From Redstate:

As we wake up in our newly minted Muslim nation and face Washington to say Obamau Akbar, it is our Dear Leader’s 34th birthday. Um . . . no . . . this one, not that one.

Source:

In a survey last week just after the president announced Sotomayor’s nomination, 87% of U.S. voters said they expected her to be confirmed by the Senate. Forty-five percent (45%) favored her confirmation. (see crosstabs)

By comparison, in July 2005, 71% of Americans felt Bush’s first nominee, John G. Roberts, Jr., would be confirmed, and 43% supported that confirmation. This is the highest level of initial support enjoyed by any of the previous president’s choices for the Supreme Court.

Those numbers changed very little when Bush withdrew Roberts’ nomination following the sudden death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and nominated him instead in September of that year to head the high court. In a survey at that point, 72% said Roberts would be confirmed as chief justice, while 39% supported him for the post. Roberts was confirmed later that month as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Yahoo:

BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday reassured the Chinese government that its huge holdings of dollar assets are safe and reaffirmed his faith in a strong U.S. currency.

A major goal of Geithner’s maiden visit to China as Treasury chief is to allay concerns that Washington’s bulging budget deficit and ultra-loose monetary policy will fan inflation, undermining both the dollar and U.S. bonds.

China is the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. data shows that it held $768 billion in Treasuries as of March, but some analysts believe China’s total U.S. dollar-denominated investments could be twice as high.

“Chinese assets are very safe,” Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.

Prime Buzz:

“He’d be in the building, a couple of hours before the show taped, sitting in the lunchroom munching on chips and reading things and writing notes,” said Ruckus host Mike Shanin. “Off the air he was an absolute gentleman.”

In the 1990s Nadler wrote extensively about Kansas City-area politics in K.C. Jones, a newspaper he edited.  He opposed construction of the science museum at Union Station as well as other taxpayer-supported development efforts.

But Nadler was active in national conservative politics and advocacy as well.  He was president of Americas Majority, a conservative non-profit think tank, and authored numerous studies and articles on racial issues, immigration, trade, and the Iraq war.  He also produced scores of political commercials and videos, and two political biographies.

IBD:

Get ready, folks: America is about to own a car company. As of Monday, we the taxpayers will own more than 70% of GM. Whether the company will be formally renamed Government Motors remains to be seen. But that’s what it will be.

Instead of putting the failed car enterprise into bankruptcy six months ago - where Carl Icahn or Wilbur Ross could have bought it - the Bush administration chose Bailout Nation. Under Team Obama, that bailout has morphed into full-scale government ownership.

Twenty-billion dollars of TARP money is already invested in GM, with another $50 billion on the way. And that number could easily double unless GM car sales miraculously climb back to 14 million this year. That’s highly unlikely, with car sales presently hovering around 9 million a year.

Poll Tracker:

• Abortion: Christie’s supports are “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice” by 57 percent to 34 percent, while Lonegan’s are “pro-life” by 68 percent to 27 percent. (more…)
  

The State:

Don’t believe this sort of cold, heartless logic could ever dictate decision-making in the U.S. health care system? Just ask residents of Great Britain how their own socialized system functions. In the British system, actuarial calculations are undertaken for those awaiting joint replacement and other procedures with the knowledge that if the wait is long enough, a certain number of patients will die before making it to their surgery date, thereby saving the system money. (more…)

Next Right:

Republicans need more of the intellectual policy wonk types representing the Right, and it seems to me that Rob Portman is one of the more impressive Republican politicians. As Chris Cilliza said, Portman is one of the “rare breed of politician who is equally conversant — and skilled — at policy and politics.”   We should encourage that.

Naturally, the Left prefers to discourage it, so they’re rolling out the BS against Portman early.

AFP:

US President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States cannot impose its values on other countries, but argued that principles such as democracy and the rule of law were universal.

In an interview with the BBC ahead of a visit first to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and then Europe, Obama said the United States must lead by example — which firstly meant closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp on Cuba.

Next Right:

Not Blowing the Whistle on a Solid Liberal Like Sotomayor Creates a Bad Precedent for Decades to Come. The left is trying to spin the Sotomayor nomination as a pick in the mold of what moderate conservative John Roberts was to Bush — a moderate liberal “slam dunk.” In reality, she is more like the liberal Sam Alito, whose strongly conservative tendencies were seen as a suitable replacement upon Rehnquist’s death (remembering that Roberts first had to clear a lower conservative bar to replace Sandra Day O’Connor). Is there any doubt that Sotomayor wouldn’t at least tie Ginsburg and Stevens as the biggest liberal on the Court?

Source:

For more than half a century, highway advocates have been the loudest voices on transportation policy, but that may change this year as some lawmakers push to include more funding for public transit in the next authorization bill. (more…)

Big Hollywood:

Mamet tells us that while working on the political play November (which opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York in early 2008 and starred Nathan Lane) he started thinking about politics - specifically, how politics manifested in the clash between his two protagonists, a president who holds a realist (conservative) world view, and his Utopian (liberal) minded speech writer. (more…)

Jeff Stein:

Iran supplied U.S. diplomats with the location of Taliban military units in Afghanistan after the initial bombing campaign in the fall of 2001 failed to rout them, according to former officials in the George W. Bush administration. (more…)

Detroit source.

Bill Tammeus on May 28:

I mention this today because it was on this date in 1958 that the Presbyterian Church in the United States merged with the Presbyterian Church of North America, forming the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. I remember this happening. I was 13 years old at the time. But I didn’t notice that it made any kind of difference in what went on in my local church. (more…)

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Source:

OK, you don’t feel sorry for the retiree with $3 million. It doesn’t matter. She can choose where to live, and driving her from Maryland means she’s not buying in local stores, attending the symphony, or paying sales and income tax. (more…)

Source:

In “the new GM,” ownership is:

• 60% of equity goes to the U.S. Government.  USG also gets $8.8B in debt and preferred stock.
• UAW’s retiree pension/health plan (the “Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association”) gets 17.5% of equity, plus:
  • warrants to buy another 2.5% of equity;
  • a $2.5 B note (three installments, ending in 2017); and
  • $6.5 B in perpetual preferred stock (9% coupon). (more…)
    

Politics Nation:

Today, the press secretary was posed with such a hypothetical: what if GM could save money by outsourcing jobs to China? Would President Obama, who promised the company would make more cars in the United States, allow that as the company’s majority shareholder?

“Yes,” Gibbs answered simply.

Club for Growth:

After being in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) for almost 84 years, General Motors is getting kicked off the popular stock index. So is Citigroup. The two companies will be replaced by Cisco Systems and Travelers Co.

The Hill:

Business leaders are scheduled to meet next week with a prominent Democratic senator who has proposed a compromise on a contentious union bill that industry has heavily lobbied against.

According to a schedule obtained by The Hill, executives are visiting Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) next Wednesday as part of a lobbying push against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), legislation that would make union organizing much easier if passed. Business leaders from 12 different states, organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are flying into Washington next week to lobby against the bill.

RCP:

WCCO-TV reports that Pawlenty will not seek a third term. The decision is sure to trigger speculation that the “hockey dad” will focus his energies on a 2012 presidential bid. It may also ratchet up pressure on Pawlenty, who will eventually have to sign a certification of election in the contested Minnesota Senate race.

CNN:

Obama lost to Republican presidential candidate John McCain by 11 percentage points and close to 1 million votes. Still, that margin is less than more than half of what it was when the state’s favored son George W. Bush was on the presidential ballot.

In his letter Monday, Kaine specifically cited Texas’ large Hispanic organization and the grassroots infrastructure put in place by the Obama campaign in 2008 as reasons the traditionally-considered red state may turn blue.

“In so many ways, I believe Texas is poised to move towards our column, just as Virginia has,” Kaine said.

AP:

SINGAPORE (AP) - North Korea’s progress on nuclear weapons and long-range missiles is “a harbinger of a dark future” and has created an urgent need for more pressure on the reclusive communist government to change its ways, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday.

He said the North’s nuclear program does not “at this point” represent a direct military threat to the United States and he does not plan to build up American troops in the region. But the North’s efforts pose the potential for an arms race in Asia that could spread beyond the region, he added.