$100,000 For Glenn Beck's Sex Tape  —  What's Your Reaction:  —  Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers are happy to throw money at the rising tide of right wing lunacy.  Breitbart offered $100,000 for JournoList, the email listserve that brought down WaPo blogger Dave Weigel this June.

BREAKING!!  Alaska Libertarian Party votes to deny Lisa Murkowski ballot line  —  From Eric Dondero:  —  The Executive Committee of the Alaska Libertarian Party held an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss the contested primary results in the Republican Senate primary.

Coburn rips the left and right alike  —  He pulls no punches during a town hall meeting in Wagoner.  —  WAGONER - U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn called out Democrats, Republicans, Newt Gingrich, the military-industrial complex, teachers unions and Medicare - to name a few - at a town hall meeting Friday.

It's Witch-Hunt Season  —  The last time a Democrat sat in the White House, he faced a nonstop witch hunt by his political opponents.  Prominent figures on the right accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of everything from drug smuggling to murder.  And once Republicans took control of Congress …

Israel group targets Holt, J Street  —  The Emergency Committee for Israel's latest ad targets Rep. Rush Holt, but its real target, again, seems to be the left-leaning Jewish group J Street.  —  The ad, which started airing Saturday in a modest but real buy, an aide to the group said …

Thinner Time magazine still manages to stand out  —  Rick Stengel may have his shoulder in a sling, but when it comes to the newsmagazine wars, he's the last man standing.  —  The reason, says Time's managing editor, is that “we saw what was coming.  We wanted to fix the roof when the sun was shining.”

This I Believe  —  It's quickly mushroomed into the summer's hottest data point: A boatload of Americans believe Barack Obama's a Muslim.  —  Except that, maybe, they don't.  Consider this instead: They're just willing to say it.  —  This not-so-subtle difference is useful in understanding public opinion and its measurement.

Crist walks back same-sex marriage remarks  —  (CNN) - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist appeared to backtrack from statements he made regarding same-sex marriage during a CNN interview Sunday, saying in a statement that he does not support a Constitutional ban on the practice.

In 2010, Obama's poll numbers less of an asset for congressional Democrats  —  Two years can change just about everything in politics.  —  In the 2008 campaign, Democrats running for the Senate did anything - and everything - to associate themselves with then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

John Bolton, Criticizer-in-Chief  —  Since assuming office, President Obama has garnered his fair share of high-profile critics.  But few have been as omnipresent and implacable as John Bolton.  From his near constant appearances on Fox News and HBO's “Real Time with Bill Maher” …

The Folly of Subsidizing Unemployment  —  My calculations suggest the jobless rate could be as low as 6.8%, instead of 9.5%, if jobless benefits hadn't been extended to 99 weeks.  —  Congressman John Boehner recently suggested that President Obama replace his top economic advisers.

Interest And Inflation Wonkery  —  So I thought I'd produce a simple graphical summary of how I see the whole interest rates etc. thing.  Why?  Well, I think little teachable models are always useful; and I always enjoy putting them together.  —  So here's how I think about it …

Report: Warnings about e-mails went unheeded in Bush White House  —  Top aides to President George W. Bush seemed unconcerned amid multiple warnings as early as 2002 that the White House risked losing millions of e-mails that federal law required them to preserve, according to an extensive review of records set for release Monday.

Remainders: Beckfest  —  Time to catch up on some issues I would have blogged about last week had I not been on vacation.  First up—the Glenn Beck Extravaganza.  I've watched a fair amount of Beck over the past two years, and it's clear that the man is a charlatan.

Random Density Facts  —  A couple of facts about population density that I came across while my girlfriend was behind the wheel on some long drives up and down the east coast.  First if Texas (268,820 square miles) were as densely populated as New Jersey (1,134 per square mile) …

Environmental groups face their future in climate-change debate  —  On Thursday, some of the country's most respected environmental groups - in the midst of their biggest political fight in two decades - sent a group of activists to Milwaukee with a message.  —  We're losing.

The World Trade Center Mosque and the Constitution  —  The plan to erect a mosque of major proportions in what would have been the shadow of the World Trade Center involves not just the indisputable constitutional rights that sanction it, but, providentially, others that may frustrate it.

Iran calls Carla Bruni a ‘prostitute’  —  Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the French First Lady, has been called a “prostitute” by Iran after she criticised the country's decision to stone a woman to death.  —  Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy, the wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president …

Is the EPA to blame for the bed bug ‘epidemic’?  —  Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband.  Bed bugs are biting everybody out there - in recent weeks invading the headquarters of CNN, Elle magazine and a popular movie theater in Times Square.