Tag: united nations

Hi, news media! Hillary Clinton wants to kick you in the face again!

She apparently expects them to act like they act around Barack Obama.

Full story here: click through for a surprisingly (well, maybe not) unsympathetic bit of commentary on this from MSNBC.  The reporter took to time to point out that Hillary Clinton could have held this presser at a hotel, which honestly didn’t occur to me until it was mentioned. I guess that even the liberals in the media are getting tired. Or, more accurately, bored.

Dear Democratic party: please campaign on the UN’s call to cut economic growth.

Please.

Please.

A United Nations science panel issued a sobering wake-up call to world policymakers Sunday, warning that countries must make dramatic changes in their energy consumption, their use of technology and even their ways of life to avert the catastrophic effects of climate change.

The only options that stand a chance of heading off the worst of the harm would require cutting at least slightly into economic growth in the coming decades, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. Nations may even have to make ambitious attempts to remove carbon pollution from the atmosphere — not just limit how much comes out of smokestacks and tailpipes.

Continue reading Dear Democratic party: please campaign on the UN’s call to cut economic growth.

US government decides not to sign off on Iranian insult to the USA.

I sincerely hope that this will be a teachable moment for the administration.

The United States has informed Iran that it will not issue a visa to Tehran’s controversial pick for envoy to the United Nations, the White House said Friday.

Denying visas to U.N. ambassadorial nominees or to foreign heads of state who want to attend United Nations events in the United States is rare, if not unprecedented.

The Obama administration had previously said only that the nomination of Hamid Aboutalebi, who was a member of the group responsible for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, was “not viable.” U.S. officials had hoped the issue could be resolved by Tehran simply withdrawing the nomination.

Continue reading US government decides not to sign off on Iranian insult to the USA.

Obama administration defies Senate on UN arms trade treaty.

Check with your former colleagues, Secretary Kerry: there was no point to signing this treaty, because it will not be ratified.

Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to sign an arms trade treaty opposed by the Senate and the gun lobby as early as Wednesday, and Republicans aren’t happy about it.

[snip]

“This treaty is already dead in the water in the Senate, and they know it,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services. “The Administration is wasting precious time trying to sign away our laws to the global community and unelected U.N. bureaucrats.”

A majority of Senators oppose the treaty because it covers small arms, making ratification impossible in the short term.

Continue reading Obama administration defies Senate on UN arms trade treaty.

United Nations wants Feds to go after state pot laws.

I keep getting sent this link, God knows why:

A United Nations-based drug agency urged the United States government on Tuesday to challenge the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, saying the state laws violate international drug treaties.

The International Narcotics Control Board made its appeal in an annual drug report. It called on Washington, D.C., to act to “ensure full compliance with the international drug control treaties on its entire territory.”

I mean, I’m sure that I don’t know why people might suggest that this would have ever been a topic of more than academic (undergrad) interest to me, ya, you betcha. Continue reading United Nations wants Feds to go after state pot laws.

Barack Obama takes a page from the Muslim Brotherhood.

You may have noticed a little while back that the US Embassy in Cairo called out the Egyptian government/Muslim Brotherhood for saying one thing in English (read: Western foreign consumption) and another in Arabic (read: domestic/regional consumption).  Which is all to the good… so why did the President do the same thing this week?

The View: “In an interview with ABC’s “The View,” Obama — who is in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly — was asked if the Benghazi assault was indeed terrorism.  “There’s no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault, that it wasn’t just a mob action,” Obama said.”

Obama’s UN speech: “In every country, there are those who find different religious beliefs threatening; in every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask how much they are willing to tolerate freedom for others. That is what we saw play out the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.”

…Annnnd that’s pretty much everything that the President had to say at the UN as to why we are having ongoing riots in the Middle East in the first place: it’s all because of that video. Oh, sure, the President admitted that Iran funds terrorist groups; but he knows, you know, and I know that the Benghazi attack (and probably the triggering riots*) were started up by an al-Qaeda affiliate (read: Sunni), while Iran prefers to work through groups like Hezbollah (read: Shi’ite). Which most of the people at the UN know, too – so yeah, they’re getting a message loud and clear, and it’s this: Barack Obama doesn’t want to look too closely at existing terror networks in the Middle East. Continue reading Barack Obama takes a page from the Muslim Brotherhood.

#rsrh You know, when GEORGE W BUSH was President we didn’t flatter Holocaust-denying regimes.

We have a bit of a tradition in this country: it’s one that sprang up when the Iranian regime decided to make the Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying theocratic nutjob Mahmoud Ahmadinejad its public face.  Essentially, this tradition was to make it clear that while it was reluctantly understood that the realities of having United Nations HQ in NYC meant that sometimes we’re forced to let representatives of regimes that we despise come by and stink up the country for a while, it doesn’t mean that we want to make them feel welcome.  Because they aren’t.  So, when it coems to Ahmadinejad… we walked out on him in 2011. We walked out in 2010. We boycotted in 2009. We left behind a single non-diplomat note taker in 2008. We left behind a single non-diplomat note taker in 2007. And 2006. And 2005.  We have, in fact, been formally walking out on, spurning, and otherwise generally showing our public disapproval for aforementioned Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying theocratic nutjob since he was assigned to his position.

Times change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eH2h3GxnUGo

“US Officials Stay Seated For Ahmadinejad’s Speech, Israel Walks Out” is how Breitbart put it. I’ll put it as Obama administration embarrasses us on the world stage.  Again.  This is, of course, not  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s main speech – that’s been (perhaps malignantly) scheduled for Wednesday, which is also Yom Kippur.  But I am not exactly filled with confidence that this administration has not quietly decided that pandering to the Iranian regime might be one of those super-double-smart diplomatic maneuvers that they’ve read about.  Alternatively, this administration might have simply neglected to consider how bad this might look.  Malice or incompetence: you never know, with this crowd.

Moe Lane

PS: I invite the people reading this who might happen to be both a) Democrats and b) as offended by this as I am to take a really good look around over the next couple of days and see who on the Left is apologizing for this decision – or, indeed, praising it.  It should prove… instructive.

#rsrh UN wants us to give Mt. Rushmore back to the Sioux!

Um. No.

The AP:

A United Nations fact finder surveying the lives of Native Americans and Alaska Natives said Friday he’ll recommend in an upcoming report that some of the tribes’ lands be restored, including the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Funny about that: a RedState/MoeLane fact-finder surveying the lives of American citizens (which include Native Americans and Alaska Natives*) wrote today that he’ll recommend right now that UN Headquarters in NYC be evacuated** and the building be reduced to rubble via multiple artillery strikes.  Guess which is more likely to happen? Continue reading #rsrh UN wants us to give Mt. Rushmore back to the Sioux!

The infinitely avoidable US/UN Palestine showdown.

Now it may be because I’m this horrible, horrible neoconservative Right-Wing Death Beast and everything – but I have to admit: articles like this confuse me.

The United States faced increasing pressure on Tuesday as the Palestinian quest for statehood gained support from Turkey and other countries, even as the Obama administration sought an 11th-hour compromise that would avoid a confrontation at the United Nations next week.

With only days to go before world leaders gather in New York, the maneuvering became an exercise in brinkmanship as the administration wrestles with roiling tensions in the region, including a sharp deterioration of relations between three of its closest allies in the region: Egypt, Israel and Turkey.

…But then again, I am a neocon RWDB, which means that I take the UN as seriously as it deserves to be treated… which is to say: when it comes to Israel, not at all.

Continue reading The infinitely avoidable US/UN Palestine showdown.

Antiwar hero Scott Ritter nabbed in teen sex sting.

Again.

A former chief United Nations weapons inspector is accused of contacting what he thought was a 15-year-old girl in an Internet chat room, engaging in a sexual conversation and showing himself masturbating on a Web camera.

Scott Ritter of Delmar, N.Y., who served as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98 and who was an outspoken critic of the second Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq, is accused of contacting what turned out to be a Barrett Township police officer posing undercover as a teen girl.

Via Ace of Spades, via Sweetness & Light, and color me unsurprised.  I mean, hey: UN official.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.