A solid update to Krauthammer's point, via antimatter.

COULTER: "The headline, well, I remember it from these ferocious fights throughout the Bush administration, and that is you keep -- we keep hearing that Bush sent Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, into a civilian court as if, you know, that was his choice.

No, he came out about a month after 9/11 and issued. He issued executive order for military commissions. And immediately, the left wing, particularly the left-wing legal community, went mental. Senator Leahy, the Democrat head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was denouncing this. He had all of the human rights mix, amnesty. The entire law professor faculties across America denouncing Bush for doing this without congressional approval, without Congress passing laws.

Immediately, there were about six bills in Congress, setting up military tribunals of their own, including John Conyers' bill, which would apply only to the 9/11 terrorists.

And -- and so obviously, this was a matter that was heavily litigated over the next seven years. It went to the Supreme Court twice. The Supreme Court struck down Bush's executive order for military tribunals with ferocious dissents, I might add, by justices Scalia and Thomas.

And then Congress back in -- this is in 2006 now -- writes a military tribunal law that itself gets appealed to the Supreme Court. The first military tribunal under Bush, after endless litigation from the left, from left-wing lawyers, did not occur until summer of 2008. At that point, Bush had...

O'REILLY: OK. Let me stop -- let me stop you there. So what you're saying there is that the argument that Alan Colmes and others make, Vice President Biden, that 300 captured terrorists have been tried in civilian court is not valid, because there was no other way to try them. Because of all the legal challenges, you couldn't put them in military commissions, because every two minutes there was a blockage of the action. Is that what you're saying?

COULTER: That's right. Not only that but just specifically because of the left wing that we couldn't go forward with military tribunals which, by the way, I agree with Scalia and Thomas on, were constitutional. It is -- the president is the commander and chief in war time.

Yeah, this Richard Reid thing is pure ass.

Posted by: Ace at 09:37 AM | Comments (33)
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And he's a doctor, a Ph.D., so he's part of the Educated Class/elite so we know everything he says is true and accurate.

This is the sort of thing that would have been important in the election campaign, as it is good evidence as a predictor of what Obama would be like as president.

But now that he is president, it's less valuable. We already see the sort of guy he is. And, guess what, he's kind of hard-left/socialist.

Flashback: Obama and the New Party. The media refused to report it, but Obama was a member of the expressly socialist New Party.

That isn't conspiracy theory or speculation or the allegation of a singe guy -- that is documented fact.

Documented, and entirely embargoed, fact.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 08:45 AM | Comments (202)
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From TheRightScoop.

This is two or three days old now. It's Krauthammer's reaction to the Dueling Vice Presidents on the Sunday talk shows. Particularly on the point of the 20% recidivism rate (and of course that figure is just the guys we know about) being "not that bad," according to Deputy NSA Brennan.

Obama's minions keep defending themselves by saying they're doing exactly what Bush did (at certain times). Which is already an odd statement, since we were assured before the election that everything Bush did was wrong and Obama would do it different and better.

But Krauthammer gets at the heart of the matter, which Dick Cheney hasn't yet. And Cheney should. When Bush released terrorists to Saudi Arabia, for example, he did so with the belief, or at least the naive hope, that Saudi Arabia would keep the terrorists from rejoining terrorist groups. But they didn't.

So Bush erred -- but in his defense, his mistake was made due to a lack of information. He didn't know that Saudi Arabia would allow terrorists to get back into the terrorism business. He may have suspected that would be the outcome, but he didn't know that.

Well, two years later, Bush now knows. And so does Obama. So Obama's claim that he's "just doing what Bush did" is utterly false. Bush acted out innocence, out of ignorance -- he didn't know the outcome of this policy. Obama does know the outcome of this policy, but is continuing it anyway, which makes this not quite a case of "just doing what Bush did."

When Bush did this, he thought it might be successful, as he had no record yet to suggest otherwise.

When Obama does this today, he knows it won't be successful, based on past history.

But, again, he's doing it anyway. And then claiming he's "just doing what Bush did."

Worth watching.

Posted by: Ace at 08:35 AM | Comments (35)
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Although Michelle Malkin is the owner and got most of the money, presumably Allah and Captain Ed have also got a nice chunk of change in the deal and contracts, too.

CPAC hasnÂ’t even officially started and already its making news. Mediaite has learned that leading center-right web site Hot Air has been acquired by Salem Communications for an undisclosed sum. Sources close to the deal claim that Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and sole owner of Hot Air, has been in talks with Salem for some time, but the announcement was timed to coincide with the Conservative Political Action Conference, which opens tomorrow in Washington D.C.

Hot Air is one of the biggest, most influential conservative sites on the Web and was launched on April 24, 2006, with Michelle Malkin as founder/CEO (though she remains editorially focused on her own blog MichelleMalkin.com and her own writing and television appearances.) Hot Air is managed on a day-to-day basis by editors Ed Morrissey and the mysterious AllahPundit, who are reported to be part of the deal in the sale of to Salem, and absolutely essential to the core value of Hot Air. We are told that, from a userÂ’s perspective, Hot Air will remain the same despite the change in ownership.

Salem also owns Townhall.

Good for them!

Thanks to JackM.

Posted by: Ace at 08:19 AM | Comments (174)
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(A series of daily-ish roundups of the day's Climate news and commentary.)

This is by no means a comprehensive recap. The stories come from a variety of sources, and I highly recommend exploring the linked sites for more breaking news.

(after the break...)

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:43 AM | Comments (49)
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I can haz double dip now?

... TransUnion's quarterly analysis of trends in the mortgage industry found that mortgage loan delinquency (the ratio of borrowers 60 or more days past due) increased for the 12th straight quarter, hitting an all-time national average high of 6.89 percent for the fourth quarter of 2009. This quarter marks the first time the mortgage delinquency rate increase did not decelerate after doing so for three consecutive periods.

This statistic, which is traditionally seen as a precursor to foreclosure, increased 10.24 percent from the previous quarter's 6.25 percent average. Year-over-year, mortgage borrower delinquency is up approximately 50 percent (from 4.58 percent)...

When you've finally burned through cashing in a 401K and life insurance policies, sold the second/third car, canceled all the magazine subscriptions, etc trying to hang on hoping for a recovery and a job, this is what happens next.

And what do you suppose the chances of these people being able to pay any 401K cash out tax liability are? Slim? None? Wouldn't surprise me if Federal tax receipts for FY 2009 crater. But hey -- we hired lots of new IRS agents to go chase homeless people. They'll squeeze it out of them.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:45 AM | Comments (201)
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Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:06 AM | Comments (214)
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I am speechless:

In March, 2002, Bishop walked into an International House of Pancakes in Peabody with her family, asked for a booster seat for one of her children, and learned the last seat had gone to another mother.

Bishop, according to a police report, strode over to the other woman, demanded the seat and launched into a profanity-laced rant.

When the woman would not give the seat up, Bishop punched her in the head, all the while yelling "I AM DR. AMY BISHOP."

....

Yep. Dial tone. Speechless.

Thanks to @SarahWW.

Later: Neighbor of the Beast recounts his years living next to I AM DR. AMY BISHOP in The Shadow Over Ipswich.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:59 PM | Comments (667)
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Come for the BBQ. Stay for the MP5s and Uzis.

Here's his website. Served in the US Army, Honorably Discharged in 85 as a Staff Sergeant. Was a member of the Army's Golden Knights Parachute Team and also a freefall instructor at the Army's Special Warfare Center. Businessman, family man, pro-free markets, anti-amnesty, favors small government and lower taxes, pro-life, favors domestic oil and gas production, and has awesome fund raisers. Sounds good to me.

The 8th NC Congressional District is currently represented by Democrat Larry Kissell.

tip via the Man of Substance

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:01 PM | Comments (49)
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Good evening M&Ms.

So You Want to Watch the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Online
Okay so you're now a rabid curling fan and want to watch it in real time. Well here's a guide to watching events the 'official' way which probably works best for those morons not in the US as foreign networks are much more open than NBC in what they show online. But frankly most of these sites including NBC's are a real PITA to register for and use and often their streams don't work anyway.

So here's a list of some un-official sites that offer live video of Olympic events - ATDHE and Justin.tv seem to offer a lot of programs not just sports.

And finally there's MyP2P which has streams for pretty much any sport event you'd ever want to watch from the Winter Olympics to Japanese baseball to European soccer to Australian rugby. Note that some of the higher quality streams require third-party P2P software to access. I've used these before and so far haven't had any malware, virus, or security issues with them but caveat user applies.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:30 PM | Comments (484)
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