Glenn Beck's History Timeline

Classic.

The "tell"

Jon Kyl (among other Republicans) now against a payroll tax holiday.

The stated reason: "It won't do much."

The "tell" as it were, regarding the GOP plans to keep the economy spluttering for political reasons is that they are now against straightforward tax cuts it they can help Obama. In other words, if a tax cut has the possible benefit of actually working to improve the economy, they are not for it because Obama might get credit.

New York State -- the next in line?

New York State might be on the cusp of allowing same-sex marriages.

Apparently the tact of preserving (and even expanding) religious freedoms in the bill is helping to move it along.

The big tell

The GOP declines to take up the President's offer to try another stimulus plan made up entirely of tax cuts.

As noted elsewhere, this is "the big tell." Clearly the GOP plan is to try to keep the economy sputtering until after the election.

The Boston Diocese: Where some are welcome!

Boston parish cancels Mass planned for Gay Pride Week, with the theme "All Are Welcome."

This went from a poorly worded flyer announcement to looking like the Boston Dioceses does not, in fact, believe that all are welcome.

When it doubt, go with Christ. It is far better to do the right thing and look foolish than to pull back in the hopes the embarrassment will pass.

TGIF

Just called my cell phone number from my office phone to help me find the cell. Got a message: "The person you are calling is not reachable."

Like a movie IRL

Spectacular photos from Chilean volcano eruption

On Rick Santorum (formerly R, PA/VA)

Greg Sargent makes some solid points about Rick Santorum's bizarre candidacy.

Money quote: It’s not that Santorum thinks that Republican primary voters really want to get rid of Social Security; it’s that he believes what they want is a candidate willing to be as radical as they think of themselves as being.

Partly this is the primary season, where candidates run hard to the right (or left, for the Dems) and some candidates go off into the ditch. But one of the reasons why Obama looks like a fairly solid re-election candidate is that none of the Republican candidates seem the least bit interested in staying on the road at all.

Full disclosure: For Santorum's last election I was a contributor to a group blog Dumpsantorum.com (which, like many sites, has gone down the rabbit hole). But having an opinion that Santorum is a wacko far Right politico who wraps himself in his religion only when it matches his political agenda is hardly one that I'm alone with, and looks like it will be shared by many more people until he drops out of the race.

Personal propaganda

Besides having a cool name (or, 2/3 or a cool name), this piece is interesting how it takes a propaganda shot and makes it a little personal. And not just because it was the author's family in the shot.

So maybe the propagandists were right all along.

Laffer Curve Madness

In the current debate over tax policy (which should be more about tax loopholes and avoidance than tax rates, but there you go), sometimes, zombie-like, certain economic philosophies continue to be bandied about as though they haven't been thoroughly debunked.

Greg Mankiw takes another dagger at Laffer in the course of a good debate about economics and policy presentation, from 2007.