Herman Cain has taken the lead among Republican presidential contenders nationally in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

FBI arrests suspect in Scarlett Johansson nude photo hacking case.

Sen. Schumer, Dems messagemeister in the Senate, releases memo putting the blame for the halting recovery on the Tea Party, says Dems will beat the message until the cows come home or the votes are counted, whichever comes first.

As they say, if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

Team Obama chief David Axelrod unloads on Mitt in campaign conference call.

TPM Reader JR says I’m wrong to (kinda) count Rick Perry out … Read More

Congressional Republicans now gunning for FEMA over agency’s role in averting government shutdown.

TPM Reader WB raises some key points I ignored in my post about the collapse of Perrymentum, namely the huge hits he took from the right on issues like immigration and Gardasil … Read More

You probably remember that Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) has been embroiled in a controversy over not paying tens of thousands of dollars in child support payments to his ex-wife Laura. Now he explains that he had a “verbal agreement” with Laura that he’d just keep the money.

Laura, who’s now suing him, apparently doesn’t agree.

Last night’s GOP debate will likely go down as the night Rick Perry decided to stop showing up tired for presidential debates and just go all-in and take a nap.

Of course he’s hurt himself with gaffes and followed up the debate last night by revisiting America’s decision to throw off the yoke of Henry VIII in the 1500s. And it’s too soon to say Rick Perry’s done, though it’s pretty hard to figure how he’s not. But stepping back from all the particulars, it seems to me that a key reason for Perry’s burn up on reentry into the atmosphere after his rapid ascent in August is that his key political handlers — and presumably Perry himself — simply didn’t grasp that the dynamics of national politics are just very different from those of Texas. Read More