The real news in Bloomberg’s new reporting on Newt Gingrich’s time as a consultant for Freddie Mac isn’t how much he made — though that’s pretty precious — but that Freddie Mac sources from that time period say Newt was not, as he claimed, warning them about the housing bubble or the dangers of their business model. Nor, it should be added, was Newt advising them, as he most preposterously claimed, as a historian. In fact, his role was, in part, to protect the mortgage giants from more regulation by the Republican-controlled House.

Newt now seems to be backing away from his claim in last week’s debate that he warned them about the housing bubble. He’s also now calling the advice he gave “strategic” rather than historical. Read More

Remember that $300,000 that Newt Gingrich was paid to consult for Freddie Mac? Turns out it was $1.6 million.

This is an amazing statistic, though admittedly you’ve got to be a bit of a computer geek to appreciate it and also probably have to have been around for the 1990s. But here’s the number. Only 56.81% of visits to TPM (November 2011) come from devices or computers using the windows operating system.

For points of reference that number was 75% in Nov.2007. And it’s fallen steadily each year since. By most standards that’s a pretty precipitous drop. Read More

Occupy DC protestors tonight took over the headquarters of Brookfield Properties, the owners own Zuccotti Park. Here’s the video.

Well, I guess that mystery’s over: top GOPer on super committee says no new taxes at all in any super committee deal.

Not content to merely broadcast the GOP presidential debates as a public service, the cable and broadcast nets have tried to outdo each other by pumping up the volume with intros that combine WWE’s carnival style with Dancing With The Stars‘ faux glitz, leavened by a heavy dose of schmaltzy Americana. Almost too much to bear.

Very few details are available. But there was a shooting at UC Berkeley this afternoon. At the Haas Business School. We’re following developments at TPMLivewire.

Who’s driving this debt cutting train? The Super Committee or Grover Norquist. We look at the evidence.

A guy like Newt Gingrich, with 35 years on the national political stage, wouldn’t bring any baggage to the role of frontrunner. No, none at all.

Another poll shows movement in Obama’s direction.