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May 06, 2012 | | EQUALITY In an appearance on Meet the Press Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden signaled his changing views and quasi-endorsed same-sex marriage. Responding to a question about what social policies a second Obama White House may push, Biden said that he is “absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.” Biden said that he was expressing his own views on the subject and that “the president sets the policy.” The vice president’s quasi endorsement of gay marriage makes him one of the highest-ranking elected officials to take an affirmative stance on the issue. DESTRUCTIVE SLASHING In a new book, End This Depression Now!, Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman says America's current economic problems can be fixed more easily and quickly than most imagine. But politicians’ desire to slash spending is deeply destructive, he argues, detailing why austerity is so appealing even to Very Serious People—and why it’s such a bad idea. ELECTION French Socialist party candidate Francois Hollande threatens to sweep Nicolas Sarkozy from office Sunday in an election that could change the electoral map in France and Europe as the Euro Zone continues to struggle. Polls have shown for months that Hollande had a healthy lead on the incumbent, but Sarkozy, who has been called the least popular French president to ever try for a second term, has said he thinks his supporters will turn out on Sunday. Not everyone in his camp agrees. “He’s like a runner—he won’t consider it’s over until the very end,” a source close to Sarkozy told Reuters Friday, “but I’d say he has one chance in six.” HOLDING PATTERN How much longer? Blind human-rights activist Chen Guangcheng ticked off the hours Sunday from a Beijing hospital as Chinese and American diplomats continued to talk about when the dissident could leave for America. The 40-year-old activist has been mostly out of touch over the weekend and last spoke to Reuters Friday though his friends, and U.S. officials visited Chen Saturday. Journalists have been prevented from entering the Chaoyang Hospital building where Chen has been kept for treatment of a foot injury sustained in his dramatic escape from his home April 22. On Friday China’s Foreign Ministry said it would allow Chen to travel to the United States to study. COURTROOM JIHAD A Gitmo hearing for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed turned into a mess when the defendant refused to speak to the court. The Daily Beast's Terry McDermott reports from Guantanamo on the trial's rough day. | | 
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