I’m going to be doing lots of short and sweet posts today, because I’m swamped. That said, there’s all kinds of interesting stuff on my Facebook feed. So I figured I’d throw out some highlights…

1. Inhofe letter asks why EPA requests $1.24 billion in new funding, despite $2 billion on hand

The EPA has $2.26 billion in unspent funds from last year, and they want a budget increase. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is asking what the heck they need more money for.

2. And now a quote: “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” Mark Twain said that.

3. Which is sorta interesting in light of this…

You’ve probably heard that the president and his team are looking to raise $1 billion to run on in 2012. They may make it; they may not. But what is that money to be spent on? He won’t have to spend it in a primary, it looks like. So that means the Obama team will have hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars to spend with one object and one object only: Destroy the eventual Republican nominee. Go after him. Drag his name through the mud. Run commercials every 15 seconds in six battleground states in which he removes wheelchairs from Medicare patients and grabs checks from Social Security recipients. And should there be a personal problem, a marital difficulty . . . well, Katie, bar the door. Imagine being Mitch Daniels, with your complex marital history, contemplating the onslaught of a negative campaign that cascades over you beginning in June 2012, just as you’re trying to “define” yourself to the American people. Pretty horrible to contemplate.

Everybody in America already knows and has an opinion of Obama. It will be the Obama team’s job to help everybody develop an opinion of his rival that is unabashedly hostile. And they will have the dollars to do it, though it should be said even an ad campaign in the hundreds of millions can’t in themselves cast a magic spell. But it can help.

That got me to thinking. Namely that since coming into office Obama has trashed the rule of law (by screwing GM’s bondholders on that bailout, circumventing Congress on all kinds of things – most recently the DISCLOSE Act and Libya), thrown the nation’s finances into what looks like irreparable destruction, driven our international prestige into Carteresque depths – and now we’ll see him so poison our politics that no decent person would want to get in. Not that any of these things weren’t trending the wrong way before Obama came on the scene, mind you – but in all of these cases Obama has hit the gas with vigor.

What’s going to be left when he’s finished is anybody’s guess. But the American people know we’re on the wrong track and even without anybody compelling – as yet – to emerge on the GOP side, the numbers still indicate they want him out of office.

4. And speaking of nobody compelling on the GOP side, Jonah Goldberg says there’s an answer for that. Namely, Paul Ryan…

So the question many are asking is, should Ryan ride to the rescue? If the election is going to be a referendum on his plan, maybe the one guy who can sell it should do just that. On Monday, House majority leader Eric Cantor called for Ryan to get in the race, saying, “Paul’s about real leadership.” Charles Krauthammer on Fox News’s Special Report said he wouldn’t just urge Ryan to run, he’d form a “posse.”

If Ryan ran, he would probably drive the other candidates farther away from his own plan while forcing them to come up with serious alternatives of their own. Many think that if he got the nomination, he would clean Obama’s clock in the debates.

It’s a lot to ask. He has three young kids and would have to get organized and funded from a cold start for a long-shot run. But politics is about moments, and this one is calling him. Unless someone suddenly rises to the challenge, the cries of “Help us, Paul Ryan, you’re our only hope!” will only get louder.

5. Ryan says he’s not interested in running. But it’s clear he’s hip to the fact that the Mediscare thing is an issue for Republicans, so he’s out with another video about his reform plan…

6. On a different subject, there’s this:

“Discussion overheard in Baton Rouge last night: Single moms are mad as hell at Bobby Jindal and considering a candidate against him!”

Here’s my suggestion for such a candidate…

Hey, it’s pitiful what they give you. You gotta fight for your right to party.