If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 2 or 3 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, always remember: We do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

The total national debt now exceeds $13 trillion, which is approximately equal to the Gross Domestic product in a given year.

The M3 money supply in the United States is contracting at an accelerating rate that now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933, despite near zero interest rates (this is the amount of money which is out in circulation).

Rand Paul does not show up to be grilled by David Gregory over his controversial comments made about the Civil Rights Act.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, acting surprisingly like a Republican, is supporting a pension reform bill for California, where state workers are given generous retirement packages when they retire between ages 50 and 55. Retirement age is being raised and benefits are being reduced (these retirement packages have increased 2000% over the past decade (under a Democratic congress). This proposal is not expected to pass. In order for necessary and sensible legislation like this to pass the California legislature, there will need to be a majority of Republicans elected, and Democratic candidates receiving an earful from their own constituents. This seems unlikely to me.

President Obama issues a 6-month suspension to 33 deepwater offshore drilling wells in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP.

BP efforts to “plug the hole” fail. Operation top kill used drilling mud, golf balls, and tires to fill the hole; none of which succeeded.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal wanted to build sandbars out off the Louisiana coast in order to act as a buffer to stop the oil from destroying his wetlands. The EPA could not do a study quickly enough to give him the go-ahead. The oil has reached Louisiana’s shore now.

President Obama goes on his second vacation since the oil spill crisis began, also skipping out on the Arlington Cemetery Memorial Day service.

President Clinton, the White House, and Representative Joe Sestak are now on the same page as to what happened. The story is, President Clinton, speaking on behalf of the White House, offered Joe Sestak a non-paying advisory position if he would continue as a Congressman and not run for Senator. None of this jives exactly with the statements which Sestak has made on several occasions.

There are unconfirmed reports of the Taliban using chemical warfare against American troops in Afghanistan.

The following is a story that I am still digesting, and I do not know how much it has been warped from the truth (if any). The Patriot Act allows governors to raise up state militias which are not able to be federalized (that is, unlike state guards, which President Obama could federalize, these armed warriors could not be). Apparently this is occurring in 14 states (of course, in Texas), and that President Obama has issued a warning that he will arrest the 14 governors raising up such militia groups for treason. Is this real, is it a hoax, is it a dramatic distortion? I have no idea at this time (see Additional Sources for the full story).

14 buses carrying 500 people, most of whom wore SEIU shirts and gear, stopped at the house of Gregg Baer, a lobbyist who works for the Bank of America. These 500 people, who probably knew very little about Greg Baer, demonstrated, while his 14 year-old son, who was alone at the time, huddled in the bathroom behind a locked door.

Liberal author, who plans to write a biography about Sarah Palin, rents the house next door to hers.

Dennis Hopper, known for his roles in “Easy Rider” and “Blue Velvet,” died this past Saturday.

Hillary Clinton: “The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues [America currently does] - whether it's individual, corporate or whatever [form of] taxation forms.”

Fred Thompson about Blumenthal, who claimed to be a Vietnam vet when he was not: “He is a lying weasel.”

Pat Waddell on why Obama does not condemn China over its human rights violations: “You don’t put any pressure on your banker.”

Chris Matthews: ". . . this idiotic cerebral meritocracy has got to step aside and let the people who do things take over."

The headline in many newspapers, in print and online: `Top kill` method `stops BP oil leak` in Gulf of Mexico. In case you did not know, it didn’t.

Steve Thomma at the Obama press conference: “Thank you, sir. On April 21st, Admiral Allen tells us the government started dispatching equipment rapidly to the Gulf, and you just said on day one you recognized the enormity of this situation. Yet here we are 39, 40 days later, you're still having to rush more equipment, more boom. There are still areas of the coast unprotected. Why is it taking so long? And did you really act from day one for a worst-case scenario?”

Jake Tapper at the Obama press conference: “Thanks, Mr. President. You say that everything that could be done is being done, but there are those in the region and those industry experts who say that's not true. Governor Jindal obviously had this proposal for a barrier. They say that if that had been approved when they first asked for it, they would have 10 miles up already. There are fishermen down there who want to work, who want to help, haven't been trained, haven't been told to go do so. There are industry experts who say that they're surprised that tankers haven't been sent out there to vacuum, as was done in '93 outside Saudi Arabia. And then, of course, there's the fact that there are 17 countries that have offered to help and it's only been accepted from two countries, Norway and Mexico. How can you say that everything that can be done is being done with all these experts and all these officials saying that's not true?”

President Obama: “My job right now is just to make sure that everybody in the Gulf understands this is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about: the spill.”

President Obama: "When I woke up this morning and I'm shaving, Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, 'Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?'"

Rush Limbaugh asked a series of questions as well from his radio program, including: “When you said to your staff, "Plug the damn hole," was it your impression that BP had not yet thought of that, and did it take you five weeks to come up with that solution? What were some of the other ideas you had, if this was your latest and greatest idea, plug the hole?”

Rush Limbaugh: "I know I am a target and I know I will be destroyed eventually."

And: "I fear that all I have accomplished and all the wealth I have accumulated will be taken from me, to the cheers of the crowd. I know I am hated and despised by the American Left."

"It's frightening," said Professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research. "The plunge in M3 has no precedent since the Great Depression.”

Ann Coulter: “The media has turned overnight from the people’s watchdog [under Bush] to the government’s watchdog [under Obama].”

Greg Gutfeld on Dave Matthews: “Everything that he says, the exact opposite is correct.”

Woody Allen: “It would be good...if (Obama) could be dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly.”

Joshua Behar on the gulf oil crisis and who is to blame: "But isn't this sort of like the same problem, the Bush/Cheney administration started it and now this poor guy has to mop it up. I mean, they deregulated the oil industry, right?"

18 U.S.C. § 600: Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Senator. John Kerry, D-mass. On the Cap and Trade bill: “I think this could pass. And the reason it could pass is that we have the broadest base of support, as I said. We have faith-based community support for this bill.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-calif. On comprehensive immigration legislation: “On the subject of immigration because I think the church is going to have to play a very major role in how we, how people are treated. The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me and say we want you to pass immigration reform and I said but I want you to speak about it from the pulpit. I want you to instruct your, whatever the communication is - they - the people some oppose immigration reform are sitting in those pews and you have to tell them that this is a manifestation of our living the Gospels.”

SEIU’s Andy Stern (2007): “We took names; we watched how they voted; we know where they live.”

Margaret Ogles by, previously a force protection commander in Afghanistan: [The challenges of being a black woman in America] "are nothing compared to some of the challenges the women in Afghanistan have. It is awesome to be an American and not to take for granted any of the freedoms we have here."

I suggested this Glenn Beck show to several friends. One said that she cannot eat food and watch Beck, and thinks that he is incredibly insincere when he cries on cue (her opinion, not mine). Another said that his delivery was too emotional. In church, I have heard over and over again, it’s not the man, it’s the message. In any case, this was a fantastic show; Glenn Beck taught about our Black Founding Fathers, and these are men and stories I knew nothing about. Slaves being counted as 3/5^ths of a person is explained, and it is just the opposite of what you think it means (liberals love slogans). And Glenn answers the question, when did we have our first Black Speaker of the House? Can you answer that one? Great show:

After the show, and not broadcast, many of Beck’s audience had comments and questions (there is a commercial first):

In case you do not know about Sestak and how the White House has stonewalled this controversy, this is a good overview (there are short commercials before each vid):

Chris Wallace interviewing Newt Gingrich, and Gingrich explains why Obama is running a Chicago-style socialist machine:

Assistant District Attorney in Florida fired, supposedly for her participation in the TEA party movement:

Tony Williams: a pro-school choice, pro-business democrat running for governor in Pennsylvania:

I am certainly not Rachel Maddox’s biggest fan. On the other hand, I do not claim to lose my appetite when watching her. What I have to admit, in this vid, is, she is a neo-lib and she is able to adhere to her position, even when it comes into conflict with President Obama:

Carville and Dowd speaking with Stephanopoulos (and Carville lays out what Obama ought to be doing).

Hannity and Brent Bozell video comparing reporting on Katrina versus reporting on the gulf oil crisis:

Jodi Miller: “In his recent appearance on the Today Show, Newsweek’s Jonathon Altar said, ‘You have ot respect President Obama for his thoughtfulness.’ Sorry, Jonathan, that’s not thoughtfulness you see, that’s his teleprompter freezing up.”

1) The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is the worst in U.S. history, but not in world history. It is the 2^nd worse. We have tankers which suck up oil and water, separate them, and cycle the seawater back into the sea. Where are they right now?

2) If you were a supporter of government healthcare, I hope that the government’s stellar job in relation to the oil disaster in the gulf has given you at least a some pause.

3) 16 million mortgages are underwater? This is not the fault of Bank of America or any mortgage company. Nor is this the fault of the National Association of Realtors. This was a bubble caused by the federal government which guaranteed loans to people who could not pay them back, which increased the demand in the housing market, which drove up prices dramatically over a very short period of time. Government policies and threats from our own government caused many banks to lend out easy money. When the bubble burst, the government then began to use the phrase predatory lenders, when money was leant out because of government coercion and government guarantees.

4) Turns out that Mexico is the #1 place where U.S. businesses go to outsource American jobs.

5) Have you ever noticed that, when given the chance to give their opinion of what we should do about illegal immigration, that liberals always mouth the words, “Comprehensive Legislation” and never expound on this? They refuse to say exactly what it is that they want.

6) All of the news has been telling us that the Texas Board of Education virtually stripped minorities out of the U.S. history texts. However, according to at least one person, some Black revolutionary heroes have been reintroduced into the historical narrative by the Texas Board of Education. I will keep you informed as I find out more information.

7) Obama’s approval rating has stopped its downward spiral for awhile. I believe that there are 2 reasons for that: he is no longer talking about Obamacare and he is close to the bottom of his most hardcore supporters.

31 year old single mother with 3 children and 1 deceased husband gets nearly $2800/month. Is this what you expected your social security money to go to? Do you wonder why Social Security is in the red?

Average teacher salary in South Orange County is $81,000 (before benefits). Top salary is around $98,000. Recently, they went on a 3-day strike because they were going ot have their salaries cut by 10%.

FNMA and FHLMC, which used to underwrite about have of America’s mortgages is presently underwriting or guaranteeing 96% of them. FNMA and FHLMC now underwrite or guarantee $5.5 trillion in total mortgages.

For the first 30 days since the oil spill, there were 150 major media stories on this topic. 2 of them dealt with President Obama’s inaction. 7 actually made some mention of Obama.

Within 72 hrs of Katrina, the media was excoriating George Bush over his perceived inaction

The Ap releases a story explaining how a president has a lot of things to do at one time, and Obama is just one man, juggling a myriad of problems. Therefore, we need to cut him a little slack when it comes to cleaning up the Gulf coast.

The first few lines of the story run like this: President Barack Obama keeps reassuring the nation that stopping the Gulf oil spill and limiting the fallout on the region are his top priority.

Yet so is protecting the country against attack. And getting people back to work.

Presidencies usually don't allow for a dominant priority - just a list of priorities.

Contrast this with the first paragraph of a story published about a week after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the coast:

Congress' top two Democrats furiously criticized the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday, with Sen. Harry Reid demanding to know whether President Bush's Texas vacation impeded relief efforts and Rep. Nancy Pelosi assailing the chief executive as "oblivious, in denial" about the difficulties.

No list of the things which President Bush was juggling at the same time was offered up.

Additional quotes from this article: In a letter to the Senate's Homeland Security Committee chairwoman, Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, pressed for a wide-ranging investigation and answers to several questions, including: "How much time did the president spend dealing with this emerging crisis while he was on vacation? Did the fact that he was outside of Washington, D.C., have any effect on the federal government's response?"

At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials."

Caddice Moore offers up a comparison of these two events and the press coverage here:

In a related story, this is an exchange which took place on MSNBC:

JOE KLEIN, TIME MAGAZINE: This is more Bush's second Katrina than Obama's first.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I agree, if you go to the management issue.

KLEIN: Yes, because it was the Bush regulations, it was Dick Cheney's deregulation, and lording over the Minerals Management-

KLEIN: He is incredibly lucky in his opposition. I mean, you know, the oil spill is a great example. The Republicans look worse on that than the Democrats do. I think that, because there are no really coherent Republican leaders now, he'll come back.

From:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2010/05/30/time-s-joe-klein-oil-spill-bush-s-second-katrina-republicans-look-wor

So, you have heard outrage over people carrying signs with pictures of President Obama with a Hitler mustache, and complaints of the violent rhetoric used against him (usually, code words, meaning it is not exactly violent rhetoric, but they will interpret it as such. So, what about the recent pro-Illegal immigration rally in Phoenix, AZ? Will we hear anything about the exact same things being used by these protestors?

After days of playing golf and going on vacation, the President calls British Petroleum and suggest, “I’ve got an idea; let’s plug the damn hole!”

It is possible that President Obama allowed the oil spill to go on without any attempt to clean it up, in order to appeal to the eco-crowd, by shutting down deep water drilling.

The administration is looking to wait out the controversy concerning Sestak, expecting that the press will grow bored with this story and let it fall by the wayside.

Pro-School choice, low taxes, and pro-business Democrat Tony Williams runs for governor of Pennsylvania.

Although the President was asked some good questions at his press conference, I think that they have anticipated the gotcha questions, and know how to turn them around into a talking points answer. More informational questions need to be asked, such as:

Of the many nations which offered to help the United States, which ones did you give the go-ahead to and which ones did you not allow to assist us in the gulf? Why?

What kinds of existing technology—in or out of the United States—is there to help us clean up this oil spill? Where is this right now and how long until it will be deployed? [which questions were sent off to Jake Tapper]

Rich Lowry has 3 important questions about the Sestak affair that need answering:

Since when is a former three-star admiral going to be impressed by an offer of a position on an advisory board?

If Sestak was exaggerating all along, why didn't the White House expose him months ago when it would have embarrassed him and perhaps help drag Specter over the finish line?

Does Rahm Emanuel give up so easily that after making Sestak an insulting offer of an advisory board slot he would have stopped trying to entice Sestak out of the race?

Obama essentially has done nothing for most of the month of the gulf and the oil gushing out from a mile below the surface. Cleanup activities should have begun immediately. This is in line with his inability to make a decision which falls outside of his comfort zone (like sending troops to Afghanistan, a decision which took him 3 moths to make).

If you think that Obama has made any meaningful contributions to solving the oil crisis in the gulf from day one.

If you think that Obama has any idea what to do at this point about the oil crisis in the gulf.

Many newspapers will portray Rand Paul is the political face of the TEA party movement. Every article about the younger Paul will have the words TEA party candidate or words to that effect.

This fall, many Democratic candidates (those in districts which are going to be close) for the House of Representatives are going to portray themselves as fiscal conservatives who will demand and vote for a balanced budget. They will also support 2 or 3 other conservative platforms (anti-abortion and/or pro-gun).

If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed, look for there to be more gay-bashing in the military. According to Ann Althouse, that policy provided protection for gays.

As this oil spill continues, Obama’s core support is going to start leaving him.

Because the president has had no executive experience, he is unable to make decisions with regards to the Gulf oil spill.

25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe That This Economic Recovery Is Real

If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you just might be tempted to believe that the United States has emerged from the recession and is now in the middle of a full-fledged economic recovery. In fact, according to Obama administration officials, the great American economic machine has roared back to life, stronger and more vibrant than ever before. But is that really the case? Of course not. You would have to be delusional to believe that. What did happen was that all of the stimulus packages and government spending and new debt that Obama and the U.S. Congress pumped into the economy bought us a little bit of time. But they have also made our long-term economic problems far worse. The reality is that the U.S. cannot keep supporting an economy on an ocean of red ink forever. At some point the charade is going to come crashing down.

And GDP is not a really good measure of the economic health of a nation. For example, if you would have looked at the growth of GDP in the Weimar republic in the early 1930s, you may have been tempted to think that the German economy was really thriving. German citizens were spending increasingly massive amounts of money. But of course that money was becoming increasingly worthless at the same time as hyperinflation spiralled out of control.

Well, today the purchasing power of our dollar is rapidly eroding as the price of food and other necessities continues to increase. So just because Americans are spending a little bit more money than before really doesn't mean much of anything. As you will see below, there are a whole bunch of other signs that the U.S. economy is in very, very serious trouble.

Any "recovery" that the U.S. economy is experiencing is illusory and will be quite temporary. The entire financial system of the United States is falling apart, and the powers that be can try to patch it up and prop it up for a while, but in the end this thing is going to come crashing down.

But as obvious as that may seem to most of us, there are still quite a few people out there that are absolutely convinced that the U.S. economy will fully recover and will soon be stronger than ever.

So the following are 25 questions to ask anyone who is delusional enough to believe that this economic recovery is real....

#1) In what universe is an economy with 39.68 million Americans on food stamps considered to be a healthy, recovering economy? In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011. Is a rapidly increasing number of Americans on food stamps a good sign or a bad sign for the economy?

#2) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March. This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005. So can you please explain again how the U.S. real estate market is getting better?

#3) The Mortgage Bankers Association just announced that more than 10 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago. Do you think that is an indication that the U.S. housing market is recovering?

#4) How can the U.S. real estate market be considered healthy when, for the first time in modern history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together?

#5) With the U.S. Congress planning to quadruple oil taxes, what do you think that is going to do to the price of gasoline in the United States and how do you think that will affect the U.S. economy?

#6) Do you think that it is a good sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of the state of California, says that "terrible cuts" are urgently needed in order to avoid a complete financial disaster in his state?

#7) But it just isn't California that is in trouble. Dozens of U.S. states are in such bad financial shape that they are getting ready for their biggest budget cuts in decades. What do you think all of those budget cuts will do to the economy?

#8) In March, the U.S. trade deficit widened to its highest level since December 2008. Month after month after month we buy much more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. Wealth is draining out of the United States at an unprecedented rate. So is the fact that the gigantic U.S. trade deficit is actually getting bigger a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?

#9) Considering the fact that the U.S. government is projected to have a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit in 2010, and considering the fact that if you went out and spent one dollar every single second it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars, how can anyone in their right mind claim that the U.S. economy is getting healthier when we are getting into so much debt?

#10) The U.S. Treasury Department recently announced that the U.S. government suffered a wider-than-expected budget deficit of 82.69 billion dollars in April. So is the fact that the red ink of the U.S. government is actually worse than projected a good sign or a bad sign?

#11) According to one new report, the U.S. national debt will reach 100 percent of GDP by the year 2015. So is that a sign of economic recovery or of economic disaster?

#12) Monstrous amounts of oil continue to gush freely into the Gulf of Mexico, and analysts are already projecting that the seafood and tourism industries along the Gulf coast will be devastated for decades by this unprecedented environmental disaster. In light of those facts, how in the world can anyone project that the U.S. economy will soon be stronger than ever?

#13) The FDIC's list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high. Do you think that an increasing number of small banks failing is a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?

#14) The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke. So what do you think will happen if a significant number of small banks do start failing?

#15) Existing home sales in the United States jumped 7.6 percent in April. That is the good news. The bad news is that this increase only happened because the deadline to take advantage of the temporary home buyer tax credit (government bribe) was looming. So now that there is no more tax credit for home buyers, what will that do to home sales?

#16) Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently told the U.S. government that they are going to need even more bailout money. So what does it say about the U.S. economy when the two "pillars" of the U.S. mortgage industry are government-backed financial black holes that the U.S. government has to relentlessly pour money into?

#17) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. Tens of millions of Americans find themselves just one lawsuit, one really bad traffic accident or one very serious illness away from financial ruin. With so many Americans living on the edge, how can you say that the economy is healthy?

#18) The mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere around 50 percent. So can the U.S. really be experiencing an economic recovery when so many are still unemployed in one of America's biggest cities?

#19) Gallup's measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th. That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year. Do you think that is a good trend or a bad trend?

#20) One new poll shows that 76 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession. So are the vast majority of Americans just stupid or could we still actually be in a recession?

#21) The bottom 40 percent of those living in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation's wealth. So is Barack Obama's mantra that "what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street" actually true?

#22) Richard Russell, the famous author of the Dow Theory Letters, says that Americans should sell anything they can sell in order to get liquid because of the economic trouble that is coming. Do you think that Richard Russell is delusional or could he possibly have a point?

#23) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010. In fact, that was almost twice the level of a year earlier. Does that look like a good trend to you?

#24) In March, the price of fresh and dried vegetables in the United States soared 49.3% - the most in 16 years. Is it a sign of a healthy economy when food prices are increasing so dramatically?

#25) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 - a 32 percent increase over 2008. Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005. So shouldn't we at least wait until the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy is not setting new all-time records before we even dare whisper the words "economic recovery"?

Here's my question: Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place?

Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama's tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, we've had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic

So we go deep, ultra deep - to such a technological frontier that no precedent exists for the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

There will always be catastrophic oil spills. You make them as rare as humanly possible, but where would you rather have one: in the Gulf of Mexico, upon which thousands depend for their livelihood, or in the Arctic, where there are practically no people? All spills seriously damage wildlife. That's a given. But why have we pushed the drilling from the barren to the populated, from the remote wilderness to a center of fishing, shipping, tourism and recreation?

Not that the environmentalists are the only ones to blame. Not by far. But it is odd that they've escaped any mention at all.

The other culprits are pretty obvious. It starts with BP, which seems not only to have had an amazing string of perfect-storm engineering lapses but no contingencies to deal with a catastrophic system failure.

However, the railing against BP for its performance since the accident is harder to understand. I attribute no virtue to BP, just self-interest. What possible interest can it have to do anything but cap the well as quickly as possible? Every day that oil is spilled means millions more in losses, cleanup and restitution.

Federal officials who rage against BP would like to deflect attention from their own role in this disaster. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, whose department's laxity in environmental permitting and safety oversight renders it among the many bearing responsibility, expresses outrage at BP's inability to stop the leak, and even threatens to "push them out of the way."

"To replace them with what?" asked the estimable, admirably candid Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander. No one has the assets and expertise of BP. The federal government can fight wars, conduct a census and hand out billions in earmarks, but it has not a clue how to cap a one-mile-deep, out-of-control oil well.

Obama didn't help much with his finger-pointing Rose Garden speech in which he denounced finger-pointing, then proceeded to blame everyone but himself. Even the grace note of admitting some federal responsibility turned sour when he reflexively added that these problems have been going on "for a decade or more" - translation: Bush did it - while, in contrast, his own interior secretary had worked diligently to solve the problem "from the day he took office."

Really? Why hadn't we heard a thing about this? What about the September 2009 letter from Obama's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration accusing Interior's Minerals Management Service of understating the "risk and impacts" of a major oil spill? When you get a blowout 15 months into your administration, and your own Interior Department had given BP a "categorical" environmental exemption in April 2009, the buck stops.

In the end, speeches will make no difference. If BP can cap the well in time to prevent an absolute calamity in the Gulf, the president will escape politically. If it doesn't - if the gusher isn't stopped before the relief wells are completed in August - it will become Obama's Katrina.

That will be unfair, because Obama is no more responsible for the damage caused by this than Bush was for the damage caused by Katrina. But that's the nature of American politics and its presidential cult of personality: We expect our presidents to play Superman. Helplessness, however undeniable, is no defense.

Moreover, Obama has never been overly modest about his own powers. Two years ago next week, he declared that history will mark his ascent to the presidency as the moment when "our planet began to heal" and "the rise of the oceans began to slow."

Well, when you anoint yourself King Canute, you mustn't be surprised when your subjects expect you to command the tides.

The political firestorm kept growing yesterday, with supporter James Carville ranting that the administraion has been "lackadaisical" and "naive" in its response to the disaster. He urged it to rapidly "move to Plan B."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is so frustrated with the lack of response to his plan to stop the slick with sand barriers that yesterday he called on the White House and BP to either "stop the oil spill or get out of the way."

While the White House dithers, the damage has begun: Veterinarian Heather Nevill washing a pelican soiled with oil from the Gulf spill.

"Plug the damn hole," President Obama reportedly barked at staffers in frustration after the explosion. That's right up there with "Heckuva job, Brownie" in terms of clueless statements uttered by presidents in the midst of nationally televised disasters.

Meanwhile, White House regret over Obama's politically expedient embrace of the "Drill, baby, drill" trope is growing faster than the vast oil slick.

Back on March 31, Obama announced -- to the horror of many of his supporters -- that he was expanding offshore drilling along the coastlines of the south and mid-Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico. Worse, he painted a (too) rosy scenario of offshore drilling being eminently safe.

True, it is rare that a full-blown environmental catastrophe results from an offshore oil well. But it can happen -- and a Democratic president who's embracing drilling ought to know the risks, and be prepared for the worst. But rather than planning for a spill, Obama parroted McCain-Palin talking points about how safe offshore drilling is.

Turns out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration back in 1994 drafted plans for responding to a major Gulf oil spill, a response called "In-Situ Burn."

Ron Gourget, a former federal oil-spill-response coordinator and one author of the draft, told the Times of London: "The whole reason the plan was created was so that we could pull the trigger right away." The idea was to use barriers called "fire booms" to collect and contain the spill at sea -- then burn it off. He believes this could have captured 95 percent of the oil from this spill.

But at the time of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the federal government didn't have a single fire boom on hand. Nor is there any evidence that the government required BP to have any clear plan to deal with a massive spill. How is this OK?

The administration's chief response so far was to send out Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to do his best impersonation of a totalitarian thug, proclaiming that the government would "have its boot on the throat of BP."

(Fun fact: While in the Senate, Salazar backed an increase in oil and gas leases in the Gulf Coast region by promoting and voting for the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006.)

Since the "blame BP" strategy isn't working, Obama will today announce tougher safety requirements and more rigorous inspections for offshore drilling operations. Sounds nice -- except the problem isn't a lack of safety requirements, it's that the experts at the US Minerals Management Service ignored the existing requirements.

In fact, it was under Salazar's reign that the MMS approved BP's drilling without getting the permits required by law for drilling that might harm endangered species. The agency routinely overruled warnings regarding the safety and environmental impact of drilling proposals in the Gulf.

It also shouldn't be a secret that no matter how many inspections and safety requirements you have, you can't ever completely prevent disasters like this one. If you're going to permit offshore drilling, be prepared to respond to a spill.

If he promised us anything, Obama promised us competence. Instead, we've gotten the Keystone Cops.

[Kirsten Powers is a Democratic Strategist, a moderate Democrat, who used to work for the Clinton administration]

I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts.

There was the tearing and unnecessary war over his health-care proposal and its cost. There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration. And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don't see how you politically survive this.

The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen. This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008. But he has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They're in one reality, he's in another.

President Obama promised on Thursday to hold BP accountable in the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill and said his administration would do everything necessary to protect and restore the coast.

The American people have spent at least two years worrying that high government spending would, in the end, undo the republic. They saw the dollars gushing night and day, and worried that while everything looked the same on the surface, our position was eroding. They have worried about a border that is in some places functionally and of course illegally open, that it too is gushing night and day with problems that states, cities and towns there cannot solve.

And now we have a videotape metaphor for all the public's fears: that clip we see every day, on every news show, of the well gushing black oil into the Gulf of Mexico and toward our shore. You actually don't get deadlier as a metaphor for the moment than that, the monster that lives deep beneath the sea.

In his news conference Thursday, President Obama made his position no better. He attempted to act out passionate engagement through the use of heightened language-"catastrophe," etc.-but repeatedly took refuge in factual minutiae. His staff probably thought this demonstrated his command of even the most obscure facts. Instead it made him seem like someone who won't see the big picture. The unspoken mantra in his head must have been, "I will not be defensive, I will not give them a resentful soundbite." But his strategic problem was that he'd already lost the battle. If the well was plugged tomorrow, the damage will already have been done.

The original sin in my view is that as soon as the oil rig accident happened the president tried to maintain distance between the gusher and his presidency. He wanted people to associate the disaster with BP and not him. When your most creative thoughts in the middle of a disaster revolve around protecting your position, you are summoning trouble. When you try to dodge ownership of a problem, when you try to hide from responsibility, life will give you ownership and responsibility the hard way. In any case, the strategy was always a little mad. Americans would never think an international petroleum company based in London would worry as much about American shores and wildlife as, say, Americans would. They were never going to blame only BP, or trust it.

I wonder if the president knows what a disaster this is not only for him but for his political assumptions. His philosophy is that it is appropriate for the federal government to occupy a more burly, significant and powerful place in America-confronting its problems of need, injustice, inequality. But in a way, and inevitably, this is always boiled down to a promise: "Trust us here in Washington, we will prove worthy of your trust." Then the oil spill came and government could not do the job, could not meet the need, in fact seemed faraway and incapable: "We pay so much for the government and it can't cap an undersea oil well!"

This is what happened with Katrina, and Katrina did at least two big things politically. The first was draw together everything people didn't like about the Bush administration, everything it didn't like about two wars and high spending and illegal immigration, and brought those strands into a heavy knot that just sat there, soggily, and came to symbolize Bushism. The second was illustrate that even though the federal government in our time has continually taken on new missions and responsibilities, the more it took on, the less it seemed capable of performing even its most essential jobs. Conservatives got this point-they know it without being told-but liberals and progressives did not. They thought Katrina was the result only of George W. Bush's incompetence and conservatives' failure to "believe in government." But Mr. Obama was supposed to be competent.

Remarkable too is the way both BP and the government, 40 days in, continue to act shocked, shocked that an accident like this could have happened. If you're drilling for oil in the deep sea, of course something terrible can happen, so you have a plan on what to do when it does.

How could there not have been a plan? How could it all be so ad hoc, so inadequate, so embarrassing? We're plugging it now with tires, mud and golf balls?

What continues to fascinate me is Mr. Obama's standing with Democrats. They don't love him. Half the party voted for Hillary Clinton, and her people have never fully reconciled themselves to him. But he is what they have. They are invested in him. In time-after the 2010 elections go badly-they are going to start to peel off. The political operative James Carville, the most vocal and influential of the president's Gulf critics, signaled to Democrats this week that they can start to peel off. He did it through the passion of his denunciations.

The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the president and his administration, and that is no cause for joy. It's not good to have a president in this position-weakened, polarizing and lacking broad public support-less than halfway through his term. That it is his fault is no comfort. It is not good for the stability of the world, or its safety, that the leader of "the indispensable nation" be so weakened. I never until the past 10 years understood the almost moral imperative that an American president maintain a high standing in the eyes of his countrymen.

Mr. Obama himself, when running for president, made much of Bush administration distraction and detachment during Katrina. Now the Republican Party will, understandably, go to town on Mr. Obama's having gone before this week only once to the gulf, and the fund-raiser in San Francisco that seemed to take precedence, and the EPA chief who decided to cancel a New York fund-raiser only after the press reported that she planned to attend.

But Republicans should beware, and even mute their mischief. We're in the middle of an actual disaster. When they win back the presidency, they'll probably get the big California earthquake. And they'll probably blow it. Because, ironically enough, of a hard core of truth within their own philosophy: When you ask a government far away in Washington to handle everything, it will handle nothing well.

Barack Obama, an unbeliever genuflecting before the altar of frugality, is asking Congress, as presidents do, to give him something like a line-item veto. Coming in today's context of his unrelenting agenda of expanding government, his proposal constitutes a counterfeit promise to get serious about controlling spending and the deficit. His purpose is to distract the public while Democrats enact something like Stimulus III.

Obama's Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act confirms the axiom that the titles of bills, like the titles of Marx brothers movies ("Duck Soup," "Horse Feathers"), are utterly uninformative. The act would aggravate a distortion of the Constitution that has grown for seven decades, enlarging presidential power by allowing presidents to treat spending bills as cafeterias from which they can take what they like and reject the rest.

Under Obama's proposal, presidents would list dubious spending, then Congress would have to accept or reject, by a simple majority, his entire list, which could not be filibustered. This might, or might not, be constitutionally problematic.

It certainly would not reduce deficit spending: Under the president's proposal, if Congress kills the projects on the president's list, the budgetary allocation would not be reduced, so legislators could dream up new things on which to spend the money.

In 1996, when a Republican-controlled Congress gave President Bill Clinton, by statute, a line-item veto, Pat Moynihan's intervention in the Senate debate began: "I rise in the serene confidence that this measure is constitutionally doomed." The Supreme Court proved Moynihan prescient.

That law's constitutional infirmity was that it empowered the president to cancel provisions of legislation. This violated the separation of powers by making the president's activity indistinguishable from making laws rather than executing them. The Constitution says that "every bill" passed by Congress shall be "presented" to the president, who shall sign "it" or return "it" with his objections. The antecedent of the pronoun is the bill -- all of it, not bits of it.

Even if Congress enacted Obama's proposed "expedited rescission" (an existing rescission process enables presidents to recommend cuts) and even if the law passed constitutional muster, it would be inconsequential as a control on spending. Actually, it probably would make matters worse.

Today, 62 percent of federal spending goes to entitlements (56) and debt service (6). Both will be growing portions of budgets, and both are immune to any vetoes. Defense and homeland security are 21 percent of the budget and will be almost entirely immune. So the line-item veto's target would be at most 17 percent of the budget.

What about earmarks? If all 9,499 of last year's had been vetoed, this would have saved $15.9 billion, or a risible 0.45 percent of spending.

Furthermore, Obama's proposed law would encourage legislators to feel free to appropriate even more irresponsibly, because it would locate responsibility in the presidency. And presidents could decline to veto particular spending projects in exchange for the sponsoring legislators' support on other matters. When Congress gave Clinton the line-item veto in 1996, the year of welfare reform, Vice President Al Gore said Clinton would use the promise of not vetoing pet projects to leverage higher welfare spending.

Presidents resent having to choose complete acceptance or rejection of gargantuan spending bills. In 1789, the First Congress's only appropriations bill was 142 words long; Ronald Reagan argued for a line-item veto by brandishing a 43-pound, 3,296-page bill.

Although George Washington acknowledged that he must "approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it, in toto," he and most subsequent presidents considered appropriations permissive rather than mandatory. But after Watergate, Congress acted against the presidential practice of "impounding" -- not spending -- monies Congress appropriated.

Obama probably hopes that his proposal will divert attention from a slew of spending that, taken together, constitutes something that dare not speak its name -- Stimulus III -- because its predecessors mostly pleased only the political class and its employees. After George Bush's $168 billion Stimulus I in 2008, the Obama administration predicted that its $787 billion Stimulus II (actual cost: $862 billion) would prevent unemployment from exceeding 8 percent. Unemployment is now 9.9 percent. Hence Stimulus III. Like Stimulus II, its scores of billions of spending will enlarge the deficit in order to disproportionately benefit spendthrift state and local governments and their unionized employees.

Last year, Obama ordered 15 department heads to find economies totaling $100 million, which was then 13 minutes (0.0029 percent) of federal spending. His new rescission proposal also is frugality theater and is similarly frivolous.

We're constantly urged to "go green" -- use less energy, shrink our carbon footprint, save the Earth. How? We should drive less, use ethanol, recycle plastic and buy things with the government's Energy Star label.

But what if much of going green is just bunk? Al Gore's group, Repower America, claims we can replace all our dirty energy with clean, carbon-free renewables. Gore says we can do it within 10 years.

"It's simply not possible," says Robert Bryce, author of "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy." "Nine out of 10 units of power that we consume are produced by hydrocarbons -- coal, oil and natural gas. Any transition away from those sources is going to be a decades-long, maybe even a century-long process. ... The world consumes 200 billion barrels of hydrocarbons per day. We would have to find the energy equivalent of 23 Saudi Arabias."

Bryce used to be a left-liberal, but then: "I educated myself about math and physics. I'm a liberal who was mugged by the laws of thermodynamics."

"Let's assume you saved a gallon of oil in your commute (a generous assumption!). Global daily energy consumption is 9.5 billion gallons. ... So by biking to work, you save the equivalent of one drop in 10 gasoline tanker trucks. Put another way, it's one pinch of salt in a 100-pound bag of potato chips."

"Wind does not replace oil. This is one of the great fallacies, and it's one that the wind energy business continues to promote," Bryce said.

The problem is that windmills cannot provide a constant source of electricity. Wind turbines only achieve 10 percent to 20 percent of their maximum capacity because sometimes the wind doesn't blow.

"That means you have to keep conventional power plants up and running. You have to ramp them up to replace the power that disappears from wind turbines and ramp them down when power reappears."

Yet the media rave about Denmark, which gets some power from wind. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says, "If only we could be as energy smart as Denmark."

"Friedman doesn't fundamentally understand what he's talking about," Bryce said.

Bryce's book shows that Denmark uses eight times more coal and 25 times more oil than wind.

If wind and solar power were practical, entrepreneurs would invest in it. There would be no need for government to take money from taxpayers and give it to people pushing green products.

Even with subsidies, "renewable" energy today barely makes a dent on our energy needs.

Bryce points out that energy production from every solar panel and windmill in America is less than the production from one coal mine and much less than natural gas production from Oklahoma alone.

"One nuclear power plant in Texas covers about 19 square miles, an area slightly smaller than Manhattan. To produce the same amount of power from wind turbines would require an area the size of Rhode Island. This is energy sprawl." To produce the same amount of energy with ethanol, another "green" fuel, it would take 24 Rhode Islands to grow enough corn.

There have been impressive headlines about electric cars from my brilliant colleagues in the media. The Washington Post said, "Prices on electric cars will continue to drop until they're within reach of the average family."

In 1979, The Washington Post said, "GM has an electric car breakthrough in batteries, now makes them commercially practical."

"The problem is very simple," Bryce said. "It's not political will. It's simple physics. Gasoline has 80 times the energy density of the best lithium ion batteries. There's no conspiracy here of big oil or big auto. It's a conspiracy of physics."

With a Democratic Attorney General in Washington, a Democratic president, and both houses of Congress solidly in Democratic control, it is obviously futile to hope that the possible bribery of Joe Sestak to induce him to withdraw from the Senate race against Arlen Specter will be fully investigated. But, as the facts of this scandal grudgingly emerge from the White House and from Congressman Sestak, there is an alternative way to pursue justice.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General, Tom Corbett - who is the Republican nominee for Governor this year - has ample jurisdiction to convene a grand jury to get to the bottom of the scandal and answer the key questions:

Corbett's jurisdiction stems from the concept of universal jurisdiction, now accepted virtually everywhere. The concept is simple. If someone on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River fires a pistol across the Hudson and the bullet from the pistol hits someone on the NY side, where did the crime take place? For about 600 years, the answer would have been in NY, where the harm was caused. Under the Reagan administration, and in response to urgings from the Meese Justice Department, the courts began to accept the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. This principle gives jurisdiction to law enforcement in the place wherever any act occurred that may have resulted in a crime. Thus, under our scenario above, the shooter could be prosecuted in NJ or NY.

Thus, if Cong. Sestak was in one of his homes, in PA or VA, when he received a telephone call offering him a job if he withdrew from the PA Senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter, law enforcement authorities in PA and VA - both of which have Republican state Attorneys General - can subpoena Cong. Sestak to testify before a state grand jury and compel him to answer the who, what, when, and where that everyone has a right to know.

The people of the United States and, particularly the people of Pennsylvania, want these questions to be answered honestly. They will not settle for a Democratic stonewall that refuses to let the truth emerge.

Under our federal system, we need not tolerate giving one party the power to be the prosecutor, judge, defendant, defense attorney, and jury. We can open the process to checks and balances.

Corbett should make it possible for the truth to emerge by convening a grand jury and summoning Sestak, Emanuel, and anyone else who may have been involved to answer questions under oath.

The New York Times revealed this afternoon that anonymous sources have informed it that Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel asked former President Bill Clinton to offer Congressman Joe Sestak a high but unpaid advisory post in the Administration if he would drop out of the Senate race against Senator Arlen Specter. One post mentioned was service on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

The idea was to immunize Obama and Rahm from possible criminal prosecution by using Clinton, not a government employee, as a cut out and to keep the offer to an unpaid job in hopes of not running afoul of the federal bribery statute.

But these evasions will not blunt the force of the law. If Clinton acted at Emanuel's request, he was Rahm's agent and the Chief of Staff is still on the hook. And, an unpaid position is still "something of value" within the meaning of the bribery statute which prohibits the offering of something of value in return for a vote.

And, remember why they wanted Sestak out of the race. The White House needed Specter's vote to kill filibusters and could only get it if he would switch parties, a move he conditioned on getting Sestak to drop out and assure him a clear field for the nomination of his new party. So the bribe offer to Sestak was made by an agent of a government employee, it involved something of value, and it was to procure a vote in the Senate - all the elements needed for a felony to have taken place.

In a previous column (read it at DickMorris.com) Dick and Fox News Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano suggest that Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, now the Republican nominee for Governor, should empanel a grand jury to get to the bottom of this affair. Today's revelation makes this ever more urgent.

Crafting a cover story that is consistent with awkward facts is hard. Did the best and the brightest miss this? Sestak was not eligible to serve on the Intelligence Advisory Board. Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports:

In a little-noticed passage Friday, the New York Times reported that Rep. Joe Sestak was not eligible for a place on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, the job he was reportedly offered by former President Bill Clinton. And indeed a look at the Board's website reveals this restriction:

The Board consists of not more than 16 members appointed by the President from among individuals who are not employed by the Federal Government. Members are distinguished citizens selected from the national security, political, academic, and private sectors.

As a sitting member of Congress, Sestak was not eligible for the job. [....]

The statement from White House counsel Robert Bauer did not specifically mention the intelligence board, but speaking to reporters Friday, Sestak said of his conversation with Clinton, "At the time, I heard the words `presidential board,' and that's all I heard...I heard `presidential board,' and I think it was intel." In addition, the Times reported that "people briefed on the matter said one option was an appointment" to the intelligence board. But the White House could not legally have placed Sestak on the board.

If you’re going to criticize the new social studies curriculum adopted by the Texas Board of Education, you had better quote it.

Or at least link to the text. And if you choose to paraphrase and not even link, and I have to look up the text myself, and your paraphrase is not accurate, it is my job to embarrass you by pointing that out.

Let me embarrass the Washington Post. Below, the material from the WaPo article, written by Michael Birnbaum, is indented. After the indented part, I've located the relevant quote from the Board of Education text, found here. (I'm searching 3 PDF documents: Economics with Emphasis on the Free Enterprise System and Its Benefits Subchapter A. High School; Social Studies Subchapter B. Middle School; Social Studies Subchapter C. High School.)

The students are required to "describe how McCarthyism, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the arms race, and the space race increased Cold War tensions and how the later release of the Venona Papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government..." The word "vindicated" is inflammatory and unfair. What is the Washington Post saying historians deny? One can be informed of the reality of what the Venona Papers revealed about communist infiltration into the U.S. government and still understand and deplore the excesses of "McCarthyism."

Students are required to "analyze the ideas contained in Jefferson Davis' inaugural address and Abraham Lincoln's ideas about liberty, equality, union, and government as contained in his first and second inaugural addresses and the Gettysburg Address." The word "equivalency" is uncalled for. The requirement is to analyze, not to be indoctrinated that the ideas are the same.

What I'm seeing is "explain the significance of the League of Nations and the United Nations" and "analyze the human and physical factors that influence the power to control territory, create conflict/war, and impact international political relations such as the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), or the control of resources." Where is the language that can be paraphrased "imperil American sovereignty"?

Students are required to "explain the roles played by significant individuals and heroes during the Civil War, including Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, and congressional Medal of Honor recipients William Carney and Philip Bazaar." Only Davis and Lee were Confederate officials! There is also this: "describe the role of individuals such as governors George Wallace, Orval Faubus, and Lester Maddox and groups, including the Congressional bloc of southern Democrats, that sought to maintain the status quo [in the Civil Rights Era]." That's obviously not from the Civil War, but I can see why it's annoying to Democrats.

The document on economics does use the term "free enterprise system" throughout, but students are required to "understand that the terms free enterprise, free market, and capitalism are synonymous terms to describe the U.S. economic system," so what is the problem?

Virtually everything cited in the article to make the curriculum seem controversial is misstated! Appalling!

ADDED: Birnbaum had an article in the previous day's Washington Post that does contain quotes, and these have to do with changes that went through on Thursday (and which do not - but should! - appear in the documents that are available at the Board of Education website):

This provides support for Birnbaum's statement that the standards "include a long list of Confederate officials about whom students must learn." And it answers my question "Where is the language that can be paraphrased 'imperil American sovereignty'?" My criticisms about "vindicating" McCarthyism, "the equivalency between Jefferson Davis's and Abraham Lincoln's inaugural addresses," and the term "free-enterprise system" remain.

I have not been defending the Texas standards, only attacking the quality of the journalism that fails to quote or link to a text that is referred to. Birnbaum's Friday article contains some useful quotes (though still not a link to the whole text). The Saturday article was unanchored to text and forced me to look for what I could find on line. I'm also criticizing inaccurate paraphrasing, like the use of the words "vindicating" and "equivalency." Birnbaum's take on the standards might be true, but in an article that refers to a text, I do need to see the text. Paraphrasing, without the text, raises suspicions, and I don't apologize for having those suspicions.

ALSO: I'm critical of the Board of Education for not posting all the relevant text on its website. And - as should be obvious - I'm not endorsing the standards themselves. The complexity and detail alone tends to show that the Board did not have the best interests of children at the center of their project. And it didn't seem to care much about the capacity of teachers. The material on law, for example, would be difficult for a law professor to teach to law students.

Well, the stock market is getting pounded, down another 23 points Tuesday. After a nice run-up last year, the Dow is down almost 900 points over the last three weeks. And along with the market's fall comes a drop in President Obama's job approval rating.

On Tuesday, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll has just 42 percent of Americans approving. Fifty-six percent do not like the way President Obama is doing his job.

So even with problems like the oil spill and illegal immigration, it is still the economy that drives public opinion.

The Obama administration believes the U.S. economy is getting better and that the chaos in Europe is behind the stock market tumble.

But Americans are worried. The president has been in office for 16 months. When he arrived, unemployment was at 7.7 percent. Now it's 9.9 percent.

Also, Mr. Obama has spent billions bailing out failing companies and imposing social justice through things like universal health care. Meantime, the USA now owes almost $13 trillion.

The reason Greece, Spain and other European countries are in trouble is that they are bankrupt. The reason America is not bankrupt is that the Chinese and others continue to invest here, giving the feds the money to pay the interest on our enormous debt, but that could stop. Also, we are not paying down what we owe, so there are obviously serious economic problems in America.

If the economy does not drastically improve over the next few months, the Democrats will lose control of Congress, and Mr. Obama will be on the defensive.

Remember, the presidential campaign of 2012 will start in January 2011, just seven months from now.

The compelling question is whether Barack Obama will stop governing from the left because it is clear the country cannot afford to expand the government and entitlements anymore. Just like California, Mr. Obama will have to start cutting - and cutting big - very soon.

If the president raises taxes, the economy could get much worse. So the president is, indeed, caught between Barack and a hard place.

The SEIU demonstration at the private home of a banker (this includes pictures and video). My guess is, you did not even know this happened.

You may recall that, when it appeared as though someone in the Bush administration revealed the Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, there was a virtual uproar in the press (which suddenly died down after she appeared in various pictorials and it turned out that neither Rove nor Cheney had leaked this information). Now we have lawyers revealing the identities of real CIA agents (not paper pushers) to Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and there is a dearth of outrage in the media:

What If George W. Bush Had Called Gay Rights Activists 'Faggots?' by Brent Bozell (this is akin to President Obama calling TEA party activists, tea baggers; except that tea baggers is a more derogatory term):

Number one: Do you prefer golf or basketball when avoiding the hard work of being president?

Number two: Approximately 70% of the American people approve of Arizona's immigration law and want the border sealed. What do you do, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Felipe Calderon know about these matters that we don't?

Number three: You say that you won't rest until every American has a job and the Gulf oil spill is capped and the area cleaned up. Well, why are you vacationing in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend and then returning to Washington for a Paul McCartney concert?

Number four: Speaking of Memorial Day, why not commemorate the day at Arlington National Cemetery? Are you avoiding Arlington due to the fact that you embarrassed yourself there a few years ago when you said, "On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, and I see many of them in the audience here today, our sense of patriotism is particularly strong." Remember him saying that? He saw many of our fallen heroes in the audience, meaning he saw the walking dead. Remember he said that?

Number five: When you do deliver your Memorial Day remarks, if the word "corpsman" pops up on your teleprompter, how will you pronounce the word, "corpsman" or "corpesman"?

Number six: did you learn to solve big problems by putting your boot on people's necks from Frank Marshall Davis, Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, or Rahm Emanuel?

Number seven: When you said to your staff, "Plug the damn hole," was it your impression that BP had not yet thought of that, and did it take you five weeks to come up with that solution? What were some of the other ideas you had, if this was your latest and greatest idea, plug the hole?

Number eight: When it comes to Gulf oil spill, would you say that better late than never is your motto, or is it, why do today what can be done tomorrow?

Number nine: Should the American people be saying "thank you" for the economy and for your response to the Gulf oil spill?

RUSH: I guess now we know why, ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton had lunch yesterday. They had to get their stories straight.

As we head into the Memorial Day weekend, hurricanes could be... (interruption) Yes! I'm going to get to Sestak in a minute. Just keep your pants on. "Hurricanes could be stronger than usual because black oil would heat water faster and accelerate formation." So the hurricane geniuses are now revising their forecasts because of all the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The theory is the oil is dark, it's black. It gets hot faster than the water does, and if a hurricane comes along, I mean it's over. Why don't we all just commit suicide and be done with this? Let's just be done with it. Every waking moment is a disaster waiting to happen. The Drive-By Media cannot wait for it.

Okay, now we know why Clinton and Obama had lunch yesterday. They had to get their stories straight on this Sestak business. It is... (laughing) Folks, this is just too rich. Isn't it great? Here's what happened. Apparently Rahm Emanuel went to Clinton and said, "Look, would you go talk to Sestak informally? See if he's interested in taking a nonpaid -- an unpaid job -- high position job, unpaid here in the administration." And Clinton, of course, said (doing impression), "Hey, Mr. President, whatever you want. You know, I said, 'You're going to have to kiss my ass' back during the campaign if you wanted my support 'cause of the way you called me racist and so forth, the way you portrayed me and Hillary. Now you gotta come kiss my ass. So fine you're kissing my ass." I got the story right here. Clinton said that. Sit tight.

"I'm going to kiss your ass, you kiss my ass, and I will make sure that you are all right. You come groveling to me I'll be happy to help you out here." Now, look at what's happened here. They go to Bill Clinton. He's famous for getting people jobs. Monica Lewinsky offered a job at Revlon. She was offered a job at the United Nations. She didn't take any of them. But they've got Bill Clinton. Isn't it great, folks, that they've found a guy who they know will commit perjury to carry the water here? (chuckling) Snerdley... This is why the staff does not have microphones. People ask, "Why can't we hear them speak to you?" (chuckling) Anyway, what better choice than Bill Clinton, a man who they know was willing to commit perjury in order to carry the water here.

Now, there's some question over whether this is any big deal or not. The document dump on this coincides with The One's arrival down in New Orleans. He's going to spend three hours touring the disaster in Louisiana. His average golf game, according to the New York Times, is five hours. Last summer he went on vacation up to Martha's Vineyard and he played on a course owned and operated by a good friend of mine, the Vineyard, and he spent five hours out there. The reason it takes five hours because he's not any good, most of the time is spent in the woods looking for his errant shots. That's in the New York Times! I'm not it up. Now, I went and looked at the law on this.

"18 U.S.C. § 211 : US Code - Section 211: Acceptance or Solicitation to Obtain Appointive Public Office -- Whoever solicits or receives, either as a political contribution, or for personal emolument, any money or thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both," and it doesn't say here anything about it has to be a paid position. "Whoever solicits..." In this case it would be Rahm Emanuel going through Der Schlick Meister. "Whoever solicits or receives," that would be Sestak -- and then, by the way, Clinton went to Sestak's brother. That's the circuitous route here.

"Whoever solicits or receives any thing of value in consideration of aiding a person to obtain employment under the United States either by referring his name to an executive department or agency of the United States or by requiring the payment of a fee because such person has secured such employment shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. This section shall not apply to such services rendered by an employment agency," I guess they're going to say Clinton has one because Lewinsky has been a previous client "pursuant to the written request of an executive department or agency of the United States."

So they're trying to get around this by saying it's not paid. You know, we've always thought "B.J." meant one thing. No. It means "bribe jobs." That's apparently what it means. Lewinsky is what it is. B.J. means "bribe jobs." There are two laws here, this one I just read to you. There two laws they appear to be violating but I doubt anybody's going to press this, but clearly this is subject to the law. A lot of people have been saying this is a potential impeachment type of offense here. Now, I've heard some commentators inside-the-Beltway commentators "Oh-ho-ho! This is no big deal. Why, this is just the way Washington works. It happens all the time. People are offered jobs for silence. People are offered jobs to give up their congressional seats all the time if they think they're going to lose, fall on the sword. This happens all the time."

Well, just because it happens all the time doesn't make it right. Sestak, the onus has been on him because he blew the whistle on this. He's the one that said he was offered a job. Well, who and what and how? So Clinton, Obama had lunch yesterday and the story is, "Well, Rahm Emanuel went to Clinton and Clinton sought Sestak out through his brother to see if Sestak was interested in a very influential and important unpaid federal job." Now, we are left here to believe that that is what happened, it was totally innocent, and as I say: It looks like the lawyers are gonna claim that if the offer was for an unpaid position, it is of no value, and therefore not technically a bribe, because it all centers here on whether or not Sestak was being bribed by the administration to give up his campaign for the Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Now, if... (interruption) (laughing) Bribery for him?

Every time the Democrats break laws, we need to "reform the laws," as though the law was the problem. The Democrats are just fine people. Even if the White House and Clinton are not lying about this (which is unlikely) it's still a very tough argument to make, since a high position in the government has real value besides and beyond just monetary compensation. No matter how they slice it, it's still a quid pro quo offer. So Fox News was first on this saying the White House counsel's office going to say that Clinton offered Sestak a vague unpaid position or possible positions through Sestak's brother. Buried way, way back in the New York Times on their website, the Caucus Blog: "White House Used Bill Clinton to Ask Sestak to Drop out of Race -- Obama's chief of staff" that would be Rahm Emanuel "used Clinton as an intermediary to see if Sestak would drop out of the Senate primary if given a prominent but unpaid advisory position."

Now, a lot of you are probably wondering, "What do you mean, Rush, that you started out here with Clinton talking about kissing his rear end?" Here it is. This is the UK Telegraph back in June of 2008. It's by Tim Shipman in Washington and Philip Sherwell in New York, and it's June 28th, 2008. This is after Operation Chaos is over and the Democrat primaries are over. "Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support. ... The Telegraph has learned that the former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronizing attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence. A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could 'kiss my ass' in return for his support."

So here it is, UK Telegraph, the media. Clinton's "lingering fury has shocked his friends. The Democrat told the Telegraph: 'He's been angry for a while. But everyone thought he would get over it. He hasn't. I've spoken to a couple of people who he's been in contact with and he is mad as hell. 'He's saying he's not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support." Well, it appears that it happened yesterday. It appears that it happened. (laughing) Clinton finally got what he wanted. He was asked to bail Obama out of this, and has -- has done so. So this has been a building. It's been building to a crescendo here and people have been wondering, "Well, who did what to who?" because, you know, Sestak, the onus has been on him. He's the one that revealed this had happened but he wouldn't provide any details.

He was waiting for the White House to come out with the story, and now that they've come out with the story, Sestak's not talking. You know, he's going right along with it. But he was either one of two things. Either Sestak was lying when this all happened, or something far more serious was going on and that is that a bribe was offered. Now, it may be "the way the game is played in Washington" but Sestak blew it by going public with it. So now the lid's off, everybody is looking into it, and it remains to be seen if this is going to be accepted and the end of the story. In the meantime, Sestak's poll numbers in the Pennsylvania senatorial race are sort of leveling out. He's running against Pat Toomey, as you know, who looks good.

RUSH: Have you noticed the Democrats always throw their brothers under the bus when a controversy comes up? I mean look at the brothers of Democrats always get thrown to the wolves. Billy Carter got thrown to the wolves. Roger Clinton got thrown to the wolves. Hillary's brothers got thrown to the wolves. Hugh Rodham was thrown to the wolves and now Sestak's brother. It's all Sestak's brother's fault! Do you know what the two most dangerous jobs in the world are? The two most dangerous jobs in the world are being number three at Al-Qaeda and being the brother of an American Democrat politician -- and of course look at Obama's brother! This guy, he's still stuck in a hut. He's still living in a six-by-nine-foot hut in Kenya. His brother is president and he hadn't even sent the him a little sign "Home, Sweet Hut." Living in a hut for crying out loud! Twenty dollars would change this guy's life. No running water.

RUSH: We'll start in Chicago with Susan. Glad you called, and welcome to the program.

CALLER: I just think that this is absurd with this Sestak job offer. Nobody's going to offer somebody a job with no compensation to give up a Senate race? That's absurd.

RUSH: Well, but the Democrats understand they've got a sympathetic and supportive stenographer-like media to report this -- and they have, of course, the august stature of Bill Clinton to stand behind the veracity of this. I mean, what better guy could they have found to carry the story than a guy that has been willing to commit perjury before.

CALLER: No, not at all. And another thing I wanted to bring up to you is I heard on late-night radio that President Obama has a Connecticut-issued Social Security number that he supposedly got when he was 21 years old from a state that he never lived in.

RUSH: I seem to have heard that somewhere. I don't know. I don't know any of the details about that. In fact, I don't know if that's actually true. I haven't looked into it, but I think I've heard that. But regardless, that's way down on the list of things to be concerned about is where he has his Social Security card. I appreciate the call, Susan.

RUSH: Here is Richard in Cincinnati. Richard, great to have you on the EIB Network. Great to have you here.

CALLER: I'd like to make a comment about Joe Sestak. You know, I was thinking over the weekend here, Memorial Day, our fallen heroes, we have this retired admiral that more than likely made decisions and put lives on the line. And I got to wondering, "You know, what if our soldiers out there came into fire or something and decided to save their own butts as opposed to doing what they go in there for, which is to protect freedom and stuff," and now we've got this retired admiral that seems to be selling out to save his own skin. It just kind of makes me a little bit angry about it. I hope he's listening. But I mean the man is, to me, he's a coward and a disgrace, and he needs to really come clean.

RUSH: Here's what happened. I've been hearing this ever since the story broke. When I brought it up to people, they said, "Come on, Rush! This is how Washington works. This is nothing new. People are offered patronage jobs or bribed with jobs all the time. You know, look at all these Democrats that are retiring. David Obey! You think he's leaving for nothing? Of course not. He's going to be rewarded for all his work. He's going to get a lobbying job." I said, "Yeah, but Sestak broke the code! Sestak said he was offered a job. Nobody talks about it. It's always been something, 'Yeah, it happens. We just assume it,' but Sestak went out there and he broke the code by saying it and then he realized he broke the code and he said it because then the onus was on him." Now, he didn't lie. He didn't lie, but it was thought maybe he was lying or somebody in the White House was.

And then they all figured out, "You know what? This is an impeachable offense!" So they have been working hard trying to massage this and interesting trying to massage it, who do they go to? Bill Clinton. They have lunch yesterday with Clinton, and they come up with this line. As I said at the top of the program: It never hurts to find the guy who has been willing to commit perjury before to come out and cover your rear end on something like this. So this notion that the job didn't require any compensation? If it's a high-ranking and important job, and it's unpaid, then how in the world can it be high-ranking? I think Sestak probably spoke outta turn because he's an academy grad. He's an honorable guy. He said, "I was offered a gig." So he broke the code. He let the cat out of the bag. They're all saying, "Gosh, what the hell did he do? Gee, what kind of mess are we in." So they've been circling the wagons, and this is what it's they've come up with. And Sestak has said, "I'm saying nothing. Whatever the White House counsel's office says, that's my version, too."

RUSH: Here's Sestak's response, and this from NBC. "Last summer, I received a phone call from President Clinton. During the course of the conversation, he expressed concern over my prospects if I were to enter the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and the value of having me stay in the House of Representatives because of my military background. He said that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had spoken with him about my being on a Presidential Board while remaining in the House of Representatives. I said no. I told President Clinton that my only consideration in getting into the Senate race or not was whether it was the right thing to do for Pennsylvania working families and not any offer."

This kind of garbage just makes me want to throw up: Pennsylvania's working families. "Yeah, our only consideration here, the only consideration I had in considering this offer was for Pennsylvania's working families." Now, the real concern is for people in Pennsylvania who don't work, if you're a Democrat. At any rate, "I told President Clinton that my only consideration in getting into the Senate race or not was whether it was the right thing to do for Pennsylvania working families and not any offer. The former President said he knew I'd say that, and the conversation moved on to other subjects. There are many important challenges facing Pennsylvania and the rest of the country. I intend to remain focused on those issues and continue my fight on behalf of working families."

I kid you not! "Working families," that's Democrat code lingo for unions. "Working families." What about the unemployed? What about those who really want to work but can't? (interruption) No, I'm not nitpicking this. This kind of language makes me cynical. "No, doing the right thing for Pennsylvania working families is what's important to me, not any offer here." Now, we know that Bill Clinton has a history of going to Democrats and trying to get 'em outta races. Went to Torricelli, and Torricelli quit. He went to Andrew Cuomo and told Andrew Cuomo, "Look, don't try for governor now. It's not your time," and Andrew Cuomo bowed out. So Sestak says Rahm Emanuel called Clinton; Clinton called Sestak and said, "'Why don't you come on a presidential board and stay in the House of Representatives?' I said no, and the former president said he knew I'd say that."

Well, now, if Clinton knew that Sestak would say no, then why go to the offer? Here's the big question. This is the real question, and this is a question for all of you "Pennsylvania working families." If this explanation is so clear-cut and simple and legal, why has the White House not put out an explanation about this before now? Why is it...? How many weeks has it been going on? How many months is this been going on? How long ago was it that Sestak said he was offered a gig? And we haven't had anybody say anything more. Sestak would be asked, "What do you mean?" He'd say, "I'm not saying anymore." The White House was not answering the question. If this is "the way business is done," why not just come out and tell us?

This story has been percolating since February, and this is best they can come up with. (doing Clinton impression) "Well, that's right, Limbaugh. This is how it works. I went to this guy and I said, 'Look, we really don't want you in that Senate race. You don't stand a prayer. We want to keep you in the House. Come on some presidential advisory board now and then. But I understand you got concern for Pennsylvania's working families, and if you want to say no, that's fine. I'm just conveying the offer." Right? Is that how it happened? If it's this simple, why did it take all this time and a lunch yesterday with Clinton and Obama to come up with this? (sigh) I, for one, am not buying it.

RUSH: Let's take some things, people at their word here. Even if what the White House is now claiming is true, and even if it's "business as usual" that people are offered jobs all the time to give up something else, didn't Obama pledge to change business as usual in Washington? Wasn't that part of the campaign? (doing Obama impression) "We're gonna change business as usual!" Isn't this the exact kind of corruption Obama promised to end? Instead just like with all his other promise he has made, his minions have done the very things he condemned in sp..... Well, I was going to say "spades," but I won't. And about Sestak, the timeline, the timeline is suspicious. 'Cause if this is all there was to it, why not just call Clinton and tell him to get in front of a camera and laugh it off way back in February when this thing came up? None of this just fits. If this is all that happened, why did it take all this time to conjure this up? If there's nothing to it have Clinton go out there (doing impression), "Hey, hey, this is no big deal! I called his brother I said, 'Hey, how would you like to serve on a presidential commission and stay in the House?' He said he didn't want to do that. That's all there is here. It doesn't matter. There's no 'here' here." But no, they had to conjure something up. There's something about this that's still not right, folks. It just doesn't fit.

RUSH: The New York Times was able to ferret out a bit of deception. The story of the day is in the New York Times, a brazen bit of deceit. Obama goes to his press conference yesterday while everybody thinks that the top kill method is not only in progress at that moment but that we are having some success. However, the Times inadvertently publishes -- I can't believe they did this on purpose. Well, let me just read what they say here. This is exactly from the Times story: "The top kill effort has proceeded in fits and starts. BP officials, who along with government officials created the impression early Thursday that the strategy was working, disclosed later that they had stopped pumping on Wednesday night [the night before] when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid was escaping along with the oil." So when Obama did the press conference, "Plug the hole! Just plug the hole up!"

By the way, Sestak is the hole they really want to plug out there, folks. That's the hole Obama really wants to plug. This Sestak report, that's their top kill. That's what they've gotta try to sweep away. But this story in the New York Times, they bury the lede and they don't get the headline right, but this is amazing. This is a brazen bit of deceit. Obama needed some action going on. He needed some semblance of success so he could go out there and claim credit for this. (doing impression) "I'm in charge. Nothing is going on out there 'til they've been approved up by me. Uhhhh, they're my Minerals Management Service people and Coast Guard. No, I'm in charge from day one. Laser-like focus!" It turns out that the top kill procedure was not even going on yesterday. It had stopped the night before.

So we're left here to wonder just what is real and what isn't real with this administration -- and here we get "The top kill effort has proceeded in fits and starts. BP officials, who along with government officials created the impression early Thursday that the strategy was working..." Exactly WHO "created the impression...the strategy was working"? The Los Angeles Times... I think you'll find, folks, the Los Angeles Times is the favored repository for so-called exclusive stories from the Obama White House, because obviously by geographical measures, they're not in Washington. I mean they have a bureau there, but the LA Times is a whole coast away. They're not inside the Beltway. They're outsiders. And it was the LA Times who first yesterday broke the story that the top kill was working. If you reread their article: "Top Kill Plugs Gulf Oil Leak Official Says." I remember Drudge had a headline yesterday at MSNBC: "Plug May Be Happening!" in the middle of the press conference. They weren't even plugging it! The top kill had been suspended the night before, and there are stories in the LA Times: "Top Kill Plugs Gulf Oil Leak Official Says." It wasn't true. None of it was true, and now we're told we won't know until Sunday whether or not this method is working. We all hope it does. This press conference yesterday, all kinds of people are now weighing in. It was a disaster.

RUSH: Now, here's the LA Times story on the oil leak. This is where Obama goes. I'm sure you'll find that the LA Times is used by the administration to drop exclusive news items. The LA Times seems to have been the one that broke the story yesterday that the top kill method was working. They only cited Admiral Allen of the Coast Guard. In fact they go on to say: "As of early Thursday morning, neither government nor BP officials had declared the effort a success yet, pending the completion of the cementing and sealing of the well." But today's New York Times says, "BP officials, who along with government officials created the impression early in the day that the "top kill" strategy was working, disclosed later that they had stopped pumping the night before when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid was escaping along with the oil."

So the Sestak thing is what they're really worried about but they're using it to cloud this. I mean, there is raging incompetence here over the oil spill.

RUSH: Ben Stein today has a pretty nice column in the American Spectator in which he says (summarizing): "Look, all this finger pointing is not accomplishing anything. The oil companies don't wish this had happened. If they could take it back, they would do it. Transocean, the operators of the rig, they wish this hadn't happened. Nobody wishes this had happened. You can't blame Obama. He's not Superman." All well and true, but he portrays himself as such, from the moment he started campaigning! Obama's the guy who was going to lower the sea levels! It's why everybody thought he reeked of competence. 'Cause that was the image that they put forth. Let's go to the audio sound bites, February 7th, 2008. This was the sales pitch from Obama in New Orleans at Tulane.

OBAMA: We can talk about a trust that was broken -- the promise that our government will be prepared, will protect us, and will respond in a catastrophe. When President Bush came down to Jackson Square two weeks after the storm, the setting was spectacular and as promises soaring: "We will do what it takes," he said. "We will take as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives." But over two years later, those words have been caught in a tangle of half measures, halfhearted leadership, and red tape.

RUSH: So there you have candidate Obama ripping George Bush on Katrina, vowing never again. "We can talk about a trust that was broken," and he goes on to mock Bush for going down there two weeks after the fact. Same speech, additional remarks...

OBAMA: It's time for America to rebuild trust with the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. When I am president, I will start by restoring that most basic trust: That your government will do what it takes to keep you safe. The words "never again" spoken sooo often in those weeks after Katrina must not fade to a whisper.

RUSH: Uh, I don't even need to analyze this. Barack Obama in his own words, February 7th, 2008: "Never again. This kind of incompetence that we saw from Bush after Katrina, ain't going to happen again. Not with me in charge. I'm the guy that can lower the sea levels! I'm going to have post-racial America, post-partisan America." What we have is a post-American America and a post-competence America. (interruption) Well, Jindal's not incompetent, that's true. (interruption) Well, Jindal has to get permission from the administration, permits, to build these berms out there that he wants to build to soak up the oil before it reaches the real shores of Louisiana.

RUSH: "President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur." His own words, his own website come back to haunt The One.

RUSH: Remember the audio sound bites we had yesterday, James Carville all upset, a lack of response from Obama? Remember, this was yesterday morning on Good Morning America.

CARVILLE, MAY 26, 2010: The president of the United States coulda come down here. He could have been involved with the families of these 11 people. He coulda commandeered the -- the -- the things. They could be deploying people to the coast right now. He could be with the Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard with these people in Plaquemines Parish doing something about these regulations. These people are crying! They're begging for something down here and he just looks like he's not involved in this! Man, you got to get down here and take control of this, put somebody in charge of this thing and get this thing moving. We're about to die down here!

RUSH: That was yesterday morning on Good Morning America. By last night, the tone had changed significantly. On Anderson Cooper 175, Anderson Cooper said, "The president, Mr. Carville, is coming on Friday. What does he need to see down there?"

CARVILLE, MAY 27, 2010: The president, if he comes down here and does this right, he's going to see that people have not been candid with him, that BP has not been candid with him, that certain people on his staff and maybe people in his cabinet are not being candid with him. He needs to go investigate this and find out what it is, and when he does, I think we're going to get a lot of action. I think it's a man who cares.

COOPER: You think the president is not getting the real word of what's happening here?

CARVILLE, MAY 27, 2010: I don't think so. No, sir. It's inexplicable that this man -- as smart as he is, as talented as he is -- would have the real world saw -- we saw today and not be furious and not tell people to get into action now.

RUSH: Okay. So now he's surrounded by a bunch of people that are lying to him. He's surrounded by people are not telling him the truth. BP's not being candid with him. "Certain people on his staff, maybe some people in his cabinet have not been candid with him. He needs to go investigate this and find out what it is and what he does we'll get a lot of action. I think that's a man who cares." By the way, that's a media mantra. Let's go back, we got a little montage here, grab sound bite number six. Short little montage here but this is the latest media mantra on Obama as they try to cover for his lack of concern about this.

RUSH: Yes, he cares. Carville says (impression), "He cares a lot! The president, I know he cares but he's being lied to down there. A lot of people not telling him the truth. Not being candid with him," and then here's James Carville this morning. So in 24 hours it's gone from, "Come on, man, get down here! You gotta take charge! The people are dying down here. You gotta do something about it," 24 hours later: It's Bush's fault.

CARVILLE, MAY 27, 2010: One thing I think the president needs to do and -- and find out and I don't know what -- what the performance has been, but -- but how would the MMS be operating without enhanced --

CARVILLE, MAY 27, 2010: -- without people knowing, without more investigations where they were this far into the administration? Now, I'm told that they tried to change it last July, they made some changes, but I would be -- want to be satisfied that those in -- changes were in line with what I believe to be the criminality of this that was going on during the Bush administration.

CARVILLE, MAY 27, 2010: A lot of this stuff started when -- when the Bush people took over this MMS and made it an extension of the oil companies.

RUSH: All right, so MMS -- run by an Obama acolyte from Harvard -- was taken over by the Bush administration and turned into a criminal enterprise and basically just "an extension of the oil companies." So yesterday morning, Mr. Carville was all over the place, being critical of the president. (impression) "You gotta get down here, man! People are dying down here! I can't believe this president is not coming down here to look at it! I can't believe you're not coming down here taking charge! Can't believe it! Can't believe it! Come on down here! You gotta get down here and do something, man! I can't believe you're not doing anything! Gotta get down here! People are dying down here," and now, "It's Bush's fault! You got criminal activity! The MMS, they just a -- a extension of oil company!" So clearly, clearly some people got hold of Carville. "What are you doing? What are you saying?" It's interesting that when it's your backyard that is being hammered, in this case Louisiana, the way your perspective changes on things. But somebody obviously convince Mr. Carville his focus needed to change. Last night on CNN's Situation Room Wolf Blitzer was talking to The Forehead, Paul Begala. Blitzer said, "Friday, the president's going to go down there?"

BEGALA: It's why a good mayor goes to a fire, right? The Mayor can't put out the fire. It's important to be there, uh, but also to agitate. I mean, you saw Governor Jindal again and again saying, "Give us an answer."

RUSH: So Begala wants Obama to go down there and agitate, which is a reasonable suggestion because that's what Obama does well. Obama agitates! He's a community agitator. Mayors go down there, they can't put out the fire. They're all asking, "Where's Obama?" It's fascinating to look at all this stuff before the press conference took place, and you can see the reaction from all sides in the State-Controlled Media. He wasn't doing anything. He wasn't engaged. He's doing fundraisers. He didn't go to the memorial service. He didn't seem to care about any of this. He was just saying, "Plug the hole!" He even said at the press conference, he got up today and his daughter said, "Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?" He actually said that. He got up this morning and his little girl said to him, "Daddy, did you plug the hole?"

RUSH: I have a question. This just hit me. If you have to say the president cares, doesn't it mean that there is a question about it? So all these media people, "I think the president cares, I think the president cares, he obviously cares." David Gergen: "The president clearly cares." Why do you have to even say that? It's because it's not obvious. It's not obvious that he cares. So he's having lunch with the Duke basketball team or a meeting with them, he's having lunch with Bill, he's going on vacation, all of this while the spill's going on, while saying he's on top of things and is directing all the efforts. I don't think it's out of bounds to ask the question, "Does he care?" And the only reason I'm bringing this up is because all these other people are telling us that he does. They're having to tell us, "It's clear the president cares." Why say that? They're saying that 'cause it looks like he doesn't. It looks like this is not a priority to him. He had to call this press conference today to quell the notion that he doesn't care about it. I think he cares, but I think he cares mostly about it as a political opportunity. He cares mostly about it as a means of slamming the oil industry again.

RUSH: Stephen Baldwin has called, of the famous Baldwin acting family. Stephen Baldwin is on with us now. Stephen, thanks for the call very much. I'm happy to have you here. Hello.

STEPHEN BALDWIN: Hey, Rush, good to talk to you. Big hello from my compadre Kevin McCullough who you know I work with.

STEPHEN BALDWIN: And I'm just calling to say I have very serendipitously been down in New Orleans in the last three weeks. I started filming, for about five days, a documentary titled, "The Will to Drill." Coincidentally, while I was there, the same individuals who are funding the documentary are assisting Kevin Costner in this centrifuge technology that he and his brother have developed for ten years, and they have been testing it successfully for the last two weeks, and most of the presidents of the parishes down in that area along the coastline -- particularly Billy Nungesser who you've seen a lot on the news, Rush; he's the president of the Plaquemines Parish area, and he is -- very, very eager for the approval for these centrifuge machines which have successfully been pulling the oil out of the water to be implemented as soon as possible.

RUSH: Now, but, Stephen, really, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of gallons here. How big is Costner's centrifuge?

STEPHEN BALDWIN: Well, the largest version of it -- there's three sizes, but the largest version of it -- which is called the V20 machine, can do 200 gallons per minute and over a daily time frame it can do 200,000 gallons. So if you had enough of these suckers in the water, Rush, at least it's doing something to stop the oil that's out there coming towards the shore.

STEPHEN BALDWIN: Well, I wouldn't say that he's being stalled. I would say that probably there is the typical red tape in a situation like this where everybody's looking to be sure that nobody makes a decision that they get in trouble for later.

RUSH: Well, now, I read today there's a story that from one of the news agencies that BP is testing Costner's centrifuge even as we speak.

STEPHEN BALDWIN: That's correct. That's correct. They have been involved in the testing process.

RUSH: Did the Obama administration approve this? Because we heard in the press conference today, Stephen, that BP doesn't do anything without getting the approval of the Obama administration and Thad Allen of the Coast Guard. So did Kevin Costner get permission from the Obama administration, MMS, or the Coast Guard to take this to BP and try it?

STEPHEN BALDWIN: No, no, no. Oh, I'm sure Obama's never heard of it, either, but to answer your question: I think the answer to that goes in line with what you're saying. There are -- along with Kevin Costner, there are -- multiple solutions potentially that are being presented to getting the oil out of the water before it destroys the marshes and continues to do the damage it's going to do and impact the coastline and Louisiana -- and it's heading towards Florida, and the sooner they do something to at least try to get the oil out of the water before it comes to shore, that's obviously a solution, isn't it?

RUSH: It is, if it works. Now, has Kevin Costner showed this or demonstrated to the governor, Bobby Jindal?

STEPHEN BALDWIN: The governor is very aware of this technology. All of the presidents of the parishes are, too. The presidents of the parishes, Rush, they want this machine in the water now. So Costner is there. I think he's doing some more tests over the next two or three days -- which, again, I repeat, have already been successful. Now it's just a matter of going through whatever the process is of who talks to who and who says yes and, blah, blah, blah.

RUSH: Well, that's Obama. We heard it at a press conference today. How many centrifuges does Kevin Costner have? These things, how long does it take to produce one?

STEPHEN BALDWIN: He could produce four under the influence larger machines per month with the production that he has available to him now. But he has over 30 machines right now, standing at the ready, ready to go in the water. The whole thing is in place. It's ready to go. Just waiting to see when they're going to move forward.

RUSH: Well, we'll keep a sharp eye on it. I appreciate your heads up on this. It's an AP story that says BP is testing it even today, as we speak. And the headline of the story is: "Gulf Oil Spill News: Costner's Centrifuge to be Tested by BP."

RUSH: So it's interesting. Tell me about your documentary, The Will to Drill. What's this about? It sounds self-explanatory, but what is it?

STEPHEN BALDWIN: Well, The Will to Drill -- and the website is the same. It's WillToDrill.com.

STEPHEN BALDWIN: And basically, Rush, it's my goal to go down there and with everything that's happened after Three Mile Island and the regulatory that was passed after that and then after Exxon Valdez and the regulatory that never happened after that, I'm putting together a documentary that -- as ironic as this may be -- is a nonpartisan documentary that really is more about: When are we as a culture and a people and a society going to come together and individually start to take on the responsibility to create the change in the future to be more prepared when these things happen? Here we are, Rush, as you've been explaining. All these people in Louisiana and Florida are standing there waiting for this horrific outcome, and they can't do a thing about it. Well, The Will to Drill is how do we look towards the future? How do we come together? How do we make the changes?

RUSH: Well, you said it just a moment ago in the run-up to the explanation you just gave me. Essentially oil has become politicized, and it shouldn't be. Energy should not have a political component to it. But the left politicizes everything, so oil has become a dirty word. Oil companies are dirty, so there's a political obstacle that has to be overcome before we get anywhere near solving a problem like this.

STEPHEN BALDWIN: Well, listen, in my documentary, I want to present the case, Rush, that simply no one is exempt from the usage of oil. From the cell phone you talk on to the clothes on our backs, oil touches everything. The question in my documentary becomes: What can we do in the future to come together to create the change to be more prepared for these accidents and these horrible things that are going to happen.

RUSH: Well, I understand that, but the thing is they don't happen that much, considering. We have more spillage from tankers transporting this stuff across the globe than we do have from wells -- and we have to transport it on tankers so much because the politics of this prevents us from drilling. A lot of people don't understand just how much oil is involved in every aspect of life. Your clothes, your trash bags, practically everything. I don't know. The things that are made with derivatives from oil would stun you. Well, Stephen, look, I gotta run. I'm glad you called. Good luck with your documentary. But, you know, something? This is just my little bugaboo. Sometimes "coming together with people" is not possible because some people you want to join with are never going to join you. They just have to be defeated. Like the left. I don't want to come together with them. They don't compromise on anything. Everything is political to them. Oil, energy, that's a matter of survival -- and survival ought not be political. I'm glad you called. Good luck.

RUSH: By the way, Kevin Costner does -- I was looking into this during the break -- Kevin Costner is spending $24 million of his own money on these centrifuges. BP is testing them right now. He does need permission from the federal government to use the machine. He will need permission and he is working with state and local officials in Louisiana, the New Orleans area, and there are locals down there trying to raise money to help defray some of the costs, because they want some action. They want some action. They can see the slick getting closer and closer, and in some areas it has already hit, and they want some action taken. They're not getting anything other than a bunch of meetings and works-in-progress, a bunch of process stuff and finger pointing and blame, which is all oriented toward the political end of this.

Meanwhile, we got the State-Controlled Media running around and assuring us that Obama cares. I'm just telling you, if they have to tell us that, then it must mean that there's a question about it. And the reason there's a question about it is because he has appeared to be unconcerned, he's appeared to be aloof. He's going on fundraisers and eating caviar, $17,600 a plate fundraiser at the Getty house and the opening hors d'oevre was caviar, while this is happening. And you know the kind of grief that Bush got for just flying over the place. In fact, Bush went to a fundraiser event in California when Katrina hit and he caught all kinds of hell for it. And to be fair, Obama's catching his own share of grief about it, even from his own side now. So the purpose of the press conference today was say, (imitating Obama) "We're on top of this, just plug the hole. BP can't do a thing without talking to us first. We got a Nobel winning physicist working on this. He works with atoms and everything like that so we're gonna fix the atoms and oil. My little girl said, 'Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?' while I was shaving."

CALLER: Great to be on. I have a theory as to why the Obama administration is dragging their feet on some of these solutions, i.e., Governor Jindal and perhaps the centrifuges, is because if these work too well this will take away all the fodder that the left has in fearmongering future spills.

RUSH: Well, you know, normally I would want to pooh-pooh a comment like that, but I can't because every disaster is an opportunity for these people. They can't wait for the next Katrina to come along because all these disasters beg for what? Federal action, which requires more federal power, and this is what these people are all about, is securing more federal power for leftists when they are running the government. And Costner, whatever he's doing, cannot be said to be a government project. It's a private sector project. And if a private sector guy comes up with a solution to a problem like this that has an immediate application, even before the well is plugged, has an immediate application to skim some of the oil off so that it never reaches shore, at least an effort could be made, then what does that do? It illustrates the relative worthlessness of the federal government in things like this. I think you've got a point, Mike. Sadly, I think you got an excellent point.

RUSH: Marcia Kramer reporting for WCBS 2 Eyeball News in New York on Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey. "We're not raising taxes," he says. "New Jersey Governor Says He Has Residents Covered Through Fiscal Year 2011 Despite $800 Million Hole -- How Did He Do This? Remember The Budget Freeze? Looks Like It Worked. On the surface the news looked pretty grim for Garden State residents on Tuesday -- thanks to an unanticipated drop in tax revenues of $402 million this year and $365 million next year." One of the reasons for that is $70 billion worth of wealth has moved out of the state because of their high taxes. So that's one reason tax revenues are down in New Jersey. Another reason is that they've raised taxes on everybody, which always results in reduced revenues. It just does.

"But a new budget hole of nearly $800 million..." the combination of 402 and 365 "...is not going to give Gov. Christie a single new white hair. At least this time, the governor's message is 'gotcha covered.' 'We're very confident we've been able to close the additional budget gap in (fiscal year) 2010 and in (fiscal year) 2011 we're going to be able to solve that problem without any new taxes at all and without any real significant cuts,' Christie said. Skipping the 'fiscalese,' what happened was the budget freeze imposed by Gov. Christie when he took office generated more savings than expected, enough to cover much of the lost tax money. 'I think we're going to be fine,' Christie said. ... How do residents feel? 'I'd rather see a tax on millionaires also. It's about time we stopped paying for everyone else,' said Lionel Nazco of Carlstadt. 'Taxing the millionaires sounds great. The only concern I have is the millionaires have the ability to take their money and leave,' added Anton Tsamas of Hackensack."

I remember back in the mid-nineties, maybe early nineties, '91 or '92, I remember that the Democrats were just up in arms over a $300 billion budget deficit, compared to our $1.4 trillion budget deficit this year. I mean it was a monster, and I remember talking to several economists who said, "You know, all you'd have to do is just freeze federal spending for five years, just freeze it, and allow for inflation, you know, increase government spending at inflation levels which amounts to a freeze, and in five years, you'll wipe this out because it's all a spending side problem. It's not that there's not enough tax revenue being collected. It's a spending side problem." And I remember I was on Charlie Rose one night and I was on with Tony Coelho, and I think Roger Altman. I was the only conservative, and I said, "Let me ask you guys a question, and you guys are much smarter than I am," I said, "I've heard from a lot of economists if we just freeze the budget for five years at inflation levels that all this would be taken care of." "Oh, no, no, ha-ha-ha-ha, typical, that's a nice try, ha-ha-ha," they started laughing at me.

They said it would never work, because these people's job was to spend money. It's how they stayed in office. The single greatest example of their power was to spend money, but here's Chris Christie now some 20 years plus later with a budget freeze in New Jersey. Guess what? That budget freeze is going to result in closing our budget loopholes each of the next two years, and we're not cutting anything. Now, when you propose a budget freeze, of course the Democrats say, "You are cutting, why, we're going to spend 8% more on whatever next year. If you're not going to spend 8% that's an 8% cut." No, no, no, no. You can't say that not spending an increase is a cut. A cut would be if we actually spent less. But there's never been a budget item -- or let me put it this way. There has never been an entire budget, state or federal, where one year was smaller in total than the previous year, and it's not going to be the case with Christie. They're just going to freeze it. And here it's working. No tax increase is needed, and no significant spending cuts needed. So the theory that was explained to me many, many moons ago seems to have credibility. If we don't do this, where are we going to end up?

RUSH: I was stunned to see this over the weekend in the New York Times: "Europeans Fear Crisis Threatens Liberal Benefits." Now, it's funny, they write this story and they can find absolutely no correlation to what's happening in their own damn city, in their own damn state, not to mention the whole country. They write as though Europe is an isolated example of where this is all going on. Listen to this. "Across Western Europe, the 'lifestyle superpower,' the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II. Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.

"Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. 'The Europe that protects' is a slogan of the European Union. But all over Europe governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead. With low growth, low birthrates and longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle. ... 'We're now in rescue mode,' said Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister. 'But we need to transition to the reform mode very soon. The "reform deficit" is the real problem,' he said, pointing to the need for structural change.

"Changes have now become urgent. Europe's population is aging quickly as birthrates decline. Unemployment has risen as traditional industries have shifted to Asia. And the region lacks competitiveness in world markets. According to the European Commission, by 2050 the percentage of Europeans older than 65 will nearly double," and they're all going to have their hands out, because they've all been led to believe the promise that they're not going to have to work, that their benefits, their health care, their welfare, is going to be provided for them, the wondrous beauty of European socialism. "'The easy days are over for countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain, but for us, too,' said Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, a French lawyer who did a study of Europe in the global economy for the French government. 'A lot of Europeans would not like the issue cast in these terms, but that is the storm we're facing. We can no longer afford the old social model, and there is a real need for structural reform.'"

"But the unions are unhappy, and the Socialist Party opposes raising the retirement age." This is in France. "Polls show that while most French see a pension overhaul as necessary, up to 60 percent say working past 60 is not the answer." It's stunning to read this, as though Europe is the only place in the world where this is happening. It's stunning to read this. Steven Erlanger writes this for the New York Times and he can't bring himself to see the same model playing out right here not only in America but in his state and in his city, both called New York. "Crisis Imperils Liberal Benefits Long Expected by Europeans." Does the crisis not imperil liberal benefits long expected by Americans?

As I mentioned at the top of the program, when reviewing all the possible things I could've started with today, wouldn't it be amazing if the "Bush recession," which is what they call this, if the "Bush recession" ended up destroying European socialism, much like Ronaldus Magnus defense spending brought the end of the Soviet Union. The "Bush recession" destroys European socialism. Wouldn't that just be classic. And this story makes it plain that European socialism is a crisis. It is in a crisis and it cannot be sustained and there needs to be structural reform, meaning socialism doesn't work. It's right there in front of our eyes and yet everything that they're experiencing in Europe, we are four or five years behind them now and growing, emulating every move they have made.

Biden: The Porkulus bill was not about creating jobs, but trying out new ideas with regards to government spending money wisely:

Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.

Weekly poll, asking you to identify what we ought to cut in governmental spending:

Are you tired of all the unfocused news and lame talking heads yelling at one another? Just grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and see what is really going on in the world:

Judith Miller is one of the moderate and fairly level-headed voices for FoxNews:

Conservative New Media (it is so-so; I must admit to getting tired of seeing the interviewer high-fiving Carly Fiorina 3 or 4 times during an interview):

Army Ranger Michael Behenna sentenced to 25 years in prison for 25 years for shooting Al Qaeda operative

Maybe the White House does not need to hold press conferences? It releases exclusive articles daily right here:

This is quite helpful; it is a list of all leftist groups, with links to background information on each of these groups (when I checked, 879 groups were listed). This is a fantastic resource.

One of the more radical people from the right, calling for the impeachment of Obama:

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a free enterprise site (there are several videos on the flat tax):

This is a pretty radical site which alleges that Obama is a Marxist hell-bent in taking over our country:

1982 interview with Larry Grathwohl on Ayers' plan for American re-education camps and the need to kill millions

This is an interesting site; it seems to be devoted to the debate of climate change:

This is a news site which I just discovered; they gave 3 minute coverage to Obama’s healthcare summit and seemed to give a pretty decent overall view of it, without slanting one way or the other:

I have glanced through their website and it seems to be quite professional and reasonable. They have apparently been around since 1942.

This is fantastic; Florida (the Sunshine State) is now putting its state budget online:

Suzanne Somers s supposed to be older than Bill O’Reilly? He interviewed her this week, and she looked, well, hot. She is big into vitamins and human growth hormones.

The National Journal, which is a political journal (which, at first glance, seems to be pretty even-handed):

And I am hoping that most people see this as non-partisan: Citizens Against Government Waste:

This website reveals a lot of information about politicians and their relationship to money. You can find out, among other things, how many earmarks that Harry Reid has been responsible for in any given year; or how much an individual Congressman’s wealth has increased or decreased since taking office.

This is an outstanding website which tells the truth about Obama-care and about what the mainstream media is hiding from you:

Politico.com is a fairly neutral site (or, at the very worst, just a little left of center). They have very good informative videos at:

On Obama (if you have not visited this site, you need to check it out). He is selling a DVD on this site as well called Media Malpractice; I have not viewed it yet, except pieces which I have seen played on tv and on the internet. It looks pretty good to me.