Young Republican activist: “We don’t have to lose our principles. But we have to have a conversation on all these issues so we don’t leave Democrats to say we’re just old white men and racist, bigoted homophobes.”

Pope Francis: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis asked.

TPM is announcing a new Associate Editor position working from our DC office. Full job listing after the jump. Read More

Check out this mindblowing video of the Space Shuttle during launch, taken with cameras and mics mounted on the solid rocket booster that propelled the shuttles into space. It’s amazing. You won’t want to miss this. Read More

So there you have it. Mayor Bob Filner will go for two weeks of intensive rehab. He won’t resign.

Speaking candidly, you can get counseling or ‘rehab’ for almost anything. And I don’t doubt counseling could help someone with this kind of history if they genuinely wanted to change their behavior. But I’m curious, how do you go about finding a facility that will agree to a quickie two-week fix up for this sort of thing?

That university police officer who became an iconic figure when he pepper-sprayed those student Occupy protestors wants compensation for ‘psychiatric injury’ caused by the incident.

Hearing that Bob Filner will make a statement today at 12 pacific time.

The local ABC affiliate is reporting that Filner is “considering taking time off for therapy.”

This comes after four more women came forward yesterday evening (for a total of 7) accusing him of a range of behavior from unwanted advances to borderline assault.

I was reading through David Corn’s great piece on ‘Groundswell’ which is, depending on your point of view, a working group of conservative activists and journalists working together to coordinate storylines and plan the war against RINOs and progressives or a hapless group of doofuses planning regular meetings to vent about being crapped on by more prominent Republicans. My sense is that it’s sort of a hybrid of the two. Read More

I want to announce a couple new hires we’ve just made to bolster our DC reporting staff.

We’ve hired Dylan Scott as a new staffer reporter working out of the DC office. Dylan joins us from Governing magazine. We’ve also hired Daniel Strauss who will also be signing on as a staff reporter working out of the DC office. Daniel is joining us from The Hill.

Look for their bylines soon and keep sending us (and soon them) those news tips to the tip email at the upper right.

Colbert takes his turn roasting Steve King and his DREAMers as drug mules comments. Watch.