Happy New Year All!

New Year's Eve 1965-Style

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:00 PM | Comments (1322)
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Allied forces in Europe are recovering, pressing back against the last great battle Germany brought to the conflict. From this moment until May 1945 the Allied armies continue to press toward their inevitable victory.

Most of the 101st had been on the line since D-Day, seven months of hard fighting. Away from home for two years. They held onto Bastogne until Patton's D Company, 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment of the 4th Armored Division, reached Bastogne, and ended their siege on 26 Dec.

The Screaming Eagles never laid down, and never said "we needed 'rescuing'". They were airborne, they were used to being surrounded.

20,000 Americans lost their lives in this fight, the most costly battle for American forces in the war. But on this day, 66 years ago, the tide had turned their way, and they won the last major battle in Europe.

This New Year's Eve, 66 years later, over 120,000 Americans are deployed in the Middle East. The finest men and women this country has to offer. They aren't starved for supplies. They have ammunition, food, and vital equipment. But they are away from their families, their loved ones. Doing the job we sent them to do.

This New Year's Eve, remember them.

Happy New Year you morons. God keep you all. And here's to 2011.

Dave

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:13 PM | Comments (282)
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I lied. One last law-related post before the year is done.

Joe Miller has decided not to appeal the federal district court decision dismissing his claims. It's over.

Now that that's done maybe I'll get around to figuring out who officially won our election contests. I've still got those neat bobble-head dolls to send to the winners. I'll probably get to it in the new year. Swear.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:12 PM | Comments (117)
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One last bit of news in the old year, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed the EPA from taking over Texas' emissions regime, at least temporarily.

Texas filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington yesterday, saying the EPA didnÂ’t give adequate notice or allow for comments on a proposed federal takeover of the stateÂ’s air permitting program on Jan. 2. Last night, the court ordered the agency to hold off on its plan while the court considers whether to delay the move until the case is resolved.

The appeals court ordered the EPA to respond to TexasÂ’s motion by Jan. 6. Challenges to federal rules are brought directly to appeals courts.

This is simply an administrative stay for the court to consider Texas' motion to preliminarily enjoin the EPA until the litigation is resolved, which is why I say it's only temporary.

There's plenty of background on the Texas takeover at this HotAir post from Monday. The short version is that the EPA says Texas isn't doing enough to regulate emissions, particularly carbon, with its state-level programs, so instead it gets to feel the boot of the federal government on its neck.

On Monday, Ed noted the odd timing of EPA's decision. It was announced just two days before Christmas, with implementation to take place on January 2. I've written at length and several times over the past year about the Obama Administration's startlingly frequent disregard for federal law when it comes to regulatory decisions.

Obama and his fellow bureaucrats are right that Congress has ceded a great deal of authority to the Executive Branch to do pretty much whatever it wants in certain areas. But a significant limit on governance by executive fiat exists both under the Due Process clause and the Administrative Procedure Act. Before the President can just order the Environmental Prosecution Agency to tie lead weights to Texas' economy, he must give Texas notice and an opportunity to respond.

This same restriction tripped up the Obama Administration in the Gulf and at Yucca Mountain this year, where courts deemed lawless various attempts by the Interior Department to arbitrarily favor economy-killing liberal policies over other alternatives. I expect 2011 will be much the same.

Thanks to @irishspy.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:04 PM | Comments (77)
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Not a lot of funny stuff this year. Again. But here are three.

A Top Ten on Michelle Obama's claim that she had to depart the US on her husband's birthday to go celebrate in a glamorous Spanish Riviera resort with her gal-pals, because, see, one of her friends' dad had just died. She had to go party it up out of respect for the dead.

On Christopher Buckely -- who'd termed Obama a "rara avis" (rare bird), one of those few politicians to write his own books, and write them incredibly well -- gushing over a nothing of a fart of an Obama speech.

On Keith Olbermann claiming resistance to the Ground Zero Mosque is the first step of a new Holocaust.

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (236)
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Obviously what they fear we welcome.

I guess this might be "stunning and unprecedented." It's not as much as you or I might want, but it does seem that Ryan is going to have some serious power here.

The incoming Republican majority in the House of Representatives has laid out a series of changes it would like to make to the House rules, including replacing the current “pay-go” rules — which require all spending increases to be offset with spending cuts or tax increases — with a rule called “cut-go,” which requires that new spending programs — but not new tax cuts — be offset with spending cuts. The GOP has also proposed a new rule requiring that each piece of new legislation include a statement justifying the legislation’s constitutionality.

That’s not all, however. As National Journal reported today, “a little-noticed detail in the new rules proposed by House GOP leaders would greatly increase the power of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee.” Indeed, under the proposed rules, if the House and Senate do not agree on a budget resolution (a distinct possibility with a divided Congress), Ryan will be able to unilaterally set spending levels that are binding on the House, and any attempt to lessen the impact of these cuts can be ruled out of order.

Posted by: Ace at 10:23 AM | Comments (147)
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Floyd Abrams is on the left, so he holds Ellsburg in higher regard than most conservatives. But more importantly, he holds Julian Assange in low regard.

I didn't know the part about Ellsburg holding back volumes of the Pentagon Papers that referred to current events, current officials, and current diplomatic efforts in Vietnam. It's an interesting contrast, as Ellsburg was at least selective in his leaking, and did not leak purely out of a childish urge to burn the house down.

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg decided to make available to the New York Times (and then to other newspapers) 43 volumes of the Pentagon Papers, the top- secret study prepared for the Department of Defense examining how and why the United States had become embroiled in the Vietnam conflict. But he made another critical decision as well. That was to keep confidential the remaining four volumes of the study describing the diplomatic efforts of the United States to resolve the war.

Not at all coincidentally, those were the volumes that the government most feared would be disclosed. In a secret brief filed with the Supreme Court, the U.S. government described the diplomatic volumes as including information about negotiations secretly conducted on its behalf by foreign nations including Canada, Poland, Italy and Norway. Included as well, according to the government, were "derogatory comments about the perfidiousness of specific persons involved, and statements which might be offensive to nations or governments."

The diplomatic volumes were not published, even in part, for another dozen years. Mr. Ellsberg later explained his decision to keep them secret, according to Sanford Ungar's 1972 book "The Papers & The Papers," by saying, "I didn't want to get in the way of the diplomacy."

Julian Assange sure does. Can anyone doubt that he would have made those four volumes public on WikiLeaks regardless of their sensitivity? Or that he would have paid not even the slightest heed to the possibility that they might seriously compromise efforts to bring a speedier end to the war?

...

WikiLeaks offers no articles of its own, no context of any of the materials it discloses, and no analysis of them other than assertions in press releases or their equivalent. As Princeton historian Sean Wilentz told the Associated Press earlier this month, WikiLeaks seems rooted in a "simpleminded idea of secrecy and transparency," one that is "simply offended by any actions that are cloaked."

He then discusses whether Assange can be prosecuted under the notably-broad Espionage Act. He concludes he can be, if it can be established that Assange engaged in these actions with the intent to harm the national interests of the United States -- and given Assange's grandstanding, juvenile-nihilist public statements, that probably can be established.

Posted by: Ace at 09:32 AM | Comments (60)
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Like the Terminator, he just won't stop.

Thanks to SJ.

Good One-Liners: I was trying to figure out how to say "Come and suck it" in Greek but gave up. But, I struck up this Wikipedia page of "Laconic phrases," short sardonic James Bond-like threats and the like.

This was my favorite:

In the Korean War, after U.N. forces under American command were attacked by Chinese forces in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, U.S. commander Chesty Puller made the remark, "We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things."[34] He also reportedly said, "All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time".

Posted by: Ace at 08:03 AM | Comments (156)
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My friends, it is a great day. That clever fellow who made the pretty darn decent reviews of just how wrong George Lucas went with the Star Wars prequels released his review of the third movie.

Go here. See ya later.

The other Star Wars reviews (as well as a great deal of other movie commentary) are available on YouTube. If you've got an afternoon to kill, or just want to know more about movie making than George Lucas, definitely worth a look.

Thanks to @JohnJ2427.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:01 AM | Comments (75)
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She's the Jim Carrey of Sunday morning network anchors. Without the intellectual heft.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:51 AM | Comments (87)
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