CNN Is Super Concerned With Legality Of Whacking Suleimani

By William Teach January 7, 2020 – 7:21 am

It really is still amazing that the killing of an Iranian terrorist, a high ranking member of the Iran government and military, who is responsible for hundreds of American deaths, is being trashed by the American news media and Democrats. The same folks weren’t concerned when Obama was whacking big time terrorists

But, um

See, it was cool when Obama did it. But, Orange Man Bad, so, they’ll defend Iran. And virtually no one was whining about the legality

Growing doubts on legality of US strike that killed Iranian general

In the hours and days after Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike, his demise was described in various terms: President Donald Trump said he had been “terminated”; other US officials talked about a “targeted killing” and “lethal action.”

But both the Iranian President and Iraq’s Prime Minister said Soleimani’s death was an “assassination” — essentially a politically motivated murder.

See, CNN’s Tim Lister and Eve Bower prefer to listen to Iran. And then make a huge mistake regarding the legality

US officials have rejected the characterization of his killing as an assassination. That’s hardly a surprise because assassinations have been illegal under US federal law since 1981. But people have still been assassinated, and the government has not always been considered in violation of the law. This is, in part, because US law does not define “assassinations” with precision, and there are other laws that administrations have used to justify their actions.

What they want people to do is not click that link for “1981”. Go ahead and click it…..that’s right, it is not a law, it is an executive order. Any president can change, modify, cancel, or ignore an EO, because they are the president, and an EO is not law. Kinda like a CEO creating a dress code policy, then coming to work in sweat pants himself/herself while you wear dress pants. There is no U.S. law against assassination, nor one with guidance.

The crux of the Trump administration’s argument is that the threat posed by Soleimani’s plans was “imminent” and that the US response was “defensive.” A key requirement in order for a strike to be lawful under Article II of the US Constitution is that a threat must be imminent.

Yeah, they have no link for that, because it doesn’t appear in Article II anywhere. So, CNN is really just making things up because Orange Man Bad.

But targeted killings are permitted under international law in only very narrow circumstances, and some legal experts are skeptical that the White House’s justification for the strike — offered without evidence at the time of writing — meets those standards.

There were a few that were concerned with Obama’s “targeted killings”, including Bin Laden, calling them illegal, but, the U.S. media and Democrats, and Republicans, cheered Obama taking out terrorists. Do we really care what international law says? This is the same international law that is ignoring what Iran and Suleimani were doing.

You know, if Trump killed Hitler the Democrats and their pet media would find ways to slam Trump.

Read: CNN Is Super Concerned With Legality Of Whacking Suleimani »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Democrats, Donald Trump, War On Terrorism | 16 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: Iran Says It Will Continue To Violate Obama’s Iran Deal

By William Teach January 6, 2020 – 4:39 pm

Yeah, this is the deal that saw Obama give Iran pallets of cash, removed sanctions which allowed it to get more cash for terrorist operations, and would let them obtain nuclear weapons in 2025 or 2031, depending on your reading. Oh, and

Iran Formally Announces It Will Continue Violating the Nuclear Deal

The Iranian government announced on Sunday that its systematic violations of former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will escalate to their logical conclusion with the removal of all limits on uranium enrichment.

“By taking the fifth step in reducing its commitment, the Islamic Republic of Iran eliminates the last key operational restriction it faced under the JCPOA, which is the limitation imposed on the number of centrifuges,” said a statement from Tehran.

Iran discarded the nuclear deal in a series of “steps” intended to pressure the Europeans into making massive financial concessions to protect Tehran from sanctions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump after he withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018.

Based on the headline, I thought Breitbart’s John Hayward would highlight that Iran was already breaching the JCPOA prior to Trump withdrawing the U.S. Heck, even before Trump became president

Iran Breaches the Nuclear Deal and UN Resolutions for Third Time

Iranian leaders have breached both the resolutions and the nuclear agreement for the third time since the nuclear deal went into effect in January 2016. Iran has repeatedly test-fired, long-range ballistic missiles and laser-guided surface-to-surface missiles.

That’s the HuffPost on 5/15/2016. Who was president then? Trump wasn’t even the GOP nominee

Iran once again exceeds a nuclear deal limit: IAEA report

Iran has exceeded a soft limit on sensitive material set under its nuclear deal with major powers, the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Wednesday, hours after Donald Trump – who has strongly criticized the agreement – won the U.S. presidential election.

It is the second time Tehran has surpassed the 130 metric tonne threshold for heavy water, a material used as a moderator in reactors like Iran’s unfinished one at Arak, since the deal was put in place in January. It had 130.1 tonnes of the material on Tuesday, the watchdog said.

May not seem like much, but, Iran isn’t really trying that hard to use nuclear for power. They have one reactor operational, and two supposed upcoming. But, their plants do not really use heavy water: their nuclear weapons research plants do.

But, hey, let’s keep railing at Trump for whacking stone cold terrorist Suleimani.

Read: Bummer: Iran Says It Will Continue To Violate Obama’s Iran Deal »

Posted in Donald Trump, Iran | 20 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 6, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is

IAYS

The blog of the day is Green Jihad, with a post noting that ‘climate change’ did not cause the Australian fires.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 30 Comments | Trackback URL

Surprise: Australian Fires Were Pretty Much The Work Of Not ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach January 6, 2020 – 10:30 am

Much like in California, the fires were mostly caused by humans, but, not via “carbon pollution”

Then there’s this from the Sydney Morning Herald

Arson, mischief and recklessness: 87 per cent of fires are man-made

There are, on average, 62,000 fires in Australia every year. Only a very small number strike far from populated areas and satellite studies tell us that lightning is responsible for only 13 per cent. Not so the current fires threatening to engulf Queensland and NSW. There were no lightning strikes on most of the days when the fires first started in September. Although there have been since, these fires – joining up to create a new form of mega-fire – are almost all man-made.

A 2015 satellite analysis of 113,000 fires from 1997-2009 confirmed what we had known for some time – 40 per cent of fires are deliberately lit, another 47 per cent accidental. This generally matches previous data published a decade earlier that about half of all fires were suspected or deliberate arson, and 37 per cent accidental. Combined, they reach the same conclusion: 87 per cent are man-made.

Seasonal changes, in part due to climate change on top of natural oscillations causing the drought and westerly winds, have some origins in man-made emissions. More directly, however, the source of ignition is human.

It’s not lost on police, emergency services and firefighters at the front line that most of these fires were lit deliberately, or accidentally through recklessness, nor that they are unprecedented in their timing and ferocity. Since September, it has been a constant pattern that a few days after the fires roar through we have the first police reports that arson or recklessness was involved.

One really does have to wonder how many are being set by members of the Cult of Climastrology in order to push their cult. Think that’s conspiracy theory?

The Washington Post is yammering about Aussies ditching “climate denial” because of the fires. They missed how many have been started by people. How many of the California fires have been caused by humans and companies, rather than ‘climate change’? All.

 

Read: Surprise: Australian Fires Were Pretty Much The Work Of Not ‘Climate Change’ »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 15 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: Irish Data Centers Are Killing Us With Carbon Pollution

By William Teach January 6, 2020 – 7:18 am

It is amusing that a news outlet, the UK Guardian, that depends on data centers is railing against them by allowing a Warmist, Rory Carroll, to run an article that wouldn’t be read without data centers

Why Irish data centre boom is complicating climate efforts

Inside Digital Realty’s Dublin data centre, racks of shiny black servers throb and whirr as unseen fans cool machines that steadily process unending data.

It operates 24 hours a day from the business park, sited on a former orchard, and the data joins a digital torrent in an underground fibre ring network that sweeps around the Irish capital and connects to undersea cables – the physical backbones of the digital world.

It is not just for Ireland. This is also how the UK and continental Europe accesses a lot of email, social media, online shopping, Netflix and other internet services. “Everything with the word smart in front of it has a data centre behind it,” said Ben Bryan, Digital Realty’s technical operations manager in Dublin.

But there is a catch. The surge in Irish data processing will require significant new energy infrastructure and increase emissions, complicating Ireland’s response to the climate crisis. The cloud can create carbon: it is estimated that when the music video Despacito reached 5bn streamed YouTube views in 2018, the energy consumption was equivalent to powering 40,000 US homes a year (it has now exceeded 6.5bn views).

By 2028 data centres and other large users will consume 29% of Ireland’s electricity, according to EirGrid, Ireland’s state-owned transmission system operator. Worldwide data centres consume about 2% of electricity, a figure set to reach 8% by 2030. Few countries, if any, will match Ireland’s level.

It is already Europe’s data centre capital, with Amazon, Google and Microsoft siting operations there. Dozens of centres have opened in recent years, bringing the total to 54, with a combined power capacity of 642MW. Once a leading exporter of floppy discs and CD-Roms, Ireland has successfully transitioned to the big data era.

Tell Millennials and GenZ that they will have to give up their use of the Internet to stream stuff and see if they quit the Cult of Climastrology

But the boom will exact a price. Ireland is one of the EU’s worst carbon emission offenders and faces fines of more than €250m for missing 2020 targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Missing later targets will trigger steeper fines.

Rory forgets to make a recommendation as to what should be done about this. Should Ireland get rid of the data centers? Start fining companies? Make them pay carbon taxes? Who knows, Rory just whines. Funny how Warmists are always whining about living a modern life and basically everything in it.

Read: Bummer: Irish Data Centers Are Killing Us With Carbon Pollution »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

NY Times Works Hard To Protect Islamist Regime In Iran

By William Teach January 6, 2020 – 7:05 am

The same NY Times which was never particularly concerned with Obama’s use of force against Islamic jihadis throughout the Eastern world nor in Libya is Very Concerned with Trump ordering a strike against an Iranian responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans

Congress, Stop President Trump’s Rush to War With Iran

President Trump must doubt his administration’s own claims that it has deterred Iranian threats.

“Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Saturday, “we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!”

The threat came after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, vowed “forceful revenge” for an American drone strike early Friday that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a top Iranian military commander, after, the White House claims, the general prepared attacks on American interests.

Why was Mr. Trump’s threat on Twitter even necessary? Wasn’t the death of General Suleimani supposed to have stopped the threats the president now claims America still faces? Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, defended the attack on Friday by saying, “It was time to take this action so that we could disrupt this plot, deter further aggression from Qassim Suleimani and the Iranian regime, as well as to attempt to de-escalate the situation.”

If you’re guessing that the piece is all about slamming President Trump and not Iran for their actions against Americans, you’d be correct.

What’s even more troubling is that the administration is not seeking sensible advice elsewhere. It didn’t notify leaders from either party in Congress before the drone strike, although on Saturday the White House did notify at least some senior leaders, as required by the War Powers Act.

The Executive Office doesn’t need to notify anyone in the Legislative Branch prior to action: it’s called the Constitution. Look it up. But, the Times Editorial Board really, really wants legislation passed that would limit Trump’s march to war. And to protect Iran. Meanwhile, they run an opinion piece by Azadeh Moaveni, who is a senior gender analyst with the International Crisis Group, whatever that means. Oh, it should be noted that the International Crisis Group is yet another group funded by George Soros, and has consistently taken the side of Islamist groups, Palestinians, Iran, and been against American and Israel

Mourning Is Iran’s First Act of Retaliation

The last time I wrote seriously about a war with Iran was in 2012. It had been an especially fraught year, with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards running naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, Israel and the United States conducting joint drills, and the safety of oil shipping lanes looking entirely unassured. Oil prices rattled skittishly, everyone suddenly monitored ships, and headlines speculated that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

My assignment was to consider “the day after” — to imagine how Iranians would react if their country was bombed by Israel. My piece featured scenes of distraught young people gathering on crowded intersections singing the national anthem — suddenly everyone a terrified Iranian citizen rather than an aspiring guitarist or a day laborer or whatever they were the day before — and a screaming mother buying formula to stockpile from a supermarket. I don’t even remember writing it. How many times can you write, predict and analyze your country’s destruction before your mind begins to dissolve the traces?

“Her country” seems to be Iran, even though her parents escaped from it during the 1979 revolution, with the U.S. taking them in. Her writing seems to suggest that Israel is always the bad guy. She goes on to paint the U.S. as the bad guy since the U.S. back coup in 1953. She also seems happy that Iran started retaliating in the 1980’s.

Many consider [General Suleimani] responsible for the deaths of thousands, for his intervention in salvaging Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria. But to many Iranians, Iraqis, Kurds and others, he was a pivotal figure in vanquishing the Islamic State, helping repel its rapid march across Iraq in 2014. In Syria, for the many Syrians who endured the industrial-scale brutality of the Assad regime, the general led what could only be understood as an offensive force. But Iran’s leaders always reminded their people that Syria, the lone Arab country that sided with Iran during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, could not be abandoned, that without it, Iran would be vastly more vulnerable in the region.

It is for these maneuvers, in part to provide Iran some deterrence against relentless American hostility, that General Suleimani is remembered. He had become a patriarch for an ambivalent country adrift, forgiven, at least by the hundreds of thousands who turned out for his funeral, for the hard excesses of the force he commanded because he secured the land in a time of the Islamic State’s butchery, seen as a man of honor and merit among political contemporaries who were usually neither. (Of course, he certainly did not impress all Iranians in this way; he had detractors who did not support his regional stratagems.)

This is what you get when a media outlet, one of the biggest in the world, is so deranged over President Trump that they have an Iranian regime apologist run an opinion piece saying how great a guy who killed hundreds of Americans is.

I remember as a child, during the years of war with Iraq, my mother telling me about relatives in Iran who gave away their jewelry to aid the war effort. This time, in the face of President Trump’s tweets threatening to attack Iran and destroy its sites of cultural heritage, I needn’t conjure the unity that comes the day after. The country has gathered to mourn. It is already here.

If she loves Iran so much she should move there. And the NY Times has just become a mouthpiece for Iran.

Read: NY Times Works Hard To Protect Islamist Regime In Iran »

Posted in Dhimmitude, Donald Trump, Iran, Journalistic Malpractice | 32 Comments | Trackback URL

Proposed Rule Would Cut Hotcoldwetdry Considerations From Infrastructure Planning

By William Teach January 5, 2020 – 2:38 pm

This has made climate cultists Very Upset

Proposed Trump Rule Cuts Out Climate Change Considerations in Infrastructure Planning

Federal agencies would no longer have to take climate change into account when they assess the environmental impacts of highways, pipelines and other major infrastructure projects, according to a Trump administration plan that would weaken the nation’s benchmark environmental law.

The proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act could sharply reduce obstacles to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and other fossil fuel projects that have been stymied when courts ruled that the Trump administration did not properly consider climate change when analyzing the environmental effects of the projects.

Said law had zero to do with anthropogenic climate change. It has been hijacked by climate cultists, just like they hijack most things.

According to one government official who has seen the proposed regulation but was not authorized to speak about it publicly, the administration will also narrow the range of projects that require environmental review. That could make it likely that more projects will sail through the approval process without having to disclose plans to do things like discharge waste, cut trees or increase air pollution.

The new rule would no longer require agencies to consider the “cumulative” consequences of new infrastructure. In recent years courts have interpreted that requirement as a mandate to study the effects of allowing more planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. It also has meant understanding the impacts of rising sea levels and other results of climate change on a given project.

Good. It’s time to end this charade, this scam. The same climate cultists who whine about fixing the infrastructure are also the same people who make it that much harder to fix through their idiotic, dangerous requirements to include Hotcoldwetdry review.

Read: Proposed Rule Would Cut Hotcoldwetdry Considerations From Infrastructure Planning »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 5, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil light that can’t be a world saving CLF, you might just be a Warmist

IAYS

The blog of the day is Flopping Aces, with a post on when Obama effectively killed Gaddafi without Congressional notification.

It’s reading week!

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach January 5, 2020 – 9:12 am

Happy Sunday! Another fantastic day in America. The Sun is shining, the ducks are quacking (woke me up), and we’re in a new decade. This pinup is by Vaughan Bass, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. The Right Scoop has video of the very instant Suleimani got to meet his 72 virgins
  2. The Lid features Trump noting that The Squad hates Jews
  3. The Daley Gator discusses the Left’s consistency problem
  4. Powerline takes on the meme that Suleimani was “over-rated”
  5. Political Clown Parade notes Iran’s red flag of revenge
  6. Pacific Pundit highlights Creepy Joe Biden sniffing children’s hair
  7. Newsbusters covers NBC News being a mouth-piece for Iran
  8. Moonbattery notes Sweden dying from their socialist welfare system
  9. Jihad Watch covers the number of U.S. soldiers dead due to Soleimani
  10. IOTW Report highlights Comrade Bernie refusing to release the cost of his Medicare for all scam
  11. Geller Report News covers Liz Warren touting her support from a Jew hating comic
  12. Doug Ross @ Journal has Modern Democrat Comix
  13. Diogenes’ Middle Finger covers a university hiring a famous failure to hand out diplomas
  14. Real Climate Science discusses ‘climate change’ in Australia
  15. And last, but not least, No Tricks Zone covers opposition to the EU’s “Green New Deal”

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page (nope, that’s gone, the newest Apache killed access, and the program hasn’t been upgraded since 2014). While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me.

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. And do you have a favorite blog you can recommend be added to the feedreader?

Read: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup »

Posted in Patriotic Pinup | 14 Comments | Trackback URL

Trump Threatens Iran Against Retaliation, Democrats Defend Iran Even More

By William Teach January 5, 2020 – 7:55 am

This is what President Donald Trump put out Saturday

(Fox News) President Trump issued a stern warning to Iran on Saturday through a series of Twitter messages intended to deter the country from retaliating after the U.S.-ordered airstrike that killed Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week.

“Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian protesters,” Trump tweeted.

“Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD,” Trump wrote Saturday, explicitly laying out that the U.S. will act if Iran retaliates.

Even if there were political components for the 2020 election involved (hey, politics is politics), you can bet that even in the wildest dreams of Trump and his team they couldn’t imagine how voraciously Democrats have attacked Trump and defended Iran

AOC calls Trump ‘a monster’ over threat to Iran; Omar, other Democrats warn of potential ‘war crimes’

Outspoken Democrats — from far-left “Squad” members to 2020 presidential hopefuls — wasted little time Saturday in denouncing President Trump’s warning to Iran about possible retaliation for the U.S. airstrike that killed Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., answered by calling the president a “monster.”

“This is a war crime,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women and children — which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites – does not make you a ‘tough guy,’ It does not make you ‘strategic.’ It makes you a monster.”

Outspoken Democrats — from far-left “Squad” members to 2020 presidential hopefuls — wasted little time Saturday in denouncing President Trump’s warning to Iran about possible retaliation for the U.S. airstrike that killed Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., answered by calling the president a “monster.”

“This is a war crime,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women and children — which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites – does not make you a ‘tough guy,’ It does not make you ‘strategic.’ It makes you a monster.”

“You are threatening to commit war crimes,” Elizabeth Warren wrote. “We are not at war with Iran. The American people do not want a war with Iran. This is a democracy. You do not get to start a war with Iran, and your threats put our troops and diplomats at greater risk. Stop.”

“The more the walls close in on this guy, the more irrational he becomes,” Joe Biden wrote.

None of these Democrats are slamming Iran and their murderous regime. None of them are warning Iran to cease and desist, even as they continue chanting “Death To America” and calling us the Great Satan, something they’ve been doing since 1979. None seem to care that Soleimani, and Iran, were involved in the deaths of hundreds of U.S. military members, not too mention the countless Iraqis, Syrians, and others. None are defending America.

When Obama was drone striking terrorists, sending special forces after them, killing Osama Bin Laden, did any Republican yammer about war crimes and restricting his ability? How about his unilateral war over Libya? Yes, many were mad he failed to notify Congress over a major action, not just a single strike. Many Democrats were upset, as well.

Do Democrats realize that American citizens are watching, and other than the unhinged Dem base, they are pro-American, not pro-Iran?

Read: Trump Threatens Iran Against Retaliation, Democrats Defend Iran Even More »

Posted in Democrats, Donald Trump, Iran, Unhinged Tools | 23 Comments | Trackback URL
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