BYRON YORK: Obama and Dems heading for electoral disaster.

DOUBLE-DIP? Mortgage rates hit all-time low, but lending activity remains quiet. “The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 4.69 percent this week from 4.75 percent last week, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. That marks the lowest level since the company started tracking the data in 1971 and breaks the most recent low set in December. Rates have hovered below 5 percent since early May. Yet home sales are tumbling and mortgage applications are slipping. Potential buyers have retrenched, discouraged by employment fears, the recent expiration of a home buyer’s tax credit and tough lending standards, industry experts said. . . . Although the economy added more jobs in May than in any other month in the past decade, the job growth was driven by temporary hiring for the once-a-decade census.”

A DEFENSE OF David Weigel.

UPDATE: But the Daily Caller is doubling down. I wonder which one of the Journolisters is leaking this stuff? No honor among schmucks, I guess.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ann Althouse weighs in.

TYLER COWEN: How Sticky Are Wages Today, Anyway?

VITAMIN D UPDATE: Low vitamin D linked to asthma. Also, Vitamin D may help with Crohn’s disease. Low Vitamin D is also linked to diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

COST CONTROL VIA COMPETITION: Hospitals Feeling Pressure From Retail Clinics?

TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama is refusing to listen to reason on economic policy. “As it happens, the public debt trajectory is rather worse in the US than it is in Europe, yet Obama has adopted an overtly ‘spend until we are broke’ approach in a calculated bid for growth and votes.”

Related: At G20 Summit, An Economic Clash Of Civilizations.

WHAT DO YOU DRINK? Soda? Or Pop?

FORGET “LAME DUCK:” More fears of a “mad duck” Congress.

UNEXPECTEDLY! U.S. Economy Grew 2.7% in First Quarter, Less Than Economists’ Forecasts.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Democrats: Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee.

IF YOU LOVE NEWSPAPERS, Let Them Go.

POLITICO: Senate Democrats Pull Jobs Bill. Apparently, the “new climate” on spending and deficits doesn’t support it. Thus has the Tea Party movement already made its mark.

JOE PAPPALARDO: Is McChrystal’s Outing Really a MacArthur Redux? Not So Fast.

STARTING UP A Nancy Pelosi Defense Fund?

HOWARD KURTZ: National Enquirer Didn’t Pay for Gore Sex Story.

JUDEN RAUS! “In a disconcerting echo of the 1930s, a Jewish dance group was stoned by Arab youths in Hanover, Germany earlier today. . . . This is, of course, one of the reasons why Zionists founded Israel, and one of the reasons why Helen Thomas’s suggestion that Jews should go ‘home’ to Germany and Poland was vicious and hateful, as well as ignorant. But make no mistake: from the perspective of the stone-throwers, there is little difference between Jews and the rest of us–‘Crusaders,’ Hindus, atheists, whatever.” Buy a gun. Oh, wait, Germany won’t let you do that . . . .

OH, GOOD GRIEF: Dem county supervisor: Arizona’s law might have been justifiable if it was a border state.

JIM TREACHER: Paul McCartney Is Still A Jerk.

GERARD VAN DER LEUN: IT IS NOT OVER. “Those who tell you, in government or in your personal life, that it is over are either lulling you into a deeper sleep, or fools more than half in love with easeful death.”

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY: Geithner: US Can No Longer Drive Global Growth.

MARK HEMINGWAY: House ’shreds our constitution for raw, ugly, partisan gain’ by vote of 219-206. “So unions now get nearly unrestricted, undisclosed political spending. Further, the restrictions in the DISCLOSE Act only cut one way — against business. If you took TARP funds as a business, express political advocacy is now verboten. So GM has very limited first amendment rights, but even though arguably primary beneficiary of the auto bailout was the United Auto Workers union which got government guaranteed billions directly as a result of the TARP funding — UAW can spend almost whatever it pleases, and it has a history of spending millions on Democratic campaigns. Further, under the DISCLOSE Act if a company has more than $7 million in government contracts, it has no right to political speech. But public sector unions can spend millions of recycled tax dollars campaigning for Democrats, no problem.”

NPR LAMENTS the “tyranny of the constituency.” Stupid voters.

LOOKING AT the Yeoman Wing of the Republican Party.

A “CRAZED SEX POODLE?” Poodle? Ouch. I’d go for “Bull Mastiff” at least, if it were me.

Meanwhile, Susannah Breslin weighs in. I’m skeptical of this story — but if it concerned a Republican, the press would be treating it as already proven, and sadly indicative of the entire party’s hypocrisy on matters sexual.

Plus, Joe Scarborough comments.

But Jezebel writes: Media Rushes To The Defense Of Nobel Prize-Winning Sex Poodle.