I went in to The Ides of March wanting to like it. I really wanted to! It has West Wing-esque political drama, following a candidate and his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President. It boasts a stellar cast including George Clooney and (feminist!) Ryan Gosling. It has already garnered significant Oscar buzz and is seen as a potential Best Picture contender. But five minutes in, it became glaringly obvious that even the combined star power of Clooney and Gosling couldn’t save this film from its major problem: the women.

On Monday, Friedman started Lady Journos, a project dedicated to aggregating the work of women writers and journalists in one place to once and for all answer the question “Where are all the women writers?”  Similar to projects like Longform.org and Longreads.com, Lady Journos is a Tumblr-based site that is dedicated to curating works of long-form writing and reporting by women across a variety of topics.

On Fox News Sunday today, Senator Dick Durbin discussed the recent increase in filibustering in the Senate, and the possibility of changing filibuster rules in the new Congress next month. “It’s a clear abuse of what was supposed to be a rarely used procedural option,” Durbin responded. “We need to put an end to secret holes in the United States Senate. It’s archaic, it’s wrong, we need more transparency.”

You saw it here first: from the same people who gave you “Dick In A Box” and “Jizz In My Pants” comes SNL’s latest Digital Short Video, released last night: “I Just Had Sex,” a post-sex anthem featuring Akon as the lead singer, with Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer, and cameos from Blake Lively and Jessica Alba.

Wedding Announcements! Probably not the first thing most people read in the New York Times. But one particular wedding announcement in the Times is turning a lot of heads today — and catching a lot of snark on Twitter. And here’s why: the couple in question were both married with children already when they met, and both eventually left their spouses to be with each other. And now, their entire how-we-met story is on display in a very public Times wedding announcement.

On Fox News Sunday today, host Chris Wallace brought up the subject of the 9/11 First Responders bill, which would provide healthcare coverage to those who were first responders at the scene on 9/11. Senator Jon Kyl told Wallace “It’s a lot of money, so my early response is that I am skeptical about that bill.”

In an unforgettable train wreck segment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, a distracted Erin Burnett, who appears to have just come from a Christmas gift exchange, explains that the gift she received from her CNBC co-host Mark Haines was a bra that doubles as a gas mask. And then she puts the bra on her face to demonstrate how it doubles as a gas mask. No, you can’t make this stuff up. Watch the (hysterical) video below.

Today on CNN’s Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Ramesh Ponnuru and Alex Wagner discussed Sarah Palin’s recent openness in talking to reporters beyond Fox News. They discussed the interviews she has recently given to TIME, the New York Times Magazine, Good Morning America, and Barbara Walters.

The Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank slams Senator John McCain in his column today, honing in on McCain’s passionate speech on the floor of the Senate yesterday before the final vote that eventually repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Milbank argues McCain’s speech yesterday showed an over-the-top level of rage.

This morning, Vice President Joe Biden appeared on Meet The Press for a wide-ranging interview covering foreign policy, the President’s legislative agenda, the economy, and more. While discussing the Afghanistan war, Biden told David Gregory firmly that the US will be out of Afghanistan by 2014, “come hell or high water” — a change from other politicians who have said we will be out by 2014 with some conditions.

This morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will oppose the START Treaty, which has been one of President Obama’s top foreign policy priorities. In an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley on State of the Union, he told Crowley: “I’ve decided that I cannot support the treaty. I think the verification provisions are inadequate and I do worry about the missile defense implications of it.”

The New York Times devoted a lengthy Sunday feature today to the upcoming January 1 launch of Oprah Winfrey‘s new cable TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Winfrey is the first ever talk show host to go on to launch her own network, and thus is attracting plenty of skepticism from critics about whether the network can be as successful as her long-running ABC talk show.

This morning on Fox News Sunday, a roundtable of political analysts discussed President Obama and President Clinton’s Friday joint press conference on the tax deal — and contrary to what most are saying, suggested it may have been a good moment for President Obama.

Politico is reporting that Michael Steele will be making a major announcement on Monday morning about whether or not he will run for re-election as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Frank Rich pulled no punches in his New York Times column this morning, lashing out at the Smithsonian Insitution for passive homophobia in their choice of art exhibits — and tapping into the larger silence on gay rights by many politicians.

Today on ABC’s This Week, host Christiane Amanpour landed a rare double interview with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Opposition Leader and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni — a big get for a Sunday talk show — to talk about the currently stalled negotiation talks between Israel and Palestine. Amanpour made sure to stress to viewers that it is “exceedingly rare” to get an interview with two top-level officials from Palestine and Israel together.

During an interview on Meet The Press today, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg discussed American innovation and leadership. In particular, he made an interesting suggestion that we should “make sure anybody who gets a graduate degree in America, from overseas, gets a green card attached to their diploma.”

If that sentence sounds familiar, that’s because you’ve heard it already. From the New York Times‘ Thomas Friedman, in a 2007 column.

This morning on Meet The Press, host David Gregory interviewed New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Among the many things discussed was Bloomberg’s potential presidential aspirations — but Bloomberg denied having any. When asked if he would run in 2012, Bloomberg responded with a resounding “No way, no how.”

Yikes! This morning in his blog, Conscience of a Liberal, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman takes a swipe at the Times’ competitor, the Washington Post, as well as one of their more well-known columnists, Dana Milbank.

First it was Farmville that swept the nation and became an addiction for many: now, it’s the cell phone game Angry Birds. Today, even the New York Times got in on the nation’s collective Angry Birds obsession with a long front-page story about the game-turned-pop-culture-phenomenon, from the Times‘ technology reporter Jenna Wortham.

During his appearance on Fareed Zakaria GPS today, Bill Maher said that he felt President Obama was acting ‘wimpy’ and ‘wussy’ lately. “I’m just so disappointed that he seems to be another in a long line of Democrats that come across as wimpy, and wussy, and whatever word you want to ascribe to it, and not standing up for what they believe in enough,” Maher said.

Today on ABC’s This Week, Christiane Amanpour played host to a spirited debate over DADT with a panel of military experts, insiders, and veterans on both sides of the issue. The panel included Lieutenant Colonel Bob Maginnis, of the Family Research Council, and Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, both of whom oppose the repeal of DADT. Supporting the repeal on the panel were Clarke Cooper, an active Army reservist and executive director of the group Log Cabin Republicans, Tammy Schultz, director of the national security and joint warfare at the Marine Corps War College; and General Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander.

On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, Candy Crowley interviewed Republican Senator Richard Lugar, who had some surprising statements on the state of the White House and the GOP.

“Now, I think since the election, my understanding is that the meetings that President Obama has had have certainly had an element of reaching out. And I think that has been appreciated,” Lugar said.

In his Sunday column today, the New York Times’ Frank Rich compares President Obama’s relationship with Congressional Republicans to that of a hostage situation, with the Republicans cast as the captors and Obama as a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, constantly trying to appease his GOP captors.

In a speech on the Senate floor on Saturday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham admitted that Republicans could have won more Senate seats in last month’s elections, but didn’t because “we made some pretty poor choices when it came to candidates,” he said of the GOP. Presumably, he was referring to some of the larger Republican losses last November, such as Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Ken Buck in Colorado.