CRAIG T. NELSON going John Galt? From the comments: “As a non-taxpayer, he’d be a shoo-in for a post in the Obama administration.” Heh. There are still plenty of openings.

MURTHA UPDATE: C.R.E.W. Goes After Murtha, Inc. Here’s their “You Don’t Know Jack” graphic illustrating Murtha’s dubious connections.

Plus this: Vulnerable Democrats Urge Close Scrutiny of Colleagues:

Swept into office partly on promises to end a “culture of corruption,” many potentially vulnerable Democratic newcomers are pressing House leaders to confront allegations of unethical conduct involving fellow Democrats.

Discontent over ethics has been underscored in votes on Republican-sponsored privileged resolutions calling on the House ethics committee to probe the ties between the defunct lobbying firm PMA and powerful Democrats including John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee chairman.

Democrats have rejected the resolution eight times, most recently on May 12. But 29 Democrats — including 22 first elected in 2006 and 2008 — voted for the measure sponsored by Rep. Jeff Flake , R-Ariz.

Almost a third of the 34 Democratic freshmen, or 11 members, bucked their leadership, which has pressed rank-and-file members to oppose the resolution, saying that if Republicans have a gripe, they should file a complaint with the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

Another unsuccessful GOP measure offered just before the Memorial Day recess would have barred funding for the lightly used John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria Airport, a facility in Murtha’s district. Murtha has used his perch on the Appropriations Committee to steer considerable federal funding to the facility. That measure, too, won support of 11 Democrats, all but one first elected in 2006 and 2008.

They haven’t had time to grow sufficiently complacent and corrupt not to care, yet.

HOPE AND CHANGE! White House Not Moving on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I thought it was a matter of fierce moral urgency.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR: Closet sovereigntist?

WHAT HAPPENED TO “The Information Superhighway?”

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: The Huffington Post Is Dishonest: Rob Portman Edition.

JACOB SULLUM: Excuse Me, Ma’am, We’ve Had Reports of Prayer.

FROM PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: An Open Letter to GM President Obama. “I haven’t had a lot of experience with GM products in recent years, but when I was back east over the Memorial Day weekend, Avis upgraded my rental car to a Cadillac CTS. So I’ve got some advice for GM boss Obama.”

FROMA HARROP: Sotomayor and Condescending Identity Politics. “The important part of Sotomayor’s time at Princeton wasn’t her struggle as a Bronx-raised, working-class Puerto Rican among the Ivy League flowers. After all, Sotomayor did attend a good private Catholic high school. (And had she been born of poor Chinese immigrants, little fuss would have been made of her academic success.) The essence of Sotomayor’s Princeton experience was that she graduated summa cum laude and went on to Yale Law School, where she was an editor on the law journal.”

Related item here:

This is a story of privilege, dammit, not adversity.

Show me a Montana girl of un-useful ethnicity who put herself through law school waiting tables, after being left with two young children when her Army husband was killed overseas, and I’ll start oohing and aahing over her compelling story.

Of course, such a person would never ever end up on any President’s short-list, no matter if she graduated first in her class at her non-Ivy institution, no matter how extreme the intelligence and dedication and hard work she displayed over the subsequent course of her career. That’s simply how the world — and especially the legal world — is constructed today.

Largely true, alas.

ANOTHER BUSTED TREASURY NOMINATION: Garrett Withdraws Nomination for Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy. The Obama Administration’s “rigorous vetting process” is blamed.

DODD UPDATE: Dodd to air first TV ad in 2010 re-election bid. Starting kind of early — it’s like he’s worried or something.

USA TODAY: Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink. “Taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt and other government promises, a USA TODAY analysis shows. . . . The latest increase raises federal obligations to a record $546,668 per household in 2008, according to the USA TODAY analysis. That’s quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt combined. . . . Bottom line: The government took on $6.8 trillion in new obligations in 2008, pushing the total owed to a record $63.8 trillion.”

THE DAMAGE THAT GRANDSTANDING ATTORNEYS GENERAL DO: The Craigslist Sex Panic: How shutting down its “erotic services” section hurts prostitutes and cops.

FABIUS MAXIMUS: The first step on the road to America’s reform. “Unfortunately, the class that has led America — and done so well during our first two centuries — appears to have lost interest in the project. They prefer to skim the profits off the top, and hope the ship drifts along in the trade lane (and stays off the rocks). Reform must come from us, not them.”

NANCY PELOSI AND a coming Whiskey Rebellion?

MATT WELCH: California’s Silent Big Spenders.

BLACK POWER, WOMAN POWER, GAY POWER, and the “power” that dare not speak its name.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, thugs would drag screaming journalists away from Air Force one. And they were right! Kicking & Screaming: Journo Dragged From Near AF1. “A reporter for a small newspaper was forcibly removed from a press area near Air Force One shortly before President Barack Obama arrived at Los Angeles International Airport to depart California early Thursday.”

UPDATE: Reader Paul Harper writes: “A self-described ‘Roman Catholic priestess’ has no business anywhere near Air Force One, much less POTUS. The Secret Service did right and seem to have been extremely professional, as we’d expect. Her second career as a blogger/reporter is irrelevant.” Several other readers agree, but that doesn’t spoil the joke. And look at the photo of a black woman being dragged off by Secret Service agents with Air Force One in the background and think about how it would have been played under the Bush Administration . . . .

ANOTHER “TEA PARTY” PROTEST TOMORROW, IN CARSON CITY:

A group of nonpartisan Northern Nevada residents, upset with what they said are the state Legislature’s harmful tax increases, will gather Friday in Carson City for the second “TEA Party” in as many months.

Organizers for the Anger is Brewing group said they expect about 2,000 people will participate in the peaceful Tax Freedom Day event in the square in front of the Legislative Building. “TEA” stands for “Taxed Enough Already.”

These things keep popping up all over, under the national-media radar.

HOMELAND SECURITY TO SCAN FINGERPRINTS OF PEOPLE EXITING THE UNITED STATES: “The controversial plan to scan outgoing passengers — including US citizens — was allegedly hatched under the Bush Administration. An official has said it will be used in part to crack down on the US population of illegal immigrants.” One day, they’ll figure out that they’ll get more mileage by checking on the people coming into the United States. . . .

Related: Cancer Patient Held At Airport For Missing Fingerprints: “A 62-year-old man visiting his relatives in the US was held for four hours by immigration officials after they could not detect his fingerprints because of a cancer drug he was taking. The man was prescribed capecitabine, a drug used to treat cancers in the head, neck, breast, and stomach. Some of the drug’s side-effects include chronic inflammation of the palms or soles of the feet, which can cause the skin to peel or bleed.”

UPDATE: Original story now includes this correction: “Editors Note – This story originally contained a representation that the biometrics trial in Atlanta and Detroit included the fingerprint scanning of US citizens. This has since been proved to be incorrect and the story has been modified – only non-US citizens will be expected to provide a biometric record.”

And Stewart Baker offers some additional correction:

Unfortunately, the story, from an Australian IT outlet, made serious errors. It claimed incorrectly that US citizens would be fingerscanned. It also succumbed to the assumption that any idea that can be made to sound like creepy and dumb security must have been the brainchild of the Bush Administration, accepted only reluctantly by the new administration.

In fact, the requirement for fingerprints on exit was first put in law in 1996, was recommended again by the 9/11 Commission, and was also included in the 9/11 implementation act. Despite this, the Bush administration was always a little ambivalent about the requirement — mainly because the requirement is not a security measure.

Departing travelers are, well, departing. If they’re terrorists, they’ve had their chance to attack us already.

Plus we already get passport data on departing passengers. Getting fingerprints too just makes the identification a little more certain, so the error rate goes down two or three percent. Since fingerprints are a hassle for everyone, and expensive, the Bush administration was pushed by Congress into gathering prints on exit. Congress has in essence said that Poland and other candidate countries will not be eligible for visa-free travel unless the Administration implements prints-on-exit.

More at the link.

FREQUENT EMAILER C.J. BURCH is also a novelist.

RAND SIMBERG IS BLOGGING FROM THE International Space Development Conference in Orlando.

EVEN CHRIS DODD OR JOHN MURTHA WOULD HESITATE AT THIS: UK Tory MP added a servant’s wing to his house at taxpayers’ expense.

“WANT A NEW CAR IN A FEW YEARS? DIG DEEP.” “New fuel efficiency standards and auto industry woes will drive price tags skyward.” (Via NewsAlert.).

I JUST WATCHED BILL O’REILLY OFFER A NON-APOLOGY APOLOGY on the Hot Air matter — sorry, but totally inadequate. O’Reilly misrepresented something as Hot Air’s when it came from a commenter — either deliberately, or because he’s got a lousy staff that misinformed him — and he should have apologized frankly. He didn’t, and his wriggly response made him look worse. Earlier on the show he talked about the New York Times losing the trust of readers; later in the show he bragged about his own ratings. Perhaps he should consider that the Times’ fate might become his, if he squanders the trust of viewers in Times-like fashion. . . .

UPDATE: Video.