Bill O’Reilly, Monday night: “Pepper spray, that just burns your eyes, right?” Megyn Kelly: “Right. I mean, it’s like a derivative of actual pepper. It’s a food product, essentially.” [TPM]

Regular viewers of Fox News are less informed about current events than people who don’t watch any news at all, according to a new study of New Jersey residents by Farleigh Dickinson University.

The professor who conducted the study said in a statement, “Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News. Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”

[HuffPo]

“I tasted a beer and tried a cigarette once, as a wayward teenager, and never did it again.”
—Mitt Romney to People magazine

• Pop Rocks.
• Loosened tie while on Mission.
• Tied family dog to car roof. (Adult indiscretion)

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GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told a crowd at Harvard today that he thinks U.S. child labor laws are “truly stupid” and should be eliminated because such laws are “crippling” and “entrapping” children in poverty.  Getting rid of child labor laws would “change the culture of poverty in America.”

And then he swung by the Beacon Hill Tiffany’s to get a bauble for his wife Skeletor.

Okay, I made the last bit up. First paragraph is all true.

[LAT]

“With all the hype about the ancient Mayan calendar suggesting the demise of human civilization taking place in 2012, an American author wants everyone to know that other calendars predict the same outcome, and he claims a demonic plot bringing about the end date could be hiding in plain sight inside the U.S. Capitol and your wallet right now.” [WND]

Because we have absolutely no self-control when it comes to this shit.

[via @anamariecox]

Today the front page of the New York Times features an obituary for the Congressional Deficit Committee. Should anyone be surprised at the collapse of a committe whose goal was to reach a political compromise that would reduce the National Debt by several trillion dollars, when half the membership represented a political party that has made a refusal to compromise its modus operandi?

Democrats insist that they were closing in on the framework of an agreement, but that Republicans backed away from their willingness to accept significant revenue increases in exchange for cuts in the growth of entitlement programs. They said Mr. Boehner sealed the fate of the panel on Thursday by offering a package that had a mere $3 billion in new revenue, far less than an earlier Republican plan.

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