repeated threats to wipe Israel off the map, these guys are simply too insane to let them have an atomic bomb.

Now we come to the real problems in terms of making policy.

Away With The Bombs: A lot of people have suggested bombing Iran. But the problem with this approach is that we don’t know where their facilities really are. And for those of you who say, “oh, we really know,” we really don’t. Our intelligence people have admitted as much by failing to present more proof of Iran’s activities to the IAEA and by being caught by surprise by Iran’s recent announcement of a facility that no one had ever heard of before.

Our generals have publicly estimated that it would take us thirty-days of constant bombing to be sure that we got everything. . . which means that they are guessing. And if you will recall from Iraq, a country that we thought we knew every inch of, months after we took over the country, we were still finding hidden facilities and discovering that things we thought we knew were mockups.

Moreover, how well is this going to work if the Iranians hide their facilities under hospitals or mosques or inside schools? How long will public opinion last with pictures of Iranian children being blown to bits -- whether we did it or not? And what would be the price we pay throughout the world?

Not to mention that while the leadership is weak now, any attack would strengthen the leadership immeasurable and would buy them time and support from their own people. That’s the natural and inevitable reaction when outsiders attack. . . no matter how nasty the infighting was before the attack.

The short answer is that bombing is simply not an option. We don’t know what to strike, we can’t control the collateral damage, and we could never be sure that we hit what we needed. We simply can’t take the chance of missing something after taking such a provocative act.

Boots On The Wrong Ground: Invading the country may be our best military option. But we can’t do this. Why? Because we don’t have the troops we would need because they are busy propping up the Afghan government. Also, going the invasion route would cause a huge publicity problem as we invaded a third Muslim country in ten years. If we do this, we better expect that we would face an all-out Muslim war, fought in many countries, and likely many western cities.

Insurrection: We can’t openly support the Iranian opposition. They have made it very clear that any help from the West would lose them support, not help them.

The Iranian Sanction: Wait for sanctions we’re told. But it’s not clear that sanctions can work. They would work in a democracy where various interest groups would pressure the government to bend. But dictators are not subject to such pressures. Moreover, the current sanctions regime is a joke. Not only does it not even include weapons, but Iran’s biggest supporters refuse to join the sanctions, e.g. China, North Korean, Russia. Even Brazil told Hillary Clinton this week that they would make up their own mind about sanctions against Iran, and likely would not join them.

The dilemma defined.

Thus, we have a dilemma. We cannot allow this regime to go nuclear. But we can’t work toward regime change, we can’t bomb them, and we can’t invade them. Sanctions also appear ineffective, at least in their current form. So what do we do?

Here is probably the best solution.

Like all attempts to motivate, we need to figure out what we ultimately want and then we need to figure out the best combination of carrots and sticks to get us there. In this case, the best long term solution would be to replace this regime with one that isn’t insane. We should probably admit right now that (1) we’re not going to get a happy democracy, (2) we’re not going to get a pro-American government, and (3) we’re not going to stop them from developing civilian nuclear power, so I'd abandon that thinking at the door.

The Carrot: So let’s start by offering the following carrots. We would happily work with any new government to help the Iranians develop civilian nuclear power. Of course, we’ll decide later if the new government is acceptable, but there’s no need to mention that right now. As part of this, we could re-offer the current offer by France to refine Iran’s uranium for them, with the idea being that Iran would not be in the business of refining uranium, and thus could not build a bomb.

We could also promise further respectability for Iran, playing on their historical humiliations, but offering to create a counsel of five or some such thing to resolve Middle East issues. . . with Iran to be offered a seat at this table once it gets a new (read: acceptable) government.

We also need to stop talking about invading or attacking Iran, because this plays into the hands of their current government. Don’t feed the trolls.

The Sanctions Stick: If we are serious about sanctions, and I certainly think they are a good idea no matter what else we try, then we need to make them enforceable. That means throwing around American weight. Team Obama is currently getting the Saudis to bribe the Chinese to participate, but I don’t think that will be fruitful.

Rather than begging the Russians or Chinese to help us, we should (1) draw up a list of goods and services that are vital to keeping Iran’s government functioning, e.g. weapons, vehicles, fuel, base metals, technology, etc., and (2) pass a law imposing such sanctions, and (3) pass an additional law that requires the President to prohibit the importation of any goods and services from any country that is found to have dealt with Iran in these items. Such a law would cause the export dependent sectors of countries like China and Russia to do the lobbying for us, as those countries would now pay a price for going against our embargo.

The Military Stick: If none of this works, then we need to consider military options because the alternative is simply too horrific to allow. Unfortunately, neither air strikes nor invasion appear viable. Thus, we may have no choice but to eliminate their leadership through other means. I wouldn’t announce this publicly and I certainly wouldn’t take credit for it. But if the choice comes down to the elimination of Ahmadinijad and a few of his deputies or letting them turn a city to ash, then the choice is obvious.

Finally, if none of this works, then we need to think about bombings and invasions.


Are these the best approach? I think so. Will they work? I don't know. But there is no reason we couldn’t try each of these in turn. One thing is for certain though, hope is not a strategy and a handful of ineffective sanctions are not a deterrent. The longer we wait to get serious, the fewer options will be available to us. And if we wait too long, millions of people won’t live to regret it.

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SOTU: Why Obama Is Doomed

Last night, Obama gave the single worst State of the Union speech I’ve ever heard and the worst speech of his career. There was nothing inspiring or memorable. His canned applause lines stunk, his “off the cuff” jokes were poorly scripted, and the rest of the speech can be summed up thusly: anger, accusation, blame shifting, political payoffs to interest groups and “admissions” that everyone else has served him poorly. This speech was meant to hit the reset button. . . it missed. It also tells us that he is doomed to failure.

Obama has a serious problem. Unlike other presidents whose approval ratings have risen and fallen with events, Obama’s have been on a steady downward course. This indicates a man who has lost the public. Thus, his objective last night was to reconnect with the public, to pull a mea culpa, to assure the public he will change, and to convince the public to give him a second chance. He failed. Instead, last night just highlighted why he lost the public in the first place.

Technical Problems: Lack of Inspiration

Obama is a poor speaker and his speech writers stink. He has yet to give a memorable speech, and last night was no exception. There were no memorable quotes, no incredible moments of truth, no compelling arguments, and no moment where he made a genuine call for all of us to come together. Instead, his speech was bland, with angry emphasis substituting for passion, half-hearted praise for America substituting for inspiration, an abundance of “too-perfect-to-be-true” letters from widows and orphans that felt like blatant manipulation, and “I” substituting liberally for “we.” He was snide, unpleasant, insulting and combative. He read poorly. His self-deprecating jokes were all backhanded slaps at his opponents, and he just wasn’t presidential at any point.

The contrast with Virginia Governor McDonnell could not have been starker.

Obama’s failure, by the way, was obvious in two facts from last night. First, the leftists hired by CNN to act as analysts were amazingly subdued. “He did what he had to do” was about the highest praise they could muster (even David Axelrod was subdued). They questioned his priorities (or lack thereof) and even scoffed at some of what he said. Not one person suggested this was a great speech or a memorable speech or that he’d “hit a homerun.” When your own PR people can’t praise your speech, something is wrong. Secondly, CNN’s instant poll showed a 20% drop in the number of people who gave this speech high marks compared to last year. Given that this poll would likely include a higher proportion of Democrats than last year’s, this was a horrible result for Obama.

Political Payoff Smorgasbord

Aside from poor writing and delivery, the main reason Obama’s speech will not resonate with the public is that it ultimately was not meant for the public, it was aimed at his special interest. As I’ve said before, the Democratic Party is no longer a party, it has become an alliance of tribes, each of whom want their share. Last night, emphasized that:

• Unions: Obama promised a second stimulus, aimed at putting “America” back to work. . . targeted at unionized jobs. Further, while he seemed to talk about free trade last night with South Korea, Panama and Columbia, he never said he would push the free trade deals already negotiated with those countries that are languishing in Congress. Instead, he talked about “enforcement,” which is the same anti-free trade garbage his side has been spewing about imposing environmental and labor regulations on our trading partners.

• Environmentalists: Obama promised to get a carbon tax, i.e. cap and trade, even if he had to bribe a handful of Republicans (like Lindsey Graham) to get it, by offering to include subsidies for nuclear power and limited off-shore drilling.

• Gays: He promised to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and he promised “increased” civil rights office enforcement, i.e. more lawsuits.

• Feminists: He promised to fight for the feminist panacea “equal pay.”

• Blacks: He promised a national hate crimes law.

The middle class? You get to pay for these promises, and he repeated the silly plan I discussed the other day -- though he shifted the blame on that one to Biden. (FYI, that plan is actually aimed at feminists and college students and the poor, not the middle class.)

To cover his giveaways, he paid lip service to the public’s complaints. For example,

• Obama’s Deficits: He acknowledged the deficit problem, by blaming it on Bush. He then promised a “total spending freeze.” What he did not say was that this would only cover 17% of spending and that Pelosi has already said it won’t get through the House. He then tried to make this sound impressive by talking about the savings this would generate over the next TWO decades. Wally from Dilbert tried this once, claiming his plan would save the company one million dollars. . . over a million years.

• Job Destruction: Obama acknowledged that people remain unemployed, a problem he blamed on Bush. First, he tried to lump the 6.3 million jobs that vanished under his policies on Bush by claiming that the economy had lost seven million jobs in the past two years. Then he blamed lobbyists (which made no sense). Then he bragged about his stimulus bill creating two million jobs -- a well documented lie. (See here and here.)

Now he’s promising targeted tax cuts for small business “for job creation.” No one has any idea what he’s talking about here -- he probably doesn’t even know himself -- but if this is nothing more than a “one time tax cut for hiring” (a new favorite among Democrats) then this is doomed to fail.

• Terrorism: Obama acknowledged that terrorism exists, a big step for him. But he blamed the failure to stop it on Bush, and he specifically blamed the Detroit near-bombing on policies put in place by Bush. Yet, while he acknowledged Bush’s failures he offered no plan to address terrorism other than more of the same. He then, amazingly, made the childish claim that he had “killed more terrorists” than Bush did in 2008. This brought near eye-rolls from the Joint Chiefs.

• Health Care: Obama also whined about the opposition to his health care bill, which he blamed on obstructionist Republicans, corrupt lobbyists, and cowardly Democrats who are worried about elections, i.e. public opinion. Then he said, “I’m no quitter” (another demonstrable falsehood). He then reformulated his plan as “health insurance reform” because no one likes insurance companies, and he challenged anyone who would oppose him to come up with their own plan -- something many have done, though he wouldn’t know that because he refuses to listen. But he waited 27 minutes into his speech to raise this issue, leading one CNN pundit to declare: “he won’t give up on health care, but he’s signaled that he won’t fight for it either.”

• Iran: He acknowledged that Iran hadn’t been fixed yet, which he blamed on the Iranians and prior administrations, i.e. Bush. He then swore that there would be real consequences if they didn’t comply this time. Of course, he couldn’t think of any consequence to mention, nor did he say who would bear them.

• Iraq: He promised again to bring home all of the (combat) troops from Iraq at some point in time, it’s just taking longer than expected because the “three” (formerly “two”) wars Bush left him were such disasters.

• Corruption: Recognizing that most polls put corruption at the top of the public’s concerns about his administration, he (1) promised “to fight corruption”. . . in Afghanistan, (2) he demonized lobbyists and claimed to have kicked them out of his administration -- another lie, (3) he talked about undoing the Supreme Court’s decision that allows corporations to donate money to causes, something recent polls show the public considers a matter of free speech, and (4) swore he would highlighting earmarks to the public. . . as compared to his campaign promise to stop them. He made no mention of his awarding a no-bid contract to a supporter (something he once called “corrupt”) or of the massive amounts of corruption in his administration and in Congress (see here, here and here).

In other words, he paid lip service to the public’s concerns, and he showed that he refuses to accept any responsibility for the public’s concerns and he doesn’t intend to actually address them except with more lip service.

Angry Obama Gives Way To Nasty Obama

Finally, we come to Obama’s biggest problem: his paranoid hatred of “those who oppose.” In a nod to Rodney King’s “can’t we all just get along,” Obama mentioned the word bipartisanship and he spoke of the need to change the tenor in Washington. But then, like a petulant child, he set about settling scores.

He attacked the Republicans over and over, using any falsehood he thought would help him. He tried to blame them for his own failures and then, like a cartoon villain, he incredibly warned them that they would be held responsible for any further failure on his part. He called his own party cowards for trying to hear the message of the people. He blamed Bush for every single one of his faults and failures. And, as noted before, he petulantly tried to sound tough by claiming that he killed more terrorists than Bush did in 2008.

He demonized bankers and lobbyists, in ways not heard since the 1930s -- all the while ignoring the fact that they are his biggest contributors, that they are his closest advisors, and that he appointed them to serve in his cabinet and to run his treasury department.

He even tried to play the self-pity, phony-acceptance-of-responsibility game by taking “my share of the blame” only to twist that into accepting the blame for being stopped by the self-interested and politically motivated acts of others.

Incredibly, he made a highly inappropriate attack on the Supreme Court, in their presence. It is not that he criticized a court decision, but that he attacked the court personally, when he angrily accused the court of destroying “a century of settled law” in favor of special interests (impugning their motives). This caused Justice Alito to mouth the words “not true”. . . giving Obama a second “you lie” moment in as many trips to Congress. And, indeed, it was not true. By the way, as an active attorney, his attack on the Court is an ethics violation and he should be sanctioned.

Finally, he thanked no one for anything.

This man is a child. He knows nothing, and it shows. He out hates Nixon as a paranoid gatherer of enemies and a serial assigner of blame. He out wimps Carter as an effete warrior. He makes the obviously stupid Bush II look like Einstein, and the smarmy insider Bush I look like a zealous reformer. And he makes the dishonest and dishonorable Bill Clinton look like George Washington.

Obama is finished. Not because he doesn’t have time to change, but because he’s not willing or able to change.

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Deranged Fun! ;-)

Sometimes I wonder what it was like to have Bush Derangement Syndrome: angry liberals foaming at the mouth, spewing hate every time they heard Bush’s name, blaming every one of their own failures on Dick Cheney, who apparently hid under a lot of beds in the past ten years. Ah, blame, is there no personal failure you cannot soothe?! Let’s try on a little Obama Derangement Syndrome for fun today, just to see how it feels. How do we do that you ask? Let’s start with this innocuous story. . .

On Monday, the crazed baboons that make up the Iranian government accused the United States and Britain of directly backing a suicide bomber who killed six of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Oh, stop snickering. You and I know Obama’s a pansy, but the Iranians don’t, so don’t spoil it for them. Besides, this is the type of story liberals used to run with. So put on your running shoes and keep up!

The Iranian “media” said (via note strapped to a goat that reached an AP reporter) that the Sunni Muslim insurgent group Jundollah (not to be confused with Bobby Jindahl) claimed responsibility for a suicide bomber who set off a bomb in the Sistan-Baluchestan province, killing 42 people including six senior commanders of the IRG. Said guard commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali “the Bumblebee” Jafari, Iran has been presented with documents proving “direct ties” between Jundollah and the United States and Britain, possibly including the IRG’s finding a McDonalds Royale With Cheese wrapper in the debris.

Fair enough. No big deal right? WRONG! Clearly, Obama is waging an illegal war against Iran! How do we know? Because Bumblebee said so dammit! What motive could he possibly have to lie? None! Nothing! Nada! Zip! The Iranians are blameless holy creatures who have suffered too long under the oppressive policies of Obama and his secret corporate friends.

What? Why are you shaking your head. Oh, you don’t think Obama has a motive? I’ll tell you his motive. He hates Arabs. Yep, and children. Granted, no children were killed, but we know he hates children and he clearly was hoping children would die in this explosion. *sniff* I feel so used as an American citizen that my government. . . no, not my government, THE illegal Obama government would try to kill Arab children in Iran.

What do you mean Iranians aren’t Arabs? Whose side are you on? You must work for the Obama administration! Hater. Let’s look it up on the internet, I’m sure there’s some trustworthy blog that will confirm my opinions, and if not I’ll make one. . . fine, I’ll look it up.

WhatareIranians.com says. . . Persians. Oh, but they’re part of the system. What does wikipedia say. . . nutjobs. Outrageous! Oh wait, there it is. . .

As I said, Obama hates Persians. . . and children. . . and children of Persians. . . and polar bear genitalia, but that’s a different issue. Clearly he wants to destabilize (more) Iran so that his sneaky friends can impose a world government on Iran and take away the rights they enjoy right now, which are SOOOOOO much more rights than anything we have in this country. They have freedom of speech and freedom from hurtful speech, freedom from most religions, freedom to save the environment and freedom to be free, freedoms we just don’t have here under hateful Democratic administrations!

Where is Hugo Chavez in this? Your Persian brothers are dying Hugo! Where is Frank Murtha to accuse American soldiers of war crimes? Where is Nancy Pelosi to call for hearings? Where is Code Pink to disrupt bake sales? Where is Jimmy Carter to assure us that he knows our government really did this?

You know what? I can’t do this anymore. Sure, I can fake it. But I don’t feel it. We all know that Obama’s no warrior. He’s an indecisive idiot. He probably doesn’t even know where Iran is. There’s no way he has an Iran policy. . . probably just wants to “talk” to them. Yeah, let me know how that works out for ya bud.

I guess you really have to be nuts to suffer from a derangement syndrome.

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Peace In Our Minds. . .

You don’t have to be stupid to be a member of the Norgie Prize Patrol, but it helps. And you don’t have to be naive to handle Obama’s foreign policy, but that helps too. So what happens when you mix liberal and stupid with liberal and naive? You get nuclear war. Let’s quiz the Prize Patrol. . .

For those of you who missed it, the Norgie Prize Patrol has been under fire ever since giving Obama a surprise Norgie. Many critics asked what Obama had done to possibly warrant receiving such an award. Other suggested it was too soon. To you, committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland responds: “We simply disagree. He got the prize for what he has done. Who has done more for [peace] than Barack Obama?”

So what has he done you ask? Well, Jagland is nothing if not prepared to answer that question. First, he singled out Obama’s efforts to heal the divide between the West and Muslim world. Of course, he didn’t seem to know that only 19% of Americans think that our relations with the Muslim world will improve. And he apparently didn’t read the Palestinian memo that said: "All hopes placed in the new US administration and President Obama have evaporated." That’s not good right? Maybe he also missed the fact that Israel is planning to bomb Iran before Christmas?

Hmm. I’m gonna have to call bull on that one Jagoff. What else you got?

Obama also eliminated the Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe: “[This] has contributed to -- I wouldn’t say a safer world -- but a world with less tension.”

Uh, wow.

So the European view is that being unable to defend yourself from a missile attack by a group of nutjobs who want to turn your cities into slag reduces the tension in Europe? You people must love being robbed. Do your sports teams play to lose? Do you all stuffer from Stockholm Syndrome? Do Norwegians pass out blackmail material about themselves on the street -- “ya, this ist me und mein sexy Schnauzer. . . I love beingk blackmailed.” You, my dear Jagoff, are sick. . . seek help.

But even putting your national masochism aside, let me point out that you also are a stupid, stupid man. Obama gave the Russians exactly what they wanted by showing weakness, by submitting to Putin, and by eliminating the missile shield. He crawled, he begged, and I’m pretty sure he cried. . . “can’t we all just get along?” And what did this get him? A proverbial beat down.

This week the Russians announced that they will not allow sanctions against Iran: "There is no need to frighten the Iranians," Putin told reporters in Beijing. So much for Obama’s master plan.

And do you want to hear what this did to your “tensions” Jagoff?

Russian Presidential Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev declared Monday that Russia reserves the right to use pre-emptive nuclear strikes on both a “large, regional and even local” scale to safeguard Russia from aggression. But lest you think Patrushev was only talking about smoking Poland or Georgia, he specifically singled out Obama’s United States and NATO as foes who still pose threats to Russia. He noted for example, that

“activity on receiving new members into NATO is not ceasing. The military activity of the bloc is stepping up. U.S. strategic forces are conducting intensive training on using strategic nuclear weapons.”

How about them tense apples!

Interestingly, this interview was given at the same time that Hillary Clinton was in Russia prostrating herself at the foot of the Russian bear. Said our naive Secretary of State,

"We have people in our government and you have people in your government who are still living in the past. They do not believe that the United States and Russia can cooperate to this extent. They do not trust each other. And we have to prove them wrong. That is our goal. Our goal is to be as cooperative as we can."

I wonder who in Obama’s cabinet is living in the past? Biden? Rahm? I’m pretty sure I know who it is in Russia. . . some guy called Putin. Apparently, Hillary wanted to meet with this “Putin”, but he blew her off. Oops, sorry, they couldn’t get together. Said a red-faced Hillary:

"I would have enjoyed meeting with Prime Minister Putin and we certainly had intended to do so but our schedules didn't allow us, so I am looking forward to seeing him on a future date."

Yeah, sure Hillary. I’m sure it isn’t a lack respect. I’m sure it’s just that Putin’s schedule is so busy that he just couldn’t make time to meet with the U.S. Secretary of State to discuss nuclear weapons. . . after all, he’s got a lot of socks to sort out before they ease a few tensions on Georgia.

So back to the Norgie. Tell me again Jagoff what Obama did to warrant getting this award? Oh, that’s all you got. Maybe Ms. Aagot Valle, a lefter-wing Norwegian politician who joined the Norgie Committee this year, has something to add?



Aagot Valle, noted idiot.




What do you say about the suggestion that Obama hasn’t earned this award yet madam? “Don't you think that comments like that patronize Obama?” No, actually, I think they patronize you, sweetie. Didn’t you think there would be criticism of your stupid vote?

“Where do these people come from?” The critics? You didn’t expect any criticism for this? What kind of liberal bubble do you live in? Oh, that’s right, Norway -- I’ll bet you read the New York Times too, don’t you? “Of course I expected disagreement and debate.” Clearly not, based on your surprised (and very liberal-bubblish) reaction.

“Of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I'm not afraid of a debate on the Peace Prize decision. That's fine.” Great, so lay it on me. Prove this vast army of critics wrong. What say you about this argument that Obama is undeserving? “I take note of it. My response is only the judgment of the committee, which was unanimous.”

That’s it? Well that’s stupid. Just because everyone else made the same mistake doesn’t mean it’s not a mistake. Are you sure you're not afraid of debate?

“What I want now is that we seriously raise a discussion regarding nuclear disarmament.” Sorry toots, no can do. See, when you act like the world’s biggest dumbass, people don’t look beyond your dipsh*tocity and then engage in the debate you hoped they’d have. They talk about how stupid you are. . . and trust me, you got a lot of people talking.

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