CBS News' Lara Logan Assaulted During Egypt Protests  —  CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Separated From Her Crew And Brutally Assaulted on Day Mubarak Stepped Down  —  On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering …

Boehner: If Jobs Are Lost As A Result Of GOP Spending Cuts ‘So Be It’  —  If House Republicans succeed in cutting tens of billions of dollars in discretionary spending over the next six months, some of the most immediate victims will be federal employees, many of whose jobs will be slashed as their agencies pare back.

Romney and the Birthers  —  Birtherism is alive and well within the GOP ranks, and their 2012 nominee preferences tell a story about the difficulty Mitt Romney faces in trying to appeal to an electorate that's a whole lot further out there than he is.  —  Birthers make a majority among …

South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers  —  A bill under consideration in the Mount Rushmore State would make preventing harm to a fetus a “justifiable homicide” in many cases.  —  Post Comment  —  A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of …

Defector who triggered war on Iraq: I lied about WMD  —  • Man codenamed Curveball ‘invented’ tales of bioweapons  —  • Iraqi told lies to try to bring down Saddam Hussein regime  —  • Fabrications used by US as justification for invasion  —  Read the full story of how the US was duped

Afghanistan: Petraeus, personalities and policy  —  Buried in the Washington Post story on Marc Grossman taking over as the new U.S. envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan are some interesting references to the possible departure of U.S. commander General David Petraeus.

It's Time to Defund Kentucky  —  While its small-government crusaders decry Obama's budget and government spending, the Bluegrass State is thriving on D.C. welfare.  Paul Begala says it's the perfect place for a truly democratic experiment.  —  The great Mark Shields has said that most Americans …

KS GOP Rep. Connie O'Brien Says She Can Tell Who Is ‘Illegal’ Because They Have ‘The Olive Complexion’  —  One week ago, the Kansas House Federal and State Committee held a hearing about in-state tuition being granted to the children of undocumented immigrants, which has been the policy in the state since 2004.

Haley Barbour in KKK plate uproar  —  'I don't go around denouncing people.  That's not going to happen,' said Haley Barbour.  AP Photo  —  In the latest racially charged incident in his home state, Haley Barbour on Tuesday drew fire when he refused to condemn a proposal honoring …

The Ever-More-Desperate Health Care Budget Gimmicks  —  I attracted a lot of angry comments last October when I wrote that I didn't trust the Democrats to be much more fiscally responsible than the Republicans.  What made people especially angry was that I argued that ObamaCare …

Healthcare Reform Law Requires New IRS Army Of 1,054  —  The Internal Revenue Service says it will need an battalion of 1,054 new auditors and staffers and new facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $359 million in fiscal 2012 just to watch over the initial implementation of President Obama's healthcare reforms.

Should Republicans Fret Over Their Presidential Field?  —  Republican insiders, reports the Washington Post's plugged-in Jennifer Rubin, are worried about the quality of their slate of presidential candidates for 2012.  Indeed, it has become the conventional wisdom to assert that the Republican field is a fairly weak one.

Climate change: GOP Galileo moment  —  Will it take the Republican Party as long to accept modern science as it took the Roman Catholic Church?  The church waited 359 years to admit Galileo was right — the earth does move around the sun.  Not until 1992 did the Vatican officially withdraw …

More Racism on the Left  —  On Friday, AlterNet—you know, the organization that “confront[s] the failures of corporate media, as well as the vitriol and disinformation of right wing media, especially ‘hate talk’ media”—published a vile attack on conservative businessman Herman Cain, who was the last speaker at CPAC:

Village onthe rocks: CW shift?  —  Village on the rocks  —  Oh my God.  I think hell froze over int he Village.  Talking to Elijah Cummings about all this slashing of discretionary spending in the President's budget, Andrea Mitchell wondered why he would want to hit the poor but not even touch entitleme —

Obama's Media Machine: State Run Media 2.0?  —  White House Hones Online Messaging Operation Ahead of 2012 Campaign  —  As the 2012 presidential campaign kicks into gear, President Obama's White House media operation is demonstrating an unprecedented ability to broadcast its message through social media …

Closed captioning of: Prosecutors gear up to charge Edwards in criminal case  —  >> for two years a federal grand jury has been in fact investigating john edwards and whether he break campaign finance laws to try to cover up an affair with rielle hunter.  now the investigation reached a decisive point.

Michele Bachmann swipes at Michelle Obama  —  Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann ripped Michelle Obama on Tuesday, speculating that the first lady might one day run for office, and accusing her of trying to implement a “nanny state” based on her newest push to get mothers to breastfeed their children …

Kaine could speak with Obama as early as today  —  Former Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is expected to speak with President Barack Obama in the next day or two before deciding whether to re-enter elective politics and run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democratic incumbent Jim Webb in 2012.

How penicillin fooled us  —  Perhaps it's the mark of a good book that after you read it, you begin seeing evidence for its thesis in lots of different areas.  Since reading Tyler Cowen's “The Great Stagnation,” I've been seeing a lot of support for a claim that I'd initially resisted …

Egypt Convenes a Panel to Revise Its Constitution  —  CAIRO — The military officers governing Egypt convened a panel Tuesday to revise the country's constitution that included both a distinguished Coptic Christian jurist and a member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, offering …