Chris Cilizza’s The Fix: California Rep. Jane Harman (D) will resign from Congress, according to two senior Democratic leadership aides, a surprise announcement that will set off a special election in her 36th district. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who broke the news of Harman’s resignation, has reported that the California Congresswoman will take over as director of the Woodrow Wilson Center in...

Today marks the centennial anniversary birthday of Ronald Reagan and the planned accolades are well deserved for he brought pride and spirit to a humiliated nation and changed the political direction and conversation of our politics. As a man, Reagan was charming, intelligent, driven and a wonderful teller of stories about Hollywood and his days as a radio sportscaster. Anyone who disliked him as a person would...

As Egypt teeters on the brink, potentially affecting the fate of 400 million Arabs and over a billion Muslims, Europe is gradually sliding to a brink of its own. And Barack Obama may yet become the President that started America’s international decline because of a trust deficit over values that America professes to uphold since its founding. Together, the Muslim world and Europe contain nearly two billion...

Evan McMorris-Santoro has a write-up on congressional Republicans’ latest attempt to place the lives of fetuses above the lives of women (emphasis is mine):

That didn’t take long:

There are at least 100 different versions of the Christian Bible alone, but Fox Nation (or, as I like to call them, Idiot Nation) apparently does not know that:

President Obama and U.S. intelligence agencies are being criticized for what appears being caught off guard by the populace revolts in Tunisia and Egypt and the copycat upheavals in Yemen and Jordan. All are U.S. allies. As for media and citizen journalists I would urge caution before issuing any verbal indictments since none is privy to classified intelligence reports and how the President and highest military...

Yesterday morning, Pres. Obama addressed the Great Annual National Public Display of Religious Piety in Washington, D.C. The GANPDRP (aka The National Prayer Breakfast), as we all know (or should, as informed political junkies), is sponsored by The Family, an organization that has been associated with support for venomous anti-gay legislation in Uganda (which would make it a capital offense to be openly gay...

I don’t think so.

Geopolitical analyst company Stratfor has a great release on the history of the Muslim Brotherhood.

At least the political blame game first chapter is closed in the investigations of accused Ft. Hood killer Maj. Nidal Hasan. Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins determined from their investigation that the FBI and Pentagon committed a “string of failures” knowing Hasan was communicating with an Islamist extremist, his peers describing him as a “ticking time bomb” and his Army superiors...

Egypt’s Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq has apologized for shocking attacks by government supporters on the largely-peaceful demonstrators (and members of the world press) but the bottom-line question among many will be: Sure this sounds reassuring but, if many of the government supporters armed with machetes etc. were basically police or paid-for thugs, what value does an apology have? The question of precisely...

The White House press pool reporters are complaining that the White House is not telling them what’s going on in Egypt. This is so funny, on so many levels, that I can’t even begin to count them (emphasis is mine):

Right now on CNN Anderson Cooper is reporting from a semi-darkened hotel room because he has been told to barricade himself and his crew and to turn off the lights for their personal safety. Gunfire is periodically interrupting the program as it appears that somebody, presumably either pro-Mubarak protesters or police or elements of the army, have opened up on the square. This is NOT good, folks. I can’t...

The Defense Department paid $285 billion in two years to about 100 contractors who were defrauding taxpayers between 2007 and 2009. About $15 billion was spent on contractors who at the time were either suspended or debarred for misusing taxpayer funds, according to its audit report released Wednesday. The report was required in the last defense budget and it’s response back to Congress included: “The...

The Senate has just defeated a Republican-led effort to repeal the entire national health-care overhaul, with lawmakers voting strictly along party lines. “The decision underscores the hurdle that the GOP faces in that Democratic-majority chamber as it tries to overturn the law.” All 50 Senate Democrats present and one independent voted against the repeal, while all 47 Republicans voted in favor....

Egypt’s Army has told protesters to go home and is reportedly trying to evacuate Tahrir Square. Jerusalem Post: Pro-Mubarak protesters retreat as anti-gov’t rioters charge: 630 injured, three killed in clashes; machine guns are fired and Molotov cocktails hurled from surrounding buildings; protesters target Egyptian Museum.

Jerusalem Post: Machine Guns Fired Into Tahrir Square. 600 reported injured, one killed in clashes; Pro-Mubarak rioters hurl Molotov Cocktails, rocks at opposition from surrounding buildings; protesters target Egyptian Museum. Tahrir Square. Machine gunfire was heard on Wednesday night, shortly after Egyptian state television ordered all demonstrators to evacuate Cairo’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square. Al...

Latest from the BBC (18:09 ET) The struggle for control of the future of Egypt continued in Cairo. Egyptian anti-government protesters remain entrenched in Cairo’s main square, after at least three people were killed in clashes with supporters of President Hosni Mubarak. Hundreds of people were also wounded as rival groups fought pitched battles in and around Tahrir Square, in the worst violence in nine...

MSNBC: Yemen’s president: I won’t extend term or pass power to son. U.S.-allied Saleh says he’ll stand down in 2013; ‘day of rage’ protest looms. SANAA, Yemen — The Yemeni president told parliament Wednesday that he would not seek another term in office or hand power to his son — an apparent reaction to protests in this impoverished nation that have been inspired by Tunisia’s...

UPDATE: CNN reports seeing machetes, razors, Molotov cocktails, tear gas, and clubs while hearing some gunshots. Mubarak supporters are storming Tahrir Square from all sides, rumored to be accompanied by plainclothes policemen. An Army vehicle has been overturned. Tear gas may have been fired by police. CNN: Smoke or tear gas is seen rising near the north entrance to Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday. EARLIER:...

Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak may be on an outbound flight soon but that will not be the end of this saga of the people’s rebellion. He may give up, but the authoritarian system he established and which nourished him will stay. Changing that will be much harder than ousting the President. Mubarak is looking for a dignified way out. He has been an emperor. He wants to leave without humiliation. To that end on Tuesday,...

Bowing to pressure from the street and an increasing international sentiment that Egypt might be in better shape if he cut his losses, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has announced he will not run for re-election, CNBC reports But will this be enough to satisfy the protesters? He is not saying he will step down before his time in office runs out: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Tuesday he would not...

NPR: Update at 1:40 p.m. ET. Mubarak To Speak Tonight; Pledge To Not Seek Re-Election? Reuters writes that “Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak will give a speech on Tuesday after at least 1 million people rallied across the country clamouring for him to step down, Al Arabiya television said. There was no official confirmation.” Reuters also quotes Al Arabiya as saying “Mubarak will announce...

You gotta love conservatives who for years railed against judicial activism as a form of legal tyranny by fiat. But on the very day a lower court federal judge ruled Obamacare unconstitutional, the skies are blue and no longer falling. Never mind a pet conservative political cause trumping a legal premise supported by a concept of the 10th Amendment and related articles of the U.S. Constitution. I haven’t...