Postal Service to Cut Saturday Mail  —  ABC OTUS News - US Postal Service to End Saturday Mail Delivery (ABC News)  —  Apparently trying an end-run around an unaccommodating Congress, the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service says it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to disburse packages six days a week.

Hagel Tells Lawmakers He Can't Provide Details On Speaking Engagements, Foreign Funders  —  “He is basically telling Senators they have no right to know if he has been unduly influenced by foreign governments or foreign agents over the last five years.  What is he hiding?”  GOP aide says.

With Brennan Pick, a Light on Drone Strikes' Hazards  —  SANA, Yemen — Late last August, a 40-year-old cleric named Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber stood up to deliver a speech denouncing Al Qaeda in a village mosque in far eastern Yemen.  —  It was a brave gesture by a father of seven …

Obama to nominate head of REI for Interior secretary  —  By NBC's Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro  —  President Obama will nominate the head of the outdoor retail chain REI to head up the Interior Department.  —  The choice of CEO Sally Jewell is an unconventional one …

We Had To Tax The Retirement Plan In Order To Save It  —  Duncan (He can't be Sirius) Black, the econ degree holder formerly known as Atrios, explains in USA Today that baby boomers face a retirement crisis which can only be solved by raising both taxes and Social Security benefits.  Really:

Karl Rove Is Not a Conservative  —  Karl Rove — “The Architect,” as President George W. Bush called him — crafted Bush's two presidential campaigns and served as a key player in Bush's White House.  —  Now, with an assist from The New York Times, Rove is presenting himself as a conservative leader.

Fox News drops Dick Morris: Hooray  —  No more Fox News contributor Dick Morris.  His contract to spout republic-damaging nonsense on Fox airwaves has expired, and the network isn't renewing it.  —  Taken together with the news that Sarah Palin will no longer be contributing …

Bob Menendez Spent Up to 87 Percent of Wealth Paying Back Donor  —  When Robert Menendez arrived in the U.S. Senate in 2006, he was a relative pauper in a chamber often called a millionaires' club.  The New Jersey Democrat ranked 97th out of 100 senators in terms of his personal wealth …

CNN Host Destroys Supporter Of Boy Scouts Discrimination For Equating Pedophilia With Being Gay  —  CNN's Soledad O'Brien challenged the conservative opposition to keeping gays scouts and leaders out of the Boy Scouts on Wednesday morning, comparing the organization's ban to past restrictions on African Americans and women.

Women's Unclean Breasts Cause Diarrhoea, Says Egypt Prime Minister Hisham Qandil  —  By VASUDEVAN SRIDHARAN: Subscribe to Vasudevan's RSS feed  —  Egypt's prime minister, Hisham Qandil - Reuters  —  The inability of women in rural Egypt to clean their breasts is causing a diarrhoea epidemic …

Embattled Scott plans $100M campaign vs. Crist  —  Rick Scott is preparing to defend the Florida governorship with the most expensive reelection campaign in state history, drawing up plans for a battleship-sized political operation aimed at overcoming the Republican's deep personal unpopularity.

Chris Rock stands up for gun control  —  President Barack Obama knows best when it comes to gun control, according to comedian Chris Rock.  —  “The president and the first lady are kind of like the mom and the dad of the country,” Rock said at a press conference on gun laws in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.

Carney says reports of replica Oval Office under construction ‘are false’  —  “Reports about a replica Oval Office are false, and no one is moving from the West Wing,” Carney said at his daily press briefing.  —  Real Clear Politics reported that the government was building a new executive office …

Ahmadinejad: Iran already a nuclear state, but has no intention of launching attack on Israel  —  In interview with Al-Ahram on eve of Islamic Summit Conference in Cairo, Iranian president also says his country opposes outside intervention in Syria.  —  Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad …

Containment and Radical Islam  —  A realist foreign-policy vision that is neither imperialistic nor isolationist.  —  The following is text of a speech delivered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at the Heritage Foundation on February 6, 2013.  —  Foreign policy is uniquely an arena …