COVERING UP A RACIAL INCIDENT IN ILLINOIS? Not a lot of specifics here, but stay tuned.

FRED BARNES: Republicans Are Winning The Budget Fight.

HOPE AND CHANGE: “GE strives for business success through lobbying for special privileges, not through open competition. President Obama has acknowledged the special relationship that GE has with the federal government by anointing GE’s CEO, Jeff Immelt, as his favorite businessman.”

ANTI-LIBYA-WAR BUMPER STICKERS already showing up. On a Prius, natch, near another bumper sticker giving an erroneous definition of fascism.

JAY COST: Obama’s Achilles’ Heel? “There are three significant issues or factors that will keep President Obama from forging a coalition of almost-everybody, à la Reagan in 1984 or Johnson in 1964, in the 2012 election. The first is the continuing weakness of the economy. Obviously, jobs remain a problem – and this weakness is also manifested in the rising cost of gasoline and food. The second is the president’s health care bill. And the third is the budget deficit.”

SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? College Graduates And The Terrible Labor Market: “This is a cohort with mobility, fresh college degrees, low health care costs, low wage rigidity, etc. etc. I don’t put the flashlight here to ignore the pain that those without college degrees have in this economy. But if young people with college degrees can’t survive in the post-recession era, nobody can. . . . Unfortunately, the recession’s effect is not limited just to the initial job search and wages. The negative impact persists far beyond that.”

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: President Obama’s Ten Libyan Paradoxes.

TODAY ONLY: Another GPS sale.

IF YOU MISSED THEM THIS WEEKEND, check out Alexis Garcia’s interview with Jim Demint, or Tony Katz’s interview with Herman Cain.

SYRIAN TROOPS deploy in Latakia.

UPDATE: “Reformer” Assad Sends in Army & Fires on Freedom Protesters.

BIDEN THUGS APOLOGIZE FOR LOCKING REPORTER IN CLOSET, but Tim Cavanaugh comments:

He was the designated pool reporter for the mainstream media. That Powers complied in his own marginalization reflects poorly on those folks (who knows how much ritualistic nude dancing and human sacrifice he missed by only being present for the official announcements?), but it doesn’t excuse the administration’s extension of the “free speech zone” principle to the established press, or its abuse of Ginsburg’s hospitality. This is how the “most open and accessible administration in American history” treats accredited news organizations. Imagine how open they are with people who disagree with them.

Well, we’ve seen. Thugs — and, as is increasingly obvious even to the “mainstream” media — shockingly incompetent thugs at that.

ATF GUNRUNNING SCANDAL UPDATE: Grassley Presses for More Answers on Operation Fast and Furious, Allowing Guns to “Walk.”

More here.

THE BEST TRUCKS GM Ever Built.

ANDREW BREITBART: Arianna Huffington’s ingratitude is sharper than a serpent’s tooth.

CENTRAL BANKS dumping dollars in favor of gold.

HOW DANGEROUS IS NUCLEAR POWER? NOT VERY. Coal, oil and even solar power all kill more people than the much maligned nuclear power.