Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich ratcheted up the temperature at last night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post GOP Debate when, in response to a question about the financial meltdown, Gingrich suggested the jailing of Rep. Barney Frank and former Sen. Chris Dodd.

Frank shot back last night, noting that “It’s interesting, the charge is failure to stop Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay from deregulating,” and called the charge odd “even by Gingrich’s standards.”

In perhaps the most interesting segment of tonight’s Bloomberg/Washington Post Republican presidential debate, moderator Charlie Rose stepped out of the debate and let the candidates shoot questions at each other. Not surprisingly, most of the question went to frontrunner Mitt Romney, and of those the most informative exchange occurred between Romney and Texas governor Rick Perry, who challenged Romney on the most contentious part of his resume: the passing of “Romneycare” in Massachusetts.

Tonight’s Bloomberg/Washington Post Republican Debate on the economy comes at a critical time in the GOP presidential race, as the last few weeks have seen some stunning shifts in momentum. While several candidates stand to lose big from tonight’s debate, up-and-comer Herman Cain is the only one who really stands to gain, and is in a nearly can’t-lose position. I predict that Cain will join Bloomberg TV as the big winners of tonight’s debate, and Mitt Romney will need Jedi skills to avoid a big loss.

This past Sunday the Washington Post published a lengthy report on a family camping site rented by Texas Governor Rick Perry that went by the name N*ggerhead Rock. Last night CNN’s Don Lemon very carefully reported on the story then asked fellow panelists if the Perry campaign can recover from even being associated from this story.

A new Washington Post report about a hunting camp that once (and colloquially, still does) bore the offensive name “N*ggerhead” is raising new questions, fairly or unfairly, about embattled GOP presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX). The article exhaustively details the questions surrounding the camp, and while it contains a denunciation by Perry, it also carries with it the strong suggestion that Perry at least tolerated the name, once painted on a large rock at the camp’s entrance, for a time.

Today on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh railed against the Washington Post. The cause was an article entitled “Obama 2012 campaign’s Operation Vote focuses on ethnic minorities, core liberals”. Limbaugh seemed to feel that the Post was going easy on President Obama for not accusing him of hypocrisy. The hypocrisy? That he had promised to be “post-partisan” and “post-racial” in 2008 and this move, in Limbaugh’s mind, proves that he is “the most partisan” and…uh…”the most racial.”

Ralph Nader, Cornel West and 45 other “distinguished leaders” have joined forces in search of a “recognizable, articulate” candidate who could pose a challenge to President Barack Obama as he campaigns for reelection. Never a content Democrat, Nader says it’s “very unlikely” that he will run himself, and that this challenge is not meant to hinder Obama’s chances of reelection. “I just want all these liberal, progressive agendas to be robustly debated. Otherwise, there will be a de facto blackout of their discussion,” he told the Washington Post yesterday.

America is starting to forget September 11th, 2001. It is a natural process– much of today’s population was either not born at the time or too young to remember, and those cursed with being merely alive but not participating in the true grief of the event are growing exhausted of the burden. Many in the media will implore us to forget the day, to move on with dignity, but the temptation to trivialize the pain lest “the terrorists win” comes at a significant detriment to those who can’t forget what they don’t remember.

Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Ezra Klein‘s economics and policy blog as we know it is closed for business. Yesterday evening, Klein announced that he would be writing for a new blog called Wonkblog starting on Monday, a collective– located at the same URL– written by himself and the collaborators regularly featured on his current site.

Wednesday’s edition of Washington Post Media‘s free Express daily featured a headline that’s garnering viral guffaws and questions about their editorial judgment. Aggregating an AP story about former Libyan rebels rooting out Gaddafi loyalists, the paper, in an obvious attempt to appeal to the political center, headlined the item “Libya Ferrets Out Gadhafi’s Taint.”

Was the headline a prank, an error in judgment, or…something in between?

Jon Lovett, award winning comedian and Obama speech writer (“I don’t know if I am a major speech writer for the president,” he jokes in said award winning routine), is escaping the White House for the glitz and glam of the Inland Empire, where he hopes to make a name for himself as a Hollywood screenwriter. “It’s always been a dream of mine to write comedy and be creative,” said the 29-year-old, who is set to move west in mid-September. According to the Washington Post, Lovett has already fielded “interest from studios in a Washington-based political comedy and an updated version of “M.A.S.H.” Did Hollywood just get a little smarter? Or Washington a little less funny?

It’s been frustrating for many in the media and the American people to sit back and watch the markets go crazy since America’s credit downgrade on Friday, while some of the few people who can react to situation are on vacation. Case in point: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, who in speaking with guest Ezra Klein today suggested that future Congressional inaction in light of the dire situation may be considered “an act of treason.”

This sounds like fun: in a protest against “the privileges the gay community enjoys,” the government of Sao Paolo, Brazil has approved a bill making the third Sunday in December “heterosexual pride day.” The idea was pushed by evangelical community leaders and still requires the mayor’s signature to approve, but more importantly– what will the celebration look like?

Set phasers on “dork!” Attendees at a closed-door meeting of House Republicans Tuesday told Washington Post reporters that there was all kinds of unity behind Rep. John Boehner‘s debt ceiling plan, and related a nerdtastic anecdote by way of illustration. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reportedly psyched up his colleagues by playing a short clip from “The Town,” a 2010 gangster movie about bank robbers in Boston. It gets goofier from there.

Oregon Congressman David Wu is facing an accusation from a teenage woman of engaging her in an “unwanted sexual encounter” last November. The teen was described by Fox News as a “daughter of a longtime Wu friend and campaign donor,” who had refrained from accusing him previously because she believed she did not have sufficient evidence.

First Lady Michelle Obama made slow summer news Monday by visiting the newly-opened Washington, DC Shake Shack. Since the coverage focused not on the jolt such a visit could give business, or the reactions of locals, but on the First Lady’s calorie count, you might think this story was pushed by the usual conservative media [...]

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen observed the Fourth of July yesterday, by publishing an inflammatory opinion piece entitled “Grand Old Cult,” which likened the GOP presidential field to a “virtual political Jonestown.” The on-air talent debated this piece this morning, with Donny Deutsch and Pat Buchanan going head to head on issues of American ingenuity, overseas outsourcing and other political hot topics of the day.

Lindsay Lohan somehow found herself generating cable news fodder today when she tweeted she was concerned about the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately for those who agreed with what they thought was a sincere political statement, that tweet was an advertisement. On The Last Word tonight, Lawrence O’Donnell and guest Dana Milbank explained how the youngest man ever accused of securities fraud got his hands on Lindsay Lohan’s Twitter.

It’s a story straight out of an Amnesty International press release: during a public government meeting, two journalists were arrested for chronicling the events on camera: one for filming the meeting, and the other for filming the arrest of the first. But the most bizarre element of why Reason‘s Jim Epstein spent yesterday behind bars is that his filming landed him in a jail cell in Washington, D.C., for filming, of all things, a Taxicab Commission meeting.

Sarah Palin‘s “One Nation” Bus Tour, previously partially overshadowed by Anthony Weiner, surfaced once again today as news came of the Fox News personality returning to Alaska mid-tour (she has since denied this means an end to the tour). But not everyone in the media believes her– Lawrence O’Donnell, for one, has declared the tour dead, and laughed tonight at the idea that she will hit the road once more.

This morning, the New York Times Magazine posted the moving story of Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who had managed throughout his time in the United States to hide the fact that he is an illegal immigrant. But later in the day, NYT Magazine editor Chris Suellentrop admitted they had been fortunate to come by the story, because Vargas’ first choice– his employer, the Washington Post– turned the story down.

Think that you’re doing everything in your power to stop Michele Bachmann from becoming president? Well, by just reading this, you’re kind of helping her out. The Washington Post reports on and coins the phrase “money-blurt” to explain the phenomena surrounding political candidates in our present media world.

Wikileaks, the secretive international organization that took 2010 by storm with its thousand-page document dumps and the erratic behavior of its leader, Julian Assange, seems to be strapped for cash again. And, as they have many times before, they are trotting out Assange out to sell his charm to the highest bidder. The Washington Post is reporting that Wikileaks is auctioning off lunch Assange in London before a speaking engagement, now going for about €600.

The three-year-late Sarah Palin email dump has yet to produce any illegal behavior or seedy language (other than some talk about rock bands), but it certainly has raised some suspicion on her aesthetic choices– namely, her contemplation of installing a tanning bed in the governor’s mansion. Last night/this morning, the Red Eye crew explored the recent developments from the release and the potential scandals that could actually harm Palin’s reputation.

If you happened to be on Twitter last night, you may have noticed quite a bit of buzz over the sort of sordid, rather sensational story that’s usually reserved for Lifetime television movies or airport paperbacks: Dozens of dismembered corpses, some children, were found near a Hardin, Texas home. Crazy, right? And, what’s more, officers were led to the site of the carnage by following a tip from a psychic.

It would have been an amazing, and chilling, story had it turned out to have been true. As the story unfolded over Twitter, however, it quickly transformed from a scarcely believable news item shared by the likes of CNN and the AP, to a cautionary tale about the dangers of believing everything you read… or have been told by a psychic.