Gingrich Tells ABC News: 'I'm Going to Be The Nominee'  —  WEST DES MOINES, IOWA — A very confident New Gingrich asserted to ABC News Thursday afternoon that he will be the Republican presidential nominee.  —  “I'm going to be the nominee,” the former Speaker told ABC News.

Cain: Wife didn't know about friendship, ‘financial assistance’ to Ginger White  —  MANCHESTER - Herman Cain acknowledged Thursday that he repeatedly gave Ginger White money to help her with “month-to-month bills and expenses” without telling his wife.  —  In fact, the embattled presidential candidate …

How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street  —  ORLANDO, Fla. — The Republican Governor's Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build.  But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up …

China's Superior Economic Model  —  The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history.  —  Andy Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel, provocatively wrote in Businessweek last year that, “Our fundamental economic beliefs, which we have elevated …

Raise Taxes on Rich to Reward True Job Creators: Nick Hanauer  —  It is a tenet of American economic beliefs, and an article of faith for Republicans that is seldom contested by Democrats: If taxes are raised on the rich, job creation will stop.  —  Trouble is, sometimes the things that we know to be true are dead wrong.

Boehner calls on Obama to help Congress alter automatic cuts  —  House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday called on President Obama to intercede in the growing push to change the automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs triggered by the congressional supercommittee's failure to strike a deficit-reduction deal.

Michele Bachmann debates same-sex rights with high-school students in Waverly  —  Waverly, Ia.  - Amidst a breezy appearance before an enthusiastic crowd at pizza restaurant here, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann debated two high school students over whether civil rights included the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Rick Perry 2012 video: 'I'm Rick Perry and...what's that line again?'  —  Rick Perry is heading to Jay Leno's couch tonight, and he's making the most of it - airing this campaign ad in Iowa, in which he takes on his own “oops” moment from the CNBC debate in which he couldn't remember the third agency he'd cut …

Islamists Say They Have Mandate in Egypt Voting  —  CAIRO — Islamists claimed a decisive victory on Wednesday as early election results put them on track to win a dominant majority in Egypt's first Parliament since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the most significant step yet …

New Hampshire GOP Speaker Discourages Students From Voting Because They'll Vote ‘Liberal’  —  New Hampshire Speaker William O'Brien (R)  —  As ThinkProgress has been reporting, the slew of unnecessary voter ID laws passed by Republicans in many states this year are a transparent attempt …

Group calls for Bush arrest  —  Amnesty International is calling for the arrest of former President George W. Bush while he is travelling overseas in Africa.  —  The human rights group issued a statement Thursday calling for the governments of Ethiopia, Tanzania or Zambia to take the former president into custody.

Rick Perry Has Three Strikes Against Him  —  (Pay-to-play cronyism.  Roughshod, right-wing politics.  And . . . Oops, read on)  —  Rick Perry's already lackluster presidential bid went on a deathwatch after his debate debacle.  In talking to the many who have known Perry over the years …

The political significance of the Boeing deal  —  The Boeing/NLRB issue hasn't been especially prominent at the national level, but in Republican circles — especially in the presidential primary in South Carolina — it's a big deal.  —  And as of today, it's pretty much over.

Dear Ta-Nehisi  —  Dreher weighs in on the popular IQ and race thread: … TNC's final thoughts on the subject, which are difficult to excerpt and should be read in full, are here.  They deserve a final response from me.  —  Let me first suggest he is conflating two separate issues.

Unauthorized Immigrants: Length of Residency, Patterns of Parenthood  —  OVERVIEW  —  Nearly two-thirds of the 10.2 million unauthorized adult immigrants in the United States have lived in this country for at least 10 years and nearly half are parents of minor children …

Huntsman offers a ‘Mittstant Replay’  —  Honestly, is there any entity in politics more effective in slamming Mitt Romney than Jon Huntsman's presidential campaign?  —  In this new video, Team Huntsman not only draws additional attention to Romney's awful interview with Fox News, but also fact-checks Romney's denials about flip-flops.

Suskind's Confidence Men Raises Questions About Obama's Credibility  —  Barack Obama , Larry Summers , Bill Daley , Gene Sperling , Peter Orszag , Robert Rubin , Tim Geithner , White House Economic Team , Confidence Men , Jack Lew , Ron Suskind , Politics News

The strange GOP embrace of Simpson-Bowles  —  The Republican National Committee today sent out what has to be the strangest press release I've seen in a long while.  The RNC, in turns out, is outraged that President Obama hasn't embraced the Simpson-Bowles debt-reduction plan.

Gingrich Doubles Down On Child Labor: Poor Kids Should ‘Clean The Bathroom’  —  Conceding ever so slightly to flak he's taken for calling child labor laws “stupid” and suggesting that schools fire janitors and replace with them poor kids, GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich got more specific today …