Arrests are expected in mid to late June from 23 local mortgage fraud task forces set up by the FBI around the country.

This is not a great time to be a Republican establishment candidate for Senate–even if you’re already a Senator. Voters are dissing old-school officeholders in favor of insurgents whose allegiances rhyme with “me.”

There is a hole in the middle of the Gulf. It is a hole of death, starting with the eleven oil rig workers killed in the initial explosion, and continuing with the marine life of the Gulf. The National Marine Fisheries Service has been closing ever-larger portions of the US Gulf waters to fishing — now up to 32% of them — because the oil still flows from that hole of death.

The effects of the recession (and a decade of Norquist-inspired bathtub shrinking) really are forcing us to cut education, which we may see as a national security issue. That’s something the federal government could prevent. It’s high time we invested in our base-level national competency before yet another set of military toys.

PBS News Hour spent 15 minutes Friday night fretting about some manufactured controversy between America and Great Britain. But I can’t find any evidence that any sensible American or any sensible US official who is even remotely upset at the British people, the UK or its government. So everyone relax.

It’s bad enough to have a Republican Grover Norquist acolyte for one’s state governor. It’s even worse when he decides to run for president. And it’s really bad when his grandstanding for the Tea Party crowd (aka the GOP base) shows he’s more than willing to plunge his rusty knife a few more times into the torn, barely-breathing body of what used to be a happy, healthy state back in the long ago when Rudy Perpich ran it.

So Pups, do you have or have you had an older person in your life that has been instrumental in molding your thinking and values? What are some of your favorite memories? Also, what mark would you like to accomplish or leave in this world and how are you working towards getting it? I’m listening.

The Beach Boys — Sloop John B.

While you’ve been keeping up with the latest on the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf, the aftermath of last Tuesday’s Republican and Democratic primaries, the most recent national-security scandals, and the like, here’s the most-read story of the last 24 hours on Politico…Are Obama staffers overexposed?

The Deepwater Horizon explosion was not a tragic unavoidable accident, it was an inevitable consequence of weak regulation coupled with corporate corner-cutting and greed.