Newt Gingrich has just released a statement on Facebook, making clear he is not leaving the presidential race …

I am committed to running the substantive, solutions-oriented campaign I set out to run earlier this spring. The campaign begins anew Sunday in Los Angeles.

The senior staff of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign has resigned en masse.

So what could the federal government defaulting on its debt mean to you? And how much could even a what’s now being called a ‘technical’ default cost? Experts could say that even a brief default on its debt could cost the US government as much $1.2 trillion in additional debt over the next decade.

Judge dismisses key argument behind lawsuit targeting health care reform.

Speaking of the most memorable sex scandals in human history, I’m reminded of this classic episode of TPMtv from way back in 2007 (back in the deep recesses of TPM history) about former State Rep. Bob Allen (R-FL) and the bathroom etiquette breakdown of the summer of 2007.

Video after the jump … Read More

Proposed new Apple HQ in Cupertino has local architects up in arms and also looks like the weird space creature from the first episode of Star Trek TNG.

The most candid assessment I’ve seen to date on the condition of Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) comes via the Arizona Republic‘s E.J. Montini, who interviewed Giffords’ chief of staff Pia Carusone:

“She’s living. She’s alive. But if she were to plateau today, and this was as far as she gets, it would not be nearly the quality of life she had before,” Carusone said. “There’s no comparison. All that we can hope for is that she won’t plateau today and that she’ll keep going and that when she does plateau, it will be at a place far away from here.”

More of Carusone’s sad but frank assessment here.

Let’s be honest. The last decade or so has been a great ten years for sex scandals. High and low, traditional and web 2.0. Here’s 16 of the very best. And here’s my vote for, the greatest. What’s yours?

Rick Santorum: The idea that mankind contributes to global warming is “just patently absurd.”

It’s not clear whether the recent bad economic numbers signal an ominous trend or a blip in a generally anemic recovery. But they have focused opinion-makers attention on a signal fact: the US economy, while improved from the near catastrophic state of the winter of 2008-09, remains mired in its deepest and most protracted period of joblessness since the Great Depression. And yet the national political debate has focused on more or less massive government retrenchment — i.e., draining demand and jobs from the economy. By almost any economic standard this is craziness — a national experiment on par with those old stories — half comic, half tragic — of doctors hastening a patient off this mortal coil by debating how many bleeding treatments to administer to their seriously but not fatally ill charge. Read More