† Why We Need Gitmo (second item): Repub and moderate Dem lawmakers see eye-to-eye when it comes to President Barack Obama’s reckless decision to shutter Gitmo by January 2010:

Sen. Jim Webb, Virginia Democrat, said he opposes releasing detainees in his state and said the administration should not adhere to "artificial deadlines" when determining when to release the detainees.

He said Sunday, when reminded of the Obama administration's January deadline, that the White House had made many promises.

"They've said a lot of things and taken a look and said some other things," Mr. Webb said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "So let's process these people in a very careful way and then take care of it." …

Rep. James P. Moran, Virginia Democrat, has said he would support holding some detainees in Virginia, but most other politicians have said they would oppose holding them in their states. …

Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking Homeland Security Committee member, telling CBS that the president "made a mistake by setting an arbitrary deadline."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed, saying Mr. Obama should not have locked in a date without accounting for where the detainees would go.

"The president made a mistake by picking a date certain to close Guantanamo. He's changed his mind about a number of things," Mr. McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said on "Fox News Sunday." "This is one, I think, that requires an adjustment in his position because I think he's going to have a very difficult time figuring out what to do with these terrorists."

If a critical mass of Dems begin to openly oppose removing the dangerous jihadis and terrorists being detained at Gitmo, Obama will have the political cover he needs to climb down from the huge limb he’s unwisely gone out on.

The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel predicts that Obama “may be about to be handed his first defeat of a major campaign promise, and by his own party” and he may deal with this political reality by “triangulating, blaming Congress for not funding the program, and pushing back the deadline”:

If so, Guantanamo will join the growing list of security tools that President Obama once criticized as out of keeping with American values but has since discovered are very in keeping with protecting the nation. Wiretapping, renditions, military tribunals, Gitmo - it turns out the Bush people weren't a bunch of yahoos but often thoughtful defenders against terrorism. This is all progress, though America might wonder if it could have been spared the intervening drama.

Unfortunately, the national security drama is starring an ingénue.

† Army’s New Enemy Combatant Interrogation Techniques Include Good Cop, Bad Cop: The CIA is “questioning whether agency personnel can conduct interrogations effectively under rules set out for the U.S. military,” reports The Washington Post:

Agency officials said they will carry out any future debriefings or interrogations under provisions of the 2006 version of the Army Field Manual. They said they also will assist other agencies that conduct interrogations in order to assess the accuracy of the information obtained.

Under an executive order signed by Obama on Jan. 20, the Field Manual is "the law of the land. … There is nothing outside it now," one intelligence official said. But according to several past agency and military officials, the Field Manual is sometimes so broad as to be unclear.

Its section on interrogation bans "violence, threats, or impermissible or unlawful physical contact," without specifying what is sanctioned. …

The Field Manual, which was published in 2006, says that "direct approach" interrogation operations in World War II had a 90 percent effectiveness, and those in Vietnam, Kuwait and Iraq had a success rate of 95 percent.

Afghanistan since 2002 and Iraq since 2003 are still being studied. "However," it adds, "unofficial studies indicate that in these operations, the direct approach has been dramatically less successful."

Another intelligence official … said waterboarding and other harsh techniques "were meant to get hardened terrorists to a point where they were willing to answer questions." That capability, the official said, "is now gone."

The special task force set up by Obama in January will determine whether the Field Manual interrogation guidelines are too narrow and whether "additional guidance is necessary for CIA," according to a White House statement. A report on that study is not expected before July.

† Madoff’s Victims: Gullible Or Greedy?: Federal investigators are looking into whether some of Bernard L. Madoff's self-proclaimed victims were instead complicit in his massive pyramid scheme, reports The Wall Street Journal:  

The criminal investigation into who knew about massive fraud has expanded to include some of his highest-profile investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

Jeffry Picower and Stanley Chais, two philanthropists who invested heavily with Mr. Madoff, and Carl Shapiro, one of the money manager's oldest friends, are among at least eight Madoff investors and associates being scrutinized by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, these people said.

Federal investigators have gathered evidence they think will show that Messrs. Picower and Chais told Mr. Madoff how much in returns they wanted. Their accounts soon would reflect those amounts, people familiar with the investigation said.

While prosecutors have not charged these or other Madoff investors under scrutiny with any crime, Irving Picard, the trustee in the bankruptcy liquidation of Madoff’s investment firm, is suing Picower and Chais to recover fraudulent gains on their investments that ranged from 300 percent to 950 percent.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Take That, Al Gore!): In the schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore claimed (video link) that the sea would rise up to 20 feet when global warming causes glacial ice in Greenland or Western Antarctica to melt, and that the Florida Peninsula, Shanghai, Calcutta and Lower Manhattan would be under water.

Um, maybe not. The New York Times reports that in Juneau, AL, “[a]s the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat”:

The geology is complex, but it boils down to this: Relieved of billions of tons of glacial weight, the land has risen much as a cushion regains its shape after someone gets up from a couch. The land is ascending so fast that the rising seas - a ubiquitous byproduct of global warming - cannot keep pace. As a result, the relative sea level is falling, at a rate “among the highest ever recorded,” according to a 2007 report by a panel of experts convened by Mayor Bruce Botelho of Juneau.

Greenland and a few other places have experienced similar effects from widespread glacial melting that began more than 200 years ago, geologists say. But, they say, the effects are more noticeable in and near Juneau, where most glaciers are retreating 30 feet a year or more. …

Relative to the sea, land here has risen as much as 10 feet in little more than 200 years, according to the 2007 report. As global warming accelerates, the land will continue to rise, perhaps three more feet by 2100, scientists say.

The rise is further fueled by the movement of the tectonic plates that form the earth’s crust. As the Pacific plate pushes under the North American plate, Juneau and its hilly Tongass National Forest environs rise still more.

This new data is welcome to Repubs and global warming skeptics who are joining forces to fight the Dems’ "cap-and-trade" proposal to limit emissions. Its staggering cost aside, "cap-and-trade" is going to be “an even harder sell if skeptics can stir up a debate about whether there really is a problem,” reports The Washington Post:

[I]t's not clear what effect the skeptics will have on the debate over the Democrats' bill, which would set a limit on emissions and force polluters to amass "credits" to allow for their emissions.

Some environmentalists worry that the skeptics' questions will erode public support, adding to concerns that the bill will raise the price of electricity, gasoline and manufactured goods.

Of course environmentalists don’t want anyone questioning global warming orthodoxy – the only “proof” they have is their ginned-up computer models.

†  Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Hillary To Voters: Don’t Start Thinking About Tomorrow): A Manhattan jury convicted Dem fundraiser Norman Hsu, 58, of violating campaign finance laws by using straw donors to get around legal limits on the amount a single person or group can give. One of the highest profile Dems for whom Hsu raised campaign cash was Hillary Clinton, and prosecutors played a voicemail recording of then-Senator Clinton, thanking Hsu for his support, reports The Associated Press:

I've never seen anybody who has been more loyal and more effective and really just having greater success supporting someone than you. Everywhere I go, you're there. If you're not, you're sending people to be part of my events. You know, we're going to win this campaign, Norman, because you single-handedly are going to make that happen.

Clinton returned some $800K from donors linked to Hsu after his arrest in 2007.