The AP reports:

President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration’s ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information – an inflammatory policy that has bounced in and out of law for the past quarter-century.

Obama’s move, the latest in an aggressive first week reversing contentious Bush policies, was warmly welcomed by liberal groups and denounced by abortion rights foes.

The ban has been a political football between Democratic and Republican administrations since GOP President Ronald Reagan first adopted it 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.

“For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House. “I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.”

Excuse me? What the fark is that supposed to mean? All you’re doing, Barry, is continuing that back and forth debate, as the article makes clear. Republican institutes ban; Democrat ends it. Next Republican re-institutes it; you end it again.

That’s fine; as you’re keen to point out, you won. Just please don’t pretend that you’re doing something that is new, and different, and bipartisan. Your action is politics as usual — a bone thrown to your base on a Friday afternoon. It’ll help kill a few more babies. There’s nothing fresh or bipartisan about it, so don’t pretend there is.

Unprecedented!

Jan Crawford Greenburg:

It’s now up to the Obama Administration to evaluate which of the 248 Guantanamo detainees to release—and a video made public today of a former detainee-turned al Qaeda leader makes clear just how difficult it is going to be.

The SITE Intelligence Group has posted online a 19-minute video, featuring speeches from four al Qaeda leaders in the Arabian Peninsula. One of the leaders is Guantanamo Prisoner No. 372, who was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and is now deputy commander of a regional group . . . Counterterrorism officials believe the former Guantanamo detainee was involved in a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy in Yemen just last September.

In the criminal justice system, it’s sadly commonplace to see people acquitted of crimes and released, only to go on to commit horrible acts of violence. As long as we provide a legal process for dealing with Gitmo detainees, some will be released and then plot to kill Americans. Some will be successful.

Knowing it will happen doesn’t make it any easier to watch.

Obama had better be careful about how he goes about this process.

Courtesy of a commenter comes a link to a fun little time waster. You keep the red square from hitting the sides, or the little blue shapes that bounce around the screen.

The host of the site says his best time is 19.099 seconds. I laugh heartily at 19.099 seconds:

The L.A. Times reports:

Acknowledging public doubts about “the size and scale of this recovery plan” which is likely to exceed $800 billion in new spending if the new president wins his way with Congress, Obama also promised an unprecedented new commitment to “root out waste” in government to ensure the money is spent wisely.

Indeed, I believe a commitment to root out government waste is entirely without precedent.

Where did the paper get the idea that a promise to “root out waste” is “unprecedented”? It’s a new journalistic technique called “stenography.” Read on:

“I know that some are skeptical about the size and scale of this recovery plan,” Obama said in his address today.

“I understand that skepticism, which is why this recovery plan must and will include unprecedented measures that will allow the American people to hold my administration accountable for these results,” the president said. “We won’t just throw money at our problems – we’ll invest in what works.”

Unprecedented!

“We’ll launch an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government,” the president said in his address today, “and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov.”

Ah. So if Obama says it’s “unprecedented,” then it is “unprecedented.”

But is it really unprecedented?

“We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action,” Obama said.

Look, he said “unprecedented” four times. Now who can argue with that?

P.S. The article does take care to warn that hundreds of millions of dollars are being slotted for the key job-creation industry of contraceptives.

Just kidding! There’s not one word about that. Instead, the article touts the wonders of Obama’s plan to spend money “with an eye toward not only creating jobs, but also advancing alternative energy production, health care, education, transportation and Internet access.”

A lack of skepticism towards Democrat spending by the Los Angeles Times?

Unprecedented!

P.S. Editors: it’s recovery.gov, not “reovery.gov”:

It’s a front-page story. Those are the ones you try to get right.

Via Hot Air (actually, via my own blog! see UPDATE) comes a clip about a school so mortified that one of its teams won 100-0 that it is seeking to forfeit the game:

So the question is: if you can win 100-0, is it wrong to do so?

UPDATE: I am an idiot. DRJ already blogged this here.

Kevin Roderick reports:

The Los Angeles Times staffers I’ve heard from seem pretty convinced there will be a new round of newsroom bloodletting next week, with many fearing the firing starts Monday.

I told you back on the 11th that the unconfirmed rumor was that another 100 layoffs were on the horizon.

Stay tuned.

I also am delinquent in noting that Al Martinez was canned, again. If you want to read about him injuring his shin or buying a puppy, you won’t be able to in the L.A. Times.