ANN ALTHOUSE:

The Guantanamo Bay military prison meets the requirements of the Geneva Conventions.
According to a Pentagon review ordered by President Obama. So… great. I’m proud of our military. But am I proud of our President who first promised to close the place and then got the study showing the facts relevant to the question whether it should be closed?

Let’s see if he can say now, as he has before, I screwed up.

Don’t hold your breath.

FIDDLING WITH THE ECONOMY while Rome burns.

KANSAS CITY STAR: Hundreds rally outside Moore’s office in tax protest. “Hundreds of people turned out on a cold and windy Saturday morning for an anti-tax protest outside U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore’s office in Overland Park.” I’d say it was more an anti-profligacy protest, really . . . .

UPDATE: Huh. The sentence I quoted isn’t in the story any more. Substantively it’s the same story — this is no airbrushing — but now it opens this way: “Angered by Congress’ approval of the $787 billion economic recovery plan, a crowd protested Saturday outside the Overland Park office of U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore. Protesters held placards and chanted their disapproval of the vote by Moore, a Kansas Democrat, in favor of the relief package.”

HMM: Burris Scoops Show How Much Newspapers Matter.

You can look at this two ways. First, if Chicago — a two-newspaper town — is this corrupt, do newspapers really do that much good? On the other hand, is it just that the corruption in Chicago gets unearthed, while in towns with less coverage it just goes undiscovered? The latter is what the Sun-Times is arguing.

BOB CORKER: “Major U.S. banks are insolvent, the country will regret the $787 billion economic stimulus package, and the world is in the grips of an ‘unbelievable recession.'”

WORST JANUARY FOR STOCK MARKET in 112 years.

HOPE AND CHANGE: WH may abandon health czar post. Well, I’m hoping that this change means that national healthcare is less likely. As for Nancy Ann DeParle (Nancy Ann Min when we were in college together, before she married Jason DeParle), she’d be good for the job if they kept it, but I’d rather they didn’t.

WELL, IT SHOULD BE EASIER TO HALVE IT NOW THAT IT’S SO BIG: Obama wants to halve budget deficit.

DANIEL MITCHELL: Making America More Like France Won’t Lead to Prosperity.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: J. Edgar Moyers. “Memories are short in Washington, and Mr. Moyers has gone on to promote himself as a political moralist, routinely sermonizing about what he claims are abuses of power by his ideological enemies.” There are so many stories like this — hatchetmen rewarded for their service by becoming revered “thinkers” in the media — that it’s really hard to take the “have you no decency” routine seriously any more.

NEW WAR, NEW LEGAL ISSUES: “There is a nice legal question whether President Obama has initiated or accelerated a ‘new’ war against the Taliban-in-Pakistan or is merely carrying on an ‘old’ war against Al Qaida and the original Taliban albeit in a neighboring country. This nice legal question poses some challenges to Obama’s new legal team.”

SOME CONCERNS ABOUT the “tea party” movement.

NOW THAT’S BIPARTISANSHIP! “Campaign finance records show the newly named treasurer of the Tennessee Democratic Party has made heavy campaign contributions to Republicans, including to Gov. Phil Bredesen’s opponents in the 2002 and 2006 elections.”

UH OH: Federal authorities question Burris about appointment.

UPDATE: Democrats in a hurry to get Burris out of the Senate:

How convenient that the ethics panel would seek rapid movement on a high-profile case that is so inconvenient for them and Obama, yet other ethics investigations languish on the back burner for months and months.

For instance, what of the ethical investigations into Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd over their shady dealings with Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo? Progress on that issue has slowed to a near crawl, but Burris?

Yeah, it makes you wonder if they’re serious about ethics . . . .

TRAILERS: UFC 2009 Undisputed, and Mass Effect 2.

MORE OVERLAND PARK TAXPAYER PROTEST PICTURES, from John Wilks, who writes: “One of the organizers claimed 750 people in attendance at the peak of the protest. Next Saturday, we target Sen. McCaskill’s office in Kansas City.”

And here’s a photo courtesy of reader David Vickers.

UPDATE: More pictures here.

CHARLIE COOK: “At What Point Will the Public Blame the Recession on Obama Instead of Bush?” When the press quits covering for him?

FIVE STATES CAUSED THE FORECLOSURE CRISIS? “The beneficiaries of taxpayer charity will be highly concentrated in just five states – California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Michigan. . . . It turns out that the five states with by far the highest foreclosure rates have some things in common with each other, but very little in common with most other states.”

UPDATE: Some thoughts from Dan Riehl.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “Whatever became of Rep. Laura Richardson? The Democratic Black Caucus member that no one talks about at all, the one with the 4 mortgages, all in foreclosure, the one who got to vote on the measure making debt forgiveness a non-taxable event? How about reviving interest in her touching case?”

Well, here’s a story on her multiple defaults from last summer. Plus, some thoughts on double standards.

MORE: Here’s a more recent article on Laura Richardson:

First Rep. Laura Richardson was having problems making house payments, defaulting six times over eight years.

Then after a bank foreclosed on her Sacramento house and sold it at auction in May, the Long Beach Democrat made such a stink that Washington Mutual, in an unusual move, grabbed it back and returned it to her.

This week, in the latest chapter in the housing saga, the Code Enforcement Department in Sacramento declared her home a “public nuisance.” The city has threatened to fine her as much as $5,000 a month if she doesn’t fix it up.

Neighbors in the upper-middle-class neighborhood complain that the sprinklers are never turned on and the grass and plants are dead or dying. The gate is broken, and windows are covered with brown paper.

Seems to me that she and her colleagues are taking about as good care of the country . . . .

Plus this: LAURA RICHARDSON PROMISES TO EXPLAIN ALL THOSE DEFAULTS–AFTER THE ELECTION. I don’t think she did. I love this bit:

“This election is about fiscal responsibility,” she said.

But she is defining fiscal responsibility narrowly.

”My personal [financial] experience is not what this particular election is about,” she emphasizes.

Your political class at work.

THE PARKING VALET’S GUIDE to driving exotic cars.

MAYBE ROLAND BURRIS SHOULD sleep with one eye open.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple Empire.

A REPORT ON THE OVERLAND PARK TAXPAYERS’ PROTEST, from The Kansas Meadowlark.

UPDATE: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” “Change came to Washington claiming bipartisanship and transparency. Obama lied on both. The bipartisan bill was rammed through with classic — and sleazy– Chicago-style politics. And how transparent is a process where even graduates of the Evelyn Wood speed reading course couldn’t have analyzed the bill? . . . The very change that swept Democrats into D.C. will surely sweep them away again if they squeeze ordinary citizens too much to pay for the failings of others.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Diane Lanning sends this report from California:

Congressman Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton) hosted “Congress at your Corner” from 9:30 to 10:30 this morning. The meetings are “part of McNerney’s effort to reach out to and hear from citizens in the 11th District.” I have never gone to anything like this before, but decided to go to express my displeasure about the stimulus package. Keep in mind that this is NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. The meeting was held in a local bagel cafe, and I was happy to see that the place was packed with probably about 50-75 people. The vast majority of them were extremely angry about the stimulus package. It started out with him taking questions from the crowd, but then they started a line for people to talk to him privately because things were getting “out of control”. Several people then asked if he would consider having a town hall style meeting with microphones, etc. We’ll see if that happens. I’m not betting on it.

During the first part, several people asked if he had read the stimulus package. At first he tried to ignore them, but eventually admitted he hadn’t. (No surprise there.)

Several people came with signs similar to what you see at the protest rallies.

When he started talking to people individually, he obviously did not want anyone else to hear. That did not go over well with the crowd. They were there to find out what he thought, and he wasn’t allowing that to happen.

When I got my time with him, I explained to him that even people who make $150k in Northern Cal. are not “rich” and should not be taxed as if they were. (A 1400 sq ft, 40 year old home here goes for over half a million, even after the housing slump. Then you add in real estate taxes, state income taxes, 10% sales tax, gas prices, utility costs, etc.) I also expressed my concern that about half the people in the country now pay no income taxes, so there is overwhelming incentive for them to keep voting for democrats and therefore higher taxes for the rest of us. He told me that he thought tax rates should go up for the very rich and that the top marginal tax rate should be 90%. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, so I asked in a voice that many in the room could hear if he really meant 90%, and he said yes. Several people asked me after my turn was over if they heard correctly what he said, and were amazed when I said yes.

I also asked how a congress that was very critical of republican ethics and vowed “change” could justify letting Rangel, Dodd, and Murtha keep their committee chairmanships with their obvious ethical issues. His response was that Republican’s ethics were worse because of their “unjustified aggressive war”.

This is just my small example of the anger and frustration of people in liberal Northern California.

Anybody else know anything about this? I called Jerry McNerney’s office but got no answer.

Meanwhile, more Overland Park photos are here.

OKAY, I DON’T LIKE THIS AT ALL: Boy killed anally when office chair explodes. “The alleged explosion came from the gas cylinder that was in the base of the chair, the part that allowed the user to adjust the seat up and down. The canister gets compressed when you sit on it, but can it actually create enough energy to make the seat cushion explode like that and kill a man? I doubt it, but this is what people are reporting.” I hope this is a bogus story.

UPDATE: Noting the absence of blood, many readers argue that this must be bogus. Let’s hope — I have a Chinese-made office chair!

THE HILL: Gov. Rendell skeptical about stimulus potential. “Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) backed the $787 billion stimulus but said Saturday that he isn’t sure whether it will actually fix the economy.” Well, if this is what the supporters say, then you can hardly blame the demonstrators for being unhappy, can you?

SOME POLIWOOD OSCAR PREDICTIONS, from Roger Simon and Lionel Chetwynd.

Plus, does anyone care about the Oscars anymore?