Tim Carney hits the nail on the head in this piece about the current political atmosphere here in the United States. The liberal elites do not understand what is driving the Tea Party, populist anger. It is not anger against "the rich" or Wall Street or big corporations, although members of each category are included in the anger. It is against everyone who is perceived by the public to be getting special or unfair benefits through their connections with big government. That is why the anger was sparked by the bailouts, and that is why it will now focus on public employee unions. While the beneficiaries are different, Wall Street bankers on one hand and your average state employee on the other, the anger is the same. We are headed for insolvency, both on the state and federal level, and our economy continues to slowly drag along with the average private sector worker who still has a job in fear of losing it. One can argue about the rationality of the approach, but as a political matter it is very real.

Michael Barone writes about the money trail which leads from the taxes paid by citizens, into the state treasuries, then into the pockets of state employees as their salaries and wages, then into the legally required union dues paid by those state employees, through the union coffers, into the pockets of Democratic politicians, who then use their power to aid the unions in getting more money out of the taxpayers.

Victor Davis Hanson writes about the consequences of Obama's failure to deal realistically with our federal deficit and debt situation.

Fareed Zakaria writes about the seismic shift going on in the Arab world.

Protests against government austerity measures continue in Greece, and efforts to prevent austerity continue in Wisconsin and Indiana.

President Obama, sensing that his chances for re-election continue to shrink, now looks to shore up his liberal base by shifting the government stance on the Defense of Marriage Act. The Justice Department will no longer defend the law in court. Obama's views on the issue are said to be 'evolving'. Yeah, right. Whatever his personal view, his political stance is what is at question. Opposition to same-sex marriage is pretty strong inside the African-American community, especially the more actively religious part of that community. When he was a State Senator representing a Chicago district, and when he was attending Reverend Wright's church, it was good politics to be opposed to same-sex marriage. It did not damage him when he became a U.S. Senator from Illinois, and it was a peripheral issue in 2008. But now he need all the help he can get. He knows that his African-American support is unshakably monolithic, so he does not worry about losing any of them. He worries about gaining, or regaining, the support of social liberals and the gay community. That is what this is all about.