[Guest post by DRJ]

Unranked Houston knocked off No. 5 Oklahoma State 45-35. (So much for my kind words last week about Oklahoma State.)

Notre Dame leads Michigan 34-31 with 30 seconds to go, but Michigan has the ball at the 5-yard-line. UPDATE: Michigan scored a touchdown and won the game 38-34.

Wisconsin beat Fresno St 34-31 in two overtimes.

Central Michigan stuns Michigan State 29-27.

In other close games, Northwestern edged Eastern Michigan, Indiana topped Western Michigan, Wake Forest beat Stanford, and UCLA is beating Tennessee 19-13. And the day’s far from over. USC and Ohio State play tonight and it should be good.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

H/T Instapundit, who also posts a photo from Mary Katharine Ham. Ham says House Democratic leaders are concerned about the protest and have emailed talking points that up to 2 million people could attend. Like Ham, I think that’s fishy. Her colleague Greg Sargent suggested the House leadership memo predicting huge turnout “could have been written in hopes that it would leak and inflate expectations for turnout, anticipating that it will fall far short.”

Like a loyal lapdog, the media jumps on board the Democratic talking points. According to Vodkapundit’s Stephen Green who is attending the protest watching the protest from his sofa at home, and getting on-the-ground reports from Stacy McCain and photos from Barbara Spinosa:

“It’s ABC (TV, radio? Not sure.) that pegged the crowd at two million, not CNN. Official estimate is 1.5 — but those numbers always sound inflated. Settle for a million and call it a damn fine day.”

***UPDATE: ABC did not report 2 million attendees. A FreedomWorks speaker misquoted ABC on the crowd’s size. END UPDATE***

Green also notes the popularity of Ron Paul:

“Stacy was back on the phone, telling me about radio host Mason Weaver’s speech — “I came here because I thought you might want to hear a black man speak without a teleprompter” — and then Ron Paul stepped onto the stage.

The crowd went so wild, I couldn’t hear Stacy anymore.

CORRECTION: It was a mere rumor of Paul then drove’em wild.”

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Michael Jordan was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last night. Tears ran down his face several times during the speech as he thanked the people who helped him reach his goals. But even in his moment of glory, Jordan didn’t forget the people he thinks slighted him:

“Jordan cried before beginning his acceptance speech, then entertained the crowd with memories of any slights that inspired him to get to basketball’s birthplace:

• The coach who cut him from the varsity as a North Carolina schoolboy.

“I wanted to make sure you understood: You made a mistake, dude.”

• Isiah Thomas, who allegedly orchestrated a “freezeout” of Jordan in his first All-Star game.

“I wanted to prove to you, Magic [Johnson], Larry [Bird], George [Gervin], everybody that I deserved [to be there] just as much as anybody else, and I hope over the period of my career I’ve done that without a doubt.”

• Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy — Jordan called him Pat Riley’s “little guy” — who accused Jordan of “conning” players by acting friendly toward them, then attacking them in games.

“I just so happen to be a friendly guy. I get along with everybody, but at the same time, when the light comes on, I’m as competitive as anybody you know.”

• The media who said Jordan, though a great player, would never win like Bird or Johnson.

“I had to listen to all that, and that put so much wood on that fire that it kept me each and every day trying to get better as a basketball player.”

• Lastly, Utah’s Bryon Russell. Jordan recalled meeting Russell while he was retired and playing minor league baseball in 1994 — and with Sloan looking on in horror — told of how Russell insisted he could have covered him if Jordan was still playing. Russell later got two cracks at Jordan in the NBA finals, and he was the defender when Jordan hit the clinching shot to win the 1998 title.

“From this day forward, if I ever see him in shorts, I’m coming at him.”

Jordan is competitive and maybe that’s all this was. I still think Jordan is the greatest player I’ve ever seen, but using his induction speech to get even shows he’s far from the greatest person.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

The Congressional Oversight Panel was established to oversee the implementation of the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Thursday it released a report that questioned the Treasury Department’s authority to bail out automakers GM and Chrysler:

“The report, issued Wednesday, confirmed what CNSNews.com had previously reported: that the law which created TARP–the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA)–did not grant the government specific authority to use taxpayers’ funds to rescue the auto industry.

“EESA does not explicitly state that the TARP is available to provide assistance to the automotive industry (or to any specific industry except arguably the financial and banking industry),” the report finds.

What the law did authorize was the purchase of distressed, mortgage-backed securities and other financial assets based on those securities, from American financial institutions.”

The report indicates the government is unlikely to recover its investment in the automakers, and that:

“Congress, and ultimately the American taxpayer, have been ‘left in the dark’ concerning the details of Treasury’s review process and its methodology and metrics at a time when Treasury committed additional TARP funds to these companies,” it says. “The Panel recommends that Treasury provide a legal opinion justifying the use of TARP funds for the automotive bailouts.”

The Indiana State Pensioners challenged the Chrysler bailout on several grounds, one of which was that bailing out automakers was an illegal use of TARP funds. In June, the Pensioners filed emergency appeals of the Bankruptcy Court’s approval of the Chrysler sale to Fiat, but the appeals were not successful. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision allowing the sale in June, followed in early August by the written opinion. The Second Circuit held that the Indiana State Pensioners lacked standing to challenge the legality of the use of TARP funds (pages 33 et seq).

Last week, the Indiana State Pensioners announced they intend to appeal the Second Circuit decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. This Congressional Oversight Panel report may make the Pensioners feel a little better about the merits of their appeal. Perhaps the Supreme Court will agree.

— DRJ