Rick Perry: It was “inappropriate” of me to say immigration foes don’t “have a heart.”

As Benjy Sarlin reports, that heartless line in the last debate is causing Perry all kinds of trouble among conservatives who are otherwise favorably disposed toward him.

FBI busts Northeastern University graduate student in sting in which he allegedly plotted to bomb the Pentagon and Capitol using remote-controlled aircraft. The defendant is a U.S. citizen.

Amazon unveils its new Kindle Fire.

Mitt Romney takes the plausible argument that he’s not the career politician Rick Perry is one step too far and declares: “I don’t have a political career.”

If the National Park Service is considering letting a member of the press join its engineers in rappelling down the Washington Monument, I volunteer. This was shot Tuesday before they had to call off the post-earthquake inspections due to weather:

Here’s a more vertigo-inducing shot: Read More

Florida moves to schedule its presidential primary ahead of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, threatening to scramble the primary season calendar.

Dems figure they might as well make hay over the audience outbursts at the last three GOP debates.

The only people more desperate for Chris Christie to enter the GOP race than Republican bigwigs are national political reporters. Much easier to cover the candidates jockeying for position than, say, the assorted economic and budget issues that should define the race.

Here’s your awesome idea of the day. A group of Tea Partyish House Republicans is pushing the idea of saving money by abolishing the dollar bill and replacing with a mandated $1 coin. It’s called Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act and it would allegedly save money in addition to being a huge pain in the butt (perhaps literally) for every American.

Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) says it’s time for Republicans to double down on his Medicare-ending budget.