TUESDAY’S MINI-REPORT…. Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Protests in Cairo are not dying down: “With a new wave of demonstrations in Tahrir Square on Tuesday — by some measures the largest anti-government protests in the two-week uprising — Egyptians loudly rejected their government’s approach to political change and renewed their demands for the immediate resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.”
* In fact, today’s protests were energized by the words of Wael Ghonim: “Protesters thronged Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Tuesday in one of Egypt’s largest anti-government demonstrations to date as their movement was energized by a television interview given by a Google executive who for two weeks had been detained by Egyptian security officials.”
* On the one-month anniversary of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) being shot, her husband noted today that the recovery process is a long one, but she’s “recovering at lightning speed considering her injury.”
* I think we saw this coming: “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says upcoming spending legislation will forbid the White House from using any federal dollars to pay to implement the health care law.”
* Congress will never go for it, but the White House budget plan will call for aiding struggling states: “The Obama administration is proposing short-term relief to states saddled with unemployment insurance debt, coupled with a delayed increase in the income level used to tax employers for the aid to the jobless.” This would be wise, which is why the GOP will kill it.
* In developments resembling a miracle, the Senate actually confirmed three pending federal district court nominees. The vacancies on the federal bench, however, remain at a crisis point.
* Rep. Bill Posey (R), a right-wing Floridian, is comfortable with accepting government-subsidized health insurance because he’s not sure if he’s a federal employee. And the level of intellectualism found in the Republican House caucus slips just a little lower.
* Olbermann finds a new home: “Less than a month after leaving MSNBC, liberal lightning rod Keith Olbermann said Tuesday he’s headed to Current TV, the public affairs channel launched six years ago by former Vice President Al Gore.” Olbermann was named chief news officer at the network, and will have a prime-time talk show.
* The only thing worse than Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as Defense Secretary is reading Rumsfeld’s memoir about his tenure as Defense Secretary.
* Another embarrassment for Fox News’ Bill Sammon, with the latest in a series of memo leaks.
* Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) ran an op-ed on economic policy that’s so wildly, shockingly wrong, it’s upsetting that Politico even published it.
* I know most of the country doesn’t want to hear this, but Ronald Reagan just wasn’t a very good president.
* College staffers are suffering, too.
* Maine’s buffoonish governor, Paul LePage (R), refused to let officials from the state Fire Marshal’s Office testify on a fireworks proposal because he doesn’t like their professional judgment.
* And White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked yesterday to respond to Sarah Palin’s weekend criticism of administration policy on Egypt. “I read that answer several times, and I still really don’t know what she’s saying,” he said.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
