Last night, Ron Paul was on The Daily Show, and under the gentlest of questioning from Jon Stewart, he said some truly insane things. After alleging that people who don't support him "don't understand what freedom is all about," Paul made his usual case that government is bad because it makes decisions for everyone, whereas "when you make a bad decision, it only hurts you."

Via Kevin Drum, this poll from Winthrop University shows, among other things, that a full 74.7 percent of South Carolina Republicans think the term "socialist" describes Barack Obama well or very well (in addition, almost 30 percent believe he's a Muslim, and 36 percent think he was probably or definitely born in another country). So just out of curiosity, I shuffled over to the website of the Socialist Party USA to see how Obama-esque they are these days. The answer? Not much.

Over at Alyssa Rosenberg’s blog, a post about the class differences between heroes and villains has become a thread over Batman and his methods. In particular, the commenters are working through one particular question: Is Batman crazy?

As the argument goes, it’s not that Batman is insane, per say, but that he has a monomaniacal focus on justice that manifests itself as a sort of pathology, in which his life derives it’s only meaning from the pursuit of criminals.

As has been shown time and time again, African American families have been the biggest losers in the current economy. Black unemployment, for example, has been in the 16 percent range for more than two years, with dim prospects for improvement. The poor economic position of African Americans is most evidence with regards to overall wealth – as this new chart from the Economic Policy Institute shows, black wealth has seen a precipitous decline since 2007, to a 20-year low.

Last night's Republican debate was interesting for many reasons, but the thing that made me angriest was this, from Herman Cain:

WALLACE: ...and we all share in the happiness about your situation. But, you say if Obamacare had been in effect when you were first being treated, you would dead now. Why?

According to a new survey from Quinnipiac University, in Florida Rick Perry’s Social Security message -- “it’s a Ponzi scheme” -- resonates with a whole lot of GOP voters. Among Republicans, the only voters allowed to participate in the state’s Republican primary, 52 percent say that a “Ponzi scheme” is a fair way to describe the retirement program.