memeorandum: Weekly Address: Out-Innovating, Out-Educating & Out-Building Our Competitors (Jesse Lee/White House.gov Blog)

8:30 PM ET, January 29, 2011

Top Items:

Obama's handling Egypt pretty well — After President Obama spoke last night about the situation in Egypt, my Twitter feed and inbox filled up with angry denunciations, with lots of people complaining bitterly that he had endorsed Mubarak's grim struggle to hold on to power …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, AmSpecBlog, New York Times, News Desk, The Daily Dish, Outside the Beltway, Washington Post and White House.gov Blog

David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

Egyptians Defiant as Military Does Little to Quash Protests — CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak struggled to maintain a tenuous hold on power on Saturday as the military did not act against tens of thousands of demonstrators who defied a new curfew to call for an end to his nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule.

Discussion: Politics Daily, The Atlantic Online, This Just In, Washington Post, CNN, Examiner, The Hill, Taylor Marsh, Weasel Zippers, Online NewsHour, Fausta's Blog, Associated Press, The Page, The Daily Dish, The Lede, The Moderate Voice, Prairie Weather and Center for American Progress

Al Jazeera Blogs:

Live blog 29/1 - Egypt protests — on January 29th, 2011. — Visit our special Anger in Egypt coverage page. — Watch Al Jazeera English broadcasting live from Cairo, Suez and Alexandria. — Read up on a timeline of the past four days of unprecedented protests.

Discussion: SFist, The Daily Dish, Firedoglake, The Daily Caller, DCist, Open Left, LewRockwell.com Blog, Sky Dancing, Mondoweiss, Hullabaloo, Global Voices in English, CNET News and GigaOM, more at Techmeme »

Latme / Babylon & Beyond:

EGYPT: Opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei accuses U.S. of dropping the ball — Egyptian dissident Mohamed ElBaradei called the U.S. position on the Egyptian crisis a disappointment and condemned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's early Satruday morning speech as “almost an insult to the intelligence of the Egyptian people.”

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Outside the Beltway, Open Left, Los Angeles Times and Pajamas Media

J.J. Gould / The Atlantic Online:

Liveblogging Egypt: Day 2, Cont'd — Tracking the ongoing demonstrations and government response in Egypt — 7:00 p.m. EST / 2:00 a.m. Cairo Egypt's ambassador to the U.S. may be onto something. In an interview on CNN's The Situation Room: “There is a sense of crisis in the country.”

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Time, The Daily Dish and National Review

Hrag Vartanian / Hyperallergic:

Breaking: Images of Egyptian Museum Damage [UPDATE 28] Al-Jazeera: NDP Fires Still Threaten Museum, AP: King Tut Treasures Safe … UPDATE 24: Sat. Jan 29 12:43pm EST: Al-Jazeera has broadcast video of the damage at the National Museum, aka Egyptian Museum.

Discussion: Lez Get Real, Hot Air, Hullabaloo and Guardian

CNN:

Egypt protests draw mixed reaction in region — Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Saudi Arabia slammed protesters in Egypt on Saturday as “infiltrators” who seek to destabilize their country, while a a top Palestinian official affirmed “solidarity” with Egypt.

Discussion: Aljazeera, BBC, Weasel Zippers and Weekly Standard

BBC:
LIVE: Egypt unrest day five

Discussion: EA WorldView, Telegraph, Blogcritics, POMED, Firedoglake and Mediaite

hrw.org:
Live Updates From Egypt

Discussion: Guardian, The Daily Dish, New York Times, Prairie Weather and Online NewsHour

Reuters:
FACTBOX - Omar Suleiman, new Egyptian vice-president

Discussion: AOL News, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and The Other McCain

Washington Post:
The U.S. needs to break with Mubarak now

Discussion: Guardian, New York Times, Right Wing Nut House, Blue Virginia, The Nation, The New Republic, Ben Smith's Blog and The Mahablog

Associated Press:
Egypt's Mubarak names vice president for 1st time

Discussion: EA WorldView, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Dish, Washington Post, Mish's Global Economic … and New York Times

The Huffington Post:
Obama Administration Cut Funding To Promote Democracy In Egypt …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and FrumForum

Robert F. Worth / New York Times:
Al Jazeera Covers Protests Despite Hurdles

Discussion: Sky Dancing, Crooks and Liars, Suburban Guerrilla and Big Peace, more at Mediagazer »

France24:
Top dissident ElBaradei says President Mubarak must go

Discussion: Babylon & Beyond

CNN:
JOHN KING, USA

Discussion: POMED

Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter / Human Events:
America Must Stand With Her Ally Egypt

Discussion: Cubachi, Liberty Pundits Blog, Outside the Beltway, ABCNEWS, American Power, The Other McCain, Hot Air, Fox News, The Gateway Pundit and Political Punch

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Kerry: Premature to threaten cutting Egypt's $1.3B aid

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and The Hill

Amb / Fox News:

AMB. JOHN BOLTON: Is Democracy Coming to Egypt at Last? — As seen on Fox News Channel's “Happening Now with Jon Scott and Jenna Lee” on January 28. — FORMER U.N. AMBASSADOR JOHN BOLTON: I think what's clearly happened today [in Egypt] is that the Muslim Brotherhood …

Discussion: Cubachi, FrumForum, AmSpecBlog, Sister Toldjah, Power Line, Liberty Pundits Blog, The Washington Note, The Daily Caller, Atlas Shrugs and Big Peace

Barry Rubin / GLORIA Center:

Special Report: The Revolt in Egypt and U.S. Policy — We depend on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation through PayPal or credit card: click here. When processing your donation through PayPal please indicate in the “Special Instructions for Seller Box” for GLORIA Center.

Discussion: The Jawa Report, NY Daily News, Power Line, Wall Street Journal and YID With LID

Elisabeth Bumiller / New York Times:

Urging Restraint, U.S. Military Faces Test of Influence — WASHINGTON — The officer corps of Egypt's powerful military has been educated at defense colleges in the United States for 30 years. The Egyptian armed forces have about 1,000 American M1A1 Abrams tanks, which the United States allows to be built on Egyptian soil.

Discussion: POMED

Caroline B. Glick / Jerusalem Post:
Column One: The pragmatic fantasy

Discussion: AmSpecBlog, Atlas Shrugs and New York Times

The Politico:

Right takes refuge in Constitution — The federal lawsuits against last year's health care overhaul were greeted with eye-rolling and snickers from many conventional legal scholars. — Nobody's laughing now. — A federal judge in Virginia ruled late last year that a key underpinning …

Discussion: Right Wing News, Althouse and UrbanGrounds

Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:

Virginia House Revives Doctrine of ‘Interposition’ Last Used To Defend Jim Crow — Segregationist Virginia Senator Harry Byrd Sr. — In response to the landmark Affordable Care Act, numerous right-wing state lawmakers have introduced unconstitutional bills attempting to nullify this federal law.

Discussion: The Political Carnival, Joshua Holland's Blog and Colorlines

Myglesias / Yglesias:

WHPS: Who Cares? — Howard Fineman celebrates Jay Carney's elevation to the post of White House Press Secretary because it shows Barack Obama's understanding of the need to surround himself with savvy insiders: … This seems to me to be a reference to a change that simply never happened …

Discussion: A plain blog about politics, The Huffington Post and News Desk

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Obama ‘willing’ to golf with Boehner

Discussion: Hot Air and Outside the Beltway

Bloomberg:
Axelrod Says U.S. Will Push Egypt for Reforms (Transcript)

Discussion: The Hill, CNN, Weasel Zippers and Sky Dancing

Myglesias / Yglesias:

Karl Marx, Real Business Cycle Theorist — Kudos to Benjamin Kunkel for trying to present an accessible Marxist account of the current financial crisis. I was struck reading the piece, though, by how similar the Kunkel/Harvery/Marx account of the crisis is to linguistically and ideologically quite different accounts from the right.

Discussion: Grasping Reality …

Benjamin Kunkel / London Review of Books: Benjamin Kunkel: Marx's Return

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

THE ANTI-SCIENCE PARTY.... This segment, by way of Daily Kos' Jed Lewison, helps reinforce much of what's wrong with the state of critical thinking in the Republican Party. — “Real Time” host Bill Maher asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) a fairly straightforward question: “Do you believe in evolution?”

Discussion: The Reaction

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:

Ohio Sen. Portman hopes Pawlenty will run for president — Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said Saturday that he hopes former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) runs for president in 2012. — Portman, speaking at a Cincinnati-area pancake breakfast where Pawlenty was the guest …

Discussion: Politics Extra and National Review