The Commentariat -- February 9

The Editors of the New York Times get it mostly right: "The United States and the European Union ... badly miscalculated when they endorsed Egypt’s vice president, Omar Suleiman, to lead the transition to democracy. Mr. Suleiman ... appears far more interested in maintaining as much of the old repressive order as he can get away with.... So the United States and its allies will have to lay down a clear list of steps that are the minimum for holding a credible vote this year and building a democracy."

     ... CW: what the editors get wrong, I think, is that choosing Suleiman was a "miscalculation." I think the Obama Administration & European leaders know exactly what kind of a man Suleiman is. He's what they want. ...

... Mark Landler & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have each repeatedly pressed the United States not to cut loose Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, too hastily, or to throw its weight behind the democracy movement in a way that could further destabilize the region.... There is evidence that the pressure has paid off. On Saturday, just days after suggesting that it wanted immediate change, the administration said it would support an 'orderly transition' managed by Vice President Omar Suleiman." ...

... Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy: "Ironically, by kidnapping, detaining, and then releasing [Google executive Wael] Ghonim -- instantly turning him into a nationwide celebrity -- the regime may have just created an undisputed leader for a movement that in recent days has struggled to find its footing, seemingly outfoxed by a government skilled in the dark arts of quashing and marginalizing dissent." Here's the interview of Ghonim made by an independent Egyptian network (it's labeled "Part 2," but Part 1 is the interviewer describing her contacts with Ghonim). If you can't see the English-language captions, press the CC in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Cursor through for the rest of the interview:

... Tom Cohen of CNN: Press Secretary Robert Gibbs criticizes comments by Egyptian VP Omar Suleiman, calls remarks "unhelpful." With video. CW: big whoop.

** Adam Goldman & Matt Apuzzo of the AP: "In the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, officers who committed serious mistakes that left people wrongly imprisoned or even dead have received only minor admonishments or no punishment at all, an Associated Press investigation has revealed.... Though Obama has sought to put the CIA's interrogation program behind him, the result of a decade of haphazard accountability is that many officers who made significant missteps are now the senior managers fighting the president's spy wars."

Lee Fang of Think Progress: "Nearly every Republican voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus. But the majority of the GOP caucus later took credit for dozens of successful local stimulus jobs and projects.... Now, Republican leaders are coalescing around a proposal to 'cancel unused spending authority in the 2009 stimulus bill' that could block funds from flowing to ongoing stimulus projects."

Taxes Are Too Damned Low. AP: "... as a share of the nation's economy, Uncle Sam's take this year will be the lowest since 1950.... And for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W. Bush, thanks to a weak economy and a growing number of tax breaks for the wealthy and poor alike. Income tax payments this year will be nearly 13 percent lower than they were in 2008, the last full year of the Bush presidency. Corporate taxes will be lower by a third, according to projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office." ...

... Taxes may be too damned low, but Republicans spent what taxpayer money they got on luxurious accommodations for themselves. Christine Wade of the Tampa Tribune: "They rented an exclusive waterfront mansion, wined and dined at five-star restaurants and hired family members and friends, all on the taxpayers' dime. Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's 2012 convention team based in the Tampa Bay area raked up nearly $1 million in charges – using a line of credit backed by federal funding – before they were fired by the newly elected party chairman [Reince Priebus] last month."

Paul Kane & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "House Republicans suffered an embarrassing setback Tuesday when they fell seven votes short of extending provisions of the Patriot Act, a vote that served as the first small uprising of the party's tea-party bloc. The bill to reauthorize key parts of the counter-terrorism surveillance law ... required a super-majority to pass under special rules reserved for non-controversial measures.... With most Democrats opposing the extension, the final tally was 277 members in favor of extension, and 148 opposed. The Republicans ... made plans to bring the measure back for a quick vote later this month under normal rules, requiring only a simple majority for passage. They blamed House Democrats for the bill's downfall...."...

... Funny thing was, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) dared the teabaggers to vote for the Patriot Act extension. Before the vote he said, "I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization." And two dozen of them did vote against the extension. ...

... NEW. Glenn Greenwald on the Tea Party & the Patriot Act. "... what happened last night highlights the potential to subvert the two-party stranglehold on these issues -- through a left-right alliance that opposes the Washington insiders who rule both parties." CW: my favorite sentence: "Yesterday, on the very same day that the Obama White House demanded that Egypt repeal its 30-year-old 'emergency law,' it also demanded enactment of the House GOP's proposal to extend America's own emergency law -- the Patriot Act -- for three more years with no new oversight...."

I didn't raise taxes once. -- President Barack Obama to Bill O'Reilly ...

... PolitiFact puts the President's statement to the test, & finds numerous instances where he signed legislation that raised taxes. (I guess PolitiFact didn't give the President a "Pants on Fire" rating because a depiction of the POTUS's pants on fire lacks the dignity accorded the office.) ...

... CW: I don't know what happened to the video of Bill O'Reilly's interview of President Obama, but at some point I guess Fox took it down. I found a YouTube copy, though, so if you missed it you can watch it here (scroll down a bit). If Fox takes this one down, too, you're on your own! Sorry about that. ...

... AND Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post fact-checks former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "His assertion that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had 'thrown out' weapons inspectors is a common misperception, often repeated by former Bush administration officials." Kessler gives Rumsfeld four Pinocchios, the worst rating, which Kessler calls a "Whopper."

Vice President Biden speaks about the Administration's plan to build a 21st century infrastructure with investments in roads, bridges and high-speed rail. It runs 30 minutes -- hey, Biden is long-winded:

... Ashley Halsey of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration plans to spend $53 billion on high-speed and intercity rail over the next six years. Vice President Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made the announcement Tuesday morning during an appearance at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station.... President Obama's budget for fiscal year 2012, which is to be unveiled next week includes $8 billion for the plan.The rest of the money will be allocated over five years, officials said."

"Rich Take from Poor...." David Dietz of Bloomberg News: "Since 2003, some of the world’s biggest financial companies, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., U.S. Bancorp, JPMorgan Chase and Prudential, have taken advantage of a federal subsidy that will cost taxpayers $10.1 billion.... Investors have used the program, called New Markets Tax Credits, to help build more than 300 upscale projects, including hotels, condominiums, office buildings and a car museum, on streets far from poverty.... Money spent on high-end development could have been used to build more than 1,000 job-training centers, medical clinics and schools."

The "Widows Tax." Kimberly Hefling of the AP: "Tens of thousands of the nation's war widows find it perplexing and downright disrespectful to their late military husbands: In order to fully collect on insurance their husbands bought for them when alive, they must marry another man. And to qualify, the widows must remarry when they are 57 or older. Those who remarry earlier miss out, as do widows who never remarry.... Time after time, members of Congress have promised to help the 55,000 affected widows, but laws passed to help them have only created a more complicated system...."

Lori Montgomery & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "States that have borrowed ... from the federal government to cover ... unemployment benefits would get immediate relief from the Obama administration under a plan to suspend interest payments for the next two years. Obama also would suspend automatic hikes in the federal unemployment tax.... But starting in 2014, Obama would target companies for sharply higher payroll taxes." ...

     ... Update. Jonathan Weisman & Damian Paletta of the Wall Street Journal: "Republicans on Capitol Hill responded with hostility Tuesday to [the] White House proposal...." CW: you know it must be good if Republicans hate it.

Ann Telnaes of the Washington Post comments on Justice Clarence Thomas' "impartiality." Click on the cartoon to watch the animation:

Center for Constitutional Rights: "... two torture victims were to have filed  criminal complaints, with more than 2,500-pages of supporting material, in Geneva against former U.S. President George W. Bush, who was due to speak at an event there on 12 February. Swiss law requires the presence of the torturer on Swiss soil before a preliminary investigation can be opened.  When Bush cancelled his trip to avoid prosecution, the human rights groups who prepared the complaints made it public and announced that the Bush Torture Indictment would be waiting wherever he travels next." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

Hey, I thought she was mine! I was gonna do her! -- Male TSA Agent, "hollering," after a female agent gave Time's Amy Sullivan a patdown

Right Wing News

Ron Paul, one of the most outspoken opponents of the Federal Reserve, held his first subcommittee hearing as chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the central bank today. His star witness was econ prof Thomas DiLorenzo, an Abraham Lincoln-hating secessionist. CW: I am not making this up. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) directly took on DiLorenzo for his membership in the League of the South, an organization that has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a 'neo-Confederate' hate group advocating for Southern secession. Clay then rattled off a list of some of DiLorenzo's articles, including 'More Lies about the Civil War,' 'In Defense of Sedition,' and 'The First Dictator-President,' which examines 'how Lincoln's myth has corrupted America.'" Mike Konczal has some background here. (Via Krugman) ...

... The Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree. Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "Rand Paul has broken with tradition by eschewing the unwritten rules for freshman senators: Keep a low profile, learn the chamber’s arcane procedures and cozy up to senior colleagues.... Paul is one of three founding members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus, which has set itself up as a tacit rival to the Senate GOP leadership."

Scott Keyes of Think Progress has a nice little item that lists some of the phony excuses Congressional Republicans make for taking government-subsidized health insurance even while voting against the Affordable Care Act for everybody else, but Keyes' favorite was Rep. Bill Posey (Florida) who said he didn't know if he was a federal employee. And we are subsidizing his insurance policy.

News Ledes

Politico: "Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb plans to announce today that he won't seek reelection, the Senator confirmed Wednesday. Webb appeared likely to face a rematch with former Senator George Allen, whom he beat in a bruising 2006 contest. He had expressed ambivalence about the prospect of another run, and has said he never planned a life in politics." New York Times item here.

Washington Post: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is able to speak: She asked for toast at breakfast one recent morning. Her ability to say even just a word, a month after being shot in the head, pleased her family, friends and doctors."

Al Jazeera: "The embattled government of Egypt had not met even a minimum threshold of reforms demanded by the people of the country, the White House said on Wednesday, warning that massive protests will likely continue until real reforms are instituted. In a sharp escalation of rhetoric..., Robert Gibbs, president Barack Obama's spokesman, suggested that some Egyptian leaders thought they could wait out the protesters...." ...

... AP: "Thousands of workers went on strike Wednesday across Egypt, adding a new dimension to the uprising as public rage turned to the vast wealth President Hosni Mubarak's family reportedly amassed while close to half the country struggled near the poverty line." ...

... New York Times: "Protesters demanding the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak appeared on Wednesday to have recaptured the initiative in their battle with his government, demonstrating a new ability to mobilize thousands to take over Cairo’s streets beyond their headquarters at Tahrir Square and to spark labor unrest.... In the most potentially significant action, about 6,000 workers at five service companies owned by the Suez Canal Authority — a major component of the Egyptian economy — began a sit-in on Tuesday night...."

... Washington Post: "Opposition groups accused the Egyptian government Wednesday of trying to draw out the process of amending the constitution after Vice President Omar Suleiman said that the only way forward was through 'dialogue' or a 'coup.'" ...

... Guardian: "The [British] foreign secretary, William Hague, has warned Israel against allowing the Middle East peace process to become a casualty of turmoil in the region, urging it to tone down 'belligerent language' over protests in Egypt and other neighbouring states."

New York Times: "Prosecutor Edmondo Bruti Liberati announced on Wednesday that his office had enough evidence to ask a judge to waive preliminary hearings and call for an immediate trial of [Italian Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi on charges that he paid for sex with a 17-year-old and abused his office by calling the police to intervene on her behalf after she was detained for petty theft in May."

New York Times: "Military discussions between North and South Korea ended on Wednesday with no improvement in their badly strained relations and no agreement about whether to hold more substantive talks in the future. A Defense Ministry official in Seoul said the talks ended abruptly at 2:30 p.m. when the North Korean delegation 'unilaterally walked away from the table and out of the meeting room.'”

Reuters: "Armed pirates seized a U.S.-bound oil tanker carrying Kuwaiti crude off the coast of Oman, the ship's Greek manager said on Wednesday, in an area where Somali seaborne gangs operate."

Another Super Bowl Post

Oh, and, lest we forget, on the centenary of Ronald Reagan's birth, in a monument to unbridled capitalist greed and vaunting hubris, with George W. Bush in attendance, what, due to that same unbridled capitalist greed and vaunting hubris, may be the last football game for some time, was won by a team that is and always will be a monument to...socialism! -- Charlie Pierce, Boston Globe ...

My friend Dr. A. Nonymous, who sent me the Pierce citation, explains:

Charlie Pierce, estimable sports writer for the Boston Globe and astute observer of the national scene (he wrote a wonderful book titled Idiot America. How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free after a jaw dropping visit to the infamously stupid Creation Museum in Kentucky), came out with this interesting notion on the eve of the NFL owners' lockout of the players for the 2011 season (because, of course, they need more money).

The Green Bay Packers are owned by the fans. Truly. There is no 'owner'. Green Bay sold shares in the team. It is the only community owned non-profit sports franchise. It's run by a board of directors and executive committee who answer to the roughly 112,000  owners.

American business has been so brainwashed against public ownership of any kind that the Green Bay ownership model is now outlawed by the NFL (GB has been grandfathered in, mostly because they have been in existence a lot longer than the NFL) just in case any other municipality thinks it can take easy money away from rapacious, autocratic owners.

Is there a lesson here? Can you imagine Darrell Issa touting the virtues of a publicly-owned enterprise as being the best in the business?

The Commentariat -- February 8

We don't seek to aid the rich, but those lower- and middle-income families who are most strapped by taxes and the recession. -- President Ronald Reagan, 1983

Gene Robinson: "On the planet that today's GOP leaders call home, [President Ronald] Reagan would qualify as one of those big-government, tax-and-spend liberals who are trying so hard to destroy the American way of life.... [Today] Democrats sound and act almost like Reaganites." ...

... To-wit, Dana Milbank on President Obama's "I-love-business speech." ...

... Robert Reich on Obama's flirtation with the Chamber:

I’ve been watching (and occasionally trying to deal with) the Chamber for years, and all I know is it has a deep, abiding belief in cutting taxes on the wealthy, eroding regulations that constrain Wall Street, cutting back on rules that promote worker health and safety, getting rid of the minimum wage, repealing the new health-care law, fighting unions, cutting back Medicare and Social Security, reducing or eliminating corporate taxes, and, in general, taking the nation back to the days before the New Deal.

Bob Herbert: "Forget the fairy tales being spun by politicians in both parties — that somehow they can impose service cuts that are drastic enough to bring federal and local budgets into balance while at the same time developing economic growth strong enough to support a robust middle class. It would take a Bernie Madoff to do that."

Speaking of spin, the White House is soliciting your innovative ideas:

About Those Earmarks.... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: Across the country, local governments, nonprofit groups and scores of farmers, to name but a few, are waking up to the fact that when Congress stamped out earmarks last week, it was talking about their projects, too. Tensions are particularly acute in districts where new conservative lawmakers, many of whom criticized [earmars] throughout their campaigns, are coming face to face with local governments and interest groups who were counting on federal dollars to help shore up their own collapsing budgets."

Constitutional law Prof. Laurence Tribe in a New York Times op-ed on why the Supreme Court Justices will rule the Affordable Care Act constitutional: "Since the New Deal, the court has consistently held that Congress has broad constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.... Even if the interstate commerce clause did not suffice to uphold mandatory insurance, the even broader power of Congress to impose taxes would surely do so.... Given the clear case for the law’s constitutionality, it’s distressing that many assume its fate will be decided by a partisan, closely divided Supreme Court."...

     ... CW: if you think Tribe's op-ed is a reminder to the conservative Supremes to respect precedent, you just might be right. Also, the Times doesn't say so, but Tribe, who is a former professor of Barack Obama's, has done (maybe is doing) volunteer work for the Obama Administration. (The anecdote that opens this April 2010 NYT story is terrific).

Judicial Crisis. Jerry Markon & Shailagh Murray of the Washington Post: "Federal judges have been retiring at a rate of one per week this year, driving up vacancies that have nearly doubled since President Obama took office.... Experts blame Republican delaying tactics, slow White House nominations and a dysfunctional Senate confirmation system."

Jonathan Weisman & Damian Paletta of the Wall Street Journal: "President Barack Obama's budget proposal is expected to give states a way to collect more payroll taxes from businesses, in an effort to replenish the unemployment-insurance program.... The proposal would ... [raise] the amount of wages on which companies must pay unemployment taxes to $15,000, more than double the $7,000 in place since 1983."

Zachary Roth of Yahoo News: "Despite record levels of long-term unemployment, some states are choosing to walk away from a total of almost $1 billion in federal jobless benefits, according to a new report (pdf)."

Manu Raju of Politico: "A handful of moderate Senate Democrats are looking for ways to roll back the highly contentious individual mandate — ... a sign that red-state senators are prepared to assert their independence ahead of the 2012 elections.... And it’s not just health care. The senators are prepared to break with the White House on a wide range of issues: embracing deeper spending cuts, scaling back business regulations and overhauling environmental rules. The moderates most likely to buck their party include Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana — all of whom are up for reelection in 2012 and represent states Obama lost in 2008." ...

     ... CW: if you live in any of the named states, please write to your senator and tell her/him you're appalled.

Robert Fisk of the (U.K.) Independent: "Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama's envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by [saying] ... "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy.'  ... The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a 'personal capacity'. But there is nothing 'personal' about Mr Wisner's connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises 'the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government's behalf in Europe and the US'."

Even in past examples where presidents have sent someone 'respected' or 'close' to a foreign leader in order to lubricate an exit, the envoys in question were not actually paid by the leader they were supposed to squeeze out. -- Nicholas Noe, political researcher ...

... Helene Cooper & David Sanger of the New York Times: "... lacking better options, the United States is ... relying on the existing [Egyptian] government to make changes that it has steadfastly resisted for years.... After two weeks of recalibrated messages..., the Obama administration is still trying to balance support for some of the basic aspirations for change in Egypt with its concern that the pro-democracy movement could be 'hijacked,' as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it.... The result has been to feed a perception ... that the United States ... is putting stability ahead of democratic ideals, and leaving hopes of nurturing peaceful, gradual change in large part in the hands of Egyptian officials — starting with [Egyptian Vice President Omar] Suleiman — who have every reason to slow the process." ...

... Glenn Greenwald is back with a look at Our Man in Cairo, Omar Suleiman:

Given the long-obvious fact that the Obama administration has been working to install Suleiman as interim leader as a (dubious) means of placating citizen anger, the above-referenced NYT article today offers a long and detailed profile of the new Egyptian 'Vice President.'  Unfortunately, the paper of record wasn't able to find the space to inform its readers about Suleiman's decades-long history as America's personal abducter, detainer and torturer of the Egyptian people, nor his status as Israel's most favored heir to the Mubarak tyranny....

When Vice President Cheney called Mubarak a good friend and a U.S. ally, it is telling that his example of Mubarak’s friendship — Egyptian assistance during the liberation of Kuwait — is two decades old. He omitted that Mubarak held out for $14 billion in debt forgiveness before he chose sides. -- Michael Rubin, American Enterprise Institute

... Marian Wang of ProPublica: "The American-made tear gas used to disperse pro-democracy protesters in Egypt earlier this week was sold to the country after government review, a State Department spokeswoman told us.... The State spokeswoman, Nicole Thompson, said she didn’t immediately know when the approval was given for Egypt." Via David Sirota tweet.

What Robert Gibbs Is Not:

Goodbye & Good Riddance. Ben Smith of Politico: "The Democratic Leadership Council, the iconic centrist organization of the Clinton years, is out of money and could close its doors as soon as next week, a person familiar with the plans said Monday." ...

... BUT. Ezra Klein: the DLC may have lost the war, but they won the battle.

Right Wing News

Planet Republican. Andrew Leonard of Salon: As U.S. gas prices rise, watch for this: "Republicans busily rewriting history in a tired effort to prove that an unregulated free market is the answer to all our energy woes." Leonard shows how Fred Upton, chair of the House Energy Committee, has already falsely credited Ronald Reagan for cheap oil.

Fox Feud. Steve Benen: Last week, "the deranged media personality" Glenn Beck explained the Egyptian uprising with "truly bizarre conspiracy theories -- even by his standards -- involving caliphates, communists, and radical theocrats, all of whom are coordinating their efforts for 'the coming insurrection' and the 'new world order.' ... The Weekly Standard's William Kristol, a Fox News contributor, [wrote], "[H]ysteria is not a sign of health.... When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left..., hee's marginalizing himself...." ... National Review's Rich Lowry, who's also a Fox News contributor, praised Kristol for taking 'a well-deserved shot at Glenn Beck's latest wild theorizing. ... Apparently, Beck caught wind of all of this, and lashed out at Kristol on his radio show this [Monday] morning." ...

... BUT, Adam Serwer points out, there's not much daylight between Beck's crazy theory & the crap Kristol & Lowry spew. ...

... AND Alex Pareene of Salon: "The beautiful thing about this feud is that both sides employ both spot-on, devastating assessments of each other and their usual off-the-wall nonsense talk."

Local News

More in our continuing series "Worst Governor Ever." Mark Caputo & Steve Bousquet of the Miami Herald: "At a highly partisan tea-party event on Monday, Gov. Rick Scott unveiled his first budget proposal, one that makes sweeping changes to state government by slashing billions in taxes and spending. Scott ... wants to eliminate 7 percent of the state’s government jobs, which would mean about 6,700 state-worker layoffs. He wants even more cuts the following year. Scott’s proposal ... provoked a lukewarm response from fellow Republicans in the state Capitol. Democrats, unions and state workers could barely contain their bitterness over Scott’s calls to cut billions from schools, pensions and health programs."

Today, Governor Scott proposed his jobs-killing budget, which absolutely will increase unemployment in Florida and would continue the failed Republican policies of the past decade that have left the Sunshine State with one of the worst economies in the nation. In addition to killing jobs, the Governor’s budget slashes funding for Florida’s children, cuts disability programs for the most vulnerable in our society, and slashes veterans funding while at the same time more than doubling spending on his personal office. -- Rod Smith, Florida Democratic Party Chairman

News Ledes

Reuters: "The U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote to block funding for President Barack Obama's signature healthcare overhaul when it takes up a budget plan next week, House Republican Leader Eric Cantor said on Tuesday."

Al Jazeera: "Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian vice-president, warned on Tuesday that his government 'can't put up with continued protests' for a long time, as tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters rallied in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the sixteenth day in a row." ...

... AP: Wael Ghonim, "a young leader of Egypt's anti-government protesters, newly released from detention, joined a massive crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the first time Tuesday and was greeted with cheers, whistling and thunderous applause when he declared: 'We will not abandon our demand and that is the departure of the regime.' Many in the crowd said they were inspired by ... Ghonim, the 30-year-old Google Inc. marketing manager who was a key organizer of the online campaign that sparked the first protest on Jan. 25 to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Straight from his release from 12 days of detention, Ghonim gave an emotionally charged television interview Monday night where he sobbed over those who have been killed in two weeks of clashes and insisted, 'We love Egypt ... and we have rights.'" ...

... BBC News: "At least 297 people were killed in the unrest in Egypt in the last two weeks, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. 'It was the police's excessive use of force and illegal tactics that caused the vast majority of these deaths,' HRW researcher Heba Morayef told the BBC World Service. 'The majority of deaths occurred on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th, and the primary cause was live gunfire,' Ms Morayef added." Includes audio. ...

... Bullshit Offensive. AP: "President Hosni Mubarak set up a committee Tuesday to recommend constitutional amendments to relax presidential eligibility rules and impose term limits — seeking to meet longtime popular demands as a standoff with protesters seeking his ouster enters its third week. Mubarak's decrees were announced on state television by Vice President Omar Suleiman, who also said that Mubarak will set up a separate committee to monitor the implementation." ...

... Reuters: "Egypt has a plan and timetable for the peaceful transfer of power, the vice president said on Tuesday, as protesters called more demonstrations to show their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak remains potent.... Protesters camped on Cairo's Tahrir Square accused the government of merely playing for time, and swore they would not give up until the current 'half revolution' was complete." ...

... AP: "The Obama administration is urging Egyptian leaders to include more people in a national dialogue on reform but won't endorse demands from protesters for the immediate resignation of embattled President Hosni Mubarak."

New York Times: "Iran’s opposition has challenged its hard-line leaders to allow a peaceful demonstration — ostensibly in support of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.... While similar requests have recently been met with flat refusals or utter disregard..., refusal to grant permission for such a rally would be seen by opposition supporters and perhaps others as hypocritical."

Guardian: "Julian Assange's Swedish lawyer was shown scores of text messages sent by the two women who accuse him of rape and sexual assault, in which they speak of 'revenge' and extracting money from him, an extradition hearing was told."

AP: "A Swedish legal expert said Tuesday there were serious irregularities in the way prosecutors built their sex crimes case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange." ...

New York Times: "North and South Korea held discussions on Tuesday, the first inter-Korean dialogue since an artillery exchange in November that killed four South Koreans and brought the countries to the brink of war."

AP: "Chechen warlord Doku Umarov has claimed responsibility for last month's suicide bombing at a Moscow airport and threatened more such attacks as a growing Islamic insurgency tries to force Russia to surrender control over its southern Caucasus region."

AP: "Prosecutors say they will request a trial against Premier Silvio Berlusconi over accusations he paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl and then used his influence to intervene on her behalf."