White House lawyers are trying to limit the commercial use of President Obama's name, likeness, etc.

The White House lawyers may have to make case-by-case determinations about the best ways to protect the presidential image without tempering enthusiasm or trampling on free-speech protections, said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer in Washington.

"It will be difficult," Band said. 'Because he is the president of the United States and there was this campaign and everyone's proud, I think the First Amendment will be applied much more broadly with respect to people wanting to use an image of the president than it would be with typical entertainment figures or sports figures."

Yes, everyone's very proud. This is sort of the flip side of running a cult-of-personality candidacy and is really to be expected. I suspect this is going to end up following the usual celebrity mantra: The only thing worse than everyone everyone wanting a piece of you is when they stop...

Teen sex is down:

While some young people are clearly engaging in risky sexual behavior, a vast majority are not. The reality is that in many ways, today's teenagers are more conservative about sex than previous generations.

Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1 percent in 1991.

A less recent report suggests that teenagers are also waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. A 2002 report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that 30 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38 percent in 1995. During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped to= 31 percent from 43 percent.

The rates also went down among younger teenagers. In 1995, about 20 percent said they had had sex before age 15, but by 2002 those numbers had dropped to 13 percent of girls and 15 percent of boys.

Funny, I see no mention anywhere in the article about abstinence programs. Well, in any event, it's good that more kids are waiting longer.

From USA Today:

Criminal gangs in the USA have swelled to an estimated 1 million members responsible for up to 80% of crimes in communities across the nation, according to a gang threat assessment compiled by federal officials.

The major findings in a report by the Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center, which has not been publicly released, conclude gangs are the "primary retail-level distributors of most illicit drugs" and several are "capable" of competing with major U.S.-based Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.

Look at those numbers. If that's true then 0.3% of the population is responsible for 80% of the crime. That's crazy!

Brrr...

A Cody man has been cited for public intoxication while riding his horse on a busy street during a weekend snowstorm.

Police received a call at 4 p.m. Sunday from a motorist who was concerned that Benjamin Daniels, 28, was creating a road hazard by riding his horse in conditions of poor visibility.

From the NYT:

At a news conference earlier today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the Democrat-only passage of the economic stimulus package, contending that Republicans were indeed included; their suggestions on tax cuts had become part of the bill itself, she said. But several G.O.P. senators and representatives hit the airwaves today, criticizing the spending portions and promoting their view of a more palatable alternative — bigger, broader tax cuts and incentives.

Ok, sounds good. But here's what she said...

We reached out to the Republicans all along the way, and they know it. And they know it. They were part of the original bill, with the - some of the tax provisions were their suggestions. They had what they asked for in terms of committee mark-up. They had the rule on the floor that gave them plenty of opportunity to make changes. They just didn't have the ideas that had the support of the majority of the people in the Congress.

Well, no, probably not. But since the DNC has a majority, only allowing in ideas that have the support of a majority is the same thing as only allowing in Democratic ideas. Which, logically, is NOT the same thing as allowing in Republican ideas.

From the WSJ:

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama hammered Wall Street institutions Thursday for what he called "shameful" bonuses, saying it is the "height of irresponsibility" to ask for help from taxpayers and continue to reward executives with handsome pay packages.

"There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time," President Obama said before an Oval Office meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Vice President Joe Biden.

"When I saw an article today that indicates that Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses, the same amount of bonuses as they gave themselves in 2004, at a time when most of these institutions are teetering on collapse and they are asking for taxpayers to help sustain them, and when taxpayers find themselves in the difficult position that if they don't provide help then the entire system could come down on top of our heads, that is the height of irresponsibility," President Obama told reporters.

"It is shameful."

Yeah, well, maybe. I don't know. There's not enough data to really tell. $18.4 billion is a lot of money, of course. But it is down 44% from 2007 and I don't see any data about how many people we're talking about. I would imagine that, like a sales commission, a lot of brokers and such have bonuses worked in as part of their salary structure. Just because they are white collar workers doesn't mean they're not entitled to their pay.

I'd just like to see a little more information and a lot less finger-wagging and knee-jerk bashing of the financial industry is all.

From Politico:

Politico has learned that tomorrow Americans United for Change, a liberal group, will begin airing radio ads in three states Obama won — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada — with a tough question aimed at the GOP senators there: Will you side with Obama or Rush Limbaugh?

Well, that didn't take too long. Already it's becoming an "us vs. them" mentality among the liberal attack groups. It's interesting too how they're saying Rush wants Obama to "fail" (not exactly what he said), as if Rush would want the economy to go into the toilet if it made Obama look bad. This from the people who were willing to see us fail in Iraq if it would only make Bush look bad. As is often the case, though, Rush sees through them to see the real agenda:

"Senate Republicans need to understand this is not about me," he wrote in an email. "It is about them, about intimidating them, especially after the show of unity in House. It is about the 2010 and 2012 elections. This is an opportunity for Republicans to redefine themselves after a few years of wandering aimlessly looking for a 'brand' and identity."

Exactly, yes. They're afraid the Senate will do what the House did and score a GOP shutout of the bill - nailing the bill firmly to Obama and the Democrats.

From The Note:

ABC News has learned that tax refunds are now on hold in California for the first time in state history, according to the state controller's office.

"Unfortunately, we have asked the California Franchise Tax Board not to send over tax refund claims beginning today because we will not be able to process them and have them out the door by Feb. 1 when a 30-day delay in tax refunds goes into effect," Hallye Jordan, spokeswoman to California State Controller John Chiang, tells ABC News.

During the 30-day delay, the controller's office estimates that a combined 2.74 million California individuals and businesses will have their tax refund delayed.

The controller's office estimates that the delay in tax refunds will free up $1.99 billion over the next month to pay for education, debt service, and other payments that legally have first claim to state funds.

Oh, well, bully for the State of California.  Can someone explain to me how this is anything but stealing from the taxpayers?  This is money that was taken that the State determined it was not entitled to (hence the term "refund").  Now it's keeping it and making money off of the interest.  It should by all rights pay interest back to the taxpayers for holding on to their money.  They have, in effect, forced its citizens to purchase short-term treasury bonds and is pocketing the interest.

From The Daily Telegraph (all emphasis mine):

President Barack Obama got the $825 (or $1.2 trillion over a decade) stimulus package through the House of Representatives but the 244 to 188 vote is a hollow victory indeed. Without a single Republican voting for the bill, his high-profile visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday came to exactly naught - at least on the House side.

Obama vowed to change Washington and usher in a new post-partisan era. The the mood music and optics were pitch perfect as he trekked up to the Hill. Republicans praised his gesture, welcomed his sincere demeanour and appreciated his willingness to listen.

Problem was, he wanted only to listen and did not want to act on what Republicans said. When he was asked if he would re-structure the package to include more tax cuts, he reportedly responded: "Feel free to whack me over the head because I probably will not compromise on that part."

He apparently added: " I understand that and I will watch you on Fox News and feel bad about myself."

That's fine. No doubt Obama will indeed get beaten up on Fox News. But his failure to get even the squishiest moderate Republican - including the 11 entertained in the White House by Rahm Emanuel last night - to back him is not merely a big score for Rep Eric Cantor, Republican Whip, and the rest of the GOP leadership.

It also shows that it is not just Fox, the loony Right or Rush Limbaugh - or however else you might want to characterise the opposition in order to marginalise it - who had grave misgivings about the content of the bill.

Said Rep. Schultz (D-FL):

They repeatedly are slapping the outreached hand of Democrats who are attempting to work in a bipartisan way. We have given the Republicans every opportunity to have input and help shape this.

Yes, but input doesn't mean "You guys sit in a corner and tell us what you want and we'll say no."  Once in a while you have to compromise - you know, like you were constantly telling the GOP to do when they were in power.  Instead we get:

Obama faced an early test last week, when, in the midst of the debate over economic stimulus, Democrats worked to shut Republicans out of the policy process, then behaved boorishly when Republicans complained.

Democratic leaders responded with the political equivalent of a sack dance in football. “If it’s passed with 63 votes or 73 votes, history won’t remember it,” said Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added to the mood by saying, “Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.”

There is still time for Obama to object to such behavior. If he wants to fulfill the promise of his rhetoric, he should take Pelosi to the woodshed and insist that she include Republicans, collegially, in the process. He should stand up to his party and threaten to veto a bill if it fails to make reasonable concessions to his friends across the aisle. He should advise his own staff to begin returning the phone calls of senior Republican aides.

And then, of course, those two little words:

Challenged by one Republican senator over the contents of the package, the new president, according to participants, replied: "I won."

The statement was prompted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona, who challenged the president and the Democratic leaders over the balance between the package’s spending and tax cuts, bringing up the traditional Republican notion that a tax credit for people who do not earn enough to pay income taxes is not a tax cut but a government check.

Still, other Democrats echoed the sentiment. As he left the White House, House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina was asked about Republican complaints that Democrats aren't listening to what their GOP colleagues have to say. "We're responding to the American people,” he said. “The American people didn’t listen to them too well during the election."

Which is fine by me, I'm all for "winner take all" and to hell with compromise.  That's life in politics.  But don't come back to me saying the GOP is being partisan or, when they regain power, that they're being unfair about not sharing power.

From Politico:

In what could be a preview of the 2012 presidential race, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama will share a stage together this Saturday night in Washington, Politico has learned.

The Alaska governor and former GOP vice presidential nominee, making her first trip to the nation’s capital since the election, will join the president at the Alfalfa Dinner, a venerable gathering of the city’s political elite.

No, no, no, no, no.  She's a very nice, intelligent woman, but she's been Quayled.  Rightly or wrongly, she is no longer a viable candidate for any national position and do not, do not, DO NOT put her up for any kind of nomination.

Not everyone responds to Obama's message of change. Iranian protesters have begun burning pictures of him now.  It's just another reminder that it doesn't matter what position you take or what you believe.  It doesn't matter if you're pro-Israel or not.  It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative - a hawk or a dove.  They want to destroy us.  All of us.

From MetroSource:

WASHINGTON - The masses heading to the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama could spend a lot of time in line for a port-a-potty.

A George Washington University law professor says the 5,000 port-o-potties planned for Inauguration Day will be "grossly inadequate."

Professor John Banzhaf, the so-called "Father of Potty Parity" sent a letter to the Presidential Inaugural Committee warning of potential lawsuits.

He says women, who take longer in the restroom, could be forced to wait in longer lines than men, and that amounts to discrimination.

Banzhaf says waiting in long lines is not just an inconvenience. It can trigger medical problems. He's asking the Presidential Inaugural Committee to make the toilets gender-neutral so that women do not have to wait longer than men

Yeah, so... ok.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.  If they're not apportioned by gender then it doesn't matter - everyone waits an equal amount of time, ideally.  If they are then just give more to women than men.  May still have long lines but everyone will be equally inconvenienced.  Anyway, I think the "medical problems" claim is a bit much.  Seems to me if you're like to have problems from having to wait in line maybe you should save the judicial system some wear and tear and just stay home.  Not like anyone's being forced to go to the big, crazy event with limited bathrooms.