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By: Dan McLaughlin (Diary)  |  June 5th, 2009 at 09:49 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Hamas Watches Obama

From the Irish Times, which captions this “Masked Palestinian Hamas militants watch the televised speech of US president Barack Obama in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, yesterday.” This picture is all the better when you consider the temperature in southern Gaza in June. Of course, I would not want to be the cameraman; look at where the guy on the left is pointing the barrel.

Meanwhile, from Stratfor, presented without comment:

Egyptian daily Al-Masri al-youm reported June 4 that U.S. President Barack Obama met with members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington two months ago, Haaretz reports. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood were expected to attend a landmark speech by Obama in Cairo.

Have a good Friday.

COMMENTS

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  • Jim Tomasik

    A local blogger digs into Memphis ties to LittleRock terrorist shootings and finds some funnies that aint all that funny.

    http://bluecollarrepublican.com/blog/?p=2649

    • molybdanthan

      that make up a noose. That report is troubling. Especially so since no one in Washington is planning on doing anything about it.

  • red4ever

    I have the news on in the background. Obama is speaking at Buchenwald. He discussed how some people deny the Holocaust. All I could think of was how he belittles it by comparing it to the situation in the Middle East. His pandering which leads to distortions of truth and history make me physically ill.

    Points though for inviting Elie Weisel to speak.

    • molybdanthan

      In Dante’s Inferno was reserved for the Betrayers. I’d say O’s on his way there. Here’s a tip–bring a sweater.

      • DONTREADONME

        2:08 AM and the moth is sticken around; shooh, go to bed already. :)

        Glad to see I am not the only late nighter hangen ’round. I hate the sun, blah, blah, blah, Abrah Cadabra, Hocus Pocus and all. If you did not get that see this link:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Transylvania_6_5000_still.png

        • Doc Holliday

          well, not I of course, the Doc is a night owl.

        • molybdanthan

          The moth had to fly.

          Love that pic btw. Big fan of Bugs.

  • Swamp_Yankee
  • gonzo55

    and they didn’t immediately lay down their arms and embrace free-market principles? I’m shocked. I guess given the messenger they’d be more likely to embrace a gooey socialism with nougats of infanticide and applause for all deviant sexual practices. Maybe they would be better just blowing themselves up.

  • charlesmartel

    Do these fools seriously just sit around all day in masks and fatigues in that heat? What a bunch of idiots. No wonder they’re so angry.

    • rbdwiggins

      for hiding one’s true identity. They are, after all, a terrorist organization, and Israeli Intelligence appears to be very competent.

    • ATLconservative

      Forget appeals to lay down arms and forgive past transgressions.

      The key to peace in the Middle East is air conditioning.

      • psyop_hic

        On my most recent tour in Iraq, the number one conern was the distribution of reliable electricity. For a country that has billions of barrels of oil, it hasn’t figured out one of the most basic infrastructure problems (and I’m not talking about their sewage issues). An Iraqi in air conditioning is a happy Iraqi!

        • molybdanthan

          & a TV, with cable hookup. Electricity? Check. Fresh clothing, new rifles, and clean hands. Not looking too clammy from the heat. Even those white plastic chairs they sell at WalMart.

          Seems like all they need is a little paint on that end table, redo the carpet, some wallpaper, and new trim. Cap it off with a guided bomb or some Hellfire missiles, and I call that feng shui.

  • septembergurl

    playing so well?

    Unemployment rising to 9.4?

    Date night?

    Whatever, Rasmussen has been tracking the approval numbers for Obama with a graph for strong approve/strong disapprove. This subset is the key to O’s overall solid (though hardly great) approval numbers. I have watched this number for months, checkng every day to see when the approve/disapprove would be equal. Well, today is that day!

    Strong approve= 34%
    Strong disapprove= 34%

    At the beginning of his term the approve was around 40, where it stayed for a while, and the disapprove was around 18. Well, well.

    By all means continue the apology tour, Obama. Apologize for whatever we did that was the equivalent of the death camps. Also, have an extravagant date with the lovely Michelle n Paris.

    The overall numbers are also inching closer — approve 54, disapprove 46.

    • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

      has encouraged me on many mornings, and I have long awaited today’s tie.

      Don’t think that publishers and editors–that is, those not motivated primarily by principle–aren’t watching that rating with growing interest, either. When a non-media-darling such as President Bush lost approval, there was little concern that the inevitable reflection in the media would motivate him very much, but with the current President, I’m quite hopeful that his desperate need for approval could make him start saying some very strange things if the media gets increasingly worried about the cbr of their symbiotic relationship with him.

      Thanks for putting this up.

    • psyop_hic

      …Obama is putting his successors to the office of POTUS in great danger. He is digging a diplomatic hole so big that any future POTUS won’t be able to easily say, “Well, President Obama didn’t really mean that. He only represents the opinion of A QUARTER of our population…” and so on.

    • jazzycmk

      While Obama’s generic approval rating has been consistenly in the low 60s, the polling for his specific policy proposals have been right around break even, with people beginning to voice consistent concern about his spending and the dangers of too much government intervention.

      His overall approval is more a measure of his “likeability” and charisma. I’m not a fan of the guy, but he does present himself in an appealing manner, even when I think he’s being less than forthright.

      But sooner or later, the overall rating vs the policy polling was going to have to come into balance.

  • RJD

    nt

  • mom2oneson

    Do you know about the bills from last year that may be re-introduced to reclassify contractors as employees? TIA :)
    H.R. 5804 Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act H.R.6111 Employee Misclassification Prevention Act
    S. 2044 Independent Contractor Proper Classification Act
    S. 3648 Employee Misclassification Prevention Act

    • Achance

      It is a very common game to hire somebody as an independent contractor rather than an employee to avoid the tax and benefit liabilities and/or to avoid the Fair Labor Standards Act.

      It is illegal under the IRS code to do that if the work is essentially that of an employee. It is also illegal under FLSA to improperly classify an employee to avoid OT. Believe it or not, there really are companies in America that behave very badly on issues like these. They tend to also be the kinds of companies that hire illegals and such. They actually don’t tend to be the big businesses that are always being demonized about this kind of behavior but rather small and middling businesses either scraping by or in which the owner just wants to avoild costs. The one exception is IT where even the giants can be positively exploitative on OT and contractor status. So much so that the 9th Circuit once referred to MS employees as “Microserfs.”

      As I said, I don’t really know the bills, but it is a persistent issue in employment. Since the bad practices are already illegal, these may be about greater penalties or just for show.

  • Aaron Gardner
  • djemi

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/map/html/map.stm

    Just remember that over there blue means Right

    • molybdanthan

      The MSM changed it in the early 90s to avoid the obvious Liberal = Communist comparison.

      But that’s still good news from England. Anyone talking about a joint RedState BlueCouncil effort?

  • Vegas_Rick

    Wow, the AP contradicting the Messiah? Apparently. The article is on Yahoo and the link is below.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_becoming_a_statistic

  • http://brockwayfamily.spaces.live.com/ Erick Brockway
    • http://brockwayfamily.spaces.live.com/ Erick Brockway

      Too bad. Imagine teaching this bunch to do jumping jacks.

  • DONTREADONME

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525222,00.html

    That is it folks, we conservatives are emotion driven with no logic capability to accept homosexuals. I can suggest that disgust by Conservatives is a keen sense of survival to avoid behavior that can be destructive. Our disgust is also important for maintenance of culture and structure while the acceptance of non-harmful behavior leads to pedophillia and beastiality or worse.

    Keep in mind that this is a small sample of people that has led the study coordinator Bizzaro or Pizzaro both descriptions are appropriate that Conservatives some how lack in comparison to there liberal counterparts. Also this guy is from Cornell and as a specialist I would not hire any one from that University in my field. To many have come to work for me from that college and have shown little aptitude for problem solving or independent thinking.

  • jazzycmk

    Per The Weekly Standard, after Obama’s Cairo speech he was supposed to have a roundtable with 8 member of the regional media.

    Two Arab journalists bolted when they learned they would be sharing table space with a Jewish journalist.

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp

    Scroll to piece “Arab Journos Boycott Obama Roundtable; Won’t Sit With Jew”

  • DONTREADONME


    sound just like what we are going through now.

    • TNJim
  • rememberthemaine

    It really does make me sick this apology tour. . It seems that al Obama, MSM and for the matter the rest of the world focuses on is the short term death and destruction that has befallen Iraq since we have overthrown Saddam (as if .this is our fault).
    Yes our war on terrorism has taken its toll in human life, the Iraqi infrastructure and the destruction of its cultural and religous institutions and this is sad. However we are doing this in the name of democracy in the Middle East and a long lasting peace. It’s time to get the world to start looking at the long term goals: The proliferation of world wide democracy and free market capitalism.
    Unless terrorism is eliminated NOW at any cost these goals will never be reached.