A great video:

Its getting hard to do this – maybe I’m just getting more emotional these days, but I have a hard time watching the images and listening to the music without breaking up.

We can never do enough for them for all they’ve done for us.

Eric Cantor gives us an update:

Two weeks ago, the House Republican Economic Recovery Working Group launched YouCut, an initiative that allows people to get involved in their government like never before.

Before we launched the project, I knew that the American people were fed up with the size of government and the culture of spending that has become the norm in Washington. What I didn’t fully anticipate, however, was the level of grassroots intensity that YouCut elicited. During the first week of the project, our website averaged more than 3,000 votes cast an hour and a total of 281,000 votes cast. Since that time, the intensity surrounding the project has not dissipated.

Currently, more than 500,000 votes have been cast and 30,000 people have emailed spending reduction ideas of their own…

Have you participated? If not, go here.

The fact of the matter is that while Cantor and many other Republicans do get it and understand what is happening among the people, there are still a lot of Republicans who don’t. We are looking forward to a good year for our side – but we need to make sure that the people going to DC know we’re watching and we’re insisting upon genuine reforms.

People power is the only way to thwart the vested interests (some of them allegedly Republican) who see government as a means of personal enrichment. If we want a government we can rely on and an economy built for the middle class and the working poor, then it will take intense action on our part to get it. Don’t let up for a minute, or these people will forget why we sent them there.

The effort to plug the hole may not be working:

BP engineers failed again to plug the gushing oil well on Saturday, a technician working on the project said, representing yet another setback in a series of unsuccessful procedures the company has tried a mile under the sea to stem the flow spreading into the Gulf of Mexico…

…The technician working on the project said Saturday pumping has again been halted and a review of the data so far is under way. “Right now, I would not be optimistic,” the technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the effort…

Maybe there is no way to plug a hole 5,000 feet under water? I just don’t know – it is so very sad, especially for all the people along the Gulf coast who’s way of life is threatened.

So much, by the way, for Obama’s absurd photo-op trip to the Gulf with its bussed-in extras to make it look like things are being done to help.

That is from Jammie Wearing Fool and I simply can’t improve upon that headline:

http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt.swf

Another great one:

The news:

Companies sold the least amount of bonds in a decade this month as concern Europe’s sovereign debt crisis will slow the global economy drove up relative borrowing costs by the most since the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse.

Borrowers issued $66.1 billion of debt in currencies from dollars to yen, a third of April’s tally and the least since December 2000, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. At least 14 companies withdrew offerings, including New York-based retailer Jones Apparel Group Inc. and theater chain operator Regal Entertainment Group.

“There’s still a lack of risk appetite for company debt,” said Ben Bennett, who helps manage the equivalent of $125 billion of corporate bonds as credit strategist at Legal & General Investment Management in London.

It would be the smart investors who are either getting out or staying out – dumb investors are the sort who drove up the DOW by 2% on Thursday…only to see it sink about 1% today; there are morons out there who bought just before the close on Thursday and didn’t sell until ditto on Friday. Smart rich people will remain rich, dumb rich people will get no end of a lesson. The crash is coming, people: get ready for it.

Spain lost its AAA rating today – step two in Europe’s collective default. They managed to delay things by playing make-believe with Greece’s bond debt, but all they did was delay the inevitable. There isn’t enough money in the world to cover all the debt outstanding – someone is going to have to lose.

The banksters and bureaucrats hope the biggest loser is the guy you see in the mirror each morning – and that in such loss you still won’t blame them but will turn for a few welfare crumbs. In service of this goal, they will keep trying to fudge the numbers in a game of fiscal roulette and hope against hope that it all comes out ok, for them. Our job, as informed and rather angry citizens, is to prevent this – and our best means of putting a spoke in the wheels is to vote Republican in November.

But regardless of what happens or what we do, we’re going to head in to much worse economic times than we have so far. Wise policy can no longer prevent this – it can only lessen the effects and speed the path out of it. Of course, for there to be wise policy, we will need at least a few people in government with wisdom.

I don’t have a copy of the actual statement but from what I’ve heard, here is what I say:

1. The White House claims they couldn’t have offered Secretary of the Navy to Sestak as they already had a nominee. This is irrelevant – SecNav serves at the pleasure of the President and given a choice between placating someone out of Specter’s way and disappointing a hack already in the job its no contest.

2. The White House claims they just had little, old Bill Clinton offer Sestak, in return for getting out of the race, a continuation of his House position plus unspecified, unpaid White House advisory roles. Why offer someone some thing he already has (the House) and things which don’t matter (unpaid advisory roles)? This is complete nonsense – if you’re being a political wire puller, you either bring something to the table, or you don’t even bother.

3. The White House says they used Bill Clinton. Why? They’ve put out the story that Clinton and Sestak were close…funny, but during the 8 years of Bill, I don’t remember Sestak’s name cropping up as a close friend and adviser of the President. So, Sestak was promoted to Vice Admiral under Clinton…its not like he was the only person so promoted during that 8 years. Worked on the NSC? Lots of officers do – doesn’t mean they’re close, personal friends with the President. This just reeks of an attempt to put a third party in the middle…thus any future revelations about what was said can be blamed on mis-communication between three parties.

Fundamentally, this is nonsense – but very clever nonsense. It writes a plausible story and thus hopes to bury it quickly. Fine. All I want, now, is for Clinton, Sestak and Emanuel to be called before Congress and under oath – swearing so help them, God – that this is all true. Lets see how far they’ll go with this charade.

Just keeps getting worse and worse in the one-time Golden State:

Antioch’s leaders earlier this month said bankruptcy could be an option for the cash-strapped city of roughly 100,000 on the eastern fringe of the San Francisco Bay area.

Antioch’s fiscal woes are standard issue for local governments in California: weak revenue from retail sales and property taxes is forcing spending cuts, layoffs and furloughs.

But cost-cutting measures may not be enough to keep Antioch’s books balanced, so its city council is openly discussing bankruptcy.

“We just want to alert people to the possibility,” Antioch Mayor Pro Tem Mary Helen Rocha said.

Antioch is not even remotely alone – and California is not the only State with ailing municipalities. And this, my friends, is why even if there is a recovery, it is doomed – there is simply too much debt. It can’t be repaid – default in some form is inevitable and when it happens it takes down whatever remains of our financial system.

There are, of course, rumors out there that Uncle Sam might ride to the rescue. Having the ability to print endless amounts of money does give the federal government the ability to move State and local debt on to the federal books…but the price of that is both a weaker US dollar and a exceptionally strong risk of sovereign default on the part of the federal government. There simply is a limit to all this – when, exactly, it will be reached is unknown and unknowable…but eventually the money people figure there’s a chance they won’t get paid, and then they either stop buying US bonds, or start charging extortionate interest rates.

If Uncle Sam doesn’t bail them out, then it will be the cities and States which bring the house of cards down. This would actually be the less painful option for the country as a whole. It would force governments to cancel the absurdly generous public sector union contracts while also imposing fiscal discipline on profligate governments. The problem here, for Democrats, is that it means less union money for campaigns and, temporarily worse, a big spike in the unemployment numbers right before election day as government workers are let go.

Not a pretty picture – and there is no easy way out.

Great video:

Astounding poll:

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.

For someone as big a wheel as Feingold to be essentially tied with 5 months to go is big news. This is a very clear indicator of the overall weakness of the Democrat brand – not yet an indicator of GOP strength.

Democrats were taking seats like Feingold’s for granted – he was expected to cruise to easy victory in a moderately blue State. Now Democrats will have to pour it on – and still may come up short. This means, in turn, that Democrat challengers and weaker incumbents will have must less resources thus allowing the GOP even more chances to score victories.

How it will all come out in November remains to be seen, but so far its a good year to be a Republican.