BARACK OBAMA’S WORST NIGHTMARE: MATH. Obama Flunks Econ 101. Actually, I heard from a close friend of Harry Reid’s that Obama flunked Econ 101 three times at Columbia. With such significant rumors out there, the burden should be on Obama to release his transcripts and disprove this serious charge.

Plus: “So it’s time, I think, if Obama ever gets hard questions (maybe People magazine could slip one in), to start answering some basics: 1) Why are his growth and job estimates so far off, so consistently? 2) If we grow at 1 to 2 percent, as most economists think, what happens to the deficit and what impact will his tax hikes have on the ‘recovery’? 3) Why didn’t the $1.2 trillion (interest included) stimulus deliver the uptick he promised? Why would another, smaller variation of that work?”

Hey, let’s run that graphic again:

DANA MILBANK CRITICIZES THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER’S HATEMONGERING, and Peter Ingemi comments: “I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on Dana Milbank, after all he is doing better than a lot of other people on the left by saying it and he is being savaged in comments but if he really had the courage of his convictions this piece would have come out before there was blood on the ground and not after.”

UPDATE: Reader Walt Higgins writes: “It looks like they have stopped displaying the comments on Milbank’s column. Probably they showed who the real haters are.” That’s how it usually is with comments at the Post.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Former PostWatch guy Christopher Fotos writes: “As of 12:30 pm eastern time, the comments on the Milbank piece are showing up fine. The comment system at WaPo online is clunky–it seems like sometimes when they get a long thread, you have to click on an all/best comments option–but I’m seeing them, they’re at more than 1,000 and counting. Hey, maybe they disappeared something–WaPo does that all the time without explanation.”

THANK FRACKING: US Carbon Emissions Hit 20-Year Low, No Thanks to Carbon-Trading Schemes. “The Energy Department has just released a report that ought to leave the greens asking: How did we get this so wrong? As the AP reports, the study shows that US carbon emissions have just hit their lowest level in 20 years. How was this reduction achieved? Natural gas.”

ANNALS OF THE ONE PERCENT: ABC News: Secret ‘Menu’ Details Perks for Big Democratic Donors. Okay, actually it’s more like the 0.1 percent.

CHANGE: Australia’s Banks Are Now Worth More Than Europe’s.

NEW YORK POST: The Southern Poverty Law Center Inciting Hate, Violence.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Romney Campaign: Team Obama ‘drowning in their own venom.’

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: 39 Law Schools Saw Declines in Enrollment and LSAT/GPA in 2011.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: CBS, AP: Dem chair of House Oversight covered up ties to Countrywide for himself, colleagues, and staff. “How did Countrywide end up as one of the worst villains in the housing-bubble collapse, which cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and nearly crushed the financial sector? Simple: they bought political connections by offering sweetheart deals to people like Chris Dodd, who headed the Senate Banking Committee, and Towns, whose committee was supposed to keep corruption out of federal regulation of the market. When the entire mess collapsed, people like Dodd and Towns were in position to manipulate the investigations in order to avoid detection. Dodd was less successful at that effort than Towns, who got away with it as long as Democrats remained in charge of Congress — and the White House, which has been mighty incurious on the whole issue since running on populist outrage over the housing-bubble collapse.”

Plus: “Towns announced his retirement in April. He should be expelled, and his pension benefits stripped for this coverup.”

IN RESPONSE TO YESTERDAY’S POST ABOUT SUPER-GONORRHEA, Derek Lowe sends this on why it’s hard to kill bacteria, and this on why it’s hard to come up with antibacterial drugs.

VIDEO: Tapper Makes Carney Eat BHO’s Remarks About Romney’s Dog.

VLADIMIR PUTIN’S PERSONAL POLICE STATE: Russian female punk band Pussy Riot found guilty of hooliganism over Putin protest at church site. “The three were arrested in March after a guerrilla performance in Moscow’s main cathedral in February calling for the Virgin Mary to protect Russia against Vladimir Putin, who was elected to a new term as Russia’s president a few days later. They face a maximum seven years in prison.”

I recommend that artists and musicians around the world make Putin-mockery a recurring theme. Suggestions that he has a small penis would be a bonus. Denouncing him as a big, scary dictator will make him happy. Saying that he’s scared of girls, not so much. And, you know, he obviously is.

UPDATE: Sentenced to two years. Let the mockery begin!

AT AMAZON, Top Deals In Electronics.

Also, today only: $100 off a Samsung Series 3 Laptop. And a deep discount on a Swissgear laptop backpack.

WAIT, I THOUGHT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO HATE HIM: Senior Citizens Greet Paul Ryan: ‘Good Luck! Kick Ass!’

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Crickets Chirp When Leftist Hate Inspires Violence.

A gay activist opens fire in a conservative organization’s offices, inspired by the steady drumbeat of leftist vitriol against those who value traditional marriage, and no one says a word.

You won’t hear any call for civil discourse from President Obama’s bully pulpit over the shooting and wounding of a security guard at the offices of the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, D.C.

The alleged shooter was a volunteer at a community center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and the FRC favors traditional marriage.

Those who blamed Sarah Palin for the shooting of Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords or Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing are strangely silent.

At least the likes of ABC’s Brian Ross didn’t reflexively blame the Tea Party, as he did after a gunman shot up an Aurora, Colo., movie theater.

I’ll bet he Googled hopefully, though.

Related: Video: CNN takes almost 3 hours to report Family Research Council shooting.

Also: Paul Rahe: How Hatred Became a Liberal Value.

Politics is generational. Consider the thuggery practiced by the Democrats recently in Wisconsin. Force, intimidation, and openly partisan, unprofessional conduct on the part of judges, civil servants, physicians, and policemen became on the part of left-liberals the order of the day, and no one on the left stood up to denounce this conduct. Now, thanks to our President’s admiration for the tactics of Saul Alinsky, others in other states are imitating the deportment of the Wisconsin left-liberals – not only heckling Republican candidates but attempting to storm the platforms on which they speak.

I remember when left-liberals insisted on civility. I remember when they condemned the tactics of intimidation championed by the New Left. I remember when progressives insisted on impartiality on the part of judges, civil servants, policemen, and those who purported to be reporting the news (as opposed to espousing opinion). There were always exceptions to the rule. Dan Rather was playing tricks as early as 1963. But, when caught and exposed, these exceptions took it on the chin. Today they rarely even apologize.

I remember when liberals sported on their automobiles bumper stickers reading, “Hatred is not a Family Value.” Then, back in 2003, in The New Republic, Jonathan Chait wrote an essay explaining why it was legitimate to hate George W. Bush, and the dam burst. Civility is no longer a liberal ideal. And now – as yesterday’s armed attack on the Family Research Council in Washington, the five-hour delay in President Obama’s condemnation of the act as he calculated whether it was in his interest to comment or not, and the mainstream media’s initial reluctance to report on the event, much less highlight the activist LGBT connections of the shooter suggest – left liberals are willing to wink at violence. It may be regrettable, they think, but, like stealing elections, it is all in a good cause – and before figuring out how to respond to an outbreak of violence on the part of their allies, they pause to calculate the political consequences. You will not hear liberals arguing for a crackdown on the use of force by animal-rights activists, environmental activists, union thugs, and the Occupy movement. Instead, you will find in them a desperate hankering to pin on the Tea Party responsibility for conduct the Tea-Partiers abhor and a willingness to engage in race-baiting and talk of class warfare on a stunning scale.

True. And pathetic.

CHANGE: 2012 gas prices head for record highs.

BILL WHITTLE: My California Lease.

DESPERATE: Biden Staff Trying To Edit Press Pool Reports To Cover Up Gaffes.

Of course, now that Sarah Palin has told Obama he should dump Biden, that path has pretty much been closed off . . . .

IS DECONDITIONING A MEDICAL CONDITION?

CHANGE: New rules expose bigger funding gaps for public pensions. Are they underfunded? Or overgenerous? Both! “The accounting changes themselves will not force policymakers to alter how they fund pensions. But finance experts say that by simply highlighting greater funding gaps, the rules will intensify pressure on state and local governments to allocate more of taxpayers’ dollars to their pension funds. More likely, public workers may have to contribute more to their retirements or see promised benefits curtailed, measures that have already been implemented in more than 40 states. . . . The changes add to the growing tensions over the often generous retirement benefits that public employees receive. Union leaders argue the packages compensate for lower pay, but critics, including GOP governors, say the pensions are unfair and have become unaffordable for taxpayers.”

UPDATE: Reader Joe Inscore writes:

I’ve been reading with interest your posts on public pensions, but one aspect of the pension crisis has not received enough coverage. The infrastructure of cities has been on a trajectory of decline as pensions are taking a bigger bite out of city budgets. In the small city where I reside, the streets have been in a state of deterioration for some time now. The city recently borrowed $2 million for the street fund in order to complete a project that had run out of money. Dilapidated and abandoned homes and automobiles litter the landscape, and things like spraying for mosquitos are no longer done, which has resulted in outbreaks of disease such as West Nile virus. The implications of the pension crisis are far worse than just the employees involved as the quality of live and liveablility of our cities and towns is now in question.

Yes.

IS THIS ELECTION TURNING OUT TO BE A REFERENDUM ON THE WELFARE STATE?

Hey, let’s run that graphic one more time:

Yeah, I can keep this up until November. . . .

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Biden’s ‘good friend,’ donor receives $20M federal loan to open foreign luxury car dealership in Ukraine.

BAILOUTS FOR COUNTRIES THAT ARE BAD AT MATH. That would be the vast majority, then. . . .

CHANGE: Paul Ryan Set to Appear With Mom at World’s Largest Retirement Community, Defend Medicare Plan.

Hey, I wonder if somebody over there is reading InstaPundit?

UPDATE: Reader Rob McFadden writes:

Well just in case the Ryan/Romney teams ARE reading instapundit, could you point out that saying, “I paid all the taxes I owe and I didn’t pay taxes which I don’t owe and I recommend all taxpayers do the same” is a MUCH better soundbite than, “I paid at least 13%.”

Done. By the way, what about Obama releasing his college transcripts? I heard from a friend of Harry Reid’s that the reason they’re sealed is that Obama was disciplined for drug dealing on campus. In the face of such significant rumors, it’s his obligation to come forward with proof that they’re not true.