The problem they seem to have with the incident is not that Kurtz falsely accused openly gay NBA player Jason Collins of concealing his engagement to a woman, or that he spread himself too thin and let the quality of his work suffer, but that the Daily Beast fired Kurtz for it. Here's popular conservative blogger Ace of Spades, spelling out what many saw as a double standard:

Clearly Kurtz erred, and rather dumbly. But he does this a lot, and no one's had a problem with it in the past. Why now? I think it's pretty obvious -- Jason Collins is now the Gay Black Sandra Fluke, and therefore now An Hero, and the Left protects its heroes.

And John Nolte of Breitbart News:

Kurtz's sin was making this error with a sacred cow. Had he made EXACT same error with a Palin or Bachmann, media & Beast woulda shrugged.

— John Nolte(@NolteNC) May 2, 2013

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All of this was a key Republican strategy in taking back the House, and while there were lots of reasons the Democrats lost and Pelosi was dethroned, it achieved the desired result. Since the next big electoral battle will be control of the House in 2014, and a Democratic win would presumably put Pelosi back in charge, expect to see more Pelosi boogeyman-ing.

"It didn't bother me, I figured they thought I was effective and therefore they had to take me down," Pelosi told Salon at the premiere Thursday night of "Fall to Grace," her daughter's HBO documentary on former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey. Still, she worries about the message it sends to other women who might be considering a run.

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Salon's Alex Pareene pointed out that in a video segment to commemorate the Iraq War, Scarborough had said in a voice-over that "the very same people who spent years beating up George Bush were the very ones beating the drum for Iraq's regime change and Saddam Hussein's ouster." The video then shows Pelosi saying, "I applaud the president's focusing on this issue, and on taking the lead to disarm Saddam Hussein," but leaves out her remarks afterward that "I rise in opposition to this resolution on national security grounds."

"In fact, it seems like she got it just about right," Scarborough said in Thursday's segment, as he and Brzezinski apologized.

Watch:

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This is even before they’ve started budget negotiations with Republicans — who still refuse to raise taxes on the rich, close tax loopholes the rich depend on (such as hedge-fund and private-equity managers’ “carried interest”), increase capital gains taxes on the wealthy, cap their tax deductions, or tax financial transactions.

It’s not the first time Democrats have led with a compromise, but these particular pre-concessions are especially unwise.

For over thirty years Republicans have pitted the middle class against the poor, preying on the frustrations and racial biases of average working people who can’t get ahead no matter how hard they try. In the Republican narrative, government takes from the hard-working middle and gives to the undeserving and dependent needy.

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Nancy Pelosi is the first woman in history to serve as Speaker of the House, aka the next person in the Presidential line of succession after the Vice President. She was Speaker from 2007 until 2011, and is now the Minority Leader.

Before she was Speaker, a role in which she was crucial to the passage of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), she was also the first woman in history to serve as Minority Whip. She also served on the House intelligence and appropriations committees. She’s been in electoral politics longer than I’ve been on the planet, and she has five kids. She’s pro-choice, has a 0% rating from the NRA, and doesn’t take any shit from anyone. She’s a 72-year-old badass. Oh, and she loves chocolate milkshakes.

We spoke earlier this week, a few hours before President Obama signed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act into law.

This woman barely needs an introduction, which is why this one is so short, so now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Nancy Pelosi.

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The new report, Mapping Muslims, analyzes the effects of the New York Police Department (NYPD)’s infiltration into every facet of Muslim communities, from mosques, local shops, college organizations and more. The report -- released by the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC), the Creating Law Enforcement and Accountability Project (CLEAR) and the Asian American Legal Defense Fund (AALDEF) -- interviewed 57 Muslims, mostly living in New York City. The interviewees included high school and college students, community organizers, lawyers, teachers, shopkeepers and others.

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Give him points for honesty. The key concept behind his super PAC’s first attack ad of the new election cycle was indeed to belittle the high-profile, politically active Judd. Rove and American Crossroads GPS dropped $10,000 to “stick a pin in her balloon,” going up with a satiric Judd for Senate campaign spot that portrays her as an airhead, a “leader who knows how to follow,” and dismisses her as a silly Hollywood liberal.

Far from a unique personal shot at Judd, the attack is part of a long pattern of Rove attacking women in troubling ways rhetorically distinct from his campaigns against male candidates.

One can say that he is an equal opportunity smear artist, but there is a context and a history to Rove's anti-Judd salvo. He routinely resorts to anti-woman insults and insinuations that cut deeper than his usual attacks – characterizing women in politics as having stereotypically negative female traits (subject to hysteria, too emotional, weak and weepy, bleeding heart, flighty or frigid, and lesbian).

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But the politician didn't reveal any other details to the Washington Post, who had the exclusive news. “I would do almost anything Tina Fey asks me to do," she said, adding, "I’m flattered that they asked me to make a cameo in the series finale. I had a lot of fun."

The final episode will air on Thursday, Jan. 31 at 8 p.m., wrapping up seven seasons of the Emmy Award-winning show.

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There were, however, a total of 14 defections from both Boehner, and Nancy Pelosi, who got 192 votes.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Va., got three votes. Reps. Louie Gohmert, Texas, and Paul Broun, Ga., both cast votes for ousted Rep. Allen West, Fla.

Tim Huelskamp, Kan., one of the four conservatives Boehner ousted from his committee spot, cast a vote for Jim Jordan, Ohio. Dave Schweikert, Ariz., another one of those conservatives, did support Boehner.

Both Michael Grimm and Peter King of New York, who had been at odds with Boehner over Hurricane Sandy relief funding, both voted for the speaker to keep his seat.

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There's no way to know how bad or good a deal Democrats cut until the conflict they postponed is resolved, and we know what it takes to lift the debt ceiling, keep the government running and deal with the "sequester" – the combination of automatic spending cuts to defense and to social programs baked into the original debt ceiling deal back in August 2011.

As someone who believed, and still believes, that it was best for the country if Democrats stood up to Republican hostage takers and went over the cliff, I have to admit President Obama and his chief negotiator Vice President Joe Biden got some good things with this deal. Unemployment benefits were extended for 2 million Americans and so were tax credits that help the working and middle class. The deal also kept student-loan interest rates low. Lots of Democrats are also celebrating the fact that Republicans voted for their first tax-rate increase in 20 years. But since the White House got far less in revenue than it originally asked for, we'll see how great a concession that turned out to be, since the deal kept tax rates low for millions of wealthy Americans, and ceded crucial hikes on estates and investment income for the super-rich.

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Instead, their deal, if a deal they indeed cut, will put off some big decisions about tax and entitlement changes and leave other deadlines in place that will likely lead to similar moments of brinkmanship, some in just a matter of weeks.

Republican and Democratic negotiators in the Senate were hoping for a deal as early as Sunday on what threshold to set for increased tax rates, whether to keep current inheritance tax rates and exemptions and how to pay for jobless benefits and avoid cuts in Medicare payments to doctors.

An agreement would halt automatic across-the-board tax increases for virtually every American and perhaps temporarily put off some steep spending cuts in defense and domestic programs.

Gone, however, is the talk of a grand deal that would tackle broad spending and revenue demands and set the nation on a course to lower deficits. Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner were once a couple hundred billion dollars apart of a deal that would have reduced the deficit by more than $2 trillion over ten years.

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While Pelosi described the meeting as "candid and constructive," little sense was given about concrete progress on the unlikely task of reaching a palatable deal.

According to Bloomberg News, President Obama "is seeking an up-or-down vote on his proposal to extend tax cuts for annual income up to $250,000, absent a counteroffer from congressional leaders" -- which basically means that if no counteroffer is put forward that is mutually agreeable, the president will seek a vote on his proposal that everyone must take part in and that cannot be procedurally evaded -- which doesn't sound wildly desperate at all.

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Newtown police logged more than 50 gunfire complaints this year through July, double the number for all of 2011, the Times reported, noting that in recent years that the typical presence of gunfire from hunting had been augmented with the noise of automatic weapons and explosives near residential areas. "Near a trailer park. By a boat launch. Next to well-appointed houses. At 2:20 p.m. on one Wednesday last spring, multiple shots were reported in a wooded area on Cold Spring Road near South Main Street, right across the road from an elementary school," reported the Times.

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Benghazi:

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the top Republican in the Senate Intelligence Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" that he expects Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will testify before the Senate about the Benghazi attacks. "At some point [Rice] needs to come in and say what the president or the White House directed her to say," Chambliss said.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," host David Gregory also pushed chair of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), on whether the White House and Rice had misled the public in saying early on that the attacks were spontaneous protests, while intelligence pointed to a terrorist plot.

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“Just to close loopholes is far too little money,” Pelosi said in the interview. “If it’s going to bring in revenue, the president has been very clear that the higher income people have to pay their fair share.”

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This official said the 72-year-old Pelosi made the decision to remain at the helm of the party’s House leadership even though Democrats failed to win the necessary 25 additional seats to become the majority party again.

The official, who is close to Pelosi, revealed her decision on condition of anonymity because she hadn’t yet publicly announced it.

Pelosi’s quarter-century of service in Congress representing a San Francisco area district in the House includes becoming the first woman in history to serve as speaker. The tea party-fueled political wave of 2010 forced the gavel from her hand to Rep. John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.

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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.:

"This year, we are determined to re-elect an extraordinary president who, in no ordinary time, led America back from the brink of depression—while Republicans tried to block him at every turn. This election offers the clearest choice of our time. Many names are on the ballot. So, too, is the character of our country."

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack:

"Last week, we heard folks at the other convention say they want to "take our country back." But here's what I noticed: they didn't say back to what. Well, we know what backwards looks like. We know what happened to middle-class families after two tax cuts for people who didn't need them; after deregulation of the banking and housing sectors; after the historic recession that followed."

"Rural Americans want leaders who help middle-class communities to plan and prosper over the long-term—not opportunists who reap the rewards for themselves, leaving nothing for the people who do the sowing. They deserve leaders who appreciate their contributions, who believe in their potential, and who care enough to invest in their communities."

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