Must Reads

Ezra Klein: Calm down, liberals. The White House won.

Justin Rosario: Fox News: Fiscal Cliff Vote Like Lead Up To Revolutionary War

Bob Cesca: In Spite of Reality, Liberals Claim Obama “Caved” on the Fiscal Cliff

Shauna Theel: 10 Dumbest Things Fox Said About Climate Change In 2012

Eric Boehlert: How Fox News Screwed the GOP

Andy Borowitz: Republicans Apologize To Top 1.5 Per Cent

Bloomberg News Editorial: Budget Deal Offers Silver-Lining Playbook for Next Round

Michael Tomasky: Dear Liberals: Stop Complaining

Tim Murphy: Republicans Have a Habit of Blocking Disaster Relief for Americans

Dana  Milbank: Defined by a Sandy sidestep

New York Times Editorial: Al Jazeera In America

The Rude Pundit: Fiscal Cliff-Leaping: The Hopeful Politics of Capitulation

Charles Pierce: The Passion of The Boehner

Must Reads

Kurt Eichenwald: The Deafness Before the Storm

Stephen C. Webster: Paul Ryan’s campaign immediately retracts candidate’s support for medical marijuana

Kasie Hunt: FACT CHECK: Romney misstates facts on attacks

Gail Collins: Mitt's Major Meltdown

Robert Dreyfuss: Romney's Fatal Libya Blunder

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Matt Taibbi on Mitt Romney's Crooked, Dirty Game

Dana Milbank: Mitt Romney has mess to clean up after falsely accusing Obama on Libya

Ruth Marcus: Romney owes an apology

Must Reads

Dana Milbank: Isaac brushes past an obsolete convention

Eugene Robinson: Republicans steal Medicare from the Democrats

Joan Walsh: Rick Santorum’s dirty hands

Ari Melber: Paul Ryan needs to rebrand himself

Harold Meyerson: In modern GOP, the old South returns

Charles P. Pierce: The Manufacturing of Willard Romney, Human, Is Here

John Nichols: Paul Ryan's Labor Day Promise to American Workers: Candy and a Sports Schedule

Must Reads

Dana Milbank: Nothing sweet about heckling Obama in the Rose Garden

Kate Conway: People with Down Syndrome Can Be Jerks, Too

Shaun, Addicting Info: The Right Wing Does Not Understand What Racism Is And What It Isn’t

Justin Rosario: For My Conservative Friend: You’re Asking The Wrong Question.

Margaret and Helen: Vagina is a 6 Letter Word

Jason Easley: 3 Things Barack Obama Did That Ruined Mitt Romney’s Week

Jim Wright: The Real Entitlement Mentality

Must Reads

Dana Milbank: A new conspiracy theory: Is Romney a unicorn?

Eugene Robinson: Romney plays his Trump card

Ed Kilgore: Sauce for Gander

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: Pity the Poor Billionaires

Jim Wright: Things That Chap My Ass About Facebook

Must Reads

Digby: Jesuit snap

E.J. Dionne: How to beat Citizens United

Dana Milbank: Romney won’t be able to shake immigration debate

Steve Benen: Rubio thinks Bush did 'a fantastic job'

Steve Benen: The one term that must not be mentioned

MsLibrarian: Scottish Parliament laughs at Donald Trump

Sam Stein: Robert Draper Book: GOP's Anti-Obama Campaign Started Night Of Inauguration

Stephen D. Foster, Jr.: Sarah Palin Claims Child Labor Laws Are Causing America To Fail

Dana Milbank: On Arizona immigration law, Justice Scalia and street protesters make same case

Bill Moyers: The Ghost of Joe McCarthy in Today's Republican Party

Rebecca Schoenkopf: Ann Coulter: Hollywood Libels Businessmen By Telling Their True Stories

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein: Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

Must Reads

Greg Sargent: Dems twist knife in birth control fight

Dana Milbank: The GOP’s gasoline alley

Sen. John Kerry: Romney’s wrong-headed assertions about Iran

David Macaray: Rush Limbaugh Is No Joke

Kai Wright: How a Racist Email Reveals the Grand Old Party Has Become a Petty Affair

Jim Wright: The Absurdity of Rush Limbaugh

Must Reads

HuffPo: Warren Buffett Derides Chris Christie For 'Write A Check And Shut Up' Comment

John Heilemann: The Lost Party

Arthur Delaney: Drug Testing Bill Targets Florida State Workers, Excludes Lawmakers

P. Scott Russell: Rick Santorum On Religious Freedom: What He Has Forgotten Since Law School

Dana Milbank: Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech, in (mostly) his own words

Jim Wright: The Perversity of Extremism Tends Toward The Maximum

Steve Benen: A 'Eh, who cares' style of leadership

Jim Hightower: The Keystone XL Flim-flam

Matt Taibbi: Bank of America In Trouble?

Must Reads

Mike Lux: What Bible Is Santorum Reading?

Steve Benen: Merit badges, cookies, and 'the destruction of traditional American family values'

E.J. Dionne: President Obama as an alien

Dana Milbank: Rick Santorum cries Nazi

Brian Beutler: The Truth About Political Attacks Over High Gas Prices

Must Reads

Zerlina Maxwell: Critics Say “Obama Could Rape A Nun” And Still Get Support

Muskegon Critic: Yeah, Cuz I'm The A$^hole.

Bob Cesca: Ron Paul Is No Friend to Progressives

Arthur Delaney: Dems Fire Back At GOP Proposals To Drug Test Jobless: 'You Pee In The Cup'

Jim Wright: Everybody’s So Different, I Haven’t Changed

Eugene Robinson: Romney’s not-a-mandate

Dana Milbank: Mitt Romney out of control

Jason Sparks: Cenk’d

Must Reads

Benjamin Wittes: NDAA FAQ: A Guide for the Perplexed

Chris Chase: Braylon Edwards Gave 79 Students $10,000 for College

The Rude Pundit: Politifact and The Lie of The Lie

Justin Rosario: A Very Merry Fox Christmas: Obama’s Christmas Card Just Isn’t American Enough

Tom McMahon: Merry Christmas, Middle Class! House Republicans Just Voted To Raise Your Taxes By $1,000

Dana Milbank: Braveheart Republicans? Or false-hearted?

Eugene Robinson: Which Candidate Should Answer That 3 a.m. Phone Call?

BooMan: Wanker of the Day: Charles Krauthammer

Dino Grandoni: Perry's Latest Oops Moment: 'Kim Jong the Second'

Jonathan Chait: When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable? - If every Democratic president disappoints, maybe there’s something wrong with our expectations. Tough love from a fellow traveler.

Must Reads

Anna Sale: Minnesota's Pawlenty Legacy? Not So Nice

The Rude Pundit: Tim Pawlenty: Another Motherfucker for America

Michael Lind: Niall Ferguson and the Brain-Dead American Right

Steve Benen: Taxpayer Financed Health Care for Me, Not For Thee and The Nature of a Debt-Ceiling Compromise

Dana Milbank: Republican Presidential Candidate Pawlenty Bends His Truth-Telling

John Cole: So Much Awesome In One Place

TBogg: Sarah Palin Is The Culmination Of All Human Endeavors and Wars And Probably Evolution

Must Reads

Chris Cillizza: The Stumbles of Haley Barbour

Markos Moulitsas: Wisconsin Recall is Real

Jason Linkins: Would A Nuclear Calamity In The U.S. Require A Billion Dollar Taxpayer Bailout? (Yes.)

Media Matters: Note To Media: Experts Say It's "Not Credible" To Blame Obama For Spike In Gas Prices

The Rude Pundit: Why Rush Limbaugh Ought To Be Force-Fed His Own Liposuctioned Fat (Nuclear Edition)

Karoli: Meet the “Other” (Kenneth) Bradley Manning

Dana Milbank: The NPR ‘Emergency’

Eugene Robinson: Inviting a Nuclear Emergency

Steve Benen: The Difference Between Talking Points and a Jobs Agenda

Bill Moyers & Michael Winship: NPR: The Saga Continues

Bill Berry: Carlin Knew the Rich Just Want More

Video referenced in Bill Berry's column:

Must Reads

Paul Campos: Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench

David Edwards: Exclusive: Limbaugh’s parent company still using actors to fake radio call-ins, exec tells Raw

Dan Froomkin: A Reagan Republican Makes A Case Against The War -- And His Own Party

Marcus Baram: Sarah Palin 'Not Afraid' Of Jon Stewart, Says Aide

Joan Walsh: Newt Gingrich, hypocrite in chief

E.J. Dionne: What Wisconsin Democrats can teach Washington Democrats

Linda Greenhouse: Justice Scalia Objects

Richard Pérez-Peña: Christie’s Talk Is Blunt, but Not Always Straight

Tim Murphy: Birther Bill Author: What's a Long-Form Birth Certificate?

Eugene Robinson: Peter King's Modern-Day Witch Hunt

Dana Milbank: Rep. King's Red Scare

Paul Krugman: Dumbing Deficits Down

E.D. Kain: Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers

Matthew Rothschild: Scott Walker Believes He’s Following Orders from the Lord

Gail Collins: Eye of the Newt

Dan Taylor: Wisconsin Republicans Have Done Progressives a Huge Favor

Angry Black Lady: Liberals, It’s Time to Stop Bitching and Start Organizing. Just Shut Up and Get to Work

Must Reads

Chez Pazienza: I, Sanchez

Dana Milbank: Conspiracy theorists find validation from Glenn Beck

Jackie Calmes: Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues

Bob Herbert: Policy at Its Worst

Gail Collins: Awful, Awfuler, Awfulest

Quote of the Day

"The Rahm Emanuel that Obama hired is the poster child for the timid, pseudo-pragmatism that is inimical to the idealistic Obama agenda so many excited voters responded to last November. And it's a pragmatism that is absolutely killing the Democratic Party in the long run, because American voters have an intrinsic distrust of politicians they see as tacking with the polls or shying away from a fight."

~Dan Froomkin on the latest Obama administration sabotage and the recent Washington Post love affair with Rahm Emanuel.

Douchebag of the Week: Dana Milbank

President Obama's press conference last Monday afternoon apparently ruffled the feathers of Washington press insiders when he called on The Huffington Post's Nico Pitney for a question regarding Iran. Anyone following Pitney on a regular basis knows that he has spent the last two weeks trying to contact Iranian protesters on the ground through various technological means, like Twitter and Facebook.

When called upon, Pitney asked, "I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions on tonight from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online. And one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of -- of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?"

Pretty pertinent question, don't you think? Well Dana Milbank didn't. In fact, Milbank probably didn't even hear the question because he was so incensed that a mere blogger would be called upon instead of, well the Washington Post's Dana Milbank for example, perhaps to ask about President Obama's bathing suit paparazzi photo again. Titillating.

Milbank immediately took to his blog after the press conference and inaccurately "reported" the exchange between Pitney and the White House and spent the rest of the week trashing President Obama and his "staged" press conference, while Pitney continued the work of a real journalist getting as much information as possible from sources literally on the streets of Iran.

Staged press conferences, Dana? How quickly we forget Jeff Gannon. Or is that James Guckert? How quickly we forget the cabal of Fox reporters and conservative pundits doing the bidding of the Bush White House; an exclusive little group including the repugnant Neil Boortz and the crying lunatic, Glenn Beck.

Pitney then appeared on CNN's Reliable Sources, in an apparent "pre-arranged, staged" ambush flanked on either side by Milbank and the Washington Times' Amanda Carpenter, to accuse him of "collusion" with the White House, but Nico held his own, called Milbank out on his bathing suit silliness and slapped the whiny little bitch into next week.




According to multiple sources, at the end of the segment Milbank leaned in to Pitney and said, "You're such a dick." Perhaps if Milbank would do some actual journalistic work instead of the equivalent of a political gossip column for a newspaper who's credibility is continually fading (see: Dan Froomkin firing), maybe he'll get called on to ask a question. As long as it's not: "President Obama: Boxers or briefs?"

The Washington Post's faux reporter, Dana Milbank: Douchebag of the Week.

_______________
Adding... I would be remiss not to remind readers of the staged news conference conducted by FEMA during the California wildfires in October of 2007, and this dipshit Milbank is seriously going to call Pitney a staged White House plant? Fuck you, Dana.