UPDATE: The Department of Justice has posted an extensive press release at their web site with additional details on yesterday’s arrest of Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari. These are some of the highlights: Aldawsari is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in Lubbock at 9:00 a.m. on Friday morning. Aldawsari, who was lawfully admitted into the United States in 2008 on a student visa and is enrolled...

The Department of Justice announced this decision today in the context of two specific lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed by the Clinton administration:

Word coming out today that President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. This does not mean they will stop enforcing it (to the degree the federal government has enforced it) but they will no longer argue in favor of the law against lawsuits pending in the 1st and 2nd Federal Districts. I’ve long felt the law...

I’m sure I’m not the only one who is trying to keep up with the pace of events in the Middle East, marveling at the speed at which the dominoes of dictatorship are falling, and wondering why all this is happening NOW. Of course, answers to questions like that are never singular, but one that a number of commentators have been pointing to has to do with the way dictators hold on to power in the first...

There are numerous confirmed reports that protesters in Libya are being bombed from fighter jets. CNN reports there may be helicopter gunships opening fire. Protesters are increasingly reporting that foreign mercenaries are leading the ground attacks and continue to be shipped in by helicopter. Two fighter pilots have defected to Malta claiming that they were ordered to carry out bombings and refused. Against...

Fat chance.

Incredible but true! Libya’s scary dictator Muammar Gaddafi may also be on his way out. His soldiers killed 200 people in Benghazi, the most important urban center after the capital Tripoli, but then refused to shoot anymore. His personal residence in Benghazi, which is like a luxury tent city protected by his personal elite militia, has been taken over by the people. It seems that the militia is at the airport...

Rep. Jackie Speier on Planned ParenthoodVideo Below Update 2. On a 240-185 vote, the House of Representatives approved an amendment put forward by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to defund Planned Parenthood. (Note: There are 241 Republicans and 193 Democrats in the House.) Pence, of Indiana, touched off a vicious back-and-forth Thursday night in which Republicans insisted the organization is too aggressive about performing...

Al Jazeera is reporting massacres against protesters in Bahrain through a combination of on the ground reporting, interviews with medical personnel and (unverified) Youtube videos. Read the Bahrain blog for more. These reports are backed up by journalists from other sources that are seeing them first hand (e.g. Nicholas Kristof) and international NGO and governmental authorities. I’m not sure what is...

Sarah Palin should always think twice before mocking anyone, because she only ends up displaying her own stupidity (my bolds):

by Walter Brasch Lara Logan, CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent, was beaten and sexually assaulted, Feb. 11, while on assignment in Cairo to report on the revolution that concluded that day with Hosni Mubarak resigning as president. Logan, according to an official CBS announcement, was attacked by a group of about 200 Egyptians and “suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating...

This is a significant apology. I could have posted this as an update to my original post from yesterday, but I tend to prefer writing a new post over updating old ones because many people don’t read updates, especially on high-traffic blogs like TMV, where fresh posts rapidly push older ones down the page.

Several bloggers on the right are criticizing Nir Rosen for engaging in an extended Twitter exchange trivializing and making fun of what happened to Lara Logan. I’m going to single out Jim Geraghty’s comments for quoting, because I feel that he makes the point without engaging in partisan name-calling or ad hominem attacks:

Kate Sheppard writes in Mother Jones about a bill under consideration in the South Dakota legislature that would expand the definition of “justifiable homicide” to include actions taken to prevent the death of an “unborn child.”

She waited seven months to do this, so obviously she’s given some thought to it. Or maybe she wanted to give Breitbart a chance to apologize, or in some way acknowledge the harm his irresponsible actions did to her, professionally and personally, or maybe at least take the defamatory video off his site, but to date he has done none of those things:

Don’t bother, they’re here (emphasis is Steve’s):

The Trust Women Political Action Committee reports on its website:

To use his words, they’re “not pretty” (emphasis is mine):

President Obama has just given his reaction to the momentous and fast-moving events in Egypt. Some of his comments: There are very few moments in our lives where we have the privilege to witness history…The people of Egypt have spoken. Their voices have been heard… Egypt will never be the same…This is not the end of Egypt’s transition. It is the beginning…Egyptians have made it clear that...

And so what seemed last night to be the beginning of a national nightmare for Egypt– poised to being with what was expected to be powderkeg demonstrations beginning today — is over: embattled President Hosni Mubarak has left the Presidential building. Or, by some accounts swirling around on cable and radio, been kicked out of the building by the military which reportedly was extremely unhappy with...

Update (15:20 ET) The Washington Post: The People of Egypt Have Spoken In an address from the White House, President Obama said the “people of Egypt have spoken, their voices have been heard and Egypt will never be the same.” He likened the relatively peaceful ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to the fall of the Berlin Wall and to the advances of the American civil rights movement. Invoking...

The White House has just released President Obama’s response to the confusing antics of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. That statement reads as follows: President Obama on Egypt Posted by Jesse Lee on February 10, 2011 at 07:59 PM EST Moments ago, the President released the statement below: The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but it is not yet clear that...

(Update to first post: Seems there is confusion to what President Hosni Mubarik actually did today. Some say he has succeeded power to the Vice President. Does not seem that the protesters heard this in the speech) Egyptian President Hosni Mubarik waited until about one hour before midnight to announce his unwillingness to succeed to the wishes of protesters. President Mubarik is not resigning. Currently...

I’ve often wondered what Nicolae Ceausescu , the former and cruel dictator of Romania who enslaved the Romanian and Swabian people post-Uncle Joe (Stalin), literally selling human beings as slaves to other countries, thought when he came to his balcony one day, and saw the streets crammed with demonstrators demanding his resignation. And more. Much more. Ceausescu too, like Mubarak, tried to mollify the...

The Mansfield, Texas, Independent School District got a federal grant to set up Arabic studies programs in several schools in that district. Here is how the local CBS affiliate wrote the story (and that link will now take you to a Page Not Found — the local affiliate took the page down):