Mubarak is out?

Mubarak is... out?

So what was that speech all about? I guess some kind of face-saving? Seems kind of risky to put a country on the edge of revolution because you're too proud to admit you've been deposed.

This is just what the Ambassador is saying; he could be wrong. He could be spinning for Mubarak (who still signs his checks).

Not sure.

Interesting: stuiec commented on how (no judgments) Mubarak was playing an interesting hardball game of just wearing the protesters out.

This could be a new gambit along those lines: Just lie to people and say he's out of power. The crowd is confused but maybe appeased, and disperses. Meanwhile, Mubarak continues to run things.

By the time people figure this out (maybe never -- Suleiman is Mubarak's man anyway) the furor will have died down and maybe people won't care as much.

Interesting strategy.

Meanwhile, in Russia, supposedly Putin stepped down from power years ago.

Analysis: A guy on CNN just said he's sure it's not the case that all power has been transferred. He didn't say how he knew this. I suspect that too -- if that were the case, the ambassador wouldn't keep on insisting that Mubarak had no power and yet was still president. I mean, if you're not president, you're not president. Pretty simple.

He furthers said the question is whether some or most power was transferred, but who cares? The protesters don't. And I'm sure it's only some in any event.

Posted by: Ace at 01:47 PM | Comments (171)
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So says Richard Engel of NBCNews.

Zero Hedge helpfully provides street directions. The Heliopolis is 13 kilometers away, which he estimates will take 4-5 hours to reach on ambling, flag-waving foot. Corrected: Zero Hedge said 15 miles but the link itself (always check the link!) says 13 km, which is like, what, 8 miles? Walking quickly, the trip can be made in 30 minutes. But then, crowds don't move quickly, they amble.

Now, the military is probably going to blockade them. Because the military is trying to avoid actual violence while not picking a side. So, a blockade is non-violent.

But what happens if the crowd streams past or changes path?

At some point the military has to make a serious decision, whether to repel with force or let them go to the palace, and if they do the latter they might as well just storm the palace themselves.

Mubarak has a lot of secret police and thugs he can employ to stop them, too, of course. But at that point it's civil war, I think.

I have to think that at this point it turns violent... on both sides.

Posted by: Ace at 01:19 PM | Comments (180)
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A clarification that fails to clarify.

I give it a B+.

Jamie Smith, director of the office of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence later said in a statement to ABC News: “To clarify Director Clapper’s point - in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood makes efforts to work through a political system that has been, under Mubarak’s rule, one that is largely secular in its orientation – he is well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization.”

Your government dollars at work: thinking of exciting new ways to avoid saying "I was wrong."

That's a good one. Next time I get into a screaming match with someone, I'll clarify to make the ugliness go away. I'll say "I didn't mean to say you were Satan's Asshole. I only meant to say you are Satan's asshole in orientation."

Completely different.

Thanks to DrewM.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 PM | Comments (145)
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Donald Trump made a surprise appearance at CPAC this afternoon, after accepting the invitation of GOProud to appear. Trump is supposedly exploring a presidential run (a serious one).

During his speech, he managed to rile the unfortunately large crowd of Ronulans that Ron Paul bussed in for the straw poll.

“By the way, Ron Paul cannot get elected, I’m sorry to tell you,” Trump said. “I like Ron Paul, I think he’s a good guy but honestly he just has zero chance of getting elected.”. Video at that link.

Note: the Ronulans have consistently been the most classless group here. They repeatedly interrupted Cheney's introduction of Rumsfeld with shouts of "war criminal", "where's bin Laden", "draft dodger", and (reportedly) "show us the Shekels."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:40 PM | Comments (140)
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Update: It's hard to follow him but I think he's saying he's going to lead the "dialog" of changes to the constitution because he's got a "responsibility" to do it.

I am not exactly sure, but it sounds like he's insisting he'll stay in power until the elections.

This is probably going to incite the crowds slightly, which will in turn give the military the pretext to bust heads -- if they're still on board with that.

Could be ugly.

Update: The crowd is hollering now -- not sure what triggered it. Perhaps they're just realizing he's saying "You'll get nothing and like it."

They have a point about getting him out of office now. The September compromise may sound good, but the problem is that Mubarak will renege, of course. The moment the heat's off, he will attempt to reestablish power. Once the crowds dissipate, he'll hunt down the protesters and jail them (at best).

This is going to end with blood.

What's the Crowd Shouting? In English: "Get out, get out."

Update: Transferring some power to his Vice President. Whoo. Not even lifting the Emergency Law (martial law which was imposed long ago, like 30 years ago). Says he might lift that. At some point.

Well, the die is cast.

Here's what's going on:

The protesters will now be hounded and jailed and maybe killed if Mubarak stays.

Really, Mubarak has engineered this into a situation where the protesters either have to kill him, or be killed themselves. I know which they'll chose; I just can't guess the outcome of that choice.

...

In which he may or may not transfer power to a military council which may or may not be headed by Suleiman.

Megyn Kelly says she hears the army is only willing to toss the protesters Mubarak's scalp, but will insist they accept Suleiman. A man called "Mubarak's hit man" and a torturer.

I’m not sure what her source is, but Megyn Kelly’s reporting on Fox that the army plans to “act” against the protesters if they reject the handover of power to Suleiman as not good enough. That’s basically what I argued up above — that the regime’s handing them Mubarak’s scalp to appease them and end the demonstrations, but that the regime will otherwise crawl on roughly as is.

More: From rdbrewer in the sidebar, the Saudis told Obama to back Mubarak, at least to the extent of letting him arrange his own exit "with dignity."

Clapper: The Muslim Brotherhood is Non-Violent and... Secular: Yes, very secular, except for their slogan being "Islam is the answer" and planning a transition to sharia law in Egypt.

Andy McCarthy is amused by how stupid this all is.

Posted by: Ace at 11:56 AM | Comments (655)
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Not as dramatic a revolution as in Egypt but still pretty important.

Via Jamie Dupree.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers today announced his intent to cut $100 billion in spending in the upcoming Continuing Resolution (CR) compared to the PresidentÂ’s fiscal year 2011 request.

The statement by Chairman Rogers follows:

“My Committee has been working diligently to go line-by-line in every agency budget to find and cut unnecessary spending to reduce our deficit and help our economy thrive.

“After meeting with my subcommittee Chairs, we have determined that the CR can and will reach a total of $100 billion in cuts compared to the President’s request immediately - fully meeting the goal outlined in the Republican ‘Pledge to America’ in one fell swoop. Our intent is to make deep but manageable cuts in nearly every area of government, leaving no stone unturned and allowing no agency or program to be held sacred. I have instructed my committee to include these deeper cuts, and we are continuing to work to complete this critical legislation.”

This is a big change in how business is done. Usually cuts are announced and the amounts are lowered. Now they are going up.

As always...the Winston Wolfe rule is in effect. This is just a proposal and they tried to weasel out before. Keep the heat on until it's signed into law.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:33 AM | Comments (85)
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...in which left-wing bloggers' insane theories, claims, and charges are almost immediately put into play in the straight media. That, Dave Wiegel tells us, is the major impact from the AOL/Huffington Post deal.

So: Imagine a future in which AOL, the online portal for millions of people, farms out its news content to the Huffington Post. Imagine a future in which Yahoo!, the online portal for millions of similar people, hires the deputy publisher of Talking Points Memo to launch its blog network.

For a progressive who thinks the Internet is increasingly driving the narrative, this is heartening. For a conservative, it's terrifying.

Um, Dave? The future is now. I don't sweat Yahoo! putting out leftwing pap because I'm already concerned enough about NBC and CBS doing so. I don't have to worry too much about Arianna Huffington being the vehicle for getting left-wing talking points into the national debate when Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow routinely pluck "stories" off Kos for whole segments.

On to some really futuristic stuff:

Many of you have probably read of Kurzweil and his "The Singularity is Near" doomsaying awesomesaying. Well, Time Magazine finally has too.

Worth a read. It's about the coming explosion in artificial intelligence and engineered human immortality -- power of the gods themselves type stuff -- and it's on track to hit earth around 2045, if not sooner.

On all those virtual reality dreamworlds posited by sci-fi: This isn't quite that, but one can imagine it's a short technological leap from a cap that stimulates the creative left-side of the brain with electrical LSD to full-fledged dreamscapes.

A BMW-produced documentary discusses flying cars, mostly in the we don't have 'em way I'm getting sick of.

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (200)
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Karl Rove writes about this as if it's an innovation -- I thought this was obviously the route we'd take. Democrats can't really lobby the parliamentarian that it's unfair to include ObamaCare in a reconciliation bill because, um, precedent. That's how it became law. So it can be unmade this way too.

But I guess this is news.

ouse of Representatives.

The Budget Act of 1974 established the reconciliation process. The House and Senate Budget Committees can direct other committees to make changes in mandatory spending (like ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies) and the tax code (such as ObamaCare's levies on insurance policies, hospitals and drug companies) to make spending and revenue conform with the goals set by the annual budget resolution.

View Full Image

Associated Press

President Obama signing the health care bill last March.

For example, under reconciliation the Senate Budget Committee could instruct the Senate Finance Committee to reduce mandatory spending on insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion. These two items make up more than 90% of spending in ObamaCare. All the changes from all the committees are then bundled into one measure and voted upon. Because reconciliation is protected by the rules of the budget process, it doesn't take 60 votes to bring it up and it requires only a simple majority to pass.

Will this 51-vote strategy work? One long-time GOP budget whiz, embarrassed he hadn't thought of this, told me it would. Another Republican veteran of the budget wars agreed, though she had some concerns that certain elements of ObamaCare, such as some insurance provisions, might be beyond the reach of reconciliation. For example, would reconciliation allow Republicans to kill the requirement that younger, healthier workers pay higher premiums than they rightly should to keep premiums for older workers lower?

The snag is that reconciliation is used to reduce the deficit -- and the Democrats have that faked-up CBO report (which even the CBO doesn't stand behind) that says ObamaCare reduces the deficit, so I think there may be hurdle in getting a CBO report that says the opposite. But we can game the system and add "legislation" that will never come to be and create a series of implausible scenarios... just like the Democrats did to get their fake number.

Our fake number will have the benefit of being true.

Posted by: Ace at 08:06 AM | Comments (85)
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He has more than done his bit for God and country.

Giunta has decided not to sign a contract for continued service in the Army, public affairs officer Todd Oliver said Tuesday.

The 26-year-old Hiawatha, Iowa, native has been the face of the Afghanistan war since President Obama presented him with the nation’s highest military award in November. “SSG Giunta’s military service will end on or about 13 June,” Oliver wrote in an e-mail from Italy.

...He served two tours in Afghanistan, from March 2005 to March 2006, and from May 2007 to July 2008.

I've seen a number of interviews with Staff Sargent Giunta since he was decorated by the President in November and am always amazed not only by his actions that fateful day in Afghanistan but also his humility and dignity. It can't be easy to have to publicly relieve the events that led to the death of two friends on a near daily basis. It's clear he is keenly aware of the burden he caries to represent not just himself and the Army but his fellow soldiers; both those who survived and those who fell.

He is the first serviceman to survive the actions for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor in the modern media world. It would have been very easy for him to crack or fail to live up to the burdens of his public duties. He never has.

I don't doubt he will continue to serve in other ways and continue to represent the men and women of the US military in important ways. But for now, may God bless him with some peace and relative quiet as he embarks on the next phase of his life.

One final note...watch the video below when you have a few minutes. It's from the the filmmakers of the highly touted documentary, Restrepo. In this short film, Giunta and his commanding officer retell the events of the battle for which Giunta was awarded the Medal of Honor. Especially moving is his reaction to finding out he would be honored. The ambivalence he expresses is powerful. I hope he understands now or will at some point, just how well he has discharged his duties since being awarded the Medal of Honor. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:01 AM | Comments (34)
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I don't know if that means he's resigning or if he simply isn't planning to run for reelection. All the outlets simply use the word "retirement."

Two GOP sources confirm to Fox that 3-term Senator Jon Kyl will announce his retirement at a noon news conference Thursday in Phoenix.

The Arizona lawmaker is the No. 2 Republican in the Senate.

Kyl, 68, served four terms in the House before winning a Senate seat. In 2006, he was named one of the 10 best senators by Time Magazine.

Kyl is term-limited out of the GOP leadership next year, unless he challenges McConnell for Leader, which he clearly doesn't want to do.

Scuttlebutt here at CPAC is that there is no clear GOP successor, however Rep. Jeff Flake or Ruth McClung would probably be the strongest GOP candidates. On the Democratic side, Rep. Giffords would have been a strong contender for the seat. A rumor zipped through here that Sec. Napolitano might run, but that was just speculation being passed on as truth, so far as I can tell.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:07 AM | Comments (142)
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