Obama Extends Hand; America’s Enemies Extend Fist

Barry Rubin "There’s a remarkable exchange from a May 2009 presidential press conference that is extraordinarily revealing."

Question: “Aren’t you concerned that your outstretched hand has been interpreted by extremists, especially [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, [Hizballah leader] Nasrallah, [Hamas leader] Meshal, as weakness?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it’s not clear to me why my outstretched hand would be interpreted as weakness.

Yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it? I have often written that Obama does not accept the most basic principles of international relations. Why should he know any better since he lacks any experience while the advisors he most depends on usually also lack experience? In place of understanding and experience, they have an ideology that so distorts reality as to ensure failure.

http://www.drybonesblog.blogspot.com/


Andrew C. McCarthy:  Iran Is at War with Us

"Senator Graham elaborated that Iran is setting the stage to frame the long-scheduled withdrawal from Iraq as a case of the United States being “driven out,” a cowardly retreat under fire. Nor is this happening solely in Iraq. Iran’s fortification of the Afghan Taliban also continues at a steady clip. It may even be spiking now as the planned drawdown of American forces gets under way. Again, the mullahs are determined to pose as Allah’s avengers, casting the infidels out of Dar al-Islam.
"They are getting plenty of help from the Obama administration. The U.S. withdrawal is being driven by the political calendar, not conditions on the ground. Thus our enemies — and Iran has always been our principal enemy — get to make it look like whatever they want it to look like."

Jet industry furious at Obama

The Daily Caller   "Obama’s comments have cast a pall over the industry, causing many who were considering buying a plane to back away from making a purchase.
"“The industry has suffered terribly in the last two and a half years and it has just started to recover. Most of the signs were starting to look good,” said Fuller. “We are so angry as an industry and we have all come together to try to bring a more fair and balanced description to the debate.”"

Casey Anthony’s bid for fame has been realized

Boston Herald "In letters Anthony wrote to a fellow inmate, she mused about the money she could make once out of jail and plans for what she called a “partial memoir/comedy advice book for those not in the know. It’s a way to settle many rumors and to share my insight about love, life and most important, God.”
"She actually wrote that.
"She also said she dreams of being pregnant again and of adopting a child, “which even sounds weird to me saying it, but there are so many children that deserve to be loved.”"

Obama vs. Boehner

James Pethokoukis  "All very confusing, but the best I can make of it is this: higher taxes now in exchange for a promise of tax cuts later to be “paid for” by reducing tax breaks/deductions/loopholes with perhaps some of that money going toward deficit reduction.
"I can tell you this: Democrats need a lot more tax revenue to make their long-term budget plans works. This is why Obama has not offered a long-term budget plan. The need for massive tax increases would then be clear to all. In private, liberal economists all talk about a need for a value-added tax to raise the additional revenue."

Here the NY Times rips the Republicans:   "The president may have a nebulous approach to unemployment, but he is hardly indifferent to it. His re-election hinges on reducing it. It is hard to understand, though, why Mr. Obama has adopted the language of his opponents in connecting the economy to the debt. To his credit, he talked about the one step that would work — investing* money in rebuilding the country. But the debt-ceiling ideas he is now considering would make that investment much less likely by pulling hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy at precisely the moment when the spending is needed most."

* Jesse Ventura once said when politicians used the word "investments", you better hang on to your wallet. Hat tip to Hot Air for these sources.

Boehner says debt talks scaled back over tax rift  ""Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt-reduction agreement without tax hikes," Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives and the top Republican in Congress, said in a statement."
"I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure."

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

Obama’s deficit reduction Charades – “sounds like” more taxes  "Obama, the single most fiscally irresponsible president in modern history, is positioning himself as the only one who is serious about the debt.
"While I can see the argument that Boehner had to play Obama’s game of Charades, Boehner had no choice but to hold the line on taxes. Hopefully that line will hold during talks today, because what’s old is new: For Obama, the only thing deficit reduction sounds like is more taxes."

More Enforcement of Islamic Blasphemy Laws in the West: Former Czech PM sued over statements on Islam

Atlas Shrugs  Prague, July 7 (CTK) – Retired politician Milos Zeman, Czech prime minister in 1998-2002, faces a criminal complaint over the statements on Islam he made in June at an international conference on Europe.

“The enemy is the anti-civilisation spreading from North Africa to Indonesia. Two billion people live in it and it is financed partly from oil sales and partly from drug sales,” Czech news servers quoted Zeman as saying about Islam at the recent conference

.
Zeman said Thursday Muslims believe in the Koran like Nazis believed in racial supremacy and anti-semitism and communists in class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat.
He said Islam is far more aggressive and intolerant than present Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism and other world religions.
He added that the Koran includes passages calling for the subjugation, enslavement and even elimination of non-believers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,,2254597,00.html

House panel asks Bloom to clarify testimony on unions

 Detroit Free Press  "A House committee has formally asked White House manufacturing czar Ron Bloom to “clarify” testimony he gave last month regarding a remark he reportedly made at a farewell dinner for the auto task force in 2009."....
"However, at one point, Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., asked Bloom about a comment at the July 2009 celebratory dinner when he is alleged to have said he “did this all for the unions.” "

Meet Obama’s Car Czar Turned Manufacturing Overlord: Ron Bloom.  "After he graduated from Wesleyan University, Bloom worked for the Service Employees International Union and then got an M.B.A. at Harvard Business School."

The Great Madness of 2004-10

Victor Davis Hanson  "I went on with:"

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Let us just hope Obama gets reelected. We could get food stamp usage from 50 up to 80 million where it belongs, expand home defaults and allow people just to “live” in “their” homes without foreclosures from the “greedy” banks. We all need time anyway to “be creative” and “leave your work.” Thirty million more could be given the chance to emigrate from Mexico without worry over a Gestapo-like border patrol. We could have ten Rose Bowl crowds booing an awful U.S. per week.

"I thought he was still on the line, so I ended with, “And I didn’t even mention Obamacare with its 400,000 new jobs and lower health care costs for all of us! Who could be against Obama after that?”

"But he had hung up and thought I was crazy."

George Will to Donna Brazile: Obama and Dems Have Kicked the Deficit Can So Much It's 'Can Abuse'

Newsbusters  "GEORGE WILL: Before we have a moratorium I hope on the can metaphor, let’s look at who’s been kicking the can down the road. Democrats started kicking the can down the road when they stopped writing budgets. The President kicked the can down the road by appointing a deficit commission. Then he kicked it again down the road by ignoring the deficit commission. Then he submitted a budget in February that no one on either side of the House would support that promised to increase the deficit. That’s a lot of kicking. That’s can abuse.

Jennifer Rubin: The Rose Garden collapse  "Unfortunately for the administration, both the Republicans in Congress and the country at large aren’t buying this formula. They know the problem is out-of-control spending. The know that hiking taxes while the job market deteriorates is ludicrous. Now all that remains is for Republicans to craft a deal that adheres to those principles."

The Elmendorf Rule

Charles Krauthammer "A clever strategy it is: Do nothing (see above); invite the Republicans to propose real debt reduction first; and when they do — voting for the Ryan budget and its now infamous and courageous Medicare reform — demagogue them to death. (Emphasis added)
"And then up the ante by demanding Republican agreement to tax increases. So: First you get the GOP to seize the left’s third rail by daring to lay a finger on entitlements. Then you demand the GOP seize the right’s third rail by violating its no-tax pledge. A full-spectrum electrocution. Brilliant."

Democratic 'Trackers' Skulk Around GOP Events

Newsmax.com "Democratic groups are sending "trackers" to Republican rallies and events in the hopes of catching GOP candidates making campaign-ending verbal gaffes.
"According to The New York Times, Democratic organizations like American Bridge 21st Century employ full-time workers to carry high-tech video cameras to GOP events where candidates interact with voters. They also staff a headquarters where a video archive is compiled, ready to be used at the right moment during the campaign season.
"The goal is to use candidates' own mistakes against them, dealing a knockout blow in the process."

Media Matters and Dem Groups Form Organization to Track GOP Candidates with Army of Videographers  "Republicans also have trackers, but so far have not assembled the kind of centralized video archive of political caught-on-tape moments that their rivals envision. “Our obligation here is to get these guys on the record with what they really believe so they can’t walk away from their record,” said Rodell Mollineau, a former aide to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and the group’s president. "

New Haven Independent ...“With trackers, it’s hard to maintain privacy or ability to have off-the-record conversations, and that, I think, is damaging,” noted blogger Aldon Hynes. “It’s especially damaging in that it promotes ‘gotcha’ journalism that misses the context of the story.”

....
"Occhiogrosso’s campaign had a guy with a video camera following Lamont around, too. Asked if he was tracking Lamont, the camera man (at right in photo) replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”"

As this article states, Democrats also spy on Democrats.

Holder's Justice Department bullying banks

Thomas Lifson  "A cadre of racialists bent on achieving social justice via reparations from banks to minority communities has been installed by Eric Holder in the Department of Justice. They are using legal bullying tactics to intimidate banks into once again loaning mortgage money to people who have no ability to pay it back. Banks have even been forced to post signs in the facilities informing customers that welfare payments can count as income to apply to mortgage applications."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez

Controversial board games

From eldest son, Jeff Hayden, of Plano, TX:
Yahoo! News posted  this story on Five controversial board games.  However, they failed to mention several other controversial board games. I have listed them here for your convenience.

Baby Seal Trap
Connect 40
Baldy Dash
Microsoft Monopoly
Empty Cranium (AKA Celebrity Cranium)
Scrabble: Q’s and X’s Only Edition
Abstract Pictionary
Offensive Outburst and Sensitivity Training
LIFE Sentence
Breast Implant Operation
Trivial Pursuit: Hypothetical Questions Edition
Clue: OJ Simpson Edition
SORRY: It’s not your baby
Chutes and Ladders and OSHA