Reuters;

U.S. President Barack Obama will likely order a military commission to withdraw charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a suspect in the U.S.S. Cole bombing held at Guantanamo naval base, ABC News reported on Thursday.
The decision, likely to be announced on Friday, would end prosecution of al-Nashiri in the military court system that Obama has criticized and may ultimately dismantle, ABC News reported, citing unnamed sources

Word on the blog street has it that he plans to defend the decision in a photo op session after meeting with Cole bombing survivors and families of 911 victims – perhaps to remind them he “won”.
(The reason the 911 families were invited? Just guess.)
More on the rationale here, but the short form is “his order to close Gitmo made him do it.”
Meanwhile, over in the dead center of the universe…

Via Darcey.

President Obama needs you curbside – “Is this, like, some kind of karmic payback for all the Joe-the-plumber tax business?”.

Like his predecessor did during his visit;

The Obama visit, which will revolve around a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper but include a courtesy chat with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in his capacity as Official Opposition leader, is expected to take roughly five hours from landing to the President’s return to Washington, D.C.

Five hours? That’s barely long enough to raise Heather Mallick’s respiration rate.

Meet Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer and Bill Richardson and Reverand Wright and, oh, you know Grandma Dunham….
(Now, could all of you squeeze over and make room?)

California’s farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming […] Chu warned of water shortages plaguing the West and Upper Midwest and particularly dire consequences for California, his home state, the nation’s leading agricultural producer.
In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack could disappear, all but eliminating a natural storage system for water vital to agriculture.
“I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” he said. “We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.” And, he added, “I don’t actually see how they can keep their cities going” either.

A Sierra Club propagandist? A Gore trainee? Nope – joke’s on Chu, America. He’s Obama’s new energy secretary!
Whoops – better put a hold on those buggy whips…

[Obama’s regulatory czar] has made no secret of his devotion to the cause of establishing legal “rights” for livestock, wildlife, and pets. “[T]here should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, scientific experiments, and agriculture,” Sunstein wrote in a 2002 working paper while at the University of Chicago Law school.
“Extensive regulation of the use of animals.” That’s PETA-speak for using government to get everything PETA and the Humane Society of the United States can’t get through gentle pressure or not-so-gentle coercion. Not exactly the kind of thing American ranchers, restaurateurs, hunters, and biomedical researchers (to say nothing of ordinary consumers) would like to hear from their next “regulatory czar.”

From tax evasion, to terrorist pardons, to granting your goldfish the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – is there nothing that an Obama cabinet can’t do?

Is there…

India has warned US President Barack Obama that he risks “barking up the wrong tree” if he seeks to broker a settlement between Pakistan and India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
MK Narayanan, India’s national security advisor, said that the new US administration was in danger of dredging up out of date Clinton administration-era strategies in a bid to bring about improved ties between the two nuclear armed neighbours.

nothing that…

The European Union warned the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting a planned “Buy American” policy, intensifying fears of a trade war.
The EU threatened to retaliate if the US Congress went ahead with sweeping measures in its $800 billion (£554 billion) stimulus plan to restrict spending to American goods and services

Obama can’t do?

“The United States will use “all elements of our national power” to deal with Iran, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday after Tehran said it had launched a satellite into orbit.”

Sure he will.

On the rockiest day of his young administration, President Barack Obama did what surely made him happy for a while.
He left.

More – The Impending Obama Meltdown

Is there nothing that Obama can’t do!

“Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place” for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

“Limited circumstances include a Democrat in the White House,” he did not need to add.

“Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has
authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and
transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition
program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it
was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes —
for taking suspected terrorists off the street.”

h/t

“Obama Dozed, People Froze!”
Amid reports of storm stranded residents not resorting to cannibalism, Kentucky has
called up entire Army National Guard.

More than half a million homes and businesses, most of them in Kentucky, remained with out electricity from the Ozarks through Appalachia, though temperatures creeping into the 40s helped a swarm of utility workers make headway. Finding fuel – heating oil along with gas for cars and generators – was another struggle for those trying to tough it out at home, with hospitals and other essential services getting priority over members of the public.
The addition of 3,000 soldiers and airmen makes 4,600 Guardsmen pressed into service. It’s the largest call-up in Kentucky history, which Beshear called an appropriate response to a storm that cut power to more than 600,000 people, the state’s largest outage on record. Many people in rural areas cannot get out of their driveways due to debris and have no phone service, the governor said.
“With the length of this disaster and what we’re expecting to be a multi-day process here, we’re concerned about the lives and the safety of our people in their own homes,” Beshear said, “and we need the manpower in some of the rural areas to go door-to-door and do a door-to-door canvass … and make sure they’re OK.”

“PS: can I just add at this point — so far, no reports of looting!”
More – “Someone needs to go wake up President Oblivious, because he must be snoozing in that warm Oval Office after his big Wagyu Steak binge not to have noticed, mentioned a word, or taken any emergency actions to this days long debacle.”
At Instapundit – ““What Katrina taught the media was that they could hurt Bush by lying. What 2008 taught them was that they could help Obama by not reporting at all. What will 2009 teach them? I shudder to think.””

NYT;

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

*
h/t

The door!. Now, go to sleep.
Related – smell the bipartisanship! 11 Democrats cross floor to join Republicans in opposing Obama’s 800B bucks of pork.

I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but media reports may not be providing the full story on the Blagojevitch case;

I listened to much of day two of the Illinois Senate impeachment trial of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. This was the day when the smoking gun would be revealed, in the form of four audio tapes just released by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Despite the claims in some of the television and print media, the tapes were no smoking gun.
The tapes purport to show Blagojevich extorting a campaign contribution from a horse race track owner in exchange for Blagojevich signing legislation favorable to the race track. But all the tapes actually show is Blagojevich’s chief of staff urging Blagojevich to pressure the race track owner to pay up on a previously promised campaign contribution, and Blagojevich trying to confirm that the payment will be made. Nothing on the tapes states that Blagojevich would refuse to sign the legislation, already passed by a substantial majority in the legislature (including many of the Senators voting on impeachment), if there were no payment. You may be able to make the connection, but these tapes don’t do it. We would need much more evidence to show extortion or even conspiracy to extort.
[…]
The other thing that jumped out when listening to the tapes and hearing [FBI agent] Cain’s testimony in response to questions from Senators, is how truncated are the excerpts. With an Assistant U.S. Attorney at his side, Cain repeatedly refused to answer questions as to how the excerpts were selected, what else was on the tapes, or who else (including Senators voting on impeachment) was on the tapes (Transcript, 292-293) When Cain refused to answer if any other Senators were on the tapes, the transcript indicates that an unidentified person at the Senate trial said “Thank God.” (Tr. 293) So we may have potential targets of, or witnesses in, Fitzgerald’s investigation voting on whether that most famous target, Blagojevich, stays in office. Great.

h/t

It’s going to be a Long. Four. Years.
More – “did anyone bother to check out the content on Al-Arabiya?”
Update: The end of “dictating” extends to Whitehouse press briefings;

It’s been four days since Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ first (and widely panned) appearance before the White House press corps, but no transcript, summary, or video of the event has shown up on WhiteHouse.gov. The delay could be forgiven in a less tech-savvy bunch, but given the Obama team’s considerable online skill, the omission of the the transcript is clearly intentional.

h/t
Update – a pithy observation at Brutally Honest.

The Publisher

Obama Targets Muslims For Death

Transcript 1

BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States: By the authority vested in me as president — as president by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo and promptly to close the detention facility at Guantanamo, consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice, I hereby order.
And we then provide the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed no later than one year from now.

Transcript 2

OBAMA (chiseling in marble sound effect): In order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo, uh, and promptly to close the detention facility at Guantanamo consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and interests of justice, I hereby order. And we then we will then, uh, provide the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed no later than, uh, one year from now. We will be… Uhhh…. Ummm…. Is there a separate executive order, Greg, with respect to how we’re going to dispose of the detainees? Is that it, eh, uh, what we’re doing?
CRAIG: We’ll set up a process!
OBAMA: We will be, uh, setting up a process whereby this is going to be taking place.

There’s more!

OBAMA: What we’re doing here is to set up a special interagency task force on detainee disposition. They are going to provide me with information in terms of how we are able to deal in the disposition of some of the detainees that may be currently in Guantanamo that we cannot transfer to other countries, who could pose a serious danger to the United States, uh, but, uh, we cannot try because of various problems related to evidence, uh, in a Article 3 court. So this task force is going to provide us with, uh, a series of recommendations on, uh, that. Is that correct, Greg?
CRAIG: That’s right. And detainee policy going forward.
OBAMA: And detainee policy going forward so that we don’t find ourselves in these kinds of situations, uh, in the future.
CRAIG: And there is clear guidance for the military as well.
OBAMA: And that we are providing clear guidance to our military in terms of having to do with it.

h/t

Quivering thighs at The Province;

Rapt eyes shone as Obama spoke with stunning eloquence of re-building America. When the president delivered perhaps his most impressive rhetorical offering, telling the world’s tyrants, “We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist,” many in the audience gasped audibly at the sheer power of his language.
I haven’t seen a group of people wearing their fervour so completely, and so uniformly, since a guy I used to work with brought me to visit his weird sex cult in California.
But maybe Obama, unlike the cult leader in the purple house, really deserves this worship.

h/t
(Previous)

Brace yourselves…
(captured image)
In a less changier time…
Update – Obaaama! (h/t Jim)

The metaphor that soars…
(related)

“Inspiring the transformation of America”.