Mr. Obama made a surprise lunchtime visit May 29 to a Five Guys hamburger joint in Washington D.C., where he bought cheeseburgers for himself and for NBC anchor Brian Williams, who was filming a "day in the life" program at the White House. While waiting for his burgers, the president chatted up a fellow customer named Walter, who told him he worked at "NGA, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency." Mr. Obama was clueless.  He had no idea what the NGA is.  After the NSA (National Security Agency) and the CIA, the NGA is America's most important intelligence agency. It's hard to imagine a daily presidential intelligence briefing that doesn't include at least some slides from the NGA. Such clueless ignorance means that he'll make a poor referee for the turf war that has broken out between his Director of National Intelligence and the CIA.

London, England. Imagine reading a news report that "U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi resigned this morning, and it is expected that more than half of the members of Congress will either resign, choose not to run again or be defeated in next year's election." This statement might seem to be a dream come true, but it is equivalent to the headlines the British public was treated to this past week. Effective June 21, Michael Martin will become the first speaker of the British House of Commons to resign since 1695 (a mere 314 years ago). The Times of London reports the expected "departure of 325 [out of 646] members of Parliament as a result of forced resignations, retirement, and defeat at the polls would represent the biggest clear-out of Parliament since 1945."  Will this wholesale slaughter of British politicians be duplicated in the United States?

The question of the week:  who is stupider, the Norks or all those intimidated by them? Lot's of fun stuff happened this week.  Tombstone Burris dug his political grave deeper with a tape of his offering a bribe to Hot Rod Blogojevich.  Zero's Chicago gangsterism towards Republican Chrysler dealers - spotted by sharp-eyed TTPers on the Forum (see the thread for A Letter to America from a Dodge Dealer) - is being exposed for all to see.   Drudge is carrying both Rick Moran's article and that of the Washington Examiner.  My old friend Joe Farah is running solid exposés on WorldNetDaily.  Zero is running a straightforward Political Mafia. And Zero further solidified his racism by nominating a racist shrew for the Supreme Court who is so IQ-challenged she'll be steamrollered by Roberts, Alito, and Scalia in conference - as pointed out by Jack Kelly. But we'll focus on the Norks, who can't seem to make a real bomb yet somehow sucker the world into thinking they have.

Earlier this month, I was honored to give the keynote speech at the Ronald Reagan Annual Dinner in northern Virginia. I told stories about the Gipper, reminisced about my experiences with him, and talked about what it was like to help get rid of the Soviet Union.  Then we discussed the consequences of America's electing his moral and political opposite. The speech was recorded, sans the intro, and I'd like to share it with you.  I hope you enjoy it.  God Bless Ronald Reagan. {mp3}DRJWSpeechApril2009{/mp3}

Last month Jeffrey Rosen, legal affairs editor for the liberal journal New Republic, interviewed former clerks for judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, on which Sonia Sotomayor has served since 1998. She is "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench," one former clerk told Mr. Rosen.  "She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue," said another. Mr. Obama had little to say about Ms. Sotomayor's judicial ability and temperament when he announced Tuesday (5/26) he was nominating her to replace Justice David Souter, who is retiring.  He praised her "compelling personal story," and her "empathy" on the bench. Ms. Sotomayor's "compelling personal story" is a better qualification for being a guest on Oprah than for being a Supreme Court justice.

Grab a seat, folks - a ringside seat to the Greatest Show on Earth.  What more exciting fun could there be than watching Zero's Washington caught in a vise between California and England, struggling vainly as it gets squeezed to death? From California comes what America needs more than anything else, a Tax Revolt.  California voters didn't buy the extortionist threats from its girlie-man governor and the Dem crooks who run the Legislature.  They prefer state bankruptcy to more thieving taxes. Such bankruptcy would be the solution to its woes, for e.g., all contracts with public employee unions would be voided.  What fun... That the federal government is also headed towards Bankruptcy City can be seen by this observation in Bloomberg:  The Dollar Is Dirt, Treasuries Are Toast, AAA Is Gone. As the dollar disintegrates, unemployment and inflation explode into deep double digits, and taxpayers decide to spend what money they have on food, clothing, and shelter instead of government thieves, the fury of what's happening now in England is going to be replicated here.

Bratislava, Slovakia -- This pleasant city on the Danube River is considered part of eastern Europe, although it is only as about as far from Vienna as Washington is from Baltimore (about 35 miles) and is, in fact, near the geographical center of the European continent. On May 15, a meeting sponsored by several think tanks in Slovakia and Vienna's Hayek Institute was held here in Bratislava to discuss the current situation and what should be done. Nobel laureate in economics Myron S. Scholes spoke, as did several other prominent European and American economists. There was nearly unanimous agreement that the financial crisis was not only primarily caused by governments, but that the solution was less rather than more government spending -- and less but more focused financial regulation. There was similar agreement that Europe's financial crisis may be even worse than America's.