Much of the nation is reeling from Superstorm Sandy. As families rebuild from Sandy’s destruction, our thoughts are with the victims of this horrific, fossil-fueled storm.

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The attorney at the center of successfully arguing that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional calls Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling an example of "judicial responsibility."

Ted Olson told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday that it's not "judicial activism" when a judge follows the Constitution.

"Where is the right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution?" asked Wallace.

"Where is the right to interracial marriage in the Constitution, Chris?" replied Olson.

"The Supreme Court has looked at marriage and has said that the right to marry is a fundamental right for all citizens. So you call it interracial marriage and then you could prohibit it, no? The Supreme Court said no. The same thing here," explained Olson.

"The judge after hearing three weeks of testimony and full day of closing arguments and listening to experts from all over the world concluded that the denial of the right to marry to these individuals in California hurt them and did not advance the cause of opposite sex marriage," Olson continued.

"This is what judges are expected to do. It's not judicial activism. It's judicial responsibility in the classic sense."

As the lawyer that successfully argued Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court in 2000, Olson's conservative credentials are unassailable. Wallace wanted to know why Olson would support gay rights in this case.

"We believe that a conservative value is stable relationships and stable community and loving individuals coming together and forming a basis that is a building block of our society, which includes marriage," said Olson.

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Well it appears Gov. Haley Barbour (R-BP) is still living on a river named Denial and refusing to admit the potential damage to Mississippi's coast line from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. John King asks Barbour if his perspective on the risk to his state has changed now that the government has admitted the amount of oil pouring into the Gulf is probably twice as much as originally estimated. (And John King fails here since that number would be more like forty to a hundred times more than we were originally told by BP and the government. They said it was one thousand barrels John, then five thousand and they're still not telling us the truth.)

Barbour: Well of course it changes the scope because there's a lot more oil. Now as I understand it the numbers they put out yesterday were the total flow did not include the 15,000 barrels that's being captured by their cap, whatever they call it, but yeah, it means that much more oil's in the Gulf and it means that there's that much more that has to either be dispersed, burned, skimmed or whatever.

And it also means that there's a higher likelihood that it will get to Mississippi. We have not had any of oil onto Mississippi's beaches. We had one intrusion on one of the barrier islands. It came up one day and washed out the next day and left no uhh... you couldn't even tell it had even been there.

Washed away huh? Just like magic. Can't even tell it was there. Good grief who does this goober think he's kidding? He goes onto repeat the line about how the biggest economic damage to his state has been caused by the news scaring all the tourists away and of course tries to give more cover to his good buddies in the oil industry.

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Gov. Haley Barbour was still living in a state called denial during his appearance on Fox News Sunday when he proclaimed that the media was doing more damage than the oil disaster to Mississippi.

"Well, the truth is, Chris, we have had virtually no oil," Barbour told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

..."The average viewer to this show thinks that the whole coast from Florida to Texas is ankle-deep in oil," he said.

"Our tourist season has been hurt by the misperception of what is going on down here. The Mississippi Gulf Coast is beautiful. As I tell people, the coast is clear. Come on down!"

They may not be "ankle-deep in oil" yet, but it looks like Waveland, Mississippi is ankle-deep in dead fish. I'm sure Haley will just tell us this is naturally occurring as well.

h/t Think Progress who has The pictures BP doesn’t want you to see: Round 2.

Click here for full size image.

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Rep. Steve King on Washington Journal April 21, 2009. I think King has been "palling around" with Duncan Hunter who made the remarks about the prisoners at Gitmo having their orange-glazed chicken.

King: There have never been prisoners that have been treated as good as that. They're in air conditioning. They set the temperature. They get a choice of nine meals off of a menu per day. There was no waterboarding that took place in Gitmo nor in the Western hemisphere contrary to these reports that keep coming out. There are two hundred and forty of the worst of the worst down there and if they are released there will be innocent people killed. We know there is torture taking place on political prisoners in some of the countries in South America. That also includes Cuba and under Castro and that is an outrage. But what the Americans have done is treated these prisoners with the greatest deference any prisoners have ever been treated. And I think if you could see what's going on, the attacks on our guards every day down there. Every day there are guards attacked and the worst we can do to the worst of them is limit their outdoor exercise to two hours a day.

When the next caller asks him if he's in denial, he clarifies his statement with this:

King: I said it didn't happen in the Western hemisphere sir....It happened. It just didn't happen in the Western hemisphere. Three of them.

I'd like to know just where Rep. King is admitting the waterboarding took place.