Quickies

A round-up of articles, news items, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.





IMAO offers up some slogans for the Chevy Volt.

“So frustrating to use it will make you do the greenest thing at all: Kill yourself.”

“Why pollute around you with exhaust when you can pollute far away with coal?”

More plus commenters contributions at the link.




The secret to happiness for women.... pulling the goalie?

We're just the messenger here, folks.

Corrupstion at the Department of Education?

Today Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent letters to the Director of Enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan to share records CREW obtained through its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against Education. These documents show high-level Education officials colluded with Wall Street short-sellers, improperly leaking the contents of highly controversial gainful employment regulations in advance of their publication. Click here to read the letters.

“These new documents, combined with others previously uncovered by CREW raise troubling questions about the actions of high-level Education officials, the fairness of the agency’s regulatory process, and investors’ efforts to manipulate Education regulations for their own personal gain,” said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. “It is incumbent on the SEC to fully investigate this matter.”

Remind us again of what the DOE brings to the party.



High school contest to determine where the President will speak at the graduation ceremony not going all that well.




Julianne Moore to play Sarah Palin in an upcoming HBO movie Game Change.

What could possibly go wrong?

Change

President Obama yesterday formalized indefinite detention for dozens of men held at Guantanamo Bay and announced that the Pentagon would move ahead with military trials for a handful of other detainees.

In an executive order [1], which we first reported on in June 2009 [2], the White House created a board to periodically review the dangerousness of prisoners being held without charge or trial. The order says the new process will allow detainees -- some in custody for nearly a decade -- to challenge the government's determination that they pose a threat if released.

While the order is new, most of the ideas [3] it contains are not. This is the third time such a board has been created for nearly the same purpose. Two similar processes to review detainee cases were in place during the Bush administration. Like its predecessors, the Obama administration's review process will operate outside the courts and will be subject to no independent review. Also like the Bush White House, the Obama administration alone will choose all members of the review board and appoint a "personal representative" to advocate on behalf of the detainees.

And the howls of outrage we should be hearing from "betrayed" lefties?

/sound of crickets.

The Mtn. Network's Marty Fletcher makes a stunning confession after San Diego St.'s last-second victory over UNLV in the semis of the Mountain West Conference Tournament on Friday night.






And this guy feels free to opine because...?

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told an audience at MIT on Thursday that he thought the Defense Department's treatment of alleged WikiLeaks source Private Bradley Manning was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

Blogger Philippa Thomas first reported Crowley's remarks, which she said were part of a lecture on "the benefits of new media as it relates to foreign policy" at an event organized by MIT's Center for Future Civic Media.

"One young man said he wanted to address ‘the elephant in the room'. What did Crowley think, he asked, about Wikileaks? About the United States, in [the questioner's] words, ‘torturing a prisoner in a military brig'? Crowley didn't stop to think. What's being done to Bradley Manning by my colleagues at the Department of Defense ‘is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.' He paused. ‘None the less Bradley Manning is in the right place'. And he went on lengthening his answer, explaining why in Washington's view, ‘there is sometimes a need for secrets... for diplomatic progress to be made'," Thomas wrote.

B-Daddy on Japan, nuclear reactors and the inherent advantages of a de-centralized power grid.



Shane Atwell's weekly regulation watch, here.



And finally, W.C. Varones reminds us that whether we're batting first in the line-up or last, May 21st is going to be a very big day.

"Foopie" Folly

A while back we conducted a poll of who was the biggest hack in the Obama administration. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner won relatively easily besting the miserable hack that runs the Justice Department for whom we were pimping quite hard. Perhaps results would be different if we held this poll a second time.

Ahmed Ghailani was supposed to be the test case, the reason why political opposition to trying Guantanamo goons in civilian courts was just hot air.

But now, after "Foopie" Ghailani was acquitted on all but one count for his role in the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings by Al Qaeda, Team Obama's hope of trying Gitmo's worst in civilian courts has been all but dashed.

Look for the secure courthouse at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba to get busy with military commission trials for many of the remaining inmates of the terrorist prison there, who number less than 200 now.

Never mind the five monsters in custody, led by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who've gleefully admitted orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks. Most Obama administration officials have given up hope they'll face justice in a federal court and aren't even planning another military commission trial anytime in the foreseeable future.

Want a little more balance in this analysis? You got it. Click here (sorry, won't let us embed video of Katie Couric) for a breakdown of this case from CBS News where you will hear:

"a disaster"

"test case"

"very bad news"

"acquitted Ghailani of the most serious terrorism charges against him"

"convicting on one count of conspiring to destroy U.S. property with explosives"

"minimum of 20 years"

and our favorite:

"they (Ghailani, KSM and the rest of the gang) remain at Gitmo and with this verdict, in all likelihood, will remain there for the foreseeable future"

The hubris and arrogance of the miserable hack that runs the Justice Department, aided and abetted by the President, has landed themselves and the rest of us in this pickle. They painted themselves into a corner, or onto an island as the case may be, with no foreseeable way out/off. Nice work.

The Friday evening dump

(one in a series that takes a look at some unpopular news coming out of Washington D.C. right before the weekend)

So when the most powerful man on the face of the planet realizes that a civilian trial for KSM, particularly a civilian trial mere blocks from ground zero, was not very popular and re-opening military tribunal proceedings against KSM would disappoint his base, what does he do?

He votes "present", natch.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, will probably remain in military detention without trial for the foreseeable future, according to Obama administration officials.

The administration has concluded that it cannot put Mohammed on trial in federal court because of the opposition of lawmakers in Congress and in New York. There is also little internal support for resurrecting a military prosecution at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The latter option would alienate liberal supporters.

The administration asserts that it can hold Mohammed and other al-Qaeda operatives under the laws of war, a principle that has been upheld by the courts when Guantanamo Bay detainees have challenged their detention.

The White House has made it clear that President Obama will ultimately make the decision, and a federal prosecution of Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators has not been ruled out, senior officials said. Still, they acknowledge that a trial is unlikely to happen before the next presidential election and, even then, would require a different political environment.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said this week that a decision on a trial for Mohammed was close. Other administration officials said that his remark was simply a stock response to a frequently asked question and that it didn't signal that any announcement was imminent.

That last paragraph is just too rich. Translation: don't pay any never mind to whatever Holder says. If he says the sky is blue, hold that contention very much in doubt.

A whole lot of campaign era rhetoric with respect to combating terrorism in keeping with the Constitution is taking a beating right now.

But here's what we find curious: Is his lefty base going to be any more pacified that Obama has KSM locked up and effectively thrown away the key than they would with a military tribunal? Sure. Voting present will merely evoke shoulder shrugs and sighs from his already dispirited true believers rather than provoking them to anger by taking actual leadership and ownership of this situation.

The 2012 Republican presidential candidate would be wise to remember all of this.

The Friday evening dump

(one in a weekly series intended to shine some light on unsavory news being jettisoned from the White House and Capitol Hill right before the weekend)

And which they will no longer be caressed by soft tropical breezes…

The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison.

Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

The officials outlined the plans — the latest effort to comply with President Barack Obama's order to close the prison camp by Jan. 22, 2010, and satisfy congressional and public fears about incarcerating terror suspects on American soil — on condition of anonymity because the options are under review.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said Friday that no decisions have been made about the proposal. But the White House considers the courtroom-prison complex as the best among a series of bad options, an administration official said.

Bad options that were created by the corner the administration painted themselves into with respect to its hasty decision to close Gitmo in 6 months. Hey, anybody up for one of those countdown clocks?

Hooray, only XXX more days and YYY more hours ‘til the bad guys make land fall!

Quote of the Day

We are possibly witnessing some of the practical effects of the hell-bent rush to close Club Gitmo.

"This is a very sensitive topic because you know the position that the Iraqi government, the U.S. and British governments, and all the governments do not accept the idea of exchanging hostages for prisoners. . . . So we put it in another format, and we told them that if they want to participate in the political process they cannot do so while they are holding hostages. And we mentioned to the American side that they cannot join in the political process and release their hostages while their leaders are behind bars or imprisoned."

That from Iraqi official Sami al-Askari on the proper framing of the hostage-for-terrorist negotiations held between the U.S., the Brits and the terrorist network, Asaib al-Haq.

Read the whole story at the link. It's not pretty.

Let's see how much traction this story gets.

Club Gitmo Alumni: Where are they now?

You know, maybe closing Gitmo may not be such a hot idea afterall.

The fate of three of nine foreigners abducted in Yemen last week is known — their bodies were found, shot execution style. The whereabouts of the other six — including three children under the age of 6 — remain a mystery.

But terrorism experts say their abductors and killers are almost certainly not a mystery. They say the crimes bear the mark of Al Qaeda, and they fear they are the handiwork of the international terror organization's No. 2 man in the Arabian Peninsula: Said Ali al-Shihri, an Islamic extremist who once was in American custody — but who was released from the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Read more here.

Anti-terrorism by the numbers

The President made his big national security speech at the National Archives today and in keeping with his forward-looking vision, blamed everything on the Bush administration… while, of course, opting to keep many of Bush’s anti-terrorism policies intact.

He called the prison at Guantanamo “a rallying cry for our enemies”. Really? You know what’s a rallying cry for our enemies? According to James Cromitie a.k.a. “Abdul Rahman” who is one of the four men who were caught in New York in an F.B.I. sting this week plotting to blowup synagogues and shoot down planes from the sky, it’s those damn Jews.

When the conversation turned to attacking a synagogue, Cromitie allegedly said, "I hate those Jewish "expletie." I would like to get a synagogue.

Cromitie also said that he wanted to return to Afghanistan to die as a “martyr”. But, but… Afghanistan is the “good” war.

Here’s what the President had to say about the 3 people we actually waterboarded

"As commander-in-chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all."

(italics, ours)

It’s the height of naivete to believe that these savages we’re fighting in the war on terror would treat any captives more humanely if only we weren’t water boarding our prisoners. For the Commander-in-Chief to hold this view is highly discouraging.

And reasonable people can differ on water boarding with respect to the rule of law but to claim that the decisions that were made over the last 8 years were “neither effective nor sustainable” is incredulous.

There’s a little saying, or more precisely, a single word that invokes a bottom line result when one wants to cut through the rhetoric and platitudes. It’s called “Scoreboard”. It’s a favorite of ours. Please join us, won’t you?


(Terrorism viewed as a criminal act and which no one seemed to take very seriously)

1993: World Trade Center bombing
1996: Khobar Tower bombing
1998: African embassy bombings
2000: USS COLE bombing
2001: 9-11 terrorist attacks

(Country wakes up, gets serious about terrorism, opens Club Gitmo and unleashes an orgy of enhanced interrogation techniques upon the bad guys)

Sept. 12, 2001 – present: 0

That, ladies and gentleman, is Scoreboard.

...except when it doesn't

Tucked away neatly in a wire piece on Congess asking for more money to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was this:

Obey said $80 million to close the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, would not be included in the bill because no details were provided by the administration on how that move would be carried out.

Bottom line: despite the rhetoric, the reality of Club Gitmo, your tropical retreat from the everyday stress of Jihad, does not appear to be going away anytime soon.

That God would be so good to us.

The closing of Guantanamo. The prosecution of Bush administration officials. And the continuation of Bush Derangement Sydrome.

Outstanding ideas, all. B-Daddy explains why, here.

Just like You... only more so.

Awesome. We’re going to fight the war on terror in civilian courts. The Supremes have decided to confer U.S. Constitutional rights on the “unlawful combatants” currently detained at Gitmo.

"The Supreme Court has finally brought an end to one of our nation's most egregious injustices," said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren. Yep. This has been right up there with slavery, denying woman and blacks the franchise and Japanese internment during WWII.

Tell ya what… let’s just scrap this whole thing. Close down, Gitmo? Sure. Let’s let them all go… let’m all go but before we do, roll’m all in pig fat before sending them off to their country of origin where they can sort it out. No fuss, no muss - get'm out of our hair. Deal?