How big is this? Not sure; if it's a few scattered thousand, the thug idiot Mubarrak doesn't have much to worry about.

Police used tear gas and batons today to battle thousands of protesters who marched in a "day of revolt" demonstration in a rare show of political defiance in Cairo, the BBC reports.

The anti-government protests, including calls for the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, erupted only a week after an Internet-inspired street campaign drove President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia from office.

Mubarak has tolerated little dissent since he came to power in 1981. Today, however, security police initially showed unusual restraint, but switched tactics after the protest turned violent, the Associated Press reports.

Here's video of a truck coming out to spray a water cannon at protesters; it shows up at 1:15.

Here's tear gas being used against protesters.

Egypt's blocking Twitter, which is being used by protesters to spread information and make plans.

More: Directly modeled after the Tunisian uprising. Including the self-immolations.

At least six young Egyptians have set themselves on fire in recent weeks, in an imitation of the self-immolation that set off the Tunisian unrest. Egypt has forbidden gas stations to sell to people not in cars and placed security agents wielding fire extinguishers outside government offices.

Posted by: Ace at 12:02 PM | Comments (384)
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At the Bob Hope Classic on Friday. Mediaite gives him props.

I don't know if he can really rap, but I'm impressed he knows all the words. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (38)
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Full list here.

Here are my picks. I am doing the Bill Murray thing -- "I never saw this movie (and never even heard of it) so it can't win" -- but anyway, here's my guess/pick. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:42 AM | Comments (213)
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I know, I've already posted today, but this was too spot-on not to post here.

A fair number of my Facebook friends are dyed-in-the-wool liberals, and I've heard -- explicitly or implicitly -- just about every idea here. ..fritz..

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:58 AM | Comments (80)
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A stay isn't a final decision; it's a holding action while the court decides for itself. At the moment, Emmanuel's back on.

One bit of weirdness is that the court issued this stay without deciding if it would actually hear the appeal at all -- so... uh, they could just let the stay sit, without ever deciding the case on the merits? That is, they could just blow off their actual decision and let inertia carry Emmanuel to election day?

In cases of injunctive relief like this, there are several showings necessary, but one of them is "a likelihood of success on the ultimate merits." So the Illinois Court may have already tipped its hand that it intends to crown King Rahm one way or the other.

Posted by: Ace at 09:21 AM | Comments (98)
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"The most important SOTU rebuttal" is similar in meaning to "the most hygenic hippie."

Still, Drudge moves opinion, doesn't he? Drudge shapes narratives. And for the first time in a long time, the rebuttal is not just a formality. The narrative (forced by Drudge) is that this is a duel.

Now, not everyone reads Drudge, of course, but the MFM does, even if it hates the fact that Drudge is guilty of the felony of practicing Narrative-Shaping Without A License.

I know people will object to that because I'm "raising expectations" on Paul Ryan and thus creating the circumstances by which the media can deem him to have failed. True, true, but come on, I'm really just mentioning what's already in play. I can't shape a narrative. Drudge can, I can't.

So, will he rise to the occasion? I sure hope so. I think he's got it in him.

Will the MFM credit him with winning the duel, if he does win it? No, of course not. But people will be watching; they can decide for themselves.

High stakes stuff. Usually I blow this stuff off as a joke, just a series of soundbites connected by pablum and ass-shine, but I think this one is more important than usual. Again, low bar, but whereas the typical SOTU means little and the rebuttal nothing at all, this pairing will actually have some impact, I think. A small impact, certainly, but that's more than usual.

Yes, we will be liveblogging.

My Suggestion/Guess: He will wonk out. His rebuttal will be filled with math -- too much math, too many numbers, the rhetorical critics will say. Not thematic enough, lacking in the majesty that Obama's had.

But I think that's exactly the right way to go. Even if people don't remember every number, they will take two things away: 1, the numbers are awful and the math is dire. And 2, a GOP spokesman told them the truth, in an adult manner, backed by facts and figures, while Obama bloviated about "winning the future."

I think the right way to go here (and the way he will go) is dry... but deadly.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (120)
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This is tricky politics, because there's probably not a majority in favor of this, nor a majority in either party. Conservatives like to talk a good game about cutting spending, but they get mealy-mouthed and start talking vaguely when this subject comes up. The most they'll say, usually, is that "all options are on the table" but if you specifically ask about reforming entitlements, they'll start saying "We should definitely be discussing that" or "We should definitely be examining those options."

Well, that's a nod in the right direction, but discussing and/or examining doesn't stop the country from going bankrupt. Only acting does, and few people are willing to say We need to act.

Paul Ryan says that. Sarah Palin, through her endorsement of the Ryan plan, also says that. Almost no one else does. Just that we should discuss and/or examine.

Well, Barack Obama will not even be committing himself to discussing and/or examining reforms to Social Security.

In 2015, the Social Security Trust Funds will run out of cash because the program will permanently start paying out more benefits than it collects in taxes. At that point, the program will start redeeming the IOUs in the trust funds to pay benefits to current seniors. At first, they will cash in the interests supposedly earned over the years, then in 2025 they will redeem the assets themselves until they dry out. But here is the problem. The federal government doesnÂ’t have that money any more because it spent it on stimulus, education, green jobs, and more daily consumption. Then what? Well, it means that in order to repay the program so it can continue to pay out benefits at the promised levels, the federal government will have to borrow more money, increase taxes to get more revenue, or print more dollars. None of these options are good for the American people but it probably beats the alternative of not paying the benefits of current retirees.

By refusing to reform Social Security today, the president is telling the American people that he chooses the road to more taxes, more borrowing, or unanticipated benefit cuts for seniors already in the program.

Paul Ryan won't commit to this in the rebuttal, either -- he's giving the consensus GOP rebuttal, not his personal plan. But I do imagine he will at least mention discussing/examining all options.

Which Obama -- He who is so bold and determined to fix the country that he's willing to do unpopular but necessary things and only serve a single term -- will not.

If Ryan's rebuttal, reflecting the weak GOP consensus, will be tentative, Obama and the Democrats plan on making a virtue of actual cowardice. And then demogoguing on that. Charles Schumer is already doing just that.

Schumer’s strategy is to highlight the link between GOP efforts to cut as much as $50 billion from the federal budget and a “roadmap” to create private accounts for Social Security and Medicare that Ryan created.

“This is an initial volley in a three-day effort — 72-hour window — to try to muddle Paul Ryan’s foray onto the national scene,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide. “We want to make the House Republicans or Republicans at large own his roadmap and what it would entail for Social Security.”

I wish some spokesman would stop just saying these programs are unsustainable and emphasize what the word "unsustainable" means -- they will not be sustained. They will stop. The only options are reform, raising taxes, or flooding the country with inflationary dollars. By not choosing reform we are, by default, choosing some combination of the other two.

So what will Obama talk about, if nothing important? Pap. He';s going to try to sell himself as a fiscal conservative, if you can believe he'd be so brazen, while simultaneously -- get this -- pushing for more spending. Wait, did I say spending? I meant "investments."

He'll posture as a deficit hawk while pushing -- as they always do -- the most trivial steps possible, and earmark ban and a freezing of the federal budget.

The budget does not need to be frozen -- it needs to be cut. It has grown enormously since 1998. And hugely just since 2008. Freezing it at its ridiculously high level is not fiscal conservatism, it is fiscal catastrophism. It is... Cloward-Piven.

The budget this year is $3.8 trillion (with a T), of which more than a third -- $1.4 trillion -- was simply borrowed from our future ten-years-from-now selves, and there is no reason to believe our future ten-years-from-now selves will have extra cash. In fact, they'll have less, given that all the problems we're having now will accelerate and grow even worse to the point that, in 2020, we will look back on 2010 fondly.

But yes, be so daring as to propose freezing spending at current obscene levels.

Fairness: Captain Ed has some good quotes on this. I find the position of the never-cut-Social-Security/Medicare lobby pretty cynical, as they're saying, pretty much, "I don't mind if these systems implode after I die, as long as I get as much as possible before then."

That's always my problem with current retirees (or soon-to-be-retirees) who say "Well I was promised these things."

Well, you know has two thumbs and was also promised these things? (Two thumbs point back at self.) This guy!

The question isn't whether the government is going to honor the promises it's made to people who paid into SS and Medicare. It won't. It can't. The question is only whether some people get nearly every dime and other people get nothing (except a huge bill), or some people get a little less while the generations coming up get a lot less, but still something.

There is no conceivable politics in which current or near-term retirees don't get most of their due, and get far more than anyone else will in the future. But the cynical posturing of Just make sure I gets mine; everyone else can suck it drives me crazy.

Given that no one under forty or near forty is going to see any of these benefits, a question arises: Then why on earth should we pay into the system at all that's supporting current retirees?

Anyway, here's some more along those lines.

The table also shows, however, that those already in Social Security will, in the future, get back $18.7 trillion (in present-value dollars) more than they will contribute henceforth. In short, their past excess contributions, even if they had been saved, are nowhere near the amount needed to pay for their future benefits.

This is where young and future generations come in. Social Security is a pay- as- you- go system: each generationÂ’s benefits are paid primarily by taxing those that follow (this is true even if we adopt the controversial viewpoint that the $2.4 trillion Trust Fund is effective pre- funding). Were we to exclude current program participants from the solution, those just entering Social Security now will effectively be asked to put an additional $16.3 trillion into the system beyond what they will ever receive.

I'm not sure I understand conservatives who say it's time for public unions to take a haircut on their promised pensions but Social Security can't be modified at all, even a small amount (like 5%) to help sustainability.

Posted by: Ace at 08:15 AM | Comments (175)
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Actually, he's not as dumb as you think, and his concept here is pretty neat. Because that boat isn't sinking. It's just built to look that way.

Thanks to Kathy.

Posted by: Ace at 07:26 AM | Comments (84)
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You may have heard about this. Not really any politics here... except she kidnapped the baby because she didn't think she could get a kid any other way. Adoption would be a nice choice. (But not for this woman -- nuts -- so back to "not really any politics here.")

The kid (now an adult) was stolen when only 19 days old. She faces a life sentence, but the courts, they say, will show mercy. But that depends on... what the daughter has to say. If she was cruel to the kid (on top of being insanely cruel to the kid's actual mother), she could go away for a while.

Posted by: Ace at 07:06 AM | Comments (70)
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Jesse Ventura -- Navy UDT vet, pro wrestler, X-Files guest star, one-time governor, 9/11 truther, and reality show host -- is using his visibility and wackiness for good:

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration on Monday, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. . . .

According to the lawsuit, Ventura received a hip replacement in 2008, and since then, his titanium implant has set off metal detectors at airport security checkpoints. The lawsuit said that prior to last November officials had used a non-invasive hand-held wand to scan his body as a secondary security measure.


But when Ventura set off the metal detector in November, he was instead subjected to a body pat-down and was not given the option of a scan with a hand-held wand or an exemption for being a frequent traveler, the lawsuit said.


The lawsuit said the pat-down "exposed him to humiliation and degradation through unwanted touching, gripping and rubbing of the intimate areas of his body."


It claims that under TSA's policy, Ventura will be required to either go through a full-body scanner or submit to a pat-down every time he travels because he will always set off the metal detector.

Great photo of the one-time Man In Black at the link. Hat tip to the Daily Caller morning e-mail. ..fritz..

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:16 AM | Comments (100)
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