MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell started The Last Word last night in unusual fashion, playing an extended clip from The West Wing where characters talk about the debt ceiling. O’Donnell, it turns out, wrote the scene and he’s pretty passionate about the debt ceiling.

Not raising the debt ceiling, O’Donnell says, is unthinkable: “the end of the world as we know it. A world financial calamity that would plunge us into a depression unlike any we’ve ever seen.”

During White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ weekly Twitter Q&A, the issue of the President’s struggle to quit smoking came up, and Gibbs confirmed an observation that he made earlier in the month that he had not “seen or witnessed evidence of any smoking in probably nine months.”

Responding to a question from @CJStatler, Gibbs declared, unequivocally, that “POTUS hasnt’ had a cigarette in about 9 months.”

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. Or something. The Senate pulled an all-nighter last night in a effort to “reconcile” the amendments to the health care bill. They were only sort of successful. Cue one of those times where you learn things about Senate procedure that you probably never knew. Even Al Franken is confused.

President Obama did his inaugural turn at the turkey pardoning stand today and appeared to take it all in stride: “Is there an official gesture?” He asked, before sending Courage the Turkey on his happy way. The White House website also had some fun with the high noon turkey pardon.

What’s not to love about Thanksgiving? For one day in the middle of the week (a fact which used to fascinate and confuse me as a child growing up in Canada) an entire country of 300,000 million people stops everything they are doing to sit down, stuff themselves with food and drink, and watch football [...]