BP Sets Aside $20 Billion for Spill Victims and Skips Dividends  —  WASHINGTON — Four days of intense negotiations between the White House and BP lawyers allowed President Obama to announce Wednesday that the oil giant would create a $20 billion fund to pay damage claims to thousands of fishermen and others along the Gulf Coast.

Jobs Bill Bombs In Senate, 45-52  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION?  —  Deficit concerns trumped jobless aid in the Senate Wednesday as a key vote on a bill to reauthorize several expired programs, including extended unemployment benefits, failed 45-52, with 12 Democrats voting against it.

Amy Bishop charged with murder for 1986 shooting of brother  —  CANTON — Amy Bishop has been charged with murder for the 1986 shotgun slaying of her 18-year-old brother in their Braintree home, Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said this afternoon.

Obama Draws Bipartisan Criticism for Using Oil Spill to Push Energy Policy  —  President Obama speaks from the Oval Office on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  —  President Obama is drawing bipartisan criticism for using the BP oil spill to revive an energy regulation bill that's …

It's Too Early for Christie, but Americans Are Yearning for His Style  —  It seems like every week or so, you see blogs and Twitter comments in the vein of, “Hey, did you see this great speech by Chris Christie?”  —  And they're not actually great speeches, at least not the way we've …

O'Reilly Pwns Palin  —  A moment of truth on the Factor: … He clearly realizes what a total farce she is - and he slowly dismantles her mindless partisanship by the end of the segment.  Good for O'Reilly.  Particularly good for exposing just how little this phony knows about energy policy, her alleged expertise.

Banished by the FBI  —  This kind of stuff has become so commonplace in the post-9/11 world that we hardly even notice it anymore, but the case of Yahya Wehelie is really just outrageous beyond belief.  Keep in mind as you read that he's a U.S. citizen born and raised in Virginia:

The Debbie Schlussel Experience Part 2: The Fixation  —  Imagine, if you will, that you're a normal person and then one day a quasi-famous mentally ill blogger becomes fixated on you the way Gollum was fixated on the Ring.  Even though she hasn't been setting the world on fire lately …

Can The One Drop the Buzzer-Beating No. 23 Act?  —  Of the many exciting things about Barack Obama's election, one was the anticipation of a bracing dose of normality in the White House.  —  America had been trapped for eight years with the Clintons' marital dysfunction disastrously shaping national events …

More Dirty Details From My BP Mole  —  You know the story: Boy calls girl, girl goes to pick up boy, boy and girl go sit on a beautiful beachside deck to enjoy the night breeze and listen to the waves crash as he tells her a bunch of terrible things that are going on at an oil-spill cleanup site.

Dickensian Moment of the Day  —  BP's Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, explaining to the press why President Obama is frustrated with his company: … Unless the discussion veered off into a direction that was unanticipated — i.e., a mutual cognizance of the struggles that dwarfs …

Realism in Afghanistan: Rethinking an Uncertain Case for the War  —  There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts.  It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan.  It may well still be winnable …

Texas, here we come  —  IN THE ten years I've lived in New York I forgot how to drive.  Lately I've been spending lots of time in Austin, Texas.  Enough so that I've had to start driving again.  When you go many years without driving, it becomes terrifying.

Much Talk of Teaching Career, but Not Its Brevity  —  WASHINGTON — Representative Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, a Republican candidate for the United States Senate, has often reminisced about his time as a teacher.  —  On the floor of the House, in campaign commercials and during interviews …

Poll: Enthusiasm dips for Democratic voters  —  USA TODAY's Susan Page mentioned findings from a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll in today's analysis of President Obama's Oval Office address, including a widening “enthusiasm gap” between Democrats and Republicans looking at the November elections.

Winston Churchill's Cigar Goes Down the Memory Hole … Those who control the present share Adolf Hitler's disdain for smoking, so they went back in time and snatched away Winston Churchill's trademark cigar:  —  We are living in the novel 1984.  —  Worse still might befall Churchill …

Dems flirt with backing Crist  —  The emergence of a politically unknown billionaire self-funder in the Florida Senate race is prompting top Democrats in the state to say publicly what some have been whispering for weeks: If Jeff Greene, who got rich betting on the collapse of the housing market …

The golf card  —  Two vacations and a bunch of parties as well.  Works from 9:30 to 3:00-ish 5 days a week.  He does not like to work very hard.  —  The GOP is really plumbing the depths of stupid.  Keep it up, morons.  The latest poll has America down on the GOP, and stunts like this will keep that negative momentum going down.

Obama disappoints from the beginning of his speech  —  Less than a minute into President Obama's Oval Office address, my heart sank.  For the umpteenth time since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began, an anxious nation was informed that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has a Nobel Prize.

Armey: Avoid ‘tea party’ label, MSNBC  —  Republican candidates popular with tea party activists should refrain from self-identifying as tea party candidates - and also should stay off MSNBC, Dick Armey said Wednesday.  —  The former House majority leader, who has emerged as a leading figure within …

Brady leads Quinn, but margin reduced  —  Bill Brady is still favored to become the most obscure big state Governor in the country this fall, as he leads Pat Quinn 34-30 despite 56% of Illinois voters having no opinion about him.  But Quinn has reduced what was a 10 point deficit now to 4 points …

All about Sharron Angle  —  When Sharron Angle stepped into National Review's boardroom on Monday, she wasn't flanked by a phalanx of aides.  It was just her; her husband, Ted; and a friend.  They sat down, cracked open Diet Cokes, and began to chat.  Sen. Harry Reid, we thought, would be the main topic of conversation.

June 28, 1969: Turning Point in Gay Rights History  —  “The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous.  He is not interested in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage.”  —  So declared Mike Wallace in authoritative voice-of-God tones in …

Dershowitz backs Schakowsky challenger  —  The Harvard Law Professor and Israel hawk Alan Dershowitz is headlining a fundraiser for Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky's Republican challenger, turning that race into (yet another) minor rift in the Israel debate.  —  The candidate, Joel Pollak …

Bizarre getaway as student hurls puppy at German biker gang  —  A German student “mooned” a group of Hell's Angels and hurled a puppy at them before escaping on a stolen bulldozer, police have said.

British media fall out of love with Obama  —  The BBC reports of Barack Obama's speech last night are about as derisive as it would be possible to be about someone you were describing only a few months ago as the incarnation of Hope and Optimism.  Yes indeed, the romance is over.