A Hail of Bullet-Points

Even though I'm committed to trying to keep up my blogging pace of the last few days, I have a lot of grading to do today, so I'll just list some bullet points for now.

• One way to get people to believe crazy things is to lie. Steve Benen has posted about how Republican senator Mike Pence is so successful in spreading his lies about the Health Care bill. (via Matthew Yglesias)
• The Texas Board of Education is trying to promote the teaching of "the biblical motivations of America's settlers and founders" in public schools--and they have so much clout in the textbook industry, it could affect the whole country.
• Dale Neumann, lethally stupid Wisconsin father, has been convicted of reckless homicide in the diabetes death of his daughter Madeline, and faces up to twenty-five years in jail.
• According to John Tantillo of Fox News, President Obama's tendency to explain is a bad thing. Right. Give me the good old days, when we had the Decider . . .
• "Hell is a morally repugnant doctrine. People wonder why God would send people to eternal punishment." Nevertheless, 59% of Americans believe in it, according to one poll.
• Jefferson County, Alabama is going bankrupt. Why? Because the Republicans in power there lowered taxes and put public services in the hands of private enterprise. Thank you, capitalism.

I really need to get my brain under control. I'm still going in too many directions. Maybe once I get all of this out of my system, and once I've finished my grading, I'll be able to focus.