It was a relief to hear more than a passing reference to climate change in President Obama’s State of the Union Speech, including promises of more support for wind and solar power. But the oil industry heard nothing to even cause even a smidgen of concern.

It’s always entertaining to read Robert Samuelson’s columns on Monday mornings. They are so deliciously orthogonal to reality. Today’s column, asking whether America is in decline, is another gem.

Rubbing elbows at exclusive, industry-sponsored “forums” might make sense for corporate bottom lines, and it might make life a little easier–or at least a little more fun–for stressed-out scribes, but it does nothing, really, for the consumer. And that would be for the consumer of the energy product or the news product.

A “level playing field” sounds inherently fair, so why should domestic solar manufacturing have to suffer for the sins of legacy energy production?

I was struck by the way in which President Obama’s State of the Union speech was structured, with each issue laid out inthe same pattern: start with the conservative talking point, then move to the progressive positionas though the progressive-leaning positions were being given the rhetorical back seat. Only when the speech spoke of unity of worthwhile purposes did it capture what makes a nation great.

Throughout the Libya war, there has been quite a bit of skepticism about who the rebels being armed were exactly and whether they could govern Libya after Gaddafi was defeated. A political body to represent the rebels, the National Transitional Council (NTC), began to solidify early in the conflict. Its leader, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, has been chairman of the NTC since February. Jalil was Libya’s justice minister, who was sent to deal with the uprising in Benghazi when it began. Jalil “quit in protest” after witnessing the “excessive use of violence against unarmed protesters.”

What is the cost of getting elected? A lot. More zeros than I can count per candidate per election cycle. That money comes from their own personal wealth and even more so from campaign donations; case in point, failed California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who could have done a lot more good for California giving that $140 million (forty of it hers), to schools and causes, funding small locally businesses in depressed neighborhoods, investing and spreading her wealth, rather than spending her owns and the combined of others besides. For decades it has taken small fortunes to get elected, or at least to run: Kennedy, Bush, Kerry, McCain, Edwards, these are storied and even more so moneyed names which come to mind as using personal wealth. Candidates without such a kick start need to work even harder to raise money, and along the way, America has lost. Pricele$$ points out that politics is not a poor man’s business. Yet the majority of Americans lack the funding to run for office, should they so choose.

A brief look at what’s happening in the news on the morning of May 13th, 2010.