“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough has an obsession with Kate Upton, and he’s not shy about it.

Scarborough mentioned the name of the model (and niece of Rep. Fred Upton (R-Fla.), with whom Scarborough served in Congress) multiple times throughout this morning’s show on MSNBC. As the guests were being introduced, which included GQ’s Michael Hainey, Scarborough excitedly hoped for photos of Upton.

“I bet he has pictures of Kate Upton in there,” Scarborough said, referencing Hainey.

Shortly after, he added “I’m actually searching for those photos as we speak.”

It didn’t end there.

Read more

MSNBC “The Cycle” host S.E. Cupp shot down a critique that there’s too many males in Washington and that women can resolve the problems of the world. Her thoughts came on the program today in light of 20 female senators dining with President Obama last night.

“It’s silly and sort of a narrow view of politics to suggest that this dinner with 20 women senators is going to solve all these problems that [Sen. Amy] Klobuchar is lying out, laying out, that the problem with Washington is too much penis, essentially. There’s just too much penis in Washington and not enough uterus. I think that’s really silly. It also neglects the fact that women are just as capable of being ruthless, of making bad decisions. I mean, this is women. I can show you who woman are. We can throw table and lose our stuff and get a little kooky. I’m kind of over this story before it’s begun.”

Out of anger over a headline choice, Commandant General Jim Amos recently offered Marine Corps Times reporter Dan Lamothe the opportunity to complete the Infantry Officer Course, known as the hardest physical training of the Marine Corp.

As of this morning, that plan has drastically changed.

Lamothe met with Amos Monday morning and they decided it’s best that the reporter observe and not participate.

Asked if female volunteers would be present for the training he will observe, Lamothe told FishbowlDC: “My understanding is there will be several female volunteers, although they do have the right to change their minds as part of the research.” He maintained the new plan for his coverage is still a good one. “Attending as a participant would have been a good opportunity, pass or fail. This is too, though, and puts the focus where it should be,” he said.

Amos made the original offer after being irked over a headline… Read more

The Franklin Center, a conservative nonprofit that covers local governments nationwide, is hosting a conference call this afternoon to draw attention to a lawsuit it’s battling by a car company founded by Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D).

“We’re hoping to get more attention to this free-speech infringing action and that those with big spheres of influence could help the effort,” reads an email from Melissa Clouthier, who does blogger outreach for the Center. “There are such important implications for us all. Every blogger/writer is vulnerable to being sued to be shut up. To be suing an organization like the Franklin Center is ballsy.”

GreenTech, the car company, is suing the Center for $85 million for stories reported by its Watchdog.org website that suggest the company is a type of scam and in bed with the federal government. McAuliffe resigned from the company in December, though during his campaign he had often cited its creation as proof of his business savvy. Read more

In recent weeks, relations between Gen. Jim Amos and Marine Corps Times have grown so icy that the general challenged a reporter to complete a 13-week Infantry Officer Camp, a course so hard that 30 percent of all participants fail regardless of gender. At the crux of the cool invitation is a recent story by Marine Corps Times that used the word “flunked” in a headline, as in ““Two more female Marines flunk infantry officers training.”

The women indeed failed the training on their first day, a stat that isn’t terribly shocking since 10 percent of all participants don’t pass their first day and it’s considered to be among the hardest physical endurance tests the Marine Corps has.

Still, Amos said characterizing the womens’ performance as having “flunked” was “sensational and shameful.” It was the first letter he has written to the publication since assuming his role in 2010.  “That description is callous and irresponsible, and doesn’t do justice to these two fine officers,” he wrote in a letter published by the publication this week.

Dan Lamothe, a reporter for Marine Corps Times since 2008, wrote the story. He declined to reveal to FishbowlDC whether the headline choice was his, but says he stands by his story and the headline choice. And come July he may be in those womens’ shoes if the general stays true to his offer.

“Honestly I’m not sure,” Lamothe said in an interview this week, when asked if he thinks the offer will come to fruition. “The invitation was laid out. I accepted. I’m not sure. I don’t know if’ I’d need to do all or portions. I have very little details at this point.”

Lamothe says his publication has been trying to cover the course since last summer, but to no avail, unlike reporters from NYT and USA TODAY, who have gained access to it. Women are now allowed to take part in the training and apply for jobs they haven’t been able to previously, which is why military reporters like Lamothe are pushing hard to cover it.

He doesn’t know all that the course entails, but he knows there’s an obstacle course, a lot of hiking, running, and some swimming. “They leave one piece of criteria vague because the want to see how people do when they don’t know what’s coming,” he explained.

That said, Lamothe knows he isn’t ready. Read more

John McLaughlin has had enough.

This year he won’t be attending what has famously been known as “The McLaughlin Brunch” or hangover brunch on the Hay-Adams Hotel rooftop held on the Sunday after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. This year, the event is being hosted by Thomson-Reuters and Yahoo! News.

Publicist and blogger Janet Donovan, the party’s longtime organizer, is beside herself.

See the story by Washingtonian‘s Editor-at-large Carol Joynt.

Today begins Tim Cavanaugh‘s six-week trial run at The Daily Caller. Formerly of the Libertarian leaning Reason magazine, Cavanaugh could, if all goes well, permanently replace David Martosko, now at the Daily Mail‘s new Washington bureau.

Cavanaugh is a former Los Angeles-based screenwriter. He was managing editor of Reason.com and a columnist for the magazine. Previously, he was a web editor of the LAT opinion page and Editor-in-Chief of Suck.com. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Beirut Daily Star, San Francisco Magazine, Mother Jones, Agence France-Presse, Wired, Newsday, Salon, Orange County Register, and The Rake magazine.

So far at this budding stage, reviews are positive. As one individual phrased it, “Cool dude.”

Earlier today, two black men were engaged in a heated conversation at the Conservative Political Action Conference inside National Harbor’s Gaylord Hotel. One of the gentleman was overheard saying as follows:

“Where are all the black people? Where’s the outreach? All I see are the usual suspects. Where are they? Just me and you? Where’s the outreach?”

Clearly they hadn’t read the CPAC schedule for today. At 3:45 p..m. the speaker in the main ballroom was none other than the only black Republican U.S. Senator, Tim Scott (R-S.C.). Also at 3:45 p.m., in another ballroom, was a panel called “Are We Black on the Road to Serfdom?” Sponsored by The Intercollegiate Studies Institute,” the speakers included Washington Examiner‘s Tim Carney and Sam Houston State University history prof Brian Domitrovic.

Former TWT Editorial Page Editor Editor Brett Decker has secured a new job with Rare, a conservative web site to be launched by Cox Media Group. Decker will assume the position of Editor-in-Chief and will be based in Washington. Rare will launch on April 15, 2013 at the Newseum.

Decker quit his job at TWT in November of 2012. He appeared on newspaper boxes like the one above all over the D.C. metro area for months even after he left TWT.

So why a new conservative site now after last year’s electoral thumping?

“I think the timing is perfect for a new conservative outlet to shake up the establishment,” Decker explained to FishbowlDC. “With the economy in the toilet, just about anyone should have been able to beat President Obama in the 2012 election, but Republicans blew it in spectacular fashion. Serious soul-searching needs to occur to figure out what the hell went wrong so it can be fixed. Some of these discussions won’t be easy.

“I came to Washington amidst the excitement following the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress,” he continued. “Conservatism was so ascendant back then that even the Democratic President, Bill Clinton, said ‘the era of big government is over.’ How we got from that point to today’s age of trillion-dollar deficits and $16.7 trillion in national debt is a collapse that needs to be discussed frankly if conservative ideas of fiscal responsibility, bureaucratic restraint and individual liberty are to be relevant again. That’s what we’re going to do at Rare.”

See comments about Decker from Ambassador John Bolton and rocker Ted Nugent. Read more

Former Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), who served time in federal prison for his involvement in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, is out with a new book, Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill. In it, he rips the cover off the alleged bad boy behavior of longtime Capitol Hill reporter John Bresnahan, now a reporter for Politico. Ney’s references about him stem from when he was previously a reporter for Roll Call.

In Chapter 26 of the 377-page tell-all, Ney makes Bresnahan out to be unethical and bullying. “The only way to describe Bresnahan is to utilize the name given to him behind his back and widely used by staff, even by friendly staff, and that was ‘troll,’” Ney wrote. “He is a muckraking reporter, and it was said that he would only attempt a positive story if forced as a means of getting to the mud. Bresnahan had no limits and no problem with threatening or destroying anyone in his path. He was considered a ‘bottom feeder’ who eventually ended up at Politico, a political journalism organization.”

If he was a “bottom feeder,” it is abundantly clear from the chapter, titled “The Press Á La Abramoff,” that Bresnahan was one that Ney personally feared. Nearly the entire chapter focuses on him, bordering on obsession. In several graphs, Ney describes an incident in which he says Bresnahan was angered that Ney’s office had failed to give him a big scoop about their legal fund. He spoke of an email that Bresnahan wrote to his then-flack, Brian Walsh, former spokesman for the NRSC, which allegedly said he was going to “fuck Mr. Ney.” Ney wrote, “This sent chills down my spine.”

An interesting factoid: According to Ney, Abramoff’s plan was going to buy the Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, and make Bresnahan editor. Point being, the purchase would give Abramoff more power.  “I, as well as others at the time, feared the vicious, corrupt Bresnahan,” Ney wrote.

In other weirdness, Ney writes of poker games in which hundreds and thousands of dollars were spent, with Bresnahan being among the players with Abramoff associate Tony Rudy, and then-Delay aide Mike Scanlon, House staffers and lobbyists. Ney wrote that it was “speculated” that lobbyists purposely folded to “feed money to Bresnahan.” In 2005, Ney wrote, he lost hands to avoid getting bad press, saying he’d rather lose than piss “John” off. Sure enough, Bresnahan allegedly showed up at Ney’s office to collect his $200.

Politico has declined to comment.