TPM Reader HW chimes in on the New question ...

Your analysis of Gingrich v. Romney really folds down to one line: if the Republican power brokers can prevent a candidate who can't beat Obama from getting nominated, then Romney will be nominated. Full stop, no need for further analysis.

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There's been a running debate in our reader emails today over whether Newt Gingrich is more than just your latest also-ran presidential candidate making their high-octane suborbital flight on the polling charts. TPM Reader EA made the point earlier that Newt is quite a different thing from Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain, who by any measure other than the 2012 presidential cycle are basically jokes. So too with Rick Perry. Yes, he's run a state for a decade. But he's never been all that popular even in Texas. And as we've seen, he wasn't ready for the national spotlight. Whatever you think of him, Newt Gingrich has been on the national political stage for almost 35 years. And he held, albeit briefly, one of the highest offices in the land.

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Which country has the fastest computers? Japan.

For now.

Does Newt Gingrich have one of those congressional 'insider trading' problems?

Cain campaign explains Libya 'oops' moment: "He was on about four hours of sleep."

Heading into a tough reelection fight against Democrat Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) is endorsing Consumer Financial Protection Bureau nominee Richard Cordray and bucking his party to call for an up or down vote.

Remember too that the CFPB is the agency that is the brainchild of his probable Democratic opponent, Warren.

Oh this ain't pretty. Herman Cain sat down with the editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this afternoon. And it just didn't go well at all. Particularly on Libya: I "Got All This Stuff Twirling Around In My Head." More than the 'full Perry' it's right up there with Sarah Palin's tour du force interview with Charlie Gibson. Watch.

Wisconsin Dems will kick off Walker recall effort at midnight.

Brian Beutler points out that SuperCommittee Republicans have suddenly started "no commenting" questions about whether they'll support tax hikes as part of a debt deal.

Just watch this video. Not much more to say than that. It's time lapse images of Earth from space. Watch.

Can Mitt match up? Or can Gingrich outdo him at every turn on the cartoonish over the top rhetoric that Republican primary voters eat up like Doritos or super salty nachos?

For the first time since the Fukushima nuclear accident, journalists were allowed back into plant to take photographs of the crippled plant and the on-going clean up effort. Take a look.

Is Newt more than just another non-Mitt prepping for a sub-orbital flight against the frontrunner? TPM Reader EA says yes.

It strikes me that Newt's rise in the polls is, to borrow a Newtism, fundamentally, unlike those experienced at other times during this Presidential nomination process. Newt Gingrich is decidedly not like Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain. Sure, he's got these enormous flaws in his personal life that may very well render him just as or nearly as unelectable as some of these other GOP trend candidates, but I would argue that Newt is the only candidate positioned to mount any kind of challenge to Mitt Romney.

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Newt Gingrich rockets into frontrunner status in today's polls.

SNL revisits Rick Perry's now-legendary moment of debate awesome.

A poll will come out later today that shows Newt Gingrich now in the lead nationwide in the GOP primary race.

A new poll says that a majority of Americans now support the individual mandate, the central component of the President's health care reform law.

Wisconsin Dems kick off their effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker (R) today.

Supreme Court announces it will take up the health care reform law. Decision expected next summer.

The Justice Department was pushing for Supreme Court to take up the case. The White House wanted a decision during the summer of 2012 so the impact of the decision, either way, settles out before Election Day.

Late Update: A quick and handy summary by Adam Liptak of which questions the Supreme Court agreed to take up.

An anti-'vote fraud' Tea Party group, with a spin off group organizing poll watches nationwide next year, is hosting a Texas event for Matthew Vadum, the guy who doesn't think poor people should be voting at all, at least it should be made as hard as possible. It's a bold move since most anti-'vote fraud' outfits go with the pretense that their aim is simply to make sure there's no fraudulent voting. But Vadum's appearance makes clear that both sides of the 'vote fraud' story seem to know what the score is.