BUT DO WE BELIEVE THEM? Energy Dept. defends air pollution regulations, says new rules won’t crash power grid. “The Energy Department said Thursday that upcoming air pollution regulations will not threaten the reliability of the country’s electric grid, the latest effort by the Obama administration to counter claims by Republicans and industry officials that the rules could cause power outages.”

THE HORROR OF MEEBO.

BYRON YORK: Voters like new Newt but wait to see if he’s real.

JIM TYNEN: Obama And His Caste. “I know Hyde Park, the president’s former home. It is an enclave, a bubble, plunked into the South Side. I’ve worked on campuses and in downtowns. The modern government and corporation seal themselves off from the less tidy aspects of life, as they seal themselves off from bad weather and noise. . . . Obama is like that: the cocoon of his mind and thoughts and ideology blurs out the unseemly sights and smells of cities or, say, failed stimulus programs.”

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, controversy over John Mearsheimer. More from Pejman Yousefzadeh.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Obama Campaigns On The Taxpayer Dime.

INFLATION WORRIES: Haunted by ’20s Hyperinflation, Germans Balk at Euro Aid. “F’or the average American, inflation means the home price is increasing and the value of debt is going down,’ said Peter Bofinger, a prominent economist on Mrs. Merkel’s independent council of economic advisers, ‘whereas the German invested in life insurance and sitting in an apartment he rented is much more vulnerable to inflation.’”

BRYAN PRESTON: What’s Eating Mitt Romney?

ROGER SIMON: What Was Herman Cain Thinking? Plus, this: “When it comes to politicians, caveat emptor. They are almost all very flawed human beings. The incumbent president is a good example of that.”

ANDREW MALCOLM: A Strangely Desperate New Obama Campaign Speech.

JAMES TARANTO: For liberal baby boomers, it’s always 1972.

“ARAB SPRING:” Landslide: Islamists on track to dominate Egyptian parliament.

UPDATE: A Tunisian Islamist Looks to the Future.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Airport security a few months after 9/11.

STEVEN CROWDER: MICHELE BACHMANN’S REVENGE.

A READER POINTS OUT ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY “NAME THAT PARTY!” New York Times: Ex-Governor Is Said to Be Focal Point of Inquiry. “Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico who ran for president in 2008, is being investigated by a federal grand jury for possible violations of campaign finance laws, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry.”

If you scroll down far enough you see this: “Some experts likened the investigation of Mr. Richardson to that of John Edwards, another candidate in the 2008 Democratic race.” But that’s as close as they get to identifying Bill Richardson as a major Democrat and Clinton cabinet member.

A COLD WINTER’S COMING: At Amazon, 60% off sweaters and fleece. For men, women, and children.

MICKEY KAUS ON Mitt Romney on immigration.

AFTERBURNER: Bill Whittle on Newt Gingrich on Education and Character.

IF FACEBOOK MADE A PHONE, would you buy it? No. It would probably randomly call people on my contacts list to tell them what I’m doing.

WELL, THIS IS AN EMBARRASSMENT FOR THE LOCAL BENCH AND BAR: Flawed handling of torture-slaying cases raises questions about rest of judge’s docket. “Blackwood said a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe of Baumgartner revealed the former judge confessed to a doctor in 2008 that he was a pill addict and had been committing crimes almost daily until that investigation forced him off the bench earlier this year.” Is it really possible that nobody knew about this before?

UPDATE: A lawyer/reader emails: “Knew? Yes. Willing to say something? No. He’s Baumgartner. No one wants to take on a judge, generally. Co-workers fear being fired. Lawyers fear retribution.”

You’d think someone could have at least tipped off an investigative reporter or something.

ANOTHER UPDATE: So I wonder. In the Henry Granju case, the Knox County law enforcement apparatus seemed extremely uninterested in doing any digging. Now we find out about Judge Baumgartner’s prescription drug issues at about the same time, and I wonder: Were they uninterested in doing digging in Henry’s case because they feared they’d find a connection to Baumgartner? The circles of prescription-drug addicts and peddlers in Knox County aren’t that big, so it wouldn’t be shocking to worry about that. Perhaps we’ll find out.

CHANGE: Obama, Congress restore U.S. horse-slaughter industry.

PJTV: Victor Davis Hanson on Immigration, Multiculturalism and Amnesty.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Congressional Insider Trading: Will Someone Please Guard the Damn Guardians? “Perhaps it’s a drafting error. Unfortunately, when it comes to policing their own ethics, all of Congress’s errors seem to run in the same direction.”

It’s like they’re just trying to give the appearance of propriety.

TEN NEW PLUG-IN CARS for 2012.

JOHN PAUL CASSIL: The Recession And The Menacing Higher Education Bubble.