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A defensive, un-authoritative, and equivocal Barack Obama did nothing today to show he’s in charge of our biggest oil spill in history. He couldn’t even answer whether or not he had fired someone.

Either Obama does not live in the real world, or he wants Americans to believe that they don’t live in the real world.
Neither possibility is comforting.

For decades small business owners have been telling anyone who would listen that they need health-care reforms that lower costs. But President Obama and his allies in Congress pushed through a law that will dramatically raise health-care costs and increase the overall cost of doing business. What’s more, the federal mandate requiring that nearly all U.S. residents carry health insurance by 2014 seriously threatens our basic constitutional rights and individual freedoms.

This is why the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), on behalf of small business owners nationwide, has joined the lawsuit with 20 states mounting a constitutional challenge to this devastating new health-care law.

Once again we find ourselves debating the seminal 1960s conflicts. Two would-be senators, in 2010, have jeopardized their careers with words on civil rights and the Vietnam War. Despite talk of a bygone culture war, almost a half-century later, we are still fighting the original wars. It would be absurd if it were not true.

Last week Richard Blumenthal and Rand Paul offended different sides of the sixties divide. Each man, and many of their allies, saw the controversies as political sideshows. But both men’s words tapped into enduring wounds.

It’s no secret that the Obama administration wanted Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) to drop his primary challenge to Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter. But did President Obama’s representatives try to entice Sestak into leaving the race by promising him a job? It’s a simple question, and one that Sestak already has answered in the affirmative, but the administration continues to treat the issue as much ado about nothing.

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American foreign policy may be buttressed by globe-girdling military power and the world’s largest economy, but its essential ingredient remains words and paper. No document is more rhetorically ambitious and far-reaching in the foreign policy arsenal than a new president’s National Security Strategy.

Barack Obama previewed what undoubtedly will be ballyhooed as the Obama Doctrine in his commencement address last Saturday at West Point. Stressing the need to renew America’s alliances after the go-it-alone era of Bush administration unilateralism, Obama declared, “We have to shape an international order to meet the challenges of our generation.”

Businessman Ron Johnson, endorsed at last weekend’s state Republican Convention, is now running virtually even against incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold in Wisconsin’s race for the U.S. Senate.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Wisconsin shows Feingold with 46% support to Johnson’s 44%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) remain undecided.
As he has in surveys since the beginning of the year, Feingold continues to fall just short of 50% regardless of which Republican he’s matched against. Incumbents who earn less than 50% of the vote at this stage of a campaign are considered potentially vulnerable. Feingold was reelected to a third term in 2004 with 56% of the vote.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, coming off last weekend’s state Republican Convention endorsement, now holds a slight lead over Democratic opponent Tom Barrett after the two ran virtually even a month ago in the contest for Wisconsin governor.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the state finds Walker with 48% support to Barrett’s 41%. Three percent (3%) like some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.
Former Congressman Mark Neumann, who is battling Walker for the GOP nomination, now runs just ahead of Barrett 44% to 42%. Six percent (6%) favor another candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.
A month ago, Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee, was running even with Neumann at 46% apiece and just barely behind Walker 46% to 44%.

Eighty percent (80%) of Americans now agree with Congress that auditing the Federal Reserve Board is a good idea, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Just nine percent (9%) oppose an audit of the Fed, and 12% more are not sure.

This marks little change from December. But it’s up five points from last July when Congressman Ron Paul’s proposal began to gain steam in Congress.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has consistently opposed such an audit of the Fed’s monetary policies, but it’s included in the major financial regulatory legislation now being pushed through Congress. Forty-six percent (46%) of Americans oppose more government regulation of the U.S. financial system, but 37% are in favor of it. Just 27% favor giving the Fed more regulatory control over the financial system.

Batting away suggestions that the federal response has been lackluster and that BP executives have been calling some of the shots, Obama insisted that “BP is operating at our direction.”

“Every key decision and action they take must be approved by us in advance,” Obama said. If the Coast Guard orders BP to do something, he added, “they are legally bound to do it.”

May 27 (Bloomberg) — BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil well may have spilled more than twice the oil that the Exxon Valdez dumped, according to figures from a U.S. government panel.

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What many Americans don’t realize, is that census workers – from the head of the Bureau and the Secretary of Commerce (its parent agency) down to the lowliest and newest Census employee – are empowered under federal law to actually demand access to any apartment or any other type of home or room that is rented out, in order to count persons in the abode and for “the collection of statistics.” If the landlord of such apartment or other leased premises refuses to grant the government worker access to your living quarters, whether you are present or not, the landlord can be fined $500.00.

“There will be an official response shortly on the Sestak matter,” Obama said, when asked about the issue by Fox News at the president’s press conference. “I mean shortly — I don’t mean weeks or months. … I can assure the public that nothing improper took place.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has also said nothing improper happened, but refused to elaborate when asked repeatedly about the charge at Thursday’s briefing.

(AP) Thousands of frogs are still slowing traffic on a busy Greek highway, a day after a horde of them forced officials to close the road altogether.

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