Midday open thread

• Jake Tapper sure knows how to cast some Drudge bait.
• Glenn Beck versus Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage versus Glenn "the hemorrhoid with eyes" Beck.
• Rick Warren lies about being anti-gay marriage bigot.
• Funny how ACORN is the GOP's boogeyman for everything now. And sometimes, it even teams up with that other boogeyman, George Soros, in an unholy alliance of doom!
• Try not to cry too hard for this asshole:

  But several of [Allen] Stanford's expressions of self-pity will likely strike most non-billionaires as far from sympathetic:

  *He lamented how the charges had deprived him of being listed by Forbes as the 405th wealthiest person in the world.
  *He complained about being forced to fly commercial after the government seized his fleet of private jets. ("They make you take your shoes off and everything, it's terrible.)
  *And he reasoned: "I'm the maverick rich Texan where they can put the moose head on the wall. And that's the only reason they went after me." Because rich Texans always get a raw deal.

  and also:

  "I always lived very frugally. I flew around on a private jet. I had a boat. But I always lived very frugally. I'm not a high-fallutin guy."

• You know what would help with marriage equality? For gay couples who have committed themselves to each other to call each other "husband" and "wife". I still hear "my partner" way too much. The more people get used to men talking about their husbands, and women talking about their wives, the easier it'll be to change the culture and, ultimately, the law.
• Glenn Greenwald:

  Note how warped our political culture is:  Sen. Dick Durbin was forced to tearfully apologize on the Senate floor for accurately comparing our treatment of detainees at Guantanamo to the techniques used in Soviet gulags and by Gestapo interrogation squads, but those who perpetrated these war crimes have apologized for nothing, remain welcome in decent company, and are still shielded by our Government from all accountability.

• Militia breeding ground. We'll see a huge rise in militia membership over the next eight years, as the Glenn Becks of the media world continue ratcheting up the hysteria.
• The Weekly Standard has decided to shun politicians who cavort with prostitutes. Well, except those named "David Vitter", that is.
• IL-05: Rahm Emanuel forgot to vote in the special election in his old district.
• Oh, that's why they killed off Dr. Kutner in House -- the actor Kal Penn is going to work in the White House.