Iran Denigrates Obama, America

This doesn’t bode well for Obama’s policy of engagement:

US President Barack Obama’s offer to talk to Iran shows that America’s policy of “domination” has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday.

“This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed,” Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

“Negotiation is secondary, the main issue is that there is no way but for (the United States) to change,” he added.

After nearly three decades of severed ties, Obama said shortly after taking office this month that he is willing to extend a diplomatic hand to Tehran if the Islamic republic is ready to “unclench its fist”.

In response, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh tirade against the United States, demanding an apology for its “crimes” against Iran and saying he expected “deep and fundamental” change from Obama.

The truth of the matter is that all tyrannical regimes view a willingness to talk as a confession of weakness – at least in the sense of an unwillingness to fight for something, in this case to fight to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and/or continue State-sponsorship of terrorism. This is because the sort of people who run tyrannical regimes are the sort of men who view all relations as power relations – with one side to dominate, one side to subordinate. This doesn’t mean you never engage tyrants, but it does mean that any engagement must be done with a clear eye to the sort of people you’re negotiating with.

The election of Obama does mean a change in US foreign and military policy – while Obama will maintain most of what President Bush has established because Bush had the correct general policy line, there will be changes, most notably in Obama’s willingness to send special envoys and in general open talks with regimes who bear the United States exceptional ill will. This has all been tried before and has uniformly failed – tyrants don’t keep agreements and are always working for their own advantage, not for a reasonable community of nations respecting each others needs. But we are going to try it, again, and if we are I hope that Obama at least pays heed to some core principles:

1. If we give, we must get – and we must get before we give. In other words, if Iran wants to open diplomatic ties with the United States, we must first insist upon some solid, verifiable act prior to the opening of relations…such as, for instance, a cessation of Iranian attempts to arm Hezbollah and Hamas with rockets.

2. Realize that any thing they do is designed for their personal advantage, not over concern for justice, truth, human rights, what have you. This can be worked to our advantage because tyrants are also rather greedy and we can purchase agreement – in other words, de-facto bribe them into following a certain, desired line.

3. Stay armed and vigilant – don’t worry about “breaking” an agreement with tyrants. The agreement was never going to be honored in the long haul with them and thus any indication that they are not keeping the agreement should be taken as rock-solid proof that the agreement is now null and void. It can be re-worked through a new round of negotiations, but we must not consider that a treaty with, say, Iran is a treaty such as we might make with Canada – a treaty, that is, where we can expect both sides to make a good faith effort to abide by the terms. Everything is temporary and for expediency with tyrants – and Churchill said, they ride to and fro on the backs of tigers and, at times, even if they’d like to keep a particular agreement with us, they may not be able to for reasons we’ll perhaps never understand.

We have the advantage right now – with Iraq becoming a solid democracy and the prestige and power of our military at a high pitch, we can negotiate from a position of strength and be rather insistent. If we must negotiate – and Obama, our Commander in Chief, says we must – then we must be entirely realistic about it and not carry any notions of the brotherhood of Man with people like the Iranian tyrants.

Another Obama Nominee, Another Tax Issue

We’re going to have to ask the question: Do you Democrats realize that you have to pay taxes?

ABC News has learned that the nomination of former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to be President Obama’s secretary of health and human services has hit a traffic snarl on its way through the Senate Finance Committee.

The controversy deals with a car and driver lent to Daschle by a wealthy Democratic friend — a chauffeur service the former senator used for years without declaring it on his taxes.

It remains an open question as to whether this is a “speed bump,” as a Democratic Senate ally of Daschle put it, or something more damaging.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, Democrats – so, when someone provides you a service it isn’t free just ’cause you’re an important Democrat and thus should have lots of free stuff. No, in the real world, we have to look in to who is giving what, and why, and whether it is applicable under the convoluted tax scheme you Democrats have saddled us with over the years.

Now, you could decide that a flat tax would be better as everyone would be clear on what they have to pay – but, if you decide that its better to have a screwball set of tax rules, then you’d darn well better obey each and every one of them right down to the smallest detail. Fair is fair, after all.

Michael Steele Elected RNC Chairman!

Congratulations Michael Steele!

The Republican Party chose the first black national chairman in its history Friday, just shy of three months after the nation elected a Democrat as the first African-American president. The choice marked no less than “the dawn of a new party,” declared the new GOP chairman, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. Republicans chose Steele over four other candidates, including former President George W. Bush’s hand-picked GOP chief, who bowed out declaring, “Obviously the winds of change are blowing.”

Steele takes the helm of a beleaguered Republican Party that is trying to recover after crushing defeats in November’s national elections that gave Democrats control of Congress put Barack Obama in the White House.

GOP delegates erupted in cheers and applause when his victory was announced, but it took six ballots to get there. He’ll serve a two-year term.

A month ago, my co-hosts and I interviewed Michael Steele on The American Resolve to discuss his bid for chairman. We are working on having him an again soon to discuss his victory.

UPDATE: Here’s a profile of the Man of Steele:

He was born at Andrews Air Force base in Prince George’s County, Maryland on October 19, 1958 and subsequently adopted. This African American child was then raised in a family of Democrats. His political turn to the Republican Party did not come from his having attained success in almost every endeavor he has undertaken, which he has. Rather, according to this well spoken and inspiring man, it came from watching the lived example of his mother, Maebell and hearing the convincing positions of a man named Ronald Reagan.

Michael Steele’s mother suffered a tragedy in 1962 when her husband, Michael’s father, died of liver disease. She went to work and through her sacrifice raised him and his sister on a minimum wage job. Her ethic of hard work and deep dedication to her children were an inspiration to her young son. They have also been replicated in him, according to those who know him best. He is considered one of the hardest working and most ethical public servants in American political life.

This is the story of America, writ large in the life of one man…he’s gonna flatten you Democrats, you just wait and see.

Global Warming Update

From Alaska:

Monitoring earthquakes underneath the 10,200-foot Redoubt Volcano about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, scientists from the Alaska Volcano Observatory warned that an eruption was imminent, sending experienced Alaskans shopping for protection against a dusty shower of volcanic ash that could descend on south-central Alaska.

Now, if this thing goes off as expected, it will send a gigantic amount of CO2 into the atmosphere…if over the next five years after such an eruption mean global temperatures stay the same or drop, will you global warming fanatics out there just drop the whole ridiculous hoax of global warming?

UPDATE: James Lewis over at Pajamas Media has 7 bad things to say about the corruption of science in the name of the anthropogenic global warming (you know, such as non-scientist Al Gore telling us that AGW is a settled issue, or calls to have global warming doubters brought up on charges), and concludes thusly:

Climate modeling is just a toddler science, barely able to waddle around the living room. It’s a nice idea to try modeling the earth’s atmosphere. But nature is inconceivably more complex than what we ever see in a laboratory jar. There are no proven “greenhouse gases” in the real atmosphere, just as there are no proven causes of alcoholism or obesity. Alcoholism is an incredibly complex mix of nutrients, heredity, epigenetics, exercise, lifestyle, early learning, puberty, social support, economics, food availability, optimism, toxins, sunshine, interactions, feedback loops, and all the unknown unknowns.

Try to build little computer models of alcoholism and you learn nothing new — because it’s the evidence that’s missing. Computer models of the atmosphere are just as premature. Climate modeling is a baby “science” just like the quack cures for alcoholism or obesity.

Most scientifically savvy people understand this perfectly well. It’s not news — except to the news media, who just don’t want to know. They will never ruin a good story with facts. Journalists don’t get fired for being wrong.

AGW therefore looks to be the biggest fraud in the history of science. The AGW hype machine may signal the worst breakdown ever in the normal, healthy process of open debate and endless testing that makes for good science. It’s pathological science — which is not science at all.

What’s happening today is very dangerous. It can infect other parts of the sciences, medicine, and technology. If honest scientists cannot stand up to the pressure we are in deep, deep trouble as a society. Bad science kills people.

That institutional breakdown could spread — perhaps it has already spread — to other fields that have been politicized. This is very bad.

Ultimately the only solution may be to cauterize the proliferating mass of corruption. That can only be done by the new media, which are not playing footsies with political frauds.

All we can do is keep telling the truth, and listen to honest debate. Keep on doing that, and this sickness may yet pass, without killing the patient.

When I’m driving around listening to the radio there is this commercial for some weight loss scam which talks about how the product will remove waste which “some experts” say is spackled to the colon like paste…which assertion is not just false, but stupidly false. But people believe it, and there are people – who have a vested interest in such scams – who have degrees and licenses who will assert stoutly what they must know to be untrue, is true.

Environmentalism has long been corrupted and all sciences related to the environment are corrupted by environmentalism. Ever since Carlson wrote her mendacious Silent Spring, the entire environmentalist movement has based itself on one lie after another…but as environmentalism gained political power and thus the ability to direct research funding, there has been an endless string of scientists all too willing to trim their work to fit environmentalist alarmism.

But you want to know the funniest part of this whole, sad spectacle? The fact that our liberals, who pride themselves on their alleged scepticism, buy this nonsense without thinking.

Standing Shoulder to Shoulder in the Culture War

It will be astounding if this comes to pass – this news story details the possibility of the 400,000-strong Traditional Anglican Communion becoming part of the Catholic Church some time after Easter this year.

While there are many issues causing fissures not just in the Anglican Communion but throughout the old, “mainline” Protestant denominations, it still remains that the catalyst – the thing which drew a bright, red line forcing people to line up on one side or the other – was the ordination as a Bishop the openly gay Gene Robinson. While the open homosexuality was a bit of a problem, the thing which proved impossible for many to accept was the fact that Robinson had forsaken his marital vows and went off to live in sin with his male lover. To think that such a person could guide anyone on a Christ-like path was (and is) absurd – while we’re all sinners, we certainly can’t take correction and instruction from someone who is not only an unrepentant sinner, but also someone who claims his sin is not a sin.

The battle lines have been drawn and with all religion – not just Christianity – under attack from within and without, everyone who subscribes to doctrinally sound Christianity has to bury differences and come together. Not necessarily by joining the Catholic Church, but certainly by presenting a united front to the secularists who wish to destroy all religion. This means, by the way, that our Jewish and Moslem brothers and sisters must find room at our table – while the primary ire of the left is directed at Christianity (and especially the Evangelical and Catholic elements of it), the plain fact of the matter is that most leftists consider religion inherently dangerous, at least to the point where they demand it stay out of the public square.

They know what they are doing by having a Bishop like Robinson – heck, Robinson knows it, too – they are attempting to pour leftist content into religion so that while the outward form remains, the internal structure is entirely geared towards making people selfish about their desires and despairing about their future (selfish people who despair are easy pickings for leftist propaganda). The left wants a leftist world, considering it better than the world as shaped by Jews, Christians and Moslems – and that is fine and dandy; but if we don’t want a leftist world, then we’d better get together and get into the fight.

If Obama Wants a New Era of Bipartisanship

Then Senator Arlen Specter is showing him how to do it:

Dear President Obama:

Congratulations on your inauguration. Throughout your campaign, you promised change and pledged to strive for bipartisanship in your administration, and you underscored this commitment to bipartisanship in your inaugural address.

I write to respectfully suggest that, as a sign of bipartisanship, you renominate some of President George W. Bush’s circuit court nominees who were not confirmed prior to the adjournment of the 110th Congress. To do so would echo the bipartisanship President Bush demonstrated when he renominated one of President Clinton’s judicial nominees, Judge Roger Gregory, to a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Several of President Bush’s circuit court nominees had bipartisan support and were not confirmed due to asserted time constraints. I believe these nominees in particular deserve your consideration. Mr. Peter Keisler, nominee to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, had bipartisan support and garnered praise from across the country, including the editorial boards of The L.A. Times and The Washington Post. In addition, Judge Paul Diamond, nominee to the Third Circuit, and Judge Glen Conrad, nominee to the Fourth Circuit, had bipartisan support, including the support of their Democratic home state Senators. All three nominees were rated “well qualified” by the nonpartisan American Bar Association and would be excellent candidates for renomination.

Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Arlen Specter

Now, elections do have consequences – we lost, and now it will be President Obama nominating judges over the next four years and it is expected he will nominate judges in line with his liberal worldview. This is just one of the hard lessons of politics which should make us, in future years, redouble our efforts to win. If Obama refuses to follow Senator Specter’s advice he won’t have done something wrong – but he will have failed to do something good.

Don’t get me wrong here – with Obama’s impatience and the Democrats’ generalized pinheadedness, we on the GOP side are just waiting for revived power to fall into our laps like ripe fruit. Ultimately, the question is not whether we’ll recover power, but when. Will it be in the 2010/12 phase or the 2014/16 phase? The other question is whether we’ll be smart enough to run the course for a big win, rather than the regular win we can expect. But, unlike our Democrats, we do have a concern for the nation as a whole and thus we’d prefer not to see things go to heck in a handbasket, even though this would work to Obama’s credit and make our return to power a longer process. But we need something – we need, that is, to know that when we come to the table and pull Democrat fat out of the fire that we’re going to get something in return. A few judges, some tax cuts, a bit of spending restraint, and we’re off to the races…and, incidentally, the economy is saved and Democrats will get to take credit for it, just as Clinton did in the late 90′s.

Or Obama and his Democrats can take the Pelosi attitude – they won, they get to make the rules. Which is fine and dandy and in keeping with the hard reality of political power…but if we want a new spirit of cooperation, we’re going to need more than lip service to bipartisanship.

The Pro-Life Ad NBC Refuses to Let You See

Absolutely powerful and entirely unanswerable. Couple this sort of thing with the concept of abortion being the enemy of hope, and we’ll have the practice on the ropes within five years.

GOP 2010/12 Strategy

Pay Democrats to keep speaking in favor of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Are-You-Sure-We-Spent-Every-Penny “Stimulus” bill…here is Pelosi and here is someone from Americans United for Change (which I think is a sorta street beggers union, but I might be wrong) defending this dog of a pork bill. For the GOP, its just a matter of Tivo’ing it and then starting to rebroadcast it in September of 2010.

Stimulus on Steroids

Larry Kudlow notes that the $1,100,000,000,000.00 or so in the Obama-Pelosi-Reid “Yeeehaw! There’s Another Dollar to Spend” Bankrupt-the-22nd-Century-Too “Stimulus” bill, there’s as much as $2,000,000,000,000.00 more in the works:

And in what may prove to be the biggest stimulus-package hurdle of all, news reports suggest that Team Obama is contemplating as much as $2 trillion in TARP additions to rescue the banking system in one form or another. That would be $2 trillion on top of the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

When do you Democrats out there start to realize this is stupid and that it will cost you power for a generation once the full effects of this spending binge take hold? I mean, I don’t mind, in the long run – 30 or 40 years of uninterrupted GOP control and we might even get ten years or so of genuinely conservative government in there. But don’t you Democrats care about your own side? Or are you really convinced that this sort of spending will help?

Now, you can dump a lot of money into the economy and have a temporary, positive effect on it – just as FDR’s spending bonanza had its effect, most notably in bringing down unemployment – for a while – from more than 20% to around 15%. But the long-term costs of such irresponsible spending are disastrous, as noted by the fact that FDR’s spending bonanza never got us out of the Depression. I was discussing this a bit on Thursday with Nevada Pundit and he pointed out that a very large amount of the spending is scheduled to hit the economy in 2010, just in time for the mid-terms – such a thing might help Democrats limit losses, but is this what you Democrats really want? To just struggle on year after year hoping you can pull and electoral rabbit out of your hat?

Outside of the purely political considerations, in the course of my day job I had a conversation with one of our customers who actually broke down crying with frustration over his growing poverty. This is the guy we need to help, friends, not bankers, union bosses and favored Democrat special interests. Passing this trillion dollar boondoggle – with promises of more to come – isn’t going to help the people make ends meet over the next six to nine months…and spending all that money ensures that in years to come the economy will be much smaller than it otherwise would have been with proper fiscal management.

Its time to start thinking, people; don’t react to talking points or a glitzy presser…actually think about what Obama and his Democrats are doing.

Editing the Obama Script

They are afraid, over in Obama-land, that things might go haywire…so they carefully control what information they provide:

NewsBusters and the Weekly Standard’s Mary Katharine Ham are not the only critics of the Obama administration for its failure to transcribe, publish and archive the daily press briefings held by press secretary Robert Gibbs.

A Web site called WhiteHousePressCorps.org is running a graphic at the top of its main page which reads, “Waiting on the official release of the 1/22/2009 Press Briefing transcript for” followed by a ticker counting up from January 22. You can also track them on Twiter @whpresscorps.

The site, which features archives of White House press gaggle and briefing transcripts dating back to February 2006, describes itself as “an independent media watchdog source providing information and commentary on the relationship between the press and the White House” that is not affiliated with the White House Correspondents’ Association.

One of the really useful things at President Bush’s White House site was the ability to get every press conference, press gaggle, briefing, speech or what have you – it was tremendously useful in refuting lefty accusations which twisted what Bush or aides said…lefty would say, “Bush Said EVIL Thing”, a check of the White House website would easily reveal that Bush said no such thing. President Bush and team weren’t afraid, it would seem, of people going back over what they said – Obama and Team are seemingly quite fearful that things they said won’t look good in retrospect, so they are only putting out the bits they like best.

This is cowardly. This is the act of a tyrant. This is the work of someone who holds the American people in actual contempt. If Obama is worth anything at all, he’ll quickly change policy here and put every word uttered up on the White House website for all to see right through to the end of his term in office.

UPDATE: Seems someone at the White House reads blogs:

Checking back at the site a few minutes ago, the Obama White House now has a press briefings section with the Briefing Room portion of the site. You can find it here.

This morning I discovered that the Obama administration’s WhiteHouse.gov is indeed transcribing and maintaining its daily press briefings featuring Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Of course you pretty much have to know where to find them since there’s no link to an archive section from either the main page or the “Briefing Room” page.

This will take careful monitoring to ensure the White House doesn’t star to “forget” to keep these things updated.